by Michael Wood
A heavy metal battering ram was brought out of the back of a police car. A tactical-support officer, dressed in identical clothing to his armed colleague, went up to the door. They both took hold of it and on the count of three swung it into the door. It opened with little resistance and armed officers entered the house in a barrage of yelled instructions.
Christian bit his bottom lip hard and frowned. He was waiting for gunfire, but none came. After a few minutes, an officer came out of the house and said it was clear for them to enter.
As soon as they walked in, they could tell why the residents were reluctant to open the door to police. The house reeked of cannabis. In the living room, three young men in their twenties were sat on a dated brown sofa, guns pointing at them from every direction.
‘There are three bedrooms upstairs and two of them are full of the stuff,’ an officer said upon entering the living room.
‘Not our problem. Give organised crime a ring and get someone out here to deal with it,’ Christian said as he left the room and the house. In a way, he was relieved. He hadn’t wanted a gun battle taking place in a housing estate. On the other hand, the nightmare continued.
His mobile vibrated in his pocket and he dug it out. He listened, barely saying two words before hanging up.
‘The station’s had a call from someone at the allotments just down the road from here,’ he said to Scott and Finn who were waiting outside the drug house. ‘Before the shooting, he saw a shifty-looking bloke walking through the allotment. Go down and have a word with the witness.’
‘Will do.’
Christian was about to take a deep breath when Inspector Porter called out to him. He turned around to see the heavily armed officer stride towards him. ‘Right then, Sheffield Park Academy, Pipworth Primary School, Norfolk Park School and Prince Edward Primary School are all within a ten-minute walk from here. They’ve been placed in lockdown. How do you want to play this?’
Christian shook his head and released a heavy sigh. ‘You know something, Gavin, I don’t have a fucking clue.’
Chapter Twenty
Adele pulled open the double doors and entered the surgical ward of the Northern General Hospital. She spotted Matilda’s mother pacing just inside the relatives’ room.
‘Penny,’ Adele called out.
The woman turned quickly on her heels at the sound of her name being called. She had an expression of horror and worry on her heavily made-up face that softened, slightly, at the sight of someone she knew.
‘Oh my God, Adele, thank you so much for coming,’ she said, opening her arms.
Adele hugged her and felt the emotion well up inside her. If she hadn’t had broken free, she thought Penny might have held on to her for the rest of the day.
‘Have you had any news?’
Matilda’s dad Frank stood up from the row of seats on the far side of the room.
‘We haven’t heard anything,’ Frank said. ‘She was in theatre by the time we arrived. They haven’t told us any more.’ There were tears in his eyes, threatening to fall at any moment.
Adele knew all about Matilda’s relationship with her parents, and while Penny wore her emotions on her sleeve and had dried tear tracks on her face, Frank’s concern seemed more genuine. He was pale, stony-faced, and had a look about him that suggested his entire world was crumbling around him. That wasn’t far from the truth. Since James’s death, his worry for Matilda had grown. He wanted her to be happy, but she continued to cling to the memory of her husband, and she was unable to move on. However, just as she was starting a new relationship with Daniel Harbison, as she was beginning to let the light back into her life, this had happened. As Frank stood up to greet Adele, it seemed to take all the energy he could muster. He was drained.
‘They’ve sat us in this depressing family room and told us to wait. It is so suffocating in here, I don’t know what to do,’ Penny said. Her face had been wiped free of most of its make-up and her eyes were red from crying.
‘What actually happened, do you know?’ Frank asked. ‘Nobody’s telling us anything.’
Adele slumped down on a nearby seat. She waited until Frank and Penny sat before filling them in on everything she knew about the shooting.
‘Oh my God. Who would do such a thing?’ Penny asked, wiping her eyes with a tatty tissue.
‘I don’t know. Look, Scott told me that Matilda was shot twice. Has a doctor or anyone given you any more information?’
‘All we know is that they’re not too concerned with the bullet in her shoulder, but…’ Penny couldn’t continue. She fished in her oversized bag for a replacement tissue to the damp and crumpled one in her hand.
‘There are bullet fragments in her brain, apparently,’ Frank continued. His voice was slow, as if he was too exhausted to speak. ‘They need to take them out. They’ve done a scan, and they know where they are, but they don’t know if they’ll be able to remove them without … damaging the brain further.’
‘Jesus!’ Adele said, putting her head down.
‘Adele, you’re medically trained, is there a chance she could be brain-damaged?’ Frank asked.
Adele took a deep breath. She’d known Frank and Penny for more than twenty years – they were like a second set of parents. They’d be able to tell if she was lying or trying to placate them and would accept nothing less than the truth.
Adele could feel the rise of emotion building inside her. She’d been crying while alone and driving to the hospital. She cried in the police station car park when surrounded by bodies and at the mortuary. She always prided herself on being strong and in control, but today, she’d given in to her feelings completely. She was struggling to cope.
She swallowed hard and tried to keep the nausea at bay. ‘That is a possibility,’ she said. ‘However, they won’t know that until she wakes up.’
‘Is there a chance she won’t wake up?’
Adele nodded as tears fell down her face.
‘So there is a chance she won’t survive the surgery?’ he asked.
She couldn’t speak. She nodded again.
‘Oh my God,’ Penny’s voice croaked.
‘Have you phoned Daniel?’ Frank asked.
‘Yes. I called him earlier. He’s in Nottingham. He’s on his way back here now.’
‘Good.’
Frank had met Daniel several times when he’d driven over to Matilda’s house and he’d been there. He liked him. Penny had yet to meet him but both were relieved to see Matilda had finally found someone to make her happy following the death of her husband five years ago. It had taken a long while, but it seemed she had finally accepted that time doesn’t stand still, and life goes on.
The three of them slipped into an awkward silence. Around them, hospital life continued as staff clattered down the corridors, trolleys rattled and lifts were called. They kept turning to look at the double doors of the theatre, wondering if and when they were going to open to be informed of Matilda’s progress.
‘Are there many casualties?’ Frank eventually asked.
Adele nodded. ‘Six dead in total including ACC Valerie Masterson. You met her, I believe.’
‘Tiny woman with grey hair?’ Penny asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh goodness. She was a lovely woman. Hadn’t her husband recently been ill or something?’
‘He had two severe strokes last year.’
‘Good heavens. That poor family.’ She thought momentarily, her eyes darting every which way. ‘I’ve never liked Matilda being in the police,’ Penny said as she wiped her red nose. ‘I’ve been saying it for years. Do you remember when she told us?’ She nudged Frank. ‘You were pleased as punch. I just kept thinking… Well, I mean, when you look around you at the state of the world, I knew something like this was going to happen one day.’
‘You can’t know what’s going to happen, Penny. If you fret and worry about every little thing, then you won’t do anything with your life. You have to take risks. You have to ta
ke chances. It’s called living,’ he said harshly.
‘It might be living to people like you and Matilda, but what about us poor buggers who are left to worry?’
‘Worry?’ Frank asked. He frowned as he turned to his wife. He raised his voice. ‘When did you ever worry? All you ever did was nag at her. You constantly badgered her to leave the force and do something else. You’d have had her miserable in a call centre instead of happy as a detective.’
‘At least she’d have been safe,’ Penny snapped. ‘Look what’s happened to her in the last few years. Look what happened to her last year when she was knocked unconscious and driven into the reservoir? She could have died then.’
‘Yes, and you don’t let a day go by without bringing it up.’
Adele sank down in her seat, not wanting to get involved in a marital squabble.
‘Why do you think she hardly visits?’ Frank asked. His face had turned red in anger. ‘Why do you think she rarely phones? Because she knows what she’ll get from you. You’ve made it obvious for years that Harriet’s your favourite.’
‘What?’ Penny exploded. She shot a daggered look at Frank.
‘Matilda is less than a half-hour drive away and you’ve only been to her new house twice. And yet you’ll happily do the two-hour trip to see Harriet and her kids. So Matilda’s not married and doesn’t have children. Who cares? Would you want to bring children into this fucker of a world right now?’
‘Do you know why I don’t phone and visit as often as I should?’ Penny asked, standing with her arms on her hips in defiance. ‘It’s because I’m scared to death she’s going to tell me how her day’s been. I’m scared of her saying she’s been shot at or beaten up or involved in a high-speed car crash. I’m frightened of the phone ringing or someone knocking on the door in case it’s Adele or someone telling me she’s been killed on duty. I love both my children equally, Frank, but I live every day in fear of something like this happening. All I’ve…’ She couldn’t say any more, as emotion got the better of her.
Frank stood up. He held his wife by the shoulders and pulled her to his chest. Her sobs were loud despite being muffled by Frank’s thick sweater. He stroked her hair and apologised.
Adele turned away. She felt uncomfortable, but she was so physically and emotionally drained she didn’t have the energy to pull herself up out of her seat and seek comfort elsewhere.
Her phone rang. It was Lucy. She swiped to answer with shaking fingers.
‘Lucy, hello.’
‘Adele, there’s been another shooting.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Derek Simmonds seemed to have all the time in the world. He introduced himself to Scott and Finn and gave them a potted history of his life; how he’d worked in banking for forty years before taking early retirement seven years ago at the age of sixty-three due to an ongoing bowel obstruction, which the DCs heard about in glorious technicolour. Eventually, and with some help from Scott, he got around to telling them what he saw.
‘I knew he was trouble the moment I looked up and saw him.’
‘What made you think that?’ Finn asked.
‘The way he walked. He was a man on a mission – large strides, head down, shoulders hunched. And he was talking to himself.’
‘Did you hear what he said?’
‘No. He was muttering really, but he had a face like thunder.’
‘Did you try to speak to him?’
‘You’re joking! If people leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone. I don’t want no bother. Hang on, though,’ he said, suddenly remembering something. ‘I might have him on camera.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Naming no names,’ he said, nodding to the allotment behind him where an elderly man was pretending to dig but was really eavesdropping. ‘Some people have got family members with sticky fingers who aren’t averse to nabbing what’s not theirs to sell for a few quid to buy whatever it is they stick in their veins.’ Derek turned around to look over the allotment and smiled when he turned back to the detectives. ‘He heard me. His grandson’s a little twat, if you pardon my language. Anyway, I had a camera installed. It’s running all the time. Come on in.’
Derek led the way into his small shed. Inside, it was perfectly equipped and every available space was utilised in an efficient way. There was a worktop with a kettle, digital radio and a laptop that was plugged in.
‘My wife hates all this technology malarkey, but I told her years ago that she’d be left behind if she didn’t learn how to use it, and now look where we are. She’s scared stiff every time her mobile rings while I’ve rigged up my shed to capture thieving teenagers with a drug habit.’ He smiled as he hammered away confidently on the keyboard.
Finn looked at Scott and gave a tentative smile while Scott rolled his eyes impatiently.
‘Here we go. It’s only the back view I’m afraid.’
Derek stepped to one side while Finn and Scott viewed the footage of the tall man in combat trousers and an army jacket storm through the allotments. He really did walk like a man on a mission. The backpack he wore looked heavy. What items of death and destruction did he have inside? Was it just limited to guns or was he carrying something more damaging? They watched, transfixed by the screen, until the man disappeared out of shot.
Scott dug in his pocket for a business card and handed it to Derek. ‘Can you email this footage to me please?’
‘Of course I can. Do you know who he is?’
‘I don’t, but someone might. Thank you. You’ve been incredibly helpful.’
‘My pleasure. Many injured up there?’ he asked as he led them out of the shed.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What kind of world are we living in, eh? I feel sorry for the young ones. Well, only those who plan on doing something with their lives, not the wasters who are out for anything they can get,’ he said, raising his voice and aiming his words at the plot behind him once more.
Finn and Scott smiled and walked away.
‘Look after yourselves, won’t you?’ Derek called after them, his face showing the first sign of fear. ‘Men with guns are volatile and unpredictable. Don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want to see your faces on the ten o’clock news tonight.’
They thanked him again and headed back to the Parkway.
Before the BBC News van had even come to a complete stop in front of the carnage on the Parkway, Danny Hanson had jumped out of the front passenger seat and headed for the action, leaving Lewis to catch up with his camera equipment.
He looked around him at the broken glass, the bullet-ridden cars, the blood splatter and the covered bodies. This was serious. This was horrifying. This was fucking amazing! He took out his mobile and snapped a few sneaky shots with the camera. He quickly put it away when he locked eyes with DI Brady up ahead.
‘Detective Inspector Brady,’ he said, putting on his most sincere voice. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about what happened this morning. I met ACC Masterson a number of times. She was a wonderful woman.’
‘She was,’ he said, folding his arms.
‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘What’s going on here? Is there really a gunman loose in Sheffield?’
‘It’s early days, Danny. We’ll be releasing information through the official channels as and when we get it. Congratulations on the new job, by the way,’ he said, despite clearly not meaning it.
‘Thanks.’ Danny smiled. He turned back and saw Lewis still rummaging around in the back of the van. ‘Can you give us anything on what’s happened here?’ He signalled to the carnage around them.
‘Not yet.’
‘I don’t see DCI Darke here. Is she involved in this case?’
‘I really need to get on, Danny,’ Christian said, trying to walk away.
‘She’s been injured, hasn’t she?’ Brady ignored him. Danny headed after him, snapping his fingers to Lewis to start filming and to keep up. ‘Has she been shot? Is she d
ead?’
Christian stopped and turned on his heels. ‘Danny, you’re walking all over a crime scene. If you don’t go back to your vehicle right now, I’ll have you both arrested.’
Danny stood still. He frowned as he studied the DI’s face. ‘Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?’
‘I’m not talking to you anymore.’ Christian walked away.
‘You may as well turn it off,’ Danny said to Lewis and headed back to the van, deep in thought. ‘I’ve got a few people I can ring, but they’re not going to tell me if she’s dead until it’s officially released by the police. But why have they confirmed the ACC has been killed and but no news on Matilda?’ he said, talking to himself.
‘Maybe they haven’t been able to get in touch with her family yet,’ Lewis said from behind.
‘Matilda doesn’t have any family. We need to do some digging.’
‘What is it with you and this Matilda woman? Why are you so obsessed?’
Danny smiled. ‘Oh, Matilda has been very good for me over the years. She’s provided me with some excellent stories. Not only is she a brilliant detective, but she’s a liability and her own worst enemy. She’s front-page gold.’
‘You’re not on the papers anymore, Danny.’
‘No, I’m not. But I’m not exclusively with the BBC either.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘New contract, mate. I’m technically freelance but working primarily with the BBC, which means I can get my own stories and sell them to the highest bidder when I’ve got a hold on something juicy. Come on,’ he said, slapping the roof of the van. ‘We need to do some digging. If Matilda is dead, I want to be the first to break the news. Oh, by the way, one more thing, Lewis,’ Danny said, half hanging out of the van. ‘When we pull up somewhere, and time is of the essence, like it is here, it would really help if you got your fat arse out of first gear and got your camera sorted before what we’re covering is yesterday’s story.’ He shot Lewis a daggered look, then slammed the door on the van.
