Let It Bleed Read Free

the steering-wheel. One of his shoes had come off. His legs were draped over the steering-wheel itself. As for the rest of him, that was lying on what was left of the bonnet.
    ‘Frank!’ Rebus cried. ‘Frank!’ He knew better than to pull Lauderdale back into the car; knew better than to touch him at all. He tried opening his door, but it wasn’t a door any more. So he undid his seatbelt and squeezed out through the windscreen. His hand touched metal, and he felt a sizzling sensation. Cursing and drawing his handaway, he saw he’d placed it on a section of uncovered engine-block.
    Cars were pulling to a stop behind him. The DS and DC were running forwards.
    ‘Frank,’ Rebus said quietly. He looked at Lauderdale’s face, bloody but still alive. Yes, he was sure Lauderdale was alive. There was just something … He wasn’t moving, you couldn’t even be sure he was breathing. But there was
some
thing, some unseen energy which hadn’t departed. Not yet at any rate.
    ‘You all right?’ someone asked.
    ‘Help him,’ Rebus ordered. ‘Get an ambulance. And check the lorry-cab, see how the driver is.’
    Then he looked across to the other carriageway, and what he saw froze him. He couldn’t be sure at first, not totally. So he climbed up on to the metal spars separating the two carriageways. And then he was sure.
    The suspects’ car had left the carriageway. Left it altogether. They’d somehow vaulted the crash-barrier, slid across the pedestrian walkway, and had enough velocity left to send them through the final set of railings, the ones separating the walkway from that drop to the Firth of Forth. A wind was whipping around Rebus, blowing the sleet into his eyes. He narrowed them and looked again. The Cortina was still there, hanging out into space, its front wheels through the rails but its back wheels and boot still on the walkway. He thought of what might be in the boot.
    ‘Oh my God,’ he said. Then he started to clamber over the thick metal tines.
    ‘What are you doing?’ someone yelled. ‘Come back!’
    But Rebus kept moving, only barely aware of the drop beneath him, the amounts of space between each metal bar and its neighbour. More space than metal. The cold metal felt good against his stinging palm. He passed the back of the lorry. It had come to rest on its side, half on theroadway, half resting on the central gap. There was a sign on its side: Byars Haulage. Jesus, it was cold. That wind, that damned eternal wind. Yet he could feel he was sweating. I should be wearing a coat, he thought. I’ll catch my death.
    Then he was on the carriageway, where a line of cars had come to an untidy stop. There was a proper gap between carriageway and walkway; a short distance, but all of it fresh air. Where the Cortina had made contact it had buckled the rails. Rebus stepped on to them, then made the short leap on to the walkway.
    The two teenagers had stumbled from their car.
    They’d had to climb over their seats and into the back in order to get out. The front doors led only to a fall. They were looking to left and right, seized by fright. There were sirens to the north. Fife Police were on their way.
    Rebus held up his hands. The two uniformed officers were behind him. The youths weren’t looking at Rebus; all they could see were uniforms. They understood simple things. They understood what uniforms meant. They looked around again, looking for an escape that wasn’t there, then one of them – fair-haired, tall, slightly older-looking – gripped the younger one’s hand and started leading him backwards.
    ‘Don’t do anything daft, sons,’ said one of the uniforms. But they were just words. Nobody was listening. The two teenagers were against the rails now, only ten feet or so from the crashed car. Rebus walked slowly forwards, pointing with his finger, making it clear to them that he was going to the car. The impact had caused the boot to spring open an inch. Rebus carefully lifted it and looked