Jane said she’d be happy to assist Dabs and Kingston walked off toward the squad car.
‘Would you like me to brief Stanley when he gets here, guv?’ she asked the Colonel.
‘No, he and his crew will be joining me at the bank to interview the Securicor guards and other witnesses there,’ he said without looking back.
She waited for him to leave and went to have a look at the area where the skid mark stopped just short of the parked car. As the sun broke through the clouds she noticed something glint by the side of the road next to the pavement. On closer inspection she could see it was a brass cartridge case, which must have come from the handgun the tall man had fired at the police car. Looking around she could see another cartridge case a couple of feet away, by the rear nearside tire of a parked car. Crouching down, she tilted her head to one side. Looking under the car, she could see two more cartridge cases. As she stood up and looked around she noticed two trails of blood drops, running between the skid mark and the middle of the road, where there were a number of drops confined to a small area, which meant the bleeding man had stood there.
‘This is a crime scene, ma’am, you shouldn’t be this side of the tape,’ a male voice said.
Jane saw a small man wearing glasses, whom she recognized as one of the passengers in the other Flying Squad car with Stanley. She knew he must be Dabs, as he was wearing latex gloves and carrying a scene of crime case and a camera over his shoulder. He was about five feet six inches tall, early thirties, with dark brown collar-length hair and long sideburns. He was dressed casually in a white shirt, blue jumper, gray trousers and black windcheater.
Jane held out her hand. ‘I’m WDS Jane Tennison. I’ve just started on the Flying Squad today.’
He shook her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Sarge. I’m Dave Morgan. DS Stanley mentioned you in the car earlier. We were all a bit surprised as no one knew you were joining the team — especially as you’re a woman.’
‘Well, speaking as a woman, the day’s been quite a surprise for me too,’ she said, forcing a smile and wondering if his ‘woman’ remark was intentionally derogatory.
‘Have you found something?’
She pointed to the two visible cartridge cases and told him there were another two under the car and blood drops on the road.
‘From what a witness told me, the skid mark there is where the Cortina stopped sharply, then a man with a handgun got out and shot at the police car. If he was injured the blood trails might have come from him getting out and returning to the car.’
‘Good spot, Sarge.’ He got a swab out of his pocket and dabbed it in one of the blood spots and the end turned red. ‘And they’re fresh. I’ll take some photos and swabs of the blood... From the nearby position of the cartridges to the blood drops I’d say the gun was a semi-automatic. Do you know much about firearms forensics, Sarge?’ he asked politely as he put his case down.
Jane knew a semi-automatic pistol ejected cartridges each time it was fired, but six-chamber Smith & Wesson revolvers, which the Flying Squad used, didn’t.
‘A bit. I’ve dealt with major crimes involving guns, including a shooting murder scene — and post mortems where I assisted the lab liaison sergeant.’
‘Who was the lab sergeant?’
‘Detective Sergeant Paul Lawrence.’
Dabs’s eyebrows raised. ‘He’s a legend when it comes to crime scene examination. I met him at a lecture he did at training school, but sadly never had the privilege of working alongside him.’
He bent down and picked up one of the cartridge cases.
‘Looks like a nine-millimeter Parabellum,’ he observed.
‘What’s a Parabellum?’
‘It’s a type of bullet cartridge and Parabellum is Latin, meaning “prepare for war”, which is appropriate considering what happened here today.’ Dabs showed her the base of the cartridge case. ‘See the markings on the bottom — that’s what we call the head stamp.’
Jane looked closer and could see the number 43, ST+ and DNH. She asked what the numbers and letters meant.
‘The 43 is the year of manufacture, which is 1943. I’m not sure what ST+ means, but DNH is where the bullet was manufactured. However, the firearms section at the lab will be able to tell us more.’
‘The cartridge is nearly forty years old — what sort of gun do you think it was fired from?’
‘I don’t know... Again, that’s a job for the lab to determine. I’ve seen older ammo and nine-mill is used in different makes of revolvers and semi-automatics.’
‘Will you be able to get fingerprints off the cartridge?’
He shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, no, when a gun is fired, the heat created has a destructive effect on any fingerprint evidence. Even unfired bullets are almost impossible to get a print off.’
‘What’s GSR?’ she asked, remembering Kingston referring to it.
‘Gunshot residue. A plume of gas and GSR particles is ejected from the barrel of a gun when it’s fired, and the residue gets deposited on the skin and clothing of the person who fired the gun. It can also be found on the clothing of the victim, but that depends on how close they were to the gun when it was fired.’
‘So, the suspect who fired the gun that left these casings will have GSR on them.’
‘Yes, on his clothes for sure, but if he washes his hands and body then it’s gone from his skin. Whenever we arrest any suspects for armed robbery, we always Sellotape their hands for GSR and the lab examines the tapings under a scanning electron microscope to look for GSR as evidence they have fired, handled or been near a gun.’
‘You know a lot about firearms and bullets,’ Jane said respectfully.
‘Enough to get me by, but the forensic scientists are the experts. If you fancy it, you can come to the lab with me when I submit the cartridge cases and other evidence for examination. I think you’d find the firearms section really interesting and informative.’
‘I’d like that, thank you.’
She was warming to Dabs. His helpful, polite manner reminded her of Paul Lawrence.
‘I’ve ordered a tow truck to remove the police car to the lab, then it can be examined for any bullets that may be lodged in it. We need to crack on and photograph the scene, then gather up the cartridge cases before it gets here.’
Arriving at the bank with the Colonel, Kingston spoke briefly to a uniformed PC and asked where the Securicor guards were. The officer told him they were in the bank manager’s office and the off-duty PC who’d got shot was in the ambulance parked next to the Securicor van. The back doors of the ambulance were open, and Kingston could see one of the crew attending to someone on a stretcher. He thought it strange that someone who’d got shot in the stomach wasn’t rushed to hospital. The Colonel looked around the area where the Securicor van was parked. He saw a small pool of blood near the front of the van and some droplets leading to the back of the ambulance.
‘I’d have expected more blood and guts from a close-range shotgun discharge,’ the Colonel said, and noticed something odd. ‘If that’s your shotgun victim in the ambulance he’s a lucky sod.’
‘What?’ Kingston was bemused by the Colonel’s glib remark.
‘Look there, by the blood, there’s a load of rice grains on the pavement.’
Kingston realized that the shotgun cartridge must have been loaded with rice, as opposed to lead pellets. He stepped up into the ambulance and saw a young man, aged about nineteen, who was clearly still in shock and grimacing with pain while having his stomach and chest wounds cleaned with iodine. Kingston held up his warrant card and introduced himself.