‘Mike.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I’ve got what Akhtar wanted, so you can stand the CO19 boys down.’
‘Who’s that with you?’
Thorne guessed that Donnelly and the rest of the team were gathered in the TSU vehicle, watching him on the monitors that carried the CCTV feed. He squinted up through the rain and stared straight at the camera mounted high on a lamppost on the opposite side of the road. ‘This is the man who killed Akhtar’s son,’ he said. ‘Who arranged for him to be killed.’ He turned back to Prosser and looked him in the eye. ‘He’s the reason we’re all here.’
‘You need to move away from the shop, Tom.’
‘I’m taking him inside,’ Thorne said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘It makes about as much sense as sending Chivers and his mates in.’
‘We’ll talk to Akhtar,’ Donnelly said. ‘You tell him you’ve done what he asked. You tell him you’ve got the individual responsible for his son’s death in custody and he walks out of there.’
‘Never going to happen,’ Thorne said. ‘He doesn’t trust us enough. He doesn’t trust me enough.’ He heaved Prosser away from the car and marched him towards the newsagent’s. Just before he dropped the phone into his pocket, he heard Donnelly shout, ‘Stay where you bloody well are.’
Thorne pushed Prosser back against the shutters, then began hammering at them, his fist smashing against the dirty metal, no more than a few inches from Prosser’s face. He shouted, ‘Javed, it’s Tom Thorne. I’m out here with the man you asked me to find.’ He banged again, Prosser flinching at every blow. ‘Javed… ’
He waited for a few seconds. He pressed his ear to the metal.
Looking up at the sound of footsteps to his left, he saw Chivers and five CO19 officers emerge at speed from the entrance to a small alleyway three shops down. They slowed when they caught sight of him and, after grabbing a ballistic shield from one of them, Chivers waved his team back behind the line of vehicles where they stood, looking somewhat bemused, waiting for orders. None the wiser himself, Chivers stayed where he was, in the middle of the road, thirty feet or so away from Thorne and Prosser.
Behind the shutters, Javed Akhtar said, ‘I’m here.’
Chivers and Thorne both turned at the sound of more footsteps and watched as Donnelly, Pascoe and half a dozen others came running from the direction of the school towards the main road. All except Donnelly stopped at the line of arc lamps. He carried on that little bit further forward into the road, before stopping just a few feet away from Chivers.
A few feet behind him.
‘Mr Thorne?’
‘I’ve got him with me right now, Javed.’ Thorne leaned close to the shutters. ‘If I bring him in there, you have to promise me that once you have heard exactly what happened to Amin, you will give yourself up. No questions asked, OK?’
‘I can’t allow you to take a civilian in there, Thorne.’ Donnelly was still struggling to get his breath back as he shouted. ‘Not while Akhtar still has a loaded weapon. What are you thinking?’
‘Not up for discussion,’ Chivers said. ‘Simple as that.’
The civilian in question, who up until now had remained relatively passive, suddenly became animated and began shouting. ‘My name is Jeffrey Prosser, QC, and if you’re the officer in charge you need to put a stop to this now.’ Thorne pushed him back against the shutters and told him to shut up. Prosser struggled and shouted his name out again.
‘Is this man under arrest?’ Donnelly asked.
‘No, I am not,’ Prosser shouted. ‘I have not been arrested, I have not been cautioned. This is kidnapping, plain and simple.’
The rain was heavier suddenly, hissing against the lamps.
From behind the shutters, Javed Akhtar said, ‘The judge? My God, is it the judge?’
‘Give the gun to Helen,’ Thorne said. ‘Give it to Helen and I can bring him in.’
‘Wait,’ Akhtar said.
The blue light was still flashing on top of the Passat and Thorne felt it move across his face every few seconds. He watched it dance across the windows of the cars opposite and the automatic weapons of the men crouched between them.
From further back inside the shop, Thorne heard the voice of Helen Weeks. ‘I’ve got the gun.’ There was a pause and then she shouted it a second time.
Thorne turned to look at Donnelly and Chivers. ‘Did you get that?’
‘Changes nothing,’ Chivers said.
Donnelly said, ‘Hang on.’
‘I want Nadira,’ Akhtar shouted. ‘I want my wife to hear this too.’
‘No chance,’ Chivers said.
Thorne turned back to Donnelly. ‘Helen has the gun, Mike. What’s the problem?’
Donnelly considered it for a few seconds, then brought a radio to his mouth and gave the order. Within a minute, a panda car was screaming down from the school gates and, when it had stopped near the line of emergency vehicles, a WPC helped a shaken-looking Nadira Akhtar from the passenger seat. She wore a headscarf embroidered with something that caught the light, and was all but lost inside a Met Police-issue quilted anorak.
Thorne called out to her.
When she looked over at him, Thorne waved and beckoned her across the road, nodding his encouragement as she took the first tentative steps towards him. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Nadira… it’s going to be all right. We’re going to go inside together and bring Javed out.’ The woman smiled nervously as she drew nearer to the shop, then Thorne saw the slow wash of recognition across her face. The confusion that quickly became alarm when she got to within a few feet of the man Thorne still had pinned to the shutters.
‘I don’t understand.’ She pointed. ‘Why is that man here?’
‘He’s going to tell Javed how Amin died,’ Thorne said. He tightened his grip on Prosser’s collar. ‘He’s going to tell both of you.’
Nadira shook her head slowly and continued to stare, and from behind the shutters, Akhtar called his wife’s name.
‘I’m here, Javee,’ she said.
‘OK, Javed… when I say so, you need to unlock the door to the shop and open it. Then you’re going to raise the shutters.’ Thorne became aware of Chivers and Donnelly whispering behind him and he could guess what was being suggested and by whom. If Akhtar no longer had the gun, then there was nothing to stop them rethinking their action plan on the spot. No reason not to… improvise a little. If the shutters were going to be raised, it would be relatively easy for Chivers to get in there and overpower Akhtar single-handed. One CS canister or an 8-Bang chucked in as soon as those shutters started to go up… job done.
‘Just a few feet, all right, Javed?’
Behind him, the hissed exchange was becoming more heated.
‘No need to open them any more than that. Then move back into the shop. Have you got that?’
Thorne turned and was relieved to see Donnelly raising his hands and Chivers shaking his head in frustration. He pulled Prosser away from the shutters, keeping one eye on the officers behind him.
‘All right, Javed, off you go.’ Thorne heard the key in the lock, then the sound of the bell as the door was opened behind the shutters. ‘Right, open them up… ’
The mechanised growl was painfully loud up close, but it took only a few seconds until the gap was big enough. Thorne banged and shouted, ‘That’s enough,’ and the shutters juddered to a halt. He turned and nodded once to Donnelly then carefully helped Nadira to bend underneath. Once she was inside, he pushed Prosser down and followed him. Ducking quickly under the shutters, he heard Donnelly shout, ‘Five minutes, that’s all. If you’re not out of there, we go back to the original plan.’ Chivers shouted something after that, as Thorne stood up and his eyes began to adjust to the semi-darkness of Javed Akhtar’s shop, but it was drowned out by the grind of the shutters coming down again and clanging shut behind him.