Chapter 5
Logan barged out of MacGarioch’s bedroom into the lounge, not slowing down. ‘GET THE VAN!’
Steel, MacLauchlan, and Barrett stared as he charged straight through into the hall.
‘NOW!’
Harmsworth was on his way back with the Big Red Door Key – so presumably he’d taken the sodding long way round. He let out a little ‘Eeek!’ and flattened himself against the wall to let Logan hammer past. ‘What? Where are we . . . Eeek!’
Steel’s voice bellowed as she sprinted after him. ‘SECURE THE SCENE!’
The sound of a mini-battering-ram hitting carpet clattered out, followed by a ‘Bumholes . . .’
And Logan wheeched around the balustrades and onto the stairs. Taking them two at a time. Then leaping whole flights in the rush to the ground floor, closely followed by PD Branston, who seemed to be having the Best Day At Work Ever!
Tufty scrambled along after her, then Steel, Barrett, and PC MacLauchlan – waving Branston’s lead about as if that was going to curtail her enthusiasm. ‘Wait up, wait up!’
Logan swung around the last flight and there were the uniformed PCs, milling about at the bottom, like wet farts.
He barrelled straight past them, making for the front door. ‘You four: out the back! He’s getting away!’
And off they jolly-well buggered.
The door boomed wide, and Logan exploded into the baking sun, slithering to a halt on the parched grass in front of the badly parked police van.
No keys.
Tufty burst from the building’s door, hoofing around to the driver’s side – plipping the locks and clambering inside. ‘Which way?’
Good question.
Logan scrambled into the passenger seat, sweat popping between his shoulder blades, because the whole van was at gas-mark six.
But before he could haul the door shut, PD Branston leapt over him and into the middle seat.
Sitting there between the two of them, with her gob open, tongue lolling, very pleased with herself.
The engine roared.
‘Sarge?’
Logan clicked his seatbelt on. Pointed left. ‘Step on it!’
The police van scrunked backwards, off the ‘RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY’ sign and onto the tarmac, turning hard so it was facing down Gort Lane, as Steel, Barrett, and MacLauchlan stumbled out of Block Four.
They hauled open the side door and all three of them piled in.
Steel dove into a seat. ‘Don’t just fudging sit there: go!’
‘We has a hot pursuit!’ Tufty put his foot down, making the tyres squeal, sending blue smoke billowing into the hot afternoon air – then the van shot forward, clumping up onto the pavement to get around the patrol car blocking the road.
Nearly losing a wing mirror to a communal recycling bin, then clumping back onto the tarmac again, soon as they’d passed the second roadblock vehicle.
At the bottom of the lane, Tufty gave the wheel a hard twist to the right, and the van’s back end kicked out, leaving smears of burnt rubber on the sun-baked tarmac – curling in the wing mirror as they fishtailed onto Gordon’s Mills Road. Narrowly missing a bluebottle-green ?koda.
Yeah . . .
Disco time.
Logan hit the dashboard button, and the van’s siren wailed, blue lights flickering and swirling as they roared back towards town.
They’d just wheeched through the pedestrian crossing when Barrett banged on the roof. ‘That’s him!’ turning to point through the back windows. ‘That’s him there!’
Tufty slammed on the brakes and the ABS kicked in, juddering the van to a halt as Charles MacGarioch hurple-jogged across the road in the rear-view mirror. ‘Got it!’
He whacked the gearstick into reverse, and they were whining backwards, at speed. Past the bus stop, where a lone auld mannie ogled at them. Stopping halfway across the pedestrian crossing.
Logan threw the passenger door open and tumbled out. ‘HOY!’ Sprinting towards the tree-battered figure scrambling his way over the chest-high wall at the side of the road.
Barrett rumbled the side door back, leaping free of the van, handcuffs at the ready . . . but they were both too slow. Charles MacGarioch disappeared straight down. For the second time that day.
Logan peered over the wall. ‘Sod.’
A twenty-foot drop, not quite vertical – the steep slope densely overgrown with elder and hawthorn and jaggedy-sharp brambles.
Down there, on the road below, a red Kia’s hazards flashed, security system wailing as the driver blundered out into the hot afternoon to gawp at the large new dent in her car’s roof. The windscreen all cracked and opaque.
The car alarm clashed with the more familiar jingly tinkle of ‘Greensleeves’ coming from the mysterious ice-cream van that had haunted the afternoon – it was parked outside a modern block of flats, with a line of kids gathered by the serving hatch.
Others already munching on their purchase and staring at the accident.
A bit of theatre to go with their Pokey Hats and Funny Feet.
A cavalcade of copyright-infringing cartoon characters frolicked all over the van, along with the words ‘MR FREEZYWHIP’S ICEALICIOUS TREATS!’ in bright cheerful letters. And perched on top: an eight-foot-long fibreglass 99 cone, complete with red sauce.
Charles MacGarioch limped into view, glancing over his shoulder at Logan and Barrett, his face covered in scrapes and scratches from the recent trampoline-tree trauma and downhill bramble scramble.
Logan stood on his tiptoes, scanning the slope for an easier / less painful way down. The main road had a turn-off about four hundred feet further along, that doglegged around onto Papermill Gardens, where Charles MacGarioch was limping his way towards Mr FreezyWhip’s ice-cream van.
OK.
‘HOY!’ Logan waved at Tufty, then pointed at the junction. ‘That way! We’ll cut him off!’ He slapped Barrett on the shoulder and clambered over the wall, crackling and snapping and shoving and half-falling his way down the steep drop and out onto the road below, emerging next to the wailing Kia.
Up on Gordon’s Mills Road, the police van Dopplered away.
MacGarioch yanked open Mr FreezyWhip’s driver’s door and clambered in behind the wheel.
‘Gah . . .’ Barrett staggered out of the undergrowth, looking as if he’d been pulled through several hedges sideways.
Spitting out spiders’ webs and bits of leaves.
He curled a mocking lip at the ice-cream van.
‘Well, he’s not going to get very far in that, is he.
Probably only does about ten miles an hour. ’
Mr FreezyWhip’s engine snarled into life and the chimes grew louder. Then the kids scattered as the van leapt forward, bouncing through a shrubbery border, and across another bit of the car park, slaloming between parked hatchbacks, onto the tarmac and hammering it off into the distance.
Sod . . .
Logan sprinted after it.
He’d barely gone half a dozen paces before the police van appeared at the far end of the road, roaring towards them as Mr FreezyWhip accelerated away. On a collision course.
The silly buggers were going to play chicken, weren’t they.
Because young men were thick and invincible.
Till they fatally weren’t.
Thankfully, someone more sensible than Tufty must’ve intervened, because the police van swerved at the last moment, stomping on its brakes to avoid wrapping itself around a lamp-post.
Unsurprisingly, Mr FreezyWhip didn’t stop.
Logan and Barrett ran for the police van, scrambling inside just as Tufty completed his three-point turn.
PD Branston was still in the centre seat, beaming away as if this was the most fun she’d had in years.
Useless sod. What was the point of having a police dog if it didn’t chase and bite the bad guy?
‘Where the hell were you?’
Branston barked a happy bark, not in the least bit bothered.
Then everyone got shoved back into their seats as Tufty floored it again.
Up ahead, Mr FreeezyWhip performed an expert drift around from Papermill Gardens onto Papermill Drive, then opposite lock onto Gordon’s Mills Road – smooth as a classic Magnum.
Tufty wasn’t quite so slick, and the police van squealed and lurched through the two turns, wallowing like a speedboat, throwing the occupants against the van’s walls, seatbelts, and each other.
It looked as if Charles MacGarioch hadn’t been wasting his time, playing all those rally and driving games – weaving Mr FreezyWhip in and out of the traffic, both oncoming and outgoing, sometimes up onto the pavement, sometimes roaring into the empty gaps.
But always absolutely pelting it as ‘Greensleeves’ tinkled out.
Tufty was having a tough job keeping up, and it was sodding boiling in here, so Logan buzzed the window down to let in a roar of air and sirens.
There was an appreciative woof, and PD Branston lumped her paws into Logan’s lap so she could stick her head out of the window, partially blocking his view of the road with her big hairy back, tail wagging away inches from Tufty’s face.
A much greyer head popped forwards from the back of the van: Steel, Airwave handset in her hand.
Pressing the button as they raced past bungalows and a startled minibus full of boy scouts.
‘Alpha Charlie Six to Control – we are in pursuit of an ice-cream van, heading north on Gordon’s Mills Road. Request backup ASA-fiddling-P!’
There was a pause, then a distorted voice crackled from the little speaker, ‘Hud oan: an ice-cream van?’
‘Backup! Get us some sodding backup before someone dies!’ She let go of the button, and thumped Logan. ‘This is what happens when we don’t have a buggering helicopter.’
Barrett held up a hand. ‘That’s another two quid in the swear jar.’
She turned and gave him the middle-finger salute.
Up ahead, just visible through Branston’s brown-and-black fur, an old lady with an ancient Labrador was three-quarters of the way across the pedestrian crossing by Tillydrone Play Park.
Standing there, like a statue, eyes wide, clutching the dog’s lead as Charles MacGarioch jinked Mr FreezyWhip into the oncoming traffic to avoid battering straight through her.