Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘There he is!’ The shout came from behind him, from Miss Harley Bloody Davidson herself. ‘And he’s getting in that car!’

David had barely shut the passenger door before the car jumped forward. Bella wrenched hard down on the wheel and rammed her foot hard to the floor, so that the rear wheels spun as the back end slid round.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere safe.’ Bella’s face was set in a mask of concen

tration as she accelerated the Peugeot back up towards the top of Hinksey Hill.

‘But where?’

‘For Christ’s sake, David, not now!’

Where? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure what she was doing at all. Except that she was rescuing David. She – not Maureen – was rescuing him, because she was his real mother, and after this he would appreciate it. She just had to get him somewhere safe, and when it had all calmed down, when she had gained David’s trust, she would take him to the police station, and everything would be all right.

At the top of Hinksey Hill, she braked late at the junction and swung right, all in a single movement. A car approaching fast up the hill hooted angrily, but she stuck up her middle finger and hit the accelerator pedal hard.

‘I know what you did to me.’

‘Shit!’ It wasn’t David’s statement that had caused her to swear. In fact she hardly noticed it. It was the fact that out of the corner of her eye, up to the right, she had just spotted a helicopter. The pilot was descending fast, towards them. She knew with a start what it meant.

Coming up fast on the left was the turn for Kennington. She delayed to the last moment, then hit the brakes and spun the wheel, and then she was off down Bagley Wood Road, the car bouncing around like it was a crazed kangaroo.

David raised his voice, and said it again. ‘I know what you did to me!’

She flicked a glance at him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, but her head was elsewhere. How the hell was she going to get him somewhere safe now? How could she lose a helicopter?

‘I know you were a drug addict.’

They were right in Kennington now. She wrenched the wheel right, squealing round the mini roundabout, towards Radley. But where the hell then? Abingdon? Maybe, amidst the traffic and the side streets, she could lose them there.

‘I know!’ David was shouting now, screaming. ‘I know what you did! Dad told me. My dad Jim told me. He told me everything.’

‘Don’t be stupid, David. The man’s a liar.’

Don’t be stupid. The trigger words. David began to scream. ‘Stop the car!’ he wailed. ‘Stop!’

But she wasn’t going to stop. Not until they were safe. David, however, was scrabbling at the handle of the door, trying to push it open against the slipstream. There was a sudden blast of air and Bella knew she had no choice but to stop. She hit the brakes, and the passenger door swung wildly open, so that David half fell and half rolled out. She screamed in sudden terror, but David bounced back up onto his feet like a crazed jack-in-the-box. For a second he looked at her, and then he spun round. In front of him, and dropping away from the main road, was a lane, and it was down here that he now began to run, legs pumping and arms flailing, like a marionette that had snapped its strings and was making a desperate break for freedom. Bella gunned the car into life again, and followed.

‘The car’s stopped’ a voice was telling Holden. ‘He’s out. He’s running off down the lane there.’

‘Which bloody lane?’ Holden snapped. ‘I don’t live in Kennington. Give me instructions!’

‘Sandford Lane. And the car is following him.’

‘Sandford Lane,’ Holden shouted, though this was for the benefit of DS Fox, not the moron in the helicopter.

‘I know it, Guv.’ Just when it was needed, Fox’s local knowledge and unflappability rose triumphantly to the fore. He was driving fast down the same bump-strewn Kennington street that they had travelled much earlier that morning, but this time he was driving fast, lights flashing, siren wailing, testing the vehicle’s suspension to the limit.

‘It’s a left turn. There are trees close up on either side of the road.’ The moron in the helicopter had woken up and was actually giving helpful instructions. ‘I’m hovering over it,’ the moron continued. ‘I’ll wait here and guide you in.’

‘Ouch!’ Holden’s head hit the ceiling as Fox hit a speed bump harder than ever.

‘Sorry, Guv!’

‘Shut up, Sergeant!’

Up in the helicopter, Liz was straining forward in an attempt to see where the car and runner had gone. They had been out of sight for over a minute, but that hadn’t stopped her scanning left to right and back again for any sign of them.