Christopher Brookmyre (17 page)

for her chance to slide down the big yellow tube that curved its way gently to ground level. Jane knew she'd wait there for ages, if necessary, not quite confident enough to take her shot while there were bigger kids around, nor understanding that the more polite of them were deferring right of way. Jane took a last mouthful of now barely drinkable coffee, and was about to look up at the structure again when her attention was distracted by a sudden outbreak of howling, a little voice frenziedly shrieking 'Mummy! Mummy!

Mummy!' This was hardly unusual, and Jane was two generations adept at channelling it out, but it was accompanied by a flurry of movement at the corner of her eye, which involuntarily drew her gaze.

It was the little girl Michelle had mentioned, wearing the same dress as Rachel, having a force-nine tantrum as she was carried towards the exit by the stressed man with the foreign accent. He was holding her across him, her face into his chest as she beat her arms and kicked and yelled. The man wore a weary and stoical smile to mask a familiar embarrassment most bystanders knew it was politest to look away from and ignore. Jane dutifully observed the etiquette herself, returning her attention to the structure. It took a moment to find Rachel again, and when she did Jane saw only a brief flash of her back before she disappeared down the tube. Jane looked down to where the slide exited on to a bank of soft mats. A couple of seconds later the child emerged, sliding out on to her tummy. She sat up and waved to someone nearby, finally facing Jane's direction.

She felt the world freeze for just a moment.

It wasn't Rachel.

Jane turned around and looked at the man carrying the struggling girl towards the gate, now approaching the woman working the counter. She still couldn't see the girl's face. Her mind raced, balancing rationale against fear, logic against instinct. The dress came from Next; it was hardly unique. She could stand up and scream for him to be stopped, but it really would be a

'senior moment' if Rachel appeared looking for juice just as she made her hysterical accusation of abduction.

The woman buzzed him through. Jane still couldn't see Rachel anywhere, still couldn't see the tantrumming girl's face. She remembered him standing at the counter, pointing to his name on the list. Pointing to
a
name on the list. Mackie, he'd said, in that French-sounding accent.

Mackie. How French was that?

Jane got to her feet and began running for the exit.

'Stop him,' she shouted. 'Stop him right now.'

The woman on the counter looked bemusedly at Jane as she approached. The man was through the first set of double doors and into the foyer, where he looked back, caught sight of Jane and began to run. He turned around to back his way through the outside doors, changing his grip on the girl as he did so. Her head came up as she continued to squirm and flail. Jane saw her face: flushed, tear-soaked, howling, hysterical. Rachel. She hurdled the gate, putting one hand on the counter to give her more lift, then barrelled through the double doors and into the glass foyer. She could see him running diagonally across the cul-de-sac, heading towards the dead end where the only exit was the path leading to the supermarket car park. Ahead of him the lights flashed on a black Vectra, signalling its being remotely unlocked.

Jane got to the front doors a crucial moment
after
a chubby couple in matching Celtic tracksuits began negotiating their way through them with a doublewide buggy and two sleeping kids. It must only have taken a few seconds, but their awkward and lumbering movements were excruciating enough for Jane to consider throwing herself through one of the plate-glass windows for a quicker exit. Jane squeezed around them as soon as there was a gap, barely registering the indignant tut this drew, and charged out on to the pavement, almost flattening one of the next-door hairdressers who was outside having a cigarette, scissors and comb tucked into his breast pocket. She looked to the black Vectra and felt her heart jump as she failed to see the man or Rachel. Then the top of his head became visible above the Audi next to him. He was leaning over an open rear door. The bastard had a childseat or some other restraint, and was strapping Rachel into it. She heard the rear door slam and saw him pull open the driver's one in front. Jane thrust her hand into her jacket pocket and gave thanks that she hadn't taken it off when she let Thomas sit on her lap with his packet of melting chocolate buttons. She ran for the Civic, had the doors unlocked by the time she got there and turned the key in the ignition even as she climbed into the driver's seat. She could see the Vectra moving as she put her car in gear and released the handbrake. It was gathering speed, but it wouldn't be fast enough. She released the clutch and rolled the car forward across the single lane of tarmac, then ratcheted the handbrake and dived across the gearstick to the passenger side as the Vectra impacted.

She fell into the passenger seat and cracked an elbow against the door as the driver-side airbag inflated, billowing out from the steering wheel into unoccupied space. The optional five hundred quid for the passenger-side airbag proved money well saved, as Jane was able to exit the car unencumbered. On the far side of the Civic she could see that two airbags had detonated inside the Vectra, temporarily pinning the driver to his seat.

'Are you all right?' the hairdresser asked, stepping towards her.

'He's got my granddaughter,' she screamed, barging past him to get to the Vectra. 'He's got Rachel.'

The Vectra's bonnet had crumpled, its nose partially embedded in the Civic's SIPS-galvanised driver-side door. Through the windscreen Jane could see hands grapple with the deflating airbag, and could hear Rachel's muted screams from inside. She ran around the back of the Vectra to the rear passenger-side door and tugged at the handle. It was locked. She balled her fingers into a fist and drew back her arm. Caution should have told her that she would shred and mangle her hand, but something deeper was overriding all personal concerns. It was, however, the same instinct that stilled her fist, as she envisaged the spray of glass that would cover Rachel. In that moment, the Vectra began to reverse at speed. The man remained obstructed by the airbag, but his feet still had control of the pedals. Jane stepped clear just in time before a wing mirror could clip her middle. The hairdresser began to give chase, and she was about to follow until she realised what the driver intended to do.

She ran across the tarmac and pushed the hairdresser between two parked cars as the Vectra leaped forward again with a squeal of hot rubber. It shot past, blind, clipping the fronts of several stationary vehicles before slamming once more into the Civic, which was spun ten or fifteen degrees, but still presented a sufficient barrier to prevent the Vectra from getting past. Standing between the parked cars, Jane was only feet away from Rachel, who was thrashing hysterically in the child-seat. In front, she could see the driver's arms flailing and tugging, and the grey glint of a blade. He was ripping the airbag with a knife, and once free of it would be better able to guide the Vectra for another ramming charge.

Jane turned to the hairdresser.

'Gimme the scissors,' she demanded.

'What?' he asked blankly, clearly too dazed to respond. She reached to his chest and grabbed them from the pocket, then scrambled to the side of the Vectra and plunged them into the rear tyre. At first the blades just bounced off the tread. Then she remembered that the side wall was less protected. She dug the scissors in with both hands, her fingers white and her arms taut as she applied all the pressure she could summon. Suddenly the tips burst through and air came rushing from the gash. She pulled the scissors out and was about to make for the front tyre, but by this point the driver had completely extricated himself from his airbag and began to reverse once more. The car was already listing as it drew back, but it would still be able to jolt the Civic again, maybe this time enough to open a gap wide enough to escape through. Jane ran back to her own car, threw open the door and plunged the scissors into the airbag, following his lead. It worked considerably faster than the automatic deflation process, but the Vectra had already ceased reversing and there was no way she'd be able to get behind the controls in time. Instead she reached across the seat, under the folds of the bag, and released the handbrake, then gave the steering wheel a sharp turn. The camber of the road sloped gently towards the building, causing the car to roll forwards and thus reclose the gap.

Jane turned to see the Vectra roar towards her. She saw his face, determination in his eyes, blood streaming from his nose from the impact of the airbag. He was focused not on the Civic, but on her. Whichever way she ran, that's where he was going to steer, and there wasn't time for her to get back between the parked cars.

She turned, placing both hands on top of the Honda, and vaulted on to its roof a fraction of a second before the Vectra smashed into the side for a third time. Jane felt the impact with a shudder that came from inside as much as the jolt from without. She was bounced off the roof on the passenger side, but was able to correct her fall so that her feet hit the ground before she tumbled to all fours. The palms of her hands were skinned pretty raw but, crucially, there were no impact injuries to her wrists.

She got to her feet and looked to the cars. In trying to kill her, he'd ended up hitting the Civic straight on, which had maximised the damage to his own vehicle and failed to spin the Honda any further out of the way. People had begun to emerge from the building to investigate what all the noise was about: the woman from the counter, the male half of the podgy tracksuit-Tims, clients and staff from the salon. They stood in a line as though there was a glass pane separating the spectators from the combatants, their faces a mixture of curiosity and confusion. They didn't yet know enough to evince due shock or concern, but mere caution prevented them rushing into involvement before they had a handle on what was going on. Jane heard a whine from the Vectra, which let her know the last crash had stalled it and that the driver was struggling to get it going again. She could also hear Rachel's glass-muted screams, which served to clear her mind of all shock, all pain and all distraction. She knew only one thing: she had to get Rachel out of the car, and she couldn't do this while that man was inside it; not while the bastard was conscious, anyway.

Jane stepped to the rear of the Civic and popped open the boot, from which she removed Rachel's buggy, neatly folded for transport, then ran around the back of the Vauxhall. The driver was hunched over the steering wheel, turning the ignition key and frantically pumping the accelerator. He looked up and to the side as Jane launched the buggy through his window, two wheels shattering the glass and continuing into his face, with all the strength and fury she could bring to bear. She pulled the buggy back and sent it in again, but this time he deflected it and pulled it right inside, Jane letting go before she could be dragged against the door towards that knife.

'Here, that's enough, calm it doon,' said a male voice, and Jane felt hands gripping her shoulders tightly from behind to restrain her. 'Just calm it doon, missus,' he reiterated forcefully. The grip tightened as she struggled. She couldn't see him, but he was pulling her against his ample body to hold her in place, while in front of her the driver resumed his attempts to restart his engine. It burst into life with an unhealthy sounding snarl, repeated twice as he gunned the revs to make sure it stayed alive. Jane could see his shoulder shift as he put it into reverse, this vigilante halfwit's arms now around her chest. She sent her head back with a full-blooded jerk and felt the crunch at the back of her head as she broke his nose. She then sent a foot stamping hard into his instep and broke free of his embrace.

The Vectra reversed laboriously along the cul-de-sac, its engine whining and its rear driver-side tyre grinding metal on concrete, accompanied by a flapping wup-wup-wup noise. She went after it, not running, but striding along the centre of the lane, keeping her options open. She looked him in the eye through the windscreen. He looked at her, then at the Civic, then at the gathering crowd.

The car stopped, but this time it didn't come forward again. He opened the door and stepped out, brandishing the knife: no Saturday-night chib from mammy's kitchen drawer, but a long, thick, serrated weapon that looked like it was specifically designed and intended for killing people. Jane reached into a pocket in her jacket and pulled out the hairdresser's scissors. They stood fifteen, maybe twenty feet apart, close enough to see into each other's eyes. He continued to scan his surroundings, but never lifted his gaze from her for long. She saw desperation but not fear, anger but not rage, and his expression was coldly dispassionate.

Jane gripped the scissors, curling two fingers and a thumb around the steel loops. She heard a voice bellowing with fury, with fire, with certainty, its words echoing off the walls.

'I'LL KILL YOU. I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU.'

It took a moment to realise it was coming from her own mouth. The man looked at her for one more cold second, then looked away. He opened the rear passenger-side door and pulled a briefcase from within, then turned and began to run. He held the case in his left hand, the knife and a mobile phone to his ear with his right as he headed for the path to the supermarket, before disappearing out of sight behind the fence. His retreat had barely begun before Jane was sprinting towards the car. She dived in through the still-open rear door and clambered across the upholstery to where Rachel was strapped into the child-seat.

'Gra-an, Gra-aaan,' she was howling, tear-streaked and terrified. Jane unclasped the buckle, yanked the straps free and hauled her into her arms. She let herself collapse against the leather of the back seat, held her granddaughter tightly to her chest, breathed in the smell of her hair, then cried and cried and cried.

Abduction: how to do it properly

Lex had sat up that bit straighter and felt herself tense as she saw the man emerge carrying the little girl. At that point and from that distance, she couldn't identify the child (and an adult hurriedly toting a raging kid through a car park was not in itself a remarkable or alarming sight), but the very possibility that it was Ross Fleming's niece presented every last ramification she had feared about this job. The emergence of her target a few seconds later told her she didn't have to worry about what might happen any more: her worst-case scenario was now thoroughly in progress.