‘You don’t know anything about fear!’ yelled Quill. ‘You don’t fucking know about fear!’
‘Ballackti puts the ball on the spot, brave in the face of all this. And I’ve never heard such sounds from a football crowd.’
Quill could imagine the smiling man somewhere among them, revelling in it.
‘There are West Ham supporters, here and there, not barracking Ballackti exactly, but shouting to him. They’re trying to tell him not to take it, to miss it deliberately. They’re pleading with him.’
Ross grabbed the phone from Sefton so quickly that it nearly made him drop it. ‘We can see what she’s done to the records! What about the internet?! Try Google Street View!’
‘But Ballackti steps up, he places the ball. .’
Ross pinched at the screen, making agonized expressions as each zoom-in took seconds to load. ‘I think I can see something. In those streets, just a dot.’ She zoomed in closer. They all craned to look.
‘He’s taking his run-up-!’
‘Where is it?!’ asked Costain. ‘What’s the address?’
A roar from the crowd. What sort of roar? They already knew.
‘And Ballackti’s put it away for his second goal! Surely they must take him off now? Surely, if they don’t, he’ll score again!’
But now they could all see it, as they’d seen the house in real life. As they’d seen Losley on that camera footage. The obscene light shone out of the screen at them: glistening and slick, an abomination in this world. From one particular suburban street. One particular house.
Sefton grabbed his holdall and the team ran for the door.
NINETEEN
Quill had asked for a BMW 5 Series from the motor pool, and had it parked outside last night. Now they all leaped into it, Sefton throwing his holdall in the boot. It was getting dark.
‘I’m the best driver,’ said Costain, almost pushing Quill out of the way.
‘I’ll assume you mean you’re a level-two driver, cleared to handle this unmarked car.’ Quill reached up to slam the magnetic blue light on to the roof, and plugged it into the ‘Kojack’ electrical socket in the dashboard. ‘I’ll get us a CAD number so you can jump the lights.’
‘Whatever.’ Costain looked over his shoulder and checked that the others were wearing their seatbelts.
‘Shall I say ETA twenty minutes?’ called Ross, already hitting buttons on her phone.
‘Twenty minutes? Sod that.’ Costain pushed down on the pedal, and mud flew from the wheels as they accelerated towards the gate.
Quill called Lofthouse first. ‘I want uniforms ready down there, ma’am. I mean a lot of uniforms, as suspect is armed and dangerous and has potential victims on the premises. Scene commander to let me know RV point-’
Ross didn’t register what he was saying. She was talking to Brockway at West Ham. ‘So Norwich haven’t taken him off?’
‘The fuckwits,’ whispered Sefton beside her.
‘We strongly advise. . we officially advise. . Okay, they know that, okay.’
‘What’s causing that?’ said Costain. ‘They’d never normally do that. Something’s influencing them.’
‘If he does score a third time,’ Ross continued, ‘as soon as he comes off the field, he stays put, security detail to surround him. Have you got everything we asked for ready?’ The West Ham chaplain was ready to bless the player, the room and the said coppers. Quill had speculated that, while being at the West Ham ground itself would presumably give Losley a great deal of power, she had so far proved unwilling to do anything awful there, and might not want to harm anyone directly connected with the club. Ross had already sold this approach to the club on the basis of what Losley herself believed. She now received assurances, switched off the phone, threw it down — and then grabbed it up again.
Quill switched the radio on, and they all fell silent, listening until it was clear a third goal hadn’t been scored. ‘If there’s a hat-trick, I’ll send whatever uniforms are at the location straight in, whether we’re there yet or not. She’ll be able to hold them off, we’ll likely lose a few, but I’d rather that than losing the kids.’ His tone didn’t sound to be inviting debate. He was again taking that responsibility on himself.
Sixteen minutes later, they spotted the cluster of unmarked vans ahead, two streets away from the Losley house, as arranged. In zero time, Brockley nick had done them proud.
Quill stepped from the car and shook hands with Inspector Ben Cartwright, who looked as if he’d just won the lottery.
‘Losley,’ he said, ‘on our patch. Result.’
‘You know what they call Method of Entry teams?’ said Sefton to Ross, as they watched Quill briefing some uniforms in the back of one of the vans, their enforcer ram held ready between them. ‘“Ghostbusters” — if only they knew.’ He was trying to keep talking, because she looked all closed in on herself, in a terrible way, now that she had stopped working and was just waiting. He could feel it in himself, too. We smell death near you soon. It had been written by someone who probably knew. They were going in now and they had almost nothing to protect them that they hadn’t had last time. They had no choice. He found himself again revolted by the thought of what Losley was intending to kill these kids for. Not out of madness or anger, but for what must seem to her to be a good, practical reason. To her, the sacrifices were fuel: a source of energy for any subsequent attack on the footballer. She lived in a London where that sort of equation must be commonplace. He thought back to holding Joe in his arms, in his hands, and took some comfort from that.
Quill and Costain came over to them, from where they’d been consulting with Cartwright, their breath visible in the street lights. The vans had pulled up beside trees that had cracked the pavement, in front of houses doubtless filled with busybodies already going frantic on Twitter. The radio in the car was still on: the match had reached half time, the restart due in two minutes. No further goals yet, thank God.
Quill turned to address the expectant uniforms, all clad in Metvests, whatever good that would do them. ‘We’re doing this old-school. One van at the back door, two at the front, the Ghostbusters do the door; my squad go in first, taking advantage of the suspect’s psych profile’ — the same excuse as at the football club — ‘to attempt an arrest. A unit from Specialized Firearms Command is on the way, but they won’t get here for another twenty minutes, and Inspector Cartwright shares my desire for urgency, given the presence of potential victims. Objectives of the operation as follows. One, any of you lot gets hold of one of the kids, you run straight out of that house with them, and keep going all the way to your nick. Do you understand me?’
The uniforms rumbled in assent. They enjoyed being bullied for something this big. Something where they might get home to their families and say, ‘I saved a kid today.’
He continued: ‘Two, regarding suspect herself. Leave her to us. Do not attempt to engage her. She comes in your direction, get out of the way. We’re talking poison needles in her clothes, hidden weapons, the lot. Objective three: suspect’s cat.’ He didn’t pause for them to react. ‘Information potentially hidden on it. And it’s dangerous. Again, don’t try and grab it. Leave it to us.’
Cartwright raised an eyebrow. ‘The cat is booby-trapped?’