Not Dead Enough

The irony did not escape him that he was at this moment running past the Brighton & Hove City Council Directorate of Children, Families and Schools, where he had been earlier today.
    You have to start tiring soon, Jecks. You are not getting away. You don’t hurt my darling Cleo and get away.
    Jecks ran on, past a garage, over another junction, past another parade of shops.
    Then, finally, Grace heard the thrashing wail of a siren coming up behind him. About sodding time , he thought. Moments later a patrol car slowed alongside him, the passenger window going down, and he heard a burst of static, followed by a controller’s voice coming from the radio inside.
    Barely able to speak, Grace gasped to the young constable, ‘In front of me. That guy in the green suit. Do a hard stop on him!’
    The car roared off, blue light showering from its roof, and pulled into the kerb just past Jecks, the passenger door opening before it had come to a halt.
    Jecks turned and bolted straight back towards Grace for a few yards, then darted right, towards Preston Park railway station.
    Grace heard the sound of another siren approaching. More back-up. Good.
    He followed Jecks doggedly up a steep hill lined on both sides with houses. Ahead was a high brick wall, with an access tunnel to the platforms and the street on the far side. Two taxis were parked up.
    There was a pick-up area in front of the station, with a couple more taxis waiting, and an unmade-up residential road to the right, which ran along the side of the railway line for several hundred yards.
    Jecks turned into it.
    The first police car shot past Grace, following Jecks. Suddenly the man doubled back on his tracks, then dashed into the tunnel and up the steps to the south-bound platform, barging past a young woman with a suitcase and a man in a business suit.
    Grace followed, dodging through more passengers, then he saw Jecks running down the platform. The last door of the train was open, with the guard hanging out, signalling with his torch. It began to move.
    Jecks leapt off the platform, disappearing from Grace’s view. Was he on the track?
    Then as the guard slipped past him, the train accelerating, Grace saw its red tail light. And Jecks, clinging to a handrail on the rear of the last carriage, his feet perched precariously on a buffer.
    Grace yelled at the guard, ‘Police, stop the train! You’ve got a man hanging on the back!’
    For a moment the guard, a spindly young man in an ill-fitting uniform, just looked at him in astonishment as the train continued gathering speed.
    ‘Police! I’m a police officer! Stoppppp!’ he yelled again. The guard, now several yards ahead of him, was only just in earshot.
    The guard ducked inside. Grace heard a shrill bell, then suddenly the train was slowing, the brakes screeching. There was a hiss of air pressure and it came to a jerky halt fifty yards beyond the end of the platform.
    Grace ran down the slope and on to the track, keeping clear of the raised live conductor rail, stumbling through loose, weed-strewn ballast and over the sleepers.
    The guard jumped down and ran back towards Grace, flashing his torch beam. ‘Where is he?’
    Grace pointed. Jecks, looking fearfully down at the live rail below him, edged over to the right-hand buffer, then leapt, but not far enough, and his right foot brushed the top of the second conductor rail. There was blue flash, a crackle, a puff of smoke, and a scream from Jecks. He landed on the ballast in the centre of the north-bound track with a sharp crack, then fell over, his head striking the far rail with a dull thud, and lay still.
    In the beam of the guard’s flashlight, Grace saw his left leg sticking out at an odd angle, and for a moment he thought the man was dead. There was an acrid, burning smell in the air.
    ‘Hey!’ the guard yelled in panic. ‘There’s a train coming! The nine fifty!’
    Grace could hear the rails singing like the whine of a tuning fork.
    ‘It’s the fast one! Victoria! Express! Oh, Jesus!’ The guard was trembling so much he could barely keep the beam on Jecks, who was gripping the rail with his hands, trying to drag himself forward.
    Grace put a foot over the conductor rail, on to the loose ballast beyond. He wanted this bastard alive.
    Suddenly Jecks tried to get up, but he instantly fell forward with another howl of pain, blood trickling down his face.
    ‘No!’ the guard shouted at Grace. ‘You can’t cross – not there!’
    Grace could