by Paul Gitsham
‘Northern Man,’ stated Warren.
‘Exactly. Who is this person? Are we sure he even exists?’
Warren nodded his head, vigorously. ‘We have independent sightings from both Joey McGhee and his dealer Kourtney Flitton, and the mobile phone evidence is compelling. But it’s everybody else’s reaction that convinces me. Ray Dorridge, Silvija Wilson, Annie, Malina and Biljana. All of them deny his existence and all of them are lying. I can see it in their eyes.’
‘Have you shown them photographs of Bergen?’
‘Among others, but they refuse to even look at them. They’re terrified, Sir. Bergen is a senior officer in the SOC. I can’t begin to imagine what he’s threatened them with. And to think I let Bergen have a go at interviewing them …’
‘Christ,’ muttered Grayson, ‘we can’t justify a raid without him, and Professional Standards aren’t ready to move. But if he is bent, who knows what sort of information he could be feeding back to the Cullens?’
‘Which is why we need to raid that farm as soon as possible. There is an immediate threat to wellbeing, and it’ll give him less time to prepare.’
Grayson nodded. ‘Then get it done now.’
Saturday 21 November
Chapter 56
Four o’clock in the morning is the time that most people are in their deepest sleep. It’s the time that they are at their most vulnerable. Police forces around the world know this, and that’s why they strike at that time.
Sitting beside Warren, Ian Bergen was all business as the procession of vehicles bounced and jounced its way up the Cullens’ untarmacked driveway. For safety reasons, Warren and Bergen followed behind two Armed Response Units, and a van with a Forced Entry Team. The Serious Organized Crime Unit were experts at this sort of raid and Warren had no choice but to let him take a lead in executing the search warrant. Besides which. Organized Crime, the Armed Response Units and the Forced Entry Team had access to night vision goggles that allowed them to navigate the Cullens’ driveway at high speed, with their headlights turned off. It was an experience that Warren, who wasn’t wearing a pair, was finding disconcerting to say the least.
At Grayson’s insistence, the raid had been planned quickly, with little notice. Warren had kept Bergen in his sights for most of the night, even managing to stand next to him at the urinal one last time before they left. Time would tell if Bergen – or somebody else he was working with – had managed to tip off the Cullens.
The convoy’s arrival was announced seconds before it pulled into the yard by the sudden barking of the dogs chained up inside the main yard, and the flare of the security lights. As planned, the vehicles split into two groups. Grinding to a halt, Warren, Bergen, Grimshaw and Martinez headed towards the main house. The Forced Entry Team arrived seconds before them, barely pausing before smashing the front door clean off its hinges, allowing a quartet of Authorized Firearms Officers to pile in.
Another FET, and their accompanying AFOs, were already snipping the heavy-duty chain that secured the farmyard’s main gates. Specialist dog handlers, led by Sergeant Adams, were ready to deal with the furious Rottweilers awaiting them. Ruskin, Richardson, and a trio of officers from Welwyn hung back, waiting for the handlers to secure the animals before searching for evidence.
Four a.m. or not, the occupants of the house were awake now, and Warren could hear yells and cries of surprise, interspersed with shouts of ‘Armed Police’ and orders to ‘stay down’.
Before the raid, Warren and the team had pored over maps of the property made by the search team the night after Stevie Cullen had been killed. The house was an old-fashioned farmhouse, extended repeatedly over the years to accommodate the sprawling Cullen brood. Stevie Cullen had occupied a large, upstairs bedroom next to his parents’ double room, with another, larger room shared by the two sisters. Now that they had flown the nest, the room was a guest room, filled with Stevie Cullen’s exercise equipment.
On the ground floor, the rear of the house had been extended to provide another two generous-sized rooms, inhabited by Stevie’s twin brothers. As previously agreed, Martinez and Grimshaw followed the firearms officers to the downstairs bedrooms. Warren and Bergen headed after the AFOs upstairs to Rosie and Seamus Cullen’s master bedroom.
They didn’t receive a warm welcome, and matters didn’t improve when Warren served the couple with the search warrant.
Warren’s radio crackled. It was Martinez. ‘Sir, there’s no sign of either Frankie or Paddy; their rooms are empty.’
Warren turned to Rosie Cullen, who smirked.
‘Where are they, Rosie?’
‘No idea.’
‘Seamus?’ asked Warren.
‘Fuck off.’
‘Search the grounds,’ ordered Warren. ‘Paddy and Frankie Cullen must be somewhere. Take care, they own shotguns and we know they can be violent.’
‘We’ll check the barns,’ said Martinez, motioning towards an AFO and Grimshaw. They trotted off towards one of a number of outhouses.
‘Moray, take an AFO and search the cottage and its grounds.’ Warren pointed towards the small, single-storey house that Saffron, the youngest of the Cullen children, shared with her husband and children. The burly Scotsman jogged towards the small building, waving at the two members of the Forced Entry Team who were already standing outside with an incandescent Saffron, her husband and three very scared toddlers.
Warren toggled his radio. ‘DCI Bergen? Any sign of Frankie or Paddy Cullen?’
‘Negative. We’re heading towards the shipping containers. Somebody has gone to the trouble of fitting a standpipe outside one of them, and what looks like power cables. I’ll keep an eye out for them.’
Warren was frustrated. The point of the early morning raid had been to apprehend everyone on site as quickly as possible, before they had the chance to destroy evidence. But despite their precautions, Frankie and Paddy were missing, clearly tipped off about the raid. Assuming they were even still on site, who knew where they were, or what they were doing? Warren decided to go and join Bergen, uncomfortably aware that the man had been out of his sight for several minutes.
Suddenly, Warren heard shouting, and a gunshot, followed by the revving of an engine.
There came another shot, followed by an incoherent cry then a third shot.
Spinning on his heel, towards the barn, he saw the wooden door burst open, and the glare of headlights. Behind the lights, he could just make out the boxy shape of a van, as it accelerated hard towards him. The headlights bounced as it drove over something, and Warren threw himself out of the way as the van hurtled past, heading for the main gates.
‘Stop that van,’ he ordered over the radio, as he started to run towards the parked police cars at the front of the farmhouse.
He lifted the radio to his mouth, but it crackled into life before he could say anything. Martinez’s voice burst out. ‘Officer down. Oh, shit, officer down. Get an ambulance, Shaun’s been shot.’
Time seemed to slow down, and Warren felt as though he was running through treacle. His chest felt tight. Officer down. Memories of the previous summer flooded back: Gary Hastings covered in blood as Warren screamed into the radio for assistance.
Please, not again, Warren prayed as he skidded towards the remains of the barn door.
The first person he saw was the firearms officer, lying in a mangled heap, partly illuminated by the light from security lamps in the yard. Crouching down by the man, Warren was relieved to see that despite his injuries he was still breathing. Toggling his radio, he called for medical assistance for the shot and run-down AFO and for Shaun Grimshaw.
Resisting the urge to run further into the pitch-black barn, Warren forced himself to listen as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The air was thick and musty, the dry smell of hay and animal waste overlaid with the fresh, metallic smell of blood.
‘Jorge,’ he whispered, ‘where are you?’
No reply.
‘Jorge,’ he repeated more loudly.
‘In here. Get an ambulance. Frankie shot Shaun.’ Martinez’s voice came from deep within the barn. ‘Oh, Jesus. Come on, mate, don’t die on me.’ Martinez raised his voice, almost to a shout. ‘Come on, where’s that fucking ambulance?’
‘It’s on its way, Jorge.’ Warren could hear the sound of feet behind him, and he raised his hand to pause them.
‘Where’s Frankie now, Jorge?’
‘In the barn. I think he’s dead.’
‘Are you sure? I can’t send anyone in if he’s still a danger.’ Warren wanted nothing more than to race in and tend to his fallen colleague, but it would be suicide if Frankie was still in there with a gun.
‘Yeah, I shot him.’ Martinez’s voice rose again, a note of panic. ‘Shaun’s stopped breathing. Stop pissing about, we need an ambulance now.’
Ian Bergen and two AFOs skidded to a halt beside Warren. Two members of the Forced Entry Team, both carrying medic packs, joined them, the first immediately kneeling next to the injured AFO.
‘Ambulance is three minutes out,’ he said quietly.
From what Martinez said, Grimshaw might not have three minutes.
Warren turned to Bergen and the AFOs.
‘We can’t just leave him.’
The entry to the barn was fast and violent. The night vision goggles that the SOC drivers had worn to mask their arrival revealed two warm patches. The one on the left appeared to be a body lying on its back. The other, to the right, was in the shape of a person, with another crouched over him: Frankie to the left, and Martinez and Grimshaw to the right.
Bursting in, two firearms officers raced towards the body of Frankie. After what seemed like minutes, but could only have been a couple of seconds, one of the AFOs shouted ‘weapon secure!’ – the cue for Warren and one member of the Forced Entry Team to head directly for Martinez and Grimshaw. Bergen ran towards Frankie. Warren closed his eyes briefly, as the barn was suddenly lit up by the headlights of two police cars positioned outside.
When he reopened them the sight before him was carnage.
Grimshaw lay sprawled on his back, his head a bloody mess. Martinez had already removed Grimshaw’s stab vest and was performing vigorous CPR.
‘Come on, mate. Come on, ambulance is on its way.’
Another officer with a medic pack skidded to a halt, ripping the bag open.
Warren crouched on his heels, forcing back the bile in his mouth, resisting the urge to turn away as Grimshaw’s bloody face was replaced in his mind by the face of Gary Hastings.
He’d been too late to do anything for Gary; the trauma had been too great.
He felt a touch on his arm and looked over. The officer with the medic pack shook his head. It was plain to see that there was nothing more to be done.
‘Jorge,’ said Warren quietly, ‘it’s over.’
‘No,’ said Martinez, as he leant over and pressed his lips to Grimshaw’s mouth, exhaling forcefully twice, before resuming the chest compressions.
‘Somebody get that fucking defib out, come on, don’t just stand around!’ he shouted.
Grimshaw’s face was a bloody mess. It was clear to everyone that the projectiles had gone through the rear of Grimshaw’s skull and exited through his face. There was nothing that could be done.
‘Jorge, he’s dead,’ said Warren, more forcefully.
‘Not until the paramedics call it,’ insisted Martinez.
Warren looked over to the officer with the pack, who gave a small shrug. It was pointless, but it couldn’t hurt. He started to unpack the automated defibrillator.
A shout rang out from the team working on Frankie. ‘Shit, he’s still alive.’
Everybody stopped what they were doing.
‘Get the medic pack over here,’ Bergen yelled. ‘He’s still breathing.’
The choice was clear, the answer even clearer. Keep on trying to resuscitate a dead man or try to save the life of somebody still alive?
‘No!’ howled Martinez, stumbling to his feet, trying to grab the pack from the officer holding it. When that failed, he started running towards Frankie and Bergen.
‘Somebody stop him!’ shouted Warren.
Bergen looked up in surprise as Martinez grabbed the discarded shotgun, from where the AFO had placed it.
‘You killed my friend, you fucker,’ screamed Martinez.
‘No!’ shouted Warren as Martinez brought the gun to bear and pulled the trigger.
Martinez sat in the back of a police car, wearing a white paper suit and clasping a mug of hot, sweet tea. The door locks had been activated to stop him escaping and attempting something else. However, the look in his eyes was one of defeated resignation.
To one side of the car, Grayson, Warren and Bergen spoke in hushed tones.
‘No shot was fired, the gun was empty,’ Bergen repeated.
Warren agreed. ‘Technically we don’t need to fill in a discharged firearm report, because the gun wasn’t discharged.’
Grayson pinched the bridge of his nose, wearily. ‘I can’t just brush this under the carpet.’
Bergen folded his arms and stuck his chin out. ‘Well I didn’t see anything, and neither did any of my team.’
Grayson let out a sigh. ‘Shit.’
‘Look, there’s plenty to be getting on with here,’ said Warren. ‘Let’s wrap everything up and decide what to do in the morning.’
‘It’s already morning,’ pointed out Grayson, although there was no conviction in his voice. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with ACC Naseem, see what he thinks.’
It was the best they could hope for. Bergen excused himself and went back to his team, who were busy organizing a thorough search of the farm. Warren watched him go, still feeling uneasy that Bergen was unsupervised. If he was Northern Man, this was the perfect opportunity for him to clear away any incriminating evidence. Warren was grateful at least that he had managed a quiet word with a shocked Richardson and Hutchinson, who were under orders to keep a close eye on him.
‘Take me through what else you’ve got,’ Grayson ordered.
Warren motioned towards the driveway, now filled with police vehicles, their headlamps illuminating the ditch where Paddy had crashed the white van after being shot, as he’d raced down the rutted road, firing indiscriminately out of the window.
‘The van was packed with workers: nine men and five women, mostly Eastern European, but there are also two East Asian women.’
‘The missing nail technicians?’
‘I hope so. They’re being medically assessed at the moment. It looks as though by some miracle they all survived the crash relatively unscathed, despite the lack of seatbelts.’
‘Thank Christ for that; if we’d known that the van was full of workers …’ Grayson looked pale.
Warren agreed. Paddy’s attempted escape in the van, firing out of the window as he went, was an immediate threat, and the AFOs had made a split-second decision. There would be an inquiry into their response, and the officer who had fired had already been taken from the scene for questioning. Her decision to fire at Paddy would probably be judged proportionate, but Warren was under no illusions that had a stray bullet caught one of the workers, or they had been seriously injured in the resulting crash, she would have been hung out to dry. Not for the first time, Warren was grateful that he didn’t have to make such decisions.
‘I don’t expect to get access to them for a while yet. The body in the woods was malnourished and neglected, and Annie has said that they received little in the way of medical care. These guys don’t seem much better. I’ve seen bodycam footage of the inside of those shipping containers, and they are little more than prison cells. It looks as though they have electricity and there’s a standpipe outside for cold water, but there’s no plumbing or sewage to speak of. There are translators on the way, but it could be a while before we’re ready to question them.’
‘What about the Cullens?’
‘All under arrest. Saffron and her family were on site, so they�
��re in custody on suspicion of human trafficking, with the parents Rosie and Seamus. We’ve also executed a search warrant at the home of Lavender, the oldest sibling.’
‘Good, you can’t tell me she didn’t know what Stevie and the rest of the family were up to,’ said Grayson. ‘Any word back from the hospital yet?’
‘They’ve taken Frankie straight into surgery, severe facial wounds. Paddy has also been taken in, with a shot to the upper body. Jorge reckons Paddy shot the AFO. Frankie then shot Shaun. He then turned the gun on Jorge, who managed to wrestle it off him, and that’s when Frankie was shot. Paddy then drove over the AFO as he crashed out of the barn. Fortunately, the AFO’s body armour took the brunt of the shotgun discharge, but it looks as though he has multiple fractures from the van running over him.’
Grayson glanced around, before motioning Warren away from the car. He lowered his voice.
‘What about Bergen?’
Warren hissed in frustration. ‘I don’t know. I was with him most of the evening, but they were clearly tipped off. Rachel confirms that Northern Man’s phone texted Paddy Cullen just minutes before we left and was then turned off again. The location data places it close to CID.’
‘Shit. What did the text say?’
‘“Exit now.” It wouldn’t have taken long to send it, especially if it was pre-typed. But the reply didn’t come for twenty minutes, which might explain why the van hadn’t left by the time we raided.’
‘He was probably asleep.’ Grayson grimaced. ‘If Bergen is dirty, we need to nail the bastard. Get Mags to secure all the CCTV footage from the station at the time the text was sent and get Hutch to do some discreet questioning. See if we can pin down his movements or find out if anyone saw him using a phone at that time. In the meantime, I’ve got a meeting with the Anti-Corruption Unit scheduled for later this morning.’
Warren nodded glumly. He’d done his best to keep an eye on Bergen, but he had been busy trying to organize the upcoming raid. Bergen would only have needed a few seconds to send the text.
Grayson looked back over at Martinez, who was staring straight ahead at the headrest, his drink untouched.