Superintendent Wood liaised with the city teams and confirmed the plan.
All four targets would be hit at six thirty-five. We had a final briefing, and then some of us went to the armoury to draw our guns. A Tactical Firearms Unit would be standing by, but those of us with the necessary training would carry personal weapons.
Hate is a word I rarely use, but it's in my vocabulary. I reserve it for describing my feelings towards guns. Holding a gun changes your personality as surely as does a mind-bending drug. I'd found it in everybody I'd ever seen with one, on both sides of the fence; including myself. In the Force, there are stringent tests of personality and ability before you can carry a firearm. In the streets, all you need is a hundred quid.
The standard issue is a thirty-eight, either automatic or revolver, according to the individual's preference, loaded with flat-nosed bullets. We are trained to shoot only if a life is in immediate jeopardy, so, if we have to shoot, we shoot to kill. The flat-nosed bullet has maximum stopping power, with the least chance of it going straight through the target and hitting somebody else. "Maximum stopping power' means it makes a mess. "The target' is the person you are trying to kill.
In the armoury, however, was a neat little Walther two-two automatic that had been found in a German tourist's handbag, and confiscated. I'd adopted this for my own use whenever I had to be armed. It fitted in my jacket pocket without the need for a holster. The macho types sniggered at it, but the way I saw things, if I had to use it, I'd already failed. I checked that it had a full clip of cartridges and that the safety catch was at 'zm'. We'd carried firearms on hundreds of occasions, and practised for hours on the range, but, to the best of my knowledge, none of us had ever fired a shot in anger.
Our four cars came to a silent halt round the corner from O'Hagan's house. We were a measured hundred yards away. Uniformed officers positioned themselves where they could prevent the postman and the milkman stumbling into the action. The last couple of minutes ticked by, then the codeword came through on the radio. Ten of us got out and, leaving the car doors wide open, strode towards the three-storey terrace. The drivers would bring the cars after us. At our head was a big constable carrying a sledgehammer. We lined up in a prearranged order at the door and I nodded to the constable. The hammer hit the lock and the door bounced inwards about four inches and sprang back. It was held at the top. Two more blows and we were in.
We'd studied the layouts of similar houses, and knew that the rooms on the second floor were usually used as bedrooms. It was my job, with Nigel, to get to them as quickly as possible. That's where the action was most likely to be, but hopefully we'd catch them with their pants round their ankles. I took the stairs three at a time, but I was only halfway up the last flight when a character came round the top whirling a rice flail round his head. Unfortunately for him it was not much good in the narrowness of the staircase and it tangled round his arm.
He had a game attempt at passing me, but I just doubled up and went for his legs with my shoulders. I felt his shins connect with me, then he sailed over my head and landed at the foot of the stairs with a crash that shook the beer cans in the kitchen. I turned to look down at the wreckage.
"I'll get him," shouted Sparky, who'd found the first floor uninhabited.
"C'mon," I said to Nigel, and cleared the last few steps.
I kicked open the first bedroom door. The bed bore signs of being recently vacated. I slid an unwilling hand between the off-grey sheets; they were still warm. Nobody was under the bed or in the wardrobe so I tried the next room. It was filled with junk, plus a stack of interesting, unopened cardboard boxes. The other bedroom was the biggest, and had a bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers. The sheets on the bed were colour coordinated with the others. Somebody had just got out from between them, too. Sparky and a couple more came round the landing to join us.
"Find anything?" I asked, putting my finger to my lips, then pointing upwards.
"No more bodies, plenty of loot, though," Sparky answered, his eyes following my finger.
These houses originally had cellars and attics. When the attics were no longer required for the maid, or the kids, or the deranged mother-in-law to sleep in, most people blanked them off and demolished the stairs to make the bedroom bigger. This had been done here, leaving just a trapdoor to give access to the plumbing in the attic.
The trap was above the chest of drawers, and it was open. Our second sleeping beauty was up there.
I pointed for the others to go downstairs.
"Okay! Let's go," I shouted. There was a gap at the side of the wardrobe to leave room for the curtains to go back. I slipped into it and gestured to Sparky to leave me.
"Right, we've done all we can here, let's go," he said.
They banged and stamped down the staircases. I moved the curtain to one side and looked out. The front door slammed, but only Nigel emerged into the road. He spoke to one of the drivers for a few seconds, then the car tore off with much revving and squealing. At the end of the street he put on his siren and I listened to it fade into the distance.
I didn't have a long wait. There was a creaking of joists above my head, moving towards the trapdoor. After a few seconds, a pair of bare legs appeared. He sat on the edge of the opening, then dropped on to the chest of drawers. The upper half of his body was still above ceiling level. There was an easy way to do this. I put my hand in my pocket, and my fingers curled round the PPK. My thumb, without being told, eased the safety catch to 'auf." He stood, half concealed, apparently reaching for something in the loft.
Then I saw the butt of a shotgun being lowered out of the opening. I stepped out of my hiding place. "I'm an armed police officer. Put the …"
I didn't get any further. He ducked out of the trapdoor, swept the shotgun in my direction and pulled the trigger. I instinctively jumped back behind the wardrobe as the corner of it in front of my head exploded into sawdust and the window shattered. Stinging fragments peppered my face and eyes. I did a standing leap into the middle of the room, swung in his direction and pumped the trigger of the Walther three times. The figure swimming in front of me raised his hands in a futile gesture of protection, then toppled over, crashing to the floor, the shotgun clattering down alongside him. I lowered my head and blinked most of the debris out of my eyes, then put the pistol in my pocket and moved over to the body, just as Sparky, thirty-eight held in front of him, charged round the top of the stairs.
All three shots had hit him in the chest. I pressed a finger into his neck, alongside the Adam's apple.
"Anything?" asked Sparky, quietly.
"Yes, there's a pulse," I said. "Let's take his vest off."
We pulled the garment over his head and looked at the three wounds.
They were small black holes, almost innocuous-looking, but the blood dribbling out of them was flecked with foam. Nigel and one or two others had joined us. I told him to go down and let ADI Willis know what had happened, and send for the ambulance. We had one standing by.
He was back almost immediately.
"Go back and tell Mr. Willis we need the SOCO and a photographer," said Sparky.
I sealed the holes with my fingers, while Sparky checked the pulse.
After a minute or so he said: "We're losing him."
We decided he was dead more or less as the paramedics arrived. Acting Detective Inspector Willis drew some marks on the floor with a fibre pen to indicate where he fell, just before they put him on their stretcher and rushed him away. I flexed my knees and wiped more bits from my eyes.
"Where were you when he fired, Charlie?" asked Tony.
I blew my nose and walked across the room. "There," I said, pointing to where a great chunk from the edge of the wardrobe had been blasted into infinity.