Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (52)

Tess was still in her dressing gown, and she turned to Erika with a bleak, dead-eyed stare.

‘It’s all gone,’ she said.

‘What’s gone?’ asked Erika, moving around the bed to join her. There was a pool of dirty dishes and mugs on the grubby blue carpet next to the bed, and the wardrobe above the safe was a mess of packed-in clothes on hangers.

‘Money. We had cash in here. Three thousand pounds, and Jasper had some gold jewellery. I opened the safe to take some cash with me, and it’s all gone…’ Erika heard the sound of a police siren and a car pulling up outside. ‘He’s taken it. It must be him. Jasper is the only one who knows the combination for the safe.’

Erika was confused. Tess had just discovered her sister’s dead body, and now she was worrying about what was in her safe.

‘Tess, we need to leave the house, this is now a crime scene,’ she said as gently as possible. She moved to a chair in the corner piled high with clothes; she couldn’t determine if they were clean or dirty. There was a handbag on the arm. ‘Is this your bag?’

Tess was still crouching in front of the empty safe.

‘Yes.’

Erika saw a mobile phone by the bed on a charger and she picked it up and put it in the bag. ‘Please, Tess. I know this is awful for you, but you need to put some clothes on. We need to leave.’





34





Two police officers arrived as Erika and Peterson came out of the house with Tess, who was now dressed, but still dazed and in shock. They were standing out on the pavement when a silver Ford Focus came around the corner, and slowed as it drew close. Erika saw that Jasper was driving. When he saw them standing outside the house with the police car, he put his foot down and shot past.

‘What’s he doing? He saw what was happening,’ said Erika. They watched as the car came to a screeching halt at the end of the road, and then with a roar reversed back to the junction leading to the main road. He turned into it with another screech of rubber, and the car vanished. Peterson looked at Erika.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said.

‘Neither do I, come on,’ said Erika. After quickly handing off Tess to be looked after by one of the uniforms, they jumped in to Erika’s car.

‘He’s heading towards the South Circular,’ said Peterson as Erika started the engine and put the car in gear. They set off towards the junction in pursuit of Jasper, and Peterson gripped the door as Erika floored the accelerator and switched on the blue lights and sirens. She took the left turn with a scream of rubber, and up ahead she saw Blackheath Common, the grass a dirty brown colour.

‘There,’ said Peterson. Jasper’s Ford Focus was already halfway across the Common, waiting at a set of traffic lights.

‘What’s he doing? Why is he running away?’ Erika kept repeating, almost under her breath.

An old lady was about to cross the road in front of them, laden down with shopping bags, but Erika honked the horn and she stepped back, falling into a thick hedgerow.

Peterson looked back at the old lady who was half-standing, half-lying in the hedge, her bags of shopping pooled around her, and oranges rolling into the road. The traffic lights turned green and Jasper sped off, opening out the gap between them. Erika grabbed the radio off the dashboard.

‘This is DCI Erika Foster 34568, in pursuit of a silver Ford Focus by Blackheath Common. We’re heading south towards the A20. Suspect driving is a Jasper Clark, no “e” white male mid-thirties…’

They crossed the junction and sped onward towards another set of traffic lights. Jasper’s car shot over the junction just as the lights turned red. On either side of the road was the common, but it was built up in places and the grass was uneven.

Erika wasn’t going to wait for backup to take over. She slammed the steering wheel to the right and the car bumped and the engine screamed as she drove past the line of traffic between the tarmac and the common, and rejoined the road with a bump. A lorry driving perpendicular over the crossroad screeched to a halt, and they narrowly missed another car coming from the other direction as they shot over the junction and continued in pursuit of Jasper, who was now close to a third set of traffic lights which were green.

‘We have a squad car in Greenwich, on its way over,’ said the voice at control.

‘If you were trying to escape arrest, where would you go?’ asked Erika. The lights up ahead turned amber. She saw Peterson glance at the needle on the speedometer as it hit a hundred mph as she pushed the car over the junction. When they reached the other side, the tarmac was uneven and dipped down. The wheels left the road for a moment and Erika felt her stomach lurch. Peterson pressed his feet to the floor and arms against the door as they landed back down with a bump. They were gaining on Jasper; his car was now twenty metres away.

‘I’d head for the M20, and down to the south coast. Do you think he has a plan?’ said Peterson, who looked a little spooked by Erika’s driving. The radio crackled on the dashboard. Peterson grabbed it.

‘This is control to 34568. Do you have a number plate on the silver Ford Focus?’

‘No, it’s covered in dirt. I can only make out the first two letters, B for Bravo D for David…’ he said.

They were still hurtling along the road with the needle close to a hundred, and there was something in her face, the grim set of her jaw, that made Peterson think she’d do anything to catch this car.