Baz had thought about calling the Old Bill, but he knew what they’d say. Just a drunk, deal with him yourself. Tell him to sod off home and sleep it off.

Baz stared out of the kiosk window. Lit up in the harsh glare of the strip-lights, he felt like a goldfish in a bowl. Talk about a sitting fucking duck. His dad would sort the nutjob out all right, but at this time of night he’d probably be paralytic himself. Baz had no choice but to wait until the idiot wandered off again.

He idly wondered about the reinforced glass in the kiosk. How strong was it really? What if the guy turned nasty and lobbed a brick or something — would it hold? There was a lot of money in the safe and no one had collected it tonight.

He stared at the wacko on the forecourt. Why the hell didn’t someone pull in? A car full of leery lads, a traffic car even. The local Burger King had closed for a refit, so they would sometimes pull in here for crisps or a sandwich. Just not when he needed them. Baz sighed. Tomorrow he was off to Tesco to try and get a job stacking shelves. He wasn’t going to have another night like this, no way.

Suddenly, the man jumped up and ran towards him, throwing himself at the glass with his palms against it, and staring. He didn’t seem to see Baz in there. Baz cried out, started back. Then he saw the guy’s shirt front. It was stained dark red.

This time, Baz didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his phone and dialled 999.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

The first thing Jackman did on arriving was to check through the log of overnight calls and incidents. He was still reading it when Marie arrived. Jackman smiled at her cheerful face and decided to leave off worrying about her new boyfriend.

She sat down opposite him. ‘Morning, boss. I gather from the absence of nocturnal telephone calls that our man gave us a night off?’

‘Morning, Marie. Seems that way. Nothing reported from Uniform. In fact, apart from an RTC on the main road and some drunk terrorising a petrol station attendant, the night passed without incident.’ He noticed that she wasn’t wearing leathers. ‘Left your brute of a Tiger in the garage today?’

She nodded ruefully. ‘I saw the weather forecast before I came out. The warm spell is about to break. Heavy rain and high winds coming in later today, so I opted for the car.’

‘At least driving rain will make it more difficult for our Spiderman,’ Jackman said. ‘People close their windows, and drainpipes can be treacherous. If we’re lucky, we could have more than one night off.’ He recalled that bad weather had deterred even Ratty Jones.