Night of Fire:

by Iain Cameron

  ‘Yes, I see it.’

  ‘Of the other two, one is of average height but solidly built, while the third guy is smaller than him and slight in stature. The movements of the last guy suggest to me he’s younger than the other two, maybe a teenager.’

  Henderson watched the clock as they filled their bags methodically, without haste. A few minutes later when they all moved out of view, Rhodes said, ‘It’s all over, the robbers are gone.’

  According to the clock on the computer screen, the robbers had been in the shop less than eight minutes and at no time could he hear any sound from inside the shop. Henderson knew exactly where he was at this point, as he could now hear the skirl of the pipes from a Scottish Pipe Band playing in the background.

  Henderson sat back in his chair as Rhodes shut down the video. ‘What was the haul worth?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘Fenton’s say it’s about eight million, but they’re talking retail. Four at warehouse prices would be nearer the mark.’

  ‘Whoa, not a bad reward for a few weeks’ planning and less than ten minutes’ work.’

  ‘I should say so, but if they don’t have contacts in the UK or overseas to get rid of the nicked gear quick, we’ll have them. Stuff like this can be hard to sell, and some of the bracelets and rings are unique so they’ll be easy to spot unless they’re melted down. My advice is keep your eye on sites like eBay, Inspector, and see if you can identify anything. We certainly will.’

  TWENTY

  ‘What’ll you have Gerry? Same again?’

  Gerry Hobbs nodded as he finished the last of his pint. ‘Aye I will, same again, Angus.’

  He walked to the bar and ordered a pint for Hobbs and a half for himself. Not only did Henderson have the car with him but his name was also on the on-call list. If any major crime went down in the region tonight, he would be the first person Lewes Control would call.

  They were in the Basketmakers pub in Gloucester Road, a street in the heart of the North Laines. This part of Brighton was famous for quirky, individual shops, a large comedy venue and a thriving street market every Saturday.

  He carried a pint of Fuller ESB and a half of London Pride back to the table. Henderson tipped the half into his pint glass and raised it.

  ‘Here’s to the man who is the pin-up boy of all Brighton housewives for saving them from two violent toe-rags.’

  ‘I don’t know about pin-up but I’ll drink to that,’ Hobbs said lifting his glass and taking a gulp. ‘Christ, this ESB is strong, either that or I’m out of practice.’

  ‘The latter I suspect. I don’t suppose you get out much with two little ones in tow.’

  ‘Not as much as I used to, for sure, and when we do it’s to one of these kiddy-friendly places with noisy ball parks and bars serving watery keg beer.’

  ‘Been there and got a milk-stained t-shirt to prove it,’ Henderson said with a smile.

  ‘Don’t look so smug, Angus, you could be heading there again.’

  ‘How do you mean? Do you know something I don’t?’

  ‘Well, the first clue is you and Rachel moving in together.’

  ‘We talked about it before and she said she wasn’t ready to start a family. With Hannah and Lewis up in Glasgow, I think I’m done with changing nappies and walking the floor at two in the morning.’

  ‘Women all say they don’t want kids until they move in or get married, then it’s non-stop hints at every opportunity. Take Catalina. Being Colombian and having a large dose of Latin temperament, I didn’t get so much a big hint as an order to drop my kecks when it was the right time of the month.’

  Henderson laughed. ‘There’s never a dull moment in your house.’

  ‘You can say that again. This beer fair makes a job of sloshing through your system. I’m off for a Jimmy Riddle.’

  Hobbs, somewhat unsteady on his feet, made his way out from behind the table and headed for the toilet.

  Henderson looked around. The Basketmakers was a traditional pub, something of a rarity these days with the conversion of many Sussex pubs into restaurants with bars, and the growth of family friendly places like the ones Hobbs despised. Here, there was wood panelling on the walls, pictures pinned up all around and varnished tables with so many marks and stains, they looked to have been in place since the Queen’s coronation in the fifties.

  The toilet door swung open and Hobbs made his way towards the table. Seconds later, Henderson’s phone rang. He sighed and pulled it out of his pocket.

  ‘DI Henderson.’

  ‘Good evening, sir. Lewes Control here. We’ve received reports of a firearms incident in Hanover Street, Brighton. One person is believed to have been shot but there is no sign of the gunman.’

  Henderson slowly got to his feet.

  ‘Do we know if the gunman is still at the scene?’

  ‘I’m sorry sir, the report doesn’t say.’

  ‘Ok. If they haven’t already been scrambled, I want an armed response unit, SOCOs and bodies to conduct searches and house-to-house. I want them over there as soon as possible.’

  ‘Got it. Anything else?’

  ‘No. I’m on my way.’

  He walked towards Hobbs. ‘Gerry there’s been a shooting over at Hanover Street. I need to go. I know you’re off-duty, but do you want to come with me?’

  ‘You know I want to, but I think I’ve drunk too much to be much use. I feel quite pissed to tell you the truth.’

  ‘No problem. Do you want a lift to the station?’

  ‘Nah don’t bother yourself, it’s only up the road. I’ll stick around here for another half hour, it’s not often I get out for a few beers without the kids.’

  ‘You can drink the rest of mine if you want.’

  ‘Cheers mate, I might do that. Now get off and catch that bloody gunman!’

  Henderson had left the car a few blocks away and felt annoyed at paying for three hours and only using one. The council got enough out of him already with a parking permit for the streets around College Place and the Community Charge, he sure didn’t want to pay them any more.

  Once in the car, he called Walters and told her to meet him there. Early evening traffic on the Steine was light. He joined the Lewes Road and passed St Peter’s Church, a mighty grey and brown edifice, closed and dark at this time of night. The building was as large as a cathedral and the shadow and gloom it cast perfectly matched his foreboding mood.

  Guns were a perennial problem for UK police forces although their use in crimes far less prominent than in many other industrialised countries. With the exception of some units within the Met and those guarding airports and other important installations, UK police officers did not routinely carry guns either as a sidearm or in their cars. Occasionally, there were calls in the media or by MP’s demanding for this to change, most recently over the increased terrorist threat, and as an unarmed officer possibly about to face a gunman, he had to agree.

  The response to a firearm incident fell on firearm-trained officers or a dedicated, standby team that responded to armed incidents, like the one he’d asked Lewes Control to scramble. On every call-out, every member of the team knew if they opened fire the incident would be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and if the shots resulted in a death, an inquest and possibly a court case resulting in the officer’s prosecution. Armed officers walked a very fine line between offering a deterrent and opening fire, one he faced himself a few years back in Glasgow. Then, he shot and killed a known drug dealer, Sean Fagin. He was suspended from duty for the duration of the inquiry and even when exonerated, he decided to move away from Scotland due to the amount of adverse publicity the case received.

  He arrived at Hanover Street and despite taking no more than ten minutes to get there, a large crowd had gathered outside one of the houses. On the one hand, their presence could be a hindrance, but on the other, it felt reassuring. People would not be standing there if they knew a gunman was still on the loose. He parked the car some distance aw
ay and pushed his way through the crowd to the front. He spotted a uniformed officer stringing up incident tape. He made his way over and showed him his ID.

  ‘DI Henderson, Major Crime Team.’

  ‘Come through sir,’ the PC said lifting the tape.

  ‘Who was first on the scene?’

  ‘That would be Constable Haslam. I think he’s upstairs,’ he said pointing at the house behind him.

  He pulled the PC away from the crowd. ‘I’m concerned about all these people if there’s still a gunman in the vicinity.’

  ‘Oh didn’t Control tell you? We’ve got witnesses who heard a shot and on looking out of the window, saw two people running out of the building carrying heavy holdalls. They got into a car and drove away.’

  ‘Has anyone ID’d the car?’

  ‘No sir, not yet.’

  Hanover Street was long and narrow, the houses on either side of the road two storey terraces. A few had installed rooms in the roof making him think it would be an area where singles and young couples would live until kids came along, before making a move to somewhere bigger. The house he headed towards looked a dirty shade of white with small square windows and an untidy garden, similar in design to the houses on either side. There was enough light to see the wooden frames of the windows were rotted and in need of replacement, and the area of neglect extended to the inside of the house with a cheap, dirty carpet in the entrance hall.

  ‘Constable Haslam!’ Henderson shouted from the foot of the stairs.

  ‘What are you playing at, Mackie, you Scottish twat? You know I’m up here. Come up and feast your peepers on what I’ve found.’

  Henderson climbed the stairs and on reaching the top, came to a halt when he saw the body. Behind it, a constable sitting on the floor looking at something he held in his hand.

  ‘It’s not PC Mackie, Haslam, it’s DI Henderson.’ He then spotted what the constable had been looking at and raised his voice. ‘What the hell are you doing handling what could turn out to be crucial evidence? Put it down!’

  Haslam scrambled to his feet and dropped the offending article. ‘Sir… sorry sir… I was only…’

  ‘What happened here?’

  Henderson walked up to the body and bent down and felt for a pulse. ‘Have you checked this person for signs of life?’

  PC Haslam pulled out his notebook, his hands shaking. ‘We received a call of a shooting at 21:27. We approached the area carefully and talked to eyewitnesses. When they told us they saw the gunmen drive off, we entered the house and found the victim lying here. I checked for any signs of life but I couldn’t find any. I believe he’s dead. I was about to leave the scene for the SOCO boys when the item there,’ he said nodding at what he dropped on the carpet, ‘caught my eye.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He made to pick it up.

  ‘Leave it,’ Henderson said. ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Sorry sir, I didn’t mean…It’s a woman’s watch. Very expensive, it looks.’

  ‘Haslam, go downstairs and help your colleagues set up a perimeter around this place and don’t let me catch you touching vital evidence again.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ he said. Grateful for the dismissal, he rushed past and clumped his way downstairs.

  Henderson attended to the body and felt for a pulse in his neck. He could see without further checks that he was dead: no movement, a pallid colour on the skin and a copious amount of blood pooled around him. Henderson eased the frame of the victim slightly to get a better view of the victim’s face and almost fell backwards in surprise when he recognised him; Guy Barton.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the DI hissed. On a list of people he expected to see in a situation like this, Guy Barton would be found near the bottom.

  He had a bullet wound to the upper chest, which must have severed a main artery as he’d lost a lot of blood.

  ‘Guv! Are you up there?’ the voice of Carol Walters shouted.

  ‘Yes, come on up!’

  ‘Evening sir. How did your drink with the jubilant Gerry Hobbs go?’

  ‘Cut short. I left Gerry in the pub, happy to be around grown-ups for a change.’

  ‘Ha, ha. He should…my God, all this blood! What happened here?’

  ‘Neighbours heard shots and saw a car driving away with two occupants inside.’

  ‘Do we know anything about him?’

  ‘You’ll never believe who it is.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A man whose mug shot has been staring out from our whiteboard for the last few weeks: Guy Barton.’

  She bent down for a closer look. ‘Christ, so it is. I took him for a rough diamond, but not someone who hangs around with gun-toting scum-bags.’

  ‘Are Grafton or the SOCOs here yet?’

  ‘I didn’t see the SOCOs but I saw Grafton’s car pull up. He’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Good. Go and take a look in there,’ Henderson said indicating the bedroom in front of him. ‘The copper who reached the scene first spotted a watch which he foolishly lifted.’

  ‘Tut, tut. Knowing our luck, it will be the only one handled by the killer.’

  Henderson snorted

  She stepped over him and the inert form of Guy Barton in the hall and walked into the bedroom. She removed a pen from her pocket and used it to lift the watch dropped by the penitent copper.

  ‘Looks expensive.’ She moved closer to let Henderson see.

  ‘It does. Bag it.’

  She did so and looked around. ‘There’s some other stuff here.’ She bagged two rings discovered on the floor and an earring in the cupboard. ‘Is it too much of a coincidence that we had a jewel robbery in Lewes a couple of days ago and here we find a dead man with jewellery lying beside him?’

  ‘I’m thinking the same thing,’ Henderson said as he stood. ‘When I first saw him, I thought ‘drugs’, but now I’m not so sure, although the gunshot wound doesn’t square with the video I saw of our jewellery robbers.’

  ‘Good evening Detective Inspector Henderson, Sergeant Walters.’

  He turned to see the pathologist at one end of the small hallway. ‘Good evening Grafton. You don’t look too happy to be here tonight.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s been a hell of a week, what with a jumper in Hove and a body found in Churchill Square. I was looking forward to an early night and no additional bodies to clog up my mortuary.’

  ‘This one shouldn’t keep you long. We know the approximate time of death as neighbours heard a shot, and we know his identity.’

  ‘Someone from your burning man case?’

  ‘Good guess.’

  ‘It comes with working with the police for so long.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Henderson!’ a voice called from downstairs.

  ‘Excuse me Grafton,’ Henderson said, squeezing past the pathologist in the narrow hallway.

  Henderson made his way to the top of the stairs and looking down, saw the PC he had been talking to earlier stringing up crime tape. ‘Yes, what is it, constable?’

  ‘We’ve got a witness, sir. Someone’s ID’d the gunmen’s car.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Henderson drove back to Lewes and parked a few streets away from St John’s Terrace as he couldn’t find a space close by. He’d left Walters at the crime scene to organise a fingertip search of the surrounding area and interview witnesses. With the help of Phil Bentley back at the office, a team had been set up to find the car used by the killers.

  Their car witness was a lad called Daniel, the fifteen-year-old son of the neighbourhood nosey parker who was sitting close to the window when she noticed two men running towards a car and carrying heavy holdalls. Daniel was autistic with a great memory for remembering all sorts of stuff and they now knew the car to be a dark green or grey Vauxhall Vectra, with a registration number starting with BX57. Daniel apologised more than once for not providing the full reg, but the licence plate was dirty and the low wattage street lights used by the council to reduce costs made it hard for him
to see it properly.

  Henderson and DC Sally Graham got out of the car and walked towards St John’s Terrace. He’d alerted the Family Liaison Unit and they were sending someone over, but if the FLO reached the Barton house before they did, they were instructed to wait for the detectives. In any event, he saw no one standing outside the house when they arrived so he climbed the steps and pressed the bell.

  The door opened and no surprise, Lily Barton was standing there. What did come as a surprise was the effect she had on him. Even without make-up and wearing jogging pants and a sweatshirt, she looked beautiful. He chastised himself for having incongruous thoughts at such an inopportune moment.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Detective Henderson,’ she said. ‘I thought it was Guy forgetting his keys again.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’

  ‘I meant…It doesn’t matter. You’d better come in.’

  She led them into the lounge. ‘Take a seat.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ve just been reading this new book by CJ Samson,’ Lily said holding it up. ‘It’s historical fiction, the kind of thing I read when I’m not working. Do you read much, Inspector?’

  ‘No, I don’t, not as much as I’d like. When I get wrapped up in a case like this, there isn’t the time.’

  ‘I understand. Can I get you both anything? Tea, coffee?’

  ‘No thank you, Lily,’ Henderson said. ‘Could you please sit down? I’m sorry to say, I’m here with some bad news.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve heard enough for one year?’ she said, as she took a seat in the chair opposite.

  ‘Yes, I do, but earlier this evening your husband, Guy, was found at a house in Brighton with a fatal gunshot wound.’

  Her face crumpled. ‘I can’t believe it; guns? Where? When?’

  ‘At a house in Hanover Street in Brighton, less than an hour ago.’

  She started sobbing; deep chest-racking sobs, causing her upper body to shake violently. He couldn’t stand to watch the poor woman fall apart in this way and he nudged Sally Graham. She walked over, sat on the edge of her chair and put her arm around her.