Lies That Blind

by Tony Hutchinson

God I hope not.

  The grim make-shift morgues to take multiple fatalities were usually set up in public buildings. There was a school nearby, Sam remembered.

  Christ, the last thing I want is a primary school’s assembly hall covered in death.

  She rubbed her eyes, pushed away the darkness, and hoped the two trick-or-treaters Paul had spoken about were okay.

  In an ideal world Paul Adams would have sprinted up the drive of No.1 into the back garden, hopped over the fences and intercepted the two superheroes out of the shooter’s line of sight.

  But he wasn’t in an ideal world.

  What he was, was still in the ‘set’ position watching Batman and Spiderman frozen to the spot, staring at the athletic figure lying motionless in the middle of the road.

  ‘Run and hide behind that car,’ Paul shouted, voice booming into the silence. ‘I’m a policeman. Do what I say. Hide behind that car.’

  The youngsters, mouths making small ‘o’s and trick-or-treat buckets hanging limp at their sides, stayed rooted.

  From the doorways of two houses – Paul figured No.5 and No.6 – he could see a handful of residents finally roused by the commotion walking down their driveways.

  No, no no…

  Paul shouted ‘get back’ but all they did was stop and stare his way.

  He peered around the back bumper, glanced at the window and saw the gun barrel twitch.

  Time’s up…no choice now.

  Legs pumping and head low like a rugby player on the charge, Paul hurtled along the road, past the unkempt lawn of No.2 towards the youngsters.

  Without stopping he scooped up a child in each arm, feeling their small bodies writhe and wriggle, and straightened.

  Like trance victims suddenly aware, the residents were now moving quickly back down their drives.

  ‘Get back!’ Paul shouted again.

  The two children in his arms had started screaming, panicked and confused, but not loud enough to drown out the sound Paul had dreaded.

  The first shot hit him between the shoulder blades and dropped him in a heartbeat, his mobile bouncing away like a skimming stone as he fell heavily to the ground.

  The bullet had ripped through the left side of his back exited through his right arm, and hit Spiderman’s right thigh.

  The second punched through the window of the house opposite.

  Paul had fallen on top of the boys. Batman squirmed free and ran screaming towards two of the men from No. 5 and No.6.

  His wounded friend, trapped and terrified, just screamed.

  Paul Adams, face down as warm blood defrosted the cold sheen on the Tarmac, never heard the frantic words of Inspector Waites on his mobile or trembling Spiderman’s screams fade to a whimper.

  Inside No. 2 a figure watched the reflection of blue flashing lights in the window of the house opposite and a 4x4 screech to a halt at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

  The cavalry are here. Game on.

  The next shot blew Paul Adams’ head apart.

  Chapter 4

  Sam glanced at her phone in the hands-free cradle, recognised the control room number, and answered.

  ‘Boss, it’s Gary Waites.’

  Inspector Gary Waites was unflappable. Sam held him in high regard.

  ‘We’ve got an update,’ he continued. ‘Appears three more shots fired. ARV at scene. Inspector, sorry, Acting Chief Inspector Wright at scene.’

  Sam fought the urge to let out a heavy sigh.

  Gary Waites continued.

  ‘Inner cordon set up at entrance to cul-de-sac, outer cordon set up on Chichester Road. That’s your RV.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said, processing the information, visualising the rendezvous point, voice devoid of emotion. This was a time for cool heads. Police officers were never inspired by panic in the senior ranks.

  Sam sounded so calm she could have been conducting a job interview.

  ‘Any update re casualties.’

  The pause was only a split second but it was long enough.

  ‘Paul Adams has been shot,’ Gary said.

  ‘Shit.’

  The line went quiet before Gary spoke again in a hushed voice.

  ‘I heard the shots. Paul kept the line open.’

  ‘You okay?’ Sam asked, genuine concern now in her voice.

  If Gary Waites was suffering from shock, she would need to question his ability to continue. His role was too important to be compromised by emotion.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘What about Paul?’

  Sam heard the deep intake of breath.

  ‘He’s not moving, extent of injuries unknown. And there’s a child trapped underneath him.’

  Jesus Christ…

  ‘Roger that. I’ll be there in five.’

  Sam made a mental note to maintain a ‘watching brief’ on Gary’s welfare.

  ‘Anything else I need to know?’

  ‘Yes. Chief Inspector Wright doesn’t want anybody crossing the inner cordon.’

  At a red light she scrolled through her phone and rang Ed.

  ‘What’s your ETA,’ she asked.

  ‘Two minutes.’

  ‘Paul’s been shot.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  Ed accelerated hard and overtook a car on the approach to the dual carriageway.

  ‘He’s not moving,’ Sam was saying now. ‘A young child is trapped underneath him. Extent of injuries unknown.’

  Ed tried to picture the scene as he concentrated on Sam’s words.

  ‘Air Support will provide pictures when they get there. One man is laid in a garden opposite the shooter’s address, one in the middle of the road, no signs of movement from either. That’s all we’ve got for now.’

  Ed said nothing and ended the call.

  He was there in 90 seconds.

  Fred Thompson had witnessed two fatal traffic accidents in his 69 years and he didn’t need all the running and screaming to tell him he had just seen his third.

  But as an old boy of the school of life, something this time was making him uneasy as much as sad.

  Tours of Cyprus and Bahrain with the ‘Paras’ in the early sixties had taught him much about human fear, taught him much about being aware of your environment.

  The guy who had been hit by the bus was running from someone.

  Fred would have guessed it even without spotting the hard man who had been giving chase, but that was the clincher.

  He had seen the man and the man knew Fred had seen him.

  Fred picked up the blue metal stand showing the day’s headlines and prepared to go back into his newsagent shop, turning away as more siren-blaring patrol cars arrived to join the paramedic crew and the gawpers around the bus.

  ‘Nasty accident. People need to watch where they’re going.’

  Fred had sensed rather than seen him approach, but he knew it was the same man.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Fred asked, tugging his green cardigan over fawn corduroy trousers.

  Davy Swan was wearing a Ralph Lauren polo shirt stretched taut over what Fred believed to be a steroid-induced torso, the muscle-bound right arm a sleeve of flashy tattoos.

  Swan spun his head and looked around the street, a heavy making a little show.

  As tough as Fred might once have been, he would be no match for this guy. Not these days anyway and definitely not without a weapon. Best to play the harmless old man.

  ‘Very nasty,’ Fred said. ‘He never stood a chance.’

  Swan turned his eyes back to Fred and gave him an easy smile.

  ‘Whatever you think you saw Mr Magoo, if you’re asked, you saw nothing. Understand?’

  Fred nodded and watched Swan turn, amble away and slowly melt into the crowd.

  Back in the storeroom, Fred buzzed up to his wife on the intercom.

  ‘Let’s have a brew,’ he told her. ‘Something odd’s just happened.’

  Joyce Thompson listened to Fred’s story between slurpy sips of tea and when he had finished, she str
etched out her arms and hugged him close.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Fred said. ‘Too old to get involved with tough lads like that.’

  ‘You’ll call the police, though.’

  ‘Police?’

  Joyce gave him a look.

  ‘That poor man was running away from someone. That someone threatened you. We need help. Sam will know what to do. So, unless you’ve got a better suggestion Fred Thompson.’

  Fred shrugged his shoulders, the familiar resignation on his face, and went to the telephone behind the counter.

  ‘I’ll call Sam,’ he shouted to Joyce, already walking up the stairs to the flat.

  When Fred appeared in their kitchen half an hour later, Joyce was plating up one of his favourites.

  She had cooked him liver, pork chop, bacon, sausage, fried egg, fried bread, fried potatoes and beans every Saturday of their married life. Fred insisted she used lard, not sunflower oil and certainly not olive oil, which he had hated since he first tasted it as a young squaddie in Cyprus.

  Joyce watched his trembling hands as he sat at the table and reached for the salt, the wall-mounted photograph of him in his military uniform above his head.

  ‘You get hold of Sam?’

  Fred aimed his knife and fork at the fry up.

  ‘Left a message on her answerphone.’

  Two stationary ARVs, sixty metres apart, blocked Chichester Road and blue tape stretched across the Tarmac like two finishing lines in a marathon.

  The entrance to the cul-de-sac was thirty metres away from each ARV. No vehicles or pedestrians were getting past what was now the outer cordon.

  Uniformed officers were knocking on the doors within the outer cordon asking everyone to stay inside.

  An unmarked police BMW X5 was parked across the entrance to the cul-de-sac. There was no tape there.

  Ed had his door open before the tyres stopped rolling.

  Two paramedics in their green uniform were sitting in an ambulance next to the outer cordon.

  Ed nodded at them as he passed, long strides carrying his broad shoulders and slight beer-belly towards Wright and the black-clad firearms commander.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘A shooter in a house firing from the downstairs window,’ Wright said, looking up at Ed.

  ‘Do we know who?’ Ed asked.

  ‘No.’

  Ed waited.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ Wright asked.

  Ed put his hands in his coat pocket, shook his head. ‘I’m not here as a decision maker. I’m the negotiator, I’m –’

  Wright didn’t wait.

  ‘I was just asking for your contribution,’ cheeks already flushing like a blood pressure warning sign.

  Ed was in negotiator mode.

  ‘You’re in charge,’ he told Wright calmly. ‘I’m a tactical option like he is.’

  He nodded at the firearms commander. ‘Alright Fishy.’

  Ed liked Gerry Trout: good cop, good laugh, but when it came to firearms operations the ex-Marine was priceless, every possibility carefully considered, as many risks as possible eliminated.

  ‘Sound Ed,’ Trout replied, adjusting his police issue baseball cap.

  ‘Can anyone gain access to the cul-de-sac from any other direction?’ Sam was quick-marching towards them as she spoke, brown ponytail bouncing against her shoulders.

  Ed smiled. In the middle of this her looks and long legs still received admiring glances.

  ‘Potentially,’ Wright pointed at the properties to his left. ‘The gardens of these houses back onto some of the gardens in the cul-de-sac. The gardens of some of the houses in the cul-de-sac back onto some wasteland. There are two firearm officers there.’

  Wright smiled, the supercilious smile of someone saying, ‘don’t teach your granny how to suck eggs’.

  Sam returned the smile. She couldn’t think of anyone she despised more.

  ‘How are the casualties?’ Sam asked. ‘Can we get them out?’

  Wright stiffened and thrust out his chest.

  ‘Who made you Silver Commander?’

  Gerry Trout bowed his head and took three steps back. Bullets were one thing. He’d been around too long to get caught in verbal crossfire.

  Ed didn’t move. Before the serious business started, he may as well hang around and watch Sam take ‘Never’ to the cleaners.

  ‘I’m not Silver. You are. The ACC, Gold, asked me to come here. We’ll end up picking this up and one of my people and a youngster are lying in the road injured. So, what do you propose doing about it?’

  Wright’s face was as purple as a cartoon Ribena blackcurrant.

  ‘We’re examining all the options but I will not endanger anyone else.’

  Sam knew he was right, as much as it dismayed her to think of Paul and a child left helpless on the street.

  Ed spoke: ‘Might be worth stepping under that tape and walking ten yards.’

  He flicked his head backwards.

  Sam and Mick ‘Never’ Wright glanced behind and saw Darius Simpson, the Seaton Post reporter, striding towards them.

  A traffic cop blocked his approach while they stepped under the tape and walked to the inner cordon at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

  Sam swallowed hard at her first sight of Paul Adams in the middle of the road.

  She was still staring when a shout came from No.2

  ‘What did he say?’ Wright asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sam said. ‘I couldn’t hear him. Do we know who’s in there?’

  Wright shook his head and the same shake followed when Sam asked if he had checked whether there was a landline in the house.

  The shoulder shrug when she asked Wright if a no-fly zone had been implemented told her the incident was well beyond his capabilities.

  Wright should have demonstrated that he was in command. He should have been making decisions, requesting options from the tactical commanders, drawing up plans to implement those options. He had done nothing.

  Sam fought the urge to take command herself. Everyone at the scene needed direction, needed to see the person in charge knew what they were doing, but it was not her role. She would be the post-incident senior investigator.

  Sam shook her head, she knew everybody on the ground would be looking at Wright in scorn and despair, a problem when he needed to be leading the solution.

  She stepped away, took her mobile out of her pocket and called ACC Monica Teal who was Gold Command.

  Sam had a good relationship with Teal, considered her a solid operator with a wealth of investigative experience. She had despised her predecessor, Trevor Stewart, but that slimeball had left to chase the next rank.

  Call made, she contacted DC Ranjit Singh and instructed him to set up an intelligence cell and to use whatever staff was necessary. She told him what she wanted and walked back to the group as Wright’s radio crackled into action.

  ‘Control to Inspector Wright.’

  Sam heard Gary Waite’s calm monotone voice, devoid of any emotion or excitement, come across the airwaves.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Superintendent Donaldson is en route. He will assume Silver. Can you attend the High Street? There’s a fatal. I’ll give you more details when you’re en route.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  Wright glared at Sam.

  Sam’s poker face stared back.

  Chapter 5

  The shooter removed the headgear and flicked on the kettle. The kitchen was in darkness; green blinds drawn, the silhouettes of the A4 sheets of paper covering the walls barely visible.

  The Internet was a great resource. No need to watch an American news show or read an American newspaper. Thanks to the Internet and a colour printer, the walls displayed a montage of grief…

  32 killed –April 16, 2007 – Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. A gunman, 23-year-old student Seung-Hui Cho, goes on a shooting spree killing 32 people in two locations and wounding an undetermined
number of others on campus. The shooter then commits suicide.

  27 killed – December 14, 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School –Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza, 20, guns down 20 children, ages six and seven, and six adults, school staff and faculty, before turning the gun on himself. Investigating police later find Nancy Lanza, Adam's mother, dead from a gunshot wound.

  13 killed – April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School –Littleton, Colorado. Eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold kill 12 fellow students and one teacher before committing suicide in the school library.

  9 killed – March 21, 2005 – Red Lake High School, Red Lake, Minnesota. Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise kills his grandfather and another adult, five students, a teacher and a security officer. He then kills himself.

  8 killed – December 5, 2007 –In Omaha, Nebraska, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins goes to an area mall and kills eight shoppers before killing himself.

  The shooter poured the hot water over the teabag and walked over to the fridge freezer, put one hand underneath the waist high handle but stopped before pulling it open. The light would illuminate. No point in giving them a shot. Easy decision. Drink the tea black.

  Sam walked away, listened to her voicemail, and then called Fred and Joyce.

  Less than an hour ago she’d been in the HQ toilets, day’s work almost done, a glass of wine and kids in costumes awaiting. Washing her hands, she’d glanced in the mirror.

  It never lied; the face that stared back had lost the vampire pallor and elasticity had finally triumphed over the bags under her eyes. Two weeks off the drink, uninterrupted sleep, and a lack of dead bodies was better than any spa treatment. Who needed a mud bath when you could finally take a break from murder?

  Sam accepted the fine lines around her mouth would worsen with age but she couldn’t contemplate giving up the cigarettes again. Right now, fighting the cravings was just too much to contemplate.

  A non-smoker for four years, the death of a colleague on another investigation had seen her run back to the welcoming bosom of her nicotine mistress.

  ‘Hi, Fred. Everything okay?

  She had met Fred and Joyce when, as a young PC, she attended a robbery in their shop and had kept in contact ever since. The Seaton Post had described Fred as a ‘have-a-go-hero’ after he bit the knife-wielding attacker.