The Stone Gallows Read Online Free PDF Page A

outside. Hell, I would have mounted the pavement if I had needed to.
    No Merc.
    Where was it?
    9.
    The slam of the taxi door woke Sonata Blue up, and she started to cry.
    Maria shrieked, covering the top of her baby’s head with frantic kisses.
    â€˜Thank God. Thank God. You’re alright. Thank God.’ She hugged the bundle to her, feeling the hot tears on her cheek. ‘I’ll never let him hurt you again, I promise.’
    A car rattled past as the baby hollered and whimpered, Maria soothing it as best she could. Her mother, dead for over ten years, said that a crying baby was a healthy baby, but the sound still tore at her heart.
    Then, with a desperate, gulping sound – URK! – Sonata threw up all over the back of the cab. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her tiny body convulsed. Maria screamed and clutched the child to her. She looked frantically for the taxi driver. There he was, still across the road, still at that bloody cash machine. She opened the door of the taxi and  lurched toward him. ‘Help her! She’s fitting! She’s dying! HELP  US!’
    Frank turned in the direction of her voice, his knees tensing as he prepared to go to her aid. But by then, it was too late.
    10.
    Coombes pointed a stubby finger. ‘There! Turning onto Farmloan Street!’
    I saw it. Black car, Mercedes-shaped. Possibly. . . hopefully . . .
    Grierson. I was two hundred yards back, still doing sixty. It took me less than five seconds to reach the junction, even accounting for the time it took me to slow down enough to make the corner, although I won’t lie and say that I was fully in control. Later on, traffic cops measured the set of skidmarks I left as being thirty-five metres, a little fact that was gleefully reported in the tabloid press. I almost lost it entering the corner, turning in too soon and clipping the kerb, hard, bouncing off and side-swiping a parked car, the sound of metal on metal and shattering glass filling the car, Coombes screaming something unintelligible at me and me screaming back.
    Then I had control again. So did Coombes. ‘He’s seen us!’
    It was Grierson, I was sure of it. He was moving fast now. We’d gained nearly a hundred yards but now the gap was stretching as the Merc flew away. My Bond-style approach to cornering must have tipped him off. Coombes smacked his fist off the dashboard. ‘Floor it!
    Floor it! Floor it!’
    I tried to jam the accelerator through the carpet. The overworked Ford protested but did as it was told, picking up speed but definitely not gaining any ground on the more powerful Mercedes. We both watched as it turned left onto Gallowgate. My palms were sticky on the wheel, and I could feel my temples pounding. Coombes was just the same, both hands clenched on the dashboard, teeth bared, a vein sticking out in his neck, all reasonable thought drowned in a flash-flood of adrenaline.
    Onto Gallowgate, the speedometer needle not dropping below forty, the tyres pleading for mercy, Grierson a hundred and fifty yards ahead of us and leaving us for dead. The smell of burning clutch filled the car, and it didn’t take a detective to figure this was one race we couldn’t win. It was another basic rule of surveillance – when the subject’s lost, back off. All we’d done was tip Grierson off. But because Coombes had been fucking around before Grierson made his move, I’d tried too hard, caught up in the pursuit, my desire not to lose the subject completely obliterating any sense of responsibility. And it was only then, at fifty-five miles an hour on a city street, that it came back, and I thought slow down, you’re being stupid, at this speed you could hit . . .
    Too late.
    11.
    Frank turned just in time to see the girl step into the middle of the road. She screamed and turned, raising the hand that didn’t hold the baby to her chest as if to ward off the oncoming car. The collision was