Shoot to Kill (3 page)

Sitting at the table, Commissaire de Police Jean-Pierre Grumbach sipped his espresso and gave her a rueful shrug. ‘Another happy member of the public goes about her business.’

Roche felt like screaming. She was more than ten hours into a fourteen-hour shift, and for almost all of that time she had been babysitting the Frenchman and his colleague, Lieutenant Ginette Vincendeau, along with their prisoner, a sallow youth called Alain Costello. ‘In France,’ she replied stiffly, ‘I suppose the police are universally loved?’

‘No, no.’ Shaking his head, Grumbach sat back in his metal chair. He was a tall, elegant man, with a thick head of grey hair and laughter lines around his eyes, which looked good on his tanned face. In a black, single-breasted Christian Dior suit and a crisp white shirt, open at the neck, he looked less like a policeman than some kind of high-end businessman. Irritatingly, he had been hitting on her all day. Roche might have been more receptive to his flirting if it wasn’t for the fact that it was so shameless – that, and the fact that they were still on the clock. ‘There it is just the same. They need us, but they hate us. Or, at least, they want us kept out of sight, along with the bad guys.’

‘It’s true,’ Vincendeau nodded. Slumped over a cappuccino, she sat opposite Grumbach; a short, dark woman, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her SIG Pro SP2009 was clearly visible, peeking out from a shoulder-holster under her leather jacket. ‘But people in England are still not so used to seeing cops with guns.’

‘They should be by now,’ Roche shrugged. ‘We’re at airports, stations, even shopping centres. SO15 patrol the streets every day.’

‘That’s one thing I didn’t understand,’ Vincendeau said, gesturing at her prisoner. ‘Why did the Counter Terrorism Command Unit grab this one?’

‘The whole thing was a big mistake,’ Grumbach said, reaching
across the table and gently punching Alain Costello on the shoulder. ‘They picked him up by accident. Funny, huh?’

Costello grunted but didn’t look up from the game – which Roche recognized as
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
– that he was playing on his PSP console. In handcuffs.

Roche felt embarrassment mingle with her frustration. It was true that the whole thing had been a bit of a cock-up. If SO15 hadn’t mistaken Costello for a suspected North African terrorist by the name of Mehdi Zerdab, Roche would have had nothing to do with him. As it turned out, he was only a low-level drug dealer, albeit high on the wanted list of the Préfecture de Police. To be fair, it was a relatively easy mistake to have made. The distinction between drug smugglers and terrorists was becoming more blurred all the time. In the last month alone, SO15 had seized seven machine guns and more than a dozen automatic pistols from terror suspects with well-documented connections to the illegal drugs industry. It was a symbiotic relationship that both sides were increasingly happy to exploit: the terrorist groups gained cash and the traffickers, protection. Smugglers carrying cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin were known to transport weapons on behalf of their business partners.

Forty-eight hours earlier, following a tip-off, SO15 had picked Costello up in a raid on a Brixton flat. The place was supposed to be home to a terrorist cell. Instead of the anticipated haul of Jihadi propaganda and homemade explosives, however, the police found twelve kilos of cocaine, twenty thousand Euros in cash – and Costello. The little runt had been caught trying to flee through a bedroom window, having stopped to rescue his games console on the way.

They removed him to Stockwell Road police station for processing. Deprived of his games console, Costello refused to say a word, declining even to ask for a lawyer. However, once his fingerprints had been fed into the Interpol database, the authorities found more than enough information to be going on with. Given there were three warrants out for his arrest in France (one for attempted murder), plus two in Belgium and one in Holland, there was clearly going to be a queue of people waiting to take him off SO15’s hands.

Less than two hours later, Grumbach and Vincendeau had been dispatched from Paris to take him home to the cell waiting for him in the Maison d’Arrêt de la Santé in the 14th
arrondissement
.

‘Why do you let him play that?’ Roche asked, keen to change the subject.

‘Keeps him quiet,’ Vincendeau sighed. ‘Just like taking your kid on a trip.’

Bored with the conversation, Roche watched Sidney and his mother return to their place in the queue for the next train to Paris. She glanced up at the departures board above their heads. It told her that Eurostar 9042 to Gare du Nord should be boarding in about twenty minutes. Departure: 16.52. Surely it was time to be making a move.

Grumbach followed Roche’s gaze. ‘Don’t worry,’ he smiled, placing a hand on her forearm. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

‘She’s right,’ said Vincendeau gruffly. ‘
Allez!
Let’s get going.’ Getting to her feet, she scanned the lines of passengers waiting to go through passport control and scowled. ‘We should never have come this way anyway. All this “hiding in plain sight” business of yours, Jean-Pierre.’ She shot Roche a knowing look and raised her eyebrows.

‘We’re not hiding,’ Grumbach objected, gesturing at his demitasse. ‘I just wanted to have a decent cup of coffee before we get on the damn train.’

When Carlyle finally got home, Helen was in the bath, the remnants of a Big Blue seaweed ball from Lush fizzing about in the water. Giving her a kiss on the forehead, he quickly pulled off his clothes and joined her in the warm, salty water. Splashing his face, he leaned back against the taps and smiled.

Looking at her, his mind flashed back to their recent health scare. Helen had been identified as a possible carrier of a faulty gene called BRCA2, which meant an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. For several weeks, their lives had been turned upside down. Then the test came back negative and the whole thing disappeared in an instant.
How different would life have been, if the result had been positive?
He quickly shook the thought from his brain. They’d had a lucky break; it was pointless to brood on it. Life had almost instantly returned to normal, and now, it was as if the whole drama had never happened.

He shifted in the water, trying to get comfortable.

‘Hey, if you’re going to annoy me, you can get right back out again.’

‘You didn’t get my message then?’ Carlyle asked, changing the subject.

‘No. Why?’

‘Bomb scare.’ Remembering that Alice was out for the night, he felt a tiny tingle of anticipation. ‘Harry downstairs thought that Osama bin Laden was trying to take him out. He really is beginning to lose his marbles.’

Helen’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

Carlyle explained what had happened. ‘Literally, the Bomb Disposal guys ran all the way up to the tenth floor to find Harry holding a box of Jim Reeves CDs and a biography of Harold Macmillan. They were
not
best pleased.’

‘I bet they weren’t,’ Helen laughed, carefully getting to her feet.

He watched the water drip off her buttocks. ‘They wanted to arrest him for wasting police time.’

‘That seems a bit much,’ she said, wrapping a towel tightly around her waist.

‘I made them see sense in the end.’

‘Well done.’ Helen stepped out of the bath and reached for a second towel, draping it over her shoulders. ‘Seeing as we have some time to ourselves, I thought we might go and see a film tonight – unless you have other ideas?’

Carlyle just grinned.

She blushed slightly. ‘John!’

‘A film would be great,’ he said, pulling out the plug.

‘Come on then. There’s something on at the Renoir that I thought we could go and see. It starts in forty-five minutes. Maybe get a bite to eat afterwards.’

‘Sounds good.’ Standing up, he made a grab for her towel. ‘That gives us plenty of time for what I had in mind.’

Watching the two French officers head slowly towards the first-class barrier with their prisoner, Roche tried to shake the stiffness out of her legs, gaining only momentary relief. Sniffing her shirt, she caught a whiff of the accumulated body odour and let out a little groan. When she got home she was going to have a long, hot bath and a glass or three of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Then she might put on one of the anti-stress DVDs that everyone in SO15 had been given by the Met’s Chief Medical Officer.

Closing her eyes for a nanosecond she pictured herself in the perfumed water. It was a reverie that was over before it had begun. First came the sound of gunfire, rapid and precise: one, two, three. It sounded like a handgun of some description.

Roche opened her eyes and tried to focus.

Then the screaming started.

People were fleeing in all directions, the panic so loud that she almost couldn’t make out the next shots: four, five, six.

The radio clipped to the breast pocket of her jacket exploded with the chatter of competing voices.

A woman with an outsized paper cup walked straight into her, sending a caramel latte all down the front of Roche’s uniform. Without saying anything, Roche pushed her out of the way. Raising the MP5 to her shoulder, she began walking steadily towards the gunfire.

Breathe. Just breathe. Fucking breathe!
Roche shook her head angrily.

‘Stop talking to yourself,’ she hissed. Her heart felt as if it were about to jackhammer out of her sodden shirt.

‘
Find a target
.’

Amidst the chaos, she could see that Vincendeau was down, blood already spreading across the floor from behind her head, her weapon still in its holster. Standing in the mess, apparently oblivious to the chaos, Costello was still hunched over his PSP. Looking five yards past him, she could see the shooters. Leaning in to her weapon, she barked into her radio: ‘I have two . . . three targets.’

There was a crackle of static, but no reply.

‘I have . . .’
Fuck it – move!

Two males, dressed in combat pants, sneakers and hooded sweat-tops with no obvious branding. Both were wearing the kind of rubber masks you get in joke shops. As Roche tried to work out who they were supposed to be, another volley of fire into the ceiling brought more screams. Knots of people were cowering on the concourse while others dashed for the exit. Over the PA system came a strangely seductive female voice:
Can Mr Black please report to the station manager’s office? Mr Black to the station manager’s office. Thank you
.

The code for a Level One Emergency Incident.

Roche felt the acidic taste of vomit rising in her throat and
swallowed hard. Where the hell was Grumbach? She answered her own question almost immediately as a clump of passengers scattered and she almost tripped over the Commissaire. He was sitting on his backside as if he needed a rest from all the excitement. The look on his face was completely blank. The round that had gone right between his eyes suggested it wouldn’t be changing any time soon.

Roche regained her footing. ‘Fuck! We have two officers down!’ she shouted into the radio.

There were lots of voices but no one was talking to her.

She felt the sweat rolling down the side of her face. The gunmen were already making their escape through the glass exit doors. It was too late to get a shot off. Costello, however, was barely five yards in front of her. ‘Stop.’ It was less of an order than a croak. Coughing up as much spit as her parched throat would allow, she tried again.

‘Stop! Police!’

Still focused on his game, Costello turned and gave her a mocking smile. Then he began walking away.

Where the fucking hell was everybody? Roche wondered. In the distance, she could hear sirens. ‘STOP!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘POLICE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR OR I WILL SHOOT.’

Costello broke into a casual jog.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ At this distance, a two-second burst from the MP5 would cut him in half. Suspect shot in the back while trying to escape; she could hear all the jokes already. And what if she were to hit an innocent bystander? Fuck it. A corrosive hatred for the bastards who were making her do this welled up inside her. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger.

Nothing.

Oh sweet fucking Jesus!

Roche’s brain felt like it was going into meltdown.
The safety. The fucking safety
. With trembling fingers, she flicked it off and took aim again. But this time, Costello was gone.

Standing on the steps of the Brunswick Centre, a Grade II listed modernist brutalist residential-cum-shopping centre in Bloomsbury, Carlyle looked in the direction of St Pancras station, which lay a couple of blocks to the north. A police car flashed past on Hunter Street, quickly followed by an ambulance, then another. Sirens seemed to be converging from all directions. Helen appeared at his shoulder and slipped her arm though his. She followed his gaze. ‘Something up?’

‘Looks like it.’ Carlyle felt a familiar frisson of excitement rush through him. Another police Range Rover raced through a zebra crossing, almost taking out a woman pushing a buggy. ‘Something is most definitely up.’ Feeling her stiffen at the prospect of him bolting and leaving her to watch the film on her own, he kissed her gently on the lips. ‘But it’s not my problem.’ His mobile began vibrating in the breast pocket of his jacket.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Quite sure,’ he said, pulling out the phone and carefully switching it off.

Roche watched Chief Inspector Cass Wadham, her boss at SO15, step gingerly past the covered body of Ginette Vincendeau and head in her direction. ‘So now they’re all here,’ the sergeant mumbled under her breath. ‘The bloody cavalry – at last!’ Before giving up, she had counted almost fifty officers in the otherwise almost deserted station. With the forensics guys, medics, firemen and others working
on the scene, the number was well over a hundred. Outside, she was vaguely aware of frantic noise and activity. The inevitable television crews had started to arrive and a set of floodlights had been switched on, illuminating the vast hall in a grainy, pearlescent light, further adding to the unreality of the scene.