Witness the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

runaway tripped or fell. Boyle and Murray tumbled into the lift, grateful for the easier task and confident that it would beat Wylde down the eight floors to the street.
    Shaking her head at their departure, Narey knocked on the door of the nearest flat that faced out onto Baltic Street, simultaneously reaching for her Airwave radio. The door was opened by a small, dark-haired woman in her early fifties who recognised Narey for a cop before she’d managed to raise her warrant card to eye level.
    ‘Aye, what is it?’ the woman asked warily, looking beyond Narey’s shoulder.
    ‘I need to use your flat, please. You’re not in any trouble. I just need to look from your window onto the street.’
    ‘Of course I’m no’ in any trouble. What would I be in trouble for? Bloody cheek. Ah suppose you can come in but I’m no’ happy about it. Do you want a cuppa tea?’
    Narey smiled to herself at the woman’s instinctive hospitality despite being put out at the intrusion. She quickly turned down the offer before speaking into the Airwave as she marched across the room, easing open a window and looking down towards the street. ‘I need back-up. The nearest car you’ve got to Baltic Street in Bridgeton. And hurry. A suspect is fleeing on foot.’
    A man’s voice crackled back, asking her to wait while they contacted cars. ‘Sergeant, there’s a car on Swanston Street. It will be there within two minutes.’
    As Narey listened, she looked down to see a figure burst out of the front door to the tower block and race across the street. From her high vantage point she could see the direction Wylde was running in.
    ‘Okay, good, get me another one. Get it to . . . the end of the street that runs away from the flats on Baltic down past the primary school. I think it’s Albany Street. There’s some old disused red-brick at the end. The street’s a dead end for traffic, so get me a car at the other side.’
    The street door flew open again and Narey watched Toshney run across the road in futile pursuit of Wylde. She knew she could have saved him a bit of sweat and worry by letting him know the cavalry was on its way, but she was rather enjoying watching him huff and puff in Wylde’s wake. Moments later Boyle and Murray appeared and they, too, took off after the runaway, both quickly gaining ground on Toshney but not the suspect.
    ‘Get the Swanston Street car onto Albany Street. Suspect on foot. Tell the drivers to avoid hitting officers in pursuit. Well, the uniformed ones anyway. They can hit the detective constable if they want.’
    She heard the patrol car before she saw it. The blaring siren cut through the morning air and drifted up eight floors a good bit before the car arced round the corner at speed, instantly overtaking Toshney and then Boyle and Murray. Wylde heard it coming and was looking left and right, desperate to seek a way off the road, but there was the red-brick to the left and new-build houses to the right. He zigzagged one way, then the other, trying to buy himself enough time to get to the end of the street, where the concrete bollards would knacker the patrol car.
    Just as it looked as if he would make it, the second cop car roared into view, screeching to an immediate halt at the other side of the bollards. The two cops inside were on the street in seconds and, with the Albany Street car squeezing Wylde towards the wall, there was nowhere for him to go.
    Wylde braced himself with the railings and overgrown weeds of the old red-brick school at his back, bending at the waist and sucking up lungfuls of air. The patrol-car cops approached, Boyle then Murray not far behind. Wylde seemed to have given up the flight, bent double.
    ‘Just watch him,’ Narey murmured from the window.
    As the two uniforms reached out to grab him, Wylde straightened and made a swift crisscrossing action with his arms in front of him. Both cops staggered back, one of them clutching at his cheek, the other grabbing at an injured