The radio clipped to the breast pocket of her jacket exploded with the chatter of competing voices.
A woman with an outsized paper cup walked straight into her, sending a caramel latte all down the front of Roche’s uniform. Without saying anything, Roche pushed her out of the way. Raising the MP5 to her shoulder, she began walking steadily towards the gunfire.
Breathe. Just breathe. Fucking breathe! Roche shook her head angrily.
‘Stop talking to yourself,’ she hissed. Her heart felt as if it were about to jackhammer out of her sodden shirt.
‘Find a target.’
Amidst the chaos, she could see that Vincendeau was down, blood already spreading across the floor from behind her head, her weapon still in its holster. Standing in the mess, apparently oblivious to the chaos, Costello was still hunched over his PSP. Looking five yards past him, she could see the shooters. Leaning in to her weapon, she barked into her radio: ‘I have two . . . three targets.’
There was a crackle of static, but no reply.
‘I have . . .’ Fuck it – move!
Two males, dressed in combat pants, sneakers and hooded sweat-tops with no obvious branding. Both were wearing the kind of rubber masks you get in joke shops. As Roche tried to work out who they were supposed to be, another volley of fire into the ceiling brought more screams. Knots of people were cowering on the concourse while others dashed for the exit. Over the PA system came a strangely seductive female voice: Can Mr Black please report to the station manager’s office? Mr Black to the station manager’s office. Thank you.
The code for a Level One Emergency Incident.
Roche felt the acidic taste of vomit rising in her throat and swallowed hard. Where the hell was Grumbach? She answered her own question almost immediately as a clump of passengers scattered and she almost tripped over the Commissaire. He was sitting on his backside as if he needed a rest from all the excitement. The look on his face was completely blank. The round that had gone right between his eyes suggested it wouldn’t be changing any time soon.
Roche regained her footing. ‘Fuck! We have two officers down!’ she shouted into the radio.
There were lots of voices but no one was talking to her.
She felt the sweat rolling down the side of her face. The gunmen were already making their escape through the glass exit doors. It was too late to get a shot off. Costello, however, was barely five yards in front of her. ‘Stop.’ It was less of an order than a croak. Coughing up as much spit as her parched throat would allow, she tried again.
‘Stop! Police!’
Still focused on his game, Costello turned and gave her a mocking smile. Then he began walking away.
Where the fucking hell was everybody? Roche wondered. In the distance, she could hear sirens. ‘STOP!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘POLICE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR OR I WILL SHOOT.’
Costello broke into a casual jog.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ At this distance, a two-second burst from the MP5 would cut him in half. Suspect shot in the back while trying to escape; she could hear all the jokes already. And what if she were to hit an innocent bystander? Fuck it. A corrosive hatred for the bastards who were making her do this welled up inside her. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
Oh sweet fucking Jesus!
Roche’s brain felt like it was going into meltdown. The safety. The fucking safety. With trembling fingers, she flicked it off and took aim again. But this time, Costello was gone.
FIVE
Standing on the steps of the Brunswick Centre, a Grade II listed modernist brutalist residential-cum-shopping centre in Bloomsbury, Carlyle looked in the direction of St Pancras station, which lay a couple of blocks to the north. A police car flashed past on Hunter Street, quickly followed by an ambulance, then another. Sirens seemed to be converging from all directions. Helen appeared at his shoulder and slipped her arm though his. She followed his gaze. ‘Something up?’
‘Looks like it.’ Carlyle felt a familiar frisson of excitement rush through him. Another police Range Rover raced through a zebra crossing, almost taking out a woman pushing a buggy. ‘Something is most definitely up.’ Feeling her stiffen at the prospect of him bolting and leaving her to watch the film on her own, he kissed her gently on the lips. ‘But it’s not my problem.’ His mobile began vibrating in the breast pocket of his jacket.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘Quite sure,’ he said, pulling out the phone and carefully switching it off.
Roche watched Chief Inspector Cass Wadham, her boss at SO15, step gingerly past the covered body of Ginette Vincendeau and head in her direction. ‘So now they’re all here,’ the sergeant mumbled under her breath. ‘The bloody cavalry – at last!’ Before giving up, she had counted almost fifty officers in the otherwise almost deserted station. With the forensics guys, medics, firemen and others working on the scene, the number was well over a hundred. Outside, she was vaguely aware of frantic noise and activity. The inevitable television crews had started to arrive and a set of floodlights had been switched on, illuminating the vast hall in a grainy, pearlescent light, further adding to the unreality of the scene.
The adrenaline rush was wearing off and Roche felt ravenously hungry. Next to her foot, an aluminium chair had been knocked over in the stampede to get away from the gunmen. Pulling it upright, she carefully placed her weapon on the seat. Stepping over to an abandoned concession stall, Roche pulled a half-litre bottle of Diet Coke from a fridge, unscrewed the top and took a long drink.
‘I hope you are not looting, Sergeant.’ The voice behind her was clipped and tense, just like the Chief Inspector herself.
‘Of course not.’ Without turning round, Roche fished a two-pound coin out of her pocket and placed it behind the counter, next to the cash register. Then she let Wadham – a scrawny blonde in her mid-thirties who looked like the uniform was the only thing holding her body together – make a show of giving her a careful once-over.
When she’d seen all she needed, the Chief Inspector turned away. ‘Bloody mess,’ she said in her cut-glass accent. ‘Terrible.’ Shaking her head at the scene in front of them, she gazed to the heavens in search of some kind of inspiration.
Makes one wish one had joined the Foreign Office instead, doesn’t it? Roche thought snidely.
‘Absolutely ruddy frightful.’
‘Yes.’ Roche took another swig of her Coke. Over Wadham’s shoulder, she could make out six bodies. Who were the other four? She felt a sudden spasm in her guts that young Sidney, the cheeky litter lout, might be one of them.
‘What happened?’
‘They started shooting,’ Roche said quietly, the fizzy drink already beginning to make her feel sick. ‘I saw two gunmen. They escaped, along with the prisoner.’
‘Internal Investigations Command will want to speak to you this evening,’ said Wadham primly.
Roche nodded.
‘And you will be required to see Dr Wolf tomorrow.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Roche wearily. This was her first fatal shooting but she knew the standard operating procedure. After IIC came the shrink. She really needed that bottle of Sauvignon Blanc now.
The Renoir was one of his favourite cinemas, along with the Lumière on St Martin’s Lane before it closed back in 1997. Helen had introduced him to both, getting him interested in ‘arthouse’ movies back in the days before they were married, long before their daughter Alice was born. In the 1980s and early 90s, she would take him to see French films like Betty Blue and Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. Maybe that was one of the reasons he had married her. It was just a small one, one among many. It was a nice thought, but it was a long way down the list. The primary reason was that she had let him. There were times when he still marvelled at that.