Stephen Booth - Scared to Live

It was only in the final second that John Lowther’s screams joined those of the children that he could hear. A second of screaming, and then the impact. And all the voices were silenced for ever.

When the call came in, the helicopter unit had been responding to a Casevac request, the recovery of a paraglider who’d made a heavy landing on the slopes of Kinder Scout and broken his ankle. By the time the casualty had been evacuated to a hospital in Chesterfield and the aircraft was free to be re-tasked, the suspect vehicle was already on the M1 and heading south.

Anthony Donnelly was on the run in his beige C-class Mercedes. The first sign of a police car in his street in Swanwick, and he’d legged it. A sign of experience, that, having the car warmed up and ready to go, facing the right direction. Without the helicopter, he might have got clean away before he even reached the motorway.

Normally, Oscar Hotel 88 could be airborne in three minutes from a call, with an average transit time to an incident of seven minutes. It took far longer for officers dealing with an incident on the ground to decide they needed the helicopter deployed.

But now the helicopter unit was airborne a mile west of the M1. On board, the observer was following the Mercedes on his video camera, the zoom facility picking the car out easily from the surrounding traffic. Even the officers following at a distance in an unmarked Omega had no idea the helicopter was there, until its call sign cropped up on their talk group.

If he’s heading for the airport, we need to intercepthim before he enters the terminal.

We don’t have units in place yet. We’re waiting forFirearms Support.

How long are we going to wait?

As long as it takes. We have to assume the suspect isarmed.

Understood .

Listening to the exchange, Fry could detect the underlying anxiety at the prospect of an armed confrontation in a public place. And it would be a very public place, if the suspect got as far as the concourse in the airport terminal building.

She checked her map. Coming south from Sheffield, the M1 passed through part of Derbyshire, entered Nottinghamshire near Pinxton, then crossed back over the border again for the last stretch towards the airport. The confusion of jurisdictions made no sense in policing terms. It was an anomaly that someone always pointed out when the subject of merging police forces came up.

East Midlands Airport lay right by the M1, between junctions 24 and 23A. From the north, the Mercedes would take 24 if it was heading for the airport. Right now, it was approaching the slip road into Trowell Services.

Watch for him pulling off .

Have we alerted our neighbours?

Control rooms are in the loop .

One result of the M1’s waywardness was that Trowell Services lay over the border in Nottinghamshire, despite being within two miles of Ilkeston nick. Permission had to be obtained for an operation on neighbouring territory, and officers would have to keep the control room at Sherwood Lodge informed as well as their own at Ripley.

But the Mercedes went past the services and drove another eight miles down the motorway. The helicopter’s observer kept up a running commentary to guide the units converging on the suspect.

Leaving the motorway now .

The vehicle came off at junction 24 and took the fourth exit at the roundabout on to the A453 in the Donington Park area. At the next roundabout, it would have to stay on the same road and bear right at the lights into the airport. But it didn’t do that.

Turning into the Travelodge. It looks as though he’sparking up.

OK, take up positions and await FSU .

Fifteen minutes later, Hitchens gave Fry the thumbs-up, and a big grin. Their suspect was in custody.

‘So you don’t want to tell us about Rose Shepherd,’ said Hitchens, watching Tony Donnelly across the interview-room table.

‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

They’d been trying for a long time, struggling through the kind of interview that Fry hated — the kind that made her think of banging her head repeatedly against a wall. Good only when it stopped. In fact, she had a suspicion the average wall would crack long before this suspect.

Donnelly and the duty solicitor stared back at the detectives across the table. They had an air of being two visitors at a zoo, wondering when these strange creatures were going to do something more interesting.

‘What about Lindsay Mullen, then?’ said Hitchens.

Donnelly hesitated slightly before he answered. ‘No comment.’

‘Where did you first see Mrs Mullen?’

‘No comment.’

‘Did you even know her name, Tony?’

‘No comment.’

Fry could see Hitchens gathering his thoughts before the next question. Like her, he’d seen the expression that had briefly passed across Donnelly’s face when Lindsay Mullen’s name had been mentioned. Surprise, incomprehension. A lack of recognition. Just for a moment, before he’d trotted out the standard response.

‘You saw Lindsay Mullen meet Rose Shepherd at the Riber Tea Rooms in Matlock Bath, didn’t you?’ said Hitchens.

‘No comment.’

But the answer came more quickly this time, more confidently. Donnelly knew who they were talking about again. It seemed to Fry that he hadn’t known Lindsay Mullen’s name until then. Somehow, that made her killing worse. It appeared even more cold and merciless. She had been an anonymous woman eliminated without a second thought. And the two children? What about them? They’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘There’s one thing that really puzzles me,’ said Hitchens. ‘How did you know who Lindsay Mullen was?’

Donnelly smiled. ‘No comment.’

‘I mean, did you have advance information about the meeting taking place? Did you have a description of Mrs Mullen that enabled you to identify her? Or did you listen in to their conversation somehow?’

A shake of the head. ‘No comment.’

‘Whichever it was, the organization seems to have been exceptionally good, very well planned.’

Donnelly gazed down at the table, but Fry could see the smile on his face. If his eyes had been visible, she guessed that she’d see in them that he was laughing — laughing inwardly at the stupidity of the police.

‘Or was it only luck, Tony?’

His head came up then, and his eyes narrowed at Hitchens. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It was Rose Shepherd you were looking for, wasn’t it? And you stumbled on Lindsay Mullen at the same time. That must have been very convenient for you. It made the job a lot easier, I imagine. What would you have done otherwise? Were you planning on breaking into Miss Shepherd’s house and interrogating her until she gave you the information you wanted?’

Donnelly glared at his solicitor. ‘What’s this shit?’ he said.

‘Detective Inspector Hitchens, could you clarify what my client is accused of? We don’t understand this line of questioning.’

‘We’re conducting enquiries into the murder of Miss Rose Shepherd, who was shot and killed in Foxlow in the early hours of Sunday morning. We’re also investigating the deaths of Mrs Lindsay Mullen and her two children, who died in a fire at their home in Edendale on the following night. And we’d like to know from your client the names of his associates in these offences.’

There was quite a long silence after Hitchens’ statement. When Donnelly responded, it was with a smirk that would have got him a punch in the mouth at one time, before interview rooms were equipped with tape recorders and video cameras.

‘No comment,’ he said.