Not that anyone was actually expected to be there. This was supposed to be an empty property in which, the briefing had informed them, it was suspected that illegal meetings had been held by would-be terrorists and extremists to plan their campaigns. It was possible that traces of explosives might be found, maybe other weapons and DNA traces, but no — definitely no — living creatures. It was the task of Henry’s team on that grey, drizzling Accrington dawn to enter, secure it and keep it secure until the arrival of a specially-briefed forensic team. They had been told to touch nothing once inside.
‘That should be easy enough for you,’ the SB superintendent had said to Henry. His name was Greek and he added, ‘Shouldn’t it?’
Henry had ground his teeth, even though he thought that ten bobbies, a driver and a sergeant was perhaps overkill just to secure an empty property. That query had been greeted by a sneer and a ‘Better safe than sorry’ quip. But, judging by the huge number of officers taking part in the operation as a whole, it was apparent that the police were out to make a statement of intent that day.
‘We’re in position,’ Henry’s earpiece crackled — the message coming from one of the officers in the back alley. That meant they were waiting at the backdoor. Henry nodded to the driver, who slammed his right foot down to the metal and set off down the street, unintentionally kangarooing the van and drawing an unrelenting barrage of laughter, complaints and insults from the people in the back as they lurched in their seats.
Another smooth policing operation, Henry thought wryly, as he discarded his flat cap and squeezed his head into a blue riot helmet, squishing his face up, as required by the Health amp; Safety risk assessment. It hurt his ears as he forced it down over his skull, making him suspect that the size of his head had also expanded in line with his body.
Fortunately the journey was over quickly. They stopped outside number twelve. Henry shouted, ‘Go!’ whilst dropping out of the carrier at the same time, closely followed by the sergeant. Henry stood to one side as the well-trained and regimented team descended on the front door. He glanced at the house, only ever having seen photographs of it in the operational order. He took in the door and windows, saw curtains drawn upstairs and down, no lights visible.
The two leading officers brandished sledgehammers, the one behind them wielding a one-man door-opener which was basically a heavy tube of iron with a flattened end and handles used as a mini battering ram. Behind these three officers came the remaining four, all in a disciplined line. Their job, once the door had been battered down, was to tear into the house. Two would go for the stairs and two would go for the ground floor, with their remaining colleagues piling in behind them, just to ensure the house was unoccupied as promised.
They crossed the pavement in two strides. They were then at the front door, which they attacked without mercy but with great accuracy, their movements practised and choreographed by months of training and other ‘live’ entries, mainly into drug dealers’ houses.
For a few moments it was sweet to watch.
The sledgehammers swung at the door hinges at the right-hand side of the door, one high, one low. Henry marvelled at the precision and the fact that the officers didn’t smash each other’s heads in; at the same time, the third officer swung the door-opener at the mortise lock. All three implements whammed simultaneously into the flimsy-looking door.
Henry braced himself, expecting the door to burst off its hinges, readying himself to follow the sergeant in. He’d seen it happen dozens of satisfying times.
Except in this case.
The door remained intact. Didn’t even shudder in its casing. From the blows it received, it should have been halfway down the living room, and Henry realized immediately that it must have been reinforced, otherwise it would have been on its way to matchstick city.
Undaunted, the officers raised and aimed their battering tools again.
‘Movement, rear door,’ came a shout into Henry’s earpiece from one of the constables around the back.
A horrible, nauseous dread coursed through Henry, and a feeling of panic.
‘Not good,’ he breathed to himself as the sledgehammers reconnected with the door — and still it held. ‘Situation report,’ he said into the mouthpiece of his PR, which was attached to his helmet.
‘Rear kitchen door opening … one male at the door … Asian,’ the officer said. ‘Pistol in hand — armed!’
Henry whacked the sergeant’s shoulder. She turned and looked at him, her face a mask of consternation.
‘I thought this was supposed to be an empty house,’ she shouted.
Henry did not have time to get into discussion. He yelled, ‘Tell ’em to stop’ — he pointed at the officers by the door — ‘stay here and watch the door and don’t try to go in. I’m going round.’
She nodded and turned to yell some orders.
Henry ran up the road, hearing the word, ‘Shit!’ come through the earpiece from the officer at the backdoor.
His kit was extremely heavy, topped by the riot helmet, and he felt like he was running in slow motion. He skidded at the gable end of the terrace, then into the cobbled back alley, high brick walls either side of him and a paved drainage channel running down the centre. The three officers who had gone to the rear of the house were standing in the alley, looking through the door into the yard of number twelve, their arms raised defensively. Henry hurried towards them.
They glanced round worriedly, their faces squeezed tight by their helmets, their visors in the ‘up’ position. He stopped in his tracks behind them.
There was a dark-skinned Asian youth in the yard, pointing a handgun at the cops. He was dressed in T-shirt, jeans and trainers. Henry put him around the twenty mark. He was small, thin, with a droopy moustache and, young as he was, the old adage came into play when facing anyone armed with a weapon — he became a ‘sir’.
There was another youth behind him who Henry could not see properly.
‘Out, out,’ the first youth ordered the police, gesturing with the dangerous end of the gun, which looked heavy and of a high calibre. ‘Back, back,’ he motioned.
The officers took reluctant steps backwards.
‘I will not hesitate to use this weapon,’ the youth said, now framed in the backyard door, the second youth still obscured behind him.
‘OK, OK, that’s fine,’ Henry said over the shoulders of his officers, using soothing hand signals to attempt to calm down any sudden urge to pull the trigger. His team members continued to shuffle backwards and round him and he quickly found himself with no one standing between him and the gun-toting youth. Suddenly he was very isolated and vulnerable. He was wearing the regulation stab vest which might have given him some protection from a knife attack around his vital organs; he was under no illusion that a slug from the pistol now aimed at his chest would travel through the fabric and tear his heart and lungs to bits.
‘We are prepared to die.’
‘I know, I know,’ Henry said, finding it hard to speak. ‘But no one has to die, no one.’
‘I am prepared to take others with me,’ the youth warned, not having taken in Henry’s words.
‘That doesn’t have to be the case.’
Henry saw the lad’s eyes were wild and staring, that he could not remain still, always jumpy and jittery, dancing on the balls of his feet, the gun shaking dangerously in his hand, his finger wrapped, then unwrapped, and dithering around the trigger.
‘Come on, put the gun down.’
The youth sneered and stepped out of the doorway into the alley, giving Henry an uninterrupted view of his companion in the yard behind him.