CHAPTER 1
Miles Michael Todd leaned the powerful red and black Royal Enfield Interceptor into the curve with all his weight. He knew from experience that pushing his motorcycle to the limit on Snake Pass Road, in a growing storm like this was insane. His rational mind told him to slow down, to take care, told him that everything that had gone wrong would resolve itself, if....
Violent flashes of lightning illuminated the dark night and massive rain clouds on the curvy road ahead. Miles knew running away set Robie's dogs lose on him. Running was never the answer. Running away meant digging himself deeper and deeper into the whole bloody mess. Double-crossing the Robie's sickened him with fear and a gut wrenching panic. He couldn't help himself; he'd gone too far to redeem his past now. His agitated state of mind, jittery nerves, lack of sleep, all taking a heavy toll... now only buoyed up by her image -- that memory of her blond hair brushing his face, a last lingering kiss, her streaming tears, that look of...
His reaction time was compromised, He knew he should stop and rest... No, have to press on, time waits for no man. Keep going! It had been only two days since Jackson Fischer's murder, yet it felt like two very long weeks had elapsed. The utter shock of the murder going so far out of control reverberated in his mind every minute of the day, and the guilt, it never abated, never allowed a respite to compose mind, to find meanings, to understand why it had all gone wrong... so terribly wrong.
Love for Kat Fischer drove all his actions now. He knew this beyond any doubt. Defy her? Give her up? Never. Never could do that. Never in a million years could he do that. Betray her? Leave her–never.
He squeezed the hand brake hard, let off on the throttle instantly and prayed the motorcycle tires held fast as he leaned fifty degrees into the slick curve. He dragged his metal boot heel plate against a hard pavement. Showers of white sparks trailed far behind, lighting up the thick forest on one side. In control now, keep going no matter what the cost.
Kat loved him. He was positive about that. Her beautiful eyes, alive in his mind's eye, told him. He was helplessly in her power, would be at any place she commanded, would be waiting for her at any time, under any conditions --if he just knew she would there-- to take me into her arms again.
Manchester, Mexico, Guadalajara, he had no doubt that she would meet him at the small hotel, on the lake in Chapalla... the they we picked out. He knew she would be there. She had to be. All will work out. It will work out. A little voice inside told him this and a thousand more things to bolster his confidence in a life teetering on the edge of despair... if I have to go on without her.
His mind was on a one-track road now. Kat Fischer was at the end of that road. She had to be. She loved him; she had trusted him with their future, the diamonds, the money... with all, now in his hands. She renewed him, gave him hope, and gave him the energy to proceed.
He was positive it would be the way she had describe it. He had to believe in something ---now that they had stepped over that line --- Her, a murderer... Me, a murderer... never! Kat Fischer was his last and best hope to cash in his mangled life, to find some kind of happiness.
He smiled confidently, tightened the chinstrap to his black and red helmet, pulled the clear plastic visor down, crouched tight to the powerful machine and headed directly into the storm ahead.
***
"Turn right to get to Manchester, Fred." Detective Thomas Crawly told Detective Fred Smitten. Smitten made a hard left hand turn, not bothering to stop at the unlit Snake Pass Road junction.
"Manchester's to the left," Smitten said. He clicked on the Rover's GPS display, casting the two tired detectives in a deep indigo glow. ERROR 01 - NO SIGNAL it read. Smitten banged his hand hard against the GPS unit. It shorted out, briefly went blank and then came back on with the same digital error message.
"Worked the Hillsborough Disaster in eighty-nine. Drove this stretch of road between Sheffield and Manchester a dozen times a month. Did prisoner transport here when I first joined the force. Should have turned right -- lay a bet on it, Fred?" Crawly asked, knowing Smitten had gone in the wrong direction, but now too tired to challenge his superior.
"All that coffee makin' you chatter like a bloody idiot, Crawly. Maybe we wake Dicks, what say? Maybe we ask him where the hell we are. He knows the bloody peak district from livin' in the rough up here for so long," Smitten said, annoyed at his partner.
"Runnin' us up and down these hills like a couple of old geezers. Didn't help the back none. Achin' like a horse kicked me," Smitten complained as he glanced back at Nigel Frances Dicks in the rear view mirror.
"Nigel, you poor little bogan ... you won't last long in prison, lad. No way, Joey Love's men will do you in within a month." Then turning to Crawly, he said, "Don't feel sorry for the bloke, naw. What he did to Joey Love's twelve-year-old girl, to his son -- that was disgusting. He deserves a wicked death if you ask me," Smitten said as he briefly revisited a memory of the grusome Lilly and Lance Love murder scene.
"Didn't do anyone a favor by putting Joey Love in a wheelchair for life. Jesus, I'd have made damned sure Love was pushing up the daisies before killing his children, leaving him to die like that. Love's revenge will know no limit now."
"Where the hell's that backup car?" Smitten asked, looking in the rear view mirror and watching Nigel Dick's mud-encrusted head bob up and down in what appeared to be a dead-to-the-world sleep.
"Love's gang will settle the score," Crawly said, looking through the storm for the road sign that he knew would read Sheffield ahead. "Nigel will last about a week in the nick. Love's men waiting for him on the inside, yeah, no friggin' chance him gettin' out alive."
Nigel snored loudly from the back seat. He mumbled incoherent fragments of sentences in his sleep.
Smitten turned the windshield wipers to maximum, put the window defoggers on full, then rubbed the inside of the windshield with his coat sleeve. Still, he could not see more than twenty feet into the storm.
"Slow down! Let me drive, Fred. You know every wanker with an American muscle car or Jap donorcycle figures Snake Pass Road is a friggin' raceway!" Crawly said, tightening his seat belt.
"Take it easy Crawly! Neither of us has had any sleep in thirty hours. Remain silent until we get to Manchester. That's an order," Smitten commanded, beginning to wonder if Crawly might be right.
***
Miles had to make the decision before Manchester airport. Toss love away? Disappear into the jungles of some unknown, god-forsaken town in South America, live out our lives in constant fear of the Robie family?
My hard won career, just chuck it all? Miles, Miles, Miles, his mind screamed ... hold tight to the past, to the hard work; hold on to the decent life!
Miles' inner voices taunted him, vicious little whips of words, lashing repeatedly across his tired, pained and drug addled mind. Is she playing me? Is it all a con now? He'd seen Kat Fischer's mind at work, knew beyond any doubt that under all her beauty, under her shy smile, under her brilliance a demon stirred just below the surface.
Kat could spin his mind around, and around, make him believe anything and everything she told him. He was willing, without reservations to believe anything, everything ever said or ever promised him. Blinded by his love for her... Yes! Yes! She is my drug, she is my everything.
He knew it. She knew it. He accepted it. He couldn't help himself.
A wave of panic rippled through his body. Do I run far away to some Pacific Island, thousands and thousands of miles away from the woman I love? Betray her? Face prison? Do I turn myself in? Fuck, fuck, fuck... murder... it was murder! Fucking Mark went through with it, then fucked me in the end!
Miles wanted to squash the little part of his mind that kept popping up and telling him to go to New York, to do what he really knew was right... the murder of Jackson, nothing to do with me, nothing to do with me really. Why did I ever agree with her? Am I throwing away the future by crossing Richard Robie, double-crossing Mark Robie? Do I follow the plan she meticulously worked out... chuck it all for her love... or.... Hawaii, a place of incredible beauty on earth set aside by a vengeful angry god to punish me, to punish me alone, to make me suffer alone for an eternity without her. How could I live a life without her there? How could I betray her? Is she... is she playing me?
Miles began to cry, then yell an anguished moaning growl of utter frustration. He leaned harder and harder into each tight curve, attempting to defy gravity, not knowing, caring, but not really caring if the next slick curve spun him off into eternity.
***
For five minutes, DI Crawly complied with his senior officer's command and remained quiet as a lamb. Then in his utter and fatigue boredom he began tapping out a nervous and continuous, rat a tat-tat, rat a tat-tat on the dashboard with his fingernails.
With the other hand, he held his cigarette and cleaned the mud from under his fingernails with his thumb, then flicked the dried mud off onto Smitten's treasured camel hair topcoat. The topcoat was folded neatly and placed between the bucket seats as usual. Out of the corner of his eye, Smitten regarded the flicked mud, became aggravated and was ready to backhand Crawly.
"Sheffield, 19 miles, bloody-hell, told ya, told ya. Go down to the bottom of grade, turn around near the viaduct. We won't make the shift change. We'll miss the flight out of Manchester, Jesus Christ," Crawly said in exasperation, exploding at his longtime partner after a very long day and night awake runnign down Nigel Dick.
"Listen here, Tommy-boy, I swear to god I'll pull over and let you walk to Manchester. Stop complaining, stop that damned annoying tapping and stop flicking that mud on me coat!" Smitten yelled, startling Crawly and waking Nigel Dicks from his snoring slumber in the back seat.
"Radio the others; Let 'em know we went the wrong damn way. Where's that friggin' follow car anyway?"
***
The heavy rain began to fall hard just after he passed the reservoir. Miles stopped briefly in a rest area, a vacant tree-sheltered area, snorted up three quick lines of coke, knowing he was running on all cylinders now and knowing he was losing his battle to remain awake and of this world. His thinking: Mexico City, Little Hotel in Chapalla, comply with her plan; place my life and my future in her hands. Simple. Done deal. He pictured a cabana, two hammocks, a table near the sea, two cold beers... and that much needed sleep on that plane out of Manchester later tonight.
Racing, racing ahead on Snake Pass Road in the rain... his thoughts wandered back to Kat Fischer... stolen moments, precious moments, naked love, cheap hotel room, spied views, the Robie Gallery, laughs, wine, tensed love, sexual love, penetration, perverted love, dangerous games, dangerous liaisons, evasions, whispers, deceptions, constant lying... her husband... that prick Jackson... feeling good about, the lies, the lying, the cheating, the wickedness, directed to a wicked husband ... that prick Jackson... duplicity, deviousness, more of her, all of her, her, more wanton, more wicked, more desirous. Visions, long smooth naked curves, long flowing blond hair, skins, oh skin, different color green blue eyes, her eyes, eyes enmeshed, eyes together... sex on that old bed, that filthy cheap room, dirty sheets, rusty bed, leaking toilet, chill in the air, rain pounding, pounding rain, her reflection in that mirror... climax, climax, love, wants, needs, fluids, skins, hers, warmth, everything in her eyes, hers, inside hers, the world, her eyes... God, I love that woman... gives me the strength, the courage to....
Encompassing warmth revived his chilled-to-the-bone body. He smiled, laughed, a chuckle really, a renewal and for a brief moment he was the happiest, the most content man in the world.
He maneuvered the bike through curve after curve, maxed out each gear to gain a risky speed on the straighter sections of the dangerous road. Having made the definitive decision about the woman he loved, calmed him, eased his mind into a new confidence. He relaxed. He breathed easier. He felt a renewed confidence. The decision was the right one. He knew it was.
Far up the hill, he saw a car's headlights, momentary flickering behind trees, occasional bright flashes making their way down the steep grade. The car's headlights appeared at random, through the dense old oak trees, peaking in and out of pockets of the thick low hanging fog.
He breathed in, took a deep breath. His mind, made up. There was no doubt in his mind... go back to her, go back to her love. Life will be good now.
***
Smitten took the curve much to fast at the bottom of the steep grade near the viaduct, correctable at his present speed, but he had to swing far out into the oncoming traffic lane. He saw a single light flickering through the hard rain in the distance. He disregarded it, thinking it was the full moon light reflecting off the slick, wet tarmac. He steered back, hard, abruptly into the correct lane.
Crawly sighed, shook his head in more exasperation at his supervisor. Smitten stepped down on the accelerator to annoy Crawly, smiled, tightened stiff lips, laughed from throat, then resumed wiping the fogged windshield with the cuff of his shirt.
Crawly and Smitten both saw the helmeted motorcyclist zoom past out of nowhere. The black and red motorcycle impacted the Rover on the rear left side with a penetrating ripping of metal. Smitten glanced back into his rear view mirror. He saw the motorcycle taillight behind him, wobbling side to side on the dark road and totally out of control.
As in a movie without sound, Smitten watched in the rear view mirror as the motorcycle left the road and swerved towards a low hanging tree limb. The motorcyclist took the brunt of the forward momentum, forever stopped cold on a massive limb. Smitten winced, certain no motorcyclist on earth could survive that devastating impact.
Smitten then shifted his eyes quickly to Nigel Dick's face in the rear view mirror. He saw wide-eyed panic in Nigel's eyes, saw his facial muscles drawn back in cringing horror. Nigel's rotten teeth were now bared back like a wild animal and his face contorted into a look of absolute fear as the Rover impacted a century old and very immovable oak tree.
***
Nigel Dicks regained consciousness slowly. His head spun, rang, but he heard moaning and smelled wet blood in the air. He he saw the two detectives, still strapped into their seats, bodies limp, heads lolling on their shoulders like bloody rag dolls. The windshield, broken out, a thick oak limb now occupied the space.
Nigel shook his head repeatedly to gain full conciseness, to comprehend the situation. He recalled the initial deafening thud of the Rover's front end impacting the massive oak tree, remembered bouncing off it; a jarring jolt to his body and then a calm blackness before passing out. He patted his hands over his legs, abdomen and chest to detect any damage to his body. His nose felt as big as a balloon and burned as if someone had inserted hot pokers up it. Broken nose, broken teeth, and a neck that screamed at him not to move.
In the accident, the wrist to leg shackles had torn loose from the Range Rover's metal frame. With repeated violent tugs, he ripped the fixture completely off. Sudden fear produced a surge of adrenalin in him, gave him a maniac’s strength that propelled him into action.
Escape now, right now Nigel, a voice inside him commanded. He moved quickly knowing his life depended on escaping this accident and Joey Love's inevitable revenge.
"Nigel! Can't move. Legs crushed, pinned under dash. Check Smitty. Sounds bad. Phone in coat. Call 999," Detective Crawly's gravelly voice groaned over the biting wind. Nigel grabbed the topcoat and rummaged through it. He found the keys for the restraints and the real prize, Smitten's backup weapon. In less than a minute, he was completely free.
"Don't do anything stupid Nigel," Crawly warned, his neck craned back, watching Nigel work the keys to the cuffs, "Call 999."
"I've had just about enough of you two," Nigel said, displaying a taunting sneer under a blood streamed face and a broad smile of knobby, rotten teeth, his once gleaming defiance, now renewed. "Self-preservation, eh Tommy-boy? Can't let you two take me to prison, let Love's pawn's have at me, carve me up, settle the score, as you said. Sorry, you wankers... Tommy-boy, Smitty, just can't continue this pleasant little journey with you two. It's been fun. Ta-ta."
Nigel attempted to open the back passenger doors, but Smitten controlled these locks from the front door panel. He maneuvered out of the Rovers rear hatch by kicking out the window with a grunting trust of his powerful legs.
After slipping repeatedly in the mud, he mustered up all his strength and pushed the dark green Rover the remaining few yards towards the reservoir. The Rover stopped moving, stuck fast on a slight incline. Nigel pushed with all his strength. Slowly, the tires inched ahead, crackled over the big oak tree's deadfall branches, the vehicle descending the cement reservoir embankment at a snail's pace.
Inside, Crawly desperately tried to reach the brake pedal with his broken, sliced, bleeding legs. Desperate, helpless, with panic in his eyes, he watched as steam generated by the hot engine rose up in a cloud, then hissed and spat as the bonnet went under. The Rover sunk slowly to the roofline, gurgling bubbles now popping up all around the vehicle on the moonlit lake's glassy surface. The taillights glowed a bright muddy red, sputtered on - off, on - off, two demonic underwater eyes, winking.
Frantic last attempts by Smitten to salvage the situation were to no avail with his crushed chest and both legs pinned beneath the dash. The sounds of the detective's screams stopped abruptly then the Rover's roof submerged. Mother Nature, the wind and the rain also quieted down in that moment, as if paying its last respects to the two dedicated London detectives trapped inside.
"A fitting end to you two. The Flying Squad flies no more," Nigel muttered, chuckling a bit, making his way back up the muddy embankment to Snake Pass Road and towards the motorcyclist. He pulled Smitten's topcoat around his shoulders to fight off the bitter cold wind and rain.
"Quite nice Smitty, warm, waterproof, good fit, yes, very smart, Dick's got a new top coat, cop tote, coppers no float...ha-ha-ha. Thank you, DS Fred Smitten," Nigel exclaimed, searching the coat pockets deep, then deeper. "Lots a money for a friggin' detective ... three hundred, almost four hundred pounds. This will do me quite nice. Yes, yes, yes," Nigel muttered, still in a daze, heart still pounding fast and hard. He counted the money twice and then rummaged the knocks and crannies of Smitten's billfold.
He very carefully applied Fred's used handkerchief to his bleeding and broken nose. He felt around the broken parts of his nose, then bellowed out a scream of bloody murder, the pain at the bridge excruciating and almost fainted as he reeled back on wobbly legs. Recovering, he slowly ran a gentle pinched thumb and index finger over what use to be the bridge of his handsome, aquiline nose.
"Bloody hell, ain't gonna be the pretty boy no more, no more," he mused, breathing heavey through his mouth now, his nose a piercing, penetrating and pulsing pain. Blood flowed from nostrils that burned like little acetylene torches. Laughing at his pain, he said, "Ain't the beautiful Barrymore boy no more, no more the beautiful lad, no more the Barrymore... Fagin, I is, I is, I is."