Ashes to Ashes: An unputdownable thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller

‘Can you intercept, over?’

‘Negative, ma’am … they’re virtually at his door.’

‘Understood. Heck, hold your position. All we can do now is hope.’

Heck stood up, but slammed himself flat against the wall beside the steps, crooking his neck to look along the passage. He understood her thinking. If he went running down there and tried to grab the two cops, there was every possibility Sagan would open the door and catch all three of them. If he kept out of the way, however, it was just vaguely possible the duo had some routine business to conduct with the guy and might be on their way out again in a minute, with no one any the wiser about the obbo. That latter option was a long shot, of course. Like SCU, the Organised Crime Division was part of the National Crime Group. They didn’t deal with routine matters. There was one other possibility too, which was even more depressing. Suppose Cowling and Bishop were up to no good themselves? Could it be they were here to see Sagan for reasons unconnected with police-work? If so, that would be a whole new level of complexity.

Heck squinted down the gloomy passage. The twosome had halted alongside number 36. They didn’t knock immediately, but appeared to be conferring. He supposed he could try to signal to them, alert them to an additional police presence, but the idea was now growing on him fast that these two might have nefarious motives.

A fist thudded on the apartment door. Heck held his breath. At first there was no audible response, then what sounded like a muffled voice.

‘Yeah, police officers, sir,’ Cowling said. ‘Could you open up? We need to have a chat.’

Heck breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t in cahoots with Sagan after all. But now he felt uneasy for other reasons. Given the severity of Sagan’s suspected offences, this was a very front-on approach – it seemed odd the two detectives had come here without any kind of support. Did they know something SCU didn’t, or did they simply know nothing? Had ambition to feel a good collar overridden the necessity of performing some due diligence?

The muffled voice intoned again. It sounded as if it had said ‘one minute’.

And then two thundering shotgun blasts demolished the door from the inside, the ear-jarring din echoing down the passage. Cowling and Bishop were blown back like rag dolls. The impacts as their bodies struck the facing wall shook the entire building.

‘This is Heck inside Fairfax House!’ Heck shouted into his radio as drew his Glock. ‘Shots fired – immediate armed support required on the third floor! We also have two officers down with gunshot wounds. We need an advance trauma team and rapid evac! Get the Air Ambulance if you can, over!’

A gabble of electronic voices burst in response, but it was Gemma’s that cut through the dirge. ‘Heck, this is DSU Piper … you are to wait for support, I repeat you are to wait for support! Can you acknowledge, over?’

‘Affirmative, ma’am,’ Heck replied, but he’d already removed his woolly hat and replaced it with a hi-vis, chequer-banded baseball cap. Climbing the three steps, he advanced warily along the corridor, weapon cocked but dressed down as per the manual. ‘Both shots fired through the door from inside number 36. Sounded like a shotgun. Both Cowling and Bishop are down … by the looks of it, they’ve incurred severe injuries, over.’

‘What’s your exact position?’ Gemma asked.

‘Approx thirty yards along the corridor … but I’m going to have difficulty reaching the casualties. They’re both still in the line of fire, over.’

‘Negative, Heck! You’re to get no closer until you have full firearms support. Am I clear?’

‘Affirmative, ma’am.’ More by instinct than design, Heck continued to advance, but ultra-slowly, his right shoulder skating the right-hand wall. At twenty yards, he halted again. Neither of the shotgunned officers was moving; both lay slumped on their backsides against the left-hand wall. The plasterwork behind them was peppered with shot and fragments of wood, but also spattered with trickling blood.

Heck’s teeth locked. In these circs, hanging back felt like a non-option. These were fellow coppers pumping out their last. He pressed cautiously on. And then heard a sound of breaking glass from inside the flat.

‘Crap!’ He dashed forward, only for a door to open behind him. He spun around, gun levelled. The thin-faced Chinese woman who peeked out gaped in horror. ‘Police officer!’ he hissed. ‘Go back inside! Stay there!’ The door slammed and Heck resumed his advance, radio mic to his lips. ‘This is Heck – suspect’s making a break for it through a window. It’s three floors down, so I don’t know how he’s going to manage it. But his flat’s on the building’s northeast side, which overlooks Charlton Court … we’ve got to get some cover down there, over.’

Even as he said it, Heck knew this would be easier said than done. The surveillance team on Fairfax House was no more than eight strong at any time. Even with Gemma on the plot, that only made it nine – so they were spread widely and thinly. On top of that, though armed and wearing vests, they were geared for close target reconnaissance, not a gun-battle. No doubt, Trojan units would be en route, but how long it would take them in the mid-evening London traffic was anyone’s guess. He slid to another halt as a dark shape appeared at the farthest end of the corridor, about twenty yards past number 36. By its size and breadth, and by the luminous council-worker doublet pulled over its donkey jacket, he recognised it as Gary Quinnell, whose lying-up position was on one of the floors above. The burly Welshman had also drawn his firearm, and was in the process of pulling on the regulation baseball cap.

They acknowledged each other with a nod. Heck lowered his weapon and proceeded, stopping again about five yards from the shattered doorway.

‘Armed police!’ he shouted. ‘John Sagan, we are armed police officers! There’s no point in resisting any further! Stop this bloody nonsense, and throw your weapon out!’

There was no reply. No further glass crashed or tinkled.

They waited a couple of yards to either side of the front door. From this close range, it was plain that Reg Cowling was dead. His face had been blown away; in fact, his head had almost detached. However, Bishop, while wounded in the face, which was riddled with gashes and splinters, and the right shoulder, which resembled raw beefsteak through the rents in his smouldering jacket, was vaguely conscious. He was ashen-cheeked, but his eyes, which by some miracle had both survived, were visible beneath fluttering, blood-dabbled lashes.

‘Bastard went for head-shots,’ Heck said. ‘Expected them to be wearing body armour.’

Penny Flint had told them Sagan was a pro. Here was the proof.

‘This is Heck,’ he said into his radio. ‘Update on the casualties … both in a collapsed state and suffering extensive gunshot injuries. DS Cowling appears to be dead, DC Bishop is conscious and breathing – how long for, I can’t say. We still can’t reach them.’

Gemma’s response broke continually and was delivered in a breathless voice, which indicated she was running. Before he could make sense of it, it was blotted out by another explosion of glass from inside the flat.

‘He’s going for it!’ Quinnell warned. ‘Must have decided the coast’s clear!’

‘I repeat, we are armed police officers!’ Heck shouted. ‘Throw your weapon out!’

With a third shuddering BOOM!, what remained of the front door was blasted outward. Again, DC Bishop got lucky. The shot was directed above him, so though he was bombarded by wreckage, he was spared further pellet-wounds.

A loud clunk/clack from inside signified that a fourth shell had been ratcheted into place.

‘Pump-action!’ Heck said.

More glass was struck from its frame. The detectives locked gazes across the open doorway, brows beaded with sweat.

‘We can’t just let him run,’ Heck stated flatly.

Quinnell didn’t argue the point.

Heck swallowed the apple-sized lump of phlegm in his throat, and wheeled partly around into the doorway, only his left arm, left shoulder and the left side of his head visible as he tried to pinpoint the target. Quinnell did the same from the other side.

But the immediate area, which was an actual living room, was bare of life.

There was no sign of the guy. None at all.

They were vaguely aware of plain, simple furnishings, of bookshelves that were empty, of bland pictures on the walls. But there were also doors to other areas, one on the left and one on the right. On the far side of the room stood three tall sash-windows. The left one had been smashed out.

‘Doors first,’ Heck said, running right, but finding only an empty bathroom. ‘Clear!’ he yelled, spinning back.

Quinnell had gone left. He reappeared from the bedroom. ‘Clear.’

Heck darted for the left window, which had had to be broken because, by the look of it, Sagan had only been able to lift the lower panel several inches. He flattened himself against the wall, and risked a glance through it. Some twenty feet below, a figure in dark clothing – what looked like a heavy overcoat – and with the shotgun hung from its shoulder by a strap, scampered away across the tops of five flat-roofed garages standing in a terraced row. It was instantly apparent how he’d got down there. Some five feet to the left of the window, about six feet above it, there was a horizontal steel grating – the platform section of an old-fashioned fire escape. The fire escape stair dropped steeply down on the far side of that. There was no possibility of reaching either the stair or the platform by jumping. But the killer had prepared for this in advance by connecting a knotted rope to the underside of the grating, and looping it over a hook alongside his window, where it would hang down the apartment house wall unobtrusively. All he’d had to do when the time came was get a firm grip, unhook it so that it swung away from the window, thus preventing anyone in pursuit using the same method, and slither down to the garage roofs.

Heck peered dully at the hanging rope a good five feet away. He was vaguely aware of Quinnell appearing alongside him.

‘Bastard!’ the Welshman said, spying the dwindling form of Sagan as he reached the far end of the garages.

About sixty yards to the right of these, a uniformed police car swung over the grass into Charlton Court from the cul-de-sac at the front. Unfortunately, it was only a divisional patrol responding to the call that had just gone out, and it wouldn’t be armed, which rendered it next to useless. Besides, Sagan had now jumped from the left side of the garage roofs onto Bellfield Lane, which led away at a much lower level. As well as the rugged, rubbish-strewn slope slanting down to this, there was a high mesh fence along its edge, which formed an impassable barrier for vehicles. Sagan made a rapidly diminishing shape as he raced away along the lower road. Still there was no sign of a Trojan unit.

‘Check the casualties,’ Heck said tightly.

Quinnell nodded, and went back across the flat.

Heck holstered his Glock and put his mic to his mouth. ‘This is DS Heckenburg … urgent message. Suspect, John Sagan, is at large and on foot … male IC1, mid-forties, fair-haired, wearing glasses and a dark, possibly black overcoat. Currently escaping northeast along Bellfield Lane. Warning, Sagan is armed with a pump shotgun and more than willing to use it. For the cerebrally challenged, that means he’s armed and dangerous. I repeat: John Sagan is armed and very dangerous!’ He bit his lip, and added: ‘In pursuit.’

‘Hey, whoa!’ Gary Quinnell shouted, as Heck climbed up into the casement.