Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [67]
It was the right decision. By the time we reached our night's lodging in the tiny hamlet of Skálholt a good two feet of snow had fallen. The wind was so strong that it blew me over when I climbed from the car. The worst storm the locals had seen for three years raged all night and had intensified by the next morning, so that by 2.00 p.m. we were still stranded, 50 miles from the capital.
I lay on my bed and contemplated life, the new Range Rover and everything. I said that anything short of an untimely death miles from civilisation would be a fair result, so in that sense we had succeeded. At the same time, I was haunted by a mental image of the navigation lights of the once-weekly Grimsby-bound container ship receding across the bay in Reykjavik. Bugger. Once again, there were going to be some terribly disappointed people at Land Rover.
POLICE CAR, LIGHTS, ACTION
We're dealing with the sharp end of the law here, so for the usual legal reasons our 'victim"s name has to be concealed. I can tell you that he's in his mid-20s, and that even in the dimness of the Omega's rear seat his whole head looks a mess – dirt, bruises, old scars and vivid new stitches, the legacy of one of the roughest upbringings the country has to offer. The nature of our meeting suggests the inside of his head isn't in much better shape either, the legacy of a hard drug habit. 'A typical Glaswegian thug,' I am discreetly informed. We'll call him Bastard.
'Why'd you do it this time then, Bastard?' asks the driver, a hint of despair in his voice.
'I can't help it, man, I'm addicted to it.'
'You did it for the chase, yeah?'
'Aye. I'd love a smoke, you know.'
But smoking isn't allowed in police cars, and is impossible with your hands cuffed behind your back.
The atmosphere in the police Omega is relaxed, anticlimactic, friendly even. PC Kyle Morrison and Bastard are obviously well known to each other. Some of the 32 previous convictions have seen to that. They chat.
'That was the same route you took last time, you know,' says Morrison, incredulously, as we pull up at base and our fugitive climbs awkwardly out. Another officer discreetly holds a lit cigarette to his lips so he can have a few drags before being bundled inside for questioning. As he disappears, Bastard turns to me. 'You from a newspaper then?'
'Car magazine.'
His face lights up. 'Max Power, yeah?' And then he's gone. The dark car pound is near silent except for the lurch of cooling engines and the barking of Brodie the police dog from the back of the Volvo, and the air is heavy with the stink of roasted brakes and clutch plates. The bastard has just nicked another car.
Chief Inspector Alex Martin of the Strathclyde Police Traffic Group is well aware that police pursuit work is a controversial subject. Speed, as any traffic cop who has just stopped you will be quick to assert, kills.
'There's always been a car-crime problem in the north side of Glasgow especially,' he explains. The area he covers is host to some notorious housing estates, where car theft is just one branch of a lawlessness that involves serious drugs, burglary and violence. Traditionally, one third of all vehicle thefts in Strathclyde have been made in his area, and over a third of the force's car chases take place on the Chief Inspector's patch.
'If it became known that the police would never exceed the speed limit we'd never catch any of these bad guys,' he says – and these are guys who are often 'on the fringes of other criminal activity', guys who always make a run for it. 'But at the end of the day our people are ordinary drivers and subject to the same rules as everyone else, and should they be involved in an accident while driving a police vehicle, then that will be fully investigated. Should there be sufficient evidence, and I admit there are occasions when there has been, then they are reported for careless driving.