“So we just do as I say.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s taking a long time.”
“She’s a woman,” said Banks.
Jaff actually laughed. It was a slightly mad laugh, and one or two passersby glanced curiously at him. Luckily, Tracy came out immediately after the comment, and Jaff gave her instructions to wait exactly where she was while he and Banks went. When they came out, she was still there, rooted to the spot.
“So far, so good,” said Jaff. “Let’s get something to eat.”
They went upstairs to the takeaway section and bought coffee and sandwiches, which Jaff directed Banks to carry, no doubt so he could keep a firm grip on his gun. The food was in a bag, which would make it more difficult for Banks to remove the top from the coffee unseen and toss it in Jaff’s face. But it was a long walk back to the car. Banks had had no time to talk to Tracy alone, to make her aware of what he might try. He had to depend on her survival instinct and her quick grasp of the changing situation. She would have to follow his lead.
Slowly they walked back, Banks slightly ahead, as he had been told, Jaff with his hand in his hold-all, Tracy beside him. Banks didn’t like walking blind to his adversary’s exact position and movements, but he thought he could shield the bag slightly with his body as he reached inside with his free hand and felt for the top of the coffee container. He knew that some of it might splatter on Tracy if Jaff was sticking close to her, but that couldn’t be helped. He would try to be as accurate as possible given the circumstances.
They made their way through the parked cars, sometimes having to walk in single file through a narrow space, getting closer and closer. Banks got the top off, and the hot black coffee scalded his fingers. He grimaced in pain but managed to avoid shouting out. He must have stumbled a little, though, because Jaff told him to turn around. There weren’t any people nearby, though Banks could hear the cars whizzing by on the M1 and wondered if that was the last sound he would hear.
He turned, the coffee cup in his hand, spillage burning the stretched webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Jaff had the gun out of his hold-all now, and he was pointing it at Tracy’s head. As Banks let go of the coffee and let the whole bag of food fall to the ground, a woman shepherding her two kids back to a car about four rows away screamed. Jaff turned to face the direction of the sound, but she had already dragged her children down behind their parked car.
Jaff turned back to Banks and pointed the gun toward him, his arm around Tracy’s neck. There were more screams, the sound of people running, car doors slamming, engines starting. Jaff’s face contorted in anger and confusion. He was losing it, Banks thought; he was going to shoot.
As Banks steeled himself to take the bullet, the upper right quadrant of Jaff’s head disappeared in a reddish- gray mist. The gun clattered to the tarmac. Jaff shuddered like a marionette out of control, spread his arms wide and lost his grip. Tracy threw herself forward into Banks’s arms. Banks dropped to his knees and held her close to his chest, shielding her from the sight behind her. He felt her arms around him, clinging on tightly for dear life, her face buried in his shoulder, her little voice crying daddy, daddy, daddy how sorry she was through her tears.
17
THERE WASN’T ONE SMILING FACE AMONG THE SIX people sitting around the polished oval table in the boardroom, under the equally unsmiling portraits of Yorkshire wool barons in their tight waistcoats, with their roast beef complexions and whiskery jowls. Banks was beyond tiredness now. He didn’t even know what time or day it was, except that it wasn’t dark. But it was getting there. It had been a long, long day since the incident that morning at the motorway services. Tracy was out at Banks’s temporary accommodation, sleeping under a mild sedative administered by the police surgeon-at least he hoped she was-with Winsome watching over her. But there was dirty business to be done behind closed doors at the Western Area Headquarters. At one time, Banks would probably have been worried about the outcome, but now he didn’t care what happened. He just wanted it to be over so he could get on with putting his and Tracy’s lives back together.
“What the hell did you think you were doing, Officer Powell?” asked Mike Trethowan, Firearms Cadre superintendent, and Nerys’s immediate boss.
“Using my initiative, sir,” said Nerys Powell. She had changed from the tracksuit bottoms and hoodie top into jeans and a crisp white blouse and black wind cheater, and she was managing to put a brave face on things so far, Banks thought. She looked scared, but she had been unshakable in her conviction that she had done the right thing. If she had to go down, she might try to take a few of the enemy with her.
Chambers gave a “God save us all from initiative” sigh. “All right,” he said, “why don’t you just start from the beginning?”
Nerys glanced at Banks, who tried to keep a neutral expression on his face. “I overheard DCI Banks taking a call on his mobile, sir,” she said. “When he was out in the corridor. I was in one of the empty offices opposite, just hanging around and waiting.” She gave Chambers a dirty look. “There’s been a lot of pointless hanging around with this investigation going on. You never know when they’re going to call you back in to go over some minor detail again. They never tell you anything. Anyway, I couldn’t hear what the person at the other end was saying, but DCI Banks mentioned his daughter’s name and repeated the name of a school in Harehills, and he seemed nervous and furtive. DCI Banks, I mean, sir. He seemed upset, and at one time he threatened the caller. I knew that his daughter was missing, and that the man suspected of abducting her was armed.”
“Did you know the location of this school? Did it mean anything to you?”
“No. But I grew up in Leeds. I know where Harehills is.”
“Yes, yes, we know where you grew up,” said Chambers. “Go on.”
“DCI Banks left hurriedly, and I suspected he might have made some…er…private arrangements to help his daughter. Not that I’m blaming you, sir,” she said to Banks.
“I’m relieved,” said Banks dryly.
Nerys narrowed her eyes at him, as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether he was acting as a friend or enemy. Banks wasn’t too sure himself. He needed to listen to all this, Nerys’s side especially, before he planted his feet down firmly anywhere. “Anyway,” she went on, “as I said, I knew that Jaffar McCready was armed and DCI Banks wasn’t. I also knew that DCI Banks wouldn’t call in the FSU because of his daughter, that he’d want to try and settle this himself, somehow try to take advantage of the situation, overpower McCready, if possible. I thought it involved an incredible risk, sir, so I…well…”
“You decided to ride shotgun,” said Trethowan.
Nerys glanced from Chambers to her boss. “I suppose so, sir.”
“What do you mean, you suppose so? How else would you describe what you did?”
“Well, sir, I was following my gut instinct, taking an initiative. Here was an unarmed man, a fellow police officer, going up against someone we already knew had no qualms about pulling the trigger on a cop.”
“This wasn’t anything to do with revenge for what happened to DI Cabbot, was it, Officer Powell?” Trethowan asked sternly.
Nerys blushed deep red. “I resent that, sir.”
“Whether you resent it or not isn’t the issue. Was DI Cabbot on your mind at all when you went chasing after DCI Banks?”
“I won’t say I didn’t think of what McCready did to her. But you’ve got no-”
“If your sexual feelings for Annie Cabbot clouded your judgment,” said Chambers, with obvious relish at the image, and a hard glint in his piggy eyes, “then we have every right to question your actions and motives. You had a crush on her, didn’t you?”
“Ladies, gentlemen,” said ACC McLaughlin, holding up his hand, “this line of attacking Officer Powell on the basis of her sexual preference will get us precisely nowhere in our unofficial adjudications, and nor should it. Whether the officer in question had feelings for DI Cabbot or not isn’t the issue here, nor is the nature of those feelings. The issue is what she did and what we’re going to do about it. Carry on, PC Powell.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Nerys. Sufficiently chastised for the moment, Trethowan and Chambers slumped into a sullen silence as she took a sip of water and went on. “I followed DCI Banks to Harehills, and there I observed his daughter Tracy and Jaffar McCready get into the back of his car. It seemed as if McCready was clutching a gun in a hold-all he was carrying.”
“But you couldn’t actually see the firearm?” asked Trethowan.
