Tom Graham - Life on Mars - Borstal Slags

Gene slewed the Cortina to a needlessly dramatic halt alongside the two Austins, showering them with dust. He flung open the door and strode manfully out, Sam following close behind. Together, they passed a parked lorry with a big open back for transporting junk. Lodged on the dashboard of the cab was a custom-made licence plate bearing the lorry’s name: Matilda.

Just across from the truck stood the crusher itself, a looming contraption of battered metal and massive pistons, standing still and silent with its half-digested load of ovens just visible, crunched within it. Several uniformed officers had climbed up and were trying to peer inside.

‘Don’t tamper with anything!’ Sam called to them, flourishing his ID. ‘If there really is a body inside that thing then this is a crime scene , gentlemen.’

‘Crime scene? It’s a ruddy mess, is what it is,’ one of the PCs called back, clambering down from the crusher. ‘You can see tufts of hair and what looks like a bit of a hand.’

‘Sounds like the missus,’ said Gene. He glanced across at a man in filthy overalls standing anxiously nearby. ‘Are you Kersey? DCI Hunt. Tell me what happened.’

‘Shook me right up,’ Kersey stammered. His hands were still shaking. ‘Never seen the like, not in nigh on twenty year.’

‘Take your time, Mr Kersey,’ said Sam.

Kersey took a breath. ‘We got all this junk delivered in. Old ovens from Friar’s Brook. They’re knocking down the kitchens and boiler rooms over there and shipping ’em to us as scrap. The lads had just finished unloading the ovens from Matilda , and I was starting to munch ’em up before Gertrude arrives with a stack of pipes and fridges—’

‘ Gertrude ’s the name of your other lorry, I take it?’ enquired Sam.

‘No, it’s his mother, she’s built like an ox,’ Gene put in, sourly. Then, to Kersey: ‘Keep talking. You were just starting to munch up the junk …’

‘I’d just started, when I see all this red stuff running out.’

Sam nodded thoughtfully: ‘So, Mr Kersey, you saw what you thought was blood coming out and you switched off the crusher straightaway?’

‘Course.’

‘Did you touch anything? Move anything? Poke around inside?’

‘Did I ’eck as like! I don’t wanna see what’s in there! I just shut her down and called the law, sharpish.’

‘Good man, you did the right thing. All of your co-workers are accounted for?’ Kersey nodded. ‘And you don’t have a pet dog or anything roaming about the place?’

‘There’s cats and foxes and God knows what all hanging about the yard, sure,’ Kersey said. ‘But I never had ’em go in the crusher before. They got more sense, specially them foxes. It’s a fella in there, you mark my words.’

‘And you have no idea who it might be?’

‘Nope. Or how he got in there. Or why.’

‘Right, then!’ Gene declared suddenly. ‘Let’s get that crusher opened up so we can have a look. You boys, stop monkeying about up there and get your arses off that thing.’ The constables began scrambling back down to the ground. ‘Kersey, throw the lever and open her up.’

‘I – I’m not sure I want to,’ stammered Kersey. His face was ashen.

‘It wasn’t a request, Kersey, it was a polite but firm instruction.’

Kersey froze. He’d seen more than enough blood for one day.

‘Think of it like opening a present on Christmas morning,’ said Gene, not very helpfully. ‘A great big lovely present full of mushed up body parts. That’s what I’m getting you , Tyler.’

Kersey looked to Sam for help.

‘Show me what to do,’ Sam told him. ‘You don’t have to watch.’

‘Turn it on with the key,’ Kersey said. ‘Then release that handle, slowly.’

Even as he spoke, Kersey was backing away, his face turning from white to green.

‘Everybody stand clear,’ Sam announced. ‘You all ready? On the count of three.’

‘It’s not Apollo 12, Tyler,’ grumbled Gene. ‘Just get on with it, you big fanny.’

Sam turned the starter key. The crusher’s mighty pistons rattled and roared into life. Black smoke belched from the motors. He glanced around, just to ensure no one was getting too close – and at that moment a sudden flash of reflected light caught his eye. Matilda ’s sister truck was pulling up, just beyond the parked Cortina and the patrol cars; like its counterpart, it too had a custom-made licence plate propped up against the windscreen, which bore the name Gertrude .

But it wasn’t the sun reflecting on the lorry that caught Sam’s attention: it was the sudden flash of light on the crowbar wielded by a masked man who was rushing out from behind a heap of smashed cars. The man jumped onto the lorry’s running board, threw open the door and began battering at the driver inside the cab.

‘Guv!’ Sam shouted. His voice was drowned out by the bellowing of the crusher. ‘Guv! Look!’

But nobody could hear him.

Gertrude swerved left and right, then the driver’s door flew open and the driver himself tumbled out, battered and bleeding.

Leaving the crusher running, Sam bolted towards the hijacked lorry. Gene and the coppers gawped at him in incomprehension as he ran off.

‘Tyler – what the f—’

‘Felony in progress!’ Sam shouted as he ran. ‘Felony in bleedin’ progress!’

The lorry turned clumsily, crashing through a mountain of metal junk. This, at last, got everyone’s attention. The uniformed coppers stood and gawped. Gene reached instinctively under his coat for the Magnum.

Gertrude executed its blundering U-turn and went thundering out of the yard, smashing through a couple of parked cars in the street beyond before roaring recklessly away.

Sam reached the driver where he lay. He was splattered with blood, terrified and confused, but conscious enough to growl at Sam, ‘That bastard nicked Gerty !’

‘What the hell’s on your truck that’s so valuable?’

‘Old fridges! Just a load of old pipes and fridges! And for that he bashed my bonce and nicked my bloody Gerty !’

‘We’ll have him!’ Sam vowed. ‘We will have him!’ He turned to the uniformed officer. ‘Don’t just stand there, get after that truck! Get on your radios, organize a road block!’ As the coppers scrambled into their little Austins and set their lights flashing, Sam called to Gene, ‘I think we should stay here, Guv. We can monitor the pursuit over the radio, and make sure nobody tinkers with that crusher.’

‘“Monitor the pursuit”?’ sneered Gene, jangling his car keys as he strode swiftly towards the Cortina. ‘I am the pursuit, Tyler. I was born the bloody pursuit!’

He disappeared into the car and gunned the engine. Sam dived in beside him.

‘Guv, wait, I really think we should—’

But Gene wasn’t having any of it. They were off, rocketing past the marked patrol cars and ripping helter-skelter into the street. Sam flinched as the Cortina’s bonnet skimmed an oncoming car with barely an inch to spare.

‘Want to cast yet more aspersions on my driving, Tyler?’ Gene grunted at him.

‘I just want to get home alive, Guv.’

They were hurtling along, diesel smoke from Gertrude snorting into the air fifty yards ahead of them. Just behind the Cortina, the two patrol cars were rattling along, their lights flashing, burning out their feeble engines to keep up with the chase. The radio under the dashboard was alive with wild chatter as the word went round: truck on the rampage – heading for the heart of the city – block it, stop it, do what the hell you have to do but damn well get it off the road !