by Michael Wood
‘I love you so much, Stuart Mills,’ she said.
‘I was about to say the same thing.’
‘You love yourself, too?’
‘I do, but not half as much as I love you.’
‘I should elbow you in the stomach for a corny line like that.’
‘But you won’t because I’m so loveable.’
He gave a silly grin, which made Sian laugh. She stood up from the bench and opened the rucksack he’d brought with him and began taking out the clean clothes. They’d wrinkled while they’d been in the bag, so she wouldn’t look her normal pristine self, but it was only for one day. And there was nothing normal about today.
Stuart stayed long enough to make Sian feel better. She was a detective sergeant and therefore had people who would look to her for guidance and advice. As the unofficial mother of the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, she was seen as the safe pair of hands, the one who was calm in a crisis and cool under pressure. As much as she didn’t feel like it today, she knew she’d have to fake it for the sake of others and fall apart when she went home. Stuart would be there for her, like he always was.
When she re-entered the suite, she saw a strange man sitting behind Matilda’s desk, which brought a lump to her throat. Had the DCI been replaced already? She soon recognised him as someone from the tech department who was obviously going through her laptop to see if she’d received any threats or demands that could provide background to the shooting.
She looked at Rory, who was sat at his desk, head down, in a world of his own. She wanted to go over to him, put an arm around him, comfort him, tell him she knew how he felt. The problem was, she didn’t, and every time she tried to open her mouth to speak, more tears raced to the surface.
Screw it. If people couldn’t cry together on a day like today, then when could they? She blew her nose and walked tentatively over to Rory’s desk.
He was slumped in his chair. The smell of soap was coming off him. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, his suit having been ruined with the blood of his dead fiancée.
‘Rory,’ she said quietly, leaning down next to him.
He turned to look at her. His face was blank and pale.
She placed an arm around his shoulders as their eyes locked together. Neither of them could speak. There was nothing to say. Rory’s bottom lip began to wobble, so Sian pulled him into a tight embrace.
Christian Brady entered the HMET suite. He saw Sian and Rory together and swallowed his emotions. He signalled to Scott to join him in his office.
‘How are you?’ Christian asked.
‘I’ve no idea. I feel numb.’
‘Understandable. Where the hell did you get that suit?’ he asked, looking the young DC up and down.
Scott was dressed in a dark grey ill-fitting suit that looked a size too big for him. Scott was very conscious of how he looked, and his clothes were always fitted as if tailor-made.
‘Aaron’s always kept a spare one in his locker ever since he was vomited on as a PC. He let me borrow it. Maybe I should keep a spare.’
‘You look like a teenager in his first suit heading for court.’
‘It’s been a while since I’ve been called a teenager, so I’ll take that as a compliment.’ He smiled painfully. ‘Are you ok?’ he asked.
Christian paused. He had no idea how he was feeling. He thought for a moment. ‘The same as you, probably. Any news from the hospital?’
‘Not yet.’
‘No news is good news, and all that bollocks, I suppose. Anyway, Scott, I need you to go through the CCTV footage around the entrances to the station. The fire alarm that was set off was behind the custody suite, near the entrance to the car park. Now, if the gunman triggered it, he’d be caught on camera. See what you can find.’
‘Will do.’
‘I’ve heard back from forensics. They’ve identified the bullets as being fired from a Heckler and Koch MP5.’
‘They’re what we use,’ Scott said.
‘I know. Several forces around the country use them, including the Met. There are no distinguishing markings on the bullet, but we need to know if any are missing.’
‘You think it could be one of our guns?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If it is, we could all know who the gunman is. Maybe he’s a disgruntled officer or something.’
‘It’s too early to speculate. These guns can be found on the black market, the dark web, from someone dodgy in a backstreet boozer, but all avenues have to be explored. The most obvious one is checking whether any of our guns are missing,’ Christian said firmly.
Scott nodded. ‘I’ll ask Finn to check.’
Christian stood up from leaning over the desk. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up, his hair was unruly, and he looked shattered.
‘Who have we got working on this?’ he asked.
‘Me and Finn. Sian and Rory when they’re able to. It’s not easy.’
‘Featherstone is going to draft in some more from CID, but they’ve lost officers, too.’
‘This is going to take some getting over, isn’t it?’ Scott asked.
‘I don’t think any of us ever really will, to be honest. Have the press picked up on it yet?’
‘I don’t know. We’ve got the TV on silent—’
The door opened and Sian popped her head in. Her eyes were red from crying. ‘You’ll never guess who’s on TV.’
Christian rolled his eyes and followed them all out into the open-plan office.
On the large screen was the BBC News channel. A woman sat at a large desk wearing a conservative jacket and perfectly styled hair was talking direct to camera with a stern expression. In the background, journalists busied themselves in the newsroom.
‘Turn it up,’ Christian said.
‘We can now go back to Sheffield and our North of England correspondent, Danny Hanson.’
‘What the fuck!’ Christian exclaimed. ‘Since when was he on TV?’
Danny Hanson was the bane of South Yorkshire Police, Matilda in particular. He was constantly following HMET’s cases and managed to get several front-page stories out of it. He was eager, there was no denying that, but he was the kind of cut-throat journalist who would sell his own parents for a decent story.
‘He called Matilda a few months back,’ Sian said. ‘He was bragging about how he’d landed a job at Look North.’
‘This isn’t Look North.’
‘No. But he’s here. The BBC use their correspondents as and when needed.’
Danny was stood outside South Yorkshire Police HQ, the main entrance in the background. He was wearing a dark designer coat open to reveal a blue check shirt. His hair was neatly ruffled, and he was clean shaven. His large brown eyes were dancing. This was his first time on a national channel, and he was obviously revelling in it.
‘Earlier this morning, a gunman opened fire within South Yorkshire Police Headquarters, behind me. Eyewitnesses have claimed hearing as many as a dozen shots. Chief Constable Martin Featherstone is set to give a statement at eleven o’clock to give us the latest on this breaking story. So far, we have been given no figures as to casualties or if any officers have been fatally injured. However, several ambulances were at the scene and the local A&E department has been closed to non-emergencies. At present, all the press office is telling us is that there has been a major incident and the building behind me is in lockdown.’
‘Why’s he talking like a complete wanker?’ Christian asked. ‘It’s only a few months ago he had a Yorkshire accent.’
‘He’s on television now. He’s got to look and sound the part,’ Sian said.
‘I thought the BBC liked regional accents these days.’
‘Not the Yorkshire one, apparently.’
‘Danny, is this being treated as a terrorist attack? Has the gunman been caught?’ the newsreader in the London studio asked.
‘We haven’t been told anything to confirm or deny that. Hopefully Chief Constable Featherstone
will give us more information in his statement. I have seen armed response officers and tactical vehicles leaving this compound. There has also been a great deal of police activity coming from the building behind the police station, which is an office block housing many local companies.’
‘Has that office block been placed in lockdown?’
‘Yes, it has. A cordon has been put in place and all traffic diverted. This is a serious incident that is unfolding by the minute.’
‘Danny Hanson, our North of England correspondent, thank you.’
The camera switched back to the studio and the newsreader’s face softened as she went on to a different story. Christian muted it. The mere mention of the word Brexit was enough to raise his hackles.
‘He’s enjoying himself,’ Scott said.
‘Featherstone is giving a statement at eleven,’ Sian said, looking at her watch. ‘Have all the families been told?’
‘Each department is dealing with their own officers. The Chief Constable said he was contacting Valerie’s kids and Matilda’s parents,’ Christian said.
‘Has anyone told Kesinka about Ranjeet?’ Scott asked.
Blank faces and silence revealed the answer.
‘Scott,’ Christian said. ‘You and Finn go round to see her. Break it to her gently. Tell her she’ll get all the support she needs.’
‘Me?’ Scott asked. ‘No offence to Finn, but I’d rather Sian come with me.’
‘I need Sian here. I’m sorry, Scott. There’s no one else.’
As much as the officers wanted to get answers to what had happened this morning, the majority were too shocked, stunned and numb to physically do anything. They wanted to band together, hug each other and talk about what they’d witnessed. However, time was of the essence, and more lives were in danger if uniformed officers and detectives didn’t put their personal feelings to one side and concentrate on the task in hand.
All staff within South Yorkshire Police HQ had to give a statement as to what they had witnessed and as Christian returned to his office, he sat down and began to write his own. He picked up a pen and stared at it. It was a silver-plated Parker fountain pen, given to him a few Christmases back by his daughters. Despite him having trouble reading his own handwriting, he loved it and enjoyed writing with it. Holding it in his shaking right hand, he couldn’t bring himself to write down what he’d seen that morning. Putting it into words made it real, and he couldn’t get his head around seeing his colleagues gunned down in cold blood.
From the cracked window in the station, he’d watched as Scott Andrews bravely went out amidst the carnage. Matilda stood looking up. At what, he had no idea. Suddenly, a shot rang out. Matilda staggered backwards. Scott leapt out of the way. Another shot and Matilda—
There was a light tap on his door. He looked up. Sian entered the office with a mug in her hands.
‘I’ve brought you a tea.’
Christian didn’t say anything.
‘The press is gathering outside,’ she said.
‘The Chief Constable said he was taking care of that, thank goodness.’ He leaned back in his chair. He looked out into the main suite, but his stare went much further. His eyes looked intense, but he wasn’t seeing anything.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Sian said. ‘There’s so much to do, but I just … I don’t know. You don’t expect something like this to happen, do you?’
Christian shook his head. ‘Every time I close my eyes, I see it all over again. I’m replaying it and thinking what I could have done differently.’
‘It all happened so quickly. There was nothing more you could have done.’
‘There was a PC in front of me. He was running towards the building. He was hit and fell to the ground. I should have stopped and helped him, seen if he was all right, but I jumped over him, Sian. I just left him.’
Sian stepped further into the office and closed the door behind her. ‘It’s human. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘But I’m a police officer. My job is to protect others, to save others, and I didn’t. I stepped over him and ran to safety.’
Sian sat in the chair opposite his desk. She reached across and grabbed his hands. ‘You saved me. You saw me standing there, shaking like a leaf, and you stopped to help me. You saved my life.’
‘But I didn’t save his.’
‘We can’t save everyone.’
‘I stopped for you because I know you. I didn’t know this PC. I shouldn’t be doing this job if I’m going to stop and choose who I help.’
‘Christian, this is a situation none of us can prepare for. We can train, but we don’t know how we’ll react until it happens. You can’t go over every detail and analyse it and wonder what you could have done differently, because you’ll go mad considering all the various options. Don’t beat yourself up, Christian. You’re a good man and a bloody good detective.’
‘I don’t think I can do this anymore.’ He looked at her with tears in his eyes.
‘You can,’ she said firmly, increasing her grip on his hands.
‘I don’t think I want to,’ he said, barely above a whisper.
Chapter Nine
There were six confirmed dead from South Yorkshire Police HQ. That number was likely to rise as the day went on with several being treated for severe injuries at hospital, not to mention the grave danger Matilda Darke was in.
The bodies were transported to the Medico-Legal Centre at Watery Street on the outskirts of Sheffield city centre, where Adele and Lucy would begin the post-mortems.
Claire Alexander sat behind a bank of computer screens in the digital autopsy suite. She watched with a heavy heart as the side door opened and the first body was wheeled in on a trolley. There were many more out there waiting to go through the scanner. She tried not to think of who was in the sealed body bag, but it wasn’t easy. Although she hadn’t had much contact with the police officers from HQ, she’d heard Adele and Lucy talk fondly about them all. This was going to be a very sad day.
Claire was wearing oversized scrubs and her dark brown hair, now at shoulder length, was neatly tied back in a ponytail. The first body bag was on the scanner in the next room, waiting for the digital autopsy to begin, which would give detailed information on entry and exit wounds, the trajectory of the bullet, and whether it was still lodged inside the victim.
The door opened behind her. She turned and saw a grim-faced Adele standing in the doorway. Her eyes seemed glazed over, as if her body was present but her mind elsewhere. She was looking at Claire but not seeing her.
‘Any news?’ Claire asked.
Adele shook her head.
‘Oh God,’ she said, bowing her head as she cried. ‘I can’t believe this has happened.’
Adele stepped forward and put her arms around Claire, but there was no comfort or emotion involved. ‘I know. It’s shocking.’
Claire grabbed a tissue from her desk, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘You wake up in the morning and you think, “OK, I’ll go to work, have a chat and a laugh with my colleagues, and wonder what’s worth watching on TV tonight.” You don’t think that your whole world is going to be destroyed in the space of a few minutes.’
‘I know.’
‘You see things like this on the news and you feel sorry for those poor people. After a few days, the story vanishes from the screens, and you forget. You shouldn’t, but you do, you get on with your own life. But what are those people feeling three days after the event, five days, a month, a year? You don’t know that until you’re living it.’
‘I think we just have to take one day at a time,’ Adele said, slumping down in the seat next to her, her head on her chest, her shoulders hunched, as if life was draining out of her. ‘I can’t believe Valerie and Ranjeet are dead. Ranjeet, I mean, he’s only in his twenties, for crying out loud. Married just over a year and a new baby. How can you try and make sense of that?’
‘You can’t. It doesn’t make any sense at all.’
&nbs
p; ‘I sometimes hate what this world is turning into. For someone to attack the police like that.’
They sat in silence for a long time. Eventually, Adele seemed to come to her senses, as if she suddenly remembered where she was and what she was doing here. ‘Shall we begin?’
With shaking fingers, Claire typed on the keyboard and the scanner in the next room came to life. The digital autopsy was a non-invasive post-mortem in which digital imaging technology, along with CT scans, was used to develop cross-sectional images for a full virtual exploration of the body. As radiographer, Claire would zoom in on parts of the body, turn it over, look deep within the tissue and organs, without physically touching the body and potentially destroying vital forensic evidence. Cause of death could be accurately confirmed in 75 per cent of digital autopsies, and that figure was rising as technology advanced. Adele would always be needed to perform full invasion autopsies, but the digital version was less intrusive and more respectful for relatives.
Adele hadn’t asked which victim was in the scanner. As a skeletal image appeared on the screen, she could tell right away the body had been hit with three bullets. Once in the back, where the bullet was still lodged, once in the neck and once in the back of the head, where there were both entry and exit wounds. There was only one victim at the scene Adele had identified as having three gunshots. She was looking at the image of twenty-seven-year-old Detective Constable Ranjeet Deshwal.
‘Oh God,’ she said under her breath.
Claire cleared her throat. ‘The bullet to the back of the head doesn’t have as high a trajectory as the other two. I think we can assume this was the first to hit him.’
‘Apparently, he stopped to help Sian. He was hit and went down in front of her.’
‘Jesus Christ. The other two will have been where he was caught in the crossfire.’
‘Where’s the bullet imbedded in him?’
‘It’s lodged in the fourth thoracic vertebrae.’
Adele made a note.
There was a knock on the door, and Lucy entered.