build a rapport with the hostage-taker. In between was something about empathy. Like I said, I wasn’t a natural. The overriding memory was of having to suppress your instincts and do nothing. Enforced inactivity, like lying in a hospital bed with your legs in traction while all the other patients partied with the nurses. Be calm, and let nature take its course. Time heals everything. Well, stuff that for a box of soldiers.
He was right — it was a long ladder. Three extensions, fully out. The crowd was growing all the time, their faces, yellow in the glow of the sodium lights, turned up towards the unfortunate youth. One or two shouted for him to jump, trying to build up the rhythm of a chant. They’d do better in about half an hour, when the pubs turned out.
‘Charlie Priest,’ I said, identifying myself to Inspector Lockett.
‘Inspector Lockett,’ he replied, giving me a limp handshake. He looked younger than I was when I made inspector. Bet he wouldn’t break my long service record, though.
The youth was sitting a couple of rungs from the top, facing outwards. That was a feat in itself. Don’t think I’d have dared do it. He was level with the street lamps, and they cast shadows either side of him, like the floodlights at a football match.
‘Where’s the dog?’ I asked.
‘He’s got it down the front of his bomber jacket.’
‘Anyone from the RSPCA here?’
‘No. Do you want me to call them?’
‘Er, no. Not yet.’ Definitely not yet.
The window he’d come out of was open, and a couple of policemen were inside, but they’d stopped trying to persuade him to surrender.
‘Tell them to close the window and stay away from it,’ I told Lockett, pointing upwards.
‘Right,’ he said, and started giving orders on his portable.
‘Where are the sandwiches?’ I asked when he finished.
‘Oh,’ he replied brightly, ‘we shouted up to him, asked him what he wanted, and he declined.’
‘He declined! He declined!’
‘Well, told us to go and, er, eff ourselves, actually.’ He dropped his voice as he said ‘Eff’, presumably so God couldn’t hear.
‘Sod him!’ I gasped. ‘They were for me. I haven’t eaten for fourteen hours!’
‘Oh, sorry, Mr Priest. I must have misunderstood. I’ll arrange some now. In fact, maybe I should order the mobile canteen?’
‘Just a couple of ham sandwiches will do.’
We were in a parking area in front of the block of flats. Nearby were several builders’ huts and skips of rubbish. The youth must have found the ladder there. These flats are under a constant renovation programme, starving the rest of the housing of funds. Three police cars were parked, their flashing lights reflecting off the front of the building. I studied the situation and tried to remember Isaac Newton’s first law of ladders. My memory wasn’t much use to me tonight. I was tired, shouldn’t have taken this on. Never did learn how to say no. Didn’t he say something about a ladder being exactly the same length upright as it was when lying on the ground? Sounded reasonable to me. I did some elementary geometry in my mind, and when Lockett finished on the radio I asked him to move the crowd another fifteen feet back.
He had about six uniformed PCs with him, and they pushed and jostled until I was satisfied. The crowd were good natured, some of them on personal terms with the bobbies, but the mood could soon change. A fire engine with a turntable ladder came warbling down the road.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now turn those blues off and tell Thomas the Turntable to go hide somewhere. We’ll let him know if we need him.’
When it was quieter, the environment as reassuring as I thought I could make it, I strolled towards the foot of the ladder. The crowd stopped jeering.
‘Gerraway!’ the youth yelled at me. ‘I’ll chuck fuckin’ dog darn if tha comes any closer.’ He pulled the terrified hound from within his jacket to reinforce his words.
I took an extra couple of strides and stopped. ‘Hi!’ I shouted up to him, with all the sincerity of a reluctant recruit at the Mormon training academy. ‘My name’s Charlie.’
‘I’ll jump!’ he yelled back, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll chuck me-fuckin-sen off.’
He was leaning against the wall. ‘Please, be calm,’ I pleaded. ‘We don’t want to hurt you. Can we just talk?’
‘Warrabout?’
‘Well, I’m called Charlie. What are you called?’
‘Joe Fuck!’
‘Do you live round here?’ I asked, adding, ‘Mr Fuck,’ under my breath.
He didn’t bother answering, but he put the wriggling dog back inside his jacket. It was calmer in there.
I was about six feet from the foot of the ladder. I shuffled forward, my hands in my pockets. ‘Is it your dog?’ I called out. I’m usually reasonable at interviews, but this was different. The spectators had brought their video cameras along, and tomorrow I could be on the news. He ignored my question.
‘Do you like dogs?’ I tried.
‘They’re all right.’ That was an improvement.
‘I expect you prefer bigger ones?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What sort’s that one?’
‘How the fuck do I know?’
He was an articulate so-and-so. I was at the foot of the ladder now.
‘Don’t come any fuckin’ closer,’ he warned.
‘No, I won’t,’ I assured him, taking my hands from my pockets.
He was agitated. ‘I’ll fuckin’ jump. I’m warnin’ thi.’
They say a drowning man clutches at straws. I wondered if a falling one would cling on to a dog. It was worth the risk — it wasn’t my dog. With one easy movement I placed my right foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, grasped the fifth rung in both hands and heaved. As the foot of the ladder came off the ground it started to accelerate away from the wall with a velocity that shocked me. I jumped aboard, and was propelled backwards towards the hushed crowd, like a surfboard rider, my arms flailing wildly. He scraped down the wall at exactly the same speed, emitting a long wail of fear and surprise.
My end stopped, and I fell backwards into a mess of arms that pushed me upright again. His end bounced a yard into the air, ejecting him like water off a sheepdog’s back. The Chihuahua scampered away, between the legs of the cheering crowd, and into the open doorway of the flats. He’d had enough excitement for tonight.
I drew a breath and turned to Inspector Lockett. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaping, but he couldn’t form any words.
‘Cancel the sandwiches,’ I said.
The youth could have had a gun or a knife, or even a fractured spine, so I approached him warily. He was about nineteen, undernourished and under average. On drugs at a guess. He had landed in a sprawled position, his shoulders against the wall, the residual fear still pulling at his face. Or maybe it was a new fear.
‘Are you hurt?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer but his unblinking eyes tried to focus on me. I moved one of his feet with the toe of my trainer, and he snatched it away. Same with the other — he’d survive.
‘OK, son,’ I said, grasping the collar of his jacket, ‘On your feet.’ He resisted for a few seconds, then allowed me to haul him upright. ‘You won’t believe this,’ I told him, ‘but I’ve just done you a favour.’
Lockett took him away and most of the crowd wandered off, wondering if whatever was on satellite TV would be as good as this. A couple of grinning youths invited me in for a beer and a woman with an anorak over a housecoat told me that it was no thanks to me that the dog hadn’t been hurt. I chatted with one of the PCs for a few minutes — he’d had a spell at Heckley a couple of years ago — and went home.
Two minutes in the microwave at number four warmed up the half a mug of tea I’d left on the worktop. Upstairs, I cleaned my teeth, stripped off all my clothes and crept into a nice warm bed. Just as I’d arrived at Lingwell I’d remembered that I’d left the electric blanket on. I reached out for the alarm clock and set it for fifteen
