A giant earth-moving truck overloaded with brown clods of earth stopped with a sudden hiss of air brakes at the zebra crossing in the centre of Reigate town centre. It was early spring, but winter hadn’t yet given up the fight and was looking to crash the party. The heavy traffic edged forward another yard and DS Fran Itzkowitz looked up at the huge truck and wondered if the load was secure. She turned to DS Ron McTierney who was walking alongside her about to mention her concern when out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a man grab a handbag from a middle-aged lady fifty yards further down the High Street, outside the M&S store.

A figure in a grey hoodie looked up as McTierney shouted “Stop!” He thought the figure smiled and then dashed down the alleyway that led from the High Street towards Priory Park.

“Shit!” McTierney turned to Itzkowitz. “Where’s uniform when you need them? Call it in, get some help down here.”

“Surely you can catch him on your own can’t you?”

McTierney set off in pursuit, sprinting the first stretch. Ron McTierney was not as fit as perhaps he should have been, he visited the pub more often than he visited the gym, but he was only 39. He didn’t consider himself old, a lunchtime chase shouldn’t be a problem. 

He reached the corner and began panting.

The lady who had been robbed, looked at him with disappointment in her eyes, “He went that way,” she said pointing down the slope.

McTierney nodded, unable to speak. The bag snatcher had reached the bottom of the slope and was probably further ahead now. McTierney took a deep breath and began running again. Why couldn’t this be Bee? he thought.

The wind buffeted his face as he reached the end of alleyway, on one side the air vents at the back of M&S thundered in his ears, on his left the brick buildings gave way and opened out to reveal concrete wasteland stretching two hundred yards across to the entrance of Morrisons’ supermarket. He stood with his hands on his hips surveying the scene. No sign of the snatcher. He couldn’t have gone left. No one’s that fast.

He gulped down some air and looked across at the Methodist Church community centre. “Inspiration please,” he mumbled as he trotted twenty yards across broken tarmac to the next corner and looked left. A few feet ahead of him a worker at the back of Morrisons was operating a waste compactor. McTierney jogged over to him, “Did you see anyone running through here in the last couple of minutes?”

The youth pulled a white air-pod from his left ear, “What?”

McTierney glared at him but didn’t have time to pick a fight. “Police. I’m chasing a bag snatcher, did he come through here?”

“Oh yeah he went into the park,” the youth pointed over his shoulder.

McTierney had gone before he finished his sentence. A narrow road led away from the back entrances to both Morrisons and M&S and quickly split into two; one leading back around the Morrisons’ supermarket, the other skirted along the edge of Priory Park and provided a short cut through to the western side of the town. Beyond the road was the huge expanse of the park; 65 acres of open parkland with thousands of trees and probably thousands of hiding places too. It was picturesque, busy, and a lost cause.

 McTierney scanned the park horizon, no sign of the snatcher. He turned 90 degrees back towards the car park of Morrisons. Nothing, and then suddenly a dark shape dashed across the road 150 yards ahead of him. McTierney began to run, there better be something valuable in this bag he thought. Don’t want to bust a gut for a bus pass and a hairbrush. He reached the corner, stopped and his eyes swept across the horizon; he wasn’t even sure what gender the snatcher was; black hair, shortish, probably male, probably a bloody middle-distance runner.

McTierney wiped the sweat from his eyes; he really must go to the gym more often. He arrived at the front of the supermarket, Itzkowitz had walked down the thirty brick steps from the High Street and met him.

“Where’d he go?” gasped McTierney.

“He headed across the car park,” Itzkowitz pointed to her left. “He’s fast.”

“Tell me,” panted McTierney.

Itzkowitz and McTierney had been colleagues for 18 months since he’d poached her from Guildford station. McTierney had been the acting DI at the time and was in a fix; Itzkowitz had been one of only two candidates and the only one with the initials FBI. McTierney never tired of saying, “Action FBI!” even though Itzkowitz had quickly tired of hearing it. As he stood outside the supermarket gulping down air, he had never wanted to use that phrase more than he did right now.

 

Itzkowitz looked at him disapprovingly. “He’s getting away.”

McTierney took a deep breath and set off again dodging between the rows of cars in the main town centre car park. The figure was heading south and was almost out of the car park. Where’s he going? thought McTierney, I’ll never catch him, perhaps I can cut him off.  He sidestepped through two rows of cars, then caught his hip on the wing mirror of a Ford S-Max. “Ow!” he screamed. “Always a bloody Ford where you don’t want one.”

The snatcher had turned the corner and was heading south up Cockshot Hill. McTierney scampered across the car park entrance and swung across the traffic lights on the junction. “Where is he, where is he?” McTierney gasped, his pulse thundering around his body. He stopped and ran his hand through his short blonde hair. A sudden movement on the left suggested the snatcher had turned left just after Richer Sounds. I’m closing, thought McTierney. He must be a fat bastard. And I’m going to nail him.

With renewed belief McTierney ran diagonally across the main road; a white van blasted him with its horn, McTierney waved at him and mouthed ‘Police’, he didn’t have the energy to speak. He charged past the music shop, pumping his fists, I’ve got him and stopped. The snatcher had vanished. McTierney’s eyes zipped left and right. He tried to listen, but the noise of the traffic on the main road swamped his brain. He spotted a narrow alleyway and ran towards it, turning left at the end. McTierney raced to the corner and burst out on to the other side. Then, whack! Something knocked him flying. The snatcher had been waiting at the other end. McTierney sprawled across the ground and looked up as the snatcher slammed a metal pipe into his ribs. “Aargh.” McTierney rolled over holding his side.

The attacker dropped the pipe and jogged away.

It was a good ten minutes before Itzkowitz found him and another thirty before the ambulance arrived.