The Robert Finlay Trilogy

by Matt Johnson

‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Nasty one, I’m afraid. An allegation of racist language against a late-turn PC. I’ve got an address: 65 Big Hill. A Mr Erasmus. It’s just come over the computer from the complaints branch at the Yard. They want you to ring them and for us to go and see the complainant. If you like, I’ll ask Sergeant Holbrook to parade the troops then run you round there.’

  Heathcote managed what looked like a half-hearted smile as he hung up the phone.

  ‘You ring CIB, David,’ said Grahamslaw. ‘If it’s OK with you, I’ll go with your Sergeant here to talk to the officers on parade.’

  ‘Yes, yes please … that would be fine. Have there been any developments?’

  ‘We have a name for the dead terrorist. He was IRA from Belfast. It’s given us a few leads on who the other two might be. I’ll fill you in on the details later.’

  Grahamslaw left the Inspector to make his telephone call. He had more important work to do.

  Chapter 32

  Costello leaned over the balcony wall to check his view of the street.

  Dominic had called to say that a police car, driven by a Sergeant and carrying the target, had left the police station at about ten fifteen. If he was right, the Inspector would be arriving outside the location in a few minutes.

  Costello had chosen an address where the street was empty. He had parked the Fiesta outside a suitable house, primed the detonator and then made the call to the police complaints branch.

  The police took racism complaints sufficiently seriously that they always assigned the local Inspector to do the initial investigation. So, just as Costello had expected, the police station had assigned their duty officer to attend and speak to the complainant. Only this time, there was no incident; and there was no Mr Erasmus.

  The sole purpose of Costello’s call was to lure the night-shift Inspector, Robert Finlay, to Big Hill and have him park near the car containing the bomb. Then, as he approached the address ‘Mr Erasmus’ had provided, the device could be triggered.

  He had chosen a good vantage point. Close enough to watch the street, but far enough away to be safe from the blast and any flying debris.

  The late summer evening had been humid, but now the leaves in the nearby trees rustled. He shivered. The air was growing colder and he could feel the wind starting to pick up. Costello smiled. Hopefully, the evening television weather presenter had been right in his prediction. If the rain came soon, the two men in the police car would park close to the address, possibly right next to the Fiesta. As soon as they were out of their car and close enough, he would have them.

  Costello saw several people hurrying home, scanning the heavens, quickly scurrying into their homes in anticipation of the incoming storm. The air felt tense, electric.

  Just as the first few spots of rain started to fall, a police car pulled into the street. It was moving slowly. The two occupants were checking the houses, looking for the right address.

  The officer in the passenger seat would probably be the target.

  As they approached the Fiesta, the driver of the police car turned in to the kerb and stopped. They were just a car’s length away from the bomb. Probably close enough, thought Costello. But best to wait until they were outside the protection of their car.

  A moment later, as if the clouds had been waiting for the first few drops to settle before unleashing their heavy load, the air was filled with falling water.

  No wonder they call it stair rods, Costello mused, turning up his collar. Inside the police car, it must feel as like they were going through a car wash. He waited; the two policemen seemed reluctant to leave the dry sanctuary of their car.

  Within a few seconds, Costello’s jacket was soaked. He cursed. Unable to move and find shelter, he had to watch and wait. The rain was soon inside his collar. He shivered again as small rivulets began trickling down his back.

  In his pocket, the transmitter was starting to feel damp. He wrapped his hand around it to keep it dry, careful to avoid the red button that would send the signal to the receiver beneath the car.

  Visibility dropped to just a few yards as sheets of grey rain whipped up by the wind combined with the spray rebounding from every surface.

  All at once, the air reverberated to the crash of the first peal of thunder. The storm was directly overhead – the boom almost instantly followed by a fork of lightning.

  For several more minutes, he waited. Soon they would have to leave their car, he thought. Soon they would be close enough.

  At last the thunder moved on, rumbling and crashing as it went, the strikes of lightning becoming less frequent. The rain eased and the air took on a sense of freshness. The gutters flowed fast and flooded the road as the drains struggled to cope with the sudden influx of water.

  The passenger door of the police car opened.

  A figure emerged, pulling on a waterproof jacket as he stepped onto the pavement. The man glanced at the sky nervously, anxious to avoid the next wave of rain. The driver remained in the car, apparently fiddling with the ignition key. Costello heard him shout.

  ‘Won’t come out of the lock, guv.’

  ‘Hurry up, it’s about to pour down again,’ the target replied as he leaned back onto the passenger seat to where his driver was struggling to extract the key.

  Once again the air turned cold. And once more, the heavens opened. The Inspector pulled his legs into the shelter of the car just as thunder and lightning struck simultaneously. It was one of those awesome demonstrations of natural power that stuns all who witness it. A surge of electrical energy flowed through the atmosphere.

  Nestled beneath the waiting Fiesta, the time and power unit of Dominic’s bomb, short-circuited.

  Nature had no sense of timing.

  Chapter 33

  I would have to have been a complete fool not to have realised, as I pulled into the station yard, that something major was going down.

  Both the Chief Superintendent and Superintendent’s cars were in their bays. Parked nearby were gleaming Fords and Volvo S60s of the type the Anti-Terrorist Squad used. An explosives officer’s Range Rover with blacked-out windows roared past me, its siren blaring.

  I squeezed the Audi into the only space available, the wash bay.

  There were small groups of PCs sitting in the canteen – none of them from my shift. As I walked in through the rear door to the main building I caught the attention of a Sergeant from the Territorial Support Group who was heading out to the yard and asked him what had happened.

  Cautiously, he asked me who I was.

  ‘Night-duty Inspector, got delayed on the way in,’ I explained.

  ‘Christ, you’re a lucky bugger,’ he answered. ‘A car bomb’s gone off over on the east side of your ground. The late-turn governor and one of the skippers are in hospital.’

  I didn’t reply. What the hell could I have said?

  ‘You all right, guv? You don’t look well.’

  ‘Yes … fine,’ I managed to say. ‘Was it Mr Heathcote?’

  ‘Yeah, that was him. Poor bastard thought he’d been struck by lightning. He had some nasty scalp wounds, bits of glass embedded in his face, that sort of thing. We heard just a few minutes ago that both of ’em are alive. Apparently, they were struggling to get the ignition keys out when the bomb went off in a car just along the street. The blast took out the windscreen and went right over the top of ’em.’

  My mind raced as I made my way upstairs to get changed. I should have been in that police car. Heathcote had been covering at a time when I was supposed to have been duty officer.

  I drew the inevitable conclusion. The car bomb had been meant for me.

  As I walked past the chief super’s door, a great voice boomed out, calling me in.

  ‘Robert, you’ve heard the news?’

  Ian Sinclair was behind his desk. To his left sat my new Superintendent, John Poulter. In armchairs on the opposite side of the room were two heavily built, smartly suited men who looked like CID.
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br />   ‘Yes, sir, I’m just about to get changed then I plan on heading down to the scene, see what I can do.’

  ‘Yes, you do that. You were very lucky I understand.’

  ‘So I’ve been told, sir.’

  One of the detectives turned to Sinclair. ‘Why is the Inspector lucky, Ian?’ As he used the chief’s first name I figured that these men weren’t just run-of-the-mill detectives.

  ‘Mr Finlay here was supposed to have been in the police car that was destroyed. His car broke down on the way to work, so Dave Heathcote was covering for him.’

  The Detective turned to me. ‘You are a lucky man, Inspector.’

  I nodded and forced a smile. Although my insides were churning I was anxious not to show it. ‘Thanks. Is there any more news from the hospital? I just spoke to a TSG skipper who said they were ok.’

  As I replied to the Detective’s comment I felt a sense of déjà vu … and of recognition: I knew the man’s face. I remembered the expensive suit, the squad tie, the confident demeanour. He’d aged quite a bit and was now much heavier, but the face was the same. His name escaped me. If I remembered rightly, he had been on the hostage negotiation team at the Iranian Embassy siege and was part of the police briefing team, the day before we were given the order to attack the embassy.

  Sinclair spoke again. ‘They’re in surgery, both having the odd bit of glass and shrapnel removed, but I’m told that they will be all right.’

  I excused myself and headed for my office. The Senior Detective had been watching me closely, looking me straight in the eye. I had recognised him. I just hoped he didn’t return the compliment.

  I arrived at the scene just after midnight. It was devastation. The Fire Brigade had put out fires in several vehicles, but one car was still burning fiercely, thick acrid smoke billowing from its windows.

  The destroyed vehicles still smouldered, their smooth lines and gleaming paintwork now reduced to charred, wrecked skeletons. The air smelled of burning plastic and rubber.

  Except for the debris caused by the explosion and two fire engines, the street was now empty. The area was cordoned off and everyone was waiting for a ‘stand-off’ period to end. It was a standard procedure these days, in case secondary devices had been placed to kill the rescuers. As I got out of the car, one of my relief Sergeants approached. It was Paul Andrews, the youngest, just recently promoted.

  ‘Christ, am I glad you’re here, sir, we’re just waiting for the stand-off to end.’

  ‘How long to go?’

  ‘About ten minutes.’

  ‘Were there any casualties apart from our two?’

  ‘No, the bomb went off in the middle of a thunderstorm. There was nobody on the streets at the time apart from our guys.’

  ‘It was quite a storm.’

  ‘I’ll say. The power surge fried a few computers, I was told. One of the bomb disposal blokes says it might have been a car bomb waiting to be delivered to its real target and that the electrical storm set it off.’

  ‘It does seem an odd place to plant a bomb.’

  ‘That’s what we all thought. Can’t think why they would want to put one here, of all places.’

  I shrugged. I had a feeling I knew.

  The night shift went quickly. I was kept so busy I didn’t have time to dwell on my own problems. A bomb disposal officer searched the area and then the Anti-Terrorist Squad went to work. I organised security so the squad could do their job and then sorted out some accommodation for displaced residents.

  I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the two detectives who had been with my Chief Superintendent. They were Bill Grahamslaw, the SO13 Commander, and his Superintendent, Mick Parratt.

  The one I had recognised was Grahamslaw. Although more than twenty years had passed since our last meeting, my memory had served me well. Fortunately, it seemed he hadn’t recognised me. Several times that night I saw him in deep conversations with his detectives, with the explosives officer and with my divisional boss. At no time did he give me a second glance.

  Just as Paul Andrews had overheard, the Anti-Terrorist Squad conclusion was that the car had been parked up waiting to be delivered to a central London target and that it had been triggered accidentally by the electrical storm.

  If that’s what they thought, that suited me.

  Keith Carter took over from me at six-thirty. Reports from the hospital were that Heathcote and Holbrook were as well as could be expected.

  I returned to the privacy of my office and for the first time, as I changed out of uniform, the enormity of my problem began to hit home. I sat down heavily in my chair, my hands frozen in the act of unbuttoning my shirt.

  Soon I was going to have to tell Jenny. I just had to find the right words.

  Chapter 34

  During the long drive home, I couldn’t help turning over all the latest developments in my head.

  Bridges had been bombed while at work and although Skinner had been shot at home, there was no telling whether or not the attackers had his address. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to follow him. He had been out of the army for over twenty years and would never have been looking for a tail.

  The thought made me check my mirror. I’d been so wrapped up in my troubles that I hadn’t thought about this possibility.

  I took a diversion, drove into a cul-de-sac, turned and waited.

  No vehicle appeared. I repeated the manoeuvre using a car park until I was happy I wasn’t being tailed myself. In a way, I would have been pleased if I had. At least that would have meant that they didn’t know where I lived – where Jenny and Becky lived.

  As I resumed my journey, the realisation hit me. I had no choice. I had to start making plans.

  First thing would be to contact Jones and Monaghan. Then tell Jenny. After that, I would move her and Becky to Jenny’s mum’s place for a while.

  I would have to keep going to work; pulling a sudden sickie might cause suspicion. After a while I’d have to go sick, though; something like stress, so I’d be off for some time.

  I remembered that one of Jenny’s relatives had a holiday cottage in Scotland. We’d head there, lay low … and wait.

  The house was empty when I arrived home. A note from Jenny lay on the kitchen table. She and Becky had gone shopping for the morning.

  I went to bed, but the sleep I needed eluded me. I dozed, thought, planned and occasionally got up to jot ideas down on a note pad before I forgot them. The hands on the clock moved very slowly.

  Clear skies appeared in the afternoon. I gave up trying to rest, made a mug of tea and then tried to ring Monaghan and Kevin Jones. Neither of them answered. Kevin had left me his mobile number so I sent him a text message asking him to make contact.

  My next task was talking to Jenny.

  I knew that when she went shopping, she would normally arrive home at between three and four. As I rehearsed what I was going to say, I pictured Jenny talking about the shops, her mother and who she’d met while out. But despite having the words ready, I couldn’t seem to find the right moment to make my great speech.

  Perhaps she would start to talk about the car bomb. That might be the introduction I needed.

  I wouldn’t hold back on anything. I would be completely honest. I envisioned Jenny listening, not saying a word. As I finished she would stay silent. She wouldn’t scream at me, ask difficult questions or throw accusations. For someone who was about to discover that her husband had a secret past that would upset her life in a big way, my plan had her taking the news incredibly well.

  Unfortunately, when I did it for real, I knew it was going to be much harder.

  So, I practised my speech time and time again. I had to get it right, had to find a way to tell my wife someone was trying to kill her husband. Explain to her why I had lied about myself. I had to tell her in a way that ensured she understood and didn’t fly off the handle. And I had to get things in the right order.

  So I rehearsed again and again.

 
Chapter 35

  The briefing room in the Anti-Terrorist Squad offices on the fourteenth floor of New Scotland Yard fell instantly silent as Grahamslaw entered.

  It was nine o’clock, the morning after the storm.

  Everyone present, from the newest DC to the Chief Superintendent, stood as the Anti-Terrorist Squad chief took his place at the front. His audience included members of his squad together with Special Branch, explosives officers and forensic scientists. Many of them had been working through the night. From the military there were representatives of both MI5 and army intelligence.

  Grahamslaw turned to face them all and, at a motion from his hand, they all resumed their seats.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you all know me and you know why we are here.’

  The Commander had a deep and powerful voice. He knew he could hold the attention of even the most apathetic listener. And he also knew that now was a time to use this charisma.

  At his signal, the lights were dimmed and a large video display screen started up.

  ‘What you are about to see is the aftermath of three attacks on Metropolitan Police officers,’ he began.

  As he continued, images of the abandoned Hackney lorry bomb and the Selfridges bombing were followed by the scene at Rod Skinner’s home, the burnt-out Escort van that had been later recovered and then the devastation at Big Hill. The film ended with close-up stills of two men.

  ‘Let me make this perfectly clear,’ said Grahamslaw into the darkened room. ‘These were targeted attacks against uniform police officers. The car bomb at Selfridges was a distraction to facilitate a secondary device. Last night’s bomb was preceded by a hoax call that was designed to bring us to that street. This wasn’t random, this wasn’t bad luck or a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These terrorists have decided to kill London police officers. It is our job to stop them.’