Dead Heat (7 page)

The Spaniard pursed his lips pensively. ‘Mr Verner will take you back.
Adiós
.' He nodded at the driver, who nodded back with understanding.

They were in no rush to return. In fact Jo Coniston did not want to go back – ever. She did not want to have any form of interaction with Al Major, particularly after this evening's very unsuccessful operation against Andy Turner, which, she was certain, would be put down to her. She would be Major's scapegoat.

After the coffee at the motorway services, she and O'Brien drove east along the M61 into Lancashire. They came off at Chorley. Instead of looping back on to the motorway as they should have done, Jo – who was now driving – went towards Chorley down the A6.

As they circuited the town centre, she suddenly turned left and headed towards Rivington.

‘Fancy a little drive through the country?' she said.

‘Seems I have no choice in the matter,' smiled O'Brien. ‘Just so long as you don't pretend to run out of petrol in the middle of nowhere and expect to have your wicked way with me.'

The withering glance from female to male told him there would be zero chance of that happening.

Verner knew what he had to do and did not dawdle. Turner stormed out of the restaurant ahead of him, his fuming rage apparent with every footfall. Verner followed as Turner went out and stalked toward the 4x4, amused by the antics.

‘Come on, get the car open,' Turner demanded.

Verner pointed the remote and the doors unlocked with a squelching noise. Turner swung in and dropped on to the front passenger seat.

‘Who the fuck does he think he is?' he insisted.

As he slid the key into the ignition, Verner said, ‘A very powerful man – and you should not have spoken to him like that.'

‘When I say he'll regret it – he'll regret it,' Turner said dangerously.

Verner was fiddling with the ignition – apparently. Trying to get the key turned.

In reality, he was reaching to the small shelf under the dash on which loose change might normally be stored, though in this case a small revolver was resting on it. Verner's hand slid over it, his fingers slotting into place around it.

He moved silkily, almost without speed it seemed, yet he was lightning quick. He sat upright, twisted towards Turner slightly and raised the weapon. It had a stubby barrel and was loaded with bullets designed to enter the heads of victims, ping around like a bagatelle causing massive brain damage and hopefully not exit outside the other side of the head. Turner did not see it coming. He was facing away from Verner, staring moodily out of the door window.

Verner put the muzzle against the back quarter of Turner's head, just above the ear. As soon as he touched, he pulled the trigger – twice. The sound was dreadful in the confines of the vehicle, but no so bad as the damage caused to the inside of Turner's cranium.

Verner's wrist recoiled slightly with the power of the shots and he ducked quickly in an effort to dodge the inevitable back-spray of brain tissue and juice as Turner's head twisted grotesquely and smashed against the window.

After a series of brutal jerks of his body's nervous system, Turner's whole being relaxed as he died.

Verner pulled him upright and drew the seat belt across his chest, then pushed him up against the door jamb and wedged him there at an angle. His head lolled down, chin on chest.

Verner set off with his dead passenger.

The roads around Rivington were dark and winding, often unlit by street lamps. Jo decided she needed a razz to get something fundamental out of her pent-up system. She floored the accelerator pedal and told O'Brien to hold on for the ride of a lifetime.

He did as instructed.

Jo threw the car around the unlit country roads, going for broke around blind corners and long straight stretches, braking hard, changing up and down, fast and accurately, pushing the car to its screaming limits.

She was thoroughly enjoying herself, though her companion had a look of abject dread on his countenance. Even without being able to see him properly, Jo knew O'Brien's complexion had gone sickly grey. However, he remained silent, probably numbed by the experience he was having.

‘Yee-hah!' she yelled as she roared down a forest road.

‘Jesus Christ – look out!' screamed O'Brien, breaking his silence.

Ahead, just in the extremity of the main beam, was a big, black shape with eyes that were red rubies in the headlights.

A deer.

Jo wrestled with the wheel, cursing, slamming on the brakes. But she could not do anything to avoid hitting the stationary beast, which remained facing them, defiant in the centre of the road.

‘Oh no,' uttered O'Brien.

Jo braced herself for the impact. O'Brien cowered and covered his eyes, instinctively bringing his knees up for protection, and waited for the deer to come crashing through the windscreen.

But with a mighty, unbelievably muscular and giant leap, the deer was gone into the pitch-black woods. It was as though it had never been there in the first place.

The car swerved to a halt, slewed at an angle to the road. The engine stalled with a judder. The new silence was almost tangible.

Jo sat there, hands gripping the wheel, knuckles white, breathing unsteady, feeling very ill. She stared at the road, unsure if there ever had been a deer there in the first place, whether it had just been a mirage.

Slowly she turned her head and looked at O'Brien. He was shaking visibly.

‘I need a fag,' he said.

‘Me too.'

‘You don't smoke.'

‘Do now.'

They climbed out of the car and leaned against it. O'Brien lit up and offered one to Jo, but she refused. Alcohol was what she needed really.

‘Sorry 'bout that,' she said meekly.

‘Got it out of your system then?'

She nodded.

‘Let's go back, nice ‘n' easy and we might just be able to get to the pub for a drinkie-pooh if we're lucky.' He ground out his quarter-smoked cig.

‘Good speech.'

‘And I'll drive,' he said, rushing to the driver's seat before she could argue the toss. Dragging her feet, she got in next to him. He set off more sedately. He drove past Rivington Barn in the direction of Horwich, a small town west of Bolton. He intended to cut back down on to the M61 and get back into Manchester that way.

The 4x4 passed them going in the opposite direction as they reached the motorway junction.

The dead man was annoying Verner intensely. He would not stay sitting upright, kept lolling about as though he was . . . dead.

‘Sit the fuck up,' Verner said angrily, pushing the drooping figure back into the corner of the seat, trying to wedge him by the stanchion. Turner was being uncooperative, even though it was not really his fault. Verner did not stop driving, but tried to keep Turner in place with his outstretched left arm, doing all the driving with his right.

He knew where he was going. Earlier that afternoon, during daylight hours, he had combed the area around the reservoir at Rivington. It was not as though he knew for definite that he would have to kill Turner, but the omens were not good, and he liked to be prepared. He had been informed of the plans for the evening and knew he might need somewhere suitable to dispose of a body. He found what he thought would be the ideal location.

He knew that the meeting would be taking place between Turner and the Spaniard at a restaurant just off the M61 near to Horwich. So he had spent his time driving around the area, checking out locations. He thought the thickly wooded environs of Rivington were a fairly good place. There were lots of tracks running off the road into the forest, which was dark, quiet and, he assumed, would be somewhere he would be unlikely to be interrupted late in the evening. He even picked the forest track and the place he would dig. If it came to it.

It did – and that was where he was headed.

Jo and O'Brien hit the motorway junction fast. O'Brien tore around the roundabout, tyres screeching as he held on tight to the steering wheel, looping round and back in the direction of the 4x4. By the time he reached the next roundabout – right towards Bolton, left towards Horwich – there was no sign of it.

‘Bugger!' he said. ‘Which way?' He turned to Jo for some inspiration.

She shrugged helplessly. ‘Eeni-meeni-minie-mo,' she began, index finger flicking from left to right as she applied the scientific approach to solving the problem. ‘That way,' she declared, pointing left.

‘Back to where we came from?'

‘Well, go that fucking way, then,' she growled.

‘No, no, no,' O'Brien said. There was a queue of cars behind them, all becoming annoyed. ‘We'll go your way,' he said, resigned, ‘but I'll bet it's the wrong way.'

‘If you keep this up it won't matter which way he's gone, will it?'

Shaking his head, O'Brien pointed the car back towards Horwich. He just knew they were travelling in the wrong direction.

It was not particularly late, but Bill Gordon, who had been drinking heavily, was now rat-arsed. As he staggered out of the pub door and lurched to his car on the pub car park, the cool night air hit him slap-bang in the face and almost floored him. Nevertheless he regained his composure, pulled himself upright as only a drunk can, and slewed to his car.

If anyone had asked him, Bill Gordon would have said that he was pretty much okay. Yesh, okay. Maybe he'd been drinking steadily since noon, but that was the key – steady. And that is how after more than ten pints of bitter and several wee chasers, and four packets of crisps to soak it all up, he knew he was more than capable of driving safely home.

The door key slid in, no problem. So did the ignition key. He even fitted his seat belt. And home was less than a mile away. If he had been over the limit, he would have walked. He belched loudly and edged the car lumpily towards the car-park exit.

O'Brien sped along the A673 to Horwich. It was a narrow road through a built-up area, but he took no notice of the speed limits because he knew he would soon be doing an about-turn to Bolton. As he reached a set of traffic lights, they changed to red and he slowed reluctantly.

He cursed.

‘I think that's him,' cried Jo.

Beyond the junction, several cars were heading towards the centre of Horwich.

‘How can you be sure?'

‘I can't, but it looks like it.' She pointed excitedly.

The lights changed to green.

Bill Gordon – drunk, middle aged, no convictions, in full employment all his adult life, a man who had successfully negotiated his way home in his car whilst drunk literally hundreds of times – waited patiently at the car-park exit for traffic to clear. His judgement was sound as a pound.

He hummed a happy tune as he revved the engine of his Vauxhall Vectra, whilst holding the car stationary on the clutch.

At court later, he strenuously denied he was to blame for the accident.

The fact he was holding the steering wheel, was sitting in the driver's seat, in control of the car, did not in any way make him feel inclined to plead guilty to the charges laid before him.

This stance did not prevent him being convicted. He lost his licence for five years, was fined over a thousand pounds and was sent to prison for three months.

No, he felt he was not to blame for his foot slipping off the clutch and the car hurtling into the stream of traffic passing from left to right in front of him.

He did not hit Verner's four-wheel-drive monster, but slammed into the car behind it, smashing into the passenger side and forcing the vehicle into the path of a Transit van coming the opposite way.

Verner saw the accident in his rear-view mirror. Obviously he did not stop as a witness, kept going.

At first it was all confusion, chaos and cars in front. O'Brien came to a sudden halt and stopped only inches away from the car in front.

‘Been a bump ahead,' Jo said, craning her neck.

‘Shit.' O'Brien punched the wheel.

Jo jumped out and sprinted towards the scene of the accident. It looked a bad one. Three vehicles, two head-on by the looks. No one in any of them appeared to be moving. She was torn momentarily between her duty to save life and to find out what Andy Turner was up to.

‘Job for the traffic department,' she decided and jogged past the carnage.

About 200 metres down the road, she saw the 4x4 in the outside lane of the road, signalling to turn right towards Rivington. Then it turned.

She doubled back, passing the scene of the accident again, feeling bad about it, but not bad enough to stop and offer assistance.

‘He's gone towards Rivington,' she gasped to O'Brien. ‘Do you know a way round?'

‘No,' he admitted.

‘In that case go on the pavement.'

He eyed her in amazement. She shrugged. ‘It's your decision, but we'll lose him if we don't do something.'

‘OK,' he said meekly. He reversed away from the car in front, stopping just a hair's thickness short of the one behind, yanked the wheel down and mounted the kerb.

‘Not good,' he decided as they bounced along.

Jo hung on to the hand rail above the door. ‘You're the guy at the wheel. No one's held a gun to your head. If you kill a pedestrian, it'll be down to you, not me.'

‘Thanks a bunch,' he responded, misery in his voice. ‘Shit.' Ahead, a group of people had already gathered to gawk at the accident. O'Brien flashed his lights and pipped his horn. A look of startled disbelief filled the faces of several people. They stepped or jumped out of the way and O'Brien drove through the gap. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the route ahead, not daring to look at anyone. He emerged on the far side without having added to the mayhem too much.

‘I don't believe what I just did,' he said.

‘You better had – now put your foot down.'

‘He's done a disappearing trick,' O'Brien said with disappointment. He sniffed. ‘Eeh, smell that engine.'