Chapter 14: Into the Fire

Abba

And there was nothing I could do.

I heard a shot, strong, powerful close to, and it hit me.

It hit me that the velocity of the bullet should be faster than the speed of sound. How had I heard the shot?

Why was I still standing?

The last two seconds played out again and again in my mind in slow motion, taking some half a minute for me for me to see all the events and comprehend them in their entirety.

Now I replayed the moving images in my brain.

I had seen him pushed backwards some three paces. Why? How? And slowly I began to understand the real effects of a forceful crossbow quarrel. A reflex action on his trigger finger and his tippling backwards had caused him to fire up in the air.

It took me some seconds for all of this to impinge on my senses.

"Are there any more of them?" called out Sarita softly, "I'll stay hidden."

That confirmed the solution to the puzzle. It all made sense.

My first task was to ensure that both men were incapacitated. The bolt from her crossbow had proved the ineffectiveness of the style of stab-vest against a powerful crossbow bolt at close quarters. The accurate shot had pierced the throat of the rogue rozzer*. The strong steel bolt we later discovered was feebly sticking into a small sapling's narrow trunk in the woods, some distance behind the action.

"Recover that crossbow bolt," I ordered Kari, who needed something to do.

What should I do? How can we escape the consequences of killing police officers? Granted, I had no regrets but only misgivings if any one of us was apprehended.

How to flee and evade capture?

Facts; One; we were on this route and we may be traced backwards or forwards from this point.

Two; we had probably left evidence galore being around here, creeping through woods; the bike tracks, footprints, fingerprints, DNA, the list was too long.

Three; we had used arrows to kill the police. They would look for anyone with bows and arrows, may even trace us back to James's shop.

Four; the officers could well be on duty and expected to call in at any moment now. Time was of an essence.

Solution?

Solution?

Solution?

We had to work fast!

Kari had returned and was picking up the first officer's knife that had fallen on the ground, "I can cut it out of a small tree," she interrupted.

"Just for the present, leave that, get some clothes on from your trailer and get yourself armed, NOW! Then you stand guard in those bushes. Got it? Quick! No talking. You shoot anyone else who comes. No questions; do as I say unless you want me killed!"

I perceived that her own life at this moment meant little to her, better she is responsible for someone else's.

She reacted positively to my urging.

"Sarita, I want all evidence that these men were shot by arrows removed. Now! I don't mind how you do it but no arrow part, the head or shaft or flight in their bodies. I'm going to burn them," I explained curtly, "the bodies I mean."

"This one," she announced, hovering over my victim, "he's still alive."

"Fuck him! Give me back that knife." Kari swept back, still half-dressed and grasped the knife again. It was a wicked thing with a long curved blade rather like a kukri*. "Fucking rapist!" With anger, she stabbed viciously down at his eye, "I'm going to kill you, like a slaughtered chicken."

To her gratification, his eyes responded with about two second's understanding and apprehension. Without further ado, she gashed the knife viciously across his throat instead, killing not just him but also trying to erase the memory of her first attackers, days ago.

Sarita sidled up to me, "At least she's acting positively. Keep her doing things," she whispered. She was already bending down and retrieving the first broken arrow that I had launched.

I had no idea of her technique and did not want to know. All I know was, I'd read somewhere it was difficult to withdraw arrows from a body.

I kept Kari occupied as I retired into the shadows to stand guard working out exactly how to cope with our problems before the absence of the men was noticed. "Run down the road and fetch one bike and its trailer and then other. Try not to run on the verge as much as possible. Don't leave footmarks, they'll show up in the frost on the grass by morning. The bikes are at the bottom of that small rise in the right, in a ditch. We want to leave as few marks as possible.

"But speed is important." I called after her softly, as she wasn't moving fast enough.

I know the others thought I was doing nothing but somebody needed to stand guard and work out the intricacies of our scheme.

It took quite few minutes for Kari to assemble all the bikes and trailers and then she disappeared into the woods to retrieve the crossbow bolt taking the kukri with her.

By this time Sarita had appeared, her arms bloodied and messy from working within the pelvis of the first assailant. I sent her off to wash herself with a few bottles of water and to change from the bloody attire she was wearing. "Swill the water over your skin well away from here. We don't want to pinpoint this as a murder scene."

"DNA..." she started.

"There's no way we can cover that up here. All I want to do is clean up the site so no one looks here to check on clues. I'm hoping that any enquiry won't be too stringent given the state of the country. Maybe they'll just think these two got the virus."

She stared at the bodies grimly and snorted, "Peculiar symptoms!" and we both chortled in a macabre sort of way, relieving the tense strain we were both experiencing.

"Throw your bloody clothes in the police car. I'm going to burn it later and everything in it."

Both girls got fresh clothing on.

Of course three minutes later I recognised that they may well get bloodied again as we started to move the corpses. 'Wrong decision number... ? How many more mistakes would I make? This was all my fault. Stop it! Concentrate on getting us out of here!'

I looked at the dead bodies. They both looked gruesome. I hoped Sarita had left no clues as to her professional expertise in withdrawing the arrows, "I forgot to say that I don't want evidence in their burnt remains to show they've been dissected by a professional."

She sneered; there was no other word for it, "I was careful. I'm not unintelligent." She looked with gruesome distaste at her handiwork. "No retarded student would get 5% on a remedial exam on what I've done. I gave them both a few extra air holes too, to confuse the issue." She indicated the crotch area of both was rather 'damaged'. And there was very nasty odour reeking around.

She was a fast thinker.

'A sex murder?' I mused and started to try to think logically, "Good," I answered her, "Help me into the car with this one."

The two of us struggled with the heavier man's corpse. This, the bloodier bastard, went into the passenger seat. It was a real fight to get him in. He was a mess with the arrow having pierced his bowels. There was blood and gore everywhere and a vile reek.

Not once did the doctor show an ounce of remorse and I had no sympathy for either of these two dead worms. I ran the events over in my mind as we laboured with the burdens and came to the conclusion that it had been a 'them or us' situation. My cold-hearted attitude began to frighten me. Cold logic forced me to ignore any sentiment and concentrate on my plan.

It occurred to me; protective vests might be fire retardant, "We'll take his stab vest off. Throw it in the back." It sounded easy. It wasn't; fumbling, unfastening, heaving, tugging; it was all exhausting work for two of us.

"Now, the other man, in the rear seat, the other side." We relieved him of his uniform vest first.

They couldn't see why but both of them had to help drag him around to the other side of the car. That took ages.

From this door it would later be handier for me, on my own, to move him forward to the driver's seat when the time came. Cadavers are heavy to move, I found out. With a half -formed plan in my mind, I anticipated transferring him without the help of either girl. I dreaded that.

I was still formulating the details of my scheme. At the same time my conscience was asking myself if I had any remorse for my actions. Dammit! It struck me that I had killed two or three others, only a few weeks earlier and those deaths had ceased to bother me.

Finally, I opened the boot*of the car and grinned at what I saw. They had saved me a lot of work and were making my job more likely to succeed.

There, jammed in, were five ten-litre* plastic containers full of what I sniffed and smelled like, petrol*. I had no idea if this consisted of their official emergency supply. I surmised that with these two it was more likely the proceeds of theft.

Then I stared at another feature and silently called Sarita over to stare. We both regarded four small pairs of girls' briefs, some soiled with blood.

We stared at each other, unspeaking, and bent to our tasks with a renewed effort.

I have no concept of the time it took. We worked hard. My protégés followed my peremptory orders while I was working out the scheme. Only when it was set in my mind did I refer to the maps, as I set the two to tidy up the site. Then I drew them to me, to impart the details of my scheme.

It all made sense. Briefly I set out my intentions and brooked no interruption. There was no time.

"I'm going to move this incident away from her, where we have left too many clues. I'm going about ten miles down the road, driving the police car on my own, to this junction," I indicated it on the map, "where I propose to set it alight."

"Then, I cross the dual carriageway and come back a quarter of a mile and then go down," I traced a network of lanes, "I'll need the satnav bike." The route looked complex and already Kari was fiddling with the electronic keys to feed in the route.

"This course, if I follow it right, comes out at Chimneys' Port."

"It's a hell of a way."

"Yes. But it's in a different police area; it's in the next county. This police car is 'Chimneys and Gatterside Constabulary'. Just over the county boundary I'm sure it's, 'Three Counties Police Authority'."

I briefly explained how I knew, "I was with a friend, caught speeding here one night."

I didn't want to go into the fact that normally the police liaison between neighbouring areas was strong. Given the present problems I was optimistic that resources would be stretched and helping or contacting neighbouring forces would be of a low priority. On the other hand, everyone knew the vigour with which a cop killer is always pursued.

"It's not even in the direction to where we want to go?" I faced.

"Quiet!"

I had no time to argue. In my own mind I had weighed up all the pros and cons as I knew them. Did they not see that evasion was the primary objective? At this moment in time, in the middle of the night, reaching the Bow Valley was of secondary importance to escaping our being caught.

Anyhow, I hadn't the time to go into it but once we reached the Chimneys' Port we were on a canal. Canals had towpaths that were on level gradient and we'd make better time following the course of the inland waterway or 'cut' as they were known around here. We'd seen what a difference the gradient of the railway track had made that first night after we'd left my flat. We'd made sixty miles.

"This is Chimneys' Port."

Sarita frowned disbelievingly, "A port? There's no sea or even a river."

I was resigned to being interrupted.

"That's no motorway," interjected Kari realising Sarita's error. "All maps show the UK motorway network in blue but that's the same colour for a river or a canal."

Kari took over while I was working out how to express myself as succinctly as possible. She went on to explain, "Chimneys' Port; it's a canal port for barges. I did a history project on the canals when I was thirteen. I've been there. It was built in 1753 to provide the three industrial towns collectively known as the Three Chimneys with raw iron ore and coal but the railways made it obsolete."

It sounded like a quote from a book and probably was.

I sat back to reconsider my moves as Sarita was brought up to date, "And alongside each canal is a towpath that horses used to use to tow the barges. But now you can use them for walking. Cycling's prohibited."

She looked up at me and we all burst out in laughter

"And," I added, "They are completely flat between the locks. You don't like pulling these trailers uphill. OK, at each lock there might be steep gradient but after that it's on the level."

Sarita looked confused.

"Because water finds its own level."

I wasn't a scientist. As far I was concerned the surface of the water was flat from one lock to the next and so was the towpath. I smiled. "We can get onto the tow path at the port but I'm not sure where else there's going to be easy access. A pedestrian can normally get down to it where a bridge crosses the canal but that is by steps but bikes with big trailers behind them will find it almost impossible down a steep bank. That's why we have to make for the port."

"Oh no it should be easy to get the bikes on. In 1998, The Disabled Discrimination Act made every towpath that was a footpath, accessible to wheelchair access. Er, our teacher, Mr Roberts, told us. They have to have wheelchairs able to get on at every legal pedestrian access point."

"That settles it then, we just have to find a proper access point to the towpath," I added knowing that expounding this titbit of information was just wasting time.

Kari took over, "Not the port. We don't need to go near the old town. There's a way to get right onto the canal outside the town. Cars go right up to the quayside at a boatyard. They rent narrow-boats out there for holidays. We spent a week on the canal when I was fourteen. I always wanted to go again and we almost did the next year."

She was positive about her information and I was relieved that she was coping well with the attack and our horrific despatch of the two policemen.

She could see what I was thinking, "No, I've not been the way we have to go. We went to the other way, towards Three Chimneys away from the Trent and Mersey Canal." She was telling me that she had no experience of our proposed itinerary.

"Right," I took over, "You, Kari, can find your way. Get on the towpath at the boatyard, turn right and cycle off until you leave the port behind. From what I know, some people live on canal boats. We don't want you to alert them to our presence. Absolute silence! Go at least five hundred yards past the last barge you see."

"Narrow boat," I was corrected. "They were only barges when they were towed by horses."

Irrelevancies! "Shut up," I said under my breath. "Let's form a plan. Get yourselves on that towpath. Keep out of sight and keep warm. It'll be cold waiting for me. I might be some time."

I'd quickly appreciated another advantage of the towpath; they are generally hidden from view from a lot of roads. Concealment was one of our objectives.

Keeping to the point, I gave them their instructions, shining the torch on the stuck-together map. "Starting from here, to get to the port, I get you across this road first, across both carriageways. You start by taking the route we were originally going to take, the road opposite. Go down about five miles and turn down this lane that comes out near a level crossing. Just past the level crossing, there's a lane leads down to the canal basin. Kari, you can find your way from there."

She concurred. "And you?"

"I have to keep off the main road through the port; it's covered with houses both sides for half a mile through the village. The only way I can see is if I go this way," I traced on the map.

"To get there it's a bit of a roundabout route. After the car's set on fire I'm frightened of the police being alerted. I want to have the ability to jump off the bike and hide if anything comes, it would be impossible with a trailer."

They were both looking at my proposed course.

"But that's miles? It would be easier to come back and start from here."

"Yes. What about the chance of meeting someone on the main road, on which it is still illegal to travel? The main road is just up there. Have you heard any traffic? I haven't. I think they are still enforcing that ban. I certainly don't want to be caught out there just after a police car has been set alight and its occupants burnt to a crisp"

"Good riddance."

I agreed with Kari's remark.

They began to appreciate the reason but did not like the idea of towing three trailers between the two of them. I did consider discarding one but did not want to waste time sorting stuff out. If we did, I knew we'd lose possessions we really might need over the coming few days. Furthermore, if we left stuff behind near here, we would surely be leaving more and more clues if they were found. No.