Starburst (44 page)

“Allan?” she called out when she saw the lights in the hall were on.

“Yup,” she heard his voice reply.

“Where are you?” she asked, taking off her coat and lazily dropping it on the chair along with her laptop case.

“In the sitting room.”

She made her way along the stone-flagged passage and pushed open the door. Allan was standing to the side of one of the large windows, looking out at an angle.

“I thought you might have gone to the fireworks,” she said, walking over to him and slipping herself under his arm.

“No, I didn’t feel like facing the crush in Princes Street,” he replied. “I thought I’d just watch the high ones go off from here.” He gave her a kiss on the top of the head. “What about you? Why aren’t you there?”

Tess shook her head. “I had to meet up with Lewis Jones from the Fringe office for our customary end-of-festival drink, and then I just felt like getting back here.”

“You’ll be quite relieved it’s all over.”

“Yes, I am.” She smiled up at her husband. “I’m glad everything’s over, and I’m just longing for our honeymoon.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “Yeah, roll on the honeymoon,” he replied with little enthusiasm.

“What’s the matter?” Tess queried, pulling herself away from his arm. “You don’t sound too keen all of a sudden?”

Sticking his hands in the pockets of his trousers, Allan looked down at the ground and began dragging the leather sole of a shoe back and forth across the stripped pine floor. “Tess, listen, you know I had to be in the office early this morning.”

“Yes,” Tess replied, her face frowned with worry.

He looked up at her. “Well, I’ve been offered a new job in London.”

Tess stared at him, stunned. “I don’t believe this.”

“It’s a hell of an opportunity, Tess,” Allan continued immediately, wanting to get out the explanation he had been conjuring up for her all day. “The salary is twice what I’m getting up here, so it means we can sell this flat and buy a bigger house, which will be great when we come to have kids—which, okay, won’t be for a bit, because this job at the outset involves a fair amount of overseas travel, and, well…” He ground slowly to a halt and studied her closely for her reaction. “What d’you think?”

With a laugh, Tess reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, and I’m very proud of you.”

“Really? You mean, you’d be happy to move down to London?”

“Yes, I think it’s exactly what we both need, a new beginning to our lives. We can just leave all the old baggage back here in Edinburgh and start all over again.”

Allan shook his head in disbelief. “Wow, that’s weird! Those were exactly my thoughts too. It’s almost as if you’d been considering it as well.”

“Oh, I have.”

“For any particular reason?”

“A very good one. I’ve been offered a job too—in London.”

Allan stared at her, aghast. “You’re kidding me.”

Tess laughed. “No, I’m not.”

“What is the job?”

“Working for Angélique Pascal as her new manager and chaperone.”

“You never are!”

“I am.” She let out a relieved breath and shook her head. “And to think I’ve been trying to work out how to break the news to you.” She reached up and brushed a kiss onto his lips. “So now we both seem to have got our lives in order, why don’t you fetch that bottle of champagne out of the fridge and we’ll go celebrate this all in style?”

Allan laughed and looked at his watch. “Let’s give it ten minutes.”

“Why ten minutes?” she asked, looking amazed at his reaction to her blatant call for seduction.

“You obviously haven’t been reading your
Scotsman
.”

“Yes, I have, actually. What have I missed?”

“Only that it’s the last show this fireworks chap is going to be doing.” He positioned Tess in front of him, put his arms around her waist and gazed out the window. “He’s decided to hang up his Catherine wheels, so the finale’s expected to be pretty awesome.”

Tess disappointedly folded her arms and in protest at his untimely rebuff looked down at the ground, where her eye was caught by something that had been dislodged from between the floorboards by Allan’s foot. Bending down, she picked it up and held it in the palm of her hand. “Hey, d’you think we should take this to Barbados with us?”

Allan held her hand up to his face and studied the one tiny pink shred of confetti lying in the centre of her palm. “Yeah, why not?” he laughed, giving her a kiss on the ear that made goose bumps rise on her arms. “I love you, Mrs. Goodwin.”

“Woooooo,” said WPC Heather Lennox as she leaned her head out the window of the unmarked Vauxhall police car to watch a trailing meteor arc its way down from the sky.

“Whit wis that?” her young male colleague asked through a mouthful of egg roll.

“I jist said ‘woooo’ at that firework,” she replied, still craning her neck out of the window.

“Ah, right.” He swallowed the remainder of his roll and wiped his hands on the legs of his trousers. “Here, d’ya think we should get on the move?”

Heather brought her head inside the car. “Why? Have we had a call-out?”

“No, but we’re meant tae be driving aroond, no’ just sitting here at the side o’ the road.”

“Och, dinnae bother yersel’,” Heather replied, knowing that his keenness came from his recent qualification as a police driver. “Just relax and watch the show.” She looked up as yet another firework hit the sky. “Onyway, there has tae be some compensation for being seconded tae traffic division for the night,” she murmured.

With a sigh, the police constable slumped back in his seat and crossed his arms and turned to look at the queue of traffic forming at the red lights at the top of Leith Walk. He followed each car down, glancing at the number plates, and then turned to the dark-coloured BMW next to him. “Nice car, that,” he mumbled.

“Whit’re ye saying now?” Heather asked.

“Nothin’,” he replied morosely. He glanced across at the driver of the BMW. “Here, d’ya fancy nicking a driver wha’s no’ wearing a seat belt
and
using a mobile phone on the move?”

Heather turned to him, a scowl on her face. “Whit is it with you tonight?”

The police constable jabbed a finger in the direction of the BMW. “Look for yerself. That lad there, a’ dressed in white. No seat belt, mobile phone.”

Heather leaned forward to look past him. “Jeez, Willie,” she said, pulling the radio handset out of its holder. “That lad’s no’ dressed in white. He’s got powder a’ over his face and hands. We’ve got oorselves a ghost runner.”

“Eh?”

Heather strained her eyes as she peered through the window of the BMW just as it was taking off. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I know exactly who that is. Get after that car, Willie, and don’t let him know ye’re following him.”

As the Vauxhall powered away from the kerb, Heather called in to the control room to report their involvement in the pursuit of a stolen car.

“Okay, can ye tell me now?” the police constable asked, as Heather replaced the handset in its holder. “Whit’s a ghost runner?”

“It’s someone wha’s broken intae a car by activating the airbags. The doors automatically spring open when that happens. Trouble is ye canna get behind the wheel unless ye burst the bags and they’re filled wi’ white powder, so that’s why that lad’s covered wi’ the stuff.”

The police constable powered the car into the central lane of Queen Street to overtake a slow-moving vehicle, desperate to keep the BMW only two cars in front of him. “But he’s drivin’ wan o’ thae new BMWs. How the hell did he get past the immobilizer?”

Heather shook her head. “If anyone’s going tae dae it, he is.” She slammed her fist against the dashboard, just as another burst of fireworks flooded the night sky. “Dammit, I thocht he wis going straight. His solicitor rang me up the ither day to tell me a’ aboot him working wi’ some film company.” She clicked her fingers as the police constable took the orange lights on the junction with Hanover Street at speed. She took her mobile phone from her pocket and started to press buttons.

“Whit are ye dain’?” the police constable asked.

“I’ll hae his number here in ‘received calls.’ Aye, here it is, and it’s a mobile number tae.” She punched the button and held the phone to her ear. “Hullo, Mr. Mackintosh. This is WPC Lennox here from Gayfield Police Station. Mr. Mackintosh, I’m presently in pursuit of a stolen vehicle being driven by one Thomas Keene Junior. Do you know whit…?” She stopped speaking when the solicitor cut into her question, and for the next minute she listened intently to every word he said, every now and again grimacing at what she was hearing. Eventually, she took the phone from her ear and pressed the “end” button, letting out a long sigh. “All right, you can tak’ it easy now, Willie. We know where he’s goin’.”

“Whit d’ya mean?” the police constable asked, making no apparent effort to lessen his speed.

“The lad must have been on the phone to his solicitor at those traffic lights back there. Mr. Mackintosh has arranged to meet him at his house in Ravelston Road in half an hour. He’s on his way back from Princes Street right now.”

The police constable shook his head. “Whit the hell’s going on?”

Heather turned to him. “It seems the old cameraman Keene wis working fer died this efternoon in the Royal, and the lad’s real cut up about it. Mr. Mackintosh reckons he’s in a pretty fragile mood, no’ helped by the fact that he’s been drinking to drown his sorrows.”

“He’s drunk!” the police constable exclaimed as he swung the Vauxhall into Randolph Crescent. “Had we no’ better tak’ him, then?”

Heather glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was twenty-six minutes past nine. “No, just let’s leave him be. He’s no’ driving dangerously. We’ll have him in aboot five minutes.”

The police constable turned through the traffic lights into Queensferry Street and saw the BMW accelerate to take the next set of lights on orange. He gunned the engine of the Vauxhall to keep up and, on total instinct, reached down to his right and flicked on the switches for the siren and the row of blue lights set into the grille of the car.

“For Chrissakes’, Willie, whit the
hell
are ye daen’!” Heather screamed at him.

“He’s getting’ awa!” he yelled back.

“But we know where he’s goin’, ye daft bastard! Turn the bloody things aff!”

The noise of the siren broke through the hopeless mist of T.K.’s drunken misery. He glanced in the rear-view mirror with tear-filled eyes, seeing the blurry outline of the blue lights veering round a car that had pulled over to the side of the road. “Oh,
shit!
” he yelled out, pressing his foot down on the accelerator, feeling the power of the car press his back into the soft leather upholstery.

“Oh, no, that’s it. He’s bloody well seen us now,” Heather moaned as she suddenly saw the gap between the two cars increase significantly.

The police constable pressed his foot down to the floor and the tuned engine of the Vauxhall roared. “Dinnae worry, I’ll keep up wi’ him.”

“Hold on! It’s against regulations tae give chase now.”

“I’m no’ gi’in’ chase! I’m jist keepin’ him in front o’ me.”

As T.K. drove fast along Queensferry Street, he glanced up into the mirror and saw that the police car was gaining on him. There were no blue lights now, only headlights fast approaching. This was all a completely new experience to him. He had stolen cars, but he had never been chased before, and a sudden terror gripped at his stomach, panic boiling up its sour taste into his mouth. Seventy yards in front of him, he saw the lights at the top of Orchard Brae change to orange and he pushed the accelerator to the floor, glancing down at the speedometer to see the needle move smoothly, effortlessly, through the hundred-miles-per-hour mark. He closed his eyes and braced his body for impact as he approached the red lights and then opened them as he heard the screech of a crossing vehicle being left far behind. He looked in the mirror. The headlights that were following him disappeared for a second, then reappeared from the wrong side of the road and continued the chase.

T.K. wasn’t the only one who was frightened. Heather glanced across at the police constable and saw the determined set to his jaw, the steely intent burning in his eyes, his resolve being to capture at any cost. Red-mist syndrome, they called it in the police force. She had witnessed the results of it before. Three young lads, none of them more than fourteen years old, their decimated bodies being cut from the crushed mass of metal that once was a car, hounded to their deaths by an overzealous police driver. That had been the main reason for her requesting a transfer away from traffic division a year before.

She reached across and thumped the police driver on the arm. “If ye dinnae pull over right this minute, Constable, I’m goin’ tae put ye on report.”

But the driver was in no mood to reply to her, nor was he for stopping. He saw the BMW rock over onto its springs as it took a hard left at the roundabout on Queensferry Terrace, and ten seconds later he was actioning the same maneouvre.

“The little bastard’s skidded,” the driver said in a controlled voice, his mouth showing a hostile smile. “We’re right up on him now.”

“Oh, God, this is a’ wrong,” Heather said with a shake of her head, knowing now that she was unable to control events. “This is goin’ tae end in disaster.”

As the BMW slid broadside across the road, T.K. spun the wheel as fast as he could to the right to correct the skid, glancing over to his left through the rear passenger seat window to see the police car turn the corner at the roundabout. He pressed his foot down to the floor once more, and with a squeal of rubber took off, looking in the mirror to see the full beams of the police car no more than twenty yards behind him. The powerful BMW almost left the road as it hit the crest of the hill and he accelerated down Belford Road towards the sharp left-hand bend at the bottom.

“Oh, no. Please, God, no,” Heather murmured as she saw the BMW go straight across the corner and head down a narrow lane. “Stop the car, Willie. For Chrissakes, stop the bloody car!” she screamed, as she watched the BMW career down the lane with no sign of its brake lights coming on.