Dean turned to look at them over the top of his reading glasses. “The team’s been seconded to assist Mr Quinlan with the cop killer,” he explained gruffly. “Everyone else has gone over to his office for a briefing. Me and Wendy have been given a tonne of research to crack on with, but we can just as easily do that here as in there, and as it’s much quieter here, we decided that we might as well stay where we are.”
Jack nodded towards the radio, which was playing Tchaikovsky’s serenade for strings 1st movement. “Are you sure they haven’t all just fled the office to get away from that din?” he asked with a crooked grin.
Dean stiffened. “Can’t beat a bit of classical music, guv,” he insisted.
Not if you’re looking for something melancholy to listen to while you slit your wrists, Jack thought.
Just then, Wendy Blake, Jack’s other researcher, walked through the door carrying two mugs of steaming hot liquid. Her face brightened when she saw Tyler. “Hello, guv,” she greeted him warmly. “Didn’t know you were back. Do you want me to make you a hot drink?”
Jack shook his head. “Very kind of you to offer, Wendy, but I’d better not.”
He looked at Franklin, Jarvis, and Flowers in turn. “I think it’s probably best if we all drop our stuff off at our respective desks and then pop straight over to Andy Quinlan’s office to see if we can do anything to help out.”
◆◆◆
“So, I know you’ve already been through this separately with Andy Quinlan and George Holland,” Jack said, “but I want you to tell me what happened.”
He was sitting behind his desk, nursing a cup of coffee that Wendy had insisted on making him the moment he returned from Quinlan’s office. Dillon, Steve Bull, and George Copeland were sitting on the other side, facing him. Like Jack, they had also benefited from Wendy’s kind offer to make them a brew.
Dillon nodded. “Okay,” he said with a resigned sigh. “It all started when the hospital phoned to say that Winston was ready for collection. By the time we got there, the breakout was already in progress, and the three PCs guarding him had been overpowered: two drugged, one dead.” Dillon paused for a moment, and when he resumed speaking his eyes bored into Jack’s, imploring his friend to believe him. “There was nothing we could have done to save that officer. Nothing.”
“No one thinks otherwise,” Jack said.
Dillon shrugged as if to suggest he didn’t care what anyone else thought as long as Tyler believed him. “Anyway, we were lucky enough to spot the getaway car parked in the hospital grounds when we –” he gestured to include Copeland and Bull “– arrived, and we arrested the driver.”
“It was Mr Dillon who spotted the car, not us.” Steve cut in. “Isn’t that right, George?”
“Yeah, that’s right, sir,” George said. “Not that we wouldn’t have seen it ourselves,” he added quickly.
“We were in a no-win situation,” Dillon said flatly. “It was all happening too fast. George and some AFOs tried to nab Winston and the other three as they came out of the freight elevator on their way to the getaway car, but he spotted them and jumped back in the lift. Then me and Nick Bartholomew almost got him on the third floor, but he got away again. From there on in, it all went horribly pear-shaped.” Dillon rolled his neck and then grimaced at the pain it caused him. He had been checked over by a doctor, who had advised him to go sick, but he had ignored the advice and dosed himself up with strong painkillers instead
“Anyway, you know the rest. The cavalry arrived and SO19 set up a perimeter. We were getting ready to evacuate when we were informed that someone was trying to break into the HEMS facility on the roof. I went up there with Nick Bartholomew and Pat Connors, a gov’nor on the ARVs, but we were too late. The bastard had already taken off.” He shrugged again as if to say: what more is there to tell.
“I see,” Jack said, stroking his chin thoughtfully and feeling the rasp of a day’s stubble on his fingers.
It was always easy to speak with the benefit of hindsight, but if Skinner had followed Dillon’s advice in the first place, and posted a more formidable deterrent, Winston would still be in custody, and PC Morrison would probably still be alive.
As it was, Dillon, Steve, and George had stumbled across an armed breakout and they were lucky to have escaped unharmed. They had done their best under the most testing of circumstances, and they had almost succeeded in recapturing Winston.
Nick Bartholomew had probably saved Dillon’s life, and his efforts had earned him a minor concussion. After being checked out at the hospital, he had been sent home against his wishes to rest. To his credit, instead of worrying about his own health, the only thing on Nick’s mind had been finding a way to be temporarily seconded back to AMIP when he returned to duty in a few days’ time. Dillon had promised he would speak to Ray Speed to see if it could be arranged.
Terry Grier had also done incredibly well, pursuing the bogus porter out of the hospital, alone and unarmed. The male – they still hadn’t established his identity – had undergone extensive emergency surgery after being shot by the ARV crew who had finally stopped him, and the last report stated that he was somehow clinging to life by the thinnest of threads. His chances of surviving the day were considered slim at best, but miracles happened.
There was no point in trying to dissect what had happened now, Jack decided pragmatically. It would all come out during the post investigative debrief when every aspect of the investigation would be reviewed. Right now, he needed his team to be fully focused on getting on with the
