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  Reflex Action

  A Thrilling Crime Novel

  By

  Andrew Heasman

  COPYRIGHT

  Published in 2019 by Seahawk Publishing UK.

  Copyright © ANDREW HEASMAN.

  First Edition

  The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Available on Kindle and other devices.

  Also available in paperback format.

  Cover design by Warren Design.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  DEDICATION

  Also by Andrew Heasman (author)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  About the Author

  Contact the Author

  Also by the Author...

  Coming Soon...

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  DEDICATION

  To my family...

  Also by Andrew Heasman (author)

  “Beyond the Waves: My Royal Navy Adventures”

  (Book #1 in “The Memoir Series”).

  “Single-Crewed: My Life as a Police Officer”

  (Book #2 in “The Memoir Series”).

  “Gone Diving: My Adventures Above and Below the Waves”

  (Book #3 in “The Memoir Series”).

  Available now in paperback and E-Book formats from Amazon worldwide. Also available in other electronic formats.

  Reflex Action

  Definition: a rapid involuntary or automatic reaction to a specific situation or stimulus - It is a spontaneous response that does not receive or need conscious thought.

  Chapter 1

  Nick felt as if a herd of elephants had stampeded over his body.

  He was confused, disorientated, and his head was pounding. He slowly opened his eyes, but he remained in a world of darkness. He could smell the distinctive aroma of petrol fumes, overpowering him and making him nauseous. His brain told him he was moving, the distinct sound of car tyres speeding over a potholed tarmac road surface, and yet he was stationary, confined, squashed into a foetal position. He attempted to sit up, but instantly felt the metallic confines of his enclosure bearing down on him from above. Where was he? What was going on?

  He felt around, his numb fingertips searching for an object, something recognisable that would give a clue as to his surroundings, but all that he could sense was clutter – rough padded material, possibly a holdall containing something solid, a few random metal tools, and a fluffy carpet-like surface beneath him. It felt damp, soaked in a viscous fluid. Was it his own blood?

  His head spun, a reflux of bile rising into his throat. Then the pain hit him. The back of his head felt as if it was split in two. It throbbed with every beat of his heart, and his short dark hair was matted to his scalp as if glued with some tacky substance. His back, shoulders and neck were excruciating. Battered, bruised, and swollen, there must have been broken bones within - with the amount of pain that he was feeling, there was no other explanation. What had caused it? Who had caused it? And why? His mind buzzed with unanswered questions.

  Gradually, as he lay in the darkness, his coffin-like prison swaying gently side to side as it moved further along the undulating road, his shattered memories began to return. Each fragment of what had gone before coalesced to form a timeline. Nick started to remember...

  ...

  Nick Griffiths (“Griff” to his friends) was a 32 year old police officer. He had been a police officer for much of his adult life. He was one of the most experienced on his shift of 7 fellow officers; a tutor, a trainer, and the one that others turned to for advice.

  This particular night shift had begun just like any other shift, just as hundreds had done before. He had arrived at the police station 30 minutes early, grabbed a coffee from the vending machine, and taken his time assembling his personal equipment and paperwork in readiness for whatever was to be thrown his way. The briefing in the Parade Room had been short and to the point, Sergeant Kier allocating duties to each individual police constable.

  “Griff, can you take north rural tonight? PC Evans is off sick and I need you to cover for him,” he said.

  “Yeah, no problem Sarge.” Inside, his heart had sunk. Nick usually covered town duties. They were more exciting, exhilarating, always on the go. He found the rural sector boring, especially on nights when there was hardly anyone around. The hardest part of the job was staying awake into the early hours.

  Sgt Kier continued, “Oh, and can I have a quick word before you leave the station? Nothing to worry about, just a little task I’ve got for you.”

  The Sergeant continued updating the shift on intelligence, information received that he wanted specific officers to focus on, and then brought the meeting to a close. As everybody began to disperse, PC Griffiths wandered towards the Sergeant’s Office, casually knocked on the doorframe a couple of times, and entered to stand before his Sergeant’s desk.

  “Griff, just the man, take a seat.” Nick sat down, crossed his right leg over his left, and rotated his wedding ring around his finger (a habit he had acquired when stressed).

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I see you’re slightly behind on vehicle process forms this month,” Sgt Kier said. “The powers that be have been going through everyone’s figures and we need you to submit a few more vehicle tickets, VDRS, and stop/search forms.”

  “Really? I thought they’d given up on the idea of chasing figures.”

  “No such luck.” Sgt Kier smiled. “Look, I know it’s a pain, and it isn’t real policing, but if it keeps those upstairs off our backs for a while, it’s worth getting it done, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Nick replied with a shrug of the shoulders. With anybody else, he would have argued the point. He knew that those figures were used to quantify his job, to prove that he was working efficiently. He also knew that they were only valued by the paper pushers at Headquarters; any officer working on th
e Front Line knew that they were pointless. But he understood that his Sergeant was in an unenviable position with pressure being applied from above, and that he found it uncomfortable laying down the law to his team. He was stuck in the middle. “I’ll see what I can do while I’m up north, Sarge.”

  “Good man.”

  Nick left the office, grabbed his equipment, and headed for his marked police car to patrol the countryside north of Manchester.

  It was a dark, damp, and cold night; a “dreich night” as he often called it. It was a Scottish term that perfectly described the conditions. Not that Nick was Scottish – he was Manchester born and bred – he just liked the word, and used it often. By 1am, he had reached the northernmost limit of his patrol area. He was in the middle of nowhere, and he was bored! The roads were dead. There was nothing around. He had managed to stop a couple of cars earlier in the shift, issued a HORT/1 and a stop/search form, enough to keep the Sergeant happy, but at that time of night, in that weather, and it being mid-week, there was a severe lack of traffic for him to investigate.

  He decided to park in a side road, near to a junction with the main “B road” linking some of the outlying villages to the suburbs of the city. Hidden in the shadows, he could keep an eye open for headlights as they approached from any direction, but, with his own lights switched off, he would be virtually invisible. His car radio crackled to the sound of his colleagues attending exciting jobs in the town centre, jobs that he might otherwise have been dealing with himself had he not been allocated the rural sector. He felt a pang of jealousy. With the car heating blasting hot air all around him, Nick felt comfortable. He relaxed, opened his thermos flask, and poured a cup of steaming hot coffee. He turned down the radio volume to a whisper, a constant reminder of what he might have been doing, and his eyes became heavy as he fought to overcome the effects of tiredness.

  Through the windscreen, Nick noticed a slight sheen on the road surface, ice was beginning to form. As he looked across the almost perfectly flat farmland, a wispy mist rose from the drainage channels that criss-crossed the fields and ran alongside the roads. Then, in his peripheral vision he saw a pair of headlights set to full-beam approaching through the darkness. Should he stop the vehicle? He was in two minds. At that particular moment he was happy killing time, but his Sergeant’s words were still echoing in his mind, “You need to get more vehicle stop/checks.” He decided to sit tight, wait and watch, see if the vehicle did anything that warranted a stop. From his secluded position, it passed without even noticing his presence. It appeared to be a dark coloured Toyota. It was not speeding; it was driving sedately, heading east towards the city suburbs. Nick was happy to let it pass, but as it continued to his left, he noticed that there was only one red light showing to its rear. It had a faulty nearside lamp. Reluctantly, he started the patrol car’s engine, switched on the headlights, and followed the vehicle along the single-lane road. It was just after 2am.

  As he neared, Nick’s headlights illuminated the Toyota’s rear number plate.

  “Control from Alpha-Romeo-Seven-Two, can I have a vehicle check, index Sierra-Tango-One-Eight-Alpha-Foxtrot-Papa, location Brent Lane?” he radioed.

  “Alpha-Romeo-Seven-Two, that’s all received, standby.”

  A few seconds later the radio broadcast, “Alpha-Romeo-Seven-Two from control?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Yeah, have you got a dark blue Toyota Avensis saloon?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “No reports PNC (Police National Computer), not wanted on Local. Comes back as a hire car from a company based in Liverpool.”

  “That’s all received, thank you. Alpha-Romeo-Seven-Two out.”

  Nick switched on his blue lights and followed the Avensis to a stop at the roadside. Parking a few meters to its rear, he noticed its engine was still running, but that the driver had made no attempt to exit. He opened the patrol car’s door, stretched, and then adjusted his utility belt, quickly checking that his baton, cuffs and document pouch were in their correct positions. He pressed the record button on his bodycam and stepped towards the car.

  As he neared the driver’s door, it opened slowly, and a nervous looking man emerged. He was of mixed-race, slightly taller than Nick at about 6 feet, and was well built (clearly a gym devotee, unlike himself who had the physique of a runner). He wore a black puffer jacket to ward off the chilly breeze, a grey hoodie underneath, what appeared to be designer jeans, and white trainers. At a guess, Nick judged him to be in his mid-twenties. There was nothing suspicious about him, and Nick’s defences lowered - after all, it was simply a routine stop to inform the driver that he had a light defect.

  “Good evening, sir,” Nick said politely. “Did you know that there’s a light out at the back of your car?”

  “A light?” The driver visibly breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry, it’s a rental, I never checked it.”

  “Yeah, it’s your nearside one. Just get it changed when you get a chance, OK?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I see your driver’s licence please?” Nick held out his hand.

  The driver fumbled around in his jacket’s inside pocket before producing the plastic card. “Here you go. Is there a problem officer?”

  “No, it’s just routine.” Nick glanced at it. It appeared to be in order. By rights, he ought to have checked the ID with the control room, but he could not be bothered at that time of night. As he handed the card back, his nose twitched, sensing the distinctive aroma of cannabis on the man’s clothing.

  “Have you taken any substances recently, sir?” he asked, suspicion hardening his tone.

  Instantly becoming defensive, the driver replied sharply, “What do you mean?”

  “I can smell marihuana on you. Have you been smoking it?” asked Nick.

  “Me? Nah, man. I don’t do that stuff.” He tried to smile, to laugh it off, but his fidgety behaviour only served to make him appear even guiltier.

  “Well, I’m gonna give your car a quick search anyway. Are you sure you haven’t got anything hidden away that you want to tell me about? It will go in your favour if you tell me now.”

  When there was no reply, Nick searched the inside of the car, the driver’s seat area, the passenger’s side, and the rear seat. He found nothing. As he walked towards the boot of the car, the driver became noticeably more nervous. His eyes darted from Nick to the boot and back again. He began licking his lips, shuffling from one foot to another, and rubbing his hands together.

  Nick asked, “Have you got anything in the boot?”

  “No! Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Flip the lid for me.”

  The driver opened the boot and immediately stepped backwards. His eyes never left its contents. He was physically shaking, possibly from the cold, but Nick judged it was more likely because there was something inside that he did not want to be discovered.

  “What’s in that holdall?” Nick asked.

  Inside, there was a medium sized blue nylon sports bag, zipped along the top, with two webbing handles velcroed together. Nick leaned forward, unfastened the handles and began to unzip the bag. As he looked inside, his eyes bulged at what he saw.

  At that exact same moment, Nick’s world went black! He was forced down into the car boot, his arms buckling under his weight. Something heavy was rapidly slammed onto his back, crushing him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. No sooner had this first violent assault registered, than it was followed by a succession of subsequent blows, each one progressively more forceful and aggressive. He could feel his chest being squashed between the car’s bodywork and its boot lid, the protruding lock mechanism cutting into him with each crushing impact. The pain surged through his back, and then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. One final slam of the car boot caught him across the back of the neck, and darkness descended. It was the last that Nick remembered before awakening, trapped within his mobile coffin.

  ...

  Malachi Maclean (“Mal” to h
is mates) had been having a good day thus far.

  He had been given one simple task to perform by his boss, “The Russian.” Having arrived in Liverpool and collected the hire car (which had been pre-ordered), he needed to rendezvous with certain contacts (people known only to his employer), collect the shipment, and transport it safely back to his estate in Manchester. It was all a bit cloak and dagger, and being the first time that he had been trusted with a job of such importance, Malachi was understandably nervous. But everything had gone like clockwork.

  By the early hours of the morning, he had found himself driving along an unlit country lane approaching the outer suburbs of Manchester. He had done the hard bit. He had avoided the main routes, the thoroughfares linking the two cities, opting instead for the quieter country roads south of the Mersey. After all, why risk a random police check on the regularly patrolled roads between Liverpool and Manchester, especially knowing what he knew - the boot of his car contained a bag with Class “A” drugs amounting to a street value of hundreds of thousands of pounds, not to mention a fully loaded handgun.

  As the journey progressed, so Malachi relaxed. He had got away with it, he was nearly home. He switched on the car radio, selected a “Street Music” channel, and turned the volume up high. He lit a spliff, drawing in the sweet-tasting smoke, and he imagined how pleased his boss would be once he had delivered the package.

  It was then that things started to go wrong!

  Out of nowhere, a set of headlights appeared in his rear-view mirror. They approached rapidly, and then matched his speed approximately 30m behind. With the glare from the lights, Malachi could not see the vehicle or the driver, but he wished that they would overtake him and pass on by. They did not. A couple of minutes later, the white headlights were accompanied by a set of blue flashing lights, but no sirens. Malachi’s eyes darted from the mirror to the road ahead. Is this police car trying to get past me to another job? Or is its driver late for their tea-break? he wondered. In Malachi’s mind, if he slowed a little and moved towards the grass verge, the police car might continue past him. When it continued to match his speed, the nerves got the better of him, and he yelled, “Bollocks! Why fucking me?” to nobody in particular. He slammed his fist into the steering wheel with frustration.