by Faith Martin
‘The team leader has given the go-ahead for stage B.’
Hillary tensed. That was the point of no return. Stage B called for the TFI to simultaneously move in on the targets patrolling the outer perimeter. They’d have been in position for hours, pinpointing the lookouts and guards. ‘They have a go,’ Raleigh added simply, for the first time lowering the radio and looking at the others. ‘Let’s get to Checkpoint Charlie.’
The order acted as a safety valve, with everyone moving, letting out pent-up breaths, and glad to have positive action at last.
As Raleigh walked outside ahead of everyone else, Hillary saw him reach into his pocket for his mobile phone. He must have pressed speed dial, for he only pressed one button. As he disappeared into the dark of the farmyard, she saw him put the phone to his ear, but he spoke so quietly she couldn’t hear what he said. Then she forgot about it in the co-ordinated rush to get moving.
Checkpoint Charlie was the first position near Fletcher’s farm where the unarmed team were to congregate. Far enough away from any possible gunfire to be deemed safe, it was also close enough to satisfy Raleigh and the rest of the brass that they were in a prime position to move when the TFI gave the all-clear.
It had all been mapped out before who would go with who. Hillary and Tommy followed Regis and Tanner, who’d parked their car behind the barn, not in it, and piled into the back seat. Mel, Raleigh, Ross and Janine went in Raleigh’s saloon. The two cars left, Raleigh’s leading, and headed into the darkness of the cold March night.
They drove down a narrow lane, with bare-branched trees crowding in on them on either side. For a moment, the eyes of a deer, two blank yellow disks, showed up between the tree trunks, then was gone. Hillary tried to breathe normally, but it wasn’t easy. She could feel adrenaline bubbling through her veins, making her want to fidget in her seat, and knew it would be the same for the others.
Even with the car windows shut, Hillary distinctly heard the first burst of gunfire. The sounds were flat, hard, and alien, and beside her she felt Tommy flinch.
‘Didn’t think they’d surrender without a fight,’ Mike Regis said flatly from the front passenger seat.
As if to confirm it, a second barrage of gunfire ricocheted through the night.
* * *
At Checkpoint Charlie, they pulled in off the road and doused the lights. The entrance to Fletcher’s so-called farm lay just a few yards off up to the right. All was now quiet. ‘What’s going on?’ Regis said, the moment Raleigh got out of his car. ‘Is anybody down?’
The superintendent held up a hand, as ever, the radio glued to his ear. ‘They went in a few moments ago,’ Raleigh said.
‘We know, we heard,’ Regis responded grimly, making Hillary wonder if he had wanted to go in with them. Frank Ross lit up a cigarette, and she saw Colin Tanner peel off to intercept him. A moment later, she saw the cigarette end glow and arch in the darkness as Ross threw it away.
‘We’re moving up to Checkpoint Romeo,’ Raleigh said without warning, and suddenly they were all headed into the cars again.
‘Isn’t it a bit early to be going in?’ Hillary said to Regis sharply. Checkpoint Romeo was just off the entrance to the farmyard proper. She hadn’t expected them to get so close for a good half an hour yet. Didn’t the Tactical Firearms Unit prefer to do several sweeps before calling in their unarmed colleagues? Had the plan been changed at the last minute? Had the super heard something on the radio that altered everything?
‘I dunno,’ Regis muttered, but his eyes met hers in the mirror. He looked calm enough, but Hillary got the feeling he was as surprised as she was to get the go-ahead so soon. And, like her, didn’t like it.
They were driving fairly fast up a rough tarmac road, and now, just up ahead, the lights from Fletcher’s farm spilled out on to the ground. They pulled up just outside a traditional five-bar iron gate. The farmhouse had light coming out of almost every window. It was a large, square, rundown building, with paintwork peeling off the doors and window frames. Off to one side was a series of disused barns.
As she climbed out, in one of the barns she could see two men in Kevlar standing either side of a man dressed in jeans and leather jacket. He was clearly not happy. Her breath feathered white and ghostly in the frosty air as she glanced further along. In another barn, several more handcuffed suspects were being guarded by three more men in Kevlar. All were carrying the regulation-issue .38 handguns that the TFI preferred. So all the scouts and lookouts had been accounted for. The gunfire must have come from the farmhouse itself, when the main strike force went in.
She knew ambulances were standing by just off the main road, ready to be called in if needed. She only hoped no copper had got shot tonight.
The light spilling from the open doorway suddenly dimmed, and Hillary instinctively crouched down behind the car. But the figure that emerged was wearing Kevlar and she slowly straightened up again. She felt no shame at her reaction. Janine, however, gave her a rather sneering look.
Hillary felt too tired to give her a lesson in real life. Perhaps if someone had been shot inside, then Janine might learn something. Being called to a murder and looking at a corpse was not the same thing as having to look at blood and guts that had just been spilt, or smell the cordite, or listen to pitiful moaning as some poor sod who wondered whether or not he’d live to see morning called pitifully for his mother.
The man in the doorway paused, as if surprised to see the two cars parked outside the gate. He spoke rapidly into the radio strapped to his chest as Raleigh began to walk forward with Frank Ross, of all people, by his side. Hillary was so surprised you could have knocked her down with a feather.
She could understand why Raleigh would be mad keen to get in on the act — this was, after all, his show — but she’d have bet her last pair of tights that Frank was too careful of his own skin to be one of the first inside.
The others, taking their cue from Raleigh, began to follow, Regis trotting to catch up. At the door, the member of the firearms unit was already holding up a hand to halt them. Behind him, the team leader suddenly appeared. At least, Hillary assumed it was the team leader, for he spoke hard and fast, and with obvious authority. He didn’t seem to like it they were here.
Had Raleigh called them in without waiting for the go-ahead? Hillary gave a mental head-shake. How arrogant, not to mention bloody stupid, could you get?
She knew how hot Raleigh was to nail Fletcher but this was sheer stupidity. And if true, she thought it highly likely that, before long, Raleigh would find himself up before a disciplinary board.
She slowed down her pace, not wanting to get caught up in it, and glanced across at Mel, who was also frowning. Tommy, sensing something in the air, also slowed to a stop and looked back at them, as if looking for orders. Only Janine kept going.
Raleigh and the armed cops in the doorway talked for a while, or rather argued, and then Raleigh and Frank Ross stepped inside. Mel stepped forward, as did Regis. Hillary heard another muttered and hot argument, and walked slowly back towards the gate. Whatever was going down here, she’d rather let them all get on with it. They didn’t need her sticking her oar in.
Instead, she glanced around, getting a feel for the lay of the land.
The car the three drug dealers had arrived in was a large Japanese model, and was parked neatly and tightly into one corner. Three other cars, supposedly belonging to Fletcher’s gang, were parked in the last of the ramshackle sheds. Light continued to spill out on to the dirty cobbles and the weed-strewn courtyard. Inside, everything was quiet.
After a few minutes, Mel finally walked over to join her. Regis and Tanner remained by the doorway talking animatedly to the TFI member guarding the door. Janine stood off to one side, impatiently shifting from foot to foot, anger coming off her in waves. She was desperate to get in there and see what they’d scored. Had she ever been that keen? Hillary wondered. And concluded, with a small sad smile that, yes, she probably had. In fact, if she were J
anine, she’d probably be harbouring fantasies of putting the cuffs on Fletcher herself.
After a while, men in Kevlar started coming out. In the quiet night, she heard one of them call for the ambulance to come to the gate at the bottom of the property and her heart fell. She knew what that meant. There was no hurry. Someone (or more than one) was dead, and simply needed a ride to the mortuary. By the way the TFI man spoke, it wasn’t one of their own.
For the first time, Hillary wondered if Fletcher himself could be dead. She was just wondering how she felt about that, when gunfire suddenly exploded inside. There was a frozen moment of disbelief, and then suddenly everyone was running back inside — the men in Kevlar, Regis, Tanner and Janine.
Hillary shouted helplessly ‘No!’ and took a step forward, then stopped herself and grabbed Mel’s arm as he moved to sweep past her.
‘Mel, have some sense!’ she screamed, almost getting her arm torn out of her socket before her friend caught her words and saw the sense behind them. He came to a halt and glanced back at her, his face conflicted, then looked back to the farmhouse. Hillary followed his gaze and yelled, ‘Tommy, stop!’ as the detective constable ran on ahead. He turned his head to look back at her, and with her free hand she frantically waved at him to get to one side. He was stood in a direct line with the open door, right in the highest concentration of light. ‘Take cover!’ she yelled frantically.
To her enormous relief, Tommy quickly nodded and moved forward, but angled off to one side, flattening himself against the outer wall of the farmhouse.
Mel began to angrily shrug her hand off his arm. ‘I don’t need—’ he began, then abruptly stopped, for the horrified look on Hillary’s face had him turning around to glance once more at the farmhouse.
Coming through the door was a man with a gun. He was a tall man, over six feet, with dark brown hair and what looked like a thick moustache. But he was not dressed in Kevlar. Hillary’s breath caught in her lungs and stayed there. Her thoughts seemed to move into hyper-speed. He was not dressed in Kevlar, so he was not a cop — he had to be either one of Fletcher’s gang, or one of the Liverpool drug dealers. Somehow, he’d survived the initial TFI sweep and had just gunned his way out of the house.
He was now looking around, like a cornered rat seeking a drainpipe. And Hillary instantly thought about the cars. The cars in the barn were too far away for him to get to quickly. The jeep was parked in the corner and hemmed in. And then, even as the gunman’s eyes turned their way, Hillary thought about the only other two cars around that could give him any hope of an easy getaway. The two cars they’d come in. Parked right behind them outside the gate.
Even as the gunman ran forward, even as he raised his hand, even as she saw the darkness of the gun, glinting like the carapace of a beetle in the artificial light spilling into the courtyard, she knew what was going to happen.
Tommy was safe, being out of sight with his back to the wall, but she and Mel were in plain sight. And standing right in front of his only means of a getaway.
‘Mel, down!’ Hillary screamed, but even as she spoke she was launching herself sideways, using all of her solid frame to deliberately cannon into her old friend.
Beyond the man running towards them, appearing in the doorway, she saw the blonde head of Janine. Saw her mouth open into a silly ‘O’ of shocked horror. A millisecond later, she thought she saw someone looming up behind Janine, pushing her out of the way.
Then she was crashing into Mel, her hands dragging at the tops of his arms, desperate to get him out of the line of fire. She knew from statistics that men with guns tended to shoot at other men first. Women afterwards. It made sense in a way — they perceived men as the far greater threat.
She felt her feet slither out from under her, and her knees folded as she finally succeeded in pulling him down. The gunman, who was now running right at them with his arm fully extended, didn’t pause. He simply pulled the trigger.
Hillary heard it as a loud, huge noise, detonating the night and turning, as if by magic, into pain.
Pain in her side, low down. Pain that burned and made her scream in fright. Pain that turned liquid, hot liquid, pouring down her side, down her leg, as she hit the ground, Mel underneath her.
She felt herself roll, and knew she had no strength to do anything about it. It was as if she’d been zapped by a Taser. Her limbs felt weak and useless, her brain giving them messages they simply couldn’t obey. Something was dreadfully wrong.
She opened her eyes, but saw the world at an odd angle. Dirty cobbles and weeds, right in front of her. Then she could see pounding feet — a pair of incongruously well-cleaned boots. Suddenly, she understood.
They belonged to the gunman, still running towards her. Towards them. She was helpless — nothing about her body seemed to work anymore. Mel was moving, swearing, trying to get to his feet, so he was OK, but he had no gun. There was nothing to stop the perp from shooting them both, unless all he could think about was getting away, of leaping over them and getting to the car.
But no. They weren’t that lucky. She heard that sound again — the ear-piercing, head-bursting sound of another bullet being fired from a gun. She wanted to yell in fury, to shout at the universe that it wasn’t fair.
But she hadn’t enough breath left to even whimper.
So this was it. This was what it all came down to, just before you died.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hillary heard Tommy Lynch shout, but the sound seemed to come from very far away. Had he moved from his position by the wall, legged it for the outer fields? No, that didn’t make sense, because his face was right in front of her.
‘Guv, stay still,’ he said, his voice wavering slightly. ‘I’ve called the ambulance up; they’ll be here in a flash. I’m going to put some pressure on your wound. It’ll hurt.’
Hillary nodded — or thought she did. It was hard to tell when she had one side of her face pressed into hard and dirty cobbles. As if he was a mind reader, she felt Mel lift her face to put his jacket under it. ‘Bloody hell, Hill,’ he muttered, his voice as shaky as Tommy’s had been. His hands, as he placed his jacket under her head, were visibly shaking. It was hard to imagine the supercool and immaculate ‘Mellow’ Mallow coming this unglued. Even his trademark nifty suit looked crumpled and stained.
Her throat felt dry, as did the inside of her mouth. She wanted to lick her lips, but couldn’t seem to unglue her tongue from the top of her mouth.
When Tommy moved to one side, she saw a man lying on the ground a few yards away, with one of the Tactical Firearms Unit personnel stood over him, holding a gun to him. Hillary gave a mental nod. OK, the gunman was down. She wasn’t dead. OK, that was all good. She was hurt, because Tommy was talking about a wound, but she was still conscious, and apart from a fire in her hip and side, she wasn’t in too much pain. That had to be good, too, right?
She’d been wounded in the line of duty before, of course; the worst time, when she’d been sliced with a knife when a drunk who’d been brought in as quiet as a mouse had suddenly gone berserk. It had taken her, the desk sergeant and the two arresting constables to restrain him. She’d remembered a sharp, flickering pain in her arm, and realised she’d been cut only when the dark blue of her uniform sleeve had turned darker and wet. Twenty stitches that had earned her, and a lifelong scar, faded now to nothing more than a thin pale line that refused to suntan in the summer.
So, she could get through this as well. Piece of cake, really. She closed her eyes a moment, and heard Mike Regis shouting her name. He sounded desperate, but she couldn’t be bothered to open her eyes again. They felt glued shut. What was it with this gluing thing? Hillary frowned. First her tongue, now her eyes. Perhaps she should just go to sleep.
The pain in her hip suddenly worsened as she felt Tommy pressing down on it, and she heard herself moan. She bit her lip, but couldn’t stop another yelp of pain from getting past her clenched teeth. Yes, sleep was probably a good idea right about now.
> Mike Regis called her name again, but this time, Hillary didn’t hear him.
* * *
Janine Tyler didn’t know what to do. It was a new feeling for her, and one she didn’t appreciate. When the firing had started, she’d headed inside the farmhouse along with everyone else, but two TFI men prevented her from going further into the house than the first empty room — a sort of makeshift living room. There had been shouts from somewhere deeper in the house, and Janine could clearly make out one of them as being the super’s voice. A moment or two later, she’d noticed movement in the corner of her eye, as if someone was slipping into the hall out of the room opposite. She’d shouted a warning instinctively and headed towards it, only to bump into one of the TFI in Kevlar just as she got to the front door, where she was just in time to see a man shoot her boss.
It wasn’t something Janine had been prepared for. Oh, she knew the risks, and could quote the statistics along with the rest of them. Coppers sometimes got shot. But the ones who were most in the firing line were people like the TFI or the uniforms out on the street. DIs in plain clothes should, in theory, be the safest of the lot.
She’d felt herself being catapulted out of the door by the TFI guy behind her, and had fallen on to her hands and knees on the cobbles, feeling sharp pains lance through them. When she looked up, one of the TFI team was levelling a gun and firing it and another body hit the ground. She heard Mel swearing, and felt her body go suddenly cold. Hillary had been standing right in front of Mel. What if the bullet had gone right through?
She got up and staggered forward, her hands and knees bleeding and wondering where Tommy had suddenly come from, because there he was, running towards Hillary Greene, shouting her name, sounding as if he was on the verge of losing it.
Then Mike Regis was suddenly beside her.
