Jane and her colleagues sat in silence as they waited anxiously to hear from the crew of Juliet 1.
‘MP to Juliet 1, receiving, over?’ the operator asked repeatedly, but there was no reply.
‘Central 888 from 887, receiving . . . ?’
Stanley’s voice came over the radio from the squad car behind them.
‘Go ahead, Stanley,’ Kingston replied.
‘We’re going to head off to Bushwood Road, which runs along Wanstead Flats. All the back streets around Woodville Road lead to Bushwood so we might pick them up if they’re on foot or still in the Cortina.’
‘Good thinking, Stanley. We’ll go to Woodville to see what’s happened to Juliet 1 and let you know if the suspect car’s been abandoned.’
‘Central 888 and 887 from MP . . . Uniform patrol vehicles are also searching the area. Foot patrol officers are holding the scene at Barclays Bank and identifying witnesses. Two ambulances have been called there – one for an off-duty officer who was shot in the stomach and the other for three members of the public involved in a two-vehicle RTA during the incident.’
‘How bad is the officer’s injury?’ a concerned Kingston asked MP.
‘We don’t have any current information on his condition. An ambulance has also been called to Woodville Road for the Juliet 1 officers as they’re not responding.’
‘We’re nearly on scene, MP, and will give you a situation update on arrival,’ Kingston said as Cam stopped the car just short of Woodville Road.
‘Lie flat on the back seat, Tennison,’ Kingston said as he and the Colonel withdrew their revolvers and got out of the vehicle.
‘Are you going with them, Cam?’ she asked, wondering if she was going to be left on her own.
‘Like they said, I’m only the fucking driver – and apart from that I’m not firearms trained, so I’m happy to let them do the cops and robbers stuff.’
Jane couldn’t resist sitting up a bit to look out of the front windscreen. The rain had stopped, and she watched as the two officers crouched down behind a parked car at the corner of Woodville Road. The Colonel stood up, his gun raised, and, using the parked cars as cover, started to move down the road in a crouched position. Jane lost sight of them but was relieved there was no sound of gunfire. Cam picked up the radio and informed MP that two armed officers from Central 888 were now on foot in Woodville Road.
Within a few seconds the Colonel reappeared, took off his cap and waved it to signal the area was safe. As Cam drove into Woodville Road Jane noticed that the Colonel was totally bald, which surprised her for his age.
Cam pointed down the left side of the street.
‘Bloody hell, Juliet 1 has crashed into the front of that house.’
Jane could see a plume of steam rising from the badly damaged police vehicle. Its sirens had stopped, but the blue light on top was still flashing and the front half of the vehicle was covered in brick and rubble from the bay window of the Victorian terraced house it had crashed into. A small elderly man was attempting to lift the unconscious driver out of the car but having difficulty. Kingston was by the front passenger door, trying to pull it open and get to the injured officer.
‘Bring the jemmy from the motor, Cam!’ he shouted.
Cam jumped out of the car. ‘I’m on it, Guv!’ he shouted back, and ran to the boot of the car.
It was the first time Jane had got a proper look at Cam, who had a badly pockmarked face and receding dark brown hair. As he ran across the road to Kingston with the jemmy and a first aid box, the Colonel opened the passenger door and picked up the radio mike.
‘Central 888 to MP. We are on scene in Woodville. Suspects have left in the Cortina and Juliet 1 has crashed into a house – the crew are injured and we’re attempting to extract them from the vehicle. Do you have an ETA for the ambulance?’
‘About two minutes,’ MP replied.
Jane got out of the car and surveyed the scene.
‘Juliet 1 must have hit the bay window at high speed to cause that much damage.’
‘No shit, Treacle,’ the Colonel replied.
‘I’d prefer “no shit, Sergeant”, Detective Constable Gorman,’ Jane said lightly, to remind him of her rank and knowing ‘treacle tart’ was cockney rhyming slang for ‘sweetheart’.
‘There’s a woman with a baby sitting on a wall over there.’ He pointed across the road near the crash site, but Jane couldn’t see her due to a parked car. ‘She looks pretty distressed and might have seen what happened. It would be helpful if you could have a chat with her . . . Sergeant,’ he said pointedly, then ran across the road to assist Kingston and Cam.
Jane was frustrated by the fact that even seven years on from integration, many male officers still thought their female colleagues should only deal with women and children. She didn’t like the Colonel’s attitude but didn’t feel it was the time or place to challenge him about it. She was glad that DS Stanley was an old acquaintance as he would be able to tell her more about the officers on the squad, especially as the few she’d met so far seemed rude and intimidating.
By now uniformed assistance had arrived. Jane instructed some officers to tape off both ends of Woodville Road and ask the people, who had come out of their houses and gathered on the street, if they had seen the incident and to obtain their names and addresses if they had. One resident, whose car was hit by the speeding Cortina, was arguing about who was going to pay for the damage and insisting the police should. A uniformed officer told him politely that he’d have to claim on his own insurance, which upset the man even more.
The uniformed driver was out of the crashed vehicle and being given first aid by the small elderly man, who it transpired was the owner of the damaged house. The officer had a bad cut to his head and scratches to his face caused by flying brickwork and glass that had smashed through part of the windscreen when the car crashed. His injury was bleeding heavily, but he was conscious and reasonably coherent. The Colonel introduced himself to the officer and told him an ambulance was on its way.
The PC looked worried. ‘My operator Gary was shot – is he OK?’
‘I’ll be straight with you, mate, I don’t know yet. My governor and driver are trying to get him out of the car. As soon as I know, I’ll let you know, OK?’
The driver nodded. ‘Did the bastards get away?’
‘Don’t worry about them – they won’t get far.’
The officer looked upset. ‘I tried to run the gunman down, but I missed.’
‘You did a good job. Your motor’s a write-off so the Commissioner might be pissed off with you,’ the Colonel joked.
The officer smiled. ‘You Sweeney lot are full of bullshit.’
The Colonel patted the officer’s shoulder. ‘That’s what I like to hear – a woodentop who respects us detectives. If you don’t mind, I think your mate needs me more than you do.’
Kingston and Cam tried in vain to jemmy open the front passenger door of the police car, but it was badly buckled from the crash and wouldn’t budge. There was structural damage to the building, and bricks and debris were still falling, so they had to get the officer out quickly rather than call the fire brigade to cut him out. Cam went inside the vehicle and held his jacket up against the passenger door window while Kingston smashed and cleared the glass away with the jemmy. They were then able to lift the officer, who was still unconscious, through the window, away from the car and damaged house.
‘How is he?’ the Colonel asked Kingston.
‘His breathing is shallow and rasping – he might have damaged his ribs when the crash occurred. I can’t see any bullet holes in him, but he’s got a deep narrow wound to the right side of his head, which could be from a bullet.’
‘The ambulance should be here soon.’
‘Where’s Tennison?’
‘Speaking to a woman who might be a witness. She got the right hump when I just called her “treacle”.’
Kingston laughed. ‘Well, that’s her nickname sorted then.’
*
The driver of the Cortina approached the estate within the speed limit and pulled up at the far end of a row of garages, where they couldn’t be seen through any residents’ windows. The man who’d fired the shotgun at the bank was looking over his shoulder out of the rear window.
‘No sign of the rozzers.’
He then put the shotgun under a towel in the travel bag, which also covered the cash box. The Irishman got out and opened the end garage for the Cortina to drive in. Once the vehicle was inside he closed the garage door and all four men quickly removed their donkey jackets and blue boiler suits, under which they were wearing casual clothes. The driver opened the boot and removed a petrol can, then he and the others threw their robbery outfits into the boot. The man who had led the robbery got the travel bag containing the cash box from the rear seat. He opened it and the Irishman placed his Luger under the towel.
The Irishman opened the garage door and the leader, along with the man who had fired the shotgun, walked slowly off the estate and down the street. When they were out of sight, the driver waited for a minute before pouring petrol over the discarded clothes and the interior of the Cortina. He then removed a Zippo lighter from his pocket, opened it and flicked the spark wheel to ignite the wick. He threw the lighter into the boot of the car, causing a loud woomph as the boiler suits and donkey jackets caught light, then shut the boot lid and closed the garage door. He and the Irishman left the estate on foot and, once in Blake Hall Road, walked off in the opposite direction to the other two men.
*
Jane approached the young white girl, who was in floods of tears and clutching a mixed-race baby to her chest. Her face was pale from shock, she looked about seventeen and her blond hair was tied in a side ponytail. She was wearing a black Puffa jacket, white T-shirt, bell-bottomed jeans and brown boots.
‘Hi, I’m Detective Sergeant Tennison. Are you OK?’
‘The police car nearly hit me and my baby.’
She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. Jane sat beside her on the wall, got a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to the girl.
‘What’s your name – and your baby’s?’
‘Mine’s Abby Jones, and he’s Daniel. He’s only eight months old and got a rash, so I was taking him to the doctor’s in the High Road.’
Jane got her pocket notebook and pen out of her jacket pocket and started asking questions. Abby said she’d just turned seventeen and lived with her parents at 6 Leybourne Road, which was off the bottom end of Woodville Road. She explained to Abby that the men in the car the police were chasing had just committed an armed robbery at Barclays Bank in the High Road.
‘Did you see what happened here before the police car crashed?’ Jane asked.
‘Yeah, some of it.’
‘I don’t want to keep you too long if your baby’s not well, but it would be helpful if you could tell me what you saw.’
Abby explained she was walking up Woodville Road to the doctor’s surgery when she heard a car crash and tyres screeching. She’d looked up and saw a brown car coming towards her, which was swerving from side to side down the road.
‘Did you see how many people were in the car?’
‘Three, maybe four people, I think, but I don’t know for sure – they passed me so quickly. The car hit that parked car over there, then skidded to a halt. A big tall man got out of the front passenger side, then I heard the police siren and saw the police car coming down the road—’
‘Sorry to interrupt you, but can you describe the man who got out of the car?’
‘Not really. He had a mask on his face.’
‘When you say a mask, do you mean a balaclava?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Did this man have a gun?’
Abby nodded and trembled as she clutched Daniel to her chest.
‘When I was looking at the police car I heard some bangs and looked back down the road. I could see the man in the mask holding up a gun and shooting at the police car . . . I was terrified I might be shot and screamed, which made Daniel start to cry, then I heard a loud bang like a firework going off and saw the police car skid across the road towards me . . . I just managed to pull Daniel’s pram out of the way in time – the police car was inches from hitting him.’
‘Can you describe the gun, and which hand the man held it in?’
‘Only that it was black, and I think in his right hand.’
‘Do you know how many shots he fired?’
Abby thought about it before answering.
‘Three, I think, but maybe four. It all happened so quickly I can’t be sure.’
‘Did you see anyone else with a gun?’
‘Yes, there was another person who got out of the car – his gun was longer, with two holes at the end.’
Jane knew from the description that this man must have been holding a sawn-off shotgun, and what Abby thought was a firework going off was the shotgun being fired.
‘Can you describe him?’
‘No, he had a black mask on as well, but he was shorter than the man who shot at the police car.’
‘An officer in the crashed police car was on the radio at the time the shotgun was fired, and I heard the bang on our radio. It must have been terrifying for you to be in the middle of it all,’ Jane said to console Abby.
‘It was, but I don’t think the man in the balaclava fired his gun.’
‘Are you sure?’
Jane wondered if Abby was so frightened she’d become confused about what had happened.
‘I didn’t see him until after the police car crashed – so he must have got out of the car after that happened.’
‘What did the man with the shotgun do?’
‘He followed behind the man with the small gun, who was walking towards the crashed police car with the gun raised towards the policemen.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘The smaller man held his bigger gun towards the big man’s back. I think he said something as the mouth hole on his mask moved, but I couldn’t hear what it was . . . Then they got in the car and it drove off.’
‘What do you think made the loud bang you heard?’
Abby shrugged and put Daniel in the pram.
‘I don’t know . . . Can I go now?’
‘I’ll need to speak to you again to take a more detailed statement, which you’ll need to sign. Can you give me your home phone number, please, then I can call you to arrange an appointment time?’
Abby looked apprehensive. ‘Will I have to go to court and give evidence.’
‘Possibly, if we catch the men responsible for the robbery.’
‘No, I’m sorry, no way, I’m not giving evidence against people like that. My life and Daniel’s would never be safe.’
‘There’s ways we can protect you and make sure your details are not revealed. I’ll come and see you tomorrow, but in the meantime would you like me to get someone to contact your parents?’
‘No, I need to take Daniel to the doctor’s now.’
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?’
‘Yeah . . . I hope those two policemen that were in the police car are all right.’
‘I’m sure they will be, Abby. You can call me at work any time if you want to talk.’
Abby frowned. ‘I won’t change my mind about making a statement.’
‘If you did, would you contact me if I give you my office number?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she replied with a big sigh.
Jane was about to write it down on a bit of paper when she realised she didn’t know her new office number.
‘Can you hang on a minute and I’ll just get the number from one of my colleagues . . . ?’
‘No, I gotta go to the doctor’s now,’ Abby said as she walked off without looking back.