‘On your way. This isn’t a refuge or a charity and I have better things to do than –’
‘Take it easy, fella,’ the man replied, pulling a shotgun from his coat and pointing it straight at the stunned pharmacist. ‘You’re closing early today.’
Alan stood stock still, too shocked to react. But the young woman was on the move already and to his horror he saw her reach up and turn the key in the security lock just above the shop entrance. With a deep, metallic groan, the security shutters started to descend, juddering to a halt as they eventually hit the floor.
16
09.35
His eyes were glued to the screen. The dogs were getting restless, confused by the lack of activity, but he ignored them. The image on the screen in front of him demanded his attention, sickening though it was. A press helicopter had managed to get above the site of the ‘police incident’ and was beaming live pictures from the scene. Peter Smalling took in the white tent, the forensics team, the uniformed officers guarding the area, full of purpose and self-importance. Too fucking late, he thought to himself bitterly.
It was just gone nine thirty. How much life can change in a couple of hours. He had been so content this morning, him and the dogs bounding through the woods. He’d been full of ideas, full of schemes, thinking how he could pack the boys off to his sister’s the following weekend, so that he and Sonia could get away for their anniversary. He had worked it through in his head, had a couple of nice B&Bs in mind – it seemed utterly impossible to him that they wouldn’t celebrate another milestone.
He had been watching the news since the police officers left. He hadn’t called anyone, though they’d urged him to do so. They’d said that people find it hard to focus when in shock, that it’s dangerous to drive and had gently suggested that his sister might pick the boys up today. But there was no way he was going to let that happen. It was his responsibility to break the news to them, though what he was going to say he had no idea. What could he say?
The newsreader was saying that it was a robbery, though the officer – DS Brooks – had deliberately avoided confirming that. She suspected it was something else – something more targeted – though she wouldn’t say what. Her caution had unnerved him, hinting as it did at darker motives. They had taken her car – were perhaps joyriding around Southampton even now – it had to be robbery, didn’t it? And yet they had left her purse, her jewellery …
A tear dropped on to his hand and Peter realized he was crying again. Sonia had never been one for flashy jewellery, but she had treasured her wedding ring. They’d found a small jeweller’s in Portsmouth they liked and had had their rings made there. Matching ones in white gold, slightly squared in shape to make them more distinctive, with their joint initials etched on the inside, so they could always be close to each other, even when apart.
The rings had been very special to them, symbols of the unspoken commitment they had made to each other. They’d planned to grow old and fat together, but the woman he’d loved more than life itself was now lying dead in a police mortuary. And the ring she’d so cherished was being tugged from her finger by a faceless mortician.
It was an image that punched him in the heart and Peter dropped his head and wept.
17
09.40
‘Do we have any sightings? Do we have any idea which direction they went in?’
Helen was standing by Sonia Smalling’s Audi, flanked by Charlie and Sanderson. An eagle-eyed PC had spotted the abandoned vehicle in a disabled parking bay in central Portswood and had called it in immediately.
‘Nothing so far,’ the PC answered. ‘We’ve asked in Sainsbury’s, a couple of the newsagents and off licences, but nobody’s seen anything …’
Thanking the PC, Helen turned to his superior, Sergeant MacDonald, who stood nearby, flanked by a sea of blue uniforms.
‘I want your officers to visit every shop, business and residence within a half-mile of the abandoned car. We’re looking for two suspects – they’ll be pumped up, potentially acting aggressively. Tell your officers to proceed with caution. One or both of them may be armed.’
As the sergeant set about organizing his search team, Helen turned to Charlie.
‘Are there any probation offices around here?’
‘No, they’re all down in Totton.’
‘Any of Smalling’s probationers – past or present – from this neck of the woods?’
‘No, she works with those from the south of the city.’
‘So why have they come here?’
Charlie shrugged, as Helen looked once more at the car. The parking bay in which the car had been abandoned was intended to allow disabled shoppers easy access to the nearby pedestrianized precinct and Helen’s gaze drifted that way now. It was still early in the day but already the shops were busy, the central avenue clogged with pensioners, mums and young professionals.
‘You and I will take the precinct,’ she told Charlie. ‘It’s a decent place to lose yourself in the crowds, plus there’s plenty of shops if they need to lift some supplies –’
‘And plenty of potential hostages too.’
‘Exactly. In the meantime,’ Helen continued, turning to Sanderson, ‘I’ll need you to chase down CCTV. Try not to tread on the toes of uniform, but some of the businesses round here must have cameras. I want a good image of our suspects.’
‘Wouldn’t I be more use assisting y—’
‘Now, please.’
Reluctantly, Sanderson withdrew. Helen could tell she wasn’t happy, but she didn’t have time to consider her feelings – not when the stakes were so high. Gesturing to Charlie to follow, Helen hurried across the road in the direction of the shopping precinct. Instead of leaving Southampton altogether, the fugitives had fled to a densely populated, residential area and she wanted to know why.
18
09.41
Sweat was crawling down his temples, his heart beating out a furious rhythm, but Alan Sansom told himself to keep calm. He had been trained for this and knew the drill – in the event of a robbery, you do as you’re told and wait until the perpetrators are long gone before calling the police. Training, however, was one thing, the reality something else. He had never been threatened with a real gun before.
He was kneeling down, his hands tied firmly behind his back. The huge brute of a man had marched him at gunpoint to the back office and forced him to open the safe. It had been duly emptied and the man was now rifling through the pharmaceuticals that were stored here out of harm’s way. Alan had been ordered to face the wall, which was a mere two inches from his nose, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see the man at work. Predictably, he was ignoring all the bog standard products – ibuprofen, decongestants, energy powders – in favour of the more valuable products. Methadone, amphetamines, maximum-strength codeine tablets – he seemed to be zeroing in on these, shoving packets of them into a canvas holdall.
The woman stood by the door, her back to him as she kept an eye on the shop beyond. Of the two, she seemed the keener to get going, while the man was clearly enjoying himself. He looked like a kid in a sweet shop, picking up the boxes of drugs and kissing them, before dropping them in his bag.
‘Hurry up, babe,’ she hissed at her accomplice, ‘we haven’t got all day.’
Alan knew he was powerless here, but still it made his blood boil. This was his shop, his business. What right did they have to come in here, truss him up, order him around? He was a respectable businessman, someone who contributed to society and what were they? A pair of thugs.
Suddenly Alan was filled with a desire to bring this pair to book, to call them to account when the time came. He had a decent idea of what the bloke looked like, but he hadn’t had a proper look at the woman. She had commandeered a pair of faux aviator sunglasses from his stand, which were offset by a candy-pink baseball cap. It was a pretty colourful way to conceal your identity but it worked. If asked to identify her, he wouldn’t have been able to provide a single s
alient detail, apart from her long, blonde hair of course.
The woman still had her back to him, so he decided to chance his arm. Better that than sitting here like a dummy, as his shop was looted. It wouldn’t do to be caught staring, however, so very slowly, inch by inch, he began to rotate his head. With just a quarter-turn, she would be in his line of sight. He could note her particulars, while she was busy scanning the store, then return his gaze to the wall until this awful ordeal was over.
The woman had gone very quiet now, so Alan paused briefly, fearful of detection. But no abuse came his way, so he continued to move.
And now he saw her. But, to his surprise, she was not keeping an eye on the shop. She was looking directly at him.
Smiling, she peered over the rim of her aviators and said:
‘You looking at me, honey?’
19
09.43
‘Jesus Christ!’
Martin Gardener virtually spat his coffee over his desk, as he took in the pre-autopsy photos that Emilia had laid in front of him.
‘How the hell did you get these?’ he asked.
‘A resourceful journalist has her ways …’ Emilia replied, trying not to sound too smug.
‘We can’t print them.’
‘Obviously not, but I thought you’d want to see them anyway. Sonia Smalling was married, had two kids, a worthy job … and someone’s blown a bloody great hole in her. Two to be precise, but it looks like one because –’
‘All right, all right …’
Gardener was a dick, but he was married with children and was clearly affected by the images in front of him. Which is what Emilia had been counting on.
‘Anything from the widower?’
‘He’s not answering his phone and there are uniformed officers front and back at the house.’
‘I thought you had the plod wrapped around your little finger,’ Gardener commented, a little too sarcastically for Emilia’s liking.
‘But he will have to pick up his boys from St George’s Prep School.’ Emilia ignored the jibe. ‘So I’m hoping to grab a word with him there.’
‘Make sure you get pictures.’
‘What do you take me for?’
Gardener declined to answer that one, so Emilia pressed on:
‘I’ve roughed out a shape for the copy, but I’m going to need the first three pages. On the front, I want to go big on the peaceful country road, lone woman, brutal shooting, death on a quiet autumn day. On the inside pages we’ll focus on her and her family. Get testimonials from some of the people she’s helped, colleagues, friends and then a paragraph about the people she’s left behind, the boys growing up without a mother. The husband seems clean – never even had a parking ticket. I’m not sure we’re going to get much from that angle, so we’ll major on the family torn in two, the sense of shock in her village –’
‘ “We”?’
‘Yes, “we”,’ Emilia responded quickly, stung by the implication. ‘I was first on the scene, this is my story.’
‘But this is my paper.’
‘Come on, Martin,’ she cajoled, softening her tone. ‘I know I was a bit of an idiot before, but I’m better than the stuff I’m being asked to do. Jonathan wasn’t even aware of this story, until I told him about it. I think I have a right to have my name on the byline. If I have to share it, then so be it, but –’
‘You’re sharing nothing,’ Gardener barked back. ‘Your name won’t be on the byline.’
‘But –’
‘You are not our Senior Crime Reporter. That position is held by Jonathan Simmons. Which is why he will be writing this story.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Emilia moaned, fully aware that she sounded like a five-year-old.
‘It’s entirely fair, given your disloyalty to this paper. More than that, it’s what’s going to happen.’
Gardener walked round his desk, thrusting the photos back into Emilia’s hands, invading her personal space.
‘You may think you’re a hotshot, Emilia, but know this. You are going to have to bring me a hatful of these stories before you are back in my good graces …’
He paused before he delivered the punchline:
‘No pun intended.’
20
09.44
Helen weaved through the crowds of shoppers, scanning the pedestrianized walkway. Charlie was close behind her, but was struggling to keep up due to the myriad obstacles in her path. Pensioners were stopping to chat, toddlers were darting here and there and young schoolgirls pretty much walked right into her, scarcely looking up from their phones as they did so. In the midst of all this, Helen stood tall, craning to get a look at the faces passing by.
Everything seemed calm, relaxed even. What had she been expecting? A gunfight? A trail of destruction? Truth be told, they weren’t even sure yet what they were looking for. Two men? A man and a woman? They had no physical description, no clear idea even of what their perpetrators were wearing.
‘See anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Charlie answered, from just behind her. ‘You?’
Helen shook her head. The scene in front of her was so normal, so workaday, that Helen started to wonder if the killers had come here to lie low. Maybe they had friends who lived round here or had rented a place, knowing they would need a bolt-hole? Perhaps Helen’s instincts earlier had been wrong, perhaps this morning’s murder was unplanned – a moment of rage or a terrible aberration – and now the suspects just wanted to disappear, to get their heads together, while they worked out what to do next.
But now as Helen surveyed the scene, she spotted it. This was a popular precinct, where all the shops did a good trade. Which is why it struck her as odd that one of the most centrally placed outlets was closed. The shops that flanked it were warm and welcoming, very much open for business, but the dirty shutters at Sansom’s pharmacy were firmly closed. It looked odd, out of place, like the first tooth in a toddler’s mouth. A couple of bemused shoppers stood outside chatting, clearly surprised that their plans had been disrupted.
Helen changed course abruptly, heading directly towards the shop. Instinct was guiding her now, the sense that something was wrong. She hoped she was mistaken, that there was a mundane, logical explanation for the shop’s closure. But as she neared the shop front, her hopes were suddenly extinguished. A loud bang rang out, muffled by the shutters, but still clearly audible. Then another, harsh and percussive. The shoppers were already moving away, alarmed and confused by this strange noise, but Helen brushed past them, sprinting in the opposite direction.
She knew exactly what it was.
21
09.46
Melissa Hill crouched down behind the display, barely daring to look.
She had been hiding back here since it started. She had popped into the chemist’s straight after breakfast, as they were out of both formula milk and nappies. The baby section was at the rear of the shop, round an L-shaped corner, and at first she hadn’t noticed the confrontation by the entrance. Then she’d heard shouting and to her horror had witnessed the shop’s owner being marched towards the back of the store at gunpoint.
After that, things had gone quiet for a while. Melissa had no idea what was happening back there – she didn’t really want to know – but she did want to get out of this shop. The security shutters were shut, however, and she wondered whether those robbing the store had the key. Either way, it seemed as if there was little chance of her reaching the front unnoticed – the woman was keeping a watchful eye on the interior of the shop.
It had been slow torture, sitting there doing nothing, but Melissa had no choice. So she’d kept herself out of sight, gently jigging Isla up and down in her sling to keep her asleep. Things had seemed relatively peaceful out back and for a moment Melissa wondered if the situation had calmed down a little. Then suddenly she heard raised voices and seconds later a deafening bang, then another, followed by a horrible silence.
Moments later, the two figures had bolted fr
om the back office, upsetting a carousel of DVDs as they went. It crashed to the ground with a heavy thump and it was then, as Melissa backed ever closer to the display cabinet, that Isla started to stir.
‘No, no, no …’ Melissa whispered, jigging her baby up and down.
But the reverberation from the fallen carousel seemed to fill the room and Isla screwed up her face, upset and angry to have been disturbed. Melissa was scrambling for a dummy. She knew she had one somewhere and rummaged in her pockets for it. If she could keep Isla quiet, maybe they wouldn’t notice her, maybe they would just leave …
Isla was making small moaning sounds now, so Melissa searched increasingly frantically. The wretched dummy wasn’t in her coat pocket, so she tried her jeans, before remembering that she had stuck it in the side pocket of her rucksack. Thrusting her hand backwards, she shoved it into the netting and breathed a sigh of relief as her fingers settled on the gummy, plastic teat. Ripping it out, she brought it up to her baby’s mouth.
But she was a second too late and Isla let out a piercing, agonized cry.
22
09.48
Emilia stormed back to her desk, cursing her life. She knew she had been reckless and selfish at times, but did she really deserve this? Sweating under the yoke of a mediocre editor at a regional newspaper? She had more journalistic instinct in her little finger than he did in his entire body. She had broken several major stories. What had he ever done? Increase their advertising revenue? He was a failed reporter masquerading as an editor and it made her sick to her stomach. Perhaps it was time to get out of journalism altogether – she was damned if she was going to demean herself in a role that was traditionally given to graduates, who in her experience had neither wit nor wisdom.
Love Me Not: DI Helen Grace 7 (formerly titled Follow My Leader) (Detective Inspector Helen Grace) Page 4