by Peter James
To the casual observer, with its atmosphere of quiet, purposeful concentration, it could be the offices of any number of different organizations – perhaps an insurance company, an online retailer, or a financial institution. But it is actually the nerve centre of policing the county, the hub where every emergency call to the force is received and responded to.
Evie Leigh looked at her watch and yawned. Two minutes to eight. Another four hours to go till the end of her twelve-hour shift. She looked at the clock up on the wall, as if expecting – willing – the hands to have jumped forward to hours later. But it said the same as her watch. 7.58 p.m.
Slow time. That police expression had a whole new meaning at the moment. What a dull day – quieter than she could ever remember. Not that anyone in here – or in the police in general – would ever dare say the Q word, as ‘quiet’ was known. It was an instant jinx. But she really felt like shouting it out now, just to liven things up.
She wasn’t going to need to.
Evie loved her job as an emergency controller, because you literally never knew what was going to happen in ten seconds’ time – a bank robbery, a serious accident, someone threatening to jump off a building, a pub brawl, someone breaking into a house – and normally the days shot by, often seeming too short when she was really busy and the adrenaline was pumping.
But today, she thought, you could be forgiven for thinking Sussex Police had done their job zealously and eliminated crime in the county. Sure, Mondays were never the liveliest of nights, particularly a wet one, but even so!
Fifty people worked down on this level and a further thirty on the upper level; most of them were civilians, a good third of whom were retired police officers who had returned to work, despite their pension pots, either because they needed the money or because they missed the job. The civilians here, like herself, were identifiable by their royal blue polo shirts with the words POLICE SUPPORT STAFF embroidered in white on their sleeves, as opposed to the black shirts worn by the serving police officers.
They were presided over around the clock by a rota of Ops-1 Inspectors. The current duty Ops-1 was Kim Sherwood. In her early fifties, with a youthful face topped with short, fair hair, she was a year away from retirement – and dreading it. Kim loved every second of this job which carried huge responsibilities. Between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. the Ops-1 Inspector was the most senior officer on duty in the whole of Sussex Police.
Her work station was a screened-off command centre with a battery of monitors. One, a touchscreen, operated as her eyes and ears on this whole department. Above her desk was a screen on which she could view the images from any of the county’s CCTV cameras. With the toggle lever on her desk, Kim Sherwood could rotate and zoom over half of them directly.
At the rows of desks in front of her, and to either side, as well as on the split-level floor above, sat the radio operators and the controllers, each wearing a headset. The latter’s role was to assess all emergency calls, grade them in terms of level of urgency and dispatch police officers – either in vehicles or on foot – to respond, to liaise with them until they were on the scene, and where possible follow progress on the monitors.
On an average day here they would get between 1,500 to 2,500 calls. Many of them were not emergencies at all – someone locked out of their flat, or a cat gone missing, or someone’s lawnmower stolen from their garden shed. And some were downright ridiculous, such as one she’d had yesterday from a drunk, saying he’d had too much in a pub and didn’t think he should drive so he’d like the police to send a car over to give him a lift home.
Calls like that were a menace because they could block and delay a real emergency where every second counted – and those were the ones Evie liked best, the real heart-thumping, against-the-clock emergencies. So far, she’d not had one all day. Looking at the wall clock yet again, she realized the boredom was making her hungry. She was trying to diet, but one of her colleagues was going round collecting orders for a curry run to a balti house. The thought of eating her cold tuna salad whilst the room filled with the aroma of Indian spices, and everyone around her was munching on a poppadum, was too much, and her resolve crumbled. She added her name to the list, and as usual ordered far too much – an onion bhaji, chicken korma, garlic naan, two poppadums and basmati rice.
Then her phone warbled.
‘Sussex Police, emergency, how can I help?’ she answered, and immediately looked at the number and approximate location that showed on the screen. A mobile phone in the Hangleton area.
She could barely hear a response, a tiny voice, just a whisper. She wondered for an instant if it was a child playing around with a phone – that happened often.
‘Hello, caller, can you speak up please, I can’t hear you.’
The terror in the woman’s voice that came back chilled her bones. It was only very slightly louder, still whispering as if fearful of being heard, but now Evie could just about make out what she was saying.
‘Help me, please God, help me, help me, he’s coming up the stairs – he’s got an axe – he’s going to kill me.’
65
Monday 25 April
‘What do you mean you can’t see any mark? There’s a fucking great dent, officer!’ The swarthy man in the leather jacket pointed at the front spoiler of his Ferrari.
Matt Robinson crouched down on the wet road, beneath the glare of a street light, and switched on his torch. Rain was spotting his glasses and running down the back of his neck. He shone the beam on the silver paintwork but was struggling to see anything beyond a tiny mark, no more than a centimetre long. ‘I really can’t see anything more than that scratch.’
‘Do you have any idea how much paintwork on a Ferrari costs to repair? Fucking thousands, I’m telling you.’
‘A bit of T-Cut would get rid of that.’
‘T-Cut? What do you think this is – some old banger? This is a Ferrari LaFerrari, OK? It’s a £350,000 car – and you’re telling me to put fucking T-Cut on it?’
‘With all due respect, sir, cars do get bumped when they’re parked on streets – it’s a fact of life.’
‘Oh, right, what are you telling me? That you don’t know how to make the streets of Brighton safe? That you police are not doing your job properly, right?’ He jerked a finger at the driver of the Prius. ‘That fucking moron shouldn’t be on the roads, he’s probably drunk – are you going to breathalyse him?’
It was then that Robinson smelled the faint whiff of alcohol on the man’s breath. A voice came over his radio, but the din of the rain made it hard to hear what the Control Room was saying. ‘Have you been drinking, sir?’
‘Oh, that’s great that is, how fucking great is that?’
‘Would you mind answering my question, sir.’ Matt Robinson stood up, to his full height, and suddenly saw the man’s demeanour change.
‘No – well – just one, a half, that’s all.’
‘I’m going to require you to take a breath test, sir.’
‘What? You can’t be serious. Some moron reverses into my parked car and now you’re picking on me?’
‘I’m not picking on anyone, sir, I will be requiring the other gentleman to take a breath test too.’
Suddenly Robinson heard his colleague calling out, urgently. He turned.
Juliet Solomon had the window down and was calling out to him. ‘Matt, we’re needed, a Grade One – someone’s being attacked with an axe.’
‘Looks like it’s your lucky night,’ Robinson said to the Ferrari owner. ‘We’ve got to go.’
The man glared at him. ‘My lucky night? Someone crashes into my car and that makes it my lucky night?’
‘Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways,’ Robinson replied, climbing back into the Mondeo. Before he had even shut the door the car accelerated hard away, up the hill, blue lights flashing and siren wailing.
‘Well fuck you, officer!’ the man yelled after it. Then, turning round to speak to the Prius driver, he couldn�
�t believe his eyes. The car had gone, glided silently off. It was turning left at the lights, onto the seafront. ‘Hey! Hey! Hey, you fuckers!’ He sprinted down towards it, but the lights changed to green, and it was gone.
Robinson leaned forward, tapping the address Solomon gave him into the satnav. ‘What details do we have?’ Then he tugged out his handkerchief to wipe his glasses again.
‘A domestic, but it sounds a bad one, husband’s threatening her with an axe.’
‘A lumberjack, is he?’
She grinned, then concentrated fiercely again on her driving. ‘Left or right at the top, do you think?’ she asked.
The satnav hadn’t yet started. He thought for a moment, slivers of blue light flaring off the shop and restaurant windows on either side of them, working out the quickest route. ‘Left.’
At that moment the satnav arrow confirmed this.
‘We’re getting all our favourites tonight,’ he grumbled, as she turned through the red light and accelerated hard along Western Road. ‘First a minor RTC and now a domestic.’
They heard the voice of the Control Room despatcher. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Robinson replied.
‘I have an update for you on the situation at 29 Hangleton Rise. The woman has barricaded herself in an upstairs room and her husband is trying to break down the door.’
66
Monday 25 April
In the Force Control Room the semblance of calm continued. Everyone else was unaware of the drama that was unfolding for Evie Leigh and the Ops-1 Inspector, Kim Sherwood, who was now alerted and listening in.
Through her headphones Evie heard the woman’s screams and dull thuds, each blow sounding louder, like a sledgehammer pounding against wood. The screams getting louder too, deeper and deeper terror. Then she was whimpering. Somewhere in the background a dog was barking furiously.
All her training kicking in, Evie kept calm, trying to give reassurance to the trapped woman, whose name she had managed to get from her. ‘Trish,’ she said. ‘Just stay on the line. The police are on their way to you, they’re only minutes away, you’ll be OK.’
‘I can see the blade of the axe! No! No! Oh, God help me. Help me, someone, please help me, please help me!’
‘Trish,’ Evie said, urgently but still calmly. ‘Is there any way out of the room – can you get out of the window?’
‘It’s double – double-glazed – sealed units – only a tiny – tiny bit at the top – to stop burglars—’
Evie could hear another thud. A terrible scream – she could feel the woman’s utter terror. Then the sound of splintering wood. At the bottom of the street map displayed on her screen she saw the call sign of the response car that had been allocated, Charlie Romeo Zero Five. As she continued watching, calculating the ETA, the pink symbol of the car moved a block nearer, then another, in rapid succession, as it then began heading west along the Old Shoreham Road. Good, she thought, they were sensibly bypassing the risk of getting delayed by the level crossing on Boundary Road if they’d gone that route. But they were still a crucial three minutes away.
Then she heard an even louder crashing sound, and now a truly heart-wrenching scream from the woman.
At her desk, the Ops-1 Inspector had to make a fast decision. Was this a firearms response, a uniform response but with armed tactical relocation, or a divisional response with local supervision to command. Kim Sherwood decided on the first option and noted her decision on the CAD. Out of courtesy she immediately asked for permission to talk through to the two officers in the response car attending.
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five this is Ops-1.’
Moments later she heard a male voice, ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five.’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five, how far from the scene are you?’
‘Ops-1, our ETA is three minutes.’
‘The situation is critical. We understand a woman, Trish Darling, is locked in an upstairs room with her husband, who has a previous record of violence, attempting to break down the door. We believe she may be in a potentially life-threatening situation. Clear?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Use whatever force you need to get inside the house – put the door in or go through a window – and I’m granting you Taser authority. There’s a marker on the house. The husband has a criminal record for violence against women, and there is an aggressive dog in the house. We believe the husband is at present armed with an axe. I have declared this a spontaneous firearms incident and I have more response units en route as well as a dog handler, but if you get to the scene first don’t wait, go straight in and be careful.’
‘Yes, yes, ma’am.’
Inside the car, Matt Robinson shot a glance at his colleague, who had been listening on her radio.
Juliet Solomon grimaced, and for a moment both of them were silent. Some call handlers could be overdramatic, and you’d arrive in a posse of cars, lights blazing and sirens wailing, to find it was nothing more than a baby screaming, or some violent scene on a television set turned up too loud, that had been reported by an overzealous neighbour as a person being attacked. But this job felt real.
Close to driving faster than she was truly comfortable with in these conditions, the PC pushed the speed up even more, both of them keeping their eyes peeled in the poor visibility, scanning the road ahead for someone not paying attention – or just plain bloody-minded – who might pull out in front of them, or an idiot cyclist with no lights or reflective clothing.
Robinson glanced at the satnav screen. ‘Two minutes,’ he said.
The voice of Ops-1 came through the radio again. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Robinson answered.
‘It sounds like the offender has broken through the door and is now in the room with the woman. How close are you?’
‘Less than two minutes, ma’am.’
Robinson knew that just two seconds could be a long time in a fight. Someone could do a lot of damage in two seconds, let alone two minutes. He looked at the road ahead, then the speedometer, then the road again, thinking, trying to visualize Hangleton Rise. He knew the street, but not well. Small two-storey houses, post-war, a mix of terraces, semis and some detached. A couple of low-rise council blocks along there but mostly it was privately owned residential, with one short parade of shops.
Then Ops-1 came through on the radio again. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ he replied.
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five, I have a street plan and a Google Earth view of 29 Hangleton Rise. It’s a detached property with easy access round to the side and rear. There’ll be a second response unit with you within three minutes and a further following, as well as firearms who are six minutes away. All understood?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Despite his years of experience as a Special, he had butterflies in his stomach. They’d be gone the moment he was out of the car, he knew, and all his training kicked in.
They made a right turn, into Hangleton Rise.
He reached across and unclipped his seat belt, as Solomon unclipped the safety strap on her Taser holster.
67
Monday 25 April
Above the piercing screaming of the petrified woman, and the much fainter sound of an approaching siren, Evie Leigh could hear shouting through her headset, an ugly, angry male voice.
‘You bitch, what you doing with that in your hand? Phoning the police – you think they’ll help? You’re better-off phoning a friend – or asking the audience, eh? Ask the audience, go on, ask them. Three questions – yeah? Is my husband going to kill me? Is my husband going to kill me? Is my husband going to kill me?’
On her screen, Evie saw the pink symbol of the car halt at the address; it was accompanied by the message she was always relieved to see. Officers at scene.
Usually that would be the end of her involvement, but not right now. No stranger to terror, she had been
on the receiving end of calls from people in the middle of the night who had just heard breaking glass downstairs in their home; from a woman locked in the boot of a stolen car; from a mother whose baby had vanished from its pushchair outside a shop in a busy high street.
But nothing in all her experience was as heart-wrenching as this. She could feel the woman’s utter fear and, despite remaining steady herself, trying to calm the woman down and get her to think of any possible options, in her heart she wanted to dash from the Control Room to the woman’s home and do something, herself, to protect her from this bastard.
There were two other important reasons for keeping the line open. The recording would provide good evidence for anything that happened subsequently, including rebutting any allegation of excessive force by the police, and it would provide intelligence for other officers attending, as initially Charlie Romeo Zero Five would be too busy to provide much of an update.
There was a scream so piercing it sent shivers spiking through her.
Then again.
‘Pleeeeeeeaaaassssssssssseeeeeeee no, no, no, no!’
Then a terrible thud, followed by a scream of agony. Then another. Another.
Another.
A groan.
Another.
‘Trish?’ Evie asked, her own voice quavering. She was shaking. ‘Trish? Trish? Can you hear me, Trish? Trish?’
Matt Robinson had his door open before the car had come to a halt. He jumped out, with the wheels still rolling, his boots slipping on the wet pavement, the momentum unbalancing him and almost hurling him to the ground.
He ran round to the rear of the car, grabbed the yellow battering ram from the boot, then joined by his colleague, sprinted up the short path to the blue front door. In the distance he could hear the sound of an approaching siren, but it was some way off. He shot a glance at Juliet Solomon and she nodded, as if in confirmation. Without hesitating, he swung the heavy ram at the door, throwing all his considerable weight behind it, and stumbled over the sill as the door burst open, ripping away part of the frame with it.