Minotaur

By Colin Hazel

Fox and Lox are back! While out of town on routine enquiries, the Capital is hit with a catastrophic attack from an unseen enemy. With the City on lockdown and the civil infrastructure in disarray, the partners find themselves stranded in a rural hinterland where they become embroiled in the hunt for a mysterious inmate who has escaped from a local asylum during the confusion and embarked on a murderous rampage through the rapidly emptying streets. It is a treacherous pursuit across land and sea that will lead deep into a backwater abyss and the darkest recesses of the soul. In this unfamiliar and disorientating new realm, devoid of rules, the true nature of the cunning fugitive reveals itself and in the midst of the chaos the Cops realise that their prey is in fact the predator.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colin Hazel
• Release date: Feb 7, 2022

Book preview

MINOTAUR

Copyright 2021 Colin Hazel

Published by Colin Hazel

License Notes

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CHAPTER ONE

A single rectangle of light projected out across the busy evening interchange from the second floor of the Organised Crime Command’s headquarters at Cobalt Square, Vauxhall. Inside the deserted, open plan office, beneath the buzz of fluorescent lights and surrounded by screen savers rotating around idle monitors sat Detective Constables John Fox and Dave Loxley; the allocated night duty cover for the command’s southern area. Loxley was replacing the receiver following a phone call from their supervisor; an on-call Detective Sergeant remotely co-ordinating the night cover from another station based somewhere in the Metropolis.

‘That was Clements, needs us to go to Wandsworth custody to pick up a high risk misper. He got nicked for drunk and dis earlier this evening, apparently he’s spent most of the night sobering up, they’ve just done prints and seen he’s circulated as wanted; over the wall from Gravemoor, wandered off during some scheduled day release, obviously the custody skipper wants rid ASAP so has declared him fit for release.....’ Loxley relayed.

‘We’re trained detectives, specialist crime, we’re supposed to be the cream of the crop! We’re sat here waiting for call outs to armed blaggings and terrorist attacks. They never caught that maniac who was raping and murdering people in the Royal Parks for fucks sake but what do we get instead? A 5am shout to a fucking misper! Dispatcher probably failed the investigators exam and has a hatred for ‘tecs!’

‘It’s called austerity brother, you know the ambulance service now wait for Police to attend medical emergency calls then stand down their own units and close the call as attended?’

‘Cheeky fuckers!’ Fox spat incredulously.

‘Control have put us all back in play to plug the gaps, now we’re just another deployable dot on their grid, one big happy family.....’ Loxley replied mockingly.

‘5am! They know we’re off at 7! You’d think it could wait for the early turn borough lids?’ Fox insisted.

‘In their book that’s two whole hours in which we’re fair game. They’d send us out at 0659 if they had to. CAD message says borough has no available units and if the subject is back on site by 8 then it won’t be recorded as a breach which clearly is important to someone’s spreadsheet up the chain.....’ Loxley concluded.

The unmarked estate car crawled out of the underground car park beneath Cobalt and onto the gyratory that snaked through the dense concrete canyons that made up the Vauxhall district. Loxley was at the wheel leaving Fox free to co-ordinate with dispatch and update the CAD for the short the drive to Wandsworth. As the early hours traffic only consisted of mini-cabs and nightbuses they made the trip in under half an hour, pulling off the Wandsworth one way system and onto the ramp that led into the yard adjacent to the custody centre. Loxley flashed his warrant card at the intercom, the mechanical blue gates drew across and they pulled into the packed car park where they left the vehicle log book and keys on the dash so the unfortunate vehicle owners they’d blocked in could play musical chairs with the job cars as they tried to escape at the end of their shifts. The first vestiges of dawn was beginning to illuminate the night sky as they made their way across the yard where a press of a second intercom released shutters facilitating access into an interior vehicle bay. Once inside, they navigated through a sterile sally port and into the unsurprisingly morose atmosphere of the custody suite.

Upon hearing the introduction ‘DC Fox Central Specialist Crime, we’re here for Dwyer, the misper.....’ the custody sergeant perked up from behind the elevated booking desk that lay in the centre of the suite like the bridge in a Star Trek flick.

‘I’ll have the detention officer bring him up,’ the custody skipper said cheerily before adding, ‘I’ve got the transport papers ready, just need one of you to sign and he’s all yours.....’

‘Course he’s happy,’ Fox thought to himself, ‘fucker’s washing his hands of a disaster waiting to happen, you know it’s grief when the skipper himself is clamouring to complete the paperwork.....’

Fox scrawled his name across the signature pad, a vague electronic representation of his moniker popped up on the viewing screen and the sergeant tossed a sealed property bag of belongings across the desk at him.

‘He’s all yours,’ the skipper said with a smug smile nodding towards the cell block from which emerged the detention officer with the dishevelled form of Dwyer shuffling along behind