DI Sean Corrigan Crime Series: 6-Book Collection: Cold Killing, Redemption of the Dead, The Keeper, The Network, The Toy Taker and The Jackdaw

‘We’re on our way to you,’ Sean told him. ‘We’re gonna take him out.’

‘Wait a minute,’ DS Handy said, ‘he’s hailing a cab.’ There was a pause. ‘Want us to take him out for you?’

‘No,’ Sean said. ‘Can you follow the cab?’

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult. Given that it’s lime green with a giant packet of Skittles on its side.’

‘Follow it.’ Sean made the decision. ‘But keep me up to date. You follow him and we’ll follow you.’

‘No problem.’

Sean could feel Sally looking between him and the road as she drove fast through the traffic.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, sir,’ she said.

‘There’s more out there for us, Sally. This could be our last chance to let Hellier lead us to something.’

‘What more do we need? We have his hair. His DNA will match.’ She was nervous for both of them. Sean was taking a risk. Maybe one he didn’t have to take.

‘We have hairs,’ Sean pointed out. ‘Not necessarily Hellier’s. And they bother me. Too easy. All of a sudden he drops two rooted hairs right where we can find them. Hellier’s smart. Certainly smart enough to plant someone else’s hair at the scene. Imagine what that would do to any case against him. His defence would have a fucking field day. We’d never even get it to court. If I think I can get more, I’ll take the chance.’

‘Just because it was easy doesn’t mean it’s not right.’

Sean didn’t answer her. She tried again.

‘The law says that when we have evidence to arrest, we should arrest.’ Sally quoted the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. She was right and Sean knew it.

‘Only until he goes home.’ Sean sought to assure her. ‘If he doesn’t lead us to something before then we arrest him.’

Sally exhaled and tried to concentrate on the road ahead.

‘Bryanston Street. Marble Arch,’ Hellier calmly told the cab driver, who gave a nod and pulled away without speaking. Hellier tried to relax in the back, but he knew he was being followed again and there were more of them this time − he’d already counted fourteen. He could run around the Tube system, but there was a chance they would have enough bodies to stay with him. He would try something else.

The cab drove into Bryanston Street. Hellier tapped on the glass screen designed to keep the drunks and psychotics at bay. ‘Here’s fine,’ he said. The taxi pulled into the kerb. Hellier poked a ten-pound note through the screen, got out and walked away without waiting for change. He entered the Avis car rental shop. He knew they were still watching.

Sean’s phone rang, startling him. He was walking a tightrope that left him feeling wired.

‘DS Handy, guv. Looks like your boy’s about to hire a car.’

‘Problem?’ Sean asked.

‘No. I’d rather he was in a car than running around on foot.’

‘Fine. We stay with him until I say otherwise.’ Sean hung up. Sally said nothing.

Hellier rented the largest and fastest car they had. He used the driving licence in the name of James Hellier and paid with an American Express Black Card in the same name. He would miss James Hellier.

The black Vauxhall slipped into Bryanston Street. The threelitre V-6 engine gave a reassuring growl. Hellier began to relax a little as he listened to the engine’s cylinders gently thudding above the low revs.

At the end of the road he turned left into Gloucester Place and joined the three lanes of traffic all heading north. He kept pace with the traffic, but no more. He stopped carefully at traffic lights and showed no hurry to pull away. He didn’t need to check his mirrors. He knew they would be following, running parallels along the adjacent streets, leap-frogging to the junctions ahead, changing the cars immediately behind him as often as they could.

He turned left into the Marylebone Road and headed west. The traffic was lighter than he had expected. That was unfortunate. He drove carefully.

He headed up and on to the Marylebone Flyover and joined the Westway, a small motorway raised above the heart of West London designed to speed commuters to the traffic jams of the M4 and M40 that inevitably awaited.

He began checking his mirrors constantly. They couldn’t run parallels to him now. As he drove above Paddington and Notting Hill, they had only one way of staying with him: follow him along the Westway.

He began to make a mental note of all the cars ahead and behind him. Any one of them could be the police: best to remember them all and assume the worst. Effective counter-surveillance relied on the target assuming the worst.

He drove for about ten minutes before reaching his exit. The sign read Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith. He moved into the exit lane. He glanced in his mirror. He saw several cars’ indicators blinking, signalling they too would be leaving the Westway. Any police cars that had been ahead of him were already out of the chase. They would have to stay on the motorway until they could exit at Acton, another four miles along. By the time they rejoined their colleagues, he would be gone.

He left the Westway and followed the large slip road, the West Cross Route, that took him to a major roundabout. Only at the roundabout did he make the final decision where he would go. He could turn left along Holland Park, back towards central London. Or straight over towards Earl’s Court, along Holland Road. No. He needed traffic. He turned right at the roundabout and drove past Shepherd’s Bush Green on his right and then turned left into Shepherd’s Bush Road, heading towards Hammersmith.

The three cars of the arrest team waited in Hyde Park for an update. Alone in the middle car, Sean and Sally listened to the surveillance team’s coded chatter on the radio. It made little sense to them. They tried to work out where the team could be, but it was no use. They relied on telephone updates alone.

Sean’s phone rang again.

‘Smart lad, your boy,’ DS Handy told him. ‘He took the one route I didn’t want him to take. Over the Westway. He dropped off at Shepherd’s. We’ve already lost our two lead cars. They’re trying to make their way back from Acton.’

‘Do you still have him?’ Sean’s tension was palpable.

‘Yeah. We’ve got plenty of coverage.’ Handy sounded calm in comparison.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Approaching Hammersmith.’

‘We’re on our way,’ said Sean. ‘Travelling time from Marble Arch. Don’t lose him, Don. Whatever you do, don’t lose him.’

Hellier cruised towards the chaotic one-way system of Hammersmith that was little more than a giant roundabout. Four lanes of traffic looped around a central shopping complex. The traffic was always a disaster.

The traffic lights immediately ahead were green, but he wasn’t ready to enter the one-way system yet. He stopped at the green light and studied his rearview and side mirrors. The white van behind him beeped politely twice. When he didn’t move, it gave him a long angry blast of the horn. Still the lights were green. Still he wouldn’t move.

He could see the van driver in his mirror, leaning out of his window now, shouting obscenities. Another blast on the van’s horn. The van would be a useful barrier between him and his pursuers, but it alone would not be enough.

The lights changed to red just as the van driver was climbing from his cabin, malicious intent spread across his face. Hellier didn’t wait for a break in the traffic speeding across in front of him. He floored the accelerator. The rear wheels of the big automatic gripped almost instantly and launched the car towards the passing vehicles.

‘Move. Move. Move,’ DS Handy screamed at his driver. ‘Stay with him. For fuck’s sake, stay with him. Shit.’ He could see Hellier had pulled further ahead. ‘You’re losing him.’

‘What’s the fucking point?’ the driver snapped back. ‘We’re burnt. He’s wasted us. We can’t follow him driving like this and not show out.’

‘Don’t worry about staying covert,’ Handy was shouting. ‘Take the fucker out. Take him out.’

Hellier had already turned right into Hammersmith Road. He gunned the Vauxhall east, towards Kensington. Confused drivers jammed the road in front of the surveillance cars. They couldn’t move, trapped in traffic. Hellier was gone.

Sean spoke into his phone. He didn’t say much, just the occasional word. ‘How?’ ‘Where?’ He paled noticeably the more he listened. ‘Get back to Knightsbridge, and cover his home too.’

He felt sick. Hellier was lost again. He’d made a bad decision, one he was going to have to live with. He rubbed his reddening eyes hard. Exhaustion threatened to overtake him. He looked at Sally. ‘Damn it.’