“What’s all the panic?” asked Simms as the police car, its siren wailing, bulleted after the Honda in hot pursuit.
“It’s Stanley Eustace!” shouted Jordan. “Radio Control and tell them we need all the assistance they’ve got.”
The red dots of the Honda’s rear lights were increasing in size. They were gaining on him. Closer and closer. Soon they would be able to pass him, to swing in front and force him to stop.
The road took a sharp curve. The rear lights of the Honda suddenly disappeared. Around the bend at full speed, tyres screaming in agony.
No sign of the Honda. The road shot straight ahead. You could see for miles, but the Honda had vanished.
Simms twisted his head to look through the rear window. “Back there!” he yelled. Far behind them, getting smaller and smaller as they roared on, was the Honda. It crouched on the grass verge, lights off, driver’s door open. Jordan slammed on the brakes and the Sierra shuddered to a stop.
“Three units on their way to assist you, Charlie Alpha,” radioed Control. “You are reminded that the suspect is armed and dangerous.”
“What shall we do?” asked Simms, warily eyeing the grey car, which appeared to be abandoned.
“We don’t just sit here like bloody Charlies,” snapped Jordan, reversing back to the other car. They got out and cautiously approached. There was a rustling in the grass to one side of them, and before they could turn, a shotgun barrel was rammed into Jordan’s face.
“Don’t force me to do anything stupid,” said Stan Eustace, the gun shaking in his hand, his trigger finger twitching. He looked tired, frightened, and desperately dangerous. “Facedown on the grass.”
They flung themselves, facedown, on to the wet grass.
“Move and I’ll blast your heads off,” croaked Eustace.
They stared at wet grass. A rustling sound. Simms jerked up his head. A shot blasted out. He banged his face down, hugging the ground as tightly as he could.
The slam of a car door. A car driving off at speed. Silence. Simms carefully lifted his head to see Charlie Alpha disappearing into the distance. They leaped up and raced to the Honda, then stopped dead. The front tyre was flat and peppered with shotgun pellets.
“Shit!” said Jordan.
Faintly at first, from a long way off, came the sirens of approaching police cars. Jordan moved out to the centre of the road to flag them down.
Jack Frost ambled into the station about eight o’clock, hoping he might catch Mullett. The news of the arrest of the Denton rapist should have put the Divisional Commander in a sufficiently good mood to allow the inspector more men to help with the Ben Cornish investigation. No-one seemed able to whip up much enthusiasm over the death of a junkie dropout who was living on borrowed time anyway.
“He’s been in and gone out again,” Johnny Johnson told him. “He’s with Mr. Allen at the house.”
“What house?” asked Frost. “The house at Pooh Corner? The house that Jack built? The house of Ul repute?”
“I thought you knew,” said the sergeant, delighted he had someone to break the news to. “It’s Stanley Eustace. They’ve got him cornered in a house on Farley Street. Allen’s in his element police marksmen, the press, television cameras. Stanley’s broken into this house and is holding a family at gunpoint. It’s a hostage situation.”
Detective Inspector Allen was leaving nothing to chance. He opened up a detailed street map of the area and went over the various points one more time with Detective Sergeant Ingram. “Are all the adjoining houses empty? Has everyone been evacuated?”
“Most of them,” said Ingram.
“Most of them? I told you to shift all of them, Sergeant.”
“The family in number 25 refuse to leave, sir.”
Allen’s voice rose.” Refuse? Who said they had a choice? Get them out. I don’t care how, but get them out.”
Ingram delegated this task to a uniformed constable, then looked up as a police car, flanked by two police motorbikes, screeched up with the rifles and handguns from County HQ armoury.
“Right, Sergeant. Issue the guns,” ordered Allen. “And make sure our marksmen are positioned exactly where I indicated. And emphasize that they are not, repeat not, to fire a single round unless they have my explicit authorisation. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Inspector,” said Ingram. He handed out the Smith and Wesson specials to the five police marksmen, keeping a Ruger. 222 rifle for himself. Ammunition was carefully counted out, allocated, and signed for. He made sure they all knew their locations, repeated Allen’s instructions, then sent them out to take up position.
Ingram’s own position was in the top room of a house across the street. From this vantage point his telescopic sight could shrink the distance across the road and the garden and let him look directly into the top back room of number 57, where Eustace was holding his hostages.
Allen had arranged for the street lamps to be turned off and for batteries of spot lamps to be directed to the back of the hostage house. If Eustace looked out he would only be able to see the blinding glare and the darkness beyond. He checked with his radio that the marksmen were all in position and again reminded them they were only to fire on his express command.
He turned his head impatiently as a black van edged its way along the cleared side street. The uniformed man whose job it was to turn back traffic had waved the van on. Didn’t the fool have the sense to check with him first? The van pulled in to the kerb and an officious looking swine strode out. “Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” snapped Allen. “Who are you?”
“Detective Inspector Emms, Communications. What’s the situation?”
“The situation,” said Allen, ‘is that we have a police killer armed with a shotgun holding a woman and two children hostage in the top back room of that house over there. He’s threatening to kill them all if we don’t meet his demands — a Concorde to take him to Rio or some such rubbish.”
“Have you made contact with him?”
“Only through the loud hailer. He won’t let us get near.”
“You’ve got to make voice contact,” said Emms. “You’ve got to establish rapport.”
“You’re not teaching a bunch of bloody rookies,” snarled Allen. “I know what we ought to do. At the moment we can’t do it.”
Emms looked up to trace the direction of the overhead phone lines. “There’s a phone in the house. I can wire you into it. If he picks up the receiver, he’ll be directly through to you.”
“The phone is downstairs. Our man is upstairs. I can’t see him trotting down just to see who’s ringing him, but wire it in anyway.”
“Right,” said Emms, pleased to have the chance to show off his expertise. He disappeared into the back of his van.
Allen’s walkie-talkie paged him. “Reporter from the Denton Echo would like to talk to you, Inspector.” Allen’s first thought was to tell the man to go to hell, but, on reflection, it wouldn’t do him any harm to get his name in the papers. “Send him over,” he said.
The communications expert emerged from the van. In his hand he held a telephone on a long length of cable which trailed behind him. “It’s ringing,” he announced proudly, offering the handset to Allen.
“When I want you to ring him, I’ll bloody well tell you,” said Allen, snatching the phone. He listened. The ringing tone, on and on and on. He looked for someone to take the phone over. “You… Constable!”
PC Collier came forward. Allen pushed the phone at him. “Listen to this. It’s ringing in the house. I don’t suppose he’ll answer, but if he does, keep him talking and let me know immediately.”
A man in a duffle coat ran down the street toward him. “Mr. Allen? My name’s Lane chief reporter Denton Echo. What’s the story?”
“The man with the gun is Eustace, Stanley Eustace, but I don’t want his name published. There are other, more serious, charges pending.”
The reporter lifted his pencil from the page. “What charges?”
“Strictly off the record, Mr. Lane, the charge will be the murder of Police Constable David Shelby, but that is
