The Visiting Detective – Episode 06
FIVE minutes later, the constables at the scene had briefed them. Another armed man from the station, DC Jones, had arrived with radios, and handed them out.
“We don’t know exactly where he is,” one of the constables said, “but the warehouse owner says there are three exits. He’s an employee who’s taken rather a dislike to the pay levels, as well as being odd.”
“We have to contain him – that’s the key,” Kit said quickly. “Far too many people about here to let him get away.”
Gaby, he noted, made no attempt to interrupt him – she was professional enough to know that the situation needed immediate leadership, no arguments. Kit appraised the site, learning from the constables the names of the roads that surrounded the warehouse. He assigned a watch on each thoroughfare to DS Clark and the two constables.
“It seems to me that if he does get out, we need to be there to cut him off on any road. Jones, you enter the building with me for a two-pronged search.”
A minute later Clark and the constables had moved off to surround the building as best they could, and Kit and Jones were inside the dim interior, moving about as silently as possible. All radios were primed. Luckily, a radio on somewhere, playing Radio Caroline, meant they could communicate.
It was a tense few minutes before Kit judged the man had gone towards the eastern exit. Cardboard boxes seemed to have been shoved out of a pathway. Kit reckoned the man was going to try to get out there. Through a filthy window Kit could see what he thought was a small yard, with possibly a low wall, as well.
“I’m going to exit via the east door,” Kit radioed in a barely audible voice. “I believe there’s well-concealed egress for our man out here and I have to get him first.”
Kit crept towards the exit. He’d thought he’d been hearing his target moving around ahead of him, but now he wasn’t so sure. Then a fat pigeon waddled into view, and Kit wondered for a moment if that was the source of the noise. But it wasn’t worth the risk; he had to keep going, and make sure that the man did not elude them.
A metal door was ajar at the end of the path that wound between high boxes, and he tiptoed outside, gun ready, looking about him. He stepped in the suddenly bright light and saw that it wasn’t an enclosed yard at all, but was open to an alley. A sudden movement to his right made him spin round. As the bullet entered his chest, and a look of astonishment spread over his face, he could have sworn he saw, on a wall, the distinctive shadow of DS Gabrielle Clark.
The face of a girl swam into view, and behind her, bright lights. For a moment Kit noticed with appreciation her little pointed chin, her full lips, and the soft curls that fell forwards as she leaned over him. Then the memory came to him, in a terrible flash, of this same beautiful girl’s shadow with a gun in its hand. He jerked into a sitting position, or tried to, but a pain in his torso made him gasp. This was Clark, who’d tried to kill him!
