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  “When she’s feeling a bit more like it, we’ll get a statement from her, A police liaison officer has been assigned” Alec told him. “She was very shaken.”

  Tebbutt nodded. “I should have been in later today,” he said, “but I had an appointment elsewhere.” He seemed sobered by the thought.

  Hemmings shifted impatiently. “If we could have that information, sir.”

  “Of course, of course.” Tebbut pulled himself together. He produced a sheet of paper with five names written on it. “I’m sorry, the writing’s a bit shaky. I did it in the car when I was being brought over. “ He pointed to Maria Childs’ name. “You don’t need to know about her, of course. He glanced up at Alec. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Alec shook his head.

  “They only found out on Friday. Everyone was so delighted. She and Mick have been married five years, trying for nearly as long. I hope it’s going to be…”

  Silently, Alec swore, That explained her hysteria. She had said nothing and it hadn’t crossed his mind to ask. He made a note to mention it when he called the hospital.

  “Then there’s Mr Machin. Brian, he’s the manager. He’s calmness himself, most of the time. Of course, this isn’t most of the time.”

  “Quite.” Alec agreed.

  “The other three are customer advisors. There’s Megan James, Tim Barron and Audrey Shields. Megan and Tim should be fine. Young but sensible. They’ll keep their heads down and say as little as possible. That’s what they’ve been told to do. Audrey’s coming up for retirement and her health hasn’t been so good.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Hemmings wanted to know.

  “Her heart. Angina, I believe. She cut down to part time hours a year ago. She’s been with us….forever.”

  “And how is she likely to react?”

  Tebbutt shook his head. “She’s a sensible woman. The sort you can rely upon in the usual sort of crisis.”

  But, Alec filled in for him, this isn’t the usual sort of crisis. ”You mention training,” he said.

  “We have regular orientation sessions. What to do in the event of a robbery, that sort of thing. We’ve got a video which is supposed to show the kind of scenario that might happen.”

  “And your staff are told to do what?”

  “Oh, cooperate,” Tebutt said. “We don’t want anyone hurt. Give them the money. If it’s possible, put a dye stick in the bag, and observe as many details as possible. Then raise the alarm as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

  “Any instruction on what to do if you’re a hostage?” Hemmings asked.

  Tebbut shook his head. “General instructions to stay calm and not to provoke, but, nothing specific. I mean, robberies happen, but something like this, it’s pretty rare. We weren’t prepared for it. Not at all.”

  Alec didn’t think the robbers had been prepared for it either

  He called a PC over to the table. “Go with this officer, Mr Tebbut. See if you can flesh out your descriptions of your colleagues and if you could give us some contact details for their families? And the plans for the building. If you could fill in positions of cupboards, desks, that sort of thing. As much detail as you can manage.”

  Tebutt got to his feet, grateful to have something to do. Hemmings pulled the list towards him, looking at the notes Alec had made.

  “So,” he said. “We’ve got one potential miscarriage and a possible heart attack. That’s so far. Nice tally.”

  Alec nodded. A uniformed officer came and told him that the hostage negotiators had arrived.

  “Good. Bring them up.”

  “Better be over by the bloody weekend,” Hemmings declared.

  “Why? Is there a match on?”

  “Too right.”

  Alec smiled. “I’ll be sure the negotiators mention that when they call,” he said.

  CHAPTER 5

  The bank phones had begun to ring a number of times in the past hour and the older man, who seemed to being charge, had finally ordered they be taken off the hook. It was therefore a shock when a ring tone, piercing in the near silence, sounded from the small office off to the side of the main reception area. The manager’s phone, Naomi guessed. He probably had a direct line.

  The reaction was immediate.

  “What the hell?” she heard the leader shout. “I thought I told you…”

  “We did, we saw to the phones. We musta just missed that one.”

  Silence which had been dense before, thickened palpably.

  The ringing stopped and the answerphone cut in, the message cheerful and friendly. “I’m away from my desk just now, but if you’d leave your name and number, I’ll get right back to you.”

  The tone signalled the caller to begin and a woman’s voice came on the line. “My name is Sara and I’m an incident manager for the Pinsent and Area Constabulary. I’d like to talk to someone in charge, see if we can’t sort this out?” There was a pause, a brief silence, then the voice again. “Hello, can you hear me in there?”

  “Incident manager?” Patrick whispered.

  Naomi smiled, wryly. “It apparently sounds less threatening than negotiator.”

  “Who says?”

  “Probably some bright spark of a sociologist,” Harry grumbled.

  Naomi smiled. “Hush,” she warned.

  The message ended, the phone hanging up as the tape ran out. Almost immediately it began to ring again, this time, the caller hanging up as soon as the message cut in and redialling so that it’s piercing jangle sounded yet again. The fifth time got a response.

  Naomi could hear the sound of the wire being ripped from its connection and the phone hurled to the floor.

  “Oh,” Patrick breathed. “That’s bad, isn’t it? That’s very bad.”

  Naomi nodded. Right from the start, she had sensed that this man was dangerously unstable; so far he had done nothing for her to revise that view. It seemed his associates also thought this was a move too far.

  “Oh, very clever,” someone said. “Now what’re we going to do.”

  “We don’t need nothing from them, so shut your face.”

  “Don’t we? We need to get out of here, for starters. How we going to talk our way out when you’ve smashed up the last phone?”

  “Thought you told me you didn’t know about that one.”

  “I was being sensible. Keeping our options open. Some of us round here actually have half a fucking brain!”

  There was a scuffling sound as the older man turned and then a yelp and a thud. A collective, indrawn breath

  “What happened?” Naomi demanded.

  “Big guy in charge hit skinny guy,” Patrick told her. “I think he broke his nose.”

  One of the children had begun to cry and her mother tried to quiet her. Her sobs alerted the baby who, so far, had slept through the entire incident. It now began to wail, it’s yells insistent and hungry.

  “For goodness sake, feed the poor little mite!” The woman who had spoken up before, Naomi thought.

  “Mummy, I want a pee,” this from the other little girl.”

  “Hush baby, you’ll have to wait a minute.”

  “I can’t wait, mummy. I need to go now.”

  “You can’t baby,” the mother’s voice edging on hysterical.

  “But mummy…”

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” Naomi heard someone get to get feet. “I’ll take you, sweetheart. Come along.”

  “And what the fuck do you think you’re doing.”

  “The child needs the toilet. Do you want her to wet herself?”

  “You are asking for it, old woman.”

  “Right now, all I am asking for is for a shred of decency. I’m sure even you can manage that.”

  The mother had stepped over the edge into full-blown hysteria now. “Give me my daughter back. Give her back!”

  “Oh do be quiet, dear. You’re frightening the child. Now. Are you going to allow me to take these children to the lavatory or not?”

>   “I thought it was just this one?” the man sneered

  “You clearly know nothing about children,” she told him tartly. “They’ll declare on oath they don’t need to go, then wait until you get back to decide otherwise.”

  Patrick laughed, then turned it into a diplomatic cough. “She’s cool,” he said.

  “She’s bloody dangerous too,” Naomi breathed. She could only guess at what the stand-off looked like. This woman, holding the wriggling, pleading child by the hand while the mother reached for her, too scared to do more than whimper and sob uncontrollably.

  “Take them, then,” the man said. Heavy footsteps and then a shriek told her that he must have grabbed the second child from her mother’s reach and handed her over to the woman.

  “Thank you,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the hysterical wailing of the mother. “What are you names, sweethearts? I’m Dorothy. Just like in the Wizard of Oz. Have you seen that film? No. Oh you must get your mummy to show it to you when you get home. I’m sure it’s available on video.”

  “We’ve got a DVD.”

  “Have you now? My son has one of those.”

  “Don’t waste time, old woman. You. Go with them and you stop that bloody noise and you,” this apparently to the one he’d hit. “Get yourself cleaned up and next time I tell you to do something, you fucking do it!”

  Naomi listened to the receding footsteps of Dorothy and the two little girls. Her footfalls firm and steady, the little feet pattering alongside. The injured man stumbling to his feet and trailing after them with another gunman in tow. Beside her, Napoleon whined pathetically, upset by the raised voices and the atmosphere of conflict. He was too well trained to react overmuch, but she knew he hated it. Napoleon was a friendly soul and liked the peaceful life. He stroked his head and fondled his ears to calm him, thinking that kids weren’t the only people who’d find it hard waiting. She was aware that the big man, as Patrick had called him was speaking once again. That the baby’s yells had ceased and the girls’ mother’s subsided into despairing little chokes that wrenched at the emotions and frayed the nerves.

  “That’s better,” the man said. “Now lets all keep the noise down. Shut up unless you’re’ spoken to, do as you’re told and we’ll all get on just fine.”

  She could hear the forced control in his tone. That extra effort to seem reasonable, when the underlying note told her that beneath the facade he was neither reasonable nor controlled.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Is that normal behaviour?” Alec wanted to know.

  Hemmings barked a laugh. “You’re supposing armed robbers are capable of such.”

  “It’s not entirely unusual,” Sam Hargreaves said. He was the most senior of the two negotiators both in terms of rank and experience. “Question is, have they left themselves with a fallback position.”

  “How so,” Alec queried.

  “Well, most hostage takers will go through a separation phase. A period of time during which they want nothing to do with authority. Refuse all overtures. Then they think it over and realise that they have to talk in order to get concessions. That, in one sense, they are as much prisoners of their situation as their hostages are. It’s not unusual, for example, for them to temporarily disable the telephones, but nine times out of ten, they’ll keep their options open. We have to hope that all they’ve done is take the other phones off the hook. The managers line is now well and truly dead.”

  Alec considered. “Mobiles?” he asked.

  “Could be extremely risky. It directs attention at particular individuals. We don’t want to do that at this stage. We could offer the gang a mobile phone later on and, of course, we can then monitor any other calls they make. You’d have to authorise the equipment, of course.”

  Alec nodded. ”I’ll get straight onto it. So, our next move is?”

  “We wait them out. We’re only, what, two hours in. Meantime, “ he added, turning to Bill Priestly, the commander of the armed response unit. “Ensure you’re people are kept back from the sightlines and keep the streets clear. “

  “Already done,” Priestly told him. “We could do with more uniform on the cordons though. We’ve got the usual mix of rubbernecks and journalists . Only a handful of them at the moment, but news will travel.”

  “We’ll see what we can do. Do you recommend moving the cordon back?”

  Priestly considered, then shook his head. “Moving back at the Blackberry Lane end would interfere with traffic flow. We’d be spilling out onto the main road come rush-hour and the other end, Colbert Street takes a sharp right hand bend just at that point. There’s that nasty staggered junction. Last thing we want is an RTA. Plus, we’d then be forced to cover the side road, that little alleyway that backs onto the industrial estate?”

  “The Cut,” Alec provided. It was a short and single track but frequently used as a rat run. There’d been campaigns to make it a pedestrian zone for as long as Alec could remember.

  “The Cut, yes. That would, potentially add to our crowd control problems”.

  “So,” Alec paused thoughtfully. “We’re back to trying to second guess their next move.”

  Sarah crossed to another table and collected the plans that George Tebbut, the under manager had been helping to construct. They were essentially copies of the blueprints, with additions made in multi-coloured pen, showing the position of desks and phones. “I’ve been looking these over,” she said. “We don’t know how many hostages they have, but Sam and I are reckoning on between ten and fifteen.”

  “Why?” Alec wanted to know. He’d not met Sarah Milton before. At first sight, she looked too young to be taking on such a role. He was used to Sam Hargreaves, having worked with him before, and Sam’s partners had usually looked like him. Sam’s blond hair was now fading to grey and thinning on top and he was somewhat portly about the midriff, while the rest of the body seemed to have been thinned out and consumed by nervous energy. Sarah Milton was perhaps thirty at most with a slender figure and black skin that glowed with health. She looked like an ad for a local gym, but Alec had noted the way Sam Hargreaves deferred on several occasions to his far younger colleague and figured there was a great deal more going on in Sarah Milton’s head than the exterior might advertise.

  “We know how many staff were on duty, so that gives us a count of four, one having been released. Mr Tebbut was able to give us a rough figure for the normal customer ratio on a Monday morning, so our estimate is a low of four, assuming the bank was empty and an upper limit of around fifteen, given the usual Monday morning trade.”

  She paused and pointed at the plan. “There are, we believe, four gunmen?” she glanced at Alec for confirmation. “Sergeant Priestly and I had a chat earlier and we decided it’s likely, they’d keep one watching the back of the bank and another keeping an eye on the street. That leaves two to guard the hostages. Now, even given that the building is not large that’s still stretching their resources if they keep the hostages in the main reception area. To watch the rear of the building, you’d need someone here, in the manager’s office, so, physically separated from the other three. A second would need to be here.” She pointed to what showed on the map as a small alcove next to the main door. According to Mr Tebbut, that gives the only clear view out into the street. All other windows are obscure glass, but this one was broken a while back and there’s been a delay getting a match for the glass so, the top pane is clear. Mr Tebbut reckons you need to stand on something to see out, but you do get a clear view.”

  “Of how much of the street?”

  Priestly responded. They’d already tried to work this out. “You can certainly see the greengrocers, so any comings and goings from now should be through the back way. The two shops on either side are also in clear view and maybe a little further at a pinch.”

  “But not the cordon?”

  “No. To get a better view you’d need to get up onto the roof and I doubt they’d do that. No cover to speak of, save a bloody great air v
ent, for the heating system. If you look out of the window, you can see that.”

  “What about the windows on the second storey?” Hemmings wanted to know.

  “I doubt they’d want to split the team,” Sarah commented,” but according to Mr Tebbut the upstairs has been used as a storage area for years and the windows were panelled on the inside for security reasons. If they decide to remove the panels, we’ll see them.”

  Alec nodded. “So,” he said, prompting Sarah. “Control of the hostages is going to be a priority.”

  She nodded. “Here, look, there’s a storeroom, on the ground floor, just off the main reception. It’s used for stationary, second photocopier, unused chairs, that sort of thing. But at about ten foot square, you could confine fifteen hostages inside and there’s only the one exit. No windows, no other door.”

  “Ten by ten is small,” Hemmings said doubtfully.”

  “I don’t think they’d be too worried about the comfort of their prisoners,” Sam Hargreaves put in. “The gang, if we’re reading them right, have found themselves in an unwelcome situation, having saddled themselves with, maybe, fifteen unwanted bodies. At this stage, the hostages will still be depersonalised. Worse than that, they’ll be seen as liabilities. This isn’t like a kidnapping, where the live victim is your key to getting what you want. These unfortunates will have a nuisance value at best. “ He paused. “You tried to photograph the gunman on the street? I’ve not a had a chance to look yet.”

  Alec pulled his mobile from his pocket. “Sorry,” he apologised. He’d shown Priestly, but then forgotten to bring Sam up to speed on that aspect. “The images aren’t good, but…”

  Silently, Sam Hargreaves and Sarah Milton scanned through the five shaky, grainy images. They exchanged a look that Alec could not quite interpret.

  “Seeing the level of threat exhibited just confirms what we’ve said.” Sam was sombre.

  “But, he did let her go,” Hemmings objected.

  “In such a fashion as to leave you in no doubt of his intent. He didn’t shoot her, no, and that’s encouraging. But he did fire his weapon and the shot was random. He gave little thought to where it might go or whom it might hit. “