The Jackdaw

by Luke Delaney

  There was a moment’s silence before the voice answered. ‘Stand by, SIU.’ He waited for what seemed an age, watching from his concealed position as first the armed units held their ground and then slowly started to walk backwards away from the masked man and his hostage, their sub-machine guns still pointing at him until they were about twenty metres from the target, where they crouched and held.

  Sean spoke urgently into the radio. ‘No,’ he barked. ‘I need them all the way back. I need the suspect to see them go.’

  ‘Stand by,’ the voice told him. A few seconds later the armed units stood again and kept moving backwards as both he and The Jackdaw looked on until they were eventually all but out of sight – the man Sean knew he had to face down quickly dragging his hostage to the waiting van, the shotgun still pressed under his chin. As he slid the side panel door open Sean spoke into the radio.

  ‘Keep all other units away from the scene until I say otherwise,’ he insisted.

  ‘All received, SIU,’ the woman’s voice replied. ‘All units stay away from the scene and await details of a RVP – MP over.’

  He slipped silently from the car, leaving the door swinging open as he quickly and quietly weaved between the parked cars until there were no more left to provide him with cover. He felt no fear of physical pain or even death. In that moment he was glad he was alone, spared the need to consider how other people, other cops, might feel in the same situation. It was beyond him to understand why other cops wouldn’t be prepared to risk everything for a chance to confront the man they’d been hunting for days – thinking about all day and dreaming about each night. His only fear at that precise moment was seeing The Jackdaw escape.

  He peeked around the back of the last car just in time to see the dark figure slide a hood on the now bound and gagged man he assumed was Waldegrave and slide the door shut. He knew this would be his only chance. He was close enough to reach the masked man before he could unbind his hostage and again use him as a human shield, but if he rushed him The Jackdaw would have only two choices – kill him or surrender.

  ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself as the masked man headed for the driver’s door, but looked back towards where the armed units had headed – his shotgun raised in the same direction. ‘Shit,’ Sean cursed again. But he already knew what he was going to do – already knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Slowly he stood up behind the car and walked into the clear where he could be seen, his hands held out to his side. The dark figure spun towards him and raised the shotgun, pointing it directly at Sean’s head, but he kept walking slowly forward.

  ‘You should have changed locations,’ Sean explained. ‘It was only a matter of time before we found where you were broadcasting from.’ He kept edging forward.

  ‘That’s close enough,’ the man told him in the now familiar mechanical voice. Sean could feel his quarry looking him carefully over from behind the sunglasses – searching for any signs of a weapon or weakness.

  ‘You thought you were safe, didn’t you, Jeremy? You see I was thinking about it and then I realized we must have made a mistake – must have missed something when we were searching possible buildings in the area you were broadcasting from. Then the answer seemed so clear to me: we did search the building you were using, but somehow didn’t realize it. And you must have been there at the time. That’s why you felt safe to keep using it, because you never thought we’d search it again. But we have, Jeremy, and we’ve found him. We’ve found Jason Howard.’

  ‘You know nothing,’ the unearthly voice insisted and moved towards the driver’s door.

  ‘We know everything,’ Sean tried to convince him. ‘That you were sacked from King and Melbourn by a man you already hated and that he replaced you with Paul Elkins. That you sold nearly all your shares and invested the money in precious metals. And that McKay Brown shotgun you’re holding now – it’s yours, isn’t it? I know everything because I did the one thing you never thought I’d do: I went back years to when you were still at King and Melbourn. I found the people who were there when you were there. I even spoke to Felicity George – just a few minutes ago. She told me everything, Jeremy – about you and Francis Waldegrave. That must have really burnt you up inside, being passed over for the top job and then being sacked by the same man – your nemesis. Did you lie awake thinking about him? Did you fantasise about killing him? All those nights alone in your office planning his death – did it give you relief from the burning hate you felt inside, or did it just make you feel worse?’ He took a couple of steps forward.

  ‘Careful,’ the man stopped him. ‘I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.’

  ‘It’s over, Jeremy. I worked you out.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he doubted Sean. ‘Perhaps you’re not as clever as you think you are. Francis Waldegrave must be judged by the people.’

  ‘Stop,’ Sean interrupted him. ‘Can’t you see it’s over?’

  ‘It’s over when the people and I say it’s over.’

  Sean ignored him. ‘I even know why you killed the others. They were just decoys. Apart from Elkins they meant nothing to you. Kidnapped and tortured to strengthen the illusion of The Jackdaw – nothing else. All so you could have your petty, meaningless revenge and get away with murder.’ Sean knew that behind the mirrored glasses the other man’s eyes were burning with rage.

  ‘You think what I’ve done is petty?’ the awful voice asked. ‘Meaningless? Then you understand nothing. I am The Jackdaw.’

  Sean tried to detect any doubt or weakness in the disguised voice, but he couldn’t. He knew The Jackdaw would shoot him if he had to and not feel a thing – especially if he was the man he thought he was.

  ‘Where you gonna go?’ he asked. ‘It’s over. You can’t run. Not forever. Your escape plan’s gone. We have Jason Howard. You’ve made too many mistakes, Jeremy. You should have sought your revenge in the boardroom – where you belong. You don’t know this world. This is my world. I belong here, not you. Once you stepped into my world you’d already lost.’ Sean stole two steps forward. ‘You can’t beat me, Jeremy.’

  ‘One more step and I’ll kill you where you stand,’ the alien voice warned him, ‘and what would your pretty young wife and your beautiful two girls think of that? Their husband and father dying a fool’s death. Dying for a stranger, instead of living for them.’

  The mention of his family rocked him for a second. The Jackdaw had researched him. What else did he know? Had Jackson told him something – found out something – something from his past? He recovered himself quickly. ‘I can’t let you take him.’

  ‘I know you can’t,’ the dark figure answered, slightly lowering his aim. ‘Which is why you have to die.’

  Sean’s heart seemed to stop and time stood virtually still as he watched the gun again being raised, buried deep in gunman’s shoulder as he rested his cheek against the wooden stock and lined up the barrels for the head shot. But Sean felt no fear. He felt nothing other than an inner peace and acceptance – a feeling that this had always been inevitable. The destiny of the damned. His destiny.

  He heard the deafening crack of a gunshot – like a lightning strike in the dead of night — but he saw no slow-motion explosion of fire from the end of the shotgun, no flames coiling towards him, and he felt no pain. There was just the dark figure staggering backwards, colliding into the side of his white van, momentarily looking down in disbelief at his own chest, foaming pink blood spluttering from his mouth as he tried to breathe out, the shotgun still in his hand, but fallen by his side.

  He looked straight at Sean and began to level the gun in his direction, but instantaneously two more lightning strikes cracked in the air, each making Sean flinch and hammering The Jackdaw back against the van. His dark glasses flew from his face, his legs seeming to fold neatly underneath him, and he slid down the side of the van like a collapsing tower block until he was sitting on the floor. He seemed to take two more bloody breaths, his grey eyes peering through th
e holes in the mask staring straight at Sean, before his head fell forward and the shotgun dropped from his clawed fingers.

  Sean was unable to move or speak, or even take a breath, his eyes fixed on the body lying lifeless against the van, the sound of the gunfire still rumbling across the golf course. Eventually he managed to turn to where the shots had come from. Slowly Donnelly appeared from behind a parked car only a few feet away, his pistol held out in front of him and pointing at the stricken man, his eyes wide and wild, never leaving his downed target.

  ‘You all right?’ Sean asked, his voice quieter than he’d expected, his mouth dry and his throat constricted, but Donnelly neither answered nor looked at him. ‘Dave,’ Sean called to him. ‘Dave.’

  Donnelly blinked repeatedly before turning towards him, although his eyes still never left his victim. ‘Are you all right?’ Sean asked, his voice stronger now, his mind already coldly processing what he’d seen – working out what had happened and evidencing every aspect of the violent death of another human being.

  Still unable to speak, Donnelly answered with a slow, juddering nod of his head. Sean nodded back as both men stood in the now eerie silence of the car park, both dealing with the immediate aftermath of what they’d just witnessed – what they’d been a part of, in their own very individual ways.

  ‘Who is he?’ Donnelly finally asked. ‘I heard you call him Jeremy.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sean explained. ‘I thought I was, but now … everything feels too surreal to be sure of anything any more. Seeing a man die in front of you can rock the deepest of beliefs.’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Donnelly told him.

  Sean nodded he understood and walked towards the body, growing more excited with each step he took – the fact that a man was dead becoming secondary to his burning need to know who was hiding underneath the bloodied balaclava. When he reached the fallen man he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket and crouched next to him. He watched the man’s chest closely for a few seconds, watching for the telltale signs of life, but his body was still. He held the man’s head upright and rolled up the ski-mask, exposing the man’s throat, pushing his index and middle finger hard into the area next to his trachea as he searched for a pulse; but he felt nothing.

  ‘Is he dead?’ he heard Donnelly call from behind. He looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘Yeah,’ he confirmed. ‘He’s dead.’ Donnelly finally lowered his pistol and seemed to shrink smaller than Sean could ever remember seeing him. For a second he wished he’d been the one to have fired the fatal shots – wished he’d been the one who’d have to carry the burden of taking a life for the rest of his. A burden he knew he’d be able to bear better than almost anyone. The darkness isn’t my weakness. It’s my strength. His fingers coiled under the bottom of the mask as he began to roll it back from the man’s face, slowly revealing more and more of his bloodied features until he could see it in its entirety – the dead eyes of Jeremy Goldsboro staring back at him – the features he had in life already beginning to desert him in death. Sean felt a calmness washing over him as he realized it was over and that he’d been right.

  ‘Well?’ Donnelly’s voice broke into his world. ‘Who is it?’

  Sean answered without looking away from Goldsboro’s dead eyes. ‘It’s him. It’s Jeremy Goldsboro.’

  ‘You knew it was going to be him, didn’t you?’ Donnelly asked.

  ‘Only at the very end,’ Sean admitted. ‘Only at the very end.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Like I told you,’ Sean reminded him. ‘I found things out – at King and Melbourn.

  ‘Not that,’ Donnelly pushed. ‘I mean, what sent you there in the first place?’

  ‘The video,’ Sean explained, still looking at Goldsboro, as if he was speaking to the body. ‘It was the video of his own supposed torture. Leaving the hood on just didn’t feel right.’

  ‘That’s all?’ Donnelly questioned. ‘That’s all you had to put you onto Goldsboro?’

  ‘It didn’t put me onto Goldsboro,’ Sean shook his head. ‘It just told me there was a connection, between Goldsboro and The Jackdaw. But honestly, I never saw this – not until I spoke to Felicity George less than twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘Who?’ Donnelly asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sean told him. ‘Not right now. The man’s dead. That’s all that matters.’

  Donnelly sat on the bonnet of his unmarked car smoking another cigarette and looking down the slight incline of the car park to where Sean stood next to the body of Jeremy Goldsboro talking to the uniformed units from the Armed Response Team. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he watched as every now and then Sean would point in one direction or another while they nodded their understanding. They’d already surrounded the entire car park with blue and white police tape. It flapped in the breeze and made a strange whistling sound that almost drowned out the noise of approaching sirens – more police units, an ambulance and God knows what else. He watched Sean make a final gesture to the ARV crew and start to walk across the car park towards him. Without knowing why, Donnelly opened his coat and jacket to look at the pistol he’d killed Goldsboro with tucked into its holster. The heavy nausea he’d felt since pulling the trigger began to swell again. He covered the weapon and concentrated on the approaching Sean who looked grey and exhausted, but with a detectable spring in his step.

  ‘You all right?’ Sean asked when he reached him.

  ‘Not really,’ Donnelly answered.

  Sean looked him in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told him. ‘I didn’t know it would go down like this.’

  ‘Really?’ Donnelly asked. ‘Then why did you make me bring the gun – if you didn’t know it would come to this?’

  ‘Just in case,’ Sean tried to reassure him.

  ‘You never thought it was Howard, did you?’

  ‘He was a good suspect,’ Sean explained, ‘but he lacked envy.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Donnelly admitted. ‘What’s envy got to do with it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Sean told him. ‘It was Goldsboro and now he’s dead. It’s over.’

  ‘I know,’ Donnelly reminded him with barely concealed bitterness.

  ‘There’ll be an investigation,’ Sean warned him.

  ‘Aye,’ Donnelly agreed, ‘that’s what worries me. Ethics and Standards, IPCC, the media – they’re all going to murder me when they find out I didn’t shout a warning before firing.’

  ‘You didn’t have time,’ Sean argued. ‘By the time you shouted a warning he would have killed me.’

  ‘They won’t care about that,’ Donnelly explained. ‘All they’ll care about is procedure. I didn’t warn him – so that’s me fucked.’

  ‘But you did shout a warning,’ Sean told him, ‘just before he started to raise the shotgun at me and just after he’d said he would kill me. You remember now, don’t you?’

  Donnelly nodded he understood before looking towards the ARV crew. ‘And them? What about what they heard?’

  ‘They were too far away to hear anything other than the shots,’ Sean assured him. ‘They couldn’t have heard you warning him to drop the gun – not from that distance.’

  ‘No,’ Donnelly agreed. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And … thanks,’ Sean added. ‘He was going to do it. He was going to shoot me. You saved my arse.’

  ‘Aye,’ Donnelly replied, ‘but to be honest, I’m not really sure how I feel about that right now. I had to kill a man because of you.’

  Before Sean could answer, his phone rang. It was Sally.

  ‘Sean,’ she began. ‘What the hell’s going on? The ARV crew are telling me there’s been shots fired at the Hampstead Golf Course – that someone’s been killed?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her. ‘We’re fine.’

  ‘Goldsboro?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sean confirmed. ‘Killed. We had no choice.’

  �
��We had no choice?’

  Sean took a few steps away from Donnelly, as if it would prevent him from hearing. ‘Dave was the shooter. He had to. Goldsboro was about to fire on me.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sally reprimanded him. ‘You were supposed to let the ARV crew make the arrest. You promised.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ he tried to explain. ‘He had a hostage. He was going to get away. I had no choice.’ There was a long silence.

  ‘OK,’ Sally eventually softened and took a breath before continuing. ‘I can’t believe he thought he’d get away with it. Arrogant bastard. We’d have found out eventually,’ she reasoned. ‘Something would have given him away – forensics, a witness. Something.’

  ‘But you’re forgetting one thing,’ Sean told her. ‘We wouldn’t have been looking any more. Nobody would be.’

  ‘You would be,’ she accused him, ‘because you knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Sean answered solemnly. ‘Not a hundred per cent. Not until I lifted the mask.’

  ‘Don’t play games with us any more, Sean,’ Sally whispered down the phone. ‘You went to that golf course alone because you wanted to face him, even if it meant getting yourself killed.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Sean tried to convince her. ‘I was just trying to stop him from taking Waldegrave. I had no choice.’

  ‘No,’ Sally argued. ‘You had a choice. You just made the wrong one. Question is, Sean, why?’

  He sighed before giving up. ‘I’ll see you later. I’ll explain more then.’ He pressed the end call icon and walked the few steps back to a morose-looking Donnelly.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Sally,’ Sean explained. ‘She’s pissed off with me.’

  ‘She’s pissed off with you!’ Donnelly shrugged his shoulders, already starting to rebuild his detective’s façade. ‘Ah well. She’ll get over it. She always does.’