PURSUIT
Chapter 4 - Awakening
About a quarter past three the following morning I was disturbed from my slumbers by the noise of Peter's dog barking. At least, I assumed it was Peter's dog for I have to admit that one dog sounds much like another to me. However, the sound was quite close and seemed to be coming from inside the house.
Next I heard Peter's bedroom door open and him descend the stairs. I thought I had better follow to see what was going on and quickly grabbed a few clothes to wrap round me. I found Peter by the back door with his dog, a large Dalmation, who was pawing to be let out.
"May be prowlers about" Peter gruffed. He unlocked the door and in a flash the dog was out. Just as quickly he stopped, rigid, listening and presumably sniffing. We held our breaths. Another instant and he was off again, bolting round the side of the house. We followed.
As we rounded the building I could just see Peter's garage faintly outlined by the nearest street lamp and I thought I saw something moving nearby. Then I heard the sound of someone scrambling up on to the garage roof; as we came alongside a foot disappeared over the top. The dog was going frantic, trying to climb vertically up the side wall of the garage. Peter and I ran into the back garden to get a better view but at that moment we heard a heavy thump and loud rustle in the garden next door as the escapee jumped from his pinnacle. We both rushed out to the front again in time to see our interloper emerge from the driveway of the property next door and start running up the road. The dog, who had joined us, saw him too and, with head down and legs pumping, charged after him. Just as the dog was about to pounce, the door of a car opened alongside the fleeing man, in he flew and off raced the vehicle. The dog must have known that to give chase would be fruitless, for he stood forlornly panting by the kerb.
As for me, the events of the last couple of days were beginning to close in around me and it was now my turn to stand speechlessly gazing into the middle distance, seeing nothing.
The next thing of which I became aware was Peter emerging from the house with a torch, Coming out of my reverie I joined him in scrutinising where the intruder had been and the first thing we noticed was a sprinkling of broken glass. The garage stood apart from the house and we discovered that our man had broken the window; it seemed he had been trying to enter the garage by this route. We opened the main garage door and looked around the inside but could not see that anybody had managed to get as far as clambering in. There was no damage to my car, which Peter had let me put under cover there for the night.
"Why break into the garage, rather than the house?" asked Peter with a quizzical look on his face. "There's nothing in there of any value".
"Except my car!" I retorted. "I was quite happy to leave it in the road but..."
"The garage was empty" Peter interrupted wearily "and you said yourself that you may as well stow your car away for the night".
"Sorry, Peter. I'm not blaming you but it does seem strange". I frowned and at that moment the first element of doubt that all was not as it had seemed began to form in my mind.
"Do you think this was connected with that business earlier in the multi-storey car park?". Peter had asked the very question which had just started to puzzle me and, in that fraction of a second while I considered, it flashed across my mind what the implications might be if the answer were yes. I did not reply.
"Don't you think we should call the police?" Peter tried again.
"No. I mean, not yet. What can they do at this time of night? Apart from the broken window there's apparently no other harm done. Why don't I drop you off at a police station in the morning and you can explain all?".
"Well, I suppose you're right". Peter said this hesitantly and looked at me a bit strangely but he seemed to have accepted that what I said was logical. I was still not ready to have anything to do with the police. That germ of doubt I had a moment ago, though, was already beginning to grow in my mind. I endeavoured to appear unconcerned and tried to get Peter and the dog back inside the house as soon as possible so I could go to bed and think.
Some twenty minutes later I was to be found back in the spare bed, gazing thoughtfully into an empty coffee cup. My embryonic understanding of what was going on around me began to germinate and, unless the two attacks on my car within the space of a few hours had been merely a coincidence (which I now doubted), I had thought of something which could link the two incidents. If I was right, the car which had sped away from the multi-storey car park was the same one that had driven off with the midnight prowler. I was sure it would be back at daybreak. I did not think they would try and repeat their escapade in the remaining hours of darkness knowing that the household, including the dog, was on the alert.
As I tried to think myself deeper into the web, I felt more assured than at any time in the past 36 hours or so. I started to set my plans. What little remaining sleep I managed was punctuated with all sorts of schemes, which eventually crystallised into clear and determined intentions.
Peter and I breakfasted together, then I packed away my gear into the car which I backed out of the garage. It now stood proudly on the drive, defiant against the intrusion of the small hours. Daylight confirmed that the only damage was to the garage window and sill and on my way out of town I deposited Peter at a police station for him to report the incident.
Being a Sunday morning, the roads were fairly quiet and I was able to keep looking in my rear view mirror until I saw what I had anticipated: the car of the night before. It was not obviously following me - being some distance behind with a couple of cars in between - but as I began to implement the plans I had made to lose this follower, by zig-zagging through the city, it became more obvious that I was being followed. Every time I turned a corner I would see in my mirror, a few seconds later, my pursuer also swing round behind me.
The thrill of the chase started my adrenalin pumping. I speeded up; I took sharp corners without indicating; I raced for traffic lights hoping they would turn to red immediately behind me. Still I was doggedly followed, until we came to a large roundabout where mercifully there was rather more traffic including, unusually for a Sunday, a couple of approaching lorries. I tore towards this roundabout keeping watch all the time on the stream of traffic nearing it. There was no way I could ordinarily have joined this flow but I kept up my momentum and at the last second shot through a gap between a lorry and a van. Instantly I saw headlights flash, fists raised; heard squealing brakes and horns sounding; smelt the acrid smell of burning rubber as the van braked hard. Another few seconds and that was all behind me as I drove almost on two wheels round that roundabout and shot down one of the exit roads. My heart was pounding.
At the next road junction, which I was upon very quickly, I turned left and then immediately off to the right again on a smaller road. For the first time since the roundabout I dared to look in my rear view mirror: this time no car came round the corner behind me. Before very much longer I was hopelessly lost in a sprawling housing estate but eventually, feeling very sure of myself, I managed to get back on track and started climbing out of the city towards Derbyshire.
© Richard Farquharson, Maulden, Bedfordshire June 2017