Peter James: Dead Simple

'Vic, for Christ's sake do something!'

He sat, gripping the wheel for dear life, clenched up in concentration, knowing they were hopelessly underpowered against the BMW and the bike. There was a tunnel coming up ahead. He could guess exactly what the BMW had in mind - to go in it ahead of him and then stop. So he stamped on the brakes. Caught by surprise, the BMW shot past, and instantly he swerved behind it, off the road and onto the airfield itself. The bike stayed with him, and moments later, the BMW was behind him as well. He drove across the bumpy grass straight towards the first row of parked aircraft, weaving wildly in between them, trying to shake off the cops behind him, trying to spot someone walking to a plane or getting out of one. Then, as he headed for a gap between a Grumman executive jet and a Piper Aztec, the BMW suddenly rammed him hard, jolting them both forward, Ashley, despite her seatbelt, cracking her head on the windscreen and crying out in pain. He heard the BMW revving. The runway was right in front of him, and he could see the twin-engined plane bearing down, yards away from touching down. He floored the accelerator, lurched across the runway, right through the shadow of the plane. And then, for a brief moment, no bike and no BMW in his mirror!

He kept going, flat out, the car lurching, the grating from the engine getting worse and accompanied by an acrid smell of burning now, straight toward the perimeter fence and the narrow road beyond that.

'We need to get out and hide, Vic. We're not going to outrun them in this thing.'

'I know,' he said grimly, panic gripping him again as he couldn't see a gap anywhere in the fence. 'Where's the fucking exit?'

'Just go through the fence.' T

aking her advice, he continued driving flat out at the fence, slowing just before they struck it, the wire mesh making a dull clanging sound, and ripping like cloth. Then he was on the perimeter road, with the mudflats of the river to his right and the airfield to his left, and the bike and the car were right behind him. A Mercedes sports was coming the other way. Vic kept going. 'Out the fucking way!' At the last moment the Mercedes pulled over onto the verge. They were coming up to a T-junction with a narrow road that was little more than a lane. To the left there was a removals lorry parked outside a cottage, unloading, blocking the road completely. He turned right, flooring the pedal, watching in his mirror. At least this lane was too narrow for the BMW to get past. The bike was getting in position. Any moment it would whip past. Vic swerved out to warn it off. They were doing seventy, seventy-five, eighty, approaching a wooden bridge over the river. Then, just as he reached the bridge, two small boys on bicycles appeared at the far end, right in the middle of the road.

'Shiiiiiiiit, oh shiiit, oh shiiit,' Vic said, stamping on the brakes, thumbing the horn, but there was no time; they were not going to stop, and there was no room to get past them. Ashley was screaming. The car slewed right, left, right. It struck the right-hand barrier of the bridge, veered over and struck the left, pinballed off it, doing a half pirouette, then rolled over onto its roof, bounced in the air, clearing the safety barrier, bursting through the wooden side of the bridge's superstructure, splintering it like matchsticks, and plunging, upside down, the rear doors flying open, and the suitcases hurtling alongside the car towards the mudflats below, which were as soft and treacherous as quicksand. The motorcyclist dismounted and, limping from his leg injury from when he had been knocked off his machine only a few minutes earlier, hobbled over to the hole in the side of the bridge and peered down. All he could see protruding from the mud was the grimy black underbelly of the Toyota. The rest of the car had sunk into it. He stared at the metal floor pan, the exhaust and silencer, the four wheels still spinning. Then, in front of his eyes, the mud bubbled all around the car, like a cauldron brewing, and moments later the underbelly and the wheels slipped beneath the surface and the mud closed over it. There were some deep bubbles which broke the surface, as if the underwater lair of some monster had been disturbed.

Then nothing.

89

The incoming tide was hampering their efforts. A wide cordon had been thrown around the whole area where the car had gone in, canvas sheeting only partially obscuring the view from a swelling crowd of curious onlookers on the far bank. A fire engine, two ambulances, half a dozen police vehicles, including a crash recovery tender, were all parked down the lane. A crane had been driven onto the elderly bridge despite concerns about how much weight it could stand. Grace stood on the bridge himself, watching the recovery proceedings. Police frogmen were working hard to get the hooks of the lifting gear dangling from the crane onto secure fixings on the Toyota. The sky, which had been delivering spots of rain on and off all day, had lightened in the last hour and the sun was trying to break through. The tightly packed mud had made it impossible for the frogmen to get down any further, and the only hope that the occupants were alive rested on the windows having stayed intact and that there was air trapped inside the car. The amount of shards of glass strewn over the bridge made this seem more than a long shot. Two suitcases had been recovered from the abandoned Land Rover Freelander, but all they contained were women's clothes; not one scrap of paper that could give a clue to Michael Harrison's whereabouts. Grace had a grim feeling this car would yield something.

Glenn Branson, standing next to Grace, said, 'You know what this reminds me of? The original Psycho - 1960. When they winch the car with Janet Leigh's body in out of the lake. Remember?'

'I remember.'

'That was a cool movie. The remake was shit. I dunno why people bother with remakes.'

'Money,' Grace said. 'That's one of the reasons why you and I have a job. Because people do an awful lot for money'

After a few more minutes the hooks were in place. Then the lifting began. Against the deafening roar of the crane's engine, Grace and Branson barely heard the sucking and gurgling sounds of the mud, beneath the waters of the rising tide, yielding its prize. Slowly, in front of their eyes, and washed clean by the water, the bronze Toyota rose up in the air, its boot-lid open and hanging. Mud oozed slowly out of all of the window frames. The car looked badly smashed and the roof pillars were buckled. It didn't look as if one single window had remained in place. And as the mud fell out, some in slabs, some in squitty streaks, at first just the silhouettes of the two occupants became visible, and then, finally, their inert faces. The crane swung the car over onto the bank, lowering it on its roof a few yards from a rotting houseboat. Several fireman, police officers and workmen who had come with the crane, unhooked the lifting gear then slowly righted the car. As it rolled back onto its wheels, the two figures inside jerked like crash-test dummies, Grace, with trepidation, followed by Branson, walked down to it, squatted and peered in. Even though there was some mud Still Stuck to her face, and her hair was much shorter than the last time he had seen her, there was no question it was Ashley Harper, her eyes wide open, unblinking.

Then he shuddered in revulsion as a scrawny, long-legged crab crawled across her lap. 'Jesus,' Branson said. Who the hell was the man next to her, in the driving seat? Grace wondered. His eyes were open also, a powerful, thuggish-looking man with a shocked death mask. 'See what you can find on her,' Grace said, wrenching open the driver's door, and checking the man's sodden, muddy clothing for ID. He pulled out a heavy leather wallet from inside his jacket and opened it. Inside was an Australian passport. The photograph was the man in the car, no question. His name was Victor Bruce Delaney and he was forty-two years old. Under emergency contact was written the name Mrs Alexandra Delaney, and an address in Sydney. Glenn Branson wiped mud from a yellow handbag, unzipped it and after a few moments also pulled out a passport, this one British, which he showed to Grace. It contained a photograph that was, without doubt, Ashley Harper, but with close-cropped black hair, and it bore the name Anne Hampson. Under emergency contact nothing had been written. There were credits cards both in the man's wallet and in a purse inside the handbag, but nothing else. Not a clue about where they had come from or where they might be headed.