In a few minutes he would find out.
He walked over to the driver’s side of the Ferrari, smiling, giving the impression that everything was OK. Instantly, he could see the change in the driver’s demeanour.
Mickey smiled back, relief surging through him. Got away with it! Got away with it! Yesssss!
He was so gleeful that he wanted to text Stuie. He would be with him in a little over an hour, on the empty roads at this time of morning. But he decided to wait until he was well clear, to get out of here as fast as he could in case the officer had a change of mind.
Then the Border Force officer stepped up. ‘Just before you go on your way, sir, I’m going to have my colleague drive it through the X-ray gantry.’
Mickey felt a cold flush in his stomach. Be calm, deep breath, smile.
Clive Johnson stood in front of the X-ray’s monitor, watching as the vehicle was driven through the scanner, until he had the completed black-and-white image. Almost immediately, he could see an anomaly: the tyres should have been hollow, filled with air as all tyres normally were. Instead, the scanner showed they were solid.
Johnson was excited, but still mindful of the value of this car if it was genuine, despite his suspicions. The least intrusive place to start, from his past experience, would be with the spare wheel.
He opened the boot and, joined by two colleagues, removed it. They lifted it uneasily out of the vehicle, alarm bells ringing at the weight of it. One of the officers rolled and bounced it. He then spoke to his colleague, who produced a Stanley knife.
Mickey watched in horror as the man ripped through it.
‘For God’s sake, that’s an original that came with the car!’ Mickey shouted, desperation in his voice. ‘Do you have any idea what you might be doing to the value of this Ferrari?’
‘I’m very sorry, Mr Starr, the car’s owners will of course be compensated for any damage done during the examination if the car proves to be in order,’ Clive Johnson said.
‘Can I have a smoke?’
‘I’m afraid this is a no-smoking area.’
‘Well, can I go outside then?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, not at this moment,’ Johnson said. ‘We need you to be in attendance to observe what we are doing.’
There was no hiss of escaping air as the officer sliced the blade deep into the tyre wall. For some while he worked the blade around in an arc, until finally he pulled away a large flap of rubber.
In the gap it left, a plastic bag filled with a white powder was clearly visible. The officer reached in to pull it out and held it up, showing those present what he had found.
‘Most people fill their tyres with air, sir.’ Johnson moved forward towards Mickey. ‘I believe this package contains controlled drugs and I’m arresting you.’
Mickey stared at him for a fraction of a second in complete blind panic. Trying to think clearly. A voice inside his head screamed, RUN!
Mickey shoved the officer harshly sideways, sending him stumbling into the wall, and sprinted forward, racing through the shed. He heard shouts, a voice yelling at him to stop. If he could just get out of here, out into the dark streets, he could disappear. Hole up somewhere or steal a car and get back to Stuie.
His foot hit something painfully hard, a fucking wheel brace, and he sprawled forward. As he scrambled desperately back to his feet, someone grabbed his right arm, his prosthetic arm.
He twisted, kicked out backwards with his foot, felt it connect and heard a grunt of pain.
His arm was still being held.
He spun. Two men, one with the big glasses. He lashed out with his left arm, punching Four-Eyes in the face, straight in the glasses, sending him reeling backwards, then he lashed out at the other, much younger man who was still holding his arm. Aimed a kick at his groin, but the officer dodged it and Mickey lost his footing, tripping backwards, falling, his entire weight supported now by the man holding his arm.
As he staggered back, trying desperately to keep on his feet, he picked up the wheel brace and registered the momentary shock on the officer’s face. Then he rushed him, headbutting him with all his strength, and heard a crunch as he did so.
The officer, blood spurting from his shattered nose, fell to the ground. Mickey sprinted again, past a parked van with amber roof lights, and out through the far end of the shed into chilly early morning air and falling rain, into darkness and towards the lights of the town beyond.
Safety.
A voice yelled from the darkness, ‘Stop, Police!’ Flashlight beams struck him, and an instant later two police officers, one a man-mountain, hurtled from seemingly nowhere towards him. Mickey swung the wheel brace at the big one’s head but too late; before it could connect, he felt like he’d been hit by a fridge. A crashing impact, the momentum hurling him face-first to the ground. An instant later there was a dead weight on top of him. A hand gripped the back of his neck, pushing his face down hard onto the wet road surface.
Instantly, using all his survival instincts and martial arts training, Mickey kicked out backwards, catching his assailant by surprise, and in the same split-second reached up, curled his left arm round the man’s thick neck and gave a sharp pull. With a startled croak, the man rolled sideways as if he was as light as a sack of feathers.
Freeing himself, Mickey rose to his feet and, before the startled officer could react, slammed his powerhouse of a southpaw fist into the man’s jaw. As the officer staggered backwards in agony, Mickey sprinted again towards the lights of the town. He overtook several foot passengers and reached the junction with the deserted main road.
Thinking hard and fast.
Glancing over his shoulder.
In the distance, he saw bobbing flashlights. People running, but a good few hundred yards behind him.
He was about to cross the road when headlights appeared. Hesitating in case it was a police car, and ready to melt back into the darkness, he saw it was an Audi with German plates. The driver clocked him and slowed to a halt, putting down his window.
Mickey stared in at a serious-looking man in his thirties in a business suit. In broken English, the man said, ‘Hello, excuse me, I’ve come from the ferry but think I have taken a wrong turning. Would you know the direction towards London?’
Mickey slammed his fist into the side of the man’s neck, aiming it directly at the one place that would knock him unconscious instantly. He opened the door, unclipped his belt and shoved him, with some difficulty, across into the passenger seat. Then he jumped in, familiarizing himself in an instant with the left-hand driving position, and accelerated hard away, ignoring the insistent pinging of the alarm telling him to fasten his belt.
Something more insistent was pinging inside his head.
Get home to Stuie before the police get there.
In his red mist of panic, he figured so long as he got home, everything would be all right. He and Stuie, they were good. They were a team.
‘I’m coming,’ he muttered. ‘Stuie, I’m coming. Going to scoop you up and we’ll head north up to Scotland, lie low for a bit. I got friends there on a remote farm. We’ll be safe there.’
And maybe safe in this car. Had anyone been close enough to see him taking it? He’d have to chance not. He’d call Stuie, who always slept the sleep of the dead, and tell him to get up, pack a bag and be ready to leave the moment he arrived. The way to get him to move fast would be tell him it was a game and that he could bring his chef’s hat!
He put his hand down to the front pocket of his jeans to tug out his phone.