City of Dreadful Night Read Online Free Page A

Danny?’
    Jack looked at me oddly.
    â€˜Danny Moynihan? He’s not here.’
    â€˜So who was the silver commander?’
    The gold commander took strategic command of an armed response incident. The silver commander decided on the tactical response and was in charge of the actual operation. I had the same problem with the silver commanders as with the gold – there were too many of them. Given how rarely such officers fulfilled this role, how could we expect them to do it with confidence? However, I had absolute faith in Moynihan.
    â€˜Charlie Foster was silver, sir.’
    â€˜He’s in the IR van with the guys?’
    â€˜And the girls, sir. It was a mixed team.’
    â€˜I was using guys in the American way,’ I said absently. ‘Do we know who the victims are? The woman?’
    â€˜We have no clear identification yet. It was a rented house. You may have heard a rumour about the woman –’ I nodded – ‘I don’t know whether or not that’s true.’
    â€˜Bad enough that we shot her in the first place,’ I said quietly.
    I thanked him and went into the house. A couple of people in white bunny suits were kneeling beside a man lying on his back in the kitchen. Blood had congealed around his body. I could smell its thick iron tang. A third man straightened and pointed me towards several more sets of overalls.
    I suited up and climbed the stairs. At the top another man in white coveralls barred my way.
    â€˜Sorry, sir. Can’t risk you contaminating the crime scene. You can see from here well enough.’
    I nodded and looked past him through the bars of the landing guard. I saw a man slumped on the toilet, as if in the middle of a particularly difficult bowel movement. By pulling myself up and leaning over the top of the banister I could just see the dead couple in the front bedroom.
    The divisional commander was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
    â€˜Terrible business,’ he said as I stripped off the overall.
    â€˜Something of an understatement,’ I said, bunching the overall in my fists and tossing it in the corner. ‘Call Philip Macklin, will you? We need an immediate debrief – tell him to set up a post-incident room. I also need him to call the Police Complaints Authority and alert them, then choose a force from the MSF to investigate on the PCA’s behalf. Suggest Hampshire – I rate Bill Munro.’
    Bloody acronyms. MSF stood for Most Similar Family. All forces in the country were grouped into ‘families’ on the basis of social, demographic and economic factors rather than size, proximity or regional location. Our other MSF included Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Essex, Kent and Thames Valley.
    â€˜I’d like us all to get the hell out of here but the scene of crime team are going to need to be in this house for the next week or so. If we can’t disperse the crowd, they’re going to be doing their work under siege.’
    I used to brag that I worked best under pressure. Now my mind was in overdrive, considering possibilities, predicting outcomes. A part of me stood back and contemplated what a selfish shit I was, as some of my thinking was about how it was going to play in the press.
    I was determined to come through this unscathed. I had ambitions to go higher in the police service. I knew I could make a difference. I wasn’t going to let this bring me down.
    I left the divisional commander and went to the immediate response vehicle parked across the street. I had to be careful what I said to the officers inside because at the moment I didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know if they were culpable.
    Even so, I wanted to support them. I know from my army days what it’s like to walk into an apparently controlled situation that goes haywire.
    I rapped on the back doors of the van, pulled them open and hauled myself in. It reeked of stale sweat. It was crowded with