Friday 28 January, 05:30
In the darkness of the early morning Loxton struggled to make out the shapes of the police snipers. It was as if they had melded into the outlying roofs surrounding the warehouse. Ahead of her were parked four battered white builders’ vans.
The vans were filled with firearms officers, all poised to go in at Anson’s command. Loxton waited nervously with Kowalski in their car further back down the road. The sky was black and the only sound was the drumming of the relentless rain on the car roof.
The special ops radio crackled and then Anson’s voice broke through the calm.
‘Go, go, go.’
Kowalski and Loxton glanced at each other, her nerves reflected in his eyes. The firearms officers slipped out of their vans, silent as tigers, and made their way to the warehouse ground-floor windows and door. They waited. Nothing stirred.
Two firearms officers soundlessly counted to three, and then smashed the windows at the same time, throwing in smoke grenades before moving away. A third officer hit a side door with the red metal enforcer. After three hits he stepped back, exhausted, and another officer seamlessly took his place. On the fourth attempt the door buckled inwards.
‘Police, freeze,’ shouted the firearms officers as they rushed inside, brandishing their rifles. The whole operation to get inside had taken around ten seconds.
Loxton strained her ears, but all she could hear was shouting. There was no gunfire and she breathed out a sigh of relief. After a few minutes an officer’s voice came through on the radio. ‘Area secure. All suspects contained.’
‘Second phase, go, go, go,’ Anson barked down the radio. Loxton swung open her car door and rushed forward with Kowalski right beside her. The smell of chemical smoke and uncleaned bodies hit her as she raced through the door. Grey smoke was everywhere, and she struggled to see where she was going. Kowalski kept to her side as they moved forward into the large open space.
She could see people on the floor through the smoke with firearms officers stood over them. She moved swiftly through the bodies, glancing at their faces, searching for Sarah. There were women huddled together in skimpy dresses, a few teenage girls among them. They looked dirty and thin, their faces gaunt, but it was their eyes that shocked Loxton. There was no fear in them, only defiance. This raid was just another thing for them to suffer; they didn’t see it as their salvation.
She climbed up the metal stairs, still searching for Sarah. There were a few women who looked at odds with the rest, dressed in casual warm clothing. They were clean, their faces healthy, their eyes watchful. None of them was Sarah, though.
Anson came over to her, shook his head briefly and gestured her to the side, away from prying ears. ‘She’s not fucking here.’ She could see fear in his eyes. ‘We’re going be stuck here for a while dealing with this lot. If we find anything out, I’ll let you know, but I doubt anyone’s going to talk. They never do. What’s happened to her?’
‘I don’t know, but we’ll find her.’ Loxton prayed Sarah had left the warehouse when she couldn’t make contact, that she was safe and about to call Anson. She imagined Sarah giving her merry hell later for cutting the operation short and embarrassing her in front of her team, but Loxton knew that was just a fantasy. Something was really wrong.
She glanced out of the large grimy window and across the sprawling concrete industrial estate. Emma was dead and now Sarah was officially missing. Taken while in the middle of a surveillance operation, right under the noses of her colleagues. These guys were meant to be the best. She should have been safe.
Loxton closed her eyes. Sarah was out there somewhere, and she was in trouble. Loxton had to find her before something terrible happened to her too. This was Barratt’s work; she knew he was somehow behind this. He was coming good on his promise of exacting revenge on the women who had put him away.
It felt like she was the one being hunted now, and she didn’t know how to make it stop.