Holland grunted, clearly unimpressed. Dillon knew he expected his senior officers to be contactable at all times. “It might just be that there’s no signal where they’re getting lunch,” Dillon said lamely.
If Holland had heard him, he gave no indication. “How the hell did this happen, Dillon, tell me that? Three officers overpowered. A good man dead. What a bloody waste.” Holland found himself becoming angrier as he spoke. “I’ve called DCI Quinlan’s team out to take point on this. They dealt with the original investigation last year after you and Jack arrested Winston, and they’re due to go in the frame in a couple of days anyway, so it makes perfect sense.”
Dillon bristled at that. “Hold on a minute, sir!” he protested angrily. Although he understood why it had been operationally necessary, it still rankled that Holland had made them hand the case over after they arrested Winston back in November, and he was desperate to retain this latest investigation.
Holland raised a finger in warning. “Don’t ‘hold on a minute’ me, DI Dillon.” There was an edge to his voice that told Dillon he was skating on thin ice. “I understand how you feel, but you can’t have this case.”
“With all due respect…”
Holland held up his hand, and there was a finality to the motion that cut Dillon off mid-sentence.
“Enough. Tony, write your statement up and hand it over to DCI Quinlan when he arrives. Got it?”
Dillon was positively seething. “Yes sir,” he said through teeth gritted so hard that it made his jaw ache. Somehow, he managed not to say anything he might later regret.
◆◆◆
The latest downpour was almost over. What had begun as torrential rainfall had fizzled out to an inconsequential drizzle, and for the first time all day, the clouds seemed to be clearing.
They had driven all the way along Commercial Road to the junction of Burdett Road without seeing any trace of the stolen Taxi, and Susie was on the verge of giving up and turning around when Terry Grier suddenly lunged forward from the rear seat and pointed.
“Look,” he said, excitedly, “isn’t that our LOS cab waiting at the lights?”
Sure enough, the stolen cab was sitting in the nearside lane directly ahead of them. Murray checked the registration number against the one that the IRV had broadcast a few minutes earlier just to be sure. The vehicle only had one occupant, a bald-headed black man.
“Is that the bloke you were chasing?” Murray asked Grier.
Grier nodded excitedly.” It certainly is,” he said. With hope resurgent, he reached for the door handle; maybe he would get to keep that one hundred per cent arrest record after all.
“Stay where you are,” Susie Sergeant snapped, her green eyes boring into him via the rear-view mirror. “He’s got a firearm, remember?”
Grier huffed like a disappointed child, but he obediently sagged back in his seat, his young face a mask of frustration.
“Don’t worry,” Susie said, recalling how enthusiastic she had still been as a probationer, “once the cavalry arrives, you can have the arrest.”
Susie suppressed a grin as Grier’s face lit up like a kid whose parents had just told him that they were taking him to an ice cream parlour and then onto his favourite toy shop.
At that moment a convoy of police vehicles came zooming through the junction, the various wail and yelp settings of their two-tones competing with each other to create a painful cacophony of sound. Susie counted them as they sped by: two area cars, two IRVs, a station van, and a TSG carrier.
“Something big must be going down somewhere,” Grier said, staring at the procession in awe.
Murray raised a contemptuous eyebrow. “Is it bigger than a murdered police officer?” He shook his head emphatically. “I don’t think so, and anyway, if it’s that important, why isn’t it coming out over the main-Set?”
Susie groaned. “The power button’s a bit temperamental on this old heap,” she said, glancing down at the unit in the dashboard. “Sometimes it turns itself off.”
Swearing at the inconvenience, Murray leaned forward and tapped the button but nothing happened. He tried again, this time holding it in with a skeletal finger. After several seconds, the speakers crackled and came back to life, and it rapidly became apparent that something big was, indeed, going down. Virtually every available unit in the area was converging on a remote section of wasteland where the hijacked HEMS air ambulance was believed to have put down.
In the distance, and off to their right, Susie spotted India 99 hovering high above the ground, and she guessed that it must be directly above the spot that everyone and their dog was currently breaking their necks to get to.
“What do we do?” Grier asked as the lights changed to green and the cab moved off, spewing out a giant cloud of diesel from its exhaust. “You can’t just interrupt –”
Although Murray genuinely liked Grier, his default setting was to react stroppily when anyone told him what he could or couldn’t do. “Can’t I?” he bristled. “Just watch me.”
Murray snatched the mic out of its cradle and pressed the PTT – press to talk – button. “MP, MP from Metro Sierra Nine-Three, active message.” He used the designated HAT Car call sign as their vehicle was a general-purpose pool car, and as such it didn’t have a unique call sign of its own.
The operator responded immediately, sounding as cool as a cucumber. “Metro Sierra Nine-Three please change to Channel Five as we already have an ongoing incident in progress…”
Channel Five was normally reserved for units needing to have car-to-car or car-to station conversations, but it was occasionally used as a live channel when there was already an incident running elsewhere.
Murray was defiant. “Negative, MP,” he said, shaking his head to emphasise the point as if the Information Room operator could see him. “We’re in Commercial Road heading towards the Blackwall Tunnel Northern
