by Paul Finch
The same applied to the stake-out at Sagan’s flat.
Thus far, in addition to slumping on this ratty old couch in his state of feigned inebriation, Heck had kept watch from behind a window in the empty low-rise on the other side of the cul-de-sac, and had sat for another eight hours in the back of a shabby old van parked right alongside Sagan’s Primera. Other detectives in the surveillance team had spent hours ‘fixing’ a supposedly broken-down lorry on the same street, while another one – Gary Quinnell of all people, all six-foot-three of him – had donned a hi-viz council-worker jacket in order to sweep gutters and pick litter. The common factors had always been the same: damp, cold, the soul-destroying greyness of this place, and then the smell – that eerie whiff of decay that always seemed to wreathe run-down buildings. The word ‘discomfort’ didn’t cover it; nor ‘boredom’. Even their awareness that at any minute they could be called into action – an awareness that was more acute than normal given that every officer here was armed – had gradually faded into the background as the minutes had become hours and, ultimately, days.
Heck shifted position, but in sluggish, slovenly fashion in case someone was watching. He hitched the Glock under his right armpit. It wasn’t a familiar sensation. Though every detective in SCU was required to be firearms-certified, and they were tested and assessed regularly in this capacity, he for one had rarely carried one on duty. In these days of specialist firearms teams, the gunplay tended to be left to the real experts – the heavily armed ex-military lads, who basically lived for it and would turn up at every incident looking like the SAS. But this was an unusual, open-ended operation, which no one was even sure would bring a result. Gemma had opted for pistols purely for self-defence purposes, thanks to Sagan’s deadly reputation – though again there was no certainty that reputation had been well-earned.
And this lack of certainty was the real problem. There was no way Gemma would commit so many SCU resources to this obbo indefinitely. She was on the plot herself today, having arrived early afternoon, and was now waiting in an unmarked command car somewhere close by. That wasn’t necessarily a good sign – it might be that she’d finally put herself at Ground Zero to get a feel for what was going on, maybe with a view to cancelling the whole show. On the other hand, it could also mean that Sagan’s non-appearance today – all the previous days of the obbo he’d gone to work as usual – might mean something was afoot. They knew he only worked at his official job part-time, so perhaps to maintain the impression of normality he would only indulge in his extra-curricular activities on one of his days off.
Heck chewed his lip as he thought this through.
Penny Flint reckoned she’d dipped again into her employers’ funds some four days ago. The retribution could come at any time, but if Sagan was a genuine pro he wouldn’t respond with a kneejerk reaction. He’d strike when the time most suited him – not that they’d want him to leave it too long. That could be inviting the bird to fly.
‘Sorry to break radio silence, ma’am,’ the voice of DC Charlie Finnegan crackled in Heck’s left ear. ‘But two blokes have just gone in through the front door of Fairfax House, male IC1s, well-dressed … too well-dressed if you know what I mean. Can’t help thinking I recognise one of them, but I’m not sure where from, over.’
There was a brief lull, and then Gemma’s voice responded: ‘Be advised all units inside … we may have intruders on the plot. Could be nothing, but stay alert. Charlie, did these two arrive in a vehicle, over?’
‘Negative, ma’am … not that I saw. They approached from Parkinson Drive, which lies adjacent to Fairfax House on the southeast side. I’m making my way around there now, over.’
‘Roger that … PNC every vehicle parked, and make it snappy. Heck, you in position?’
‘Affirmative, ma’am,’ Heck replied quietly – he could hear a resounding clump of feet and the low murmur of voices ascending the stairwell on the other side of the fire-doors. He checked his cap to ensure it concealed his earpiece. ‘Sounds like I’m about to get company.’
‘Received, Heck … all units stand by, over.’
The airwaves fell silent, and Heck slumped back onto his sofa, eyelids fluttering as though he was in a drunken daze. The footfalls grew louder, and then the fire-doors swung open and two shadowy forms perambulated into view. In the dim light and with his vision partly obscured, Heck wasn’t initially able to distinguish them, though from their low Cockney voices he could tell they were both males, probably in their thirties or forties.
‘Q&A session first, alright?’ one said to the other. ‘Don’t let on we know anything …’
For a fleeting half-second the twosome were more clearly visible: shirts, sports jackets, ties hanging loose at the collar. And faces, one pale and neatly bearded – he was the taller and younger of the two; the other older and grouchier, with pock-marks and jowls.
To Heck they were unmistakable.
He held his position until they’d passed him, ascended the three steps to the dingy corridor and trundled off along it. Then he sat upright to watch their receding backs. Once they were out of earshot, he scrabbled the radio from his jacket pocket. ‘Heckenburg to DSU Piper … ma’am, I know these two. They’re ours. DS Reg Cowling and DC Ben Bishop from Organised Crime.’
In the brief silence, he could imagine Gemma gazing around at whoever else was in the command car with her, mystified. ‘What the hell are they doing here?’ she’d be asking. ‘How the devil did they get onto this?’ He could also picture the blank expressions that would greet these questions.
‘They’re heading down Sagan’s corridor,’ Heck added. ‘There’ll be other villains living in this building, but if it’s not him they’re here for, ma’am, I’m a sodding Dutchman …’
‘Can you intercept, over?’
‘Negative, ma’am … they’re virtually at his door.’
‘Understood … Heck, hold your position. All we can do now is hope.’
Heck stood up, but slammed himself flat against the wall beside the steps, crooking his neck to peer along the passage. He understood her thinking. If he went running down there and tried to grab the two cops, there was every possibility Sagan would open the door and catch all three of them. If he kept out of the way, however, it was just vaguely possible the duo had some routine business to conduct with the guy and might be on their way out again in a minute, with no one any the wiser about the obbo. That latter option was a long shot, of course. Like SCU, the Organised Crime Division was part of the National Crime Group. They didn’t deal with routine matters. There was one other possibility too, which was even more depressing. Suppose Cowling and Bishop were up to no good themselves? Could it be they were here to see Sagan for reasons unconnected with police-work? If so, that would be a whole new level of complexity.
Heck squinted as he gazed down the gloomy passage. The twosome had halted alongside number 36. They didn’t knock immediately, but appeared to be conferring quietly. He supposed he could try to signal to them, alert them to an additional police presence, but the idea was now really growing on him that these two might have nefarious motives.
There was a loud thudding as a fist rapped on the apartment door. Heck held his breath. At first there was no audible response, then what sounded like a muffled voice replied.
‘Yeah, police officers, sir,’ Cowling said. ‘Could you open up? We need to have a chat.’
Heck breathed a sigh of relief at that at least. They weren’t in cahoots with Sagan after all. But now he felt uneasy for other reasons. Given the severity of Sagan’s suspected offences, this was a very open and front-on approach – it seemed odd the two detectives had come here without any kind of support. Did they know something SCU didn’t, or did they simply know nothing? Had ambition to feel a good collar overridden the necessity of performing some due diligence?
The muffled voice intoned again. It sounded as if it had said ‘one minute’.
His sixth sense buzzing, Heck stepped out into the open
. But before he could shout a warning, two thundering shotgun blasts demolished the door from the inside, the ear-jarring din echoing down the passage. Cowling and Bishop were blown back like rag dolls. The impacts as their broken bodies and the two payloads of shot struck the facing wall shook the entire building.
‘This is Heck inside Fairfax House!’ Heck shouted into his radio as he drew his Glock. ‘Shots fired … immediate armed support requested on the third floor! We also have two officers down with severe gunshot wounds. We need an advance trauma team and rapid evac! Get the Air Ambulance if you can, over!’
A gabble of electronic voices burst in response, but it was Gemma’s that cut through the dirge. ‘Heck, this is DSU Piper … you are to wait for support, I repeat you are to wait for support! Can you acknowledge, over?’
‘Affirmative, ma’am,’ Heck replied, but he’d already removed his woolly hat and replaced it with a hi-viz, chequer-banded baseball cap. Climbing the three steps, he advanced warily along the corridor, weapon cocked but dressed down as per the manual. ‘Both shots fired through the door from inside number 36. Sounded like a shotgun from here. Both Cowling and Bishop are down … by the looks of it, they’ve incurred serious injuries.’
‘What’s your exact position, over?’ Gemma asked.
‘Approx thirty yards along the corridor … but I’m going to have difficulty reaching the casualties. They’re both still in the line of fire, over.’
‘Negative, Heck! You’re to get no closer until you have full firearms support … am I clear?’
‘Affirmative, ma’am.’ More by instinct than design, he continued to advance, but ultra-slowly, his right shoulder skating the right-hand wall. At twenty yards, he halted again. Neither of the shotgunned officers was moving; both still slumped on their backsides against the left-hand wall. The plasterwork behind them was peppered with shot and fragments of wood, but also spattered with trickling blood.
Heck’s teeth locked together. In these circs, hanging back felt like a non-option. These were fellow coppers pumping out their last. He pressed cautiously on. And then heard a sound of breaking glass from inside the flat.
‘Crap!’ He dashed forward, only for a door to open behind him. He spun around, gun levelled. The thin-faced Chinese woman who peeked out gaped in horror. ‘Police officer!’ he hissed. ‘Go back inside! Stay there!’ The door slammed and Heck resumed his advance, radio back to his lips. ‘This is Heck … suspect’s making a break for it through a window. It’s three floors down, so I don’t know how he’s going to manage it. But his flat’s on the building’s northeast side, which looks down onto Charlton Court … we’ve got to get some cover down there, over.’
Even as he said it, Heck knew this would be easier said than done. The surveillance team on Fairfax House was no more than eight-strong at any time. Even with Gemma on the plot, that only made it nine – so they were spread widely and thinly. On top of that, though armed and wearing vests, they were geared for close target reconnaissance, not a gun-battle. No doubt, Trojan units would be en route, but how long it would take them in the mid-evening London traffic was anyone’s guess. Heck slid to another halt as a dark shape appeared at the farthest end of the corridor, about twenty yards past number 36. By its size and breadth, and by the luminous council-worker doublet pulled over its donkey jacket, he recognised it as Gary Quinnell, whose lying-up position Heck had briefly forgotten was on one of the floors above. The burly Welshman had also drawn his firearm, and was in the process of pulling on the regulation baseball cap.
They acknowledged each other with a nod, then Heck lowered his weapon and proceeded, stopping again about five yards from the shattered doorway. ‘Armed police!’ he shouted. ‘John Sagan … we are armed police officers! There’s no point in resisting any further! Stop this bloody nonsense, and throw your weapon out!’
There was no reply. No further glass crashed or tinkled.
They were now a couple of yards to either side of the front door. From this close range, it was plain that Reg Cowling was dead. His face had been blown away; in fact, his head had almost detached, and hung lopsided from strands of glistening crimson muscle. However, Bishop, while wounded in the face, which was riddled with gashes and splinters, and the right shoulder, which resembled raw beefsteak through the rents in his smouldering sports jacket, was vaguely conscious. He was ashen-cheeked, but his eyes, which by some miracle had both survived, were visible beneath fluttering, blood-dabbled lashes.
‘Bastard went for head-shots,’ Heck said tightly. ‘Expected them to be wearing body-armour.’
Penny Flint had told them John Sagan was a professional killer. Here was the proof.
‘This is Heck,’ he said into his radio. ‘Update on the casualties … both in a collapsed state and suffering extensive gunshot injuries. DS Cowling appears to be dead, DC Bishop is conscious and breathing … how long for, I can’t say. We still can’t reach them.’
Gemma’s response broke continually and was delivered in a breathless voice, which indicated she was running. Before he could make sense of it, it was blotted out by another explosion of glass from inside the flat.
‘He’s going for it!’ Quinnell warned. ‘Must have decided the coast’s clear!’
‘I repeat, we are armed police officers!’ Heck shouted. ‘Throw your weapon out!’
The answer came in a third shuddering BOOM!, and what remained of the front door was blasted outward. Again, DC Bishop got lucky. The shot was directed above him, so though he was bombarded by wreckage, and gasped in agony, he was spared further pellet-wounds.
A loud clunk/clack from inside signified that a fourth shell had been ratcheted into place.
‘Pump-action!’ Heck said.
More glass detonated as it was struck from its frame. The detectives locked eyes across the open doorway, both their brows beaded with sweat.
‘We can’t just let him run,’ Heck said.
Quinnell didn’t argue the point.
Heck swallowed the apple-sized lump of phlegm in his throat, and then wheeled partly around into the doorway, only his left arm, left shoulder and the left side of his head visible as he tried to pinpoint the target. Quinnell did the same from the other side.
But the immediate area, which was an actual living room, was bare of life. There was no sign of the guy. None at all.
They were vaguely aware of plain, simple furnishings as they scanned the place, of bookshelves that were empty, of bland pictures on the walls. But there were also doors to other areas, one on the left and one on the right. On the far side of the room stood three tall sash-windows. The left one had been smashed outwards.
‘Doors first,’ Heck said, running right, but finding only an empty bathroom. ‘Clear!’ he yelled, spinning back.
Quinnell had gone left. He reappeared from the bedroom. ‘Clear.’
Heck darted for the broken window, which had had to be broken because by the looks of it, Sagan had only been able to lift the lower panel several inches. He flattened himself against the wall alongside it, and risked a quick glance. Some twenty feet below, a fair-headed figure in dark clothing – what looked like a heavy overcoat – and with the shotgun hung over its shoulder by a strap, was scampering away across the top of five flat-roofed garages standing in a terraced row. It was instantly apparent how he’d got down there. Some five yards to the left of the window, about six feet above it, there was a horizontal steel grating – the platform section of an old-fashioned fire-escape. The fire-escape stair dropped steeply down on the far side of that. There was no possibility of reaching either the stair or the platform by jumping. But the killer had prepared for this in advance by connecting a knotted rope to the underside of the grating, and looping it over a hook alongside his window, where it would hang down the apartment house wall unobtrusively. All he’d had to do when the time came was get a firm grip, unhook it so that it swung away from the window, thus preventing anyone in pursuit using the same method, and slither down to the garage roofs.
Heck gazed dully at the hanging rope, swaying in the winter breeze a good five feet away. He was vaguely aware of Quinnell appearing alongside him.
‘Bastard!’ the Welshman said, spying the dwindling form of Sagan as he reached the far end of the garage roofs.
About sixty yards to the right of these, a uniformed police car swung over the grass into Charlton Court from the cul-de-sac at the front of the building. Unfortunately, this was only a divisional patrol – almost certainly it was responding to the call that had just gone out, and would have got here before anyone else because it was in the vicinity. But it wouldn’t be armed, which rendered it next to useless. Besides, Sagan had now jumped from the left side of the garage roofs onto Bellfield Lane, which led away at a much lower level. As well as the rugged, rubbish-strewn slope slanting down to this, there was a high mesh fence along its edge, which formed an impassable barrier for vehicles. Sagan was a rapidly diminishing shape as he raced away along the lower road, intermittently vanishing as he ran through the patches of darkness between the streetlights. Still there was no sign of a Trojan unit.
‘Check the casualty,’ Heck said.
Quinnell nodded, and went quickly back across the flat.
Heck holstered his Glock and put his radio to his mouth. ‘This is DS Heckenburg … urgent message. Suspect, John Sagan, is at large and on foot … male IC1, mid-forties, fair-haired, wearing glasses and a dark, possibly black overcoat. Currently escaping northeast along Bellfield Lane. Warning, Sagan is armed with a pump shotgun and more than willing to use it. For the cerebrally challenged, that means he’s armed and dangerous. I repeat … John Sagan is armed and very dangerous!’ He bit his lip, and then added: ‘In pursuit.’
‘Hey … whoa!’ Gary Quinnell shouted, as Heck climbed up into the casement.
The hanging rope was only five feet away. Heck knew there was a good chance he’d make it, but he also knew that if he stopped to think about the chasm below – he wouldn’t go any further. So he didn’t think, just launched himself out, diving full-length – and dropping like a stone, maybe ten feet, before managing to catch hold of the rope. Even then, several feet of cold, greasy hemp slid through his fingers before he brought himself to a halt, ripping both his gloves and the flesh of the palms underneath.
