Charlie sped through the streets, bullying the cars out of her way. She was unfamiliar with London, so even with the blues and twos on she kept finding herself blocked by the rush hour traffic. Motorists in the capital moved over begrudgingly, as if an unfolding emergency was merely an irritating inconvenience. Add to that the danger posed by cyclists and couriers who flashed by without warning and you had a particularly challenging driving environment. Charlie was glad this was going to be a one-off.
She had questioned Stonehill for another hour, before deciding to call time on it. The excitement of the morning had dissipated and Stonehill was exhausted, stumbling over the details of his past crimes. Charlie was happy, however, that he had given them enough – he had confessed to the murders and added sufficient detail to exonerate Helen Grace.
She should have been cheered by this news. It had been a long and arduous journey to this point, but still she felt no satisfaction. She had been trying to get hold of the authorities at Holloway all day, but had hit a brick wall. They were in the midst of a full-scale riot, so an element of distraction was forgivable, but their continued silence made Charlie uneasy. Helen was alone in that prison, without a protector and with few friends, while a serial killer was at large.
Charlie knew instinctively that Helen wouldn’t sit idle while innocent women were being murdered, which would inevitably put her own life in danger. Now something told Charlie she needed to get to Holloway fast.
Suddenly there was a break in the traffic and Charlie stamped on the accelerator. The car leapt forward and she shot into the gap, but no sooner had she done so than a lorry pulled out abruptly right in front of her. Charlie slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt less than half a yard from the lorry’s side. The startled foreign driver looked terrified, raising his hands in abject apology, but Charlie was already reversing.
‘Move back. Move back,’ she shouted at the cars behind that were boxing her in.
They started to move, but all too slowly and suddenly Charlie felt tearful – fear, tension and sheer exhaustion finally getting the better of her. She had a terrible foreboding that something dreadful was about to happen, a final twist in the tale. She had come so far. She had helped prove Helen’s innocence. Surely she wouldn’t be robbed of her victory at the eleventh hour?