But he didn’t even slow down. He charged the fence, and it vibrated like a tuning fork. For a moment she thought he was trying to shoulder his way through, then he swung two of the spiked palings sideways and squeezed through the gap.
Rowan’s eyes widened. ‘Police!’ she yelled. ‘Stop!’
To hell with it — she wasn’t going to lose the bastard now. She ran forward and he tripped over the lower batten of the fence. She dived for his trailing leg, wrapping both arms around his calf. He kicked out, forcing the air from her chest, and Rowan loosened her grip. One more vicious flick of his foot, grazing her cheekbone, and he broke free, but the heel snagged on the batten and he lost his shoe.
Rowan groaned. She was caked in freezing mud, her cheek oozed blood and her lungs creaked with the effort of every breath. She heard car doors open and slam — the two tossers in the unmarked car had finally got moving — but she didn’t wait to see if they followed: she rolled onto her elbows and scrambled head-first through the gap in the fence.
The air stung the raw skin of her cheek and scoured her lungs like wire wool, but she ran on. She was in a freight yard. The fog lay thicker so near the river, and the vans and trucks parked in bays on the litter-strewn concrete were no more than ill-defined smudges.
The man loped on, imbalanced by the loss of his shoe. Rowan heard shouts behind her — Wicksie and his useless oppo. Ahead, a starter motor whined, coughed and caught, and she heard the throaty roar of an HGV engine. The Furman’s shape was a fuzzy grey blur, ten or fifteen yards away. If he got to that truck, the driver wouldn’t know what hit him.
She forced her aching limbs into action, but he was way ahead of her, and she was losing ground. ‘Sod it.’ She stooped to pick up a stray beer bottle and managed a few more steps — enough to close the distance and bring him back into view. The thrum of the truck was louder. Rowan pulled her arm back and lobbed the bottle in a high arc over the Furman’s head, heard it smash, then launched herself into the fog.
The Furman’s shadow was huge, magnified by the fog and the headlights of the oncoming truck. He took two more lurching steps and cried out. Rowan didn’t stop to think; she threw herself in a flying tackle, catching him in the small of the back. He crashed to the ground and she heard glass crunch under his weight. He screamed as shards drove hard into his flesh.
Rowan was on her feet in an instant. With both hands she seized one of the Furman’s arms and twisted it. He bellowed, fighting her, and she stamped on the small of his back, gaining more leverage.
The thrum of the engine grew louder and the twin headlights of the truck lit Rowan and her prisoner. The driver hit the brakes, and the truck came to a bouncing stop with a surprised yelp and a hiss of air from the pneumatic system.
The man writhed and screamed, cursing and bucking under her foot. Her sweat mingled with the clammy cold of the fog and she felt her grip on his wrist slip. She was losing him. She yelled, leaning with all her weight on his hand, summoning that last ounce of strength — for Tasha, for Jade, for all the girls he had hurt.
‘Wicksie!’
A dull thud-thud-thud, then Wicksie, barrel-shaped and panting, appeared out of the fog, trailing wisps of vapour behind him.
He stopped five yards short and burst out laughing. ‘Ride ’im, cowgirl!’
‘Wicksie — for God’s sake, do something useful,’ Rowan gasped.
The Furman bellowed with rage, and she felt him turn, breaking the lock on his wrist. Next, she was in the air, thrown three feet into the grille of the truck. She dropped to the ground, winded, and heard Wicks curse, then a scuffing as the Furman got to his feet.
No air! Three agonizing attempts, then her diaphragm relaxed and Cassie sucked in river mist and diesel fumes.
The Furman had already reached the truck. Rowan heard a yell of dismay and fear, then the sound of flesh hitting concrete. A second later, the truck’s engine roared. He’s thrown the driver out of the cab — Oh God, he’s in the truck!
Wicks screamed an order to stop.
The gears crunched and the truck’s cab seemed to bounce on its axle. Got to move.
Rowan willed herself to her hands and knees as the gears ground again.
For God’s sake, MOVE!
She pushed forward with her fingertips, like a sprinter ready for the starter pistol. Her shoes lost traction on loose grit and beads of glass. The truck lurched forward in a hiss of hydraulics and grinding metal. Rowan threw herself a yard further. The bumper clipped her heel, sending her spinning. She curled into a ball, waiting for the impact, and felt the ground vibrate under her as the truck’s massive wheels rolled past within a millimetre of her.
The truck swerved, smashing two vans out of its path. Rowan unclasped her hands from around her head and struggled unsteadily to her feet. A grey blur came panting through the fog: the new guy, Finch, carrying Rowan’s fake-fur shrug. The truck was almost on him. Rowan yelled, but her voice was drowned out by the howl of the engine. Finch darted left, then right, and finally leapt out of its path. It ploughed on, clipping another van and tearing through the fencing as though it was as insubstantial as the mist.
* * *
The CID office set up a cacophony of catcalls and ironic applause when DC Rowan appeared, still wearing her sex-worker outfit. She flipped two fingers at them; it was Wicksie’s oppo she’d come looking for. She spied him near the photocopier. He was a slender twenty-four-year-old with fine blond hair and the look of an eager spaniel.
‘I want a word with you,’ she said.
Finch froze as all eyes turned to him.
Wicks spoke up: ‘Keep your hand on your tackle, Finch lad — she’s liable to rip them off with her bare teeth!’
More laughter. Rowan scowled at them until they were shamed into silence.
Finch picked up his photocopies, nearly dropped them, recovered, took a step towards her, then turned back to retrieve the original from the copier. It was a miracle he made it across the room without knocking over the furniture.
She waited just outside the doorway — there were things she wanted to say out of Roy Wicks’s earshot.
‘Finch, is it?’
‘Fincham,’ he said. ‘They call me Finch.’
‘What kept you?’
‘The fog?’ Finch avoided her eye.
‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
She glared at him while he stared at his boots.
‘Wicks laid bets I could take the Furman, didn’t he?’ she demanded.
Finch didn’t need to reply, she knew from the guilty look on his face it was true.
‘You should’ve been watching my back,’ she said.
‘Cassie, I’m really—’
‘Don’t apologise,’ she said. ‘Just don’t take your lead from the class clown, okay?’
He nodded, his boyish face dark with shame. ‘I am sorry, though.’ She turned to go. ‘Cassie—’ He hesitated, anxious. ‘Are you going to tell the boss what happened?’
‘It depends what kind of mood she’s in,’ Rowan said. ‘I’ve already had one kicking tonight; I’m not up for another.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your shrug. It’s on my desk.’
She went to her own workstation to find her locker keys; she needed to shower and change.