Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [69]
As I switch to the T5 at 21.15 another sighting of the renegade Honda comes through, lights and sirens go on and the Volvo bounces off its rev limiter as it screams to another area of Possil Park. I catch sight of a scrawled slogan on a derelict wall – 'fuck the polis'. I was warned that Brodie has a strange sixth sense for crime, and as we enter the estate he begins to bark madly. We find the abandoned Honda Civic, largely intact, but the steering column surround and ignition barrel are torn apart. 'Cars are still too easy to steal,' confirms PC Pryde. A gang of young lads hangs around 10 yards off, watching. The cops know one of them may well be the culprit, but no one's going to grass anybody up here.
Honda Civics are popular tonight. At 22.10 the radio jabbers out reports of a stolen dark-red one. Again we shriek to its last known location, a residential area about half a mile square. The drivers know the roads like cabbies; know that if they lurk at the two likely exits from the estate while the plain car goes in, they might catch the Honda as it bolts. If it's still in there. We sit with the windows open, listening for the squeal of tyres that is the signature of joyriding. Nothing. After over an hour we admit defeat and return to base for tea break.
At midnight, with the kettle not yet boiled, the hand-held radio delivers a cool, emotionless report that the Honda has been sighted on the run. The world goes mad, cups and chairs fly as the squad scrambles for its cars. I find myself back in the Omega, grappling with the rear seat belt – this is a police car – as insane acceleration and cornering toss me around the rear bench. The three cars split up and head for the last sighting at the Milton estate, hoping to outflank the 'target vehicle' on all sides.
The Rover spots it first. The radio explodes with instructions aimed at getting a marked car in pursuit, after which the Rover will back off but stay in touch – its job then is to video the action from behind in the hope of presenting the bigger picture. Within a minute the Volvo has latched on to the Honda's tail.
But we go the other way, drawing on detailed road knowledge to box the Honda in and contain the pursuit. Across a strip of rough ground I glimpse the lightless Civic pursued by the wailing T5.1 see it again, going the other way, as we jockey for an intercepting position. The choreography, absurdly, is reminiscent of a Keystone Cops car chase but the mood is deadly earnest.
We make the interception, but the Honda is driven hard at us and PC Morrison backs off – a deliberate collision is not an option. We join the end of the flashing, bawling train and peel off again. I realise then that the Civic will never break away from the housing estate – it is a matter of time and careful manoeuvring, manoeuvring at speeds quicker than I can think or blurt my own commentary into my tape recorder. The swerving, bucking Honda is ever more contained, driven into decreasing circles of hopelessness. Crowds form on pavements and jeer at the police cars. Missiles are thrown. A brick strikes the windscreen of the Rover and destroys it; another does for a Volvo door skin.
An officer on foot appears as we move in from the flank again – I honestly couldn't tell you where or when he was dropped off by a fourth car – and deploys Stop Stick. This, an evolution of the notorious Stinger, is an extending, triangular-section aluminium strip with razor sharp edges, but shrink-wrapped in plastic for safe handling. It is flung across the road just as the Honda appears, and I actually see it drop as the tyres are savaged. In the split second before the pursuing Volvo arrives at the same place it has been whipped away by a cord.