47

The pickup blocked off their escape completely. Steep sides of the cutting hemmed them in on either side, and behind them there was just the tunnel. McLean wasn’t prepared to bet his life that there was a way out the other end. Far more likely it had collapsed many years before.

‘What now?’ Harrison asked, her voice only faltering a little. From where they stood, the windscreen of the truck obscured the face of the driver. McLean had seen that truck before, though, most recently parked at the end of the drive leading to LindSea Farm Estates.

‘Get behind me.’ He pulled Harrison towards him, then placed himself between her and the truck.

‘I don’t need protecting, sir!’

‘Not protecting you, Constable. Shielding you. Get on that phone of yours and find out where that squad car is. We need backup now.’

Harrison made a small sound that might have been ‘oh’, then made a good impression of a frightened young woman hiding behind her braver male champion while she tapped away at her phone. McLean put his arms out wide, like a man trying to ward off a charging bull, all the while hoping that it would distract the driver of the truck long enough for Harrison to get through.

And then his skin tingled, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The temperature dropped, and it felt like thunder in the air even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A strange sensation, almost vertigo, spun his head as something rushed past him, through him. He turned, expecting to see Harrison doing something foolish and heroic, but she was just standing there, eyes wide with fear, frozen to the spot.

‘Wha—?’ Her question was cut off by a scream. McLean whirled back around to face the pickup truck. For a moment he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. It was as if a man was standing half in the bonnet, one arm outstretched towards the windscreen. For a split second that made no sense at all, the man turned his head, looked back.

McLean blinked, and he was gone. The scream turned into the wail of the engine revved harder than it was ever meant to go. The back end of the pickup truck fishtailed as it sped towards them, kicking up twin plumes of dirt from the track behind it. As the steep banking shaded the windscreen from the glare of the sun, he could just about make out the face of the man driving. Gregor Wishaw had never been a killer, if his file was to be believed, but he had been no stranger to violence. Now he seemed possessed with a rage that distorted his features, eyes popping like he was on ketamine, mouth drawn into a spittle-flecked snarl.

‘The tunnel. Quick.’

McLean pulled Harrison away from the steep banking and back to the open personnel door. Closer in, he began to have second thoughts about his decision as the chemical stench washed over the two of them. The pickup was closer now, still speeding up, and there was something about those mad, staring eyes that suggested having a reasoned discussion wasn’t on Wishaw’s mind.

‘Jesus. What’s in here?’ Harrison coughed on the choking air as she stepped into the tunnel. McLean ducked in behind her, moving as swiftly as the darkness would allow to get both of them clear of the roller door. He was vaguely aware of barrels lined up on the tunnel floor, stretching away into the black. Then the truck hit.

The noise set his ears ringing, a screech of twisted metal and broken glass all too horribly reminiscent of the truck crash. The heavy iron roller door buckled under the impact, bending inwards and folding over. They scurried back further into the tunnel, bumping off metal barrels stacked in long lines. McLean felt dampness under his feet, the caustic material eating away at the soles of his shoes. And still the truck, wrapped in rolled door, kept on coming. If it hit these barrels, split them open …

‘Keep moving. Get as far back as possible.’ He coughed out the words as much as shouted, urging Harrison deeper into the tunnel. They squeezed through the narrow gaps, ten, fifteen feet in. McLean risked a glance back, convinced the whole door was going to come crashing down, bring the stone ceiling with it and bury them for ever in this acid grave.

And then finally the truck stalled.

The sound echoed for a while, amplified by the tunnel before dying down to a soft sigh of wind. The roller door creaked ominously, still hanging in its guide runners, but bent and twisted out of shape. Light spilled in around it, illuminating row upon row of rusty metal barrels, piled to the stone arched roof above them. McLean could see drips oozing from most of them, streaks of decay running down the bubbling paint, puddling on the hard packed soil of the floor. The overpowering stench made it almost impossible to breathe in here. He could feel the squat headache bunching at the top of his spine, ready to grab his brain and squeeze it until his eyeballs popped out. Beside him, Harrison swayed, put a hand out to steady herself on one of the barrels.

‘Don’t.’ He grabbed her, almost falling over as her legs buckled and she slumped into his arms. She was lighter than he had been expecting, but still weighty enough.

‘Come on, Janie. Get yourself together.’ He heaved one of her arms over his shoulder and around his neck, struggling back the way they had come. It was worse now, more difficult to manoeuvre the two of them, and he could see better the seeping effluent that neither of them really wanted to touch. It was a miracle they’d not been burned already, but he was fairly sure he’d just condemned yet another suit to the trash.

It took all his effort to carry DC Harrison outside and away from the mess of the truck. Air had never tasted sweeter, and he took deep lungfuls of it after propping her up against the side of the cutting. She stirred woozily, like a Saturday night reveller once the ambulance has arrived.

‘Take it easy. We’re out of there now. Safe.’

Harrison either nodded her understanding or was having difficulty controlling her neck muscles. Either way, McLean left her to recover and returned, reluctantly, to the truck. With it half wedged into the steel shutter, there was no way he was going to be able to open the driver’s door, but he could clamber in through the back. The airbag had gone off, and now its deflated white balloon splayed across Gregor Wishaw’s face, as he slumped over the steering wheel. McLean reached forward, felt a pulse behind the man’s ear. Alive. Good. He had a lot of questions to answer.

Stumbling slightly as he climbed back out of the pickup truck, McLean caught movement in the corner of his eye, turned to see a car approaching slowly along the disused track. For a moment he thought it was someone else come to run them down, then the familiar blue lights on the roof began to flash, the car stopped and a uniform officer climbed out of the passenger side. He wandered up slowly, staring at the tunnel mouth, the twisted metal door, the crashed pickup and then at DC Harrison, still slumped against the steep rock side of the cutting. Finally he stopped, not more than a yard away, spoke in the slow, measured drawl of an East Lothian native.

‘Detective Inspector McLean, I presume.’