someone had placed a block of ice against his back. He felt his skin pucker into goose-pimples.
Bill switched on the light and turned.
He suddenly wished he hadn’t.
The night was alive with the sound of sirens as dozens of accident and emergency vehicles raced towards the blazing inferno which was King’s Cross.
For miles around flames could still be seen leaping through the fractured roof, turning the clouds orange. A dense pall of smoke hung over the ruins raining cinders down on all those nearby.
Inside Albany Street Police station Sergeant Tony Dean was hurriedly, but efficiently, answering phone calls and barking instructions into the two-way radio on his desk. The tall sergeant was sweating profusely due to his
exertions.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Inspector Barton.
‘I’ve called in the blokes who were off duty tonight,’ Dean told him. ‘And we’ve got every available man at the scene.’
‘Don’t spread us too thin, Tony,’ Barton reminded him. ‘With so many coppers in one place, the villains could have a field day.’
‘Scotland Yard have been on the blower, they’ve sent an Anti-Terrorist squad to the station to check it out.’
‘It must have been a bloody big bomb then,’ said Barton, sceptically, remembering the devastating explosion. He looked warily at the sergeant. ‘Have there been any more reports in like the ones we had earlier? You know, the murders.’
Dean nodded.
‘Another six since nine o’clock,’ he said. T checked with a couple of other stations as well. It’s happening all over the city, guv.’
Barton didn’t answer, he merely looked towards the door which hid Kelly and Joubert from his view. He decided he’d better check on them. As he turned he heard Dean’s voice, loud in his ear:
‘You took your bleeding time, didn’t you?’
The Inspector saw PC Roy Fenner hurrying through the door towards the desk where he stood.
‘Sorry, Sarge, I got held up, there was loads of traffic,’ he babbled.
‘Evening, Inspector,’ he added.
‘Get your uniform on and get back out here,’ Dean told him.
‘What’s been going on anyway?’ Fenner wanted to know. ‘I’ve been watching telly all night. First this bloke got shot. In full view of the camera, I thought it was a gimmick but …’
‘Move yourself,’ bellowed Dean and the PC disappeared into the locker room to change.
Barton stroked his chin thoughtfully, a flicker of uncertainty passing across his eyes.
‘Something wrong, guv?’ the sergeant asked him.
He shook his head slowly.
‘No,’ he murmured then passed through the door which led him to Kelly and Joubert.
Dean snatched up the phone as it rang again and jammed it between his shoulder and ear as he scribbled down the information.
‘Christ,’ he muttered, as he wrote. ‘What was that again? Some bloke’s killed his wife by pressing a red hot iron into her face. Yes, I got it. Where was this?’ He scrawled down the location. ‘Gloucester Place. Right. Have you called an ambulance? OK.’ He hung up. Dean stared down at what he’d written and shook his head, then he turned towards the door of the locker room.
“What are you doing, Fenner? Making the bloody uniform?’
The door remained closed.
‘Fenner.’
There was still no answer.
Dean opened the door and poked his head in.
‘For Christ’s sake, what …’
His sentence was cut short as Fenner leapt forward, bringing his hard-wood truncheon up with bone-crushing force.
The impact lifted the sergeant off his feet and the strudent sound of breaking bone filled his ears as he heard his lower jaw snap. White hot agony lanced through him and he felt consciousness slipping away from him. But, through a haze of pain, he saw the constable advancing. Dean tried to speak but as he did, blood from his smashed jaw ran down his face and neck and the sound came out as a throaty croak. He could see Fenner looking at him, but the constable’s eyes did not seem to register his presence. He looked drunk.
Dean managed to scramble to his feet as Fenner brought the truncheon down again.
The sergeant succeeded in bringing his arm up and the solid truncheon cracked
against his forearm but he managed to drive one fist into Fenner’s face, knocking him backward. He fell with a crash, the truncheon still gripped in his fist.
All three of them heard the sounds from beyond the door but Kelly was the first to speak.
‘What’s happening out there?’ she asked.
Barton hesitated a moment, looking first at Kelly, then at Joubert. They stood motionless for a moment then there was another loud crash, like breaking wood.
Barton turned and scuttled through the door.
‘We have to get out of here,’ said Kelly.
‘But how?’ Joubert wanted to know.
‘There has to be a way. We must find Blake’s body and destroy it.’ She was already moving towards the door which she found, to her relief, was unlocked.
‘No,’ said Joubert, stepping ahead of her. ‘Let me go first.’ He pulled the door open and both of them saw that a narrow corridor separated them from another, glass panelled door about twenty feet further away. Through the bevelled partition they could see the dark outlines of moving figures. Shouts and curses came from the room beyond and Kelly swallowed hard as they drew closer.
They could have been only a yard away when they heard a demonic shout.
A dark shape hurtled towards the glass-panelled door.
Inspector Barton crashed through the thick glass, his upper body slumping over the door which swung under the impact. Shards of glass flew towards Kelly and Joubert, one of them slicing open the Frenchman’s left ear; he clapped a hand to the bleeding appendage, using his body to shield Kelly from the worst of the flying crystal. Barton lay across the broken shards, one particularly long piece having pierced his chest. The point had burst from his back and now held him there, blood running down it.
Joubert pulled the door open a fraction more, edging through.
Kelly followed.
She was almost through when she felt a bloodied hand close around her wrist.
Joubert spun round as she screamed and he saw that the dying Barton had grabbed her as she passed. Impaled on the broken glass, the policeman raised his head as if soliciting help. Crimson liquid spilled over his lips and he tried to lift himself off the jagged points but, with one final despairing moan, he fell forward again.
Kelly shook free of his hand and followed Joubert through the door.
Albany Street Police station resembled a bomb-site.
Filing cabinets had been overturned, their contents spilled across the floor.
Furniture was smashed and lay in pieces everywhere. The windows were broken.
Kelly saw blood splashed across the floor and on the far wail.
Close by lay the body of Sergeant Dean, his face pulped by repeated blows from the truncheon. A foot or so from him, the leg of a chair broken across his head, lay PC Fenner.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ said Joubert and the two of them bolted.
They dashed out into the rainy night, pausing momentarily to gaze at the mushroom cloud of dark smoke and orange flame which still ballooned upward from the blazing wreckage of King’s Cross. Then, Joubert pulled her arm, leading her towards his car.
They scrambled in and he started the engine.
