Текст книги "Just Another Day"

Автор книги: Steven Clark

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter 7

‘What’s that man doing daddy?’

Fred Jones was really pissed off. Like everyone else crawling along on the motorway. The M62 was always busy at this time of the morning because of the rush hour.  ‘Rush hour’, he thought to himself, it might have lasted an hour a few years ago, now though, it seemed to go on for at least two hours. He needed to be in Manchester in half an hour and as he had to drop his daughter off at school first, he knew he would be late. He still had to travel two more junctions, half a mile more to Sedgley Junior School, drop Chloe off, rejoin the Motorway again for another three miles. Not a cat in hells chance, he thought.

If only his lovely daughter hadn’t forgotten her ballet shoes, they would have been fifteen minutes earlier and in all probability ahead of whatever was causing this latest motorway snarl up. He gave a very quick glance at Chloe. Oh, I do love you sweetheart but you can be a real pain in the arse when you’ve got your head in the clouds, he silently mused.

Another bollocking from the boss. Oh, wouldn’t she love that. She’d be there, pacing up and down at the front door when he went in, high heels and fishnets; mutton dressed as lamb thinking she was still twenty five years of age, making an exaggerated point of looking at her watch with her sarcastic voice, ‘Good morning Frederick, or, should that be good afternoon,’ she would say, ‘so nice of you to join us.’

He hated his full title of Frederick and she well knew it which was precisely why she said it in the first place. She liked to rub it in that she had been promoted above him even though he was much more efficient, knew the system better and had been at the company longer than her.

‘Maybe if I was shagging the MD, I’d have got the promotion.’

‘What did you say daddy?’ said Chloe and Fred suddenly realised that he’d been thinking out loud.

‘Oh nothing really love, I was just thinking that Buster was looking a bit shaggy maybe when I took him for his walk this morning. I think we need to make an appointment to get his coat trimmed a bit, don’t you think?’

‘OK Dad, we’ll take him at the weekend. Maybe we can take him to the park afterwards and I can play on the swings eh?’

‘Yes love, the weekend; the swings, ok, no problem sweetheart.’ He silently congratulated himself on not having to explain, shagging the MD any further!

‘So, what do you think he’s doing then?’

Fred turned to look at his daughter in the passenger seat.

‘What’s that my little love,’ he said

‘Him, that man over there; the one with the black clothes on.’

Fred looked up and to his left. ‘Shit.’ he said and instinctively put his foot on the brake even though they were hardly moving at all. A quick glance in the rear view mirror and a feeble wave of acknowledgement to the driver behind who had no idea why Fred had suddenly stamped on the brake.

‘Daddy,’ said Chloe in her most precocious voice, she could do precociousness extremely well when it suited her purpose. ‘Did you say the ‘S’ word. Did you say ‘shit’? Wait till I tell mummy you said the ‘S’ word.’

Fred was looking around animatedly for the cameras as he was sure someone must be making a film. It’s got to be candid camera or some reality or daredevil show he thought as he looked in all his mirrors expecting to see a camera vehicle nearby.

A man dressed all in black. Black boots, black overalls and balaclava was running behind a container lorry as it edged forward. He wasn’t running fast, just enough to be steadily gaining on the wagon as it slowly moved forward. He leapt from the roadway onto the rear fender area of the trailer and grabbed hold of the handles of the door of the container. He steadied himself and looked around as if gauging the best way to carry out his next objective. Within seconds, PC Mark Swift, had clambered up the back of the lorry using the various metal projections of the container like steps up a metal wall. He was now on the roof of the container and running forward towards the cab of the wagon.

‘Swift by name and swift by nature’. What a fucking cliché’ he said to himself while steadying himself as he ran. He loved the excitement and the training exercises when the adrenaline was pumping hard. He took great pride in his physical agility and worked hard to maintain his fitness levels. When he wasn’t training with his colleagues, he would be down at the gym working out.

The adrenaline was pumping a bit more than usual today as he had been listening to the drama unfolding earlier. One of his colleagues was either dead or injured just a few yards away from him and this bastard up front was going nowhere except the nick. He wasn’t being complacent in any way; he knew how dangerous Johnson was.

‘Swifty’ was the joker in the Unit and always wanted to be first through the door or the window; the first to abseil over the side of the building. He wasn’t reckless in any way; he just had a tremendous belief in his own ability. Sometimes, such self belief was taken as arrogance by those who didn’t know him but his infectious smile and boundless energy soon won them over.

When Lee Evans, the skipper of Romeo Victor One had first outlined the plan and briefed the two teams, he had to be the one.

‘Six foot two, blonde hair, blue eyes and superb physique; it’s got to be me boss, do you really have any other choice when you look at this lot?’ Pumped his biceps in his best ‘popeye’ pose.  Mark was grinning hugely as he waved his hands around indicating the various figures in the briefing room. With a knowing smile, Lee agreed; he was the natural choice. He might have pissed them all off from time to time, but they all acknowledged his confidence was well earned.

Nearly at the front of the container, OK, quietly slide down between the back of the cab and the container. No problem, wedge yourself between the air brakes and the trailer locking mechanism, balance yourself, OK, sorted. Mark was comfortable now and could think ahead to the next task.

He reached into the chest pocket of his standard issue flame retardant overalls and pulled out the small silver coloured disc. Not much bigger than a ten pence piece and about twice as thick, with a small antennae on the side, it never ceased to amaze him at how something so small and insignificant to look at could be such a powerful listening and tracking device.

OK, press the button to activate. Stick it to the back of the cab and Bob’s your Unc!!! The wagon lurched forward as the driver let the clutch out a bit too fiercely. Traffic started to move and Swifty silently cursed.

‘Oh shite,’ said Mark to himself, ‘Where the fuck has it gone?’

He could hear the impatient voice in his earpiece from his skipper in the ARV.

‘Mark, what are you playing at. The traffic’s starting to move up ahead and you and the wagon will be diverted off the motorway soon.’

‘Bollocks, the Skipper will fuck me sideways if I make a cock up of this. Where is it?’ He looked down, eyes frantically scanning the steel structure of the wagon. Maybe it’s dropped through onto the road below, he thought. He crouched down further, a silver glint caught his eye, ‘thank fuck it’s magnetic’ he said to himself as he plucked it from the side of the fuel tank and ensured it was fixed securely to the back of the cab and pressed the button.

He heard the voice in his ear once more.

‘Good job Mark, device transmitting correctly, now get your arse off that wagon.’

As Mark stood on the fuel tank he looked across. Several feet away from him and waving animatedly was Chloe. Chloe’s dad was staring open mouthed at the road ahead and at the black clad figure in equal measures. He still hadn’t managed to locate the film crew.

The speed of the lorry was picking up now and Mark saw Chloe lower the window of the car.

‘Hello mister,’ said Chloe. ‘What are you doing up there, Aren’t you frightened you’ll fall off and hurt yourself?’

Mark could see her mouth moving but he couldn’t understand what she was saying as the engine of the lorry accelerated. The overhead motorway gantry signs illuminated, ‘Accident ahead, leave motorway at next junction.’

Speed was increasing now to twenty miles an hour as Mark swore quietly to himself. ‘Shit, too late to get off now, I’ll break my fucking neck!’

Chloe was not one to be ignored. She decided that talking was not enough and she cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted across the gap. ‘Hello mister, are you playing a game. Can I play too?’ Chloe’s dad was still catching flies driving with his mouth open.

Dave relayed the gantry information to Johnson in the bunk behind him.

‘I’m not fucking blind bollocks, I can see the signs. Just keep driving for the time being.’ The gunman lay back in the bunk pondering his next move after they left the motorway.

‘Romeo Victor One to Incident room and all patrols, thought you would like to know, Dave Watkins alive and driving the target vehicle. Have no details as to his injuries or otherwise at this time. Re-tune to channel twenty two for audio from the tracking device.’

The two controls rooms had been silent for some time wondering about the fate of their colleague and awaiting information from the chopper or the ground teams; there was an air of relief that Dave appeared to be OK. He might be injured, they still didn’t know, but if he was able to drive, he must be ok. Bob Chambers breathed a little more easily as he said to himself, ‘Davey, I don’t care how much you’ve got on your plate lad; I’m taking you for an FBI when you get back.’

Most people associated the term FBI with the American law enforcement agency; Federal Bureau of Investigation but, to the lads of Sergeant Chambers Section, it had an altogether different meaning. One of the officers, at the end of a hot late turn and a few beers at the local hostelry had proclaimed, ‘right you tossers, I’m off for a Fucking Big Indian, who’s coming,’ as he trooped off round the corner to the nearby curry house. Bob was brought back to the present with the voice from the wagon.

‘You drive like a tart. What’s the matter with yeh?’

‘Like I said, I learned to drive in the Army so it’s been a while since I’ve driven a HGV. I’ve moved a few wagons around the docks occasionally, but it must be about five years since I’ve driven one properly.’ Dave was feeling a bit groggy as a consequence of the blood loss after the blows to his head.

‘C’mon’ He thought to himself, ‘what did the instructors used to say when I was training? MSM, Manoeuvre, Signal, Mirror. No, no, other way round, Mirror, Signal, manoeu!’... He never got to finish the third word in his head. As he looked in the mirror, he saw her. What the bloody hell is she doing? He silently wondered as he saw the car to the right of him through his drivers’ door mirror. It was moving at the same speed although slightly behind the cab of the wagon. She’s got the window down. Is she talking to someone? He could see her hands resting on the front passenger door and her chin resting on her hands. She appeared to be talking as he could see her mouth opening and closing and her looking across at the side of his wagon.

‘Why don’t you say something? What’s your name? I’m Chloe.’ She repeated her conversation to the stranger a short distance away. She got no reply. ‘My Dad always says it’s rude not to say hello back when someone says hello to you.’ Still there was no reply to her questions. ‘You are not a very polite man.’ She said indignantly.

This is going rapidly pear shaped, thought Mark as he put his finger to his lips in a gesture that he hoped she would understand.

Chloe made a grand gesture of sitting back in her seat. She folded her arms and screwed up her face in the way that only a nine year old pissed off little girl can. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘He’s not a very nice man is he daddy?’

Daddy, still watching, but not believing what he was seeing, didn’t say a word. He shook his head and stared at the road ahead.

Chloe looked back to the man perched on the petrol tank and gave him the ‘look’. The look was what she reserved mostly for her older brother when she was really, really pissed off with him. She also gave the look to others who displeased her and it would be fair to say, you were left in no doubt whatsoever when Chloe was none too happy with you. So, she thought to herself, arms still folded tightly, chin in the air, and staring straight ahead. What do you think of that then? She remained in this position for a few moments until she was satisfied that he would have been well aware that Chloe Jones was most definitely not amused.

As she looked back across the divide at her reluctant, would be playmate crouched on the petrol tank of the lorry, she saw something in his eyes that made her question her own thoughts. She didn’t understand what it was. Whilst she didn’t know what it was, she certainly knew what it wasn’t.  At that instant, she knew it wasn’t bad.

She stopped giving him the look and began to frown. There was something to be worked out here, but she couldn’t quite decide what it was.

Mark took his finger from his lips and she saw a slight smile. He wasn’t a bad man she thought, as she smiled back at him and she began to feel a little annoyed at herself for her feelings of a few minutes before. She saw his mouth open and his lips began to move.

‘Daddy, he’s saying something but I can’t hear him. He’s pointing at the back of our car and winding his hand around. What does he mean by that?’

Fred snapped out of his disbelief and looked across. He understood the gestures only too well. Even though he understood his intention, he didn’t quite believe it and thought to himself, I was right. This must be a film and he must be a fucking stunt man. Either that, or he’s had enough of life and decided to end it all!

Back in the wagon, Dave’s eyes were transfixed on his driver’s door mirror. He caught just a glimpse of a black gloved hand making some kind of gesture.

Swifty, what are you playing at? Get your arse off that wagon now. That’s a fucking order. Move it.’ Lee Evans in the following response vehicle was about ten vehicles behind the wagon as all the traffic around them began to pick up speed.

‘Sorry Skip. Too fast for me to jump off now. Wish me luck.’

The electric motor on the rear passenger door kicked in and the window began to lower. Chloe looked at her Dad’s finger on the switch.

‘What are you doing Daddy?’ She looked up and saw her Dad with his serious face on. Both hands were now firmly fixed on the steering wheel in the ten to two position and he was looking directly ahead; concentrating hard. ‘Are you alright dad?’

As he checked his mirrors he said, ‘Listen love, I can’t explain just now. I need you to be very quiet and we’ll talk about it later OK?’

Chloe didn’t understand what on earth her Dad was talking about. She hardly ever knew what the grown ups were talking about. It was a conversation she’d had with her friends lots of times. She and her friend Mary had decided that it was often better not to ask them too many questions because they always got confused and angry, something about their age, and the grown ups usually ended any further discussion with the phrase she’d heard many times before,  ‘because I said so’.

This was definitely one of those because I said so moments but she instinctively knew, something in the tone of his voice told her that now wasn’t the time to ask questions. Plenty of time for questions later she thought as she sat, arms folded, slightly miffed that she seemed to be not included in dads thoughts as he concentrated deeply on. On what? she didn’t know; he hadn’t told her. She thought once more of her friend Mary.

Definitely one of those grown up things.

Chapter 8

Dave Watkins looking in his mirror, and Lee Evans watching from the ARV behind, instantly knew what was about to happen and, unknown to each other, shook their heads in disbelief and said, ‘You’ve got to be joking mate.’

‘What are you going on about?’ Came the voice from the bunk behind and Dave realised he had spoken out loud the words that he’d been thinking. Johnson was leaning forward over Dave’s shoulder and at any second would be able to see the driver’s door mirror. He knew he had to divert his attention away from the mirrors and prevent him from seeing what was going on behind.

‘Look at that tosser’ said Dave, pointing ahead. ‘That idiot trying to squeeze into the gap. Don’t let him in,’ shouted Dave as he banged on the steering wheel and sounded his horn. ‘I fucking hate that, wankers in wagons using the size of their lorries to force their way in. It’s no wonder we have accidents up and down the Motorway every fucking day with drivers like that idiot.’

Johnson looked ahead to see the tanker edging into the nearside lane in anticipation of being diverted off the motorway. ‘What do you expect him to do? He’s got to get off the road, same as us. If you’ve got three lanes of traffic all having to get into one lane you’re bound to get people squeezing in.’ Johnson started to laugh. ‘Looks like I’ll have to bang your head again. Calm down, stop whingeing about the traffic, and just drive the fucking lorry.’

Dave hoped his little rant had done enough to divert the gun mans attention away from the mirror.

The rear window of Chloe’s car was down as far as it would go. It didn’t go all the way down inside the door and there was still about six inches of the glass sticking up. The gap looked impossibly small. Now it was she who was staring in open mouthed silence. Is he really going to do that, she said to herself?

The thought had barely entered her head when she saw the man in black crouch down, put his hands out in front as if he was standing on the edge of a swimming pool and launch himself off the side of the lorry towards the open rear window. Chloe’s Dad had tried hard to get close to the wagon and to match its speed.

It looked so easy when you watched these things on the big screen with the all action hero carrying out impossible feats with daring expertise. In the here and now however, it was a different matter. The gap between the two vehicles was still about five feet and the rear window of Fred’s car slightly behind the fuel tank.

In the wagon, Dave winced. ‘Fuckin hell mate, four out of ten for artistic impression,’ Shit, he hoped he hadn’t said that out loud. A few seconds silence, no movement from behind him. No questions from the bunk. He looked in the mirror again. He’d heard the expression many times before. He’d said it himself on numerous occasions. Now, he fully understood the meaning of ‘heart in the mouth’.

‘Shite,’ he bellowed. He had definitely said that out loud as he felt the gunman begin to move from the bed behind.

Mark Swift might well have been quite an athlete, but he had not tried to dive through the small open window of a family car at twenty five miles an hour before today. It would be fair to say that it did not go exactly as he had envisaged it. In his mind, he had sailed through the air with his torso barely touching the sides and had entered the ‘water’ without barely creating a ripple. The reality was, his head, shoulders and chest, had made it through the opening and his forehead and face rested on the back seat but his pelvis knees and thighs had hit the side of the door with considerable force and knocked the wind out of him. He was now bent double in a pike position with his upper body sprawled on the seat while his lower body and legs dangled outside.

‘What now, what now,’ shouted Chloe’s dad in obvious panic.

Swifty was momentarily stunned and struggling to breath. After a few seconds he groaned, ‘Get back. Back behind the wagon.’ Mark knew that he wasn’t just winded with the force of the impact; he must have banged his head on the top edge of the door as he attempted to dive through. He was struggling to think properly. The fuzziness in his brain was not clearing quickly enough. Fred was not in full control of his faculties either. It’s not every day that a man in a black boiler suit wants to dive into your car from another moving vehicle. It was this development that had made Dave shout out.

Mark’s legs still dangled out of the car and as Chloe’s Dad began to slow the car in order to drop behind the wagon, Dave saw Swifty’s legs about to be mangled by the rear wheels of the lorry. The trailer was some forty feet long and Marks body was inching ever closer as Fred eased off the accelerator.

Dave pulled the steering wheel forcefully to the left ignoring the sharp pain in his injured upper arm. He swerved the wagon towards the reinforced metal barrier of the Motorway hard shoulder as the toes on Mark’s boots scraped along the road surface. He felt the massive tyres of the wagon brushing against the back of his legs. He silently prayed that the material of his overalls didn’t get caught up on some protruding piece of metal or body work of the trailer. The slightest snag would surely rip him from the side of the car and drag him under the lorry. As quickly as he was able, he painfully hauled himself fully into the car.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ said Johnson as he clambered from the bunk.

‘What a bloody idiot’ shouted Dave and gestured to the white van in front. ‘Bastard cut me up as he dived in front. I nearly hit him up the arse.’ Dave sounded his horn. White van man had been driving quite normally and he cursed the wagon driver behind him, completely unaware of the unfolding drama. He couldn’t give a toss if he had cut up the wagon behind. It was always a battle on the roads these days anyway. For the most part, it was everyman for himself.

‘Fuck you,’ he shouted out the window and stuck his middle finger up in the air to the lorry driver in his wake. No words were needed to interpret the gesture!

Johnson jumped down from the bunk and sat in the passenger seat alongside. He was looking up ahead out of the windscreen trying to see the roadside junction numbers. ‘Where are we, when do we get off this fucking road?’

Dave looked in both mirrors. No sign of Chloe’s car. No sign of vehicles swerving across the lanes and no body bouncing along behind. He breathed deeply.

The window slowly wound up and Mark twisted over onto his back. He looked up at the roof lining and then down to his feet. The toecap of his right boot had completely rubbed away and the rubber sole was flapping open. He could clearly see the frayed sock of his big toe peeping through.

‘Fuck me; that was not very clever’ He said quietly.

Not so quietly that Chloe couldn’t hear as she undid her seatbelt and twisted round to look at the man lying on his back with his foot in the air.

‘Did you hear that Daddy?’ ‘He said the ‘F’ word. You said ‘shit’ before and that was bad but he said the ‘F’ word and that’s really, really bad.’

‘And all because the lady loves milk tray’, laughed Mark quietly as he stared at the roof inside and gave a little shake of his head as he realised how close he had come to not making it in one piece. ‘Well, the job can get me a new pair at least,’ he said as he surveyed the flapping sole of his boot.

‘What did you say?’ Said Chloe as she knelt on her seat and pressed her face through the open headrest and looked at the man laying below, cradling his right foot in both hands and staring intently at his toecap.

‘Oh it’s just a silly expression love; your Dad will know what I’m talking about.’ As he momentarily recalled the television advert of some years before when the hero would deliver a box of chocolates to his sweetheart in the most daring of circumstances whilst dressed all in black. Like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, the mystery man would climb up the side of the balustrade and leave the chocolates and a note on a table inside the room only for the woman to find them later after he had departed. To complete the scene, she would then run through the open doors onto the balcony and stare wistfully over the edge into the darkness beyond thinking of what might have been.

He pulled himself up from his laying position, looked out of the back window at his colleagues several vehicles behind and gave them the thumbs up.

‘What’s your name mate?’ Said Mark to his ‘chauffeur’.

‘Fred, Fred Jones. Shit, did that really happen?’

‘Fred, you probably saved my life. At the very least, you prevented me from being discovered. I think I might have made a bit of a dent in the side of your door. I hit it pretty hard when I jumped off. Not a pretty sight I’m afraid. Haven’t done too much of that before.’ As he rubbed at his knees and thighs and smiled ruefully.

‘Thank you,’ said Fred. “Don’t worry about the door. I guess we’re both a bit new to this. Not something I do every day myself’ he said as he looked in his rear view mirror at the man in the balaclava. ‘Who are you? I hope I’ve done the right thing and you’re on our side. You’re not some kind of terrorist are you?’ He felt a bit stupid asking the question as in his own mind, he was quite sure that his passenger was not a criminal.

‘I can’t tell you at the moment what it’s all about. You will probably read about it in the papers. I can say that I am on the right side. I can’t say anymore than that. You can take some comfort in knowing that what you have done today not only saved my life, but you may well have saved the life of another colleague. Now Fred, much as I have enjoyed our conversation, what I need now is to rejoin my colleagues. If you look in your rear view, you will see a black Range Rover five or six cars behind. Can you see it?’

‘Yep, no problem. Got it in my mirrors.’ Said Fred.

Mark pressed the small button near to the lapel of his overall. ‘Romeo Victor One from Swifty receiving Skip?’

‘Pass your message Swifty.’ He heard the reply clearly in his covert earpiece. He was thankful that it had remained in place and not bounced out of his ear with the violent impact of a few minutes before.

‘OK Boss, let the wagon exit at the next junction and we’ll pull up on the hard shoulder and I’ll join you.’

‘Message received. Good job Mark.’

It would take a few minutes for the wagon to leave the motorway and Mark turned his attention to the little girl in the front seat. ‘And what’s your name young lady?’ said Mark.

By this time, Chloe had folded her arms again and Mark could see by her body language and frown that she was not a happy little lady at this moment. She was still staring at him intently through the open head rest and he would need to use his legendary charm to win her over. She had been left out of the conversation for far too long; She’d had enough of this adults thing; after all, it had been she who had first seen the man and yet her Dad had taken over the conversation. It was as though she had been forgotten about. It was all about her dad and the stranger. Well, we’ll see about that.

‘My names Chloe and this is my Dad. He’s in big trouble off my Mum and you’re in big trouble off my mum too. Dad said shit loads of times but you said the ‘F’ word. My mum says that the F word is the worst of all and that means that you are in big trouble.’ She started rummaging in her school bag for her mobile phone. ‘I think I’d better text her now and tell her what you said.’

‘Mmm, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you Chloe,’ said Mark. ‘And I’m sure your Dad is too.’ He could see the phone emerging from her bag and her fingers starting to hit the keys. ‘Its right that you should tell your mum about bad things that happen but, before you do, just give me a minute to explain something to you.’

The blur of her fingers whipping over the key pad halted and she looked at him as if to say, ‘say what you want mister, but you’re in trouble anyway.’

‘Sometimes adults say things that they shouldn’t. They don’t mean to upset anybody. You see Chloe, it’s not just children, or even young ladies like you. Mums and Dads, and even people like me who are supposed to be very tough get a bit scared too and speak out before considering what they say. We all get a bit frightened now and then.’

Mark could see her frown softening as she looked at him quizzically. She opened her mouth as though about to speak or to fire another question at him. Her fingers were motionless on the phones keypad. Before she could say another word or quiz him further, and noticing her left hand holding the side of the headrest, he quickly leaned forward and took it gently into his own hand, softly kissed the back of it and in his most charming and sickly sweet manner said, ‘so, may I say young lady, you have been absolutely fantastic in helping me. If it hadn’t been for you in the first place, your dad might not have seen me. I think you are the most wonderful little girl I have ever known and I wouldn’t upset you for the world.’

Chloe beamed at her new found friend, flicked her hair back in the way that only a young woman of a certain age can do, plonked the phone back in the bag and shrugged, ‘Oh I’m not upset, my big brother says shit and fuck all the time when Mum’s not there.’

She suddenly realised what she had said. Her beaming smile suddenly faded and her expression turned to one of horror. She put both hands up to her face as she began to splutter, ‘Oh my God, sorry, sorry Dad, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to say!’

Her Dad cut across her speaking, ‘Chloe Jones, wash your mouth out with soap. Wait ‘till I tell your mother.’ He emphasised the ‘I’ as his face broke into a grin. Chloe grinned, weakly at first until she realised that she was not in serious trouble, Mark let go of her hand, fell back into the seat and they all began to fall into fits of laughter.

Fred saw a gap in the traffic behind and pulled onto the hard shoulder a few metres behind the Range Rover and Mark leapt out of Chloe’s car and ran to the rear nearside passenger door of the police vehicle. As he opened the door to get in, he pulled off his balaclava, rubbed his hands through his short blond hair and turned to look back at Chloe.

Chloe smiled at him. She hadn’t seen his face up to now and she liked what she saw. She felt slightly ashamed of herself when she recalled her first impressions and she made a mental note to herself. She determined that in future, she would wait until she knew the whole circumstances of the particular thing before she made up her mind. She decided he was a very nice man after all.