Which was when the backlash struck him full-on and he was forced to take a few steadying breaths whilst he gave thanks that he wasn’t in the queue to meet his Maker, maybe alongside two young and foolish Asian boys, to see whether he was going to be allocated heaven or hell. That is if the ultimate ‘Maker’ was the same for everyone.
He drove down on to Blackburn Road, then turned towards the town centre. A few citizens were knocking about now, the town slowly stretching and yawning into life.
Iqbal’s description of the man was circulated by the constable, though Henry knew that at five in the morning, the area would hardly be flooded with uniforms. In fact he recalled that at the briefing he had been told that there were only three officers on duty in Accrington after 4 a.m. — and he had snaffled one car for him and two vans for the prisoners, which meant, frustratingly, there was no one else to assist with the search until the reinforcements arrived.
He settled behind the wheel of the Astra and drove through the drizzle, whilst thinking about Operation Enid, the highly suspect intelligence they’d had to swallow, and putting officers in unnecessary danger. He smiled grimly, anticipating the carefully chosen words he would later be machine-gunning at Detective Superintendent Greek, the SB boss. When he did it, he hoped that a few of the spooks would be in earshot too.
He drove up to the railway station, saw no one fitting the description, then did a slow tour of the town. Mr Iqbal did not spot the intruder. Henry decided to call it off and get back to the scene.
They had circled the town centre and were on Blackburn Road, an ASDA superstore on their right and a new-ish complex of retail outlets, car dealers and a cinema. The traffic lights outside ASDA were on red. Henry pulled into the nearside lane, signalling (to no one in particular) his intention to turn left. He checked his mirror and actually saw there was a car behind, a BMW, approaching slowly in the offside lane, obviously going straight on towards the M65, about two miles ahead.
The lights turned green.
Henry selected first and — the habit of a lifetime drilled into him by a succession of police driving courses — before moving checked his mirror and noticed that the BMW, instead of setting off, had stopped completely some twenty metres behind.
‘What’s this guy up to?’ Henry said, his eyes still in the mirror.
The PC in the back looked over his shoulder. Mr Iqbal had a look, too.
Suddenly the BMW did a spectacular reverse U-turn, the whole car rocking, tyres squealing, even on the damp tarmac, and shot off back towards the town.
Henry fumbled with his gear and tried to execute the same manoeuvre, which he succeeded in doing with much less panache than whoever was driving the BMW. As he did this, the PC in the back radioed in.
In the seat next to Henry, Mr Iqbal grabbed the elbow rest on his door with both hands and said, ‘Fuckin’ hell!’
‘Just hold tight, you’ll be OK, I’m a safe driver.’ He rammed his foot on to the accelerator, flicked on the blues, and pushed the Astra hard, making the underpowered engine scream in protest. It did, however, respond well and he was still in sight of the BMW when he reached the roundabout underneath the old railway viaduct where several roads converged just on the edge of town. The driver of the BMW switched off the lights on the German car as he gunned the vehicle up the steep incline that was Milnshaw Lane and, without even the hint of a pause, did a left on to Whalley Road, also quite a steep hill, and sped out of town.
Henry was a skilled driver. He had done all the courses and more, and on top of that he’d had many car chases — even survived them — but even he had a shiver of dread when he too pulled out of Milnshaw Lane and caused a law abiding member of the public, tootling along in his Nissan, minding his own business, to brake hard, swerve, mount the kerb and just miss a lamp post.
‘I’ll say sorry later,’ Henry promised.
In the seat behind him, the PC had started a running commentary: ‘Now on Whalley Road in the direction of Clayton-le-Moors; speeds in excess of fifty and accelerating … didn’t get the registration number … yeah, blue BMW …’
Mr Iqbal, even in the greyness of dawn, had clearly lost his colour, his face having drained of blood. ‘Fuckin’ hell!’ he said again.
The Astra’s engine was ear-splittingly loud, but Henry did not let up on it. He pushed it to its limits and as he shot a red light at the junction of Queens Road — on the corner, by the hospital — he was travelling at sixty, which was fast for the conditions in this built-up area. The BMW had dipped out of sight beyond a slight rise. Henry knew the road ahead was fairly straight, though it was narrow for a main road, and because of the time of day and the lack of other traffic, the BMW had the capacity to leave the Astra standing.
‘Just had a report of a stolen BMW from Accrington town centre in the last ten minutes,’ the comms operator said from the control room at Blackburn, which covered this area. He gave details and asked if this could be the one they were chasing.
‘Affirmative,’ the PC replied as he sat back and, intelligently, put a seat belt on.
‘Present location?’ comms asked.
‘Whalley Road heading towards Clayton … just passing the Fraser Eagle Stadium’ — Accrington Stanley’s football ground — ‘but we’ve lost sight of the car.’
Henry was grimly undeterred. It was unlikely now that he would catch the BMW, but he always liked to go the extra mile and though he reduced speed, much to Mr Iqbal’s obvious relief, he decided to go as far as Clayton-le-Moors, then turn back. It was the thought that the BMW could be being driven by the third member of a terrorist cell that made him want to keep looking. Whilst he might be wrong on that score, he hated coincidence.
‘All patrols,’ came the now urgent voice of the radio operator, ‘treble-nine just received from a driver on Whalley Road, Clayton-le-Moors … reporting a BMW has just collided with two parked cars and flipped over on to its roof, just after the junction with Burnley Road … will give further details …’
‘We’re one minute away,’ the PC shouted up. ‘Sounds like our man.’
‘Thank you, God,’ Henry intoned and, once more, stuck his right foot down, bringing a further expletive from Mr Iqbal, who sank down into his seat and gripped his seat belt with two hands.
The BMW driver had run the red light at the Burnley Road junction, but had been unlucky in that at that precise moment another car was legitimately crossing its bows to the green light. It had been travelling at about eighty mph and with the avoiding swerve on the greasy road, the driver had lost control. The BMW had fish-tailed out of the junction, crashed into one car parked on the left-hand side of the road, catapulted across to one on the opposite side and had then been flipped on to its roof, careering dramatically down the road, sparks flying until it pounded into another car, bounced off it and came to a crunching stop, spinning like a top on its roof and blocking the road in both directions, just on the Accrington side of a canal bridge.
Henry stopped in the middle of the road twenty metres short of the BMW, flicked on all the Astra’s emergency lights. He and the constable bundled out of the car and trotted to the scene, the constable — efficient as ever — radioing through that they were off at the scene. Iqbal stayed in the Astra, still clutching the seat belt.
The BMW had stopped spinning at ninety degrees to the road. It was a scrunched up mess. The roof was battered down, had damage all around it. Henry thought the driver would have been lucky to survive this in one piece as he reached the car and bent to peer inside, expecting blood and brains and broken bits of body everywhere.
‘Shit!’ he breathed.
The car was empty.