A team of six security guards and two police officers greeted her. Carefully, she slid the gun into the back of her jeans and retrieved her badge from her back pocket.
One of the young officers, keen to impress the security guards, stepped forward.
‘Don’t move,’ he said cockily. Singh responded by shoving her badge in his face.
‘I’m a fucking detective,’ she barked. ‘DS Amara Singh. Stand down.’
The young officer crumpled like a house of cards and as she stepped out of the lift, the other officer cut her off.
‘What the hell happened here?’ He gestured to the prone body of Brandt.
‘This man tried to attack me in the lift. Something to do with a drug ring we busted last year.’ The lie came to her pretty quickly. ‘Fortunately, he was bigger in size than in brains.’
The security team chuckled, and the more experienced officer regarded her with a careful eye.
‘Okay. You two, get him some medical attention.’ He turned to the younger officer. ‘Stay here with them until the ambulance arrives.’
‘Good work, officer,’ Singh said firmly. The officer offered her a smile, one she didn’t fully trust.
‘Assistant Commissioner Ashton has just arrived with an armed response unit in tow. We have reason to believe that Sam Pope is in the vicinity.’
‘Right, well… I better help the search…’ Singh began. The officer grabbed her arm and wrenched it behind her, luckily avoiding the handgun.
‘I think we should go and see her together, don’t you?’ the officer said. Clearly, he was aware of the rumours linking Singh to Pope and with the likely event of Wallace tipping off Ashton, her presence at the train station wouldn’t be seen as a coincidence.
Most likely, it would be the final nail in her coffin.
Resigned to her fate, she marched with the officer who seemed to be basking in the glory of his discovery. Sadly, she understood the feeling, his smugness at climbing the hierarchal ladder echoed her own ambitions less than six months before.
The only way she would ever clear her name with the police was if she brought Sam in wearing cuffs.
As they moved from the corridor and across the concourse, panicked screams filled the upper walkway and the officer stopped, spinning round and relinquishing his grip on Singh’s arm. Singh followed his gaze to the railing above, where Sam Pope was leaning, his face bloodied as he held the metal barrier for support.
Then, to Singh’s horror, the hulking man she’d glimpsed before grabbed Sam by his jacket and hurled him over.
The station fell silent as Sam tumbled down, dropping about eight foot onto the roof of a sweet trolley, decked out like and old school wagon. He landed with a sickening thud, before rolling to the side and dropping onto the hard, unforgiving concrete.
As panic began to spread through the crowd as the bloodied man grunted with pain and began to stir, Singh saw her only chance.
She grabbed the gun from the back of her jeans, lifted it into the air and pulled the trigger.
Nothing shot fear through a crowd faster than the sound of gunfire and within seconds, the station was in a frenzy. Sam scrambled to his feet and Singh made sure he was moving with the crowd, as they rushed towards the exits, the escalators, and stairways to Liverpool Street crammed with people. Sam managed to move within the crowd and he vanished.
The armed response began to flood in through the side entrance, rifles at the ready, with Ashton’s hopes of catching Sam vanishing by the second.
Singh knew the attacker would be long gone, and decided to follow suit, pushing the officer as hard as she could in the back, propelling him into the panicked crowd and watching as he crashed to the floor.
She felt bad, realising that the few ties she had left to the police were about to be severed, but she slipped into the terrified stream of people making their way to the exit and as she made her way to the street, she realised she’d gone too far now.
There was no way back.
Chapter Eighteen
‘The scene at London Liverpool Street Station today, was one of terror. A sunny afternoon in Spring, turned into a nightmare for those commuting into the city.’
Wallace sighed at the dramatic introduction of the news report, watching on TV as the cameraman tried his best to capture the business of the station, as well as the stunning weather coating it all in a bright sheen.
The man was trying to channel his inner Spielberg, while the reporter was doing his best to add some gravitas. CCTV footage of a figure lifting their arm in the air and a sudden flash, accompanied by thunderous clap followed.
‘A gunshot, triggered by this assailant, sent panic through the station, one which has seen five people admitted to hospital with severe injuries. Amongst the five, a senior police officer, who was trampled underfoot and is suffering with several broken bones and a concussion. All of those injured are in a stable condition and expected to make a full recovery.’
‘Whoopie-fucking-do,’ Wallace slurred, slamming back another glass of Scotch and ignoring the burn as it fell down his gullet. He followed it with a thick, clogging breath of cigar smoke.
His safehouse had become his prison and he realised that for a man who feasted on fear, he was now a slave to it. A man of his stature and power, who had brought entire countries to their knees, was holed away in a remote location, all because of one man.
Sam Pope.
As his fists clenched, it felt for a moment that the tablet, propped in its carry case on the table, was reading his mind as the news report continued.
‘Mobile phone footage submitted from a few anonymous sources caught sight of a struggle on the upper floor of the station. A confrontation involving two men, one of whom can be seen to be bleeding heavily from the face. In an act of unprecedented violence, the man is thrown
