Dabs photographed the spent cartridge cases where they’d fallen, at a distance and close up, then left Jane to gather and package them while he photographed the skid marks and blood trail before taking some swabs, which he gave to Jane. As instructed by Dabs, she put the four cartridge cases into small individual plastic containers, then separate exhibits bags. She did the same with the four blood swabs and made a detailed entry in the exhibits book of the items seized, writing a description, date, time and place found.
‘Will these be your exhibits or mine?’ Jane asked Dabs when he returned.
‘The squad detective always signs and numbers them as his.’ He realised his error. ‘Or hers . . . Sorry, I meant you need to do that as the exhibits officer.’
Jane smiled. ‘It’s all right, I know what you meant.’
She signed the exhibits bags and put JT/1, 2, 3 and 4 on the ones containing the cartridge cases, and JT/5 to JT/7 for the blood swabs, as the reference numbers.
‘If anyone gets arrested and goes to court, you’ll give evidence about where they were found and what forensics work they were submitted for,’ Dabs told her, and he looked back up the road towards the crashed police car. ‘We won’t know how many bullets are in Juliet 1 until we examine it under cover at the lab.’ He moved a few feet into the road. ‘The man with the handgun stood and fired about here, as the cartridge cases ejected to the right. We need to examine the parked cars on both sides of the road for any stray bullet holes, and check underneath them, as well as in the road, in case any bullets bounced off the police car.’
‘Shall I do one side, while you check the other?’ Jane asked.
‘It’s probably better we do it together – as they say, two heads are better than one.’
Jane appreciated he was politely saying he didn’t want to risk her missing a bullet hole or indentation in one of the cars. They started on the left-hand side and found nothing on, or under, the cars they looked at. They were having the same result on the opposite side of the road until they reached a silver two-door Ford Fiesta hatchback parked nearest to the crash site. Dabs pointed to the tarmac by the front of the vehicle.
‘See the pool of water there . . . ? You notice anything unusual about it?’
Jane thought his remark odd.
‘No. What’s unusual about a pool of water after it’s been raining?’
‘It’s a rusty brown colour, like you sometimes get from a leaky car radiator.’
She realised what he was thinking. ‘And if something’s leaking it must have a hole in it.’
‘Exactly, and in this case the hole might have been caused by a bullet.’
He put on some latex gloves, then took a picture of the Fiesta with the camera he was still carrying over his shoulder.
Jane looked closely at the front of the car.
‘I can’t see a bullet hole anywhere.’
He crouched down and put his right index finger between two of the grille slats.
‘That’s because these are wide enough apart for a bullet to pass between without hitting the grille.’ He crouched further and looked under the car. ‘There it is.’ He held the camera at ground level and took some photographs.
Jane crouched down and could see a small cylindrical silver object, which she realised must be a bullet.
‘Looks like it lost velocity when it passed through the radiator, then it hit the engine block and fell to the floor.’
He got on his hands and knees and started to lower himself to the road to get to the bullet.
‘You’ll get your clothes dirty – shall I look for a stick or something to get it out with?’
He didn’t stop what he was doing as he lay on the road and reached under the car.
‘No, we never do that, or use tweezers to pick up bullets. The last thing you want to do is mark or damage them in any way.’ He picked up the bullet, then stood up and showed it to her. ‘Although it’s squashed a bit at the top it’s in reasonable condition.’ He held the bullet flat in the palm of his hand. ‘There’s marks on it left by the rifling inside the barrel of the gun.’
He pointed to some tiny linear marks and asked Jane to put on some latex gloves and hold the bullet, so he could take some close-up photographs of it.
Jane thought they looked like scratches and asked him what he meant by rifling.
‘A firearms expert would be able to explain it better, but basically every gun barrel is rifled during manufacture. The rifling process creates spiral grooves that run along the barrel and improve a bullet’s accuracy as it rotates during flight. A fired bullet goes out through the barrel and ends up with mirrored markings on it, which match the rifling on the inside of the barrel . . . Am I making sense?’
‘Yes, I think so. The principle sounds the same as striation marks left on bones when a body is cut up,’ she said, remembering a case she had had where a body was dismembered with a hacksaw by a dentist.
‘That’s right, if somewhat gruesome. There are several methods used in rifling a barrel, which in turn makes a revolver or semi-automatic unique in its own way . . .’
‘Like a sort of fingerprint?’ she asked.
He nodded, and she continued.
‘So, if we recover the gun that fired the bullet, the barrel can be examined to see if the rifling marks on the bullet are the same.’
‘Sort of, but not quite like you described. The lab will test fire the suspect gun in water, then compare the test bullet against the ones recovered from the scene of the shooting. If the markings on the test bullet match the suspect ones, then you know you have the gun that was used in the robbery. But even if we don’t recover a gun, the marks on this bullet can help identify the type and model of firearm that was used.’
‘How do they test fire in water?’ she asked, imagining someone in a swimming pool firing a gun at a target.
‘You’ll see when you come with me to the lab, so I won’t spoil it by explaining.’
He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a small round plastic container in which he placed the damaged bullet. Handing it to Jane, she put it in an exhibits bag, then signed and marked the bag JT/8. She also entered the details in the exhibits book.
‘What about the skid marks – will they be of any use for tyre impressions?’ she asked.
‘I’ve already photographed them, though they won’t be a lot of use unless we find the car the robbers were in – even then it was probably a nicked or ringed motor. Ideally, we’d need evidence like their fingerprints, or fibres from their clothing inside the vehicle, to physically put them in it . . .’
‘A young girl I spoke to, who witnessed the incident, said the two men she saw get out of the Cortina wore masks and gloves; they were also dressed the same in donkey jackets and blue overalls.’
‘That’s your standard outfit for an armed blagger these days. Bank robbers are often forensically aware, having been nicked before, but they’re not as bright as they like to think they are and make mistakes. You only have one crack at examining a scene like this as you can’t seal the street off for ever. If you miss anything of evidential value, no matter how small, it could hinder the investigation.’
‘What about informants? Do you get many cases where someone tells you who’s responsible for an armed robbery?’
‘Sometimes, but I don’t get involved in that side of squad work as I’m just a SOCO. As I see it, criminals grass on each other for a variety of reasons, such as money or to remove a rival. Being a police informant is a highly dangerous occupation, which can get you killed.’
‘I’ve never had a registered informant, but sometimes people I arrested told me, “off the record”, who else was involved to get a reduction in their own sentence at court.’
‘Well, if you want to get on in the Flying Squad you’ll be expected to cultivate informants. A lot of the lads on the squad have them and their information has led to pavement arrests during the commission of armed robberies.’
‘How’s the team feel about the Operation Countryman investigation?’
Jane knew some Flying Squad officers had been arrested in the investigation into police corruption in London.
‘Thankfully no one at Rigg has been arrested or interviewed on suspicion of corruption by the Sweedy—’
‘Did you say the Sweedy?’
‘Yeah, it’s what the squad guys call the officers on Countryman. They’re all from Hampshire and Dorset, which are rural forces, and the name “Sweedy” comes from the vegetable swede.’
Jane grinned. ‘I’ve heard county officers referred to as “carrot crunchers”, but never “Sweedy”.’
‘The latest I heard was the officer in charge of Countryman is alleging that the investigation is being wilfully obstructed by Commissioner McNee and the Director of Public Prosecutions. McNee wants all the Countryman evidence to be passed to the Met and dealt with by its own internal investigation unit, A10.’
‘I’ve been interviewed by the “rubber heelers” myself.’
She used a police term that had come about because you can’t hear the internal investigation officers coming due to the rubber heels on their shoes.
Dabs looked surprised. ‘Have you?’
‘Not for corruption, I hasten to add. One was a case when I was a probationer and the other more recent, when a dentist who murdered four people committed suicide. Thankfully I was only given some words of advice and a slap on the wrist in both cases.’
‘I remember reading about the murders in Peckham Rye about a year ago and the press kept using the headline “Murder Mile”. I couldn’t believe a Harley Street dentist was responsible.’
‘Believe me, neither could I, and the monster evaded a life sentence by killing himself.’
The tow truck for the police car arrived and Jane watched as Juliet 1 was slowly pulled out of the rubble by a winch cable. The elderly owner of the house stood watching with a solemn expression as more bits of the bay window gave way and fell on the front of the car. Once it was safely extracted, and a safe distance from the house, they cleared the debris from the car. Dabs pointed to a bullet hole in the bonnet. He tried to open it, but was unable due to the damage from the crash.
‘From the entry point it’s probably lodged in the air filter. Hopefully we’ll find it at the lab or in the house rubble when we sift through it.’
Part of the front windscreen, on the passenger side, was still intact but covered with fractures that looked like large spiders’ webs. Dabs pointed to a one-centimetre circular hole in the windscreen.
‘That’s a bullet hole as well.’
He got in the car to look for any bullets.
After a few minutes he came out holding the front passenger headrest and showed it to Jane. She saw some of the white headrest padding protruding from holes on either side of it. As Dabs got the car keys from the ignition, he said a bullet had penetrated the windscreen, then hit the right side of the radio operator’s head, before passing through the headrest and into the rear seat, and was probably somewhere in the boot.
‘Even though the bullet would have lost velocity when it passed through the windscreen, the officer was lucky it didn’t hit him straight in the forehead and kill him.’
He opened the boot of the car and looked inside. He had a big smile as he photographed the bullet, then picked it up and showed it to Jane.
‘That one’s in even better shape than the bullet we recovered under the car,’ she observed.
She took the bullet from him and put it in a plastic container and then an exhibits bag.
*
After speaking briefly to the bank manager, who couldn’t help much as he didn’t see the robbery, Kingston left the Colonel, Stanley and Bax to take the Securicor guards’ statements. He crossed over the High Road to the Crown public house to speak to the landlady, Fiona Simpson, who’d initially called the police. He knocked on the pub door and it was opened by a small, slim, buxom woman in her mid-forties, who had shoulder-length, black curly hair. She was dressed casually in a blue velour jumpsuit and slippers, and had an orange dusting cloth in her hand. He held up his warrant card.
‘I’m DI Kingston, from the Flying Squad. Is the landlady Mrs Simpson in?’ he asked, thinking she was the cleaner.
‘The name’s Fiona and you’re looking at her. You come about the robbery at the bank?’
‘Yes, I was told you were a witness. Can I come in and speak to you, please?’
She opened the door to let him in, then closed and bolted it shut.
‘Excuse my attire, Inspector, but I haven’t had time to shower, change and put on my make-up yet,’ she said as she went behind the bar. ‘You want something to drink or is that a silly question to ask a detective?’
‘You get a few “tecs” in here, then?’
He thought she looked attractive, even without make-up.
‘Yeah, CID from Leytonstone drink here, so do the uniform, but only when they’ve finished a shift, unlike the CID who like a pint at all hours.’
‘I’ll have a Scotch, thanks. Some publicans think having the police in damages their trade,’ he remarked.
She poured a large measure from the optic.
‘It also helps to keep the arseholes out. I’ve run the place on me own for three years since my husband died, and there have been a few occasions where officers have helped me out with drunk or obnoxious punters – and I’m grateful for that . . . Plus I don’t get done for serving afters.’
She smiled as she handed him his whisky.
‘Cheers.’
Kingston opened a blue folder he’d brought with him and took out some statement forms and a pen from his jacket pocket.
‘I was told you saw the face of the driver involved in the robbery.’
‘Yes, briefly when he got out of the car and then returned.’
‘I’ll need to take a detailed statement off you . . .’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Detective inspectors take statements now, do they?’
He grinned. ‘When it’s in a pub with a generous landlady, yes.’
‘You’ll need to be quick as I’ve got to get dressed and open up for eleven.’
‘I can make notes for now in my pocket notebook and take the statement later, if that’s easier for you.’
‘I can do it early morning before I open, or after three as we don’t reopen until six. I’m pretty busy with this place and don’t get much time for relaxing.’
‘Do you never take a day off?’
‘Rarely. The last person I had in to look after the pub while I was away had his fingers in the till, which has made me a bit wary of leaving bar staff in charge. Mind you, I could ask one of the girls to do an extra shift this evening and make the statement then – if you’re free . . .’
‘That would be helpful, thanks, but tomorrow would probably be easier as I’m not sure I’ll have time today. I’ll take your phone number and ring you later to let you know.’
She borrowed his pen and wrote ‘Fiona’ and the pub number on a beer mat, which he then put in his pocket.
‘I was told you first saw the Cortina in Aylmer Road. Can you tell me what time it was and exactly where it was parked?’
She pointed to the pub’s side entrance. ‘Opposite the door there, on the far side of the road. It was around 9.20 to 9.25.’
‘What drew your attention to the car.’
‘I was upstairs in the living room, ironing my dress and blouse for today, when I looked out of the window at the heavy rain and saw the car. Because I was looking down I could only see the nearside and two people in it – one in the front passenger seat and another person sitting behind him. There were fumes coming out of the exhaust, so I knew the engine was running, and the windscreen wipers were on. At first I thought they were maybe just waiting for someone.’
‘Can you describe any facial features of the first two men you saw?’
‘No, the door windows were covered in rain and misted up on the inside. They were wearing dark clothing and the man in the front must have been tall as I could see his shoulder pressed against the middle of the passenger door window. About ten minutes before the robbery the driver got out of the car and nearly hit Betty with the door as he opened it—’
‘Sorry, who’s Betty?’
‘She lives alone round the back of the pub at Dacre Road. She’s been a regular here for years and comes in most days at six on the dot, apart from Sundays. She has two bottles of Mackeson Stout then goes home for her tea.’
‘She’d have seen the driver’s face close up, then?’
‘Yes. She was upset and pointing her finger at him. I didn’t hear what she said, but knowing Betty she’d have called him a few choice names – that even I would be too embarrassed to repeat. What made me suspicious was the fact he ignored her, pulled his cap down and walked off up the road. That was when I phoned the police.’
‘Do you know Betty’s surname?’ Kingston asked, ready to write it down, as she’d be a crucial witness.
‘Do you have to speak to her? She’s just turned eighty and not been well lately – she’s very frail and her eyesight’s not so good. I doubt she’d even remember the incident.’
Kingston thought for a second. ‘I’ll leave her be for now, but I’ll still need her details.’
Fiona wrote Betty’s full name and address down on another beer mat and gave it to Kingston, who slipped it in his pocket.
‘Would you recognise the driver if you saw him again?’ he asked.
‘I think so . . .’
‘On a scale of one to ten, what’s a “think so”?’
‘Six, maybe seven . . . I got a slightly better look at him when he returned to the car, but most of the time his head was down, and the pouring rain didn’t help.’
‘If we make an arrest would you be willing to attend an identity parade?’
‘I’d be willing, but as I said I didn’t see his face clearly, so I’m not certain I could pick him out.’
He wondered if Fiona was scared after witnessing the robbery.
‘Do you think the driver saw you?’
‘No, he never looked up. I know what you’re thinking, Inspector, but believe me I’m not afraid of people like him. I got robbed at knifepoint by a spotty-faced kid who forced his way in here on a Friday night. I was on my own closing up and he forced me to open the till. He took his beady eyes off me while he was stuffing the night’s takings in his pocket – that’s when I hit the thieving little bastard as hard as I could over the head with a brandy bottle. He ran off, but the police saw him staggering up the High Road with blood pouring down his face. At first they thought he was drunk and had fallen over, but I’m pleased to say he got nicked and I got my money back.’
Kingston could hear the anger in her voice as she spoke about being the victim of violent crime, but he wanted to know more about the driver of the Cortina.
‘Can you tell me, in as much detail as possible, what the driver looked like?’ He held the pen to his pocket notebook.
‘About five feet eight to ten inches tall. He might have looked broader than he was because of the donkey jacket, so I’d say he was probably of medium build. He wore a grey cloth cap, with the peak pulled low over his forehead, but I could see he had a round face and ruddy complexion – like some of the heavy drinkers I get in here. I couldn’t see much of his hair because of the cap, but the sides were black, and his sideburns came down to just below his earlobes.’
‘What about his age?’
‘Hard to say, really, but maybe late thirties to mid-forties.’
‘What about his eyes and nose?’
‘I never saw his eyes, but his nose looked a bit bulbous and red, again like a heavy drinker’s.’
‘Would you help a police artist create an impression of the driver?’
‘Yes, but I can’t leave the pub for long—’
‘It’s OK, I’ll get the artist to come here. It should only take about an hour, if that, and I’ll make sure it’s after three while you’re closed. Can you talk me through the robbery from the moment the three men got out of the car?’
She said the three men who got out from the car and did the robbery wore black balaclavas, except the big man in the front, who had a stocking mask on. The man who was sitting in the rear nearside passenger seat led the other two at a steady pace across the street in an ‘A’ formation. Kingston asked if she could give an estimate of their heights and any weapons they were carrying now they were out of the car. She thought about it and said the man in the front of the car was about six feet to six feet two inches tall and carrying a gun in his right hand. She thought the man next to him and the leader were both about five feet ten inches, and the one behind the leader had a sawn-off shotgun, which he held with both hands on his right side.
‘The man leading them – was he armed?’
‘Not that I noticed. The only thing I saw him carrying was the cash box from the Securicor van as they left.’ She continued and said that while the tall man and the leader were at the back of the van, the man with the shotgun was at the front, pointing it at the driver. ‘A young man suddenly ran across the road and tried to get the shotgun off him, but got knocked to the ground. He was on his back and I could hear him beg for his life, then there was a loud bang and he screamed in agony as he thrashed around on the pavement and clutched his stomach. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen – he was defenceless, there was no need to shoot him. The next thing I saw was the Cortina outside the bank and the three men jump in it with the cash box. I ran downstairs to go and help the man who’d been shot, but when I opened the pub door I could see the two Securicor guards and the bank manager helping him, so I stayed here.’
‘The young man who got shot was an off-duty police officer.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Thankfully no. He’s got cuts and bruises over his chest and stomach, which are no doubt painful. In some ways it’s his lucky day as the shotgun cartridge was loaded with rice – lead pellets would have killed him at that range. The next person who crosses their path might not be so lucky,’ he said intentionally.
He wanted to gauge Fiona’s reaction and see if, after recounting the terrible event, she’d still be willing to assist the investigation.
‘Then let’s hope you catch the bastards and I can identify the driver before anyone else gets hurt. You want another Scotch?’
‘No thanks.’ He finished his whisky and handed her the empty glass. ‘I’d appreciate it if you kept what you’ve told me to yourself – the less people that know, the better it is for us, apart from the team, that is.’
She touched the side of her nose and smiled.
‘Mum’s the word and Fiona’s my name, DI Kingston.’
‘For future reference, Fiona . . . mine’s Stewart.’
He admired her feisty spirit; she was strong-willed and confident, yet courageous and considerate of others. He wondered if she had always been that way, or if being a widow and a pub landlady had moulded her outlook on life. Although it seemed the bank robbers hadn’t seen her watching them, he was concerned about her safety if they ever found out she could possibly identify one of them. He thought about warning her, but knew she was the kind of woman who would quickly dismiss his concerns.