Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

‘Tom Allardyce,’ an elderly man in walker’s kit replied. ‘Surly bugger. Take it from me, he’ll be behind this. That feller’s made trouble all his bloody life.’

The woman shushed her yelping dog again and murmured, ‘It’s all gone very quiet over there.’

‘Too quiet,’ the cyclist said solemnly.

Daniel decided that he couldn’t bear much more of this. He detached himself from the little group and wandered along the road towards a gap in the hedge. From there he could see both the emergency vehicles. Beyond, police officers and paramedics were conferring. Allardyce was nowhere to be seen; nor was Hannah Scarlett.

The silence was ruptured by another shot.

‘Are you all right?’ Tash hissed.

‘Fine,’ Hannah said.

All she’d done was to bob her head round the corner, to see if she could still make out the bulky shape of Tom Allardyce at the upstairs window. The movement had provoked him into firing against the wall of the barn. The roar as the shot ricocheted off the brickwork was deafening.

No wonder he’s twitchy, she thought. Nothing seems to be happening, but he’ll be starting to fear the worst. If he carries on like this, it’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If only she had a clear sight of him. What if he moved, or decided to come out of the house? She was tempted to edge back into the farmyard. Perhaps she could try to initiate a dialogue. Not about his wife’s murder, far less that of Gabrielle Anders, just in an attempt to persuade him that he had nothing to gain from a stand-off, and a great deal to lose. But that was madness. Bargaining with an armed criminal was a job for a particular kind of person. A few years ago she’d flirted with the possibility of becoming a negotiator, had studied the literature about the training on offer at Hendon. When she confided in Ben Kind about her idea, he was quick to talk her out of it.

‘You’re not boring enough.’

What he meant was that a negotiator confronted with potential suicides or hostage situations needed infinite patience. An ability to sustain endless, monotonous, soothing conversation was a key part of the job spec. Once he’d pointed out the pitfalls, she didn’t need much persuading that she was better off with real detective work. In the CID, if a tricky interview wasn’t going well, you could terminate it there and then. No such option when you were negotiating over life and death.

She said to Tash, ‘Promise me you’ll stay out of the line of fire.’

Tash closed her eyes, seeming to collect her thoughts. When she opened them again, she said, ‘You saved my life.’

‘It’s not an issue. I just don’t want you to…’

Tash put up her hand. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t know what prompted me to challenge him. It was stupid.’

‘It was pretty brave, actually.’

‘I’m so angry about what happened,’ Tash said fiercely. ‘To see Jean — floating like that, just as he left her. Covered up. God only knows whether she drowned or was poisoned by the sheep dip. How could he do that to his own wife? It shows you what he’s like.’

‘Sure, but leave it to us now, okay?’ Hannah squeezed the emotion out of her voice. ‘We’ll deal with him.’

‘These people in the — the ARVs. If he fires at them, will they try to cripple him? Shoot him in the legs?’

‘It won’t come to that,’ Hannah said.

‘But if it does?’

‘The firearms officers would only fire in self-defence.’

‘To wound him?’

‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘If they do fire, it’s because life is in imminent jeopardy. When these guys shoot, they shoot to kill.’

Daniel rejoined the throng as a couple of young constables were setting up a cordon at the end of the lane that led to the farm. Another police car had just driven through. The officers stonewalled every question and shooed the onlookers back down the road. In the absence of authoritative information about what was happening, the elderly walker was proving to be a real know-all. He announced in strident tones that the latest arrival was a second armed response vehicle.

‘Looks just like an ordinary traffic car to me,’ the cyclist protested.

‘They keep their weapons locked in the boot,’ the smart-alec informed him. ‘My daughter-in-law works for the police in Carlisle. Some of her stories would make your hair curl, I promise you. Joe Public doesn’t know the half of it, I can tell you that for nothing. Not the bloody half of it.’

‘Armed police,’ the officer shouted into a loudhailer. ‘Mr Allardyce, we have the farm surrounded. Come out of the house slowly and put your weapon on the ground.’

Silence. Tom Allardyce evidently wasn’t in the mood to give himself up for arrest. He was downstairs now, stationed at a window close to the main doorway. Hannah knew there were two contrasting interpretations of his change of position. One, he was preparing to wave the white flag. Two, he was steeling himself to come out in a blaze of gunfire.

Hannah had paused in her briefing of the negotiator, a bald DCI whom she’d never met before. He spoke in a Lowland monotone and was obviously well-suited to his job. Ben had been right, she thought. Ten minutes talking to this man and you’d be bored into submission.

At least now she could see the farmhouse. They were crouching behind the stone wall on the other side of the path from the barn. Nick had joined her but Tash Dumelow was safely back in the Hall. So far as Hannah could see, everything was in place for the conduct of a containment situation. The first priority was to keep the lid on everything; no need for shock and awe. Time was on their side, thank God. If Allardyce had emerged from the house before backup arrived, Hannah would have been at his mercy. At least the arrival of four authorised firearms officers, together with a couple of dog patrols, had pretty much boxed off that risk. Hannah would never want to argue with the huge glowering Alsatians, but the sight of the AFOs’ guns was heart-stopping. Each man was built like a prop forward, each carried serious weaponry: a Glock 9 mm. machine pistol and a Hechler and Koch carbine machine gun.

Somewhere inside the farmhouse, Allardyce’s collie started barking. Outside, the AFOs’ radios were crackling. The men had spaced themselves out around the farmhouse, covering each aspect of the scene as best they could. Hannah saw that they were keeping a wary eye on arcs of fire. For good reason: no matter how long you practised your skills in video-shoots, nothing could prepare you one hundred per cent for the reality of armed response. At least as scary as the unknown quantity inside the house was the possibility of one AFO firing towards another.

‘Let’s see if we can put a lid on it.’ A shaft of sunlight glinted on the top of the negotiator’s scalp. ‘Talk him out.’

‘Even at the best of times, Tom Allardyce wasn’t a smooth conversationalist,’ she said. ‘His wife’s dead now. Presumably he’s thinking he has nothing to lose.’

‘Everyone has something to lose.’ It sounded like something the negotiator had read in a manual.

Hannah held her tongue, but she wasn’t convinced.

As the sun slipped over the horizon, the crowd kept growing. A team had arrived from regional television and a young reporter with Morticia Addams hair and a winsome smile was conducting an impromptu vox pop. An opportunistic snack van, usually to be found selling burgers and hot drinks from a lay-by on the Whitmell road, was doing terrific business. Rumours were fluttering around like leaves in a gale. The excitable cyclist assured Daniel that Tom Allardyce had barricaded himself in the house after murdering his wife and taking the Dumelows hostage.

When Daniel called Miranda on his mobile to let her know why he hadn’t returned from his errand, she decided to come and take a look for herself. She turned up equipped with Mars Bars and a thermos flask.