He glanced over his shoulder and gave Grier a satisfied smirk. “I think that trumps whatever else is going on,” he said triumphantly
The operator at the Yard was having none of it. “Change to Channel Five,” he insisted, and then added, “Any armed units able to assist Metro Sierra Nine-Three please also change to Channel Five.”
◆◆◆
Kelly felt a little bit like a lovestruck schoolgirl. During the meal, she’d been unable to resist sneaking occasional furtive glances across the table, and every time her eyes had settled on Tyler, another tingle of excitement had washed over her. She could honestly say that she’d never felt this way about anyone before, and she desperately wanted to ask him if he felt the same, but after Dillon had told her about his messy divorce and how it had left him so relationship averse, she knew she couldn’t, in case it scared him off.
Before she’d met Jack, Kelly had sworn never to become romantically involved with another cop. In fact, she’d once told her sister that she’d rather die a spinster than marry a policeman. Mary had struggled to understand her attitude, but then, unlike Kelly, she had no idea just how disastrous relationships between cops could be. They were great when they worked, but more often than not they ended in tears, and when that happened working relationships were invariably compromised, and everyone around the former lovebirds suffered from the inevitable toxicity of the fallout.
The saying: don’t shit on your own doorstep or you’ll have to live with the smell might be a little crude, but it was certainly apt when it came to Job-related romances.
And yet, despite her well-known antipathy towards police relationships, Jack Tyler had won her heart without even trying, and she now ached to tell him that she loved him, but she knew she would have to be patient and wait until she was sure he was ready to hear the L-word.
As if by magic, their attentive waiter appeared the moment they finished eating. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked, smiling at each of them in turn. “Some coffee, perhaps?”
“Just the bill, please,” Jack said, checking his watch. It was getting on for one-forty, and they needed to make a move.
◆◆◆
The crew of Barking’s area car, Kilo-Four, found Myers slumped in the cockpit of his aircraft. There were two bullet holes in the plexiglass windscreen. The front of his face, they saw as they opened the door, was covered in blood. Miraculously, when they examined him closer, they found that he was still breathing. Other units were scouring the vicinity for the three suspects, but they seemed to have vanished into thin air.
“Look at his helmet!” one of the officers exclaimed in surprise. As they gently eased Myers out of his seat, they saw the blackened gouge that furrowed the side of his helmet in a diagonal line, from his right temple to the base of his skull.
“Shit! I think he’s been shot!” the older of the two officers proclaimed, reaching for his radio to summon medical assistance.
◆◆◆
Thankfully, it had stopped raining by the time they emerged from the restaurant, although the temperature seemed to have dropped even lower and the wind was picking up. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had snow by the end of the week,” Jack said, staring up at the dull afternoon sky.
“I hope not,” Kelly said, pulling her collar up and shivering with cold.
Tyler was tempted to wrap his arms around her and give her a crushing embrace to warm her up, but he couldn’t take the risk of someone they knew spotting them behaving intimately. If it became common knowledge that they were seeing each other, Holland would probably insist that Kelly be moved to another team. That would mean them working different rotas, and it would lead to them seeing far less of each other than they did now. It would also cost him one of his best officers.
◆◆◆
With the hijacked HEMS helicopter now secure on the ground, and the pilot no longer in imminent danger, Murray had been instructed to switch back to Channel One.
Upon doing so, the channel operator informed them that India 99 was diverting to assist them, leaving the ongoing search for Winston and his two cronies to the numerous ground units that had flooded the area.
Seemingly oblivious to the fact that an unmarked police car was sitting on its tail, the stolen cab was happily chugging its way along East India Dock Road at a steady thirty-mile-per-hour. It was still heading towards the A12 and the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach.
Less than a mile behind, three Trojan units were racing through afternoon traffic in an attempt to catch it up.
Inside the battered Astra, Murray continued to provide a detailed radio commentary.
The game plan was to try and stop the LOS before it reached the turn off for the BTNA, which wasn’t far that away.
East India Dock Road had widened to two lanes in each direction, with a set of metal railings separating the two streams of traffic. They were coming up to another busy intersection, and beyond that, on their left, was the slip road for the northbound A12, which led to Bow and Hackney.
“If they’re going to intercept him before he reaches the BTNA, they’re going to have to put a bit of a spurt on,” a worried-looking Grier said, staring out of the rear window to see if there was any sign of the Armed Response Vehicles.
Murray squeezed the PTT. “MP, we’re still eastbound in East India Dock Road, just coming up to red ATS at the junction with Cotton Street.” ATS – Automatic Traffic Signals – were police speak for traffic lights. “The bandit’s in lane one
