by Jane Casey
Then, at last, something that made sense.
‘Trojan four two alpha, urgent assistance, urgent assistance, shots fired at police on Hampstead High Street.’
I looked across the roof of the car to Godley, who had just got there. He didn’t bother groping for his own radio, which was off.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Shots fired at the other team. The CO19 commander has just given permission to fire back. It sounds fucked.’ There was no other word for the chaos that was coming over the radio.
‘Anybody hit?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Go.’
I ducked into the car, aware of Godley doing the same on the other side. He appropriated my radio and ripped off the earpiece, turning the volume up so we could both hear what was going on. The siren wailed as I punched through the traffic towards Hampstead. On the radio, the air was alive with increasingly senior officers trying to take control of the situation, local units working out which roads to close, and the armed officers yelling updates over the rapid, loud popping that was a full-on shoot-out in progress.
Godley was completely silent beside me and I had to concentrate on the road so I couldn’t risk a look at him.
‘Are you okay?’
‘That rather depends on what happens.’ I could hear the edge in his voice. He had the ultimate responsibility for the operation. If someone was hurt – if someone died – he was the one who would have to explain it to the bosses, the squad, the police complaints commission and the officer’s family. He was entitled to be a little bit tense.
‘Chances are they’re outnumbered and outgunned. The Armed Response lads do this all the time. It won’t take long to get them under control.’
‘Maybe not.’ Godley was silent for a second. ‘How did he know, Rob?’
‘Who? Skinner?’
‘Who tipped him off? Or his boys, anyway. We didn’t even know until an hour ago.’
It had to be someone on the team – that was the obvious answer. I knew Godley would have worked that out too, so I didn’t bother to say it.
‘Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s not you.’ Godley sounded a little more like himself. ‘Where do I start to look for the leak?’
‘You don’t. Let the DPS handle it. Whoever’s done it needs kicking off the force.’
‘I don’t like letting the DPS in until I know who they’re looking for. They’re like foxes in a henhouse when they get excited. I want to limit the damage, not cause more.’
‘Well, you still don’t start to look for the leak yourself. Get someone you trust to do it.’
‘Who should I trust?’
‘Do you want me to volunteer?’
‘Not everyone would want that job,’ Godley said quietly.
‘In case I find it’s someone I like.’ I shrugged. ‘Too bad, basically. If they’re wrong, they have to take what’s coming. I’ll nose around. You can handle it as you wish.’
Every armed response vehicle on duty was racing towards the scene, calling out for authority to ready their weapons. I let two go past us – they did have guns, I reminded myself, and we didn’t. The passengers in both cars was doing the same thing: sorting out the weaponry. It was definitely an occasion for breaking out the submachine guns they carried in the cars’ safes. I winced at the thought of the firepower that was going to be concentrated on one small area; the potential for collateral harm was altogether too high. A stray bullet – ours or theirs – hitting someone it shouldn’t became more and more likely as every second passed.
And it could be counted in seconds, too. From the first burst of firing to that moment had only taken a couple of minutes. We weren’t far off now, racing along the edge of the Heath.
‘At least it’s close.’
Godley didn’t respond. He was concentrating on the radio, where a breathless voice was saying, ‘Trojan four two alpha, ambulances required. Gunshot wounds. One conscious and breathing, injury to left arm. Second not conscious, not breathing. We’re doing CPR.’
‘Have you got a defib kit available?’ the dispatcher checked.
‘In our vehicle.’
‘Ours or theirs?’ I asked.
Godley shook his head.
I looped through the cordon a local uniformed officer was holding open for us, travelling down the wrong side of the road to pull in a safe distance from the scene, behind the CO19 command vehicle. The gunfire had stopped, I realised after I turned the engine off, and with it our siren.
‘Come on.’ Godley took off, running for the doorway of Lee Bancroft’s building. On the pavement outside it, a figure lay on the ground. An officer knelt by the head, holding it still as other officers took it in turns to do chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth. They were sweating heavily under their armour. As we approached, one of them looked up and shouted, ‘Where’s that defib?’
Jesus. Not good at all.
Derwent moved out to intercept us, his face tight with worry. I was still looking past him, trying to see the guy on the ground. With an almost shameful sense of relief, I realised he wasn’t anyone from the team or the firearms unit. I didn’t recognise him. It was a fairly safe assumption that was because he wasn’t one of ours. As we got closer I could see the ground was veiled in ice-green fragmented glass from the shop window. The panes that hadn’t shattered were starry with bullet holes and I hoped the shoppers and staff had had the sense to hit the deck when the shooting started.
‘Josh, talk to me,’ Godley rapped out.
‘One of them is dead, or on his way.’ Derwent looked back at the guy on the ground, at the blood that was drenching the pavement. ‘Three in custody.’
‘Our lot?’
‘Mostly okay. One of the firearms guys got winged. Two of them managed to trip over one another and fell down the stairs in the confusion. They’ve just got bruises, twisted ankles, that kind of thing. We were too far away to be in any danger.’
Godley breathed out slowly. ‘Bancroft?’
‘He’s down. Not shot,’ Derwent clarified quickly, seeing the look on Godley’s face. ‘He was beaten up pretty badly before we got here.’
Three ambulances turned into the street in convoy, blue lights whirling. The paramedics jumped out, loaded down with their kit, and went running past us to take over from the CO19 officers’ increasingly laboured efforts at CPR. The officers stepped back, breathing hard, absolutely knackered.
‘Where’s the officer who got shot?’ Godley asked.
‘They took him to hospital themselves. Didn’t bother to wait for the paramedics. It was a through-and-through.’ Derwent pinched his arm, indicating the track the bullet had taken through the officer’s muscle. Getting a hole that size put in your flesh tended to sting just a little but it wasn’t anything like as complex or debilitating as a shattered shoulder might have been.
‘Any reason why we need to stay out here?’
‘Not really. Lee is still upstairs – that’ll be where those paramedics are heading. And the three gunmen haven’t come out yet.’
‘They’ll be waiting for vans to transport them,’ I said.
‘And uniforms. You don’t want them to say they picked up gunshot residue off the firearms blokes if there’s any doubt about who fired what.’
‘It sounds as if inside is where I need to go.’
We walked towards the door, passing close to the blood-stained figure who was evidently not responding satisfactorily to the paramedics’ attentions.
Godley was staring at the man on the ground. ‘Is that—?’
‘Felix Crowther. Yep.’
‘Who’s Felix Crowther?’ I asked.
‘One of John Skinner’s buddies. Last I heard, he’d retired to Spain.’
‘I bet he wishes he’d stayed there,’ Derwent said darkly. ‘What a fucking mess.’
I stood back to let him go ahead of me and caught a glimpse of his face as he turned into the building. He looked strung out, the excitement of earli
er having soured to something less positive. I couldn’t really see what there was to be so upset about. Okay, so the operation had gone badly, but it wasn’t Derwent’s fault. It wasn’t Godley’s fault either, but he would be carrying the can if anyone had to take responsibility, so all in all, there wasn’t much for Derwent to be chewing his lip over. Then again, I was aware I was preternaturally imperturbable, able to rationalise almost everything to the point where I didn’t get too fussed about much. Except Maeve, I admitted to myself with a secret grin as we took the stairs two at a time. I definitely got fussed about her.
We passed walls pitted with holes on the way up the stairs, plaster crunching under our feet. The door to Lee Bancroft’s place was standing open, splintered around the locks where they’d kicked it in, and the flat was in about as good a state as you’d expect given that the trapped gunmen had shot wildly around themselves as they tried to find a way out. We trooped in to find three men lying on the floor amid the dust and debris from the fight, hands cuffed behind them, with bags over them to preserve the gunshot residue on their hands. They were fairly effectively incapacitated, I would have said, but no one was taking any chances: they had a cordon of armed officers who were obviously itching for an excuse to go for their weapons. The men on the ground were heavily muscled, clean-cut types, and Derwent pointed at them in turn.
‘Laurence Murray, Wes Roberts and Phil McKenzie. Lower down the pecking order than Felix, but trusted members of the Skinner family nonetheless.’
‘New since my time,’ Godley commented. ‘They’d have been in school when I was after John’s lot.’
Derwent laughed. ‘Reform school, maybe.’ He leaned down. ‘Not so clever now, are you, lads? I haven’t heard a word out of you. Presumably you’re going to keep your mouths shut until you find out what the boss wants you say, because I can’t see how you’d be able to talk your way out of this one.’
Not a flicker of a reaction from any of them. I was surprised that the inspector even bothered to taunt them. They were professionals, not the sort of shite who you could goad into revealing backchat. Besides, there were many, many witnesses to them trying to shoot their way out of the building. They were screwed, no matter what they said or didn’t say. It was kinder just to leave them alone so they could contemplate the sentences they would most likely receive. Life sounded about right, for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and the little matter of more than a few counts of attempted murder.
‘You know, I’m beginning to think Ken Goldsworthy might be on to something. Skinner’s throwing away resources like they’re weighing down his balloon. If he doesn’t put a stop to it, he’ll be stuck for decent muscle to carry on his businesses.’
‘And Ken can step into the gap.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Hard to imagine John letting it all go just like that.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t feel he has anything to work for any more.’ Godley sounded sober, and I guessed he was imagining himself in the same situation. Skinner was as irrational and angry as any bereaved father, but a key difference was that he had the assets to act on his emotions. Murray, Roberts and McKenzie, not to mention Crowther downstairs, were just collateral damage, as they seemed to be starting to realise.
‘Knock, knock. I’ve got three taxis downstairs for the gentlemen on the floor.’ A cheerful uniformed inspector from the local force nodded to Godley. ‘All right if we take them away?’
‘Fine by me.’
We watched as the men were hauled to their feet and moved with exaggerated care through the doorway and down the stairs. It would be absolutely ideal if we could avoid any accusations of police brutality that might muddy the waters of what was a crystal-clear case of being caught in the act. Fortunately, the local police seemed to have got that memo.
‘Where’s Lee?’
‘In the bedroom.’ It was one of the armed officers who spoke in a voice that rumbled all the way up from his boots. ‘He needed a nice lie-down after Pricey shot him.’
The man he indicated gave us a sheepish grin and patted his Taser. ‘No one argues for long.’
‘What did he do?’ I asked, frankly curious. ‘Try to fight his way out?’
‘When we got here, he was being punched about by two of the lads who’ve just left. We broke up the party, but one of them had said something to him about his brother having put up more of a fight. As soon as things calmed down, he asked what he’d meant.’
‘And the joker with the red hair told him they’d shot him dead,’ the other officer interjected. ‘So he went a bit mental.’
‘He wasn’t trying to attack us,’ Price explained. ‘He was trying to get at them. But he wasn’t very interested in listening to reason.’
‘When did you shoot him?’ Derwent asked. ‘Shouldn’t he be up by now?’
‘The paramedics say he’s concussed. Not because of being shot. Because of what they were doing to him when we got here.’
Godley moved to the back of the flat and pushed open the bedroom door so he could look in. ‘How’s he doing?’
I couldn’t hear the response, but the superintendent grimaced and turned back to us. ‘Hospital. Who wants to babysit?’
Derwent melted away like snow on a summer’s day, muttering something about wanting to check up on what was happening with processing the gunmen.
‘I suppose that leaves me.’
‘Thanks, Rob. You can give me a call when the doctors say he’s okay to interview.’
‘Right you are,’ I said, resigned to a few hours of sitting about doing nothing.
‘I’ll let you have someone else to keep you company. What about Chris?’
I groaned. ‘Pettifer only talks about Spurs, boss. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you? Can’t I have Maitland?’
‘All right. But I wouldn’t have thought he was that much better.’
‘He’s not, but at least he bores on about Arsenal. I can just about cope with that.’
I hoped to God Maitland didn’t find out I was the one who’d nominated him to spend the rest of the day in a hospital corridor. I hoped it even more fervently when I heard him on the subject all the way there, after Lee Bancroft had been scraped onto a stretcher and bounced down the stairs. He had looked, as Price observed to me, like ‘hammered shit’, his face battered, his eyes dilated and full of confusion. Godley had swept off in his Merc to update the brass and explain why half of Hampstead High Street had had to be closed. Derwent was nowhere to be found. The rest of the team had wished us well and got down to work, ripping the two brothers’ flats apart in search of any clues that might lead us to Patricia Farinelli. Because unless Lee cooperated, we were still at square one when it came to finding her, alive or otherwise.
I endured forty minutes of Maitland moaning while we sat outside the room where Lee Bancroft was recovering. Eventually I sent him off in search of a sandwich and a coffee. The hospital claimed it had a Marks & Spencer outlet, complete with café, but its location seemed to be a closely guarded secret. I was anticipating a vending machine tea at the very best, and gave him a round of applause when he returned in triumph with a tray of cups and a bag of food.
‘Good work, mate.’ I dived in. ‘Can I have the all-day breakfast?’
‘No you can’t.’ He reached over and snatched it. ‘I get first pick. Caveman rules. I hunted it.’
‘So you did. It actually didn’t take you as long as I was expecting.’
‘Oh, well, I had a bit of help.’ He ripped open the packaging and wadded half of the sandwich into his mouth in one go. Around it, he managed to say, ‘Liv Bowen told me where to go.’
‘Liv’s here?’ She hadn’t been on either team, now that I thought about it. I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen her since the nick.
‘She’s downstairs. With Kerrigan.’
I stopped what I was doing. Downstairs was A&E. ‘Maeve? What’s happened?’
‘I didn’t see her. I was just looking around and Liv came up out of the ground. She sai
d she’d come in with Kerrigan. I didn’t ask why— Where are you going?’
I was halfway down the corridor already, moving fast. I didn’t bother to answer. The only thing I would have said was the only thing that was going through my head.
I knew I shouldn’t have left her.
Chapter Nineteen
Sunday
MAEVE
Previously, I would not have thought that it was possible to be elated and despondent at the same time. I wandered down the hallway, trying not to catch my colleagues’ eyes for two very different reasons: I was mortified by forgetting to look up the Bancrofts on the PNC, and I didn’t want anyone to ask why I was stupid with happiness. There was a time and a place for floating around in a haze of bliss, and this was definitely not it. I gathered myself together, making a very conscious effort to forget about Rob while I concentrated on sorting out the mess I’d made.
My stomach went into freefall every time I thought about Lee Bancroft. The moment I saw the conviction on Alexander Bancroft’s PNC record would stay with me for a long time. The PNC tended to be blandly uninformative on the details; the ‘method screen’ gave the officer in the case two lines to say what had happened. I couldn’t have said why, but the bald description raised the hairs on the back of my neck. ‘The offender raped a twelve-year-old female at Evanston School, Enfield.’ He had been fifteen. The very fact that the officer had requested the file be kept in the general registry for longer than the regulation seven years told me that he had taken it seriously, that he had been worried about Lee’s potential to become a repeat offender – that he had seen him as dangerous.
The case’s unique reference number included the code YE, which told me that Edmonton was the police station where the complaint was handled. I had called up, hoping to track down DC Tony Stone, and wasn’t surprised to hear that in the previous eleven years he’d moved on. In fact, Tony Stone had moved around quite a bit as his career progressed, ending up all the way down in Croydon as a DI. I called Croydon, hoping he might be on duty, but of course he wasn’t. By dint of begging I managed to persuade them to give me a personal number for him, and rang his mobile only to be told by a pleasant-sounding woman that Tony had taken the kids to football and had left his phone at home by accident. She’d get him to give me a call, she promised, and with that I had to be satisfied.
