Peter James: Dead Simple

'Hey, what - what do you think - what--?' the old man said. Vic undipped his seatbelt, aware that a car was pulling up behind them, then removed his glasses to disorient him.

'I'll get you into the ambulance, mate.'

'I don't need a bloody--' Vic hauled the man out, hefted him over his shoulder and placed him on the rear seat of the Land Rover, then shut the door. A potbellied, middle-aged man who had just climbed out of a Ford people-carrier that had pulled up behind the Toyota came running up to Vic. 'I say, do you need any help?'

'Yes, poor bloke, I think he's had a stroke - was swerving all over the place.' A lorry thundered past, then two motorbikes.

Ashley shouted out, 'For God's sake help me, Vic, I can't manage these bloody cases on my own!'

'Leave the fucking things!'

'One has all my papers in it--'

Vic saw the pot-bellied man looking at Ashley oddly and decided the fastest solution was to deck him. He knocked him out cold with one punch, and propped him up against the front of his Ford. Then they hastily loaded Vic's holdall and two of Ashley's cases into the Toyota and jumped in. Vic found reverse, then, with a grinding noise coming from what he presumed was the fan belt, he eased the car back several feet, then he found drive, and the car juddered. He checked his mirror, then accelerated, pulling out past the Land Rover, and accelerated as fast as the distinctly clapped-out old Toyota would go towards the rapidly widening light at the far end of the tunnel.

Ashley was staring at him in shock. 'That was clever,' she said.

'Can you see the fucking chopper?' he asked, squinting as they came back out into bright light. She squirmed around in her seat, craning her neck upwards through first the front windscreen, then the rear.

'It's not following!' she exclaimed. 'It's hovering over the front of the tunnel - wait - great - now it's going back to the rear!'

'Fucking A!' Vic took the first exit off the dual carriageway, which came up a mile on. It took them down into the mixed urban and industrial sprawl of Southwick, the suburb separating the city of Brighton and Have from Shoreham. They had a few minutes' head start before the police got an ident on this car, and maybe with a bit of luck the old git who owned it couldn't remember the licence number, Vic hoped.

'OK, so where the hell are we going, Vic?'

'To the one place the police aren't looking at.'

'Which is?'

'Michael and Mark have a boat, right, a proper yacht. You've been on it?'

'Yes, I've told you - I've been out on it a few times.'

'It's big enough to cross the Channel, right?'

'The guy they bought it from sailed it across the Atlantic'

'That's fine. You and I know how to sail.'

'Yes.' Ashley remembered several sailing holidays they'd had in Australia and in Canada, chartering a yacht, going off on their own. Some of the few happy and peaceful moments of her life.

'So now you know where we're going. Unless you have a better idea?'

'Take their boat?'

'We'll sail after dark.'

They were now on a busy main road, with semi-detached houses on each side, set well back. He slowed down as they approached a red light and could see a shopping parade ahead on both sides of the road. Then, as he halted, his face fell. Brilliant white light filled the rear-view mirror. He heard the sharp blast of a two-tone siren. Saw a blue flashing light, heard the blip of a loud throttle; then a police motorcyclist pulled alongside his window, signalling for him to get out. Instead, he floored the accelerator and shot straight over the lights, right across the path of a heavy truck. 'Oh shit,' Ashley said. Moments later, siren on, the motorcycle was alongside again, the cop signalling sternly for him to pull over. Instead, Vic turned the wheel sharply to the right, deliberately striking the bike, sending it hurtling over on its side; in his mirror he caught a fleeting glimpse of the cop, unseated, rolling across the road. Panicking, Vic saw a pillar box ahead, and a quiet-looking side street. He turned sharply into it, hearing the sound of the bags sliding across the back seat, then accelerated down the tree-lined avenue. It was starting to rain again, and he fumbled around with the switches until he found the wipers and got them working. They reached a T-junction, with a church ahead.

'Do you know where we are?'

'The harbour can't be far,' he said. He drove on, through a maze of quiet residential streets, then suddenly they came out into a narrow, bustling high street, with traffic crawling down it.

'There!' Vic pointed ahead. 'That's the harbour!' At the bottom of the high street, they came to the junction with the main coast road that ran all the way along Brighton and Hove seafront, past Shoreham Harbour and then along the banks of the River Adur. 'Which way's the boat?' 'It's at the Sussex Motor Yacht Club/ she said. 'You have to go left.' There was a bus coming, quickly. He was going to wait to let it pass when a glint of white light in his mirror caught his eye; almost in disbelief, he saw a police motorbike weaving through the jammed traffic behind him. The same damned cop he had just knocked off his machine? He pulled out in front of the bus, tyres screeching. Then, moments later, out of nowhere, a black BMW with a flashing blue light on the dash and more flashing blue lights inside its rear windscreen, hurtled past the bus and his Toyota, cutting in front of him, forcing him to brake sharply. Above its rear bumper the words, in flashing red lights, appeared: 'stop police'. In complete blind panic he swung the car round in a Uturn, accelerating back the other way, weaving through the traffic, which was slowing down ahead at a roundabout. The motorbike was right behind him, siren howling. Putting two wheels on the pavement, jamming his hand on the horn, making pedestrians leap out of the way, Vic squeezed past the line of cars and a van and reached the roundabout.

There were three choices: right seemed to go back into the maze of houses; straight on the traffic was clogged up. Left went over a metal-girdered bridge spanning the river. He turned left, the motorbike glued to his tail as he accelerated as hard at the Toyota would go, the fan grinding, shrieking, the noise getting worse every second. Below, the tide was right out, the river just a slack brown trickle between the mud banks, with moored boats lying on their sides, many of them barely looking as if they were capable of floating when the tide came back in. On the far side of the bridge the road was clear. But within moments the BMW was coming up fast behind him. The motorbike suddenly whipped in front of him and then decelerated, trying to force him to slow.

'Thought I fucking gave you a lesson already,' Vic muttered, accelerating, trying to ram it, but the rider was too quick for him, darting forward as if anticipating this. Vic, trying desperately to think straight, looked at the landscape to either side. On the left was a garage, a parade of shops and what looked like a large residential area. Over to his right he could see the flat expanse of Shoreham Airport, used mostly by private aircraft and a few small Channel Islands airlines. The entrance was coming up. Without signalling he swung right, onto the narrow road. There was a concrete wall on his left, and the open expanse of the airfield to his right, dotted with hangars, with small planes and helicopters parked in front, and the white Art Deco control tower building, in need of a lick of paint. The thought now going through his head was that if he could just shake off the cops for a few minutes, they could hijack a light aircraft, like the twin-engined Beechcraft he could see coming in now - just drive straight over to it, grab the pilot.

As if anticipating exactly that, the BMW pulled alongside, then swung into him, forcing him into the concrete wall. Ashley screamed as the car slammed against it, grating along it with sparks showering past them.