Peter Robinson: Bad Boy

Chambers sneered. “Well, we’ll never know now, will we, DI Cabbot? He wasn’t here.” He had the kind of face that seemed to be wearing a perpetual expression of distaste, Annie had noticed, as if he had just smelled or swallowed something unpleasant. She also felt his eyes undress her every time he looked in her direction. His complexion was like the shiny pink plastic of a child’s doll, and his lips were fleshy, wet and red. Annie felt like sticking her tongue out at him, but she managed to restrain herself. That would be childish. Instead, she gave him a sweet smile and sipped some bitter, tepid coffee.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere, Reg,” cut in McLaughlin, who, Annie suspected, was well aware of Chambers’s shortcomings. “What might have happened under different circumstances isn’t our concern here. Certainly not at this point.”

“No, sir,” said Chambers, with a quick glare at Annie. “Forgive me. I was simply trying to get a general sense of events. Did anyone telephone the Doyle house, try to talk to the father and assess the situation?”

Gervaise paused. “We felt that a telephone call might cause too much consternation, given that Erin’s mother had already told us that her daughter was distraught, and that Erin and her father were expecting DCI Banks to be in touch.”

Chambers raised his eyebrows. “Though that is standard procedure before sending in the cavalry, isn’t it?”

“Let’s move on to the incident itself, Reg,” McLaughlin said.

“By all means.” Chambers turned to the young AFO. “Constable Warburton, would you care to tell us briefly, in your own words, what transpired at Laburnum Way? Just stick to the facts and keep it simple. Don’t embellish.”

“Yes, sir,” said Warburton, sitting to attention, if such a thing was possible. He went on to describe how the team had waited while the local police knocked on the door and announced themselves.

“But no one answered, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long would you say transpired between the first officers announcing themselves and your forced entry?”

“It’s hard to say, sir,” said Warburton. “Time can behave very strangely in circumstances like that.”

“I acknowledge that one’s perception of time can be affected by stress,” said Chambers, “but surely you can give me a rough estimate? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?”

“A few minutes at most, sir.”

“Minutes? Very well. A minute can be a long time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And during that time did you hear anything?”

“Hear anything?”

“Yes, from inside. Any sounds? An argument or anything like that.”

“I thought I heard voices at one point, sir. People talking.”

“Arguing?”

“Impossible to say, sir. They were muffled.”

“But could they have been raised?”

“I suppose they could. I couldn’t tell.”

“Very well. What happened next?”

“When it seemed apparent that no one was going to answer the door, we thought it necessary to force entry. That is, WPC Powell and I did. Anything could have happened since the first reports. The girl could have been holding her father at gunpoint. She could even have shot him.”

“Nobody’s arguing with your judgment, son,” said Chambers. “Though the press might take a slightly more jaundiced view of things.”

“I feel that I acted in accordance with the law, sir, and with my training. I’d do the same-”

“Yes, yes. All right. Spare us the self-justification, PC Warburton. What happened when you entered the house? You entered from the front with Constable Nerys Powell, am I correct?” Chambers glanced at PC Powell, and it was clear to Annie, even from such a short look, that he disapproved of the presence of a woman on the team. They both worked at County HQ. Perhaps they had clashed before.

“Yes, sir,” said Warburton. “We entered the building as instructed, WPC Powell and me.”

Nerys Powell gave him a sad smile of encouragement. “What happened next?”

“The hallway was very long and dark. It was daytime, but there was no direct source of light.”

“Did you have a torch?” McLaughlin asked. “Yes, sir, on my belt.”

“Did you switch it on?”

Warburton paused before answering. “No, sir,” he said. “There was just no time. It all happened so quickly. I did flick a light switch on the wall as we entered, but the bulb blew.”

“Tell me what happened next.”

Warburton drank some water and rubbed his face with both hands. “Just as we entered the hall, by the bottom of the stairs, a door at the far end opened, to the right. I knew from my briefing that this was the door to the kitchen, and the kitchen was where the… where Mr. Doyle and his daughter were said to be waiting. And the loaded firearm. I heard a creaking noise. Then there was a figure in the corridor, just a silhouette, really, and I could swear he was waving a sword or some such weapon at me, about to rush us. Like I said, it was still dark in there. Our eyes hadn’t had a chance to adjust, and we didn’t have time to get out our torches. But we knew there was a loaded weapon on the premises, and I…I just reacted as fast as I could, sir, the way any officer would.”

“So you fired?”

“I discharged my Taser, sir, yes. As we are instructed to do when faced with someone brandishing a sword or a knife.”

“Yet as far as you were concerned, the weapon you were there to recover was a firearm, and it had been found in the possession of Erin Doyle, not her father?”

“That’s correct, sir. But he could have taken possession of it.”

“And just decided to shoot a policeman for the hell of it? Stick to the facts, constable. You mentioned a sword, not a gun. And this sword was actually a walking-stick.”

Warburton swallowed. “Well, yes, sir. Strictly speaking. But I-”

“‘Strictly speaking?’ I’d be interested to know how else you would put it? Were you aware of any reason Mr. Doyle might have had for attacking you with a sword? Or even a walking stick, for that matter?”

“No, sir. We…I…simply reacted to the circumstances, did the right thing, as per training. There was no time to speculate. Perhaps he had decided to try to defend his daughter? Perhaps he’d realized since the mother went off to see the police that the girl would be sent to jail? Perhaps he felt under threat because things hadn’t turned out the way he had expected? I don’t know, sir. I just reacted.”

“Are those the thoughts that passed through your mind at the time, or are they explanations you have thought up since?”

“I can’t say I really had time to think of anything like that, sir. Not at the time. In action, you just sort of fall back on your training. It’s not like thinking, finding reasons. That’s for later.”

“Where did you aim for?”

“For the chest area, sir. The largest body mass. It’s not as if you’d expect a Taser to kill someone.”

“I know that, but it has happened… Don’t you know it’s now recommended that firearms officers aim Tasers for the arms or legs, not the chest?”

“Sir, it was dark, I felt threatened, and I didn’t want to risk missing.”

Chambers cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea why there was such a long delay inside the house that you were forced to break down the door?”

“No, sir.”

“Were you aware at that time that Mr. Doyle was expecting DCI Banks, an old friend, to turn up and sort things out?”

“No, sir, I wasn’t.”

“Did you know that he was walking with a stick after a recent knee operation?”

“I did not, sir.” Warburton turned to his immediate boss, Firearms Cadre Superintendent Mike Trethowan, who gave him an encouraging nod. Trethowan was an experienced superintendent of about fifty, with compact military bearing and a red complexion that Annie associated with high blood pressure. He always seemed cool enough, though, so she doubted that was the reason. Maybe he just burned easily in the sun. “That information was not in our briefing,” said Warburton.