by Steve Howell
“You can’t do that, sir – no contact with anyone,” Simmons said, assuming the tapping sound was Nigel sending a message. “We have to keep this locked down.”
As we turned into Grange Road, the driver slowed down to walking pace. All I could see ahead, between the shoulders of Simmons and the driver, was a large unmarked white van with a satellite dish and aerials on its roof, parked in the centre of the road, its rear doors open. It was flanked by a police car on one side and a police minibus on the other. Beyond the white van, there was yellow tape across the road at waist height, fluttering and reflecting the sun, and then nothing until another clutch of police vehicles in the far distance.
Uniformed police in black flak jackets were patrolling the sealed-off stretch of the street. Some were marching up and down the short front paths, knocking doors and calling through windows. One was ushering an elderly Asian couple towards us.
“They’ll be evacuating the houses facing the gym,” Simmons said, sensing me leaning forward behind him to see what was going on. “We’ll stay here for now.”
Richards was climbing out of the white van ahead, and a uniformed officer followed. They started walking in our direction. The uniformed officer was much the taller and had a military look, a parade ground bearing, as if he was coming to inspect the troops.
Simmons lowered his window as they reached us. The tall officer leaned forward so that his head was framed by the window. He seemed a few years older than Richards; with white hair cut very short and grey eyebrows dense with thick curling hairs like an old toothbrush. His large nostrils had matching bristles. His eyes danced across the five of us and settled on Megan.
“Miss Tomos, I’m Chief Superintendent Anderson,” he said, almost shouting because a helicopter had arrived overhead. “I’m in charge here, and I understand from Inspector Richards that you are connected to the suspect.”
Megan’s grip on my hand tightened. “I don’t know what you mean? What’s going on?” she said.
Anderson continued looking at her for a moment and then pulled his head back. “Simmons,” he shouted. “Let’s get you parked somewhere so that I can talk to Miss Tomos properly. Put it behind the command vehicle, at right angles, driver’s side nearest. We’ll circle the wagons, so to speak. I want to keep Miss Tomos out of view.”
Anderson thumped the side of the car, signalling us to go. Simmons closed the window, and the driver edged forward and manoeuvred into position behind the white van.
By the time, the driver was satisfied the right angle was perfect, Richards and Anderson had caught up with us. Anderson walked round to Megan’s door and opened it. We could see straight into the white van where a uniformed man wearing a headset and mic was sitting sideways-on facing a panel of screens and controls
“Now, Miss Tomos,” said Anderson, noticing our curiosity and stepping into our line of vision,
“the situation we have here is that your friend, Driscoll… he seems to have gone berserk. Apparently, he arrived here about an hour ago with a crow bar and, we understand, a sawn-off shotgun…”
“You’re kidding?” Megan interrupted, closing her eyes like she was going to start praying. It was about the only thing we hadn’t tried, I felt like saying, but I kept my mouth shut.
“I don’t joke about firearms, Miss Tomos,” Anderson replied, acidly. “We’re relying on information from one person – a woman – who managed to get out while Driscoll was herding everyone else into the office at gunpoint. I don’t think she was making it up, and we have to assume the worst.”
Megan nodded, looking chastened by Anderson’s tone.
“We don’t have any contact with the suspect, and that’s very worrying,” he continued. “He’s not answering the landline in the gym or his mobile. Our negotiator can’t even start trying to talk some sense into him – but you may be able to help. Perhaps he’ll respond if he sees your number come up on his phone.”
Megan let go of my hand and started patting her jeans to find her phone. She pulled it out of her left pocket and offered it to Anderson.
“In a moment,” he said. “There are a few things we need to clarify first.” He turned to a young, dark-haired man wearing a sky-blue polo shirt and jeans, who’d appeared at the shoulder of Richards. “This is Inspector Blake. He’s our negotiator.”
Blake stepped past Richards and held a hand out to Megan. “Ryan Blake,” he said. Megan shook his hand limply.
“I’m a trained negotiator,” Blake said, earnestly, like he was interviewing for a job. “Our objective here is to bring this to an end without anyone getting hurt.”
Nigel was fidgeting next to me and leaned across. “I’m Nigel Winters, Megan’s solicitor,” he said.
“Yes, I know, thanks Mr Winters, but we don’t need your help at the moment,” Blake said, not taking his eyes off Megan. “Now, Miss Tomos, I’ve had a briefing on the case from Inspector Richards, but I need to get a better understanding of Will’s frame of mind. When did you last speak to him?”
“Speak to him?” Megan repeated. “We haven’t spoken since Thursday evening.”
“But you’ve had contact? By text?”
Megan looked down at the phone on her lap and tapped it a couple of times. “A few texts yesterday, but he didn’t answer when I tried to call him.” Megan turned to me, her eyes watery. “See, I knew there was something…”
I sensed Blake was waiting for an explanation. “Megan was concerned about Will last night,” I said. “He wasn’t answering her calls and texts, so we went over to his flat – but the lights were off; there was no sign of him.”
“Okay, Miss Tomos, Megan, so you spoke to him on Thursday evening – how was he then?” Blake asked.
“Very upset, agitated. He was ranting about Gary.”
“About what specifically?”
Megan looked down again at her phone, avoiding Blake’s intense gaze. He was crowding her now, leaning into the car.
“Inspector Richards has told me about the blackmail allegation,” Blake continued. “Was it that? Or had something else happened? Anything you can tell me might help.”
“I don’t know. He said something about Gary trying to bring him down. That he was a bastard and out to destroy us.”
“Both of you or just him?” Richards said over Blake’s shoulder.
Megan frowned, puzzled.
“You said ‘him’ and then ‘us’,” Richards explained. “Do you think something had happened between them, maybe something that didn’t involve you?”
“I don’t know,” Megan said slowly. “Thursday was a bad day. I think it was the body being exhumed. It got to him. He completely flipped. But, now you say that, I think it was more about him than me. There was something like that about it.”
“Have you…?” Richards started to say, but Blake held up his hand.
“We can come back to this later, inspector,” he said. “Suffice it to say, for now, that our one witness, a woman who escaped, has identified the man with the gun as Driscoll and, from her descriptions of the others, it sounds like Evans is in there too. I think the sooner we can get some communication going with Driscoll the better.” Blake picked up Megan’s phone. “I want you to text him. Keep it light. We want him to stay calm. Just say: ‘Will. What’s happening? Are you alright? Is everyone alright?’ That’s all. Okay?”
Megan took the phone and started to key in the words, but Blake said, “Hang on a second. I have to get our technician to tap into your phone, in case he calls you back.”
***
Will didn’t call back, and it was a long half an hour or so before a text arrived, and then all it said was ‘Sorry Meg’.
Megan looked deflated. We were still sitting in the back of the car. From so close, I could see a film of sweat above her upper lip and inflamed veins forming tiny red deltas in the whites of her eyes. She handed the phone to Blake to show him.
“Fucking great,” she said, a quiver of anger in her voice. “What’s he playing
at?”
Blake showed no surprise. He was probably still in his twenties but he carried the impassive expression of someone who had seen all this before. I wondered if he had or if that was only part of the training.
He took the phone across to show Anderson and Richards, who were standing next to the van, looking out across the empty space in front of the gym. The three of them stayed huddled there for some time, deep in discussion, Richards doing most of the talking, Anderson occasionally pulling his lapel towards him to bark instructions into a small mic.
I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, not to mention anxious about the toilet arrangements. I tried to occupy myself by remembering sieges I’d seen in movies, but they all seemed a blur of rapid activity – nothing like this.
Next to me, Nigel was scrolling through emails on his phone, making the most of the absence of Simmons and the driver, who were propping themselves up against the front of the car. I didn’t see any point in discussing the finer details of Megan’s legal situation with him. I assumed Will’s actions had changed everything.
To my right, Megan was beginning to fidget, knees twitching like she was in the athletes’ holding area before a race.
“Those poor people,” she mumbled a couple of times. She seemed ready to explode, as if she might break cover, hurdle the tape and rush the building all on her own. No one would stand a chance of catching her.
It was a relief when some officers finally appeared with screens to shield the area between the two vehicles from view, and we were allowed to get out, but we were still a big crowd – the three of us and five police officers – for a space no bigger than my hotel room, with nothing much to say to each other as we shuffled around waiting for Anderson or Will to make a move.
On my toes, I was tall enough to be able to see over the screens. Behind us, there were now steel barriers keeping out a growing crowd gathering to watch the show. Ahead, I caught a glimpse of a posse of police wearing military-style metal helmets and clutching chunky black weapons, scurrying into position behind the low wall that separated the pavement from a small car park in front of the gym. Shifting my angle, I could see another heavily armed group moving tentatively down a path to the side of the building, keeping their heads below windowsill height, their backs almost horizontal. It all seemed so choreographed: the helicopter still high above us somehow acting like a puppeteer.
Richards had sidled up to me. “It’s only a precaution, Liam,” he whispered. “In case we need to react fast.”
I nodded but still felt unnerved at the sight of the quiet residential street I’d walked down only a few days earlier looking like TV pictures of Belfast or Baghdad.
A few feet away, Ryan was in deep discussion with Anderson. He broke away to approach Megan.
“We want you to try calling him now,” he said. “From the van. If he answers, we want you to appeal to him to let everyone go. That’s the main thing. I’ll sit next to you. If you get him talking, I’ll tell you what to say. I might want you to mention me, by my first name, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Megan climbed into the van and sat on the bench alongside the technician, who connected her phone to his equipment and gave her a headset. Ryan sat beside her with Anderson and Simmons leaning into the van to listen. Nigel and I moved as near as we could without provoking them to banish us to the Range Rover.
Megan made the call. It rang through to voicemail.
She tried again.
This time he answered: “Meg?”
“Will, it’s me, Meg. Will, are you okay?”
There was no reply. Someone shouted in the background. The only word I caught was ‘maniac’.
“Will, listen to me,” Meg said. “Let those people go.”
The line was silent. Overhead, the helicopter roared relentlessly. The technician’s screen was still showing the phone as ‘connected’. Ryan handed Megan a note. She read it and sounded like she was reading from it. “Will, I’ve got someone who wants to talk to you. His name’s Ryan.”
“Will,” Ryan said. “We’re here to help you sort this out. There’s nothing to gain by people getting hurt. Why don’t you put your firearm down and come out?”
The helicopter seemed to have dropped lower.
“What’s that noise?” Will screamed. “I can’t think fucking straight with that fucking noise – on and on...”
Ryan looked at Anderson, who turned away and spoke softly into his lapel mic, telling the pilot to ‘back off’.
“Will, it’s only a helicopter,” Ryan said. “It’s going now. Everything’s calm here. We just want to talk Will, to work something out. Let’s talk about those people in there with you. How about letting them go? What harm have they done you?”
“Ha, that’s a laugh,” Will said bitterly, and fell silent.
Ryan took his time, waiting for the sound of the helicopter to become a faint rumble, merging with the noise of traffic on nearby roads.
“How many people are with you, Will?” he asked.
There was no reply. Ryan waited again. Without the helicopter, we could hear Will’s heavy but steady breathing on the line.
“Will, what do you think? Let them go,” Ryan persisted, seeming to sense Will was torn, wondering what to do. “Then we can talk about everything else…”
Meg looked ready to burst.
She did. “Will, please!” she said, through heavy sobs, struggling to catch her breath. “Just let them go.”
Will was still silent. It was hard to imagine what he was thinking; what he thought this would achieve and what calculations he could now be making. Whatever trouble he was in, whatever had happened between him and Gary, this had only made things worse. But these things seem to have a dynamic of their own, one action setting off a chain of events, spiralling out of control, like nations stumbling into war.
“Meg,” he said finally. “Meg?”
“Yes, Will?” she said, sounding calmer.
“Don’t be upset, Meg, I’ll make it all up to you…” he said feebly, child-like.
Megan began sobbing again. “Will, if you want to make it up to me, for God’s sake let them go.”
On the line there was a kerfuffle of chairs scraping and a door banging. A male voice shouted ‘yes’.
“They’re coming out,” Will said.
Ryan punched the air. Anderson spoke into his lapel, ordering the firearms team to be ready to receive them.
“But not Gary,” Will shouted. “That bastard stays with me.”
22
In The Thick Of It
“Liam, what are you frigging playing at?”
I held the phone a full arms-length away from my ear. I’d never heard Mimi so agitated. The words were tumbling out so furiously I couldn’t make much sense of them, but the gist was that she’d seen an amateur video of the siege on Sky, was alarmed at seeing so many weapons on display and caught a glimpse of the top of my head apparently in the thick of it. TV can be deceptive, of course.
“Why the fuck didn’t you call me?” she said, and finally took a breath.
“We weren’t allowed to call anybody,” I replied.
“Anybody? I’m frigging anybody?”
“You know what I mean. It was a lock down.” I realised I sounded ridiculous using their jargon. “That’s what they called it,” I added.
The line fell silent. I could hear a faint quivering sound at the other end.
“Have you been getting calls?” I said.
Now there was sharp intake of breath, and I knew immediately I’d missed the point, but I couldn’t think of any way to recover.
“Liam, do you think that’s it?” she said. “That I’m worried about pissing-off a few hacks?”
“Of course I don’t,” I said quietly. “I wanted to phone but I’m… well, not very experienced when it comes to sieges.”
I hoped the silence meant she was smiling. I imagined her dark lips stretching a little wider, her cheekbones rising, and those warm brown eyes gl
owing. But there was no way she was she going to let me off the hook by laughing out loud.
“Okay,” she said, sounding more like her composed, feisty self. “You better give the police press officer my number. We need to get our act together.”
“Right, I’ll tell Richards to tell his people to speak to my people,” I said.
“Funny,” she said.
“Right,” I said.
“And text me every hour. Or more often if something happens.”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
She fell silent again, and I could hear her breathing softly.
“And Liam,” she said. “Look after yourself.”
And she hung up.
***
Our mini-compound was becoming unbearable. The screens blocked any breeze but offered no shade from the sun almost directly above us. I could feel the tarmac growing hotter by the minute, burning into the rubber soles of my trainers. It was like being trapped in a small tightly-packed sauna.
Anderson, Simmons, Richards and Blake would move around the space in ever-changing combinations, occasionally joined by officers coming and going with information or questions.
Megan was still sitting with the technician in the van, resting her head against the metal panelling, staring vacantly at one of the control panels.
Nigel and I had watched the hostage release on our toes, peering over the screen. Again, the choreography was slick: two groups of firearms officers emerged from different directions just in time to absorb the hostages into a protective scrum as they came screaming and shouting out of the gym. There were three of them, a woman and two men, all still wearing Lycra and trainers, heads pressed down by the black gloves of their handlers. The scrum had scurried towards two ambulances at the far end of the road where paramedics and Anderson were waiting for them.
“Blake, they’re in the manager’s office,” said Anderson, back now from speaking to the three released hostages, pushing through a gap in the screens. “Driscoll has locked himself in, with Evans tied to a chair. Sounds like he’s jumpy and might do anything. One of them thinks he could use the gun on himself.”