by GB Williams
A hand, large and heavy, clamped on her head.
‘You.’ Her head was forced forward and down till she was crouched on the floor again. ‘Head down and be quiet.’ The gravelly voice told her this was the Neanderthal. ‘You keep your kid quiet.’ He must be talking to Megan. ‘And you—’ this to Mr Pink, ‘calm down and back off.’
‘And you, Mr Brown.’ That calm tone had to be the Leader. ‘Back to your post.’
There was a pause. The whole bank held its breath, even Lucy. Though her head was down, Teddington was aware that the Neanderthal, Mr Brown, hadn’t moved. Mr Pink slowly lowered his gun.
‘Of course, Mr White,’ Mr Brown said, as he returned to his previous post.
As Teddington shifted to sit cross-legged again, she couldn’t help wondering what it meant, the exchange she’d just witnessed. Not daring to look up, she pondered the sight of Mr Brown’s shoes beneath his jeans. Salomon trainers, the khaki and brown nearly identical colours. Keeping her eyes down, she could look across the floor a little. Mr White, the leader, was in penny loafers. That nearly made her laugh. Penny loafers were her uncle’s favourite. Mr Pink was wearing slip-ons of some kind. With a turn of the eye, she looked to Mr Orange—worn dress shoes.
Whatever plans these men had for getting away, only one of them had thought of running.
A four-letter imprecation sliced across the bank like a whip. Everyone looked up.
‘Mr Pink?’ Mr White demanded.
‘The fucking pigs have turned up.’ He moved slightly closer to the window and almost immediately moved back. ‘There’s three cars, one in each street.’
‘That was quick.’ Mr White moved forward, looked out, swore.
Teddington was aware that she wasn’t the only one head up and watching, not that she could see much through the frosting. It was quick, but then again, the alarm had been hit, and the station wasn’t far away. So maybe, for once, things had just worked as they were supposed to.
The suspended moment broke as Mr White turned.
‘Mr Orange, fetch Mr Blue.’
Mr Orange nodded once and headed out to the back of the bank, and Mr White turned to the man by the door. ‘Mr Brown.’
‘Mr White?’
Mr White moved towards the recessed door and the two of them started to whisper. Teddington strained to hear, aware that the man in the quality overcoat was now the one trying to talk Lucy into being calm. She caught his name, Hickson, but tuned them out, struggling to hear Mr White and Mr Brown.
‘… can we expect now?’
She watched them. Mr White had his back to her, Mr Brown side on, glancing at Mr White, but watching the street. ‘Tactical Firearms’ll be here in anything from ten to thirty minutes, depending where they’re currently deployed.’
Teddington frowned over the word. Deployed? That was a military word. Did that mean Mr Brown was a military man? Could be. She’d dealt with a fair few ex-army men in her time. Army guys went through a lot and they couldn’t always cope with civilian life, but the skills the army had taught them could be used to efficient criminal effect. When they got sent down, many made good prisoners: they were used to hard conditions, restricted freedom, generally—but not always—had a healthy respect for people in uniform with rank. But when they blew… they blew big time. It wasn’t a pretty sight to behold. If the Neanderthal Mr Brown snapped, she was afraid of what he could do.
‘What’s going on?’ The fifth man, Mr Blue, he of the boxer nose and tan leather jacket, came back into the main section of the bank, pushing Presswick before him. Mr Blue pushed the manager towards the others. Presswick sat heavily, clearly not happy on the floor. Mr Blue placed two full holdalls by the counter, and Mr Orange put a third on top.
‘The police,’ Mr White said, then gestured the bags. ‘Did you get it all?’
‘Not quite.’
‘This is her fault.’ The surprise denouncement came from Mr Pink. As he came forward, attention moved to Zanti, who cowered back. Sam put his arm around her shoulders, shielded her. Teddington didn’t know how much help he could be, given the split lip and already bruising chin.
‘Argh!’ Teddington’s shout was unavoidable as she fell to her left, her right thigh screaming with pain where Mr Pink’s foot had slammed into it.
Lucy screamed and cried.
Pain rung in Teddington’s ears. It was all so far away, but she saw Mr Pink move closer, saw Mr Brown shove him back. Now on her side on the floor, she looked over her head, saw the hostages at the other end of the group, saw the horror on Zanti and Sam’s faces, not to mention Carlisle’s. She clamped her jaw on the shout of surprise.
Carlisle? Carlisle!
A lump lodged in her throat. She couldn’t be sure if she was hot or cold or both. Her heart rattled against her ribs—it wanted to run screaming out of here as much as her damaged leg wouldn’t let her.
‘Do you know who that is?’ Mr Pink demanded of Mr Brown. ‘That bitch is one of the screws that locked us up.’
‘Shut up.’ Mr Brown’s voice was controlled, his temper clear, nonetheless.
Stunned, she glanced at the gunmen, then looked at the hostage again. Yep. Under that baseball cap and the hoodie was Carlisle.
Not wanting to give herself away, she closed her eyes a second and tried to assimilate what she was seeing. Carlisle. She didn’t even know his first name. She just knew him as Detective Sergeant Carlisle. A serving police officer!
Oh, dear Lord! Even off-duty he was a danger, not only to himself, but to everyone here. If they recognise him…
As long as he kept his head down, and she kept the focus of their anger on her, this was still salvageable. She hoped. She focused on what the men were saying.
‘She humiliated me!’ Mr Pink was saying. ‘Did a strip search!’
Mr Pink moved closer, Mr Brown was there, his gun to Mr Pink’s head. ‘Shut up!’
Everything and everyone stopped, even Lucy. Tension radiated from the two men, filled the room.
‘Why,’ Mr Pink’s voice was tight, ‘are you protecting her?’
‘He’s not,’ Teddington said carefully, keeping her voice soft, non-confrontational, trying not to wince as she sat up. ‘He’s protecting you. The more you say, the more it narrows down who you could be, the more likely I am able to identify you. So please don’t say anything more, for all our sakes.’
4
‘We’ve got video feed,’ Andrews confirmed as he joined Piper with PC Lawson on the street. ‘It’s not great. Could do with getting a higher vantage point.’
‘Your men have already got all the decent ones,’ Piper pointed out.
‘True.’ Andrews’ smile was slightly on the smug side. ‘Problem is, we can still see a problem.’
Andrews tipped his head and headed back into the van. Piper frowned, excused himself from Lawson and followed.
‘Jesus!’
Piper looked up, Andrews hadn’t reached the van, but the exclamation had definitely come from there, and it sounded female.
‘Who’s that?’ he demanded of Andrews.
‘PC Wymark,’ Andrews said as he stepped up. ‘What’s up?’
Piper reached the open side door and stepped inside, using his body to block the light and better focus on the screen. Wymark was a slim-built Asian-looking woman in uniform, earphones over her head, quickly writing. Piper assumed Andrews had just plucked her out of the large crowd of uniforms now in the area. Wymark pointed to the screen. What Piper could see was five men. A tall man in an army surplus sweater was pointing a gun at a skinhead in a suit, a third suited man stood close, and the two figures further into the bank were little more than shadows. They really weren’t going to get any usable evidence from this.
It was probably just as well. Bell was their informant, but for taking part in an armed raid, even one where the bullets were blanks, he would be tried along with the others. He might get a more lenient sentence for turning Queen’s evidence, but he’d serve time. Again.
/> ‘He…’ Wymark pointed to the skinhead. ‘Attacked a hostage. He tried to stop him.’ This time she pointed to the taller man. ‘Hold on.’
Wymark went back to writing. Clearly something was being said.
‘When you say attacked?’
Wymark shrugged as she continued to write. ‘Couldn’t see what happened, it was masked by the frosting on the window.’
‘Well, at least he didn’t shoot her.’ Andrews turned to Piper. ‘See the problem yet?’
No, Piper didn’t. He looked again at the screen, at the two men facing off. He didn’t recognise either of them. Now he saw the problem. ‘Shit.’
Wymark passed him the sheet of paper she’d been writing so furiously on. Piper was rather surprised by the neat penmanship considering the speed of the writing.
‘…bitch is one of the screws that locked us up.’
The words virtually jumped off the page at him. ‘Shit.’
‘So you said, Chief Inspector.’ Andrews took the page from him. Scanned it. ‘So at least two of them have been in prison. Which fits with what we know.’ He looked at the screens. ‘But those faces don’t.’
‘No.’ Piper looked at the screen. ‘But there are two at the back we can’t see. Maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’ Andrews demanded. ‘According to your informant, only two of the gang have done time. Charlie Bell and Lester Grimshaw. Neither of which are the two men in front of us.’
Piper swallowed as he continued to watch the scene. He remembered Superintendent Broughton’s words when he’d first suggested Charlie Bell be taken on as an informant. His fuck-up is your fuck-up. It was hard to see how this could possibly get any more fucked up. One of the screws. He turned to Andrews. ‘Did you get much of a look of that last woman to go into the bank?’
Andrews shrugged. ‘Tall but wearing heels, so maybe not that tall. Long brown hair and a thick padded jacket, wearing leggings under boots. Nice legs. Her head was down, I didn’t see her face. Why?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Piper lied. It mattered a hell of a lot if his instant suspicion was correct and not just the result of a fevered imagination. Unfortunately, Andrews’ description ruled nothing out. Having Ariadne Teddington in that bank was a nightmare he didn’t want to have. When it came to things getting worse, that was one sure way he could see this getting worse. He pulled his phone from his pocket, grabbing the suspect clipboard from the hook on the side, and stepped out of the van as crouching was pulling on his back. When he had the Dispatcher’s attention he read out five names and addresses. ‘Yes, check all of them. And now. Call me back as soon as you can, report on them individually if necessary.’
‘What are you thinking?’
Piper took a calming breath and turned to Andrews. ‘My information was for five specific men. And while there are five men in that gang.’ Piper pointed to the bank. ‘At least three of them aren’t the men we were expecting, so I need to know where the hell these five are.’ He so wanted to throw something. Instead he stretched into the van and carefully returned the board to its hook.
Piper stepped back, ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his scalp as he looked to his right. He had direct line of sight to the bank, which meant that they had direct line of sight to him. To his left was the cordon, civilians rubbernecking. Behind him was a police car and Lawson controlling his men.
Damage control.
Piper stepped over to Lawson and the young PC with him. He vaguely recognised her from around the station, but he had no idea who she was. Her light brown skin and naturally black hair suggested some Middle Eastern heritage. ‘Lawson,’ he greeted, looking questioningly at the female officer.
‘Siddig, sir,’ she supplied.
‘Siddig.’ He turned back to Lawson. ‘I need a base of operations out of sight of the bank. That hairdresser’s should do.’ He looked across the street in indication. ‘Clear it with the owners. We’ll set up there and I’ll do a briefing in ten, okay?’ He turned to Siddig. ‘I’d like to see a Press Liaison Officer down here, too. They won’t be any help, but it’ll be chore off my back. You okay sorting that?’ Siddig confirmed she was. ‘Good, give Lawson a hand setting up once it’s done.’
With a smart, ‘Yes sir’ from both, Lawson and Siddig headed for the hairdresser’s. Siddig was already on the radio to Dispatch asking to be put through to the Press Office.
Piper turned back to the van to find Andrews watching him, arms folded, face inscrutable.
‘You want us to move in there?’
‘Hell no.’ Piper kept his voice down and indicated that Andrews should go into the van. Only when they were both within its confines did he speak again. ‘We’ll move closer, but the three of us will remain working in here, and use the hairdresser’s as a muster point to keep people out of our hair as much as possible. What’s happening inside?’
‘Not much.’
Piper turned to Wymark in hopes of a more illuminating response.
She pointed to the screen, to the sound trace that would visually announce if there was any noise. At the moment it didn’t even look like there was much movement, so he assumed Carlisle was sitting still. ‘The conversation I passed to was the last thing I heard.’
‘Well, we’ve got eyes and ears,’ Piper said. ‘All we need now is two-way communication.’
‘True, but—’
Hearing the reluctance in Andrews’ voice, Piper raised his hand. ‘Objection noted,’ Piper assured. ‘It will be noted in my report as well, but there’s already been an attack on one hostage. We can’t stand around twiddling our thumbs and allow another to happen, and we don’t have the time to wait for—let alone brief—another negotiator.’
5
Charlie understood the pain in his chest all too well—his heart was thumping. He could taste fear. His lungs were on fire.
This wasn’t how today was supposed to be. Hell, nothing in his life was the way it was ‘supposed’ to be. He dragged in a breath and reached for a calm he was too far from feeling. For now, his hands were tied and all he could do was wait.
For now.
Wait and figure out how to get out of this mess.
6
Locked us up. Strip search. Vicious little shit.
Teddington didn’t look up at Mr Pink, but she ran everything she knew about him through her mind. He knew her, so she had to know him. Short—no. He only looked short against the overgrown Neanderthal, so maybe five-eight, possibly five-nine. Skinhead, not muscular, but obviously had some strength behind him. She rubbed her bruised leg. A football player maybe. Football hooligan, more like.
None of which really narrowed anything down. Strip search. She slowly exhaled. Conducting strip searches was a part of the job. Not a pleasant part, and not exactly routine, but if it had to be done it had to be done. There were men that got a kick out of the searches, some who got erections: she’d even had a couple who had peed on her just to make a point, but most endured—some loudly. Teddington figured that Mr Pink would be a moaner, one that complained about a beating from a mere touch. That didn’t exactly make him unique. She risked another quick look up, nothing in the face to jog a memory.
But lifting her head revealed that Mr Brown was watching her. Nothing in that face jogged a memory either, though the intensity of his look twisted something in her gut. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation.
Oh, get a life, Ari.
Hanging her head again, Teddington thought about Mr Brown. That brow was distinctive, but not revealing. His height, which was significantly over six foot, should tell her something too. The problem was that when she thought of tall inmates, she always thought of Charlie Bell. Like he’s ever far from your mind. Annoying but true. She did spend too much of her time thinking about Charlie Bell. Just because he’d saved her life, twice, it didn’t change the fact that he was a convicted killer who she should avoid at all costs. It also didn’t change the fact that the right look from him could melt her bones, not to mention a
quick kiss—no, don’t go there. And nothing could change the fact that she hadn’t seen him in the six months since she’d let him out of the jail. The date she’d tried to make and got stood up for didn’t count and she couldn’t even hate him for that. There’s something very wrong with you, girl.
Closing her eyes, she forced blond, blue-eyed Charlie from her mind. The dark-haired, monobrow Neanderthal wasn’t Charlie.
There had been other men tall men in the prison at various times, but again, none of them matched the overhanging brow. She sighed. Or maybe she’d just wiped them from her memory; there were over 150 men housed at any one time on the wing she worked alone. It was impossible to remember all who came and went.
The ramping volume of a telephone ringing drew attention to Presswick’s office. Mr White stepped towards the room, his head turned to Presswick on the floor, the gun levelled at the man’s head.
‘You expecting a call?’
Presswick focused on the gun and shook his head. ‘I am the manager. Of course, people want to talk to me.’
Teddington stared at the man and wondered how he managed to look both scared and so puffed up with his own importance all at once. The way Mr White’s eyes tightened suggested he was no more impressed than she was.
‘Mr White.’
There was something about the way Mr Brown spoke that tugged at Teddington’s memory. The accent was kind of northern. Maybe he was a Geordie who’d spent too long in the south east? It wasn’t only locals who ended up locked behind HMP Blackmarch’s walls. She closed her eyes to see if her hearing would tell her what her sight could not.
‘It could be the police calling,’ Mr Brown explained.
‘Why would the pigs call?’
Teddington’s eyes sprung open as Mr Pink stepped closer with his demand. The guy was on the edge, his voice high-pitched. She could see the two guns in his hands held too tightly, quivering slightly, the extensions emphasising the tension thrumming through the man’s body.