Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

But doubt, like night, has swallowed the last of the half-light.

A ghostly white sign shimmers in the gusty, malcontent air. I squint it into focus: ‘Brighton 8 miles’.

I slow to 40 and strain my eyes. The A273 slip road loops around so that I’m now heading north again; Brighton-bound A23 traffic pounds past to my left, headlights mercilessly fanning the lay-by like ravenous searchlights. The phone boxes command centre stage, spotlit by an amber streetlight. Good visibility brings mixed tidings; easier to see, harder to flee.

My car creeps into the lay-by, past the phone boxes. I perform a laboured three-point turn, helping myself to a 180-degree, headlight-illuminated view of the lay-by and the A273 beyond. I’m expecting the glint of hidden back-up cars, the outlines of poised police Ninjas. I see neither. Dread claws at my insides like a trapped rat. Surveillance are in front and behind. But they’re not here. It’s just me and him.

‘Right, I’ve pulled up at the phone box,’ I inform the dashboard’s covert radio, squeezing into my baseball cap and forensic gloves. I leave the car engine idling, my headlights beaming so that at least my non-existent back-up can see me.

I lean back, grab the money bag and step out. The trees shiver like widows at the workhouse door. Gravel crunches beneath my feet, but I can’t feel it. Halfway across, I spin 360. Nothing.

I jog to the phonebox, open it, the door squealing like teeth down a violin. I palm the underside of the cold metal shelf, feel paper, yank it free. The small brown envelope has double-sided tape on each corner. I turn over to see a giant letter ‘A’ scrawled in black marker. Christ, I think, how far through the alphabet is he planning to take me tonight?

Sprinting back to the car, I throw the cash in the back, get in, lock the doors and rummage inside the envelope. I flick on my pencil torch and read the instructions, typed on a cut-down piece of A4 paper.

This route will show if you’re being followed.

Continue on B273 for 75 yards.

Take Underhill Lane to right.

After 100 yards bear left (signposted public bridleway).

150 yards down is a small outbuilding on left.

Pick up black bag by red / white cone.

Further message in bag.

On reading the message, transfer money parcel from your holdall into this bag.

Take money and bag with you.

I repeat the instructions twice, then endure the longest five minutes of my life, at least since Matt’s last car-based meltdown. God how he’d hate this; twenty minutes is the most he can take, almost to the second, before he kicks off against his car seat’s straitjacket straps and sweat-sucking foam. I’ve found only one remedy to pacify us both; belting out nursery rhymes at full pelt.

Fuck it, I think, and launch into an impassioned version of Wheels on the Bus. Somehow, it works, banishing all terror so that by the time I take the right turn into Underhill Lane, I’m wondering what a bobbin is and lamenting the existential plight of Incy Wincy spider.

Hedges join hands above me, so it’s a virtual tunnel. Potholes swallow individual wheels whole, rattling my teeth with such ferocity that I have to sing Postman Pat in scat.

I fork left onto the bridle path. My headlights pick out the unmistakeable metallic shape of a car buried deep in bushes. My heart throbs in my ears and behind my right eye.

‘Donal?’ crackles the two-way radio.

‘Jesus,’ I yelp; Crossley’s urgent whisper just snapped my last functioning nerve.

Sounding like a snooker commentator, he husks: ‘The bridle track is through open fields. He’ll be able to see and hear surveillance vehicles.’

‘Which means?’

‘They can’t risk following you.’

‘Shit.’

‘That’s not all,’ oozes Crossley. ‘He’s taking us so far out of range that our radio signals are getting weaker.’

‘Spit it out for fuck’s sake.’

‘Listen carefully, Donal. Just because you can’t hear us doesn’t mean we can’t hear you. Carry on as before. Repeat his instructions twice aloud and wait five minutes before proceeding. Just make sure we know his plans. Understood?’

‘Great, so any second now, I’ll be completely alone with this madman?’

Silence. Then a faint thwack dices the air; the reverberation of distant rotor blades.

‘If I can hear a chopper then so can he. Call it off, for the love of God.’

‘That may be our sole means of trailing you,’ snaps Crossley, sounding posher now, under pressure.

‘Then don’t.’

The chopper’s blades melt away to deathly silence, save for my juddering trundle.

‘Have you at least got visuals on me sir?’ I beg the silence.

The radio’s dead. I’m on my own. My palpitating heart thrums against the seat belt, creating an unnerving sash of terror.

Four little ducks went swimming one day … I scat, sounding like Tom Waits strapped to a bucking bronco.

Sneering gargoyle vegetation melts away to something scarier; vast and empty night-sky nothingness.

I’m out in the wide open now, alone and exposed, completely at the mercy of this maniac. Of course, he knows that police radio signals don’t work out here. He’s been one step ahead of us all along.

The rutted track slows me to a bumpy walking pace. For all I know, he could be strolling alongside, gun trained at my temple. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to pull up and get out, so he can soundlessly throttle me in the warm night breeze before spiriting away with the cash.

And no little duck came back quack, quack …

‘I’m so sorry Matt, and Zoe,’ I blurt, like some deathbed confessor. How I wish I was home with them right now, where I should be.

‘We’re picking you up again, Donal,’ crackles Crossley’s strangled whisper, jolting me back into cop mode.

‘Thank Christ,’ I mouth.

My feeble headlights suddenly pick out neat vertical lines. I squint, pulling into focus a wet corrugated tin roof weighing down a squat and long-forgotten outhouse. In this ocean of wet black, my eyes seize suddenly upon a luminous mini-lighthouse; a red and white traffic cone.

‘Holy shit,’ I whisper. ‘It’s the endgame. I’m approaching the traffic cone and, I presume, the bag. Sir?’

‘Awaiting instructions.’

I pull up and look around. All black. I figure if he’s here, my best hope of survival is to offer up the cash, the car and no resistance. I get out, headlights on, driver’s door open, key in the ignition, cash on the back seat.

‘Go ahead, Kipper, stitch me right up,’ I cry.

I take a swift 360. Nothing. All I feel is night’s balmy breath. All I hear is water slapping tin. I take another 360, my heart thrashing like a trapped bird.

‘The money’s in the car,’ I shout.

Wind gasps, water splats.

I make out the black canvas ransom bag at the foot of the cone, empty, deflated, expectant. I palm it open, rummage until I feel a single sheet of paper in the base. I take both to the car. Sliding into the back seat next to the cash, I lock the doors, switch on my torch and, as instructed, transfer the daintily-wrapped parcel of cash into his bag. Somehow, he must have guessed that we’d plant some sort of a tracking device in ours. ‘Ah well,’ I soothe my pogoing heart. ‘I should be dumping it soon and getting the hell out of here.’ The note, stencilled in black capital letters, has other ideas. I read it aloud:

Go back to Underhill Lane.

Turn left towards Ditchling village.

Phone box 1.5 miles on left.

Message B taped under shelf.

My tired brain grapples with these latest commandments. To collect his money, the kidnapper needs to be at the end of this ransom trail. That means he can’t be here. Adrenaline zaps off like a light. All life leaves me, clenched muscles melting to jelly.

‘This is good news,’ declares Crossley, sounding like a local radio DJ relinquishing his star prize. ‘We should have no problems with radio signals at that end of Underhill Lane, so we can resume full surveillance. I’ve got an officer on standby briefed and ready to take over from you before then, Donal. You’ve had more than enough excitement for one night.’

‘I’d like to see it through to the end, sir,’ I say, solely because I expect that’s what any decent cop should say.

‘I admire your pluck. Give me ten minutes to get the lead surveillance team into position at the next phone box. Then I’ll be en route with your replacement. Your night is nearly over, Lynch. Good work.’

‘Thanks be to God,’ I mouth, and set about turning the car on the narrow track.

I crawl back towards the overgrowth of Underhill Lane. As I slip into the hedgerow tunnel and radio silence, I help myself to a ‘Thank fuck that’s over.’

Out of nowhere, a red Stop sign appears, blocking the route.

‘What the fuck?’ I protest to no one.

I ease the car closer, spot a square of white card beneath the circular sign. I squint and recognise more stencilled instructions

‘Sir. Sir can you hear me?’

I know he can’t.

My heart revs hard, a pang of sickening realisation sending bile north. I swallow the burn and fight to breathe against that re-clamped chest. The kidnapper sent the cavalry east almost ten minutes ago, and stayed right here. For me. This is his sting-in-the-tail twist. He’s got me precisely where he wants me now, all alone, no back-up, no comms, no hope of rescue, flush with 175 grand.

Shit.

My only way out of this is to do what he wants. I get out, read the instructions.

On wall by painted cross find wood tray.

Do not move tray, sensor attached.

Place money bag on tray.

If buzzer does not sound leave money there.

Remove Stop sign in front of car and go.

He’s watching me. I know it. And he’s killed before. Seven years ago, he kidnapped and murdered Suzy Fairclough. What’s another life sentence to him? I’m totally dispensable.

I remember Crossley’s request that I pick up anything on the trail that may prove evidential. Good little soldier to the end, I remove the cardboard bearing the instructions, take it to the car and read the contents aloud twice, hoping against all common sense that they can hear me.

They can’t fucking hear me! He’s selected this spot for that very reason. And I’m not hanging around for five minutes to confirm it; not with 175 thousand in hard cash! He might lose patience and whack me.

I grab the money bag, walk over to a four-foot wall. Above a white painted cross, a wooden tray sits on a bed of sand. About 30 feet below, I can make out some sort of lane, maybe a disused rail line. A few feet to my right, an oblong metal box must be somehow connected to the tray’s sensor.

Good God, I am so out of my depth …

Somehow, I’ve got to lower this hefty bag of cash onto the tray without tripping the alarm. Face screwed into a tense ball of dread, I lift the bag and lower it slowly, painstakingly, ion-by-quivering-ion onto the tray. It sits, rests, no alarm.

I wonder why I’m standing here and turn to leave. As I remove the Stop sign from the middle of the lane, the tray scrapes the side of the bridge on its way down, courtesy of his improvised pulley system. He’s below, collecting his winnings.

I’m just yards away from the most wanted man in Britain.

Fuck it, I think. I ‘ve got to do something.

Chapter 3

Underhill Lane, East Sussex

Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 21.50

We know nothing about this bastard. I need to spirit over to that bridge, at least get a visual. I pad and wince in turn, Bambi on ice, gripping that metal Stop sign like a lollipop lady in a tornado. If I can bounce this hunk of rust off his bonce, he won’t be going anywhere.

Oh my God!

There he is below, shovelling spilled bricks of cash into the bag. I raise the metal pole to my chest. If I press Go on this Stop sign, he ain’t going anywhere …

He may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong …

If he’s operating alone … we’ll never get a better chance.

The money will not be collected by me, but by a young male who parks up in a nearby lovers’ lane …

Damn it! I can’t be sure that’s our man. I need to find a way down there, grab whoever it is and hold him here until back-up arrives.

No heroics … It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.

What do I do? How I crave a working radio, a direct order.

Below, I hear the splutter and tinny whine of a 50cc engine spurting into life. Good God, he’s wheezing off into the night aboard a ‘nifty 50’ scooter with 175 grand. And I’m the only one who knows. I’ve got to find Crossley.

I dump the Stop sign, dive into the car, gun the engine and floor it east as fast as the lane’s laddered surface will allow.

After a couple of bends, fast-approaching headlights ignite the hedgerows. I screech to a halt. Crossley and DI Mann spring out before their oncoming car even stops.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demands Crossley.

As I jabber my story, they inspect me in wide-eyed disbelief.

‘Why didn’t you call back-up?’ barks Crossley.

‘The radios aren’t working down here, Guv. You know that.’

‘Dear God,’ spits Crossley. ‘You’ve let him get away.’

‘You said no heroics …’

He turns to his number two. ‘Peter, get back-up there, radio all units that he’s travelling south from Underhill Lane on a scooter or in a vehicle large enough to carry a scooter. Lynch, take me to the bridge.’

Right on, right on, I manage to stop myself singing as I jump into my car and grab the seat belt.

‘Just drive,’ he snaps.

‘Sir, I can’t turn here …’

‘Reverse for Christ’s sake.’

Every male cop on the planet thinks he’s Damon Hill. Some, like Crossley, even own special leather gloves for the task which, when they’re not driving, they dangle on their belts like spare penises. Alas, I’m less Damon Hill, more Benny, especially going backwards.

‘Swap!’ cries Crossley and I’m out of that driver’s seat before he’s spat the ‘p’.

Crossley throws himself in, flings one elbow over my passenger seat. Palm-steering, he roars off backwards, beaching my poor car into every coccyx-crunching pothole along the way. My anger rises in tandem with my rev counter.

Over mashing metal and screaming suspensions, I shout: ‘Why are you pissed off with me? You specifically said no heroics.’

‘And I specifically instructed you, over and over, that you have a surveillance team in front and behind you that needs to know his every instruction.’

I don’t get it but why distract him now, when we’re careering backwards towards a brick wall in my beloved old banger? After a totally unnecessary handbrake turn, I’m tempted to request his insurance details. Instead, under orders, I perform a walk-through of the drop. I show him the stencilled message and the sensor on the bridge, which he goes over to inspect.

‘Sensor?’ he scoffs. ‘It’s a concrete block painted silver.’

‘Yeah, well I can see that now sir, with the headlights shining directly on it. They weren’t when I was last here.’

We find a way down to the disused railway line where, mercifully, at least the pulley-driven wooden tray and scooter tyre marks are real. Overhead, cars pull up, resigned. Scapegoat grumblings. Yes, he’s vanished into that great black rural night, but I did everything I’d been told to do.

I follow Crossley back up to the bridge, where they turn to face us as one.

‘He’s long gone,’ spits DI Peter Mann, his eyes not leaving Crossley’s. ‘We should’ve put one of us up front as soon as we got out here,’ he rants. ‘It’s pitch bloody black. Kipper was never going to identify the delivery man.’

‘We didn’t know that,’ says Crossley, firmly. ‘We didn’t know a lot of things, Pete. Like the fact he’d take us somewhere our radio signals don’t work.’

DI Mann switches his glare to me, full-beam. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you run back to your rear surveillance team? You could’ve shouted at them, they were that close.’

‘We were 100 yards behind you,’ chimes in a moustachioed man I’ve never clapped eyes on before. ‘You’re supposed to brief us after every instruction. You could’ve walked to our car. What were you thinking?’

My brain’s flailing. The radios were down. I didn’t know how close the rear surveillance officers were. I couldn’t see them. Anyway, what could they have done? Any attempt to pursue the suspect would’ve put Julie’s life in danger. That was the deal, right?

DI Mann’s head wobbles in contempt. ‘Your fuck-up has cost us vital minutes. You’d best hope it hasn’t cost Julie Draper her life.’

Involuntarily, my eyes clench shut. Please, please no. What have I done?

Crossley dry-coughs back control. ‘Let’s save the post-mortem for tomorrow,’ he snaps, checking his watch. ‘If you’re quick, the Lamb in Pyecombe should still be open. Go get a drink and calm down. I’ll wait here for forensics.’

Off they shuffle, muttering bitterly. I’ve never needed a pint so badly in my life, even if I have to toothlessly slurp it off the lino once they’re done kicking the shit out of me, so I follow at a distance.

DI Mann spins around: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

I slouch back to Crossley.

‘Don’t bother coming in for a couple of days Lynch, give me a chance to sort out this mess …’

‘Hands up, Guv, I forgot about the vehicle behind me. But what would my alerting them have achieved? Their radios weren’t working either. And it’s not like they could risk chasing him.’

He rubs his face vigorously with his open palms, as if clearing it of live scorpions.

He sighs hard: ‘I thought I’d spelled it out to you.’

His hands drop and his eyes look up to the heavens.

‘All that space-age tech up there, and I’ve got the village idiot down here.’

‘Now hang on just a minute there, Guv …’

‘I told you about your number one priority, Lynch, keeping your surveillance teams informed of each fresh instruction. Above us is a chopper with state-of-the-art thermal imaging, infra-red, you name it. Seventy-five grand to scramble. Ten grand an hour to fly.’ He turns to me. ‘I redirected the lead surveillance team but the rear one was still behind you and in direct contact with that chopper via satellite phone. I told you they were constantly in touch. I told you, if nothing else, make sure your surveillance teams are privy to his latest instructions.’

‘But my radio went down.’

‘Had you gone to the rear surveillance team, on foot, that chopper would now be covertly following whoever picked up the money, and only we would know. Instead, we’ve lost the money and we’ve lost him.’

An icy snake of terror unfurls inside me. ‘Shit. What have I done.’

‘I tell you what you’ve done,’ snaps Crossley, voice cracking, eyebrows arched to breaking. ‘Whoever kidnapped Julie has got his money, so he has no further use for her now. He can’t risk freeing her because of what she might be able to tell us about him.’

His upper lip stiffens, reining in his swelling emotions.

‘He has to kill Julie now,’ he states flatly, as if passing sentence himself.

Chapter 4

Green Lanes, North London

Thursday, June 16, 1994; 02.30

Had the shonky Shiraz bottles I’d unearthed from some dodgy all-night spieler in Haringey not required two fully engaged man-arms to uncork against a solid surface, I’d never have spotted Zoe’s note on our kitchen table.

Written at some point yesterday, it reads: Me and Matt gone to mum’s. Thought you could use a night off, Zoe x

What a selfless, thoughtful act, you may think. But you don’t know a sleep-deprived mum. And you aren’t competing in the Martyred Parent Olympics (so-called because it lasts four years and, unless you imbibe massive quantities of illicit pharmaceuticals, you’ve no chance of winning).

What the note really means is: ‘It doesn’t matter how late you’ve been working, this is going down officially as a night off for you.’ I’ll be made to pay, of course; she’ll yawn pointedly all day tomorrow, slam anything slam-able and consistently ring friends and family to update them about the latest phase of her toootal exhaaaaustion.

Aged twenty-two months, Matt still wakes five or six times a night – every night. Having an insomniac stepdad helps. I’m always on hand to slurp drinks, binge Babybels and loop Pingu. Thrillingly, at least for me, Matt’s taken to calling my name when he wakes, or at least his version of Donal. ‘Dong, Dong, Dong,’ he chants. Who he doesn’t call for is mum, because mum minus sleep equals Crazed Harridan.

I’m ‘Dong’ because Matt isn’t my biological son. His ‘real’ dad, Chris, is a fugitive from fatherhood somewhere south of the Equator. A posh, feckless surfer-raver type, he fled as soon as Zoe fell pregnant – leaving the way free for my uncharacteristic crime scene seduction.

Yes, we met over a dead body! Zoe is a rising star in forensics who, somehow, failed to spot the clues to my myriad flaws. She agreed to go out with me, and it soon became clear why; her morale had hit rock bottom. She’d convinced herself that ‘no man would want me, not now I come with a baby.’

I wanted her with all that I had. When I got to know Matt, I wanted him too. For the first time in my life, ever, I let instinct override indecision, seized the moment, got the girl! A few months later, we bought this place and I’m still in utter shock, clinging onto the cliff-face of overnight fatherhood. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

Being a dad is quite a responsibility, and not one I’m taking lightly. Not only have I reduced my nightly quaffing to two bottles of Shiraz, I only buy the stuff that’s less than 14% proof. Well you do anything for your kids, don’t you? And Matt’s my son now.

A few weeks back, Zoe caught us partying at 3am and announced her ‘gravest fear’ – that Matt has inherited my insomnia. I had to remind her that this is impossible – we’re not flesh and blood – then hated her for appearing so patently relieved. I let it go because we never row in front of Matt, which means we never row. She seems to spend every second of her child-free leisure time avoiding me. Seriously, she’s either out with her girlfriends, at her mum’s or collapsed like a capsized Alp in bed, clad in those massive off-white ‘comfort’ knickers, previously used to hoist the Mary Rose.

I know we’ll get back to how it was. Of course we will. Once we get over the exhaustion. And the constant illness. And the lack of money.

No wonder Crossley’s call last week had come as such a shot in the arm. How I’d craved the chance to get drafted onto a ‘live’ investigation squad, make a good impression, become a fully-fledged detective constable and prove all my doubters wrong.

All I had to do was not fuck up …

What a selfish prick, I scold myself. The only thing that matters right now, after my potentially fatal blunder, is that Julie’s okay. My insides wince, cowering from those stabs of raw, primeval terror. My stressed temples buzz, as if planted against the window of a speeding train. A low electric hum grows louder in my ears, until it whines like the world’s largest mosquito. My vision flickers, causing objects in the room to float in different directions, as if something telepathic is breaking through.