by L M Krier
Sergeant Hawkins still had her sights trained on Bacha, looking for the slightest opening to get a shot off when she received authority. She never moved her head but she just had Ted in her peripheral vision. She’d been informed by radio that he was coming, but nothing more about him. If she’d been hoping for the cavalry, she seemed disappointed in this short, slight man with the quiet voice and no visible firearm.
‘Sergeant, could you take half a step back, please. To allow me to come a little closer? Dorian, is that all right, if I just come a bit nearer? You can see that I’m not carrying any weapons, and I’ll keep my hands up where you can see them.’
‘If you come nearer, I’ll kill her.’
‘Yes, you said. But I don’t think you want to do that. Not really. Not a little girl. A cousin, is she? You don’t want to kill a family member.’
He looked directly at the girl and smiled reassuringly.
‘Hello. I’m Ted. What’s your name?’
She was trembling like a leaf and he could see that her pyjama bottoms were wet where she’d panicked and lost control.
‘Y-Yasmine.’
‘Yasmine. That’s a pretty name. How old are you, Yasmine?’
She stammered again. ‘Eleven. Please, I’m frightened. I want my mum.’
‘Dorian? Do you hear that? She’s a frightened little girl and she wants her mum. Why don’t you let Yasmine go? Then you and I can talk.’
‘As soon as I let her go, you’ll shoot me.’
‘We won’t shoot you. We are here to arrest you, I won’t lie to you about that. But we won’t shoot you, unless you force us to. Don’t make this any worse than it is. Let Yasmine go to her mother. If you want a hostage, you can have me instead. Like I said, I’m not armed. You don’t want to kill Yasmine. Let her go.’
‘She’ll shoot me as soon as I do.’
His wide, terrified eyes swung to the armed officer nearest to him, then back to Ted.
‘What if I get her to lower her gun? And what if I stood in front of you, like a human shield. Then will you let Yasmine go?’
He could see Sergeant Hawkins’ eyes widen. He just hoped she would trust him enough to obey his orders.
‘You see, Dorian, the problem is this. If you harm Yasmine in any way, then the sergeant will immediately shoot you, on my order. This way, we can at least get you out of here alive. And I can promise you, all the officers here today are highly trained and ethical. You will be treated properly. Just let Yasmine go. I’ll get the sergeant to lower her firearm, then I’ll come in and we can talk. If she takes a shot, it will hit me, and not you. This vest will stop the worst of it but I’ll still be seriously injured and she knows that.’
He wished he had a way to let Sergeant Hawkins know he was an ex-SFO, but he couldn’t risk anything which might give the game away to Bacha.
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
‘I’ll show you. Sergeant, can you please lower your weapon?’
Inspector Porter was listening to the entire exchange, holding his breath. He spoke softly into the radio, his voice barely discernible.
‘Do it, Julie.’
Slowly, reluctantly, she let the muzzle dip down so it was no longer trained on Bacha.
‘Now, what about letting Yasmine go?’
‘I could walk out of here now with her in front of me. You won’t be able to shoot me because of her. You’d risk hitting her instead.’
The man’s voice had gone up in pitch and was sounding panicky, irrational.
‘Yasmine, look at me. Don’t be afraid. We’re going to get you out of here safely and back to your mum and dad very shortly. Dorian, that’s not true, I’m afraid. We’ve clamped your car, for one thing, so you can’t get away. Secondly, there’s not just the sergeant here. There are seven more highly trained firearms officers, any of whom is capable of shooting you without causing any harm to Yasmine. But none of us wants that. So let’s find an easier way.
‘Let me come in and take Yasmine’s place. Just let her go to her mum and dad. You must see she’s terrified. Don’t put her through any more of this, Dorian. Look, you can see I’m not carrying a firearm, and I’m happy to keep my hands up. What harm can I do to you? Let’s just talk about this sensibly. Can I come in, and will you let Yasmine go?’
Bacha was looking wild-eyed. It was starting to dawn on him that he was caught like a rat in a trap with no way out, unless he allowed himself to be arrested. He appeared to be looking for something, anything, to delay the inevitable.
‘Take off your vest thing. Your protection,’ he ordered. ‘I can’t see what you might have hidden underneath it.’
‘All right, if that’s what you want.’
Ted lowered his arms slowly and carefully then started to remove the stab vest.
‘Sir, you can’t do that ...’ the sergeant began.
‘What the hell is he doing?’ Marston asked of no one in particular in the command vehicle.
‘He’s doing his job,’ Porter told him. ‘He’s getting a kiddy out of there unhurt.’
Moving slowly, Ted slipped out of the vest and lowered it cautiously to the floor by his feet, then once again held his hands up where Bacha could see them both clearly. He turned round slowly on the spot, so Bacha could see the front and back of him.
‘There you are. You can see now. No hidden weapons. Just a clean shirt. Now, will you let me come in and stand in front to protect you while you let Yasmine go?’
‘Sir, you’re putting yourself at risk ...’ the sergeant tried again.
Ted ignored her as he asked, ‘What about it, Dorian? Can we do an exchange? Me for Yasmine?’
He again looked directly at the girl and smiled as encouragingly as he could.
‘Don’t worry, Yasmine. We’re going to get you out of here. As soon as Dorian lets go of you, you run straight into your parents’ room and you stay there, and tell them to stay there, too. You’re doing very well. Good girl.’
Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, with everything happening in slow motion, while Bacha tried to weigh up his options and decide what to do next. Ted began to step cautiously into the room, his body effectively blocking any chance of a shot from the sergeant’s gun from reaching the target.
It was a small room, more box-room than bedroom. It seemed to take an eternity for him to cover the short distance. As soon as he was within grabbing range, Bacha took his knife from the girl’s throat, shoved her forwards, away from him, then reached out to take hold of Ted, pulling him closer.
Freed from the paralysis of terror, the girl fled out of the room and burst through the door of the bedroom next door to find sanctuary in the arms of her parents.
When Sergeant Hawkins came to write her report later on, she found she had no real idea at all of what had happened next. Everything suddenly seemed to go so fast. She was fully expecting the knife to be plunged into the DCI’s now unprotected body. Instead she saw him make a series of lightning-quick but economical movements with arms and legs. Before she knew it, the knife had flown from Bacha’s hand and he was face down, eating carpet, and with both hands immobilised behind his back.
‘Could you lend me your handcuffs, please, sergeant? I don’t want to let go to get at mine.’
‘Bloody hell, sir,’ she said in awe, producing her cuffs and handing them to him so he could secure his prisoner, as he cautioned him.
‘Please can you confirm to the command vehicle that the prisoner is now secure. Then perhaps you’d like to get him taken away and stand your teams down.’
‘Bloody hell,’ she said again. ‘Sorry sir, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.’
Ted grinned at her conspiratorially as he pulled Bacha to his feet.
‘Sorry about that. I’m an ex-SFO, but clearly I couldn’t tell you that because I didn’t want to alert the suspect. People tend to look at me and dismiss me because I don’t look threatening. It comes in very handy sometimes.’
Two members of the squad h
ad come upstairs now their sergeant had given the all clear. They escorted Bacha downstairs and out of the house to the awaiting transport. Marston had issued instructions from the command post that he should be taken directly to the Stockport station. Ted was SIO on the murder enquiry; his team would deal with questioning the prime suspect.
The car with Ted’s own boss and Inspector Neil Smith had appeared and parked near the command vehicle which had also now moved closer. Ted saw to his horror that there were already press vehicles at the scene, down by the tapes cordoning the road off.
Ted knew he needed to go and report in as soon as possible for a debrief. But first he found himself confronted by Yasmine’s father, appearing from the bedroom, eyes brimming with tears of relief at the safe release of his daughter.
He was still in his pyjamas, hair wildly ruffled. He seized Ted’s hand in a strong grip, pumping it up and down as he expressed his thanks. Through the now open door, Ted could see the girl folded protectively in the arms of her mother who was rocking her gently, talking constantly to her in a foreign language.
‘Thank you, sir, thank you so much for saving my little girl. I wanted to try to myself, but my wife kept telling me I would only make things worse. But what could be worse than knowing your daughter is being held by someone with a knife and to hear her screaming in terror for her daddy.
‘I have been weak and stupid in letting my cousin’s son into our house and bringing the police to our door, then not having the courage to protect my girls and my wife.’
‘Sir, you did absolutely the right thing in staying in your room with armed officers in the house. Please don’t worry about that. We’re going to need to get statements from all of you about Dorian and his time here. We are also going to have to search your house, so we’ll have to arrange to move you out somewhere while that’s done.’
The AFOs were still in front of the property when Ted came out, putting his vest back on, not because he anticipated further danger but because he was feeling cold now after the earlier exertion. They formed a loose guard of honour as he walked past, each of them giving him a ‘Nice one, sir,’ or similar as he did so, appreciative of a senior officer with the balls to be in the front line, and without his protective vest.
Ted stopped to have another couple of words with Sergeant Hawkins before he left and to thank her for her work, and that of the teams. She’d not met him before, but she had heard he was a different sort of senior officer.
‘That was pretty awesome in there, sir,’ she told him. ‘It took some bottle to go up against a nutter with a knife, without your vest on. Even with SFO training.’
Ted looked down to the end of the road where he could see the tall and imposing figure of the Ice Queen standing outside the command vehicle, looking hard in his direction.
‘I have a feeling not everyone is going to be all that pleased with how I handled it.’
Chapter Twenty
Ted wasn’t surprised to see Marston hurrying down the road towards the waiting press pack, probably intent on claiming the credit for a successful arrest. Ted didn’t care. As far as he was concerned it was job done, move on with the next part of the enquiry. He took his mobile out of his trouser pocket to call Rob O’Connell. He wanted him and Sal to start questioning Bacha as soon as he arrived at the Stockport station and had been processed.
Inspectors Alex Porter and Neil Smith were coming up the road to debrief their teams. They paused to thump Ted on the back in recognition and have a few words with him.
‘Bloody good job that, Ted,’ Porter told him. ‘Still got the moves, eh? It could have got messy in there, all thanks to that prick not listening to people who know.’
‘I don’t know your Super, sir, but from the look on her face when we passed her just now, I’d say she’s not standing there to welcome you with open arms. Who’s been a naughty boy, then, sir? Still, just as well you ripped up the rule book and got stuck in.’
‘Meanwhile that useless piece of piss is down there parading himself in front of the cameras playing Man of the Match, while it was you and my teams in there doing the dangerous stuff. Probably telling them he single-handedly shinned up the drainpipe with a dagger between his teeth to overpower a heavily armed assailant.’
The three men laughed, united in their dislike of the senior officer who had been foisted on them and who had nearly let the operation go badly wrong through not listening to those who knew what they were doing. The other two went on their way, leaving Ted to go and face the music.
As he got nearer, he could see what Neil Smith had meant about the Ice Queen. She could be cold at the best of times. Right now, she looked positively glacial.
‘Am I to assume, Chief Inspector, that you are not familiar with the latest regulations and directives on the wearing of body armour for officers in this force?’
‘I am, ma’am.’ Ted decided to be formal and to try to sound as contrite as he could manage. ‘I had to make a rapid reappraisal of the situation and I took the view that the risk was justifiable in the circumstances.’
‘I see,’ she said levelly, then her expression softened. ‘You didn’t hear this from me, and I will deny saying it, but very well done, Ted. I’m a mother and I can’t begin to imagine what that young girl’s parents were going through. Not to mention the fear she was in herself.
‘You do know there will now have to be endless debriefings and enquiries. But for what it’s worth, I’m prepared to accept that you had to make a judgement call in extremely difficult circumstances and that, although your actions were unorthodox, they may well have prevented loss of life. Also that, given your particular skills, it was a calculated risk to take.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Ted replied cautiously, still half expecting a sting in the tail of her compliments.
‘While Mr Marston is busy with the press, why don’t you and I go in search of some decent coffee and something to eat before we make our way to Central Park? I don’t know about you, but the tepid liquid they produce for us there is not my idea of what we need after a morning like this. Certainly not much of a Central Perk.’
It was the first time Ted had heard her make anything close to a joke. She was clearly in a good mood.
They arrived at Central Park for the debrief, pleasantly replete with cappuccino, and bacon rolls. The Super had wanted to pay but Ted insisted it was his turn, after she’d bought the Chinese at the pre-op briefing. It had been a surprisingly relaxed and informal time between them. No shop talk, just two work colleagues chatting about nothing of any consequence. There would be time for the inquests into what had happened when they drove home together at whatever time the debriefing with Marston ended.
At the Super’s suggestion, they each took a quiet moment to call their nearest and dearest, checking in after a difficult operation, full of reassurances, not yet knowing what, if anything, had appeared on the local news channels.
‘Oh my God, it was you, wasn’t it? The unidentified plain clothes officer who disarmed a raving nutter with a knife? What were you thinking of, taking risks like that?’ Trev sounded horrified, rather than reassured, when Ted called him. ‘I caught it on the local news just now.’
‘It was nothing like as dramatic as that, honestly,’ Ted hastily reassured him. ‘Really. I had armed officers backing me up and there was no real danger.’
‘Ted Darling, as soon as you start saying honestly, I know you’re telling porkies. I want to know all the details, as soon as you get back. But I imagine you’ll be ages yet, with debriefs and so on?’
‘I honestly have no idea what time I’ll get away. But if it’s at a decent time, do you fancy going out for a meal somewhere? Save you having to cook, and just a little celebration that this part of the operation, at least, is pretty much wrapped up now.’
‘That sounds good. I’m actually taking Bizzie out for a spin on the bike and a pub lunch today. She’s probably even worse at appropriate small talk than you are, so I’m going to coach her for t
his hot date. I have a feeling that Douglas is more interested in a different aspect of the human heart to the medical one.
‘So I’m going to need to find a way to burn off a lot of calories, if I make a pig of myself with two meals out in the same day.’
‘Oh, I think we can probably think of something which would fit that particular bill.’
The ACC (Crime) was attending the debriefing, as overall head of the operation. He was the one who would have to justify every action of all the officers present. He was clearly going to need some answers as to what had gone on. In particular, he would want to know what had led to Ted going in against an armed suspect without wearing the regulation body armour.
‘Mr Marston, perhaps we could begin with your report, please?’ the ACC asked him, to start the ball rolling. ‘In particular, tell me why you took the decision to go ahead with the operation, despite the warning from the surveillance team.’
Everything which was said was being recorded and would be transcribed. Then it would be gone through, painstakingly, at executive level, to see what lessons could be learnt and what actions needed to be taken.
‘Sir, a great many hours and a great deal of expense had already gone into this operation. The arrest of Bacha was viewed as the critical pivot, without which we might not have sufficient information to bring in the rest of the gang. There was no evidence of firearms present in the target house, just a suggestion that there might be. On balance, I took the view that we had enough trained officers to go ahead and enter the property.’
‘So it was largely a financial decision?’
‘No, sir, not at all. I felt the arrest of Bacha was an achievable objective so I gave the order to go.’
‘Inspector Porter, from what I heard, you were not entirely happy with that decision?’
‘Sir, I would have preferred more intelligence before deploying, it’s true.’
Porter was being economical with his words, knowing Marston’s reputation for revenge.
