Random Targets

by James Raven

  ‘It is. And you need to get out there right away.’

  ‘What for?’ Temple said, confused.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from the scene,’ Beresford said. ‘A paramedic has made a rather startling discovery and you need to check it out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Beresford took a breath and said, ‘At least five people have been found dead in the wreckage so far. One of them has apparently been shot.’

  ‘Shot! Are you serious?’

  ‘That was my reaction too,’ Beresford said. ‘I insisted on speaking to the paramedic in question. He’s adamant that a male driver has a bullet wound to the head.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I’ve notified the pathologist and the scene of crime officers. They’re on their way. I’ve also briefed the Chief Constable who wants a full report as soon as possible. So you need to get moving. And take a couple of the team with you. It’ll be chaos out there.’

  CHAPTER 2

  THE CHIEF SUPER said he’d arranged for three squad cars to pick them up from the pub. While they waited for them to arrive, Temple briefed the others on what he’d been told and said he wanted them to go with him.

  Ten minutes later they were racing towards the motorway in three fast-response BMWs with sirens blaring and lights flashing. But the roads were clogged and it was slow going. They eventually reached junction five where a police patrolman directed them on to the motorway via the slip road. The three cars then travelled the wrong way along the westbound carriageway towards the scene of the crash.

  Temple knew that what he was about to encounter would be ugly and upsetting. He also knew that if a driver had indeed been shot then the investigation would be anything but straightforward. He was still half expecting to discover that the paramedic had made a mistake and had wrongly identified a bullet wound. After all, it seemed inconceivable that a motorist would be shot in the head whilst driving along a busy motorway in the rush hour.

  But what if the paramedic was right and someone had been shot at the wheel of his car? How might it have happened? Temple could come up with only three possible scenarios.

  The man had shot himself.

  He was shot by a passenger.

  He was shot from a distance by a person firing indiscriminately at the traffic.

  The last scenario was the scariest. It suggested a random killing with no link between the shooter and the victim. It also suggested that the shooter was unconcerned about collateral damage. He or she wouldn’t care if other people were killed or injured in the ensuing crash. This prospect filled Temple with dread. Random murders were the most difficult to solve, especially those committed out in the open where any evidence would most likely have been contaminated instantly.

  As the BMW sped along the motorway Temple’s stomach twisted with grim apprehension. He could feel his muscles getting tight. And when they finally reached the crash scene and he saw how bad it was, the air locked in his lungs and it felt as though the blood had stopped moving through his veins.

  Temple wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him. He got a shock as the BMW screeched to a halt between an ambulance and a fire tender.

  What he saw astounded him. Ahead of them was a wall of charred and twisted metal. Dozens of vehicles had piled into each other. Some had rolled on to the hard shoulder. Others had crashed into the central barrier.

  He saw a tipper lorry on its side, a pile of gravel on the tarmac beside it. Then he spotted the mangled mess of a white transit van. Fire officers were using cutting equipment to try to get to whoever was inside. Wrecked vehicles littered the carriageway across all three lanes. Some were covered in white foam. Some had been crushed into unrecognizable heaps. Others were upturned with wheels buckled or missing.

  Temple had never seen anything like it. This was destruction on an appalling scale. His palms started to leak hot sweat and his temples throbbed. As he climbed out of the BMW his senses were assailed by a blinding array of flashing lights and a strong smell of petrol. He felt his mouth dry up and suddenly found it difficult to swallow.

  All around him there was frenzied activity. The air crackled with radio static. Police and paramedics in fluorescent jackets were shouting at each other. Some were guiding shocked and injured motorists towards the ambulances. A helicopter hovered overhead, sweeping the scene with a bright cone of light.

  People draped in foil blankets were standing around in a daze. Some were sobbing, others being sick. Temple saw a small child being comforted by a police officer. Then he watched as a paramedic tried to revive a man lying face-up on the ground next to a half-crushed car.

  ‘This is horrendous,’ DC Marsh said as she stepped up beside him. ‘Much worse than I imagined.’

  He threw her a glance. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were popping. He suddenly felt protective towards her.

  ‘Are you going to be OK?’ he asked, concerned.

  She nodded and blinked rapidly a few times. ‘Don’t worry about me, guv. I’m just thankful that I’m not among the casualties.’

  They were handed fluorescent jackets and Temple told his team to stay together until they got a fix on what they were going to have to do. Then he slipped on the jacket and returned his attention to the scene in front of him. Almost immediately he caught sight of a traffic officer waving him over.

  Temple responded with alacrity and the others followed. The closer he got to the wrecked vehicles the faster his heart thumped in his chest. The smell of burning oil and smoke became more intense and he had to force down a sudden urge to vomit.

  The traffic cop who had signalled to them was a middle-aged sergeant with a sweat-soaked face.

  ‘Follow me,’ he shouted above the din. ‘But tread carefully. There’s stuff everywhere. It’s like a scrapyard.’

  The tarmac was littered with broken glass and dark oily puddles. Temple stepped on someone’s coat and then had to step over a dislodged wheel. His eyes began to water and he felt a stinging sensation at the back of his throat.

  They were led through a narrow gap between smouldering wrecks to where four people in yellow had gathered. Temple immediately recognised the tall, grey-haired figure of Dr Frank Matherson, the Hampshire pathologist. The others were police officers from the traffic division. They were standing next to a badly damaged car that looked like a Honda Civic. As Temple got closer he saw that the front driver’s-side door was missing and a man’s upper body was hanging out. It appeared that his legs were trapped beneath the distorted steering column.

  There was hardly any space around the Honda. The front end had crashed into the central barrier and the passenger side of the vehicle had been crushed. Steam was boiling from its ruptured radiator. Temple coughed to clear his throat. The air was thick with the stench of vomit and hot metal. And he was acutely aware of the sour, coppery odour of blood.

  The four men, including Matherson, turned towards the detectives as they approached.

  ‘You got here quickly,’ Temple said to the pathologist.

  Matherson gave a curt nod. ‘I was at the hospital when the call came through. Got a lift on the air ambulance.’

  Temple gestured towards the body which now became the focus of his attention.

  ‘Is this the driver I was told about?’

  Matherson nodded.

  The man was on his back and wearing a grey suit that was drenched in blood. Part of his face and head were missing and it looked as though his right arm was hanging on by a thread.

  ‘Have you examined him yet?’ Temple asked.

  Matherson drew in a ragged breath. ‘Only briefly.’

  ‘And was the paramedic right? Has he been shot?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Matherson said and at the same time the muscles in his neck tightened. ‘A bullet entered his forehead just above the left eye. It passed through the skull and the exit wound is clear to see. There’s massive internal damage. The bullet appears to be lodged in the seat head-rest.’

  ‘Bl
oody Hell,’ Temple said, alarmed. ‘Are you sure?’

  Matherson nodded. ‘Positive. The bullet must have come through the windscreen. It seems he was alone in the car and there’s no sign of a gun.’

  Temple shuddered and leaned forward to peer inside the car. The driver’s seat was inclined forward, but he could clearly see a hole in the leather head-rest.

  As he straightened up he felt the unease twist tighter in his gut.

  ‘We need to spread the word that this is a crime scene,’ he said aloud so all of those around him could hear. ‘I know it won’t be easy but we need to keep it clear for the forensic technicians who’ll be here shortly.’

  He turned to DC Marsh who was wearing an expression of outraged disbelief. It looked as though she had stopped breathing.

  ‘Get with it, Fiona,’ he snapped. ‘I need you to do something.’

  His raised voice jolted her out of her trance and she gave a sharp nod.

  ‘What is it, guv?’

  He instructed her to get on the phone to headquarters and tell them to send out as many armed officers as they could to search the surrounding area.

  ‘There’s a bridge about a hundred yards along the carriageway,’ he said. ‘Someone could have taken pot shots at the traffic from there or from one of the embankments. Maybe the shooter is still out there watching the show. Let’s get word to the police chopper. The crew can use thermal imaging to check for unusual movement in the woods and fields around here.’

  DC Marsh turned abruptly to go to where it would be safe to use her mobile phone. But her path was blocked by a uniformed PC, square in his luminous jacket, who suddenly appeared looking breathless and anxious.

  ‘You won’t believe this, sir,’ he said, addressing himself to Temple, ‘but we’ve got another one.’

  ‘Another what?’ Temple said.

  ‘Gunshot victim, sir. This time it’s a woman and she’s been shot in the chest.’

  CHAPTER 3

  TEMPLE’S SCALP PRICKLED as he stared down at the woman. She was in her thirties and dressed in jeans and a leather coat. She’d died at the wheel of a red Ford Focus that had left the road before crashing headlong into a signpost on the embankment.

  There was extensive damage to the front of the car including a shattered windscreen, but the woman had only one visible injury: Matherson quickly confirmed that it was a bullet wound high up in her chest. When her body was moved forward they saw an exit wound in her back and realized that the shell had gone through the chair into the rear seat.

  Blood covered her coat and was splattered about the car’s interior. She was still sitting behind the wheel and strapped to her seat. The airbag had been deflated by the paramedics who had wanted to find out if she was alive. It seemed obvious to Temple that she must have lost control of the car after being shot. Even so he found it hard to take it in.

  What could possibly possess someone to kill indiscriminately in this way? he wondered. There was no doubt in his mind that they were random killings – no way could the shooter have known the identity of the people in the vehicles he was shooting at. It was dark and they would have been travelling at high speed. Plus, the shooter must have fired from a distance, possibly with a sniper rifle.

  He turned to DS Vaughan and said, ‘I want you to act as crime-scene manager. We have to work quickly because we’ll be under a lot of pressure to get things done so the motorway can be reopened.’

  ‘I’m on it, guv.’

  ‘And tell the techies that I need a ballistics report on the bullets as soon as possible.’

  Temple then asked Matherson if he could determine the trajectory of the bullet from the wound in the woman’s chest.

  ‘Well, we know it came through the windscreen,’ Matherson said. ‘And there doesn’t seem to be a marked angle of entry, so I’d say that whoever fired the shot was ahead of the car up on the embankment to the left. How far away, though, would depend on the type of weapon used. The wounds on both victims would suggest a high-powered rifle so the killer could have been positioned hundreds of yards along the motorway facing into the westbound traffic.’

  The scale of the task facing them was immediately apparent to Temple: two murders; a motorway pile-up and a psycho killer with a rifle. It couldn’t get any more high profile.

  Turning to the police sergeant who had brought them there, he said, ‘What’s the situation with the other casualties? Has everyone been accounted for as far as you know?’

  The officer nodded. ‘So far we have three other fatalities. All suffered multiple injuries consistent with collision damage. The paramedics who attended them assure me they were not shot. Five other people are seriously hurt, but their injuries are also crash-related. No bullet wounds. Two of them are still trapped in their vehicles. The others are on their way to hospital. A further fifteen or so people have sustained minor injuries.’

  Temple’s heart was like lead and for a few moments he felt disoriented. The scene around him was still chaotic with the emergency personnel struggling to cope. He could hear people shouting and sobbing. Sirens wailed and the drone of helicopters throbbed constantly.

  He turned towards the embankment which rose steeply beyond the Honda. There were people on the grass in front of clumps of bushes, among them shocked and injured motorists who were being tended to by paramedics. At the top of the embankment there were woods and every now and then the light from one of the choppers would wash over the trees.

  Was that where the bastard had fired from? Was he still up there getting a perverted kick out of what he’d done? Or was he long gone by now, having left not a single clue in his wake?

  Temple reckoned it was safe to assume that the shooter was male. This wasn’t a woman’s crime. Rifles were almost always the weapon of choice for men.

  He was told that officers with the armed support team were already up there searching the woods, but he doubted that they would find anything. He decided to hang around on the motorway and talk to those motorists who had not been injured and were still here because their cars were either damaged or stuck in the jam. There was a faint chance that someone had spotted something – maybe a muzzle flash – as the shots were fired.

  He also wanted to pick the brains of the traffic cops and the collision investigation officers. Perhaps they could shed light on exactly how the drama had unfolded.

  The questions were already mounting up in his head.

  Which lanes were the gunshot victims in when the bullets struck?

  Was this stretch of the motorway covered by traffic cameras?

  How far away was the nearest road or country lane?

  Answers to these kind of questions would help them build up a picture of what had happened.

  Temple was also keen to brief the scene of crime team when they finally arrived. This was probably going to be the most difficult job they’d ever undertaken. They’d be working in extreme conditions; forensic evidence would be limited to the bullets – unless they managed to find out where the shots were fired from. And that was a big if.

  He stepped away from the Honda on to the hard shoulder, leaving Matherson to examine the woman’s body in detail. He walked about halfway up the embankment to get a look at the scene from an elevated position. The destruction stretched for about three hundred yards along the westbound carriageway. Beyond that, there was a queue of stationary vehicles reaching into the distance.

  Scores of cars, lorries and vans had collided. Smoke was still rising from some of the wrecks. Temple counted five lorries. Two of them had overturned and one had been gutted by a fire. He also saw a coach which had come to rest across two lanes and three cars had ploughed into it. He tried to imagine what it would have been like for the drivers. Most of them would have been on their way home from work. The majority would have been driving at around 70mph and it was likely that some had been tailgating.

  The cars driven by the gunshot victims would have slewed out of control in an instant, causing the drivers behind them
to stamp on their brakes. Multiple collisions would have been unavoidable. In the blink of an eye dozens of cars had concertinaed into each other with devastating consequences.

  Temple took out his mobile and called Mike Beresford. The Chief Super had already been given the news that two drivers had been shot dead.

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ he said. ‘This is going to put the fear of God into anyone who uses the motorways.’

  ‘Have the media got wind of it yet?’ Temple asked.

  ‘No, but they soon will. The pile-up itself is topping all the news bulletins. This is not something we can hold back.’

  ‘We need to shut down the areas either side of the motorway along this section,’ Temple said. ‘Set up road blocks and draft in the specialist search unit.’

  ‘I’ll organize it,’ Beresford said. ‘But what’s your gut feeling? Could this be a terrorist attack?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Temple said. ‘It’s not your typical terrorist MO. If I were you I’d alert the Anti-Terrorism Command in London anyway just in case they feel the need to muscle in.’

  ‘The Chief Constable has already done that. They’re sending a man down tonight to monitor developments.’

  Temple said he would keep Beresford up to date and cancelled the call. As he walked back down the embankment, he struggled to order his thoughts. In all his years as a detective he had never felt so overwhelmed by a case – never had to attend a crime scene quite like this one.

  It was going to take many hours to clear the backed-up traffic and to examine the gunshot victims and their cars thoroughly. Then the Highways Agency would have to arrange for the wreckages to be removed and the road surface to be repaired.

  Temple pushed his fingers through his hair and drew in a heavy breath, bracing himself for a long and difficult night. He stepped back on to the hard shoulder and paused to look around. Two fire officers rushed past him. He watched as they joined several others who were struggling to put out a fire that had reared up suddenly in the engine compartment of an overturned van.