Matt Robinson crouched down on the wet road, beneath the glare of a street light, and switched on his torch. Rain was spotting his glasses and running down the back of his neck. He shone the beam on the silver paintwork but was struggling to see anything beyond a tiny mark, no more than a centimetre long. ‘I really can’t see anything more than that scratch.’
‘Do you have any idea how much paintwork on a Ferrari costs to repair? Fucking thousands, I’m telling you.’
‘A bit of T-Cut would get rid of that.’
‘T-Cut? What do you think this is — some old banger? This is a Ferrari LaFerrari, OK? It’s a £350,000 car — and you’re telling me to put fucking T-Cut on it?’
‘With all due respect, sir, cars do get bumped when they’re parked on streets — it’s a fact of life.’
‘Oh, right, what are you telling me? That you don’t know how to make the streets of Brighton safe? That you police are not doing your job properly, right?’ He jerked a finger at the driver of the Prius. ‘That fucking moron shouldn’t be on the roads, he’s probably drunk — are you going to breathalyse him?’
It was then that Robinson smelled the faint whiff of alcohol on the man’s breath. A voice came over his radio, but the din of the rain made it hard to hear what the Control Room was saying. ‘Have you been drinking, sir?’
‘Oh, that’s great that is, how fucking great is that?’
‘Would you mind answering my question, sir.’ Matt Robinson stood up, to his full height, and suddenly saw the man’s demeanour change.
‘No — well — just one, a half, that’s all.’
‘I’m going to require you to take a breath test, sir.’
‘What? You can’t be serious. Some moron reverses into my parked car and now you’re picking on me?’
‘I’m not picking on anyone, sir, I will be requiring the other gentleman to take a breath test too.’
Suddenly Robinson heard his colleague calling out, urgently. He turned.
Juliet Solomon had the window down and was calling out to him. ‘Matt, we’re needed, a Grade One — someone’s being attacked with an axe.’
‘Looks like it’s your lucky night,’ Robinson said to the Ferrari owner. ‘We’ve got to go.’
The man glared at him. ‘My lucky night? Someone crashes into my car and that makes it my lucky night?’
‘Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways,’ Robinson replied, climbing back into the Mondeo. Before he had even shut the door the car accelerated hard away, up the hill, blue lights flashing and siren wailing.
‘Well fuck you, officer!’ the man yelled after it. Then, turning round to speak to the Prius driver, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The car had gone, glided silently off. It was turning left at the lights, onto the seafront. ‘Hey! Hey! Hey, you fuckers!’ He sprinted down towards it, but the lights changed to green, and it was gone.
Robinson leaned forward, tapping the address Solomon gave him into the satnav. ‘What details do we have?’ Then he tugged out his handkerchief to wipe his glasses again.
‘A domestic, but it sounds a bad one, husband’s threatening her with an axe.’
‘A lumberjack, is he?’
She grinned, then concentrated fiercely again on her driving. ‘Left or right at the top, do you think?’ she asked.
The satnav hadn’t yet started. He thought for a moment, slivers of blue light flaring off the shop and restaurant windows on either side of them, working out the quickest route. ‘Left.’
At that moment the satnav arrow confirmed this.
‘We’re getting all our favourites tonight,’ he grumbled, as she turned through the red light and accelerated hard along Western Road. ‘First a minor RTC and now a domestic.’
They heard the voice of the Control Room despatcher. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Robinson replied.
‘I have an update for you on the situation at 29 Hangleton Rise. The woman has barricaded herself in an upstairs room and her husband is trying to break down the door.’
66
Monday 25 April
In the Force Control Room the semblance of calm continued. Everyone else was unaware of the drama that was unfolding for Evie Leigh and the Ops-1 Inspector, Kim Sherwood, who was now alerted and listening in.
Through her headphones Evie heard the woman’s screams and dull thuds, each blow sounding louder, like a sledgehammer pounding against wood. The screams getting louder too, deeper and deeper terror. Then she was whimpering. Somewhere in the background a dog was barking furiously.
All her training kicking in, Evie kept calm, trying to give reassurance to the trapped woman, whose name she had managed to get from her. ‘Trish,’ she said. ‘Just stay on the line. The police are on their way to you, they’re only minutes away, you’ll be OK.’
‘I can see the blade of the axe! No! No! Oh, God help me. Help me, someone, please help me, please help me!’
‘Trish,’ Evie said, urgently but still calmly. ‘Is there any way out of the room — can you get out of the window?’
‘It’s double — double-glazed — sealed units — only a tiny — tiny bit at the top — to stop burglars—’
Evie could hear another thud. A terrible scream — she could feel the woman’s utter terror. Then the sound of splintering wood. At the bottom of the street map displayed on her screen she saw the call sign of the response car that had been allocated, Charlie Romeo Zero Five. As she continued watching, calculating the ETA, the pink symbol of the car moved a block nearer, then another, in rapid succession, as it then began heading west along the Old Shoreham Road. Good, she thought, they were sensibly bypassing the risk of getting delayed by the level crossing on Boundary Road if they’d gone that route. But they were still a crucial three minutes away.
Then she heard an even louder crashing sound, and now a truly heart-wrenching scream from the woman.
At her desk, the Ops-1 Inspector had to make a fast decision. Was this a firearms response, a uniform response but with armed tactical relocation, or a divisional response with local supervision to command. Kim Sherwood decided on the first option and noted her decision on the CAD. Out of courtesy she immediately asked for permission to talk through to the two officers in the response car attending.
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five this is Ops-1.’
Moments later she heard a male voice, ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five.’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five, how far from the scene are you?’
‘Ops-1, our ETA is three minutes.’
‘The situation is critical. We understand a woman, Trish Darling, is locked in an upstairs room with her husband, who has a previous record of violence, attempting to break down the door. We believe she may be in a potentially life-threatening situation. Clear?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Use whatever force you need to get inside the house — put the door in or go through a window — and I’m granting you Taser authority. There’s a marker on the house. The husband has a criminal record for violence against women, and there is an aggressive dog in the house. We believe the husband is at present armed with an axe. I have declared this a spontaneous firearms incident and I have more response units en route as well as a dog handler, but if you get to the scene first don’t wait, go straight in and be careful.’
‘Yes, yes, ma’am.’
Inside the car, Matt Robinson shot a glance at his colleague, who had been listening on her radio.
Juliet Solomon grimaced, and for a moment both of them were silent. Some call handlers could be overdramatic, and you’d arrive in a posse of cars, lights blazing and sirens wailing, to find it was nothing more than a baby screaming, or some violent scene on a television set turned up too loud, that had been reported by an overzealous neighbour as a person being attacked. But this job felt real.