The patrol car took the winding country lanes at a steady fifty. There were three officers on board, two male coppers in their forties and a WPC. Sergeant Bailey was not impressed with the call out, particularly as it was from a different department, especially because it was from Slade, for fuck’s sake.
They all knew Slade, all knew his reputation. He was a seventies throwback, a renegade, a retard, as far as they were concerned. Yes, they would answer the urgent call, but only because he outranked them, even if he was a Bristol boy. Fucking City Coppers. It was all choppers and riot squads with them. They needed to take it easy. Swindon was a quiet beat. Joy riders, burglars and the odd perv flashing his dick. And here was Slade with his latest bugbear. Four murders on this case already and still Sweeney Slade hadn’t pulled a perp. About time he put his own squad in order before he called hardworking coppers out in the middle of the night to chase fucking wild geese.
They took the last bend before the Malmesbury Estate and Constable Probert changed up to fourth as the squad car eased into the final stretch. Headlights were turning out of the entrance ahead, and they were on full, blinding the PC. Probert flashed his in warning, but the lights came on, still full beam.
“That bastard’s going fast,” Bailey said.
WPC Greene stiffened in the back. “They’re coming right at us, Sarge!”
She was right, Bailey realized. He could see the Transit now, as their own beams picked out the dirty white of its bodywork, the filth obscuring the windscreen.
“Turn the fucking wheel, you prick!” he roared at Probert. The PC locked the wheel to the left. Tyres screamed. It looked like they might just make it. But the Transit put on its own little burst of speed and hogged the centre of the road, coming on like a steel bull.
The front grill powered into the driver’s side, slamming the car across the road, tipping it up and over into the ditch.
Bailey’s world revolved. His neck lurched against the safety belt, the side of his head smacked against the glass of the passenger door. The car was on its side, its engine screaming like a heavy metal guitar solo. Probert hung above Bailey, suspended in his belt, blood dribbling from his open mouth. WPC Greene was moaning in the back.
Bailey took control. He reached forward, twisted the ignition key to off, then unbuttoned his belt. Next, he used his riot stick to smash out the windscreen. He certainly wasn’t going to escape through the passenger door: that side of the car was wedged deep in the ditch. He forced his way out through the shattered glass, sliding down the upended hood into the mud of the ditch. He put out his hand to help Greene follow him, then scrambled around the car to try to get at Probert. No good: the driver’s side was up in the air. He would have to scramble across the hood again and pull him out through the windscreen.
“Get an ambulance!” he yelled at Greene, “And backup!”
A huge figure appeared at the side of the road. Bailey looked up. The figure owned a face right out of horror hell. There were two others behind him. The Transit was parked behind them, its grill buckled. The engine idled.
The chopper was overhead now. Slade could hear it as the Bentley flew along the twisting lanes. Swindon had gone dead on the HT. This was a proper blackout. This was crazy. But he had communication with the copter, and they were telling him the worst: Swindon patrol car upended in a ditch. Bodies lying in and beside the road. Three: all uniformed.
Slade hammered the Bentley round the last bend. “And the TV guys?”
The pilot responded dolefully. More bodies. No sign of life anywhere.
The chopper was over the grounds now. Slade could see the strobing search beams lighting up the night. He saw the crashed patrol car up ahead and slammed the brakes.
He and Whitley got out and ran over to the first of the bodies. A woman. Pretty once. Now her eyes, her breasts, were gone. Slade straightened, didn’t need to look over at the other two corpses to appreciate how badly mutilated they were.
Whitley was crouching over the corpse of the sergeant. Slade had never liked him; Bailey was a bully and a minor racist. But he was a police officer, and he certainly didn’t fucking deserve this. His intestines were looped in the dust of the road.
“The fucker’s been eating him,” Whitley said, shocked despite his experience of many depravities during twenty years on the force. “Bite marks on his fucking intestines, guv. The mad bastard was scarfing down Bailey’s guts!”
Slade stood in the country road at two o’clock in the morning and had nothing to say to his DS. He stared at the bodies scattered like disfigured toys, and his mind reeled.
The chopper droned overhead. The HT in Slade’s Bentley crackled, just audible over the sound of the rotor blades. He could hear the pilot’s voice clearly. “Repeat: no sign of life. I’m going to take her down beyond the perimeter fence. No wait! Three people running towards me. Waving. Survivors, DI Slade: we have survivors.”
Slade came out of his daze, strode to the car.
“Copy that. On my way in.”
He climbed back in the squad car and headed for the entrance. They passed the other police vehicle parked just inside the open gate. PCs Keill and Barnes were positioned in their seats, almost reverentially. Slade took one look at the blood, the gaping wounds, and drove on up the track.
The chopper was coming down beyond the trees, its blades whipping the branches, the searchlights flicking among the cabins and tents beyond. As Slade bumped the Bentley over the track past the unit base, he saw more bodies, some lying in the grass, one—Helen, the Second AD with the cute ass—sprawling half way down the steps from the production office trailer Slade had requisitioned from her. Blood was drying on her ruptured chest. Her upside down eyes were levelled on Slade’s as he passed.