Fifteen minutes later.
‘ In position,’ Danny transmitted.
‘ Received.’ Henry acknowledged Danny’s radio message. This meant everyone was ready to roll — the initial arrest teams, backed up by the evidence-gatherers.
Henry breathed deep. ‘Let’s hit ‘em,’ he said, his mouth dry in anticipation.
When the ‘Roger’ came from Danny, he opened his car door and moved.
Gilbert’s house had a huge sweeping driveway, the house itself set in two and a half acres of landscaped gardens. There were wrought-iron gates at the entrance to the drive, but they were open. A convoy, led by Danny and her arrest squad, drove at a sedate pace and stopped outside the front door of the house.
Danny rang the bell. She had decided this arrest was going to be made in a dignified, adult manner… at least, that’s how it would start out. This approach didn’t stop her sending two cops around the back of the house to ensure there was no chance of a back-door dash.
Gilbert came to the door. Danny had never been close to the guy before, but had seen photos of him. She was astounded — and repulsed — by his enormity. He was like an overweight walrus, with broken capillaries all over his face, tiny piggy eyes and a girth which needed a chalk-mark to measure it. He was so hideous she almost giggled.
‘ Detective Sergeant Furness, Blackpool CID.’ She wafted her warrant card and badge under his nose. ‘Are you Charles Gilbert?’
He nodded, perplexed.
‘ I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Claire Lilton.’ Danny cautioned him and waited for his reply.
He blinked rapidly a few times. Then, patronisingly, said, ‘Dearie, you are making one hell of a mistake here. Do you know who I am?’
‘ I know exactly who you are, Mr Gilbert.’ Danny smiled sweetly and waved the search team into the house.
‘ What the hell’s going on here?’ Gilbert demanded. He moved his bulk and wedged himself into the doorway. ‘You’re not coming in here. Where’s your warrant?’
Danny regarded him, rotating her lower jaw as if chewing gum. ‘Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, we don’t need one.’
The officer leading the Support Unit search team was standing at Danny’s shoulder, his troops behind him, eager to get on with the job. He poked his chin over Danny’s shoulder and said, ‘So if you don’t get out of the way, you big fat tub of lard, we’ll happily move you.’
Gilbert nodded, beaten. He moved aside and whined, ‘I want a solicitor — now.’
‘ You’ll get one when you reach the police station,’ Danny told him. ‘Now what I’d like you to do is accompany these two officers to that van, get in and be taken to Blackpool police station.’
‘ I said I want a solicitor now.’
Danny remained pleasant in tone. ‘Sooner you get in the van, sooner you get to the station, sooner you get a brief.’
One of the uniformed officers on the arrest squad reached out and tried to grab Gilbert’s upper arm. It was too big and fat for his hand.
‘ Don’t you dare touch me,’ Gilbert said, shaking him off.
‘ No more delay.’ Danny’s voice hardened. ‘Get in the back of the van, now.’
Gilbert eyed her dangerously and pushed past her.
As an aside, the uniformed officer said to Danny, ‘I honestly don’t think he’ll fit in. We should’ve brought an HGV for the fat bastard.’
Danny sniggered. Stage one over. With a sense of satisfaction, she prepared to send Henry a message over the airwaves: mission accomplished.
Her boss had decided on a less subtle approach for Ollie Spencer. A rapid entry was needed in this case, because if the police took too much time getting in, Spencer might be able to dispose of vital evidence; with his flat being the supposed scene of the murder, Henry wanted as much from it as possible.
The entrance to the flat was by way of a door at the rear of an electrical shop, leading directly to some stairs and up onto a landing; the doors of the flat were off this landing.
Henry’s team had to get in, get up the stairs and locate Spencer before he knew what had hit him. To assist the team they had a map which had been drawn initially by Grace, then improved by a detective. According to this floor plan, once on the landing, there was a bedroom door to the left, bathroom, toilet and kitchen through doors on the right and dead ahead, a living room.
The Support Unit were going to do the entry, race up the stairs, split like the Red Arrows and hit each door virtually simultaneously. Maximum fifteen seconds from going in the door to locating and neutralising Spencer, they promised.
The officers gathered around the outer door with the ‘Ram-it’ in the hands of one of them.
He shuffled his shoulders, flexed his fingers on the handles of the thirty-inch, thirty-five pounds of solid metal tubing with a flattened end. He swung it backwards about two feet to gain the necessary momentum, then let it swing towards the door.
Fourteen thousand pounds of kinetic force burst the door open with one blow. The officer pivoted out of the way.
The Support Unit teams raced in and bounded up the stairs in a well-practised drill.
At the top of the stairs they split and hit the doors.
Twelve seconds after entry the shout went up: ‘Suspect located — neutralised — bedroom.’
Henry Christie jogged up the stairs to — the bedroom where he saw Spencer, naked, lying spreadeagled on the bed, a rather flaccid erection meandering up from his ginger pubic hair. A young boy who looked no more than nine, also naked, was sitting next to him on the bed.
‘ Found this one, too.’
Henry turned at the voice. An officer was holding another youngster, this time a girl, who had only a towel wrapped loosely around her.
Henry looked at Spencer and arrested him for murder.
‘ One arrested — no problems,’ Danny informed Henry over the radio, just moments after he had cautioned Spencer and thrown a pair of trousers at him.
‘ Received,’ he replied. ‘Ditto — no problems either, just a couple of house-guests, probably mispers.’
‘ Understood.’
‘ We’ll probably be at the nick before you, so we’ll book our chap in, then I’ll call you when the coast is clear.’
‘ Roger,’ Danny replied.
Henry turned his attention back to Spencer, who was making a meal of getting dressed. ‘Get your fucking clothes on,’ the DI growled, ‘or I’ll drag you naked through the streets of Blackpool and show everyone what a pervert you are.’
Spencer eyed him unsurely; decided he was probably telling the truth.
He was fully dressed within a minute.
Spencer was processed into the custody system fairly smoothly. He was quiet and easy to deal with, saying little, exercising none of his rights until he found out where he stood. When he was sitting in a cell, Henry radioed Danny to bring Gilbert in.
By this time he had been sitting in the back of the van in the rear yard of the police station for about fifteen minutes, getting increasingly restless.
Danny opened the van doors, then the inner cage door.
Gilbert eased himself through the gap.
