by L M Krier
Ted knew then that it was going to be all right, so he moved in for the hug which followed.
'I'm sorry, too,' Trev told him. 'I was getting angry that you weren't taking your health seriously enough. We're run ragged at work at the moment. Whose bright idea was it to pull in all this extra work, I wonder? I just didn't need the extra stress from you. It's hard, this being a grown-up lark, isn't it?'
'Welcome to my world,' Ted grinned. 'Oh, are we free on Saturday week, in the evening? Jim and Bella's engagement party. We're invited.'
'Don't forget it's the karate tournament, but we should be able to do both. You are coming to that, aren't you? You know the team needs you. You're our secret weapon.'
'I'll be there for both of them, if I can. It will depend on work, as ever, but I'm looking forward to both in equal measure.'
After Ted had changed out of his work suit and they had eaten, they sat close together on the sofa, feet up, Trev's arm round Ted's shoulders, Ted's head resting against his partner's chest. There was something mindless on the television, the sound low, which neither of them was really watching. They were just enjoying the quiet, relaxed moment in each other's company.
For once, it was Trev's phone which shattered the silence.
'Shewee,' he said, taking the call and putting the phone to his ear. 'Hi, Shewee, everything all right?' He listened for a moment then smiled and raised a thumb towards Ted who was poised, anxiously, wondering what the news would be.
'Tell her I said hello. And ask her if she's in the pub,' Ted said with a grin.
Trev dutifully repeated the message then laughed as he relayed her response. 'She says she's doing her prep and she's mortally wounded at your insinuation.'
It was clearly going to be just a brother-sister chat, and a horsey one, at that, by the way Trev laughed and said, 'Oh God, yes, Foxy was always banging on the brakes at anything with water under it. Blue must have inherited the gene. I just used to have to give it some welly and hope for the best.'
Ted was enjoying relaxing, watching his partner chat to the kid sister he'd only recently discovered he had, clearly enjoying every minute of it. He decided that moments like these made up for the tough days of his work.
Then he remembered the young women whose lives had been damaged, possibly forever, by the attacker, including one of his own team, as well as the one who had lost her life, and he thought that probably nothing could.
Ted firmly sent Jezza packing into his own office during the briefing the following morning, armed with her collection of new books. He'd asked Kevin Turner to join them as they now had some locations to check out and needed to divide up what officers were available in the safest and most effective way.
'Just to make it absolutely clear to everyone, once again. This man is armed and extremely dangerous. Do not attempt to apprehend him unless you have back-up available. So for my team, that means leaving Uniform officers with Tasers, or spray at the very least, to handle him, if you do come up against him.'
'It may be water pistols and cap guns, if I can't lay hands on enough Tasers,' Kevin Turner muttered, half under his breath.
'Absolutely no heroics, from any of you. Is that perfectly clear?' Ted stressed.
There were nods and murmurs of assent then, under the strength of Maurice's glare at him, Ted laughed and said, 'All right, me too. No heroics, I promise. All of you stay in contact all the time. I want to know where you are at every moment of the shift. And let's have you all back in by four o'clock at the latest for a regroup and debrief, see where we're up to.
'Sergeant Hallam now has the last known address the Army had for Danny Boy, in Brinnington. It's well out of date but it's all we have from that direction at the moment, so that needs checking out first of all. I'll take that one. Mike, you're with me. Inspector Turner, can you give us a Taser-armed officer to check out that address, please, just in the unlikely event that it is his bolt-hole and he's gone there?'
Between them they covered a lot of miles and knocked on a lot of doors in what turned out to be a fruitless and frustrating few hours. There were new people at the Brinnington address who had never heard of anyone called Quigley, no-one who was ex-services, nor anyone called Danny. Ted and Mike questioned the occupants at length but believed their story. They were new to the area and genuinely didn't seem to know anyone.
The story was similar for all of them when they got back together later on. One or two had found people who claimed to know of a Danny Boy, but none had fitted the description of the man they were looking for.
Once again, Ted packed Jezza off to his office with her books before he addressed the team. He knew he needed to lift morale, after a disappointing day. They were so close to finding Danny Boy now, he felt sure. He just had to keep the team convinced of that and focused on the search.
He was just about to allocate new tasks when the phone rang. Rob took it and passed it over to him.
'A supermarket manager, boss. Reports of someone acting suspiciously in the car park. He says the man appears to have left the premises but he does have CCTV footage which may just show him.'
Ted took the call, asked for full details and location, then looked round at his team. 'I'll take this one. Maurice, do you fancy coming? At least you can watch the tapes while sitting down, so you can rest your feet.'
He tossed Maurice the keys to his car as he said, 'I'll catch you up in a minute. I'll just see what back-up Inspector Turner has available, just in case our man has not, in fact, left the premises.'
The answer from Kevin was not encouraging. 'Bugger all of very much available, Ted. We've just had a shout of an armed robbery under way in the town centre, with reports of a possible hostage situation and some talk of a terrorist attack. Just what we bloody need. I'll send what I can, as soon as I can. But you say our man may have left the premises?'
'Clearly we won't know until we get there, but that's the intel at the moment. We're mostly hoping to see something from the CCTV that will be of help. I'll radio in as soon as I have any update at all.'
The supermarket car park looked packed when they arrived. Ted couldn't immediately spot a parking space as he cruised up and down the first two aisles.
'Bloody post-Christmas sales, boss,' Maurice grumbled. 'People buying yet more tat, even though they've bled themselves dry in the run-up to Christmas. I think I saw somewhere that there was a special discount offer on today, which I suppose is what's brought the crowds out in force.
'Look, we could be going round in circles for ages. Why don't I get out here and go and find the manager? Then you can join me once you've found a parking space?'
'Good idea, Maurice. I won't be long.'
Maurice hopped out and Ted carried on to the end of the aisle. Suddenly, in his rear view mirror, he caught sight of Maurice breaking into a run and ducking between cars to get into the next aisle. He couldn't see what had prompted him to do so. But he could think of only one reason why Maurice would start to run, especially with his sore feet.
Ted speeded up to the end of the row, swung round and started to head back down the next one, the way Maurice had gone. He suddenly found himself confronted by an elderly driver, trying to get into a parking space and making a dog's breakfast of it. He was effectively blocking the flow of traffic as he fiddled and faffed about. In his impatience, Ted leaned on his car horn, which startled the other driver into stalling his car, making matters worse.
Seething, Ted leapt out of his car and started to run. Now he could hear loud-pitched screaming and saw a woman standing next to her car. Then he saw a man jump out from the passenger side and run into the passageway between the parked vehicles. He was wearing dark clothing, a black woollen hat on his head.
Ted hit the transmit button on his radio, barked out his call sign and location and said, 'I have eyes on our suspect. I need back-up, and I need it now.'
He saw the man stop and coolly, deliberately, assess the danger he faced. He looked first towards Ted, small, slight and
running fast in his direction. Then he turned his head and saw Maurice, overweight, limping, and lumbering slowly towards him. He picked the line of least resistance, put his head down and charged straight at Maurice.
Ted saw his fist fly up and connect with Maurice's midriff. The speed and force with which the DC went down told Ted that it was not a mere punch which had felled him.
'Officer down!' Ted bellowed into his radio. 'DC Brown is injured. I need an ambulance, and where's that bloody back-up?'
He grabbed his warrant card in his free hand as he came level with the car where Maurice was lying, face down. He could see that a pool of blood was already starting to form under him.
'Police,' he said to the woman, who had now stopped screaming and grabbed an impressive-looking first aid kit from her car.
'I'm a nurse. I've got this. Go after him.'
Ted hesitated, bending down to Maurice. 'Is he …?'
'Not if I can help it,' the woman told him. 'Go.'
The man was fast and he had a head start. Ted was faster and driven by feelings of vengeance, even more so now that the attacker had hurt two of his team. He pelted down the car park, in the man's wake, and out into the main road. The man turned right, some distance ahead, but still in sight.
'I still have visual on our suspect. I'm in pursuit to see where he goes. DC Brown is receiving medical attention but his condition looks serious. Back-up urgently required.'
Kevin's voice replied to him. 'Bugger it, Ted, I'm trying to mobilise whatever units I can find. I'll get someone there as soon as I can.'
The Ice Queen's voice came over the radio next. 'Inspector, do not attempt to engage an armed suspect until back-up arrives. That is an order.'
Ted was running out of breath for the pursuit and the conversation. Just ahead of him, on the other side of the road, he saw a bus pull up at a stop and the suspect race across, dodging traffic, to jump on to it. It had already moved away by the time Ted found a way to cross over, through the busy stream of traffic.
'Shit!' he exclaimed. 'Suspect has just boarded a bus, heading in the direction of Stockport. I couldn't see the number. Get me some back-up, on the main road, as soon as possible. And we need that ambulance. I'm going back to see how Maurice is.'
As Ted jogged back up the approach road to the car park, he was nearly mown down by his own car, heading towards him at high speed. He saw two teenagers in the front, flicking middle fingers at him, as he jumped out of their way.
'And some bastard teenage toerags have just nicked my car,' he said into his radio, 'so can you put out an alert for it, please,' and gave the registration number.
When he got back to the scene, the nurse had carefully positioned Maurice onto his back, his chin lifted to help maintain a clear airway. He was unconscious and there looked now to be a lot of blood.
'How's he doing?' he asked anxiously, crouching down and taking hold of one of Maurice's hands.
'Slipping in and out of consciousness and losing a lot of blood,' the woman told him candidly. 'We need that ambulance, and fast. What's his name?'
'Maurice,' Ted told him. 'And I'm Ted. What can I do to help?'
'Hello, Ted, I'm Fiona. I've got a pad over the wound to try to stem the bleeding. Can you keep constant pressure on that while I check his airway again?'
Ted moved closer to take over from her. There was the usual crowd of gawpers standing round, but one of them stepped forward and offered help.
'Can you call the emergency services again and see if you can find out how long the ambulance will be? Ted asked him then, to Fiona, 'Should we cover him up at all?'
'Our main priority is to try to reduce that bleed as much as we can, until the ambulance arrives. They'll need to stabilise him before he can be moved. But a light covering would be helpful, if there's one handy.'
'Ambulance is on its way and should be here in five minutes. Is there anything else I can do? I could get a blanket from in store, if that would help?' the same man asked.
'Thank you for your help. Could you please ask everyone to move back, to give us some space, and some privacy?' Ted asked. 'And someone needs to inform the management of what's happened. The car park will need to be closed off at some point.'
'I am the management,' the man told them. 'At least, I'm the duty evening manager, just coming in to start work. I can see to that side of things for you. You're police officers? I'll go and get that blanket. I hope your colleague will be all right.'
'So do I,' Ted said through gritted teeth. 'Come on, Maurice, hang in there, bonny lad.'
Just then two cars came screeching into the car park and skidded to a halt nearby, carefully leaving room for an ambulance to get through. Jezza and Steve leapt out of her car, which she had recovered after Ted's advice. Mike Hallam and Rob jumped out of the second, all of them running over to where Maurice lay on the ground, still bleeding heavily, despite Ted's best efforts. Thankfully, at almost the same time, Ted finally heard the welcoming wail of sirens. Hopefully, the ambulance they were waiting for was on its way.
'Maurice! Maurice?' Jezza asked anxiously, crouching down next to her friend and colleague, Steve close on her heels. 'Is he going to be all right, boss?'
'Everything's going to be all right, Jezza,' Ted said calmly, fervently hoping that it was.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It seemed to take the ambulance forever to negotiate its way through the crowded car park. Mike Hallam and Rob had quickly moved to direct it, then hurried anxiously back to Maurice's side. He had still not shown any signs of regaining full consciousness.
As the two paramedics got out of the ambulance and walked towards their casualty, they recognised the nurse who had been looking after him.
'Hello, Fi, not enough coming into A&E under their own steam? You're picking them up on the way? What have you got here for us?'
'Hi, guys, this is Maurice. He's a police officer, he's been stabbed and he's bleeding significantly. This is Ted, who's also a police officer and who's been keeping pressure on the wound for me while I've been monitoring him. He's been unresponsive much of the time.'
'If it helps, the weapon is likely to have been a seven-inch stiletto blade,' Ted told them, moving aside to allow them to take over and do their job.'
'Hello, Maurice, I'm Phil, and I'm just going to take a look at you,' one of them said, crouching down next to the inert form.
'Mike, we need witness statements from anyone who saw anything,' Ted stood up and briefed his sergeant. 'This is Fiona. It was her car the attacker tried to get into, and she's been helping keep Maurice alive since the attack. Perhaps you could go somewhere quiet to talk? Your car, maybe?
'Rob, can you ask around anyone here, see if there are any witnesses. Steve, you can help, but Jezza, you know what I'm going to say, don't you?'
'Don't worry, I'm going to hospital with Maurice anyway. He needs someone he knows to be there, when he wakes up.'
'Good, you can give me a lift. Some toerags have nicked my car.'
'Do you know who his next of kin is, Ted?' one of the paramedics asked him. 'Is there someone we should call for him? We're not going to be moving him just yet. We'll get him into the ambulance but we need to stabilise him before we go anywhere.'
Ted looked at Steve and Jezza, who probably knew him best. 'He's divorced, I'm not sure he has much contact with his ex-wife, does he?'
Unusually, Steve spoke up. 'Sir, I want to go with him too. Please.'
'It's fine, boss, Rob and I can manage here, if the three of you go. And it looks like the cavalry has arrived, finally,' Mike Hallam said, nodding at the blue lights of two police cars which were just pulling into the car park.
'Right,' Ted said decisively,' the three of us will go with him and keep you all posted. Jezza, you should wait in your car for now.' She started to protest so he said, more firmly. 'In the car, please. Steve, get some witness details while you wait. Mike, you've got this one.
'I have just a hunch that Danny Boy may possibl
y try to slip out of the country for a while, especially if he sees through the media that this time he's stabbed a police officer. Mike, make sure we get his description circulated to all ports, just in case. And Rob, chase up details of stolen vans that he might be driving, circulate those, too.'
'I have to be at work very shortly,' the nurse told them. 'Could I possibly give a statement tomorrow, after I've finished my double night shift? I work on A&E, so I'll be following Maurice in.'
'If I could just take your contact details?' Ted asked, taking her gently by the arm and steering her away from the crowd of onlookers still gathered round. 'Also, I'm very sorry, but we're going to have to keep your car, for the time being. It's effectively a scene of crime and will need to be tested.'
'Oh, bugger, that's all I need,' she said. 'It's my boyfriend's car. Mine's in the garage having rather too many bits replaced. He's not going to be amused, and that's going to leave us both without transport.'
'I really am very sorry. Perhaps my officer could give you a lift to the hospital with us? I need a lift too, my car's been stolen, while I was going after the attacker. Can I just ask you, how did you manage to jump out of the car when an armed attacker got into it?'
Fiona gave a short laugh. 'The car looks the business, doesn't it? A really sporty number. Only it has a little peculiarity. The passenger door is dodgy and it gets stuck sometimes. The man tried to get in next to me as soon as I released the central locking, but the door snagged a moment. Working on A&E, you develop very quick reflexes for danger, so as he was climbing in, I was leaping out and screaming, which I suppose is what brought poor Maurice running. Then the door stuck again so the man had a struggle to get out quickly when he'd finally got in.'
The paramedics had transferred Maurice to the ambulance and one of them now put his head round the door and called across to the nurse. 'Fiona? We're ready to go now. See you there?'
Ted led her over to Jezza's car, collecting Steve on the way and handing over to Mike. He promised to let him know of any developments, and gave him the keys to Fiona's car.
