It was a busy night in the small emergency medical centre in Sexton Bassett. The nurse practitioner doing triage listened to Stacy’s tale and said she’d have to wait to see the doctor, since her problem clearly wasn’t urgent. ‘We only deal with the minor cases here and there’s been a lot of fighting in town tonight. There’s a group of hoods causing mayhem, and some of them have been using knives on one another. Time the police dealt with them properly.’
As they sat on the hard wooden benches as far away as possible from the irritating programmes on a tinny-sounding television high up on the wall and also at the opposite side from the noisy youths, they watched the hands of a big, old-fashioned clock tick slowly round. They chatted now and then but mostly were silent, both of them tired.
After a while Stacy grew restless. ‘This is a complete waste of your time, Adam. Why don’t you go home? I’ll be perfectly safe here because there are plenty of police around, and I can get a taxi back after the doctor’s finished with me.’
‘Definitely not. I intend to see you right into your house afterwards. Anyway, the crowd of battle-scarred youths seems to be thinning, so you should get in to see a doctor soon. Surely there won’t be any more accidents or fights in the town at this time of night?’
However, thanks to a car accident, it was almost dawn before Stacy managed to see a tired-looking doctor. He listened gravely to her tale, checked her out and swabbed her neck again with disinfectant, as the nurse had done.
‘Best left to heal in the open air, but be sure to keep it clean.’ He made some rapid notes. ‘You don’t need to go for any check-ups at the hospital, because if you had concussion, it’d have shown by now. But the police are right: I can now become your expert witness, if I’m needed. Your attacker must have been rough with you, from the bruising.’
‘That’s why I divorced him.’
‘One of those, eh?’
As they walked outside, she yawned and stretched her arms above her head. ‘Well then, home, James, and don’t spare the horses.’
He smiled. ‘Yes, milady.’
‘I think it’ll be quickest to go up the street before Peppercorn. It’ll get us to the rear entrance near Saffron Lane. If Angus is still around, we’d better let him know I’m OK.’
‘Fine by me.’
‘And Adam, I’m very grateful for your help tonight. If you hadn’t—’ She stopped and shuddered.
‘I was glad to be there for you. Come on, let’s get you into my car.’
An hour or so before dawn, three youths wearing hoodies climbed over the wall of the parking area where the council vehicles were kept, laughing at the useless barbed wire on top of the surrounding wall as they covered it with an old quilt and got inside without a problem. All were wearing black and they took care not to expose their faces to the two old-fashioned CCTV cameras as they checked out the vehicles.
‘I wonder why that guy suddenly wanted us to wait till this time to do the job?’ Sevvy asked.
Raff led the way across to the trucks. ‘How the hell should I know? Maybe he knew something we didn’t. As long as he’s paying so well, he can give me orders.’
‘Something must have happened to make him change the time of our job, though, and he should have told us what it was. For all we know, the police may still be hanging around the town centre. We’re both over 18 now and—’
‘Aw, shut your face and let’s get on with it. You want to attract the attention of the fuzz once we get out of here, remember. Drive your truck past a few CCTV cameras, the ones people bother to watch.’ They sniggered because they both knew which ones were imitation cameras. ‘Ditch the truck as soon as you’re sure you’ve got them following you. Don’t stay in it for too long.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You’ve told me that three times already, Raff, and I know exactly where I can run it into a garden without a wall and get away quick-smart down the side of the house. Now let’s get these trucks started.’
By then the third youth had undone the locks on the big gates. He pushed them open before running across to cover the CCTV cameras and then join the others. ‘There you are.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve got eyes.’
‘Where’s my money, then?’
Raff passed him two banknotes and he kissed them before running off.
Sevvy was still worrying. ‘Hurry up and get those trucks started! It’s gonna be light soon. I don’t like doing this sort of job in daylight. You should have told him we’d do it tomorrow instead.’
‘He’s not the sort you tell. Anyway, he’s paying us good money an’ it won’t take long now. No one will see you. People are still in bed, not on their way to work yet.’
They drove both the big trucks away but Raff parked his on the edge of an industrial area and waited, engine still running, but with the window open so that he could listen carefully. When he heard the sound of police sirens in the distance, he waited. Then his mobile phone rang just once. Raising his fists in a victory sign, he set off again. He was going to enjoy doing this little job. He really enjoyed smashing things up.
The job itself didn’t make any sense but who the hell cared? The money promised was good and it’d be fun. What more could you ask?
Angus heard the sound of a truck approaching and ran upstairs, staring out of the back window of Number 2, from which he had the best view of the approaches to Saffron Lane from the nearby street.
To his dismay he saw a truck barrelling down the street towards the entrance. It came straight through it, tyres screeching a protest as the truck was swung to the right into a screeching semi-skid by a very skilful driver.
Angus groaned and thumped his fist on the windowsill, helpless to do anything but watch as the truck smashed into the rear wall of the first house.
The vehicle had barely come to a halt before a youth jumped down and ran off into the distance, shrill, hysterical-sounding laughter trailing behind him in the still night air.
He’d left the engine running but it was making rough coughing noises, and after a moment it stopped completely, steam and dust clouding the air.
Angus closed his eyes in anguish, knowing he couldn’t catch the guy. In spite of all his care, he hadn’t saved the first house. The only tiny consolation was that the truck hadn’t pushed on through the wall to do more damage. Strange, that. He would have expected such a big truck to smash right through such a small house.
This must have been organised on purpose, and whoever had done it had unerringly hit a weak spot in their defences. But then, who would expect someone to ram an expensive truck into a row of houses? It must have been stolen. He peered at the logo on its side, crumpled but easily recognisable: a council truck.
A skinny youth had leapt down from it, not a grown man, so it must have been a joyrider, damn him!
He rang 999 as he ran down the stairs and out into the grey, predawn light. While reporting the incident, he suddenly smelled petrol and told the emergency services responder about that, which had the woman promising rapid attendance.
He went to stand some distance away in case of an explosion, praying the truck wouldn’t catch fire and destroy the historical material inside.
It didn’t burst into flames but something strange happened. The wheels at the outer side of the vehicle began to sink, as if the ground was giving way beneath them. The truck started tilting very slowly forward, like a majestic hippopotamus sinking into a lake.
What the hell was happening? Were the foundations of the house giving way?
No, it couldn’t be that because the front corner of the truck sank down further than the others, quite a long way, and when it stopped, it was well below the level of any foundations he’d ever seen. And the houses didn’t have cellars.
Had the crash caused a sinkhole? Could you cause one or did they just happen? Whatever it was, he could do nothing about it but wait for someone to arrive and make things safe.
The truck stopped, crazily tilted, with one rear corner right up in the air and the front corner diagonally opposite that way down in the ground. He got out his phone and took a photo. At least he had these houses insured.
He looked along the street and saw Elise looking out of the window and waved to her to stay there.
The silence seemed to throb around him and he closed his eyes briefly for a moment, then he pulled himself together and phoned Nell.
‘I heard the noise. I’m already on my way to join you. That sounded to be one hell of a crash.’
He told her what had happened and a few seconds later she came racing through the grounds to fling herself into his arms. Then they waited together for the police to arrive, not going near the truck. If there was any evidence in or near it, they didn’t want to contaminate it and though it hadn’t exploded into flames and the engine had cut out, thank goodness, the smell of petrol was still very strong.
Elise came out of Number 3 with mugs of coffee and the three of them stood waiting for the police to arrive.
‘That truck looks like it belongs in a surreal painting,’ Elise commented at one stage.
‘I can’t understand why that side of the house hasn’t caved in completely,’ he said a couple of times.
Mostly they were silent.
When they’d finished Elise took the mugs from them. ‘I’ll go and slip some clothes on and put these in the kitchen.’
Angus and Nell walked up and down the street, listening for help coming. The worst was that they couldn’t do anything but watch the truck and pray it wouldn’t explode.
If this was rapid attendance, it was taking a hell of a long time.