Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

‘And the girl?’

Jack lowered his voice. ‘She’s fluff from the local radio station. A trainee.’

I nodded.

‘Do they know how many dead at this point?’

Jack shook his head. I touched his sleeve.

‘Openness is our policy, but we have to play this carefully. Organize a press conference for noon tomorrow. That should give us enough time to sort out what has happened. Everyone will expect us to close ranks, as the police always do. But we won’t.’ I looked around. ‘Where’s Danny?’

Jack looked at me oddly.

‘Danny Moynihan? He’s not here.’

‘So who was the silver commander?’

The gold commander took strategic command of an armed response incident. The silver commander decided on the tactical response and was in charge of the actual operation. I had the same problem with the silver commanders as with the gold – there were too many of them. Given how rarely such officers fulfilled this role, how could we expect them to do it with confidence? However, I had absolute faith in Moynihan.

‘Charlie Foster was silver, sir.’

‘He’s in the IR van with the guys?’

‘And the girls, sir. It was a mixed team.’

‘I was using guys in the American way,’ I said absently. ‘Do we know who the victims are? The woman?’

‘We have no clear identification yet. It was a rented house. You may have heard a rumour about the woman -’ I nodded – ‘I don’t know whether or not that’s true.’

‘Bad enough that we shot her in the first place,’ I said quietly.

I thanked him and went into the house. A couple of people in white bunny suits were kneeling beside a man lying on his back in the kitchen. Blood had congealed around his body. I could smell its thick iron tang. A third man straightened and pointed me towards several more sets of overalls.

I suited up and climbed the stairs. At the top another man in white coveralls barred my way.

‘Sorry, sir. Can’t risk you contaminating the crime scene. You can see from here well enough.’

I nodded and looked past him through the bars of the landing guard. I saw a man slumped on the toilet, as if in the middle of a particularly difficult bowel movement. By pulling myself up and leaning over the top of the banister I could just see the dead couple in the front bedroom.

The divisional commander was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Terrible business,’ he said as I stripped off the overall.

‘Something of an understatement,’ I said, bunching the overall in my fists and tossing it in the corner. ‘Call Philip Macklin, will you? We need an immediate debrief – tell him to set up a post-incident room. I also need him to call the Police Complaints Authority and alert them, then choose a force from the MSF to investigate on the PCA’s behalf. Suggest Hampshire – I rate Bill Munro.’

Bloody acronyms. MSF stood for Most Similar Family. All forces in the country were grouped into ‘families’ on the basis of social, demographic and economic factors rather than size, proximity or regional location. Our other MSF included Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Essex, Kent and Thames Valley.

‘I’d like us all to get the hell out of here but the scene of crime team are going to need to be in this house for the next week or so. If we can’t disperse the crowd, they’re going to be doing their work under siege.’

I used to brag that I worked best under pressure. Now my mind was in overdrive, considering possibilities, predicting outcomes. A part of me stood back and contemplated what a selfish shit I was, as some of my thinking was about how it was going to play in the press.

I was determined to come through this unscathed. I had ambitions to go higher in the police service. I knew I could make a difference. I wasn’t going to let this bring me down.

I left the divisional commander and went to the immediate response vehicle parked across the street. I had to be careful what I said to the officers inside because at the moment I didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know if they were culpable.

Even so, I wanted to support them. I know from my army days what it’s like to walk into an apparently controlled situation that goes haywire.

I rapped on the back doors of the van, pulled them open and hauled myself in. It reeked of stale sweat. It was crowded with officers hunkered down in black swat team T-shirts and trousers. Two groups of four men, talking in low rumbles at the far end of the van. That loudmouth Finch among them.

By the door, two women. I recognized one as DC Franks. She was pale, tense and dry-eyed. She was being comforted by another woman, who was whispering in her ear. The other woman turned her head to look at me and my heart sank. DS Sarah Gilchrist was the last person I wanted to see there.

I left Milldean at three in the morning. The situation on the street had been tense and there had been some stand-offs but no real problems had developed. When I climbed into bed beside Molly she didn’t stir. The smell of alcohol was heavy in the room, a bottle and a half-empty tumbler of whiskey by the bed.

I was up again by six. The phone rang just as I was on my way out of the house. I hurried back in to answer before it woke Molly. William Simpson’s velvety voice was distinctive.

‘Bob, terrible business.’

‘I thought I should alert you to the situation-’

‘Quite right, quite right. Well, it’s a tragedy but something can be salvaged if we act quickly. The press conference at noon – announce your resignation then.’

I was too surprised to speak for a moment.

‘My resignation?’

‘Your position is clearly untenable.’

‘William, it was an operation by one of my divisions. Responsibility-’

‘Is ultimately yours. It wasn’t a Kratos operation. You know that rules drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers says shots can only be fired to stop an imminent threat to life and, I quote: “Only when absolutely necessary after traditional methods have been tried and failed or are unlikely to succeed if tried.”’

‘I’m aware of that-’

‘The guidelines also say that officers are not above the criminal law.’

‘William, I could refer you to section thirty-seven of the 1967 Criminal Law Act, the bit that reads: “A person may use such force as is reasonable in the prevention of crime” – but what’s the point? I intend to stay to find out exactly what happened and make sure it can’t happen again.’

Simpson sighed, almost theatrically.

‘Bob, the press are going to have a field day. Think about it.’

I had been thinking about it, trying to figure out some way I could keep the government on my side.

‘I know you’re going to have a hell of a time spinning this,’ I said.

‘We don’t spin any more, Bob – didn’t you read the papers? In any case, the only spinning to be done here is out of control. The most outspoken proponent of routinely arming the police authorizes an operation involving armed police that turns into a bloodbath. Post-Menezes it’s an absolute catastrophe.’

‘You have excellent contacts in the press…’

‘Bob, of course, unofficially I’ll do what I can.’ Simpson could actually purr sometimes. ‘You know there was a brief period post 9/11 when gung-ho was good. But then 7/7 came along and the shooting of Menezes. And the lies…’

‘I know all that-’

‘You being opposed to a national force hasn’t helped.’

‘Jesus, William – the inefficiencies of any one force replicated at a national level.’

He wasn’t purring now.

‘I’ve been charged with damage limitation on this. The government can’t be seen to appear foolish. I’m afraid your position is too exposed. It’s important that you act quickly to avoid us getting drawn into this mess.’