Chapter 6
Tufty held on tight to the steering wheel, knuckles white with the strain, eyes wide, eyebrows trying to clamber their way to safety. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
Logan grabbed hold of Branston.
Barrett babbled away in the background, battering out the words as quickly as possible: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . . JESUS!’
Her womb-fruit must’ve been smiling on them, because at the very last moment the van’s wheels thumped down on the teeny chunk of tarmac left, giving them a bit of grip before the granite setts began.
Hurling them down into darkness, past a cluster of signs: ‘WEAK brIDGE AHEAD ~ 3 TON G.V.W.’, ‘WARNING NO UNAUTHORISED ACCESS BEYOND THIS POINT ~ BARRIER CONTROL OPERATION 300 YDS ~ RESTRICTED TURNING FACILITIES’ and a no-entry-to-cars-and-motorbikes ‘EXCEPT FOR ACCESS’. Which wasn’t exactly inviting . . .
The setts burrrrrred and rumbled beneath the police van’s tortured tyres, making everything vibrate.
Stone walls leapt up on the left, holding the embankment back as the road sank deeper and deeper to a tight right turn – rushing towards them at ever increasing pace.
Even though it hadn’t rained for a week, the van still slithered on the little rectangular blocks, arse-end skittering out as they tried to make the corner, rear wing striking sparks against the granite wall.
But they’d made it to the bottom of the hill alive, and there was Mr FreezyWhip, just ahead.
Steel grabbed her Airwave handset. ‘Grandholm Bridge: heading north!’ A cruel grin snarled across her face as they clattered over the narrow bridge. ‘There’s bollards at the end here. He’s toast.’
An almighty BANG sounded up ahead.
From the look of things, Mr FreezyWhip had rear-ended a bright-red hatchback, presumably as it was in the process of lowering the bollards that kept the vulgar public from accessing the residents-only areas.
The ice-cream van bulldozed across the barrier, while the bollards were down, but the things were already sprouting up from the ground again, ready to catch a poor unsuspecting police van unawares.
Tufty took one hand off the wheel to pull down the sun visor, but all he found there was the sign: ‘DON’T ENCOURAGE HIM!
’ He flipped it up and down again, as if that would change anything.
‘Oh noes!’ Looking more and more panicked with every passing second.
‘Where’s the police pass? WHERE’S THE POLICE PASS? ’
Too late.
The van’s front wheels got past the barrier OK, but the rest of the vehicle wasn’t so lucky. A rising bollard must’ve clipped the underside about two-thirds of the way back, because the back end jerked into the air in an agonised screech of metal-on-metal.
And everyone was screaming again.
The rear wheels thudded down against the setts and Tufty hauled the wheel to the right, to avoid ploughing straight into that rear-ended hatchback, flinging everyone sideways. Then they raced along the mill road: parkland on one side; a line of trees on the other, with the River Don just beyond.
Only now an alarming grinding noise came from somewhere under the van, and the exhaust howled and roared like a werewolf locked in a train-station toilet.
They snarled along beneath the spreading branches, through the dappled pools of shimmering light.
Technically, they should’ve been gaining on Mr FreezyWhip, but whatever the bollards had done to the drive chain it wasn’t good. The van was slowing down. And a quick glance in the rear-view mirror revealed clouds of greasy blue smoke filling the leafy lane.
But instead of making good his escape, Charles MacGarioch slammed on Mr FreezyWhip’s brakes – the front end dipping as the tyres slithered on the setts.
The ice-cream van lurched right, leaving the road and crashing between the trees at the side of the river, through the bushes. Momentarily flying – like a big, fat, rectangular swan – before diving nose-down into the River Don in a huge whoosh of spray.
A wrinkly clutch of old ladies stood in the middle of the road, staring as the ice-cream van bobbed in the fast-flowing water.
Most of them had ancient dogs on the leash, except for one who appeared to be walking her husband.
And he was the only one who seemed oblivious to the fact that if MacGarioch hadn’t swerved into the river, he would’ve ploughed through them like brittle meaty skittles.
Tufty whacked his brakes on too, and the police van shuddered to a stop – right next to the hole that Mr FreezyWhip punched through the undergrowth.
The doors flew open, and everyone piled out.
Logan scrambled over to the riverbank, the rest of the team hot on his heels.
The ice-cream van drifted downstream a dozen feet or so, sinking and turning as it went – that open serving hatch not helping with the buoyancy.
Then it must’ve hit something below the surface, because there was a metallic thunk and the whole thing keeled over sideways in the swollen river until all four wheels were in the air.
Followed by a muffled bang as it wedged against a rock and stayed there, with everything but the wheels and undercarriage fully submerged.
No sign of Charles MacGarioch. And no sign of whoever was selling ice cream to the kids, back in Tillydrone.
Crap.
That was all they needed – two dead, drowned bodies to round off a perfect sodding day.
Steel dragged her eyes from the van to Logan, mouth stretched out and down, like a worried frog.
‘Stand back!’ Tufty strode towards the water’s edge. ‘Tufty to the rescue!’
The silly wee sod was just about to leap in when Barrett grabbed him by the back of the stabproof – hauling him up short. ‘Don’t be a divot!’
‘But the ice-cream man . . .?’
Logan stripped off his jacket and clip-on tie. ‘You’ll sink like an anvil, with all that gear on.’ Then struggled his way out of his shoes, gave himself a nod, and jumped into the river.
Bloody hell . . .
The day might’ve been roasting, but the water wasn’t – swollen by all of last week’s rain, it was like an ice bath, only fast flowing, and with the occasional bit of tree being swept downstream.
Come on, you idiot: swim.
He struck out towards Mr FreezyWhip.
Branston trotted along the riverbank beside him for five or six feet, then leapt in with a hairy sploosh. Because as far as a huge police Alsatian was concerned, today just kept getting better and better!
Steel had her Airwave out again: ‘Target vehicle has crashed into the river. Officer has gone in to rescue civilian. Now where’s my bastarding backup?’
As she paced the riverbank, Tufty and Barrett stripped off their heavy stabproof vests and massive utility belts.
Good.
Why should Logan be the only one getting soaked?
He reached the overturned, sunken van – grabbing a tyre to stop being swept away. Which seemed to be the last straw for the vehicle, because everything left above the water sank with a glooomp.
Logan hauled in a deep breath and dived down after it.
Visibility wasn’t great beneath the surface – silt, stirred up by the swollen river and caught in the blistering sunshine, turned everything milky, meaning most of the van faded into the glowing murk.
He pulled himself along to the upside-down serving hatch.
Sod.
A figure floated inside, facedown and immobile, in green-and-white-striped dungarees.
Heavyset with a combover that had floated free from his bald pate.
He hung, suspended in the water, surrounded by bobbing wrapped lollies and disintegrating cones.
Scarlet blooming out from a gash across his forehead.
Good job the River Don was relatively shark-free.
Logan grabbed a stripy-dungaree shoulder-strap and pulled, wrestling him out of his drowned vehicle and back to the surface.
Hauling the ice-cream man’s head above the water, and keeping it there.
The fast-flowing river pinned them against one of Mr FreezyWhip’s tyres. Stopping them from being swept off downstream.
Branston, on the other hand, seemed to have found some weird eddy current on top of the inverted ice-cream van. Doggy-paddling around in lazy circles. Happy as a toddler in a paddling pool.
Barrett swam up, treading water as he looked around. ‘Where’s Charles MacGarioch?’
‘Give us a chance!’
Tufty wasn’t far behind. ‘I’ll find him.’ And under he went, Spider-Man socks flashing in the sunshine before the murky river swallowed him whole.
‘Urgh . . .’ Barrett grimaced. ‘This is a stupid game.’ Then followed Tufty into the depths.
Over on the bank, Steel hurried towards a bright-orange lifebuoy, mounted at the side of the road.
Still giving someone a hard time on her Airwave.
‘Yes, but three of them have gone in now, OK? SO DO SOMETHING!’ She yanked and tugged at the ring, snarling and roaring till it popped out of its mount, then dragged it back to the rescue scene.
Fiddling one end of the attached rope free and standing on it, before flinging the buoy, one-handed, upstream of Logan.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Coastguard, fire brigade .
. .’ She scooped up the spare end of rope. ‘Any bugger with a boat would do!’
The ring was swept straight towards Logan, and he grabbed it – wrestling the thing over the unconscious man’s head and shoulders.
Tufty popped up from the murky deep with a gasp. ‘Nope!’ Then disappeared underwater again.
A spluttering Barrett surfaced next, blinking and coughing. ‘Sodding fudgemuggers . . .’ He pulled his way along the sunken van. ‘MacGarioch’s gone.’ Wiping the water from his face. ‘Don’t know if he’s washed away, or what, but there’s zero sign of him.’
Great.
Tufty resurfaced a second time. ‘More nope.’ He took a big breath and bobbed up, ready to have another go.
‘Hoy!’ Barrett waved at him. ‘Stop, you daft . . .’
But Tufty was gone again.
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Logan shoved the ice-cream man at Barrett. ‘Get him back to shore.’
A confused look. ‘Where are you—’
‘To find the daft wee loon.’ Logan ducked under the water, half-swimming, half-pulling himself along the side of Mr FreezyWhip, hunting idiots. Past the serving hatch and on to the passenger door.
At least the window was open.
The driver’s one too – letting the current barge through the van’s interior, making a pair of ice-cream-cone-shaped furry dice bob and twist above the inverted rear-view mirror.
The windscreen was cracked, but from the look of things it was because of the large boulder the van had wedged itself against, rather than Charles MacGarioch’s head.
There was no sign of him, though. And no sign of Tufty either.
Logan turned, squinting into the milky water, but neither idiot was upstream of Mr FreezyWhip.
So he poked his head through the open passenger window.
The cab was definitely empty.
A gap between the front seats led through to the back of the van – sectioned off by a beaded curtain that undulated like a forest of multicoloured kelp.
Bracing himself against the wing mirror, Logan swung around to the leeward side of the van.
Nothing but more rocks and the skeletal frame of a dead bicycle.
Maybe MacGarioch had been thrown clear in the crash?
If so, he was long gone – swept away downriver.
Might even be halfway to the North Sea by now . . .
And still no sodding Tufty.
Lungs burning, Logan struggled back up, like a breaching whale, bringing a huge spray of water with him. Coughing and gasping, because this underwater-rescue stuff was a shit-load harder than they made it look on TV.
A hand grabbed his arm, hauling him up onto the underside of Mr FreezyWhip, where the water was only thigh deep. And Branston was still slowly twirling.
Tufty pounded Logan on the back a couple of times. ‘You OK, Sarge?’
Over on the riverbank, most of the old ladies had their phones out – some filming Logan’s attempts at deep-sea rescue, the others recording as Barrett and PC MacLauchlan performed CPR on the ice-cream man, while Steel looked on.
Issuing instructions, as she paced back and forth in front of the knackered police van.
Giving someone a bollocking on her Airwave at the same time.
The throat-shredding cough hacked its way to a halt, leaving Logan slumped and wheezing. But at least he had enough breath to give Tufty a good hard thump on the arm. ‘Thought you’d drowned!’
‘Nah. I does has an advanced swimming certificate. And a lifesaving badge.’
Logan thumped him again. ‘You tried to jump in with the full kit on!’
‘Yeah. But they made us rescue rubber bricks in our pyjamas, so I was kinda working on instinct. I is a lifesaving dude.’
Idiot.
So Logan thumped him one more time, for luck.
Extra hard, this time.