“We’ve had people pounding the pavement all day, pressuring every lowlife dealer, addict, and hooker we could find, not to mention putting the squeeze on Winston’s rivals, but so far we’ve drawn a big fat blank.”
“Realistically, that was never going to be a quick fix,” Tyler said, “but if we keep pushing, chances are that something will give further along the line.”
“I hope you’re right,” Tom said. He didn’t sound overly convinced.
After leaving the MIR, Tyler made for the CCTV viewing room, which seemed a rather grand title for a space that was, in reality, not much bigger than a broom cupboard. Inside, he found the owlish Darren Blyth and his own Reg Parker huddled together over a TV monitor. Both were giggling like naughty schoolchildren. They were so engrossed in what they were doing that they hadn’t even heard him enter.
“Play it again,” Reg sniggered. “I just want to make sure that flicker’s gone.”
Still laughing, Darren pressed rewind. “My pleasure,” he said. There was a brief whirring noise and then a click. Blyth then pressed the play button and the screen came to life.
Jack tiptoed closer, intrigued. Parker had a reputation as a mischief-maker, so he had no doubt that the team’s resident prankster was behind whatever was going on.
The theme to the 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman film started to play just as a freeze-frame image of a long, sterile-looking corridor came into view. The door to the RLH freight lift could be seen in the top right corner of the picture. As the music continued, with Darren humming along in tandem, words started to appear on the screen, written in white block capitals. They appeared one after the other, like the title sequence at the start of a movie:
Is it a bird…?
Is it a plane…?
No, it’s a flying nurse…!
The words faded as the film started rolling. Almost immediately, a dishevelled black woman, clad in the uniform of a nurse, came hurtling out of the lift like a rocket. She had to be at least seven feet off the ground, and she was travelling at considerable speed, both arms flailing as she cartwheeled through the air. Both men erupted into laughter, and Darren started clapping his hands.
“Brilliant,” he said as the woman landed on the floor in a heap. “Fucking brilliant!”
Tyler cleared his throat and both men spun around guiltily.
“Boss!” Parker exclaimed nervously. “I didn’t hear you come in.” As he spoke, he sidled in front of the monitor to block Tyler’s view while his co-conspirator scrabbled to press the stop button.
“What are you up to?” Tyler demanded, acting like he didn’t already know.
“Nothing,” Parker said with forced innocence. The blush that started at his neckline quickly spread upwards, turning his cherubic face the colour of a stop sign.
“You’re a terrible liar, Reggie,” Tyler scolded, “and a bloody menace.” A smile creased his face. “Now, play it again so I can have a proper look.”
Parker’s shoulders sagged in relief. “It’s only a joke,” he said. “Just a little something I put together for the enquiry team.”
“If that footage gets into the wrong hands it’ll cause havoc,” Tyler warned them. He dreaded to think what a red-top newspaper like The London Echo would do with that if they got their mitts on it. “And be a little circumspect about who you show it to. I don’t suppose close colleagues of PC Morrison would find it terribly amusing.”
“No,” Parker agreed, “but they might enjoy seeing one of their mate’s killers thrown across the hall like a rag doll.”
He had a point, Tyler accepted, but even so. “Just be careful who you show it to,” he warned, “and don’t lend that tape to anyone else under any circumstances. Capisce?”
Parker nodded obediently. “Yes, boss.”
After the light relief of watching Dillon play ‘toss the fake nurse’, Jack instructed them to show him the footage of the suspects overpowering the two officers outside Winston’s room. As Tom Wilkins had claimed, it was indeed chilling to watch, and no one seeing this could possibly be left in any doubt that all three suspects – the doctor, the nurse, and the porter – were equally complicit in the breakout, and, therefore, equally responsible for PC Morrison’s death.
The dramatic footage of Melissa Smails fleeing the room, pursued by the burly porter, was no less shocking. As she glanced back over her shoulder, the look of abject terror on her face was perfectly captured by the camera.
“I can’t imagine how terrified that poor girl must have been,” Tyler said.
Reggie permitted himself an evil laugh. “Still, he got his comeuppance in the end, didn’t he?” he proclaimed happily. “An ounce of lead through the forehead, courtesy of SO19.”
They played the fight scene at the freight elevator next. Unfortunately, because the camera was mounted in the hall, most of the action went unseen. When the bit where Angela Marley was thrown out of the elevator came on, Blyth started humming the Superman tune and, out of the corner of his eye, Tyler caught Parker suppressing a grin. He wondered if he should confiscate the clip Reg had made before anyone else saw it? But knowing Reggie, the slippery sod would only make another one behind his back.
“Right, Mr Parker,” he said after viewing the CCTV. “We need to discuss what progress you’ve made with the TIU and how they’re getting on with our telephone enquiries.” The Telephone Investigation Unit was based at New Scotland Yard, and they liaised directly with the various service providers to obtain telephone related data for police enquiries. “I want you in my office in five minutes time to walk me through all the applications you’ve made and any results that have come in during the day.”
That wiped the smile off Parker’s face.
As he walked back to his office, smiling at the Superman clip despite his better judgement, his mobile rang.
It was George Holland.
After explaining that Andy Quinlan had attempted to commit suicide by eating
