Sacrifice. Paul Finch

      Heck tried to keep his voice low. ‘Get me a Trojan unit pronto! And get me supervision … DI Hunter and Chief Superintendent Humphreys. I’m sitting on two targets I believe to be the M1 murderers, so I need that back-up ASAP, over and out!’

      He turned the volume down again as the message went rapid-fire across the airwaves. Lurching back to his car, he unlocked the steering, knocked the handbrake off and pushed the vehicle forward. As he reached the end of the drag, he yanked the handbrake on and crept to the corner, where he risked another glance at the suspect vehicles.

      The white van sat behind the Mondeo, both chugging fumes, while the two twins talked. Jason Savage had removed his donkey jacket and put on a similar black hooded anorak to his brother.

      If they would just keep the conflab going until firearms support arrived …

      ‘Any change today, sur?’ someone asked loudly.

      Heck twirled. One of the tramps had come stumbling around the corner and was standing out in the open with hand cupped. Grey locks hung in matted strands over his semi-glazed eyes.

      Heck glanced back towards the Savage brothers, who were suddenly staring in his direction. A piercing light sprang forward as one of them switched on a torch. Heck jumped back around the corner, but the tramp didn’t move, except to shield his eyes.

      No doubt the Savage boys knew there were human derelicts down here and had discerned there was no threat from them. But it was plainly obvious to anyone that this particular tramp was interacting with someone else.

      ‘Just a little change, sur,’ he said in fluting Irish, sticking an empty hand under Heck’s nose. ‘A couple of pounds wouldn’t go amiss …’

      Heck chanced another glance. One of the two brothers had opened the driver’s door to the van and looked set to climb into it. The other was still frozen in place, still peering along the passage.

      ‘Get down, you damn fool!’ Heck hissed. ‘Get on the floor now!’

      ‘Just a little change, sur. An entry fee, if you loike. The price of visiting our little parlour …’

      Heck lunged, grabbing the skeletal figure by the lapel of his coat and dragging him out of the torchlight, hurling him to the floor. At the same time he bellowed: ‘Armed police! You’re completely surrounded! Drop your weapons and get on the ground with your arms outspread!’

      The response was two thundering gunshots, the first kicking a fist-sized chunk from the concrete corner in front of Heck, the second whining past. There was an echo of slamming doors.

      Heck slid forward to look. The transit van was already haring away down the passage, its tail-lights receding. The Mondeo sat unattended. Heck raced back to his Fiat, stepping around the groaning tramp.

      ‘’Tis a cruel thing to manhandle a fella so,’ came a feeble voice.

      Heck leapt behind the wheel, slammed his key into the ignition and hit the gas. The tramp, staggering back to his feet, gave a V-sign to the windscreen, only to be blinded by Heck’s headlights. He toppled backwards as Heck wove the car around him, accelerating past the lock-ups, tyres screeching. Far ahead, the transit van rounded a corner at such speed that its bodywork drew sparks from the opposing wall. Heck took the corner tightly as well. The van was still far ahead; at the end of the next drag, it ascended another ramp into the sodium-yellow glow of the streets.

      Heck thumbed the volume control on his radio and shouted at the top of his voice. ‘DS Heckenburg chasing! Two suspects for M1 murders travelling in a white Ford van, leaving Fairwood House car park by what I believe is the east exit … no registration as yet! Urgent warning! At least one of the suspects is armed; shots already fired … no casualties, over!’

      There was nothing more dangerous, nor more discouraged in the modern police, than high-speed pursuit of suspects through built-up areas, yet Heck knew he had no choice. For so many months they’d had nothing – no forensics, no CCTV footage, no crime scenes, no survivors (bar one, who was severely injured), no likely suspects at all – and now, suddenly, they had everything … just in front of him by a skinny fifty yards, yet moving at seventy miles per hour through a busy town centre.

      Horns blared and pedestrians scattered, shrieking, as the white van mounted pavements to cut across junctions. Other vehicles swerved and skidded into shop-fronts, lampposts, or each other; panes of glass imploded, splinters of metal flew. Heck weaved frantically through the chaos. Reaching out of his offside window, he managed to throw his detachable beacon onto the roof of his Fiat. He shouted again into his radio, updating the Comms suite as best he could. By the approaching wail of sirens, other units were close by, but it still seemed likely that the target vehicle would escape. He lost sight of it completely when it sped through a stop-zone on red, other vehicles slewing sideways, one crunching headlong into the traffic light, buckling its pole and bringing the signal head down in a mass of dancing sparks. The cars in front of Heck shunted together, while others turned sharply to avoid the pile-up. Instinctively, Heck shot down a right-hand alleyway, trying to evade the snarled-up junction, only to see the van zip past the end of the alley, now headed in the opposite direction.

      ‘DS Heckenburg to Sierra Six!’ he bawled, swerving into pursuit. ‘Target vehicle doubling back on itself, headed west along …’ He scanned the buildings flicking by, trying to catch a street name. ‘Heading west along Avebury Boulevard. The suspects are Jordan and Jason Savage, and they live at eighteen, Wilberforce Drive and fourteen, Boroughbridge Avenue respectively. I repeat they are armed and highly dangerous!’

      Ahead, the van mounted a pedestrianised precinct, sending benches cartwheeling. Heck mounted the precinct as well, but the van slid to a halt about forty yards in front, smearing rubber as it pulled a handbrake turn. Heck only realised at the last second that he’d been lured into a side-on approach. He ducked as a gun-muzzle flashed from the driver’s window, the projectile punching the top corner of his windscreen, spider-webbing it.

      ‘Where’s that firearms support!’ he shouted, backhanding the Fiat into reverse, crashing through heaps of boxes.

      A local police patrol, a Vauxhall Astra in yellow and blue Battenberg, came hurtling onto the precinct from the opposite end, sirens whooping. The van lurched forward again, bolting down a side-street and veering left onto another main road. The patrol car made immediate pursuit, litter swirling from its wheels. Heck went next, still shouting into his radio.

      ‘Target headed north along Saxon Gate! Seventy-five plus!’

      The van was all over the road as it hit speeds it had never been designed for, sideswiping a litter-bin through a shop window. The Astra kept pace from behind, only for the van’s back doors to burst open and one of the Savage brothers to crouch there and take aim with his pistol. Over the howling engines, Heck barely heard the detonations, but the three rapid gun-flashes were clear enough. With windscreen peppered, the Astra crashed over the outer wall of a civic building with such explosive force, the footings tore out its front undercarriage, so that it finished standing on its nose in an ornamental pond.

      ‘Police RTA on the entrance to Portway!’ Heck shouted. ‘Ambulance required!’

      He wasn’t sure that his instructions were even being heard. The airwaves were alive with frantic messages. In front, the van’s rear doors slammed open and closed as it juddered from side to side. The gunman knelt just inside, slotting another magazine into place.

      ‘Heading east along Portway!’ Heck shouted. ‘These guys are fucking packed! Get me that Trojan quick!’

      Sirens could now be heard from all directions. A Thames Valley motorcyclist overtook Heck in a swirl of blues and twos. It tried to overtake the van as well, but the van swung right, sending the bike hurtling onto the pavement and glancing along a wrought-iron fence, from which it caromed back onto the blacktop, managing to right itself again – only to flip end-over-end when it struck the kerb of a traffic island, its rider somersaulting through the air.

      Heck glimpsed this in his rear-view mirror as he blistered past. ‘DS Heckenburg