She knew what it was.
A cover-up.
Someone had murdered PC Harding, for that she had no doubt. And if they were willing to murder a police officer, what would they do to her?
‘Chop-chop, darling,’ the brutish man said, pushing the gun a little harder into the back of her skull. He had a cockney accent, and she could see from his lips and eyelids that he was Caucasian. The man who held her husband’s life in his hands had black skin.
Neither of them had given her anything else to identify them.
Whoever had organised this would never have to face the consequences of their actions. But as Amy sat, the pen firmly in her hand, she could feel her heart flipping like an acrobat. If she refused, then Andy would surely die. She probably would too. But what would it do to whoever was behind it all?
‘Perhaps you need some persuasion.’ The man yanked her by the hair, turning her head so she caught a glimpse of the other man screwing a silencer attachment onto the end of his gun. Andy, hands and feet bound, looked at her for help, his eyes wide with fear. Tears fell down his cheeks and across the duct tape that had been wrapped around his face. As the masked man finished attaching the silencer, he casually aimed the gun at her husband and pulled the trigger.
The bullet ripped through Andy’s thigh, exiting out the back and splattering the floor with blood. Andy fell to the side, his anguish held in by the gag as he wept in agony.
Amy instantly screamed and launched out of the chair to his aid, only for a strong hand to clamp onto her shoulder and slam her back into her seat.
‘Sit the fuck down.’ The masked man spoke with quiet intimidation.
Amy looked to her husband, who was gently rocking on his side, tears streaming down his face as he begged for help. Blood slowly pumped from the wound, a scarlet puddle slowly pooling around him.
He needed medical attention.
And quick.
Suddenly, a measure of calm came over Amy as she turned to the desk, picking up the pen, and started filling in the usual details at the top of the page. Her mind was racing, her heart was breaking for her husband who had just been shot.
The thought of it rocked her and she wobbled slightly, the pen dropping from her hand and clattering off the table.
‘For fuck’s sake.’ The gun was pressed against her head once more and she gasped in terror.
Knock knock.
A shocked silence filled the room at the unexpected thud on the front door. Amy turned, the masked man keeping the gun pointed at her as he lifted a finger to her lips.
The message was clear.
She sat silently as he ushered the shooter to the door. The man who had shot her husband obliged, shuffling around Andy’s prone body and carefully approaching the peephole.
Knock knock.
The shooter stepped back in shock and then, with an angry scowl, looked again. The next knock was accompanied by a voice.
‘Amy. Is everything okay? I thought I heard you scream.’
Amy’s mouth fell open in shock as the masked man behind her pushed her with his gun.
‘Who the hell is that?’
Amy knew the voice belonged to Sam Pope; she had spent enough sessions with him to know his calm voice. Why he had shown up at her doorstep, she couldn’t say, but she was suddenly counting her blessings. Hopefully he would go for help.
Those hopes were soon dashed.
‘Deal with him,’ the masked man stated coldly, clearly the brains of the operation.
The shooter nodded, pulling his gun up to chest level before quickly pulling the door open. He instantly aimed at the broad chest of Sam, who held his hands up in shocked surrender.
‘In. Now.’
The shooter stepped back, keeping the gun firmly on Sam as he stepped in, before closing the door and pressing the gun to the back of his head. Sam shot a glance to Amy, his eyes asking if she was okay. She wiped away a tear and nodded; her terror was clear. Sam followed her gaze to the man on the floor, who he assumed was her husband.
The ever-growing puddle of blood around him told Sam the situation immediately.
Behind Amy, the masked man had a crooked smile, his jagged teeth poking through the balaclava like a rusty zipper.
‘Well, well. Looks like you picked a fucking bad night to play the concerned neighbour.’
‘I don’t know what this is about, but just let them go. We haven’t seen your faces and we won’t go to the police. But that man needs to go to a hospital.’ Sam spoke calmly, both hands still in the air.
‘Can you believe this guy?’ the masked man asked before chuckling. ‘How about you keep your mouth shut, this stupid bitch finishes what we started, and maybe then I’ll let you live.’
‘Let. Them. Go.’ Sam spoke, his words carrying a threat that caused a chill to run down Amy’s spine. The man before her wasn’t the same broken man who sat on her sofa once a week. This Sam Pope carried himself with purpose, with an air of menace to his every move.
This was the Sam Pope she had read about in the military reports.
The masked man didn’t seem as impressed.
‘You know what, blow his fucking brains out,’ he demanded, and Sam felt the silencer press against the back of his head.
He took one deep breath.
Now.
In an instantly, Sam whipped his head to the side, dropping his shoulder and pushing his body weight back. The shooter, caught by surprise, panicked and squeezed the trigger, sending a stray bullet into the mirror across the room, causing the glass to shatter and cascade to the floor. With his shoulder beneath the man’s elbow, Sam locked both hands on the shooter’s wrist before shooting upwards, his shoulder shoving the man’s elbow upwards and shattering his arm. The bone ripped through the skin, with more blood bursting out onto the floor, accompanied by a roar of pain.
It had happened in the blink of an eye and the other masked man panicked, stepping back from Amy and, with a shaking hand, aimed at Sam and fired.
Sam spun the shooter round by his broken, limp arm just in time for the bullet to burrow into his spine. The second one caught him in the right shoulder blade, causing him to fall forward. Sam dove out of the way, falling behind the sofa as another bullet sailed past and hammered into the wall behind him.
The blasts from the non-silenced gun shook the entire room, undoubtedly alerting a terrified neighbour who would already be calling the police.
Amy dove from her chair towards Andy, the loss of blood now leading to a loss of consciousness. In a panic, the masked man yanked her up by the hair, looping an arm around her neck and using her as a layer of protection.
Sam slowly pushed himself onto all fours, reaching back towards the prone body of the other attacker and wrapping his fingers around the silenced pistol.
‘Whoever you are, you’re a dead man.’ The shakiness of the masked man’s voice betrayed his threat. ‘You hear me.’
‘Just let her go.’
Sam sat with his back pressed against the sofa, ready to move. On the other side of the room, the man held an innocent woman hostage as her husband was slowly dying from blood loss.
This situation need to be concluded.
He waited for the response calmly.
‘Fuck you,’ the masked man defiantly spat. ‘Once I kill you, I might just comfort this poor lady on account of her husband being a dead man.’
That was enough.
Sam spun as he stood, whipping round in a fluid motion that saw him lift both hands up to shoulder height, the fingers expertly gripping the gun in his hand. Without so much as batting an eyelid, he gently squeezed the trigger, the bullet zipping across the room. It shot past Amy and planted squarely between the eyes of her captor, sending a spray of blood and brain matter up the wall behind them.
He slumped to the floor.
Sam slowly lowered the gun.
A moment of silence filled the room, as if mourning the two men who had been killed within it. After a few seconds Amy dropped t
o her knees, her face paling as she went into shock. Sam quickly engaged the safety on the pistol before tucking it into the inside of his bomber jacket and racing to her. He squatted down, placing both hands on her shoulders.
‘Amy, we have to go.’
She stared straight ahead. Seeing her front room turn into a gunfight was not something she had ever been prepared for.
Sam gently shook her. ‘Look at me, Amy.’
She eventually did.
He gave her a smile. ‘We need to go. Now.’
‘Andy…’ she feebly muttered, pointing to her wounded spouse.
‘We’re taking him too.’
Her eyes vacant, Amy gently nodded and allowed Sam to pull her slowly to her feet. She looked at the bullet holes in the wall, the blood that had stretched across half the room like a shadow, and the dead bodies of the masked men who had held her at gunpoint.
All of it became very real.
She allowed herself to cry, the tears streaming down the mascara stained path left by the previous ones. Sam left her to it, knowing it was part of her acceptance of the situation. He squatted down next to Andy, who was barely awake. The blood loss was taking its toll, draining the colour from his face and pulling him in and out of consciousness. Sam hovered his hand above Andy’s face and clicked a few times.
‘Andy, buddy. I need to get you up.’
Sam roughly tugged the sleeve of Andy’s shirt, tearing the fabric before tightly wrapping it around his leg. The wound was clean and the bullet hadn’t seemed to have nicked anything major. It was a crude tourniquet, but it would do for now. Digging into his pocket, he pulled the Swiss Army knife from his keys, flicking open the blade and hacking through the binds around Andy’s ankles and wrists.
Amy had snapped back into the room and gently knelt into the puddle of blood, cradling her husband’s head lovingly. She kissed him once on the forehead before unwinding the masking tape from around his face, trying her best not to wrench the hairs from his skin.
Andy spat out the balled-up sock and took in a deep breath, his eyes bloodshot.
‘What…what…’ He couldn’t manage anything further before a cocktail of shock and blood loss caused him to drop to his side.
Sam caught him, draping Andy’s arm across his shoulders before using all of his strength to stand up. The man was dead weight and Sam gave a small yell of anguish as he pushed up before walking towards the door, which Amy held open.
They had to be quick.
Amy took one last look at the carnage of the evening that would undoubtedly change her life forever. Her husband had been shot and she had nearly been killed.
The room was a warzone.
Luckily, she had the one person with her who flourished in such an environment.
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she closed the door and scurried after her husband and their saviour as the night sky began to echo with the wail of sirens.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It had taken the first car less than four minutes to respond to the scene; the street outside the block of flats was littered with its inhabitants. The fear had stormed through the building like a flood, with each gunshot that echoed from the apartment sending them all scurrying out into the safety of the street.
As with all gun-related calls, the first officers on scene set up a cordon, determining a safe perimeter and securing the area with a roll of heavily labelled police tape. Once the public were taken to a reasonable distance, they monitored the building until the armed response unit arrived.
They were on the scene within three minutes of the police arrival, the van accelerating dangerously close to the building before screeching to a stop, with ten men, heavily armoured, debarking in regimented fashion. Their commanding officer, a burly man named Hyde, bellowed his instructions to his team, who all raced towards the front door in formation, their automatic weapons directed to the floor. The watching civilians lit up the street with their camera phones, the terror of the shooting now replaced with the need to capture the action on social media.
The gunshots had echoed from the third floor, which the response team raced towards, taking the stairs two at a time with the front pair covering the first floor door as the rest carried on. Eventually they made their way to the third-floor corridor, with Hyde giving the gesture to breach. They slid into the walkway with minimal sound, their boots suppressing their steps as they moved with fluidity.
They eventually came to an open door.
Instantly, Hyde could see the pool of blood creeping under the door like an escaping prisoner.
With a flick of his fingers, two of his men burst in, one dropping to his knee and scanning the room through his scope whilst the other swung his gun above, covering the kitchen.
The faint remnants of a curry hung in the air.
Eventually Hyde stepped in, flanked by two more men, their helmets drawn down, their bodies encased in bulletproof armour. They held their automatic rifles in gloved hands and stepped around the blood, which had now conquered half of the room. They cleared the three other rooms of the apartment before Hyde told his men to stand down. Whilst his second in command radioed outside to confirm no shooters, Hyde began to inspect the two bodies,
Within seconds, he realised what a clusterfuck the night was about to turn into.
DSI Pearce felt the same way as soon as he arrived. He had been walking across the station car park to his black Ford Focus when the sudden rush of officers to the panda cars snared his attention. With his ex-wife no longer waiting for him at home, he had slid into the passenger seat and flicked on his radio, tuning into the distressed 999 call regarding the shooting.
It was the address that caught his attention.
It was Amy Devereux’s.
His attention to details made him a hell of a detective, especially when it came to interrogating police officers who thought they could outsmart the law, but that gave him little solace as he raced after the police cars, weaving in and out of the spaces their wailing sirens cleared through the London nightlife. When he arrived, Pearce parked further down the street, slowly taking in the scene as crowds of civilians all hung around excitedly, like flies buzzing around an open bin. As he watched the AR team breach the building, he slowly walked up and down the street, failing to find the license plate that matched Amy’s.
Thinking about her, Pearce suddenly felt a twinge of guilt in his stomach. They had had a decent conversation regarding Pope and Harding, and he had found her as charming as he had professional. She was good at her job and a respected member of staff.
Now, if the reports coming over the radio were correct, there had been several shots fired in her apartment.
As he stormed back across the street towards her flat, he felt that feeling in his gut once again.
Something didn’t sit right.
As he approached the building, he flashed his credentials to the officer guarding the door, who grunted and stepped aside. Pearce was used to it. When you spend your entire career putting away dirty cops, small talk isn’t on the menu. He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell, allowing the last couple of armed officers to pass, both of them giving him a curt nod.
Last through the door was Hyde.
‘Chief.’ Pearce nodded.
‘Pearce.’ Hyde eyed him in frustration, his fingers eagerly gripping a packet of cigarettes.
Pearce realised then that he was terrified to ask the next question. ‘Is Amy Devereux okay?’
Hyde shrugged. ‘Don’t know who that is.’
‘She’s the therapist down at HQ.’
‘Ah, the shrink. Nice bit of skirt, that.’ A seedy grin spread across Hyde’s face, revealing his coffee- and tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Well, unless she’s put on fifty pounds and a beard, then I haven’t the foggiest.’
‘Excuse me?’ Pearce stepped in front of Hyde as he tried to head for the door. A scowl and a sigh greeted him.
‘Look, we have two bodies up there. Both male. Both dead.’
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br /> ‘Two men?’
‘Yup. One of them looked like he had been through the wringer. Arm shattered, two bullet wounds in his back. The other one, single shot.’ He tapped his own forehead, right between the eyes. ‘Like a pro.’
Pearce stood, hands on hips, and absorbed the information like a sponge.
‘Why the hell are there two dead men in Amy Devereux’s apartment?’ He shook his head. ‘Who the hell killed them?’
Hyde flashed his horrible grin once more before heading towards the door. ‘You’re the detective, Pearce. Figure it out.’
Sam pulled the steering wheel firmly to the left, the car taking the corner quickly, causing Amy to shunt uncomfortably in the back. She made little complaint, too busy holding her hands firmly on her husband’s leg, the blood from the bullet wound turning his jeans an entirely darker shade. Sam had helped Andy Devereux to their car, which Amy had led them to. The Audi was small, enough for a family of two, but Sam was adamant that they squeeze into the back. The struggle from the flat to the car had taken everything from Andy and he almost collapsed on the pavement, but Sam had caught him.
They drove quickly through the busy streets of London, with Sam confidently swerving between two cars and roaring the car into life, shifting through the gears with minimal fuss and hurtling at speed through the bright lights of the city.
The city never slept.
Sam had been amazed when, on a few of his self-assigned missions, he had found people still drinking at four in the morning in the middle of the week. Tourists over-indulging or the rich just enjoying the city when others couldn’t afford to. Either way, as Sam sped up towards a sign directing him to Bethnal Green, he clocked how many people were on the streets and shook his head at the state of modern society. The light ahead instantly switched to amber and he slammed his foot down, the car bursting forward and shooting across the junction just as it flickered to red.
The Night Shift: A high octane thriller that will have you gripped. (Sam Pope Series Book 1) Page 9