Nothing To Lose

by Steven Suttie

  Just over ten minutes after the photographs of this random spectacle began circulating, the MCP helicopter, India 99 was air-borne and was beaming footage of the tops of the buildings back to HQ. The live footage made for interesting viewing as the senior officers of MCP, including DCS Dixon, watched on in the incident command centre in puzzled silence.

  The deafening roar of the aircraft’s rotor-blades chopping through the early morning air made it impossible to hear anything, which was frustrating for the senior police men and women as it was quite apparent that many of the people on the rooftops were looking up and shouting something at the personnel on board India 99.

  The footage kept coming in, as the force’s helicopter switched from one building to another, hovering high above the people. The Tactical Flight Officers were instructing the pilot on where to fly, as they endeavoured to catch every face on their recording equipment. The pilot’s key task was to follow the TFO’s instructions whilst ensuring the helicopter kept a safe distance away from other buildings and hazards, as well as the people that they were here to observe. The powerful down-wash of the rotor blades could easily sweep these people off these roof-tops if the aircraft got within seventy metres of the buildings. Whilst the pilot had an absolute nightmare of a job on his hands, it wasn’t a particularly difficult task for the TFOs making the video recordings, as most of the people, out of the hundreds upon hundreds, were looking directly at the helicopter. It made chilling viewing for the TFOs on board, as well as the senior police officials who were watching all of this back at HQ.

  Once all of the recording was done, and the TFOs were confident that they had captured images of every single person present, across ten buildings in the city-centre, it was time to start phase 2 of India 99’s mission. This task was to warn the people to step back slowly, and carefully, away from the edge of the building that they were standing atop of.

  Despite the roar of the aircraft hovering 100 metres above them, the message was heard loud-and-clear by all of the people, thanks to India 99’s powerful Tannoy system which is positioned beneath the aircraft. The sound system was so loud that the TV cameras which had arrived on the streets and were capturing this dramatic footage from the ground in the city-centre, could clearly make out the TFO’s message.

  “Danger! Step back, slowly and carefully, away from the edge of this building.” The TFO in charge of the announcement kept repeating his message, but nobody was taking any notice, most of the faces were just smiling back in the direction of the helicopter. It was a very unnerving and unsettling sight, and the helicopter crew couldn’t wait to receive their orders to retreat back to base. This was a strange and eerie job and the India 99 crew all sensed that something truly horrible was about to happen.

  The first broadcaster to go-live from the city-centre was the BBC, thanks to their OB van being quite close to the area when this news story broke. As the local presenter went live on the national BBC News Channel, it was quite apparent that she, like everybody else in the nation, didn’t have a clue what was going on, other than the fact that hundreds of people were standing on the edges of Manchester’s tallest buildings, holding hands.

  While the journalists waffled on relentlessly, trying to pad for time and make it sound as though they knew what was going on, and failing miserably, one young news journalist phoned her boss at BBC Radio Manchester to announce a major scoop.

  The reporter was patched through to the broadcast desk immediately and was live on the local radio station within seconds, announcing her news.

  “We’ll leave you there Harriet as we’ve got another reporter on the line, Kiera Stewart, one of our junior reporters is in the city-centre and has got some fresh information. Kiera?”

  “Yes, thank you Alan, I hope you can hear me okay over the helicopter and police sirens?”

  “Just about Kiera, where are you?”

  “Well, I’m on Market Street, in Manchester city centre, just at the foot of the towering Arndale Centre building, the police helicopter is directly above my head right now…”

  “And what have you learnt about this extraordinary event which is unfolding in our city this morning?”

  “Well, we’re… sorry… I’m just being moved back now by police officers, we are being escorted away from the foot of the building… there are dozens of police officers standing in a line, walking us back, trying to clear the area.”

  “This is just crazy, I started this morning’s show wondering what we were going to talk about, and now this.”

  “Yes, well, this is an extremely scary story Alan, the police are saying that we have to move away from this area in case the people on top of those buildings are planning to jump.”

  The adrenaline and terror in Kiera’s voice was unmistakable. The veteran presenter was lost for words, he didn’t know what to say to that bewildering comment. Kiera sensed that she needed to keep talking. “Just as I started talking to you Alan, I was with one of the Arndale Centre’s security staff who told me that his colleague has been taken up onto the roof with the people. They stormed the building at around half-past seven this morning. The security guard I spoke to said that he was on patrol, doing his routine checks around the building whilst his colleague was left on the security desk, he says that there were several people knocking on the door and when he went to ask them what they wanted, they literally ran into the building, and then dozens more people rushed past. The security guard told me that he has heard that similar tactics have been used at other buildings in the city centre this morning too, and looking around, it’s just… all I can see is hundreds upon hundreds of people stood above my head, on every flat roofed building, and they are all holding hands and staring down. It’s quite shocking Alan, and the scariest part of it all is that nobody seems to know what is going on, not even the police.”

  MCP’s top officials had no idea what they were witnessing in the major incident command centre. The Chief Constable was now in attendance and didn’t take long to declare himself the Gold Commander and announce this extraordinary event as a major incident. Within seconds, this dramatic announcement kick-started the police force’s well-rehearsed MIRE instruction, the “Major Incident Response Exercise” which was the little used, but regularly practised drill for any major incidents in the city. The MIRE training covered everything from terrorist attacks, rioting and civil disobedience, to serious rail or motorway crashes. As soon as the MIRE instruction was circulated, every single operational police officer on duty within the Greater Manchester county was required to make their way into the city-centre and meet at their divisional check-point to await further instruction.

  Facebook and Twitter were going wild with the story, as members of the general public decided to explain what was happening, rather than wait for some kind of an official explanation.

  “Easy to see what’s happening in MCR, all those people on top of the buildings are going to jump off holding hands, it happened in America a few years ago at that Waco. They’ll be God-botherers or summat.”

  “I’ve been told that they’re on Spice and they’ve been told to go there and show the world that they can fly, it makes sense I suppose.”

  “My mate’s a copper and he’s just told me that the people on top of the buildings are asking for the release of a tiger at Chester Zoo or they’re going to dive off.”

  “Hasn’t this been organised by the people who’ve been trashing all the betting shops? I think they’re going to threaten to jump unless the police drop all charges against them. Bet you a tenner. Whoops, sorry.”

  It was quite easy to see that nobody had a clue what this was about. It was just so odd, so out-of-the-ordinary and nobody knew what to make of it. The police, the tv crews, the Facebook commentators. The only people who knew what the hell was happening here were those hundreds of men and women, holding hands and staring down at the deserted streets beneath them.

  The mood in Manchester was strange. Other than the non-stop blare of police sirens, ther
e was an unnerving quiet and stillness all around this normally bustling, busy place. There was no other sound in the city, but for the dramatic blasts of sirens from the emergency vehicles. Buses had stopped, their drivers had switched their engines off. The passengers just gazed out of the double-deckers, looking up at the sky. The roads were all closed in the city centre, part of a “lock-down” exercise in line with the MIRE procedure. Cars, taxis, delivery vans and trucks were all parked up on the streets and roads all around the area. People were standing by their vehicles, looking up, or holding up camera-phones, filming the eerie scenes. Members of the public who were talking to one another were doing so in hushed tones and whispers. Every person in town looked shocked and frightened. This was such a freaky situation, and although everybody was looking up, none of them wanted to see what they feared was about to happen.

  Odds on Justice Tweeted at 8:15am. It was a short message which did nothing but heighten its readers anxieties even further. “#Manchester have we got your attention?” That was all it said. Everybody who was following this extraordinary spectacle, be it from Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, or on TV in the Outer Hebrides, were all desperate to know what the hell was going on. That Tweet didn’t help. It did however attract thousands of replies.

  “WTAF is going on?”

  “Don’t jump! PLEASE! Come down and talk.”

  “Step back from the edge!”

  Thousands of random people were Tweeting Odds on Justice, desperate to try and have some kind of an input into this terrifying situation which was unfolding live across TV news channels, social media and the internet.

  The Sky News director in London was shouting the channel’s most senior staff members into the gallery, where TV screens filled the walls, each screen showing a different angle of a different building as they monitored all of the incoming footage from various cameras and sources. He had a very concerned look on his face.

  “I’m not sure we should broadcast this footage live. If they jump off, that’s going to be traumatic for the viewers.” He said.

  “Just put it on a delay,” suggested a producer.

  “Yes, that would work. Replay the same footage from five minutes ago.” Added another member of the team.

  “Yes, yes, that’s the answer. Do that now please!” shouted the director at his staff at the controls.

  “What do you think is going on?” asked one of the news editors.

  “They’re going to jump. I wasn’t sure at first, but that last Tweet has spooked me.”

  Another member of staff interrupted. “Oh, here we go, another Tweet.” The senior officials of Sky News gathered around their colleague who was holding the phone. The looks on all of their faces confirmed that this wasn’t good news.

  The Tweet read “DANGER! To any people beneath the buildings we are occupying in #Manchester, please move out of the area immediately. You have two minutes.”

  “Oh my fucking God! What the hell is happening?” asked the Chief Constable in the MIRE control room. He didn’t receive a response. Everybody in the room was stunned into silence. The only sound was the thundering beat of every one of the senior officer’s hearts.

  “Gold Command to all officers in the city centre, urgent message, retreat away from the foot of all occupied buildings immediately. Repeat. Urgent message, all officers are to retreat from beneath the buildings, immediately! Over.”

  It was the longest two minutes of every single one of the senior MCP officers lives, each second passed with a terrifying sense of dread and alarm. Some of them tried to fight pictures of the unimaginable horror that could soon devastate the city’s streets and pavements.

  There was a loud, upsetting sound from the corner of the control room as the Assistant Chief Constable knelt-down and vomited into a waste-paper bin. As several colleagues offered support to their colleague, the Chief Constable pointed to his watch. The two minutes had elapsed.

  “This is Gold Command. Standby.”

  A few seconds passed before another Tweet appeared on all of the screens which were monitoring the Odds on Justice account. The senior police officers all had one eye on the video-camera feeds from the roof-tops, and another on the Twitter screen.

  The Tweet that had just appeared didn’t say anything. It was a link to a website. The Chief Constable stepped over and with a trembling hand, clicked the mouse on the link which had appeared. It opened-up a new window, which was loading a very basic looking website. As the police chief’s eyes were focusing on the website, a voice behind him alerted him to the video monitors.

  On the screens, which were providing live feeds from all of the rooftops, there was activity. The people who had stood still, holding hands with the person on either side of them, had suddenly let their hands go. The dramatic vision of all of these people holding hands now looked even more dramatic, as they had all released their grips. Now, every single person was standing alone, looking down onto the deserted streets beneath the tower blocks. The silence was electrifying. Each of the figures suddenly reached into a coat pocket, or their jeans pocket and produced something, throwing whatever it was ceremoniously away from themselves and out into the cool November air.

  “Zoom in, Zoom in” said the Gold Commander into his radio, the unmistakable stress and anxiety in his voice was broadcast to every serving police officer in the city. As the camera operators followed their instructions and zoomed their lenses in on the people on the rooves, it became clearer what was happening. The items which were being thrown to the ground were mobile phones. Hundreds of them, each one landing with a loud crunch on the streets below.

  After several seconds of loud crunches, bangs and pops, the sound ceased and the eerie silence was restored. Nothing else was raining down from the towers above, but the streets were suddenly covered with the debris of the mobile phones which had smashed into hundreds of thousands of little pieces.

  Suddenly, the people on the roof-tops slowly stepped backwards and began walking back to the doors and access-points that they had entered the roof spaces from, forming orderly queues as they waited patiently for their turn to step off the roof space and go back inside.

  “Thank Christ!” said the Chief Constable, before lifting his radio to his mouth. “This is Gold Command. The protestors are now leaving the roof spaces, I want all available officers deployed to each tower block and each protestor needs to be arrested. Over.”

  The Chief Constable put the radio down on the desk and held his head in his hands as he tried to get his breath back.

  “This is BBC News, and I’m relieved to say that this distressing incident in Manchester city centre appears to be over. The hundreds of men and women who have been standing at the edge of several tower-blocks for almost forty minutes have now stepped back from the edge and appear to be coming down. Gina Phillips, our North of England correspondent joins me. Gina.”

  “Yes, thank you Sue. Those were quite alarming scenes which we’ve been witnessing, and thankfully, it looks as though everything has come to a positive conclusion.”

  “Do we understand what this was all about, Gina?”

  “Yes, we are starting to make some sense of that now, the final Tweet which the organisers of this incredible spectacle sent out contained a link to a website which appears to contain a statement that might explain what has been happening in Manchester in the middle of the city’s rush-hour.”

  The BBC News channel switched from the head and shoulder shot of Gina Phillips standing in Manchester, to a shot of the website. The screen turned white, this was an extremely basic webpage - it looked more like a Microsoft Word document. At the top, in capital letters it read; ODDS ON JUSTICE – STATEMENT.

  Beneath, there was a single paragraph;

  “This morning, 730 people stood on the top of key buildings in Manchester to help raise awareness of gambling addiction. These 730 people are the relatives, friends or loved-ones of people who have ended their own lives as a result of their gambling addiction. 730 people, who
some of you may have feared were going to jump, were standing there in tribute to their loved-ones who are no longer with us due to the poison that is gambling addiction. We’re glad we got your attention. We’re sad that you would take so much notice of this, because it looked like 730 people were going to die in front of you. Why aren’t you taking notice of the 730 people who kill themselves because of gambling addiction, every year in Britain. That’s two a day, every day, every year. This has to stop. Please, contact your MP and tell them to back us, tell them they have to clamp down on the gambling industry robbing our young people of their money and leaving them so broken that the only answer to their problems is suicide. This has got to stop and to the government, we say this. Make it stop, clamp down, just like you did with cigarettes a decade ago, or how you are attempting to with alcohol now. And how you do with drugs. If you do not fix this appalling situation, we will be back and we will do much more damage next time. Gamble responsibly stickers don’t work, but fining gambling companies a million pounds if they allow somebody to gamble irresponsibly would work. Fining them a million pounds if they fail to act when somebody is in distress because of gambling would work in forcing the industry to behave responsibly. Clean this disgusting mess up and sort this evil out, once and for all, or we will be back and we will make our activities over the past few weeks seem like a teddy bear’s picnic by comparison. Thank you, from the members of Odds on Justice.”

  Epilogue

  Billy Nolan pleaded guilty to the crimes that he was accused of at Manchester Crown Court and was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences for the murders of Graham Hartley and Lindsey Nolan. In summing up the Judge said that Nolan was a wicked, calculated and depraved individual, and stipulated that he must serve a minimum sentence of 28 years before he would be considered for parole. He wept openly in the dock as the sentence was handed down.