‘Sarah, what are twelve eights?’
‘Ninety-six.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘My head hurts. He hit me with the shotgun. I feel a bit dizzy, to be honest. And I think I’m going to be—’ Then she vomited.
‘Keep talking to me, all right,’ demanded Cole. ‘You must keep talking to me.’
‘What about?’
‘What sport do you play?’
‘I used to play rugby,’ she replied.
‘I played rugby. I was a second row.’ Another lurch. ‘Do we have a women’s team?’
‘There is a police team, but this was touch rugby when I was at school. I was on the wing.’
‘What about football?’ asked Cole. She was far too young to be taking a blow to the head from a gun butt. Dizziness and vomiting were signs of concussion; a bleed on the brain and she’d be dead within hours.
‘I tried football, but they always put me in goal.’
Another lurch, the scrape of the chair legs, but there was the sound of rattling glass bottles this time. He flicked out with his toes to make sure.
‘You’ve reached the bottles?’ Sarah asked, hesitantly.
‘I have.’
‘Oh God, Nige. What if the glass cuts your wrists?’
‘You let me worry about that,’ he replied. And he was worried about it, but then with a dead body lying on the ground behind him, throat cut, he knew what was in store for them. It was a chance he had to take; their only chance. Sarah’s certainly – she needed to be in a hospital and she needed to be there sooner rather than later.
He began lurching to the right, feeling for the end of the line of boxes with his toes. Adrenaline pumping now, no rest between lurches.
It was now or never.
He turned slowly, the chair hopping round an inch at a time, until the boxes were behind him.
‘Here goes,’ he muttered.
A deep breath, then a final lurch, over backwards.
It had been worth a try, but Jane wasn’t having any of it. ‘Of course I’m bloody well coming,’ she had said, firmly.
The lights were on in the reception area at Express Park, three figures inside. Dixon recognised Nigel Cole’s wife, sitting with her head in her hands. The other two – Sarah’s parents, presumably – were pacing up and down. A uniformed officer was sitting at the reception desk, which would usually be closed at this time on a Sunday morning. He’d even switched on the coffee machine for them.
The side entrance would avoid awkward questions and, more importantly, save time.
‘I reckon Nige is getting his leg ov—’
‘Shut up, Mark,’ said Dixon.
‘Yes, Sir.’
The incident room was deserted apart from a small crowd gathered around Mark’s workstation; several uniformed officers, including Chief Inspector Bateman.
‘Nigel Cole’s shift finished at two yesterday afternoon,’ said Bateman. ‘Then we’ve got them on CCTV leaving in his car about forty minutes later. Now they’re at a bloody hotel together.’
‘That’s what we’re supposed to think,’ said Dixon. ‘Our killer is forensically aware, according to Donald Watson. Now we find out he’s phone signal aware too. Trace it back, Mark. Where were the phones before that?’
‘Give me a minute.’
‘You haven’t told his wife and her parents they’re at a hotel, have you?’ asked Jane, glaring at Bateman.
‘I did mention it, yes. I was trying to reassure them they were safe and well.’
‘Let me explain it to you in words of one syllable,’ said Dixon. ‘Their phones have been left there to make it look as though they are there and all is well. They are not. They are in deep shit.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
It felt odd, Bateman calling him ‘Sir’. Only twelve months earlier Bateman had outranked him.
‘How the bloody hell do I explain that to them?’ he asked.
It was a good question, and one that Dixon would worry about later. ‘Tell them nothing for now.’
