Policeman's Progress (21 page)

By this time the two craft had almost closed and a second later the bows of the bigger one smashed a glancing blow against the police launch, followed by a side swipe as the turning flank hit her amidships.

‘She's going over,' screamed Leadbitter. The black boat swayed up on its side, hesitated and then fell right over, it flat bottom glistening faintly in the dim light.

The white cruiser forged on, its bow crumpled well above the waterline, but otherwise undamaged.

‘There's one of them!' yelled Bolam, leaning over the side as they came up to the wreck.

In seconds, Horace had brought their boat alongside the capsized launch and their small searchlight cut through the night. One wet constable was already clinging to the hull and a moment later, Milburn appeared, spitting water like a whale. They were hauled aboard and Horace opened up the throttles again. Mike Milburn, between bouts of teeth chattering, swore long, loud and fluently.

‘N-nearly had the b-bastard – I don't think he rammed me deliberate, we both swung the same way together.'

Leadbitter miraculously produced two grey blankets from somewhere and wrapped the soaked officers in them as they stumbled down into the cabin.

‘What happens now?' asked Milburn. ‘We've got another boat waiting at Shields, but the same thing will happen to that – we're four to five knots behind the
Bella
for speed.'

Bolam swore. ‘Haven't we got something faster? The only way to catch him is to follow him and come alongside.'

Leadbitter shrugged. ‘The police have got nothing faster – we're not the bloody Navy, you know.'

Jimmy snapped his fingers. ‘What about the Fisheries patrol boat – that minelayer. She'd run rings around him!'

‘Or blow him 'oot the watter with her four-inch,' added Mike cynically.

‘She went out on patrol yesterday, to chase Dutchmen away from British kippers,' Milburn's constable informed them.

‘Let's try and get her,' muttered Bolam. ‘If Stott gets out of the Tyne entrance into the sea, it'll be the only hope.'

He moved down to the front observation seat and grabbed the radio again. Before he could put through a message, it crackled throatily and began relaying a message from MacDonald.

The detective chief inspector finished with the radio and came back to Jimmy. ‘Mac's rung the local naval wallah – he had the same idea as us about that Fisheries boat … but it's up on the coast north of Holy Island – take at least three hours steaming even assuming that the Admiralty would sanction its use.'

There was a gloomy silence.

‘What about a helicopter?' asked Milburn.

Jimmy shook his head. He had a brother in the Air Force. ‘They don't operate at night – and can you see Jackie letting them land a couple of blokes on his deck!'

Ernie Leadbitter suddenly slapped his hand on the engine casing. ‘Got it! Why the hell didn't I think of it before – the
Vidette
! Gimme that radio!'

Twenty minutes later, the
Bella
passed the spot where Geordie Armstrong's body had been dumped a week earlier. In the wide, comfortable cockpit, Jackie stood at the wheel, a dimly lit instrument panel casting a faint glow on his grim features.

Joe Blunt came up from the cabin below with two mugs of coffee and set one down on the windscreen ledge in front of Stott.

‘Pity we've been rumbled!' Joe muttered for the fourth time, ‘If we could 'a made it out to sea, they'd have had no bleeding idea where we'd gone.'

Jackie shook his head. ‘Couldn't be done – we have to pass Lloyd's hailing station at the end of the Fish Quay. They'd be bound to notice us – a pleasure boat going out to sea at midnight just before Christmas is a damned queer thing, fair play.'

Privately, his robust self-confidence was wearing a bit thin. He was going on because he couldn't turn back.

It would be obvious to the police that the only place he could be heading for was the nearest point on the continent. The foreign police would be tipped off and he now had no idea if he could manage to get ashore unseen. They had neither the fuel nor the seaworthiness to risk the crossing to Denmark and they were virtually committed to the southerly route across to Holland.

His only hope was that they might steal ashore at some deserted spot at night, though this meant abandoning the boat and losing the chance of selling it at Rotterdam to increase their funds. Still, at the moment he was more concerned with the present and getting clear of the Tyne.

‘What's happening astern, Joe – those coppers still limping along after us?'

‘There's two of them now,' reported Joe, using a pair of giant binoculars. ‘Another launch has just come out from the South Shields side.'

‘The same piddling little police boats?'

‘Yes, they're running side by side.'

Jackie laughed and sucked down some coffee. ‘If one can't catch us, two won't do any better.'

‘Think we'll get clear now?'

‘What's to stop us! The coppers haven't got guns – and they wouldn't be allowed to use 'em if they had … we're unarmed.'

Joe started aft again through the powerful binoculars. Suddenly he stiffened and swung around to focus on the place near where the dredger had scraped Geordie's body from the river bed.

‘Christ, Jackie … there's a flaming big launch coming out – bigger than us!'

Stott swore and looked over his shoulder through the Perspex rear window of the canopy in the direction that Joe was pointing.

‘The harbourmaster's launch – the
Vidette
. Hell and damnation, I never thought of her! Big forty-foot twin-screw job. She can give us a couple of knots at least!'

He leant forward and rammed both throttle levers forward. The
Bella
grumbled deep inside and the bow lifted as the screws dug harder into the water.

Joe continued to stare astern through the glasses. ‘But she ain't a police boat … and anyway, she's turning up river!'

Jackie twisted around again to look. ‘What the hell's she up to then?' he muttered suspiciously.

Joe followed the action anxiously through his binoculars. He soon saw what the plan was to be. The
Vidette
tore up the river to meet the two smaller police launches, then swung in a tight circle to come alongside one of them. The old pug saw several black figures leap aboard the big blue diesel launch and without a second's delay, she leapt ahead and forged down river in advance of the police boats.

‘They've taken on some coppers – now she's coming after us like a bat outta hell!' yelled Joe in real alarm.

Stott anxiously groped for the throttle levers again, but they were hard against their stops. For a few minutes, the
Bella
seemed to be holding her lead on the
Vidette
, but as they passed the narrow gap between the hailing station and the pilot jetty, things began to change.

This was now virtually open sea and had been until the great granite piers had been built. Though it had been fairly calm in the sheltered narrows of the river, there was a stiff breeze in this great mile-long triangle of the Tyne entrance. A steep choppy sea began to slam into the stem of the
Bella
and she started to pitch badly.

The harbourmaster's boat was built for going out to sea in most weathers and her extra weight, length and freeboard made light of the sudden change in conditions as she followed the
Bella
out of the shelter of the river.

Jackie's boat was lurching and hammering and water began splashing in through the crumpled bows.

‘They're gaining on us fast,' yelled Joe, as he stared astern through the spray. Before they were three-quarters of the way to the twin lighthouses at the ends of the piers, the
Vidette
was upon them.

Alec Bolam, Jimmy Grainger and the two River sergeants were standing ready on the port side of the
Vidette
. They clung firmly to the handrail running along the cabin roof as the powerful boat smashed through the choppy water in regular fountains of spray.

By the time they came up to the
Bella
, they were all as wet as Mike Milburn, who had been in the Tyne once that night but who on no account was going to be left out of the kill. His constable had hurt his shoulder when the second launch had capsized and Milburn had ordered him to stay on the other boat.

‘If the four of us can't match those two, I'll give up me pension,' he yelled as the bow of their launch came level with the pitching stern of the
Bella
.

In desperation, Jackie began weaving about to prevent them coming alongside, but all he succeeded in doing was to lose speed and control.

The elderly stolid helmsman of the
Vidette
countered every move of Stott's and inexorably, the two craft drew level. The other crewman of the harbourmaster's boat clung on to the drenched foredeck with a boat hook in one hand and as soon as he could, he made a snatch at the
Bella
's rail and heaved so that the narrow gap momentarily vanished.

As Milburn and Bolam jumped, a flap in the side of the white cruiser's cockpit burst open and Joe Blunt erupted. He charged for the boat hook, trying to throw it off so that Jackie could shear away.

Jimmy and Leadbitter hurled themselves across the gap just before Joe kicked the hook from the seaman's hands. The two vessels separated at once, but the
Vidette
hung tenaciously within a few yards.

Joe swung round to face the four policemen. The boat was bucking and twisting worse than ever, especially as she was beginning to take in a lot of water through the damaged bow.

Everyone's anxieties were divided between the inevitable fight that was coming and the need to cling on to something merely to survive.

The chief inspector and three sergeants were crowded together on the tiny after-deck, most of which was cluttered with the oil drums, now grinding together ominously inside their lashings. Jimmy Grainger nearly fell overboard within seconds of arriving, but made a terrified grab at the flimsy side rail and hung there petrified for a moment.

Joe Blunt crouched like a great wet ape, one hand clamped on the cockpit handrail. He yelled something at them, but the wind and the noise of the sea and the engines carried it away. Leadbitter was nearest to him and the older sergeant bravely advanced on the ex-pugilist, going hand over hand along the rail. As he came level with the canopy, Joe suddenly jumped forward and gave Ernie Leadbitter a tremendous blow on the jaw from his ham-like fist.

The sergeant went down as if pole-axed and only a stanchion prevented him from rolling straight into the sea.

‘Hold on, Ernie!' yelled Jimmy, who was next in line on the restricted combat area.

The deck alongside the cockpit was only a foot or so wide, a mere catwalk joining fore and after deck spaces. There was no hope of a broadside attack on Joe.

Grainger stepped over Leadbitter's groaning body and feinted at Joe with his left hand. Joe struck again and Jimmy automatically brought up both arms to shield himself. A lurch of the boat nearly threw both of them down – the blow landed on his elbow and nearly paralysed his arm, but he stumbled on and grabbed Joe around the waist, in a poor sort of rugby tackle.

‘Watch out, for God's sake!' screamed Bolam from behind.

Jimmy now had no grip on the boat at all, both his arms being around Joe's thick belly. He tried making short-arm jabs into the older man's kidneys, but Joe seemed to be made of rock. The old boxer thumped the detective in the middle of the back, then, like the landlubber he was, made the fatal mistake of letting the rail go in order to force Jimmy's head back. The very next lurch of the
Bella
threw them clean over the flimsy rail into the sea, still locked in each other's grip. Milburn and Bolam looked wildly over the side as the two bodies flashed past, going astern at sixteen knots.

‘The
Vidette
will get them!' yelled Milburn and even as he said it, the bigger launch dropped back and swung around, its searchlight blazing.

Alec and the sergeant dragged Ernie Leadbitter back on to the slightly wider space at the stern and propped him against the oil drums, hooking one arm through the lashings. He was conscious but dazed, managing to wave them feebly away.

‘You'll be all right here, Ernie – hang on to these drums,' hollered Milburn into his ear, then followed Bolam back to the cockpit.

‘You take the other side,' ordered the CID man and in a moment they were standing one each side of the closed flaps in the black canvas canopy.

Bolam was on the port side and could see Jackie dimly though the plastic side-screen. They were well clear of the river now and the only light came from the reflections of the dim navigation lamps and intermittently from the great beam of the North Pier lighthouse, now just ahead of them.

In the glow from the instrument panel, Jackie could be seen wrestling with the wheel as the
Bella
bucked and pitched in the choppy swell. He was on Bolam's side and the detective put his face to the flexible screen and yelled at the top of his voice.

‘All right, Jackie – pack it in! Joe's gone and you can't get anywhere from here … turn her around and go back!'

The answer was a thunderous punch against the canvas, which caught Bolam on the forehead, making him see stars in the overcast sky.

‘Right, if that's how you want it!' he retorted, his temper suddenly in flames.

Part of the canopy was a flap, held down by big press studs. He ripped this open, yelled across the roof to Milburn, then threw himself inside, virtually on top of Jackie Stott.

He collected a terrible punch in the first second, but managed to turn his head so that it landed on his neck instead of his face. The momentum of his entry made Jackie stagger away from the wheel and Bolam, half-crazed with the pain in his neck, lashed out and caught Stott a lucky blow in the eye.