Chapter Seven: Two Years Before (2003- Part One)


"Damn, damn, damn!" Lestrade grabbed the airwave radio from his pocket. "Sally, I need you here NOW! Robson's down!"

The DI laid the radio on the ground and bent over the form of Constable Robson. The PC was grasping his side in pain, but still conscious. "Sorry, Guv- I just didn't see him until it was too late. Didn't realise he had a knife. And now he's got away, after all this. Shit….I've made such a bodge of this. I'm sorry."

"Be quiet, Robson, Just lie still. It's nobody's fault. Nobody knew what he looked like, so how were you to know? Just lie still, will you? "He picked up the radio again, out through a call for ambulance services. "Did you get a good look at him?"

"Yeah, just get him in a line out, Guv, and I'll be able to identify him for sure."

"Well, that's good news; at least we can ID him now." The DI's team had been tracking this murder suspect for days. He'd been involved with a drug smuggling scam, and killed his partner in a squabble over the cash. But, he was good at hiding- he'd been on the run for a week already. So far, the team had no name and no face to put with it, only a telephoned tip from an unknown informant that "your guy" is in the old office block in the abandoned industrial estate. Lestrade had sealed the whole area. High fences with razor wire limited the escape routes. They'd made sure there were no breaches in the perimeter, and the DI put two cars at the only way out, through the front gate.

He kept his handkerchief pressed to the knife wound on the PC's side.

Sally came bursting through the back door, took the scene in and knelt down alongside the DI. "Is he OK?"

"He's going to be, just give us your scarf and hold it onto the knife wound; keep pressure on it 'til the medics get here. Then go with him to the hospital. Once you're there, call his wife, will you?" She nodded.

Greg stood up, bringing the radio to his mouth. "Clarke and Williams- either of you see any sign of the suspect coming your way?"

The crackled replies from the constables at the front gate were negative, which meant one thing- that the suspect was still inside the wire fence and might yet be caught. He ordered the two men to keep vigilant as the team of twelve would now go through the rest of the buildings on the abandoned industrial park.

The first three buildings were pretty much wrecked- glass windows broken, cold, wet and very empty. Lestrade heard the ambulance arrive during their search of the second building; it left when they were half way through the third. When that too came up empty, he reassembled the team. With five more buildings to go, he decided that they needed to split up, lest their investigation take the rest of the night.

So it was that he and PC Jones headed into the single story building between the two larger blocks. No sooner had they crossed the threshold when Lestrade realised that something was different about this one- it was warmer. The windows weren't broken. He stopped and called quietly on the radio for back-up. "Go around the back, Jones; I think we might get lucky here. And call in the rest of the team."

He moved quietly through the first set of double doors. His torch revealed a lot of footprints in the dust, so he hurriedly switched it off, lest the light give his presence away. He let his eyes adjust to the gloom before moving on. He then heard a quiet murmur of voices, and stopped again. In the dark, he realised that there was a flickering light coming from the larger room at the end of the corridor. He decided to wait for back-up. When two of his PCs came through the same doors as he had, he gestured to them to be silent, and to join him. The three men then moved swiftly down the corridor. Lestrade went in first, shouting, "POLICE! Get your hands up where we can see them."

The scene that greeted him was a surprise. There must have been twenty people in the large room; some standing, some sitting, others lying on mattresses. There was a distinctive odor in the room- a strange mix of unwashed bodies, the unmistakable aroma of marijuana, the sharp tang of crack cocaine being smoked. It was a drug den, with dealing and use going on in the dim light of a number of small stoves and fires.

For a split second, no one moved. Then it was chaos, with people running, some pushing up windows to get out, others trying to bolt out the back door. They didn't get far, as the police outside caught them and pulled them away to be cuffed. Lestrade and his two PCs had their hands full with grabbing and cuffing everyone they could lay a hand on in the dim light.

Lestrade's instructions were simple- round up the whole lot, arrest them, take them down to the station. He was certain that the murder suspect would be amongst them. Photos would be taken and then shown to Robson, when he was sufficiently recovered to make the ID. If he was lucky, this night's work would not only capture a murderer, but also help put a bunch of dealers and their junkie customers off the streets for a while. Not his division, but it always helped when other areas of the Force benefitted.

oOo

They'd arrested 19 people, most of whom were in various states of drug intoxication. Fingerprints and mug shots were taken, routine medical exams done, and initial statements given to constables.

After an hour of the organised chaos of processing so many suspects, DI Lestrade was tired and on edge- too much caffeine and not enough sleep were playing havoc with his nerves. One of the suspects was his murderer, but with Robson unconscious following surgery at the hospital, he had no way to make a quick ID. He sighed and drank his third coffee; he was going to have to do this the hard way. He needed to try to narrow down the suspects before the lawyers got to work and bail procedures got underway. It would be a race against the clock.

He went down to the main holding cells to take a look at the suspects. The first six were a rough bunch- less intoxicated, if at all, according to the doctor who had given them an initial examination. Older men, instinct told him these were more likely to be the dealers. Of course, any one of them could have been the murderer, but without Robson there to identify who stabbed him, it was anyone's guess which one.

"What about the others?" he asked Sally. She'd returned from the hospital as soon as Robson's wife had arrived.

"The usual suspects, Guv. Junkies, homeless, low life- hard to tell which is which. Some crackheads, some high on bennies; a few on heroin. It must have been like a bloody drug supermarket in there."

"Line them up and I'll take a look. If we can eliminate some of them for the murder, then that will narrow our list of suspects down, while we've waiting for Robson."

The first seven were as Sally described-junkies looking worse for wear. Florescent lighting was always so harsh- it showed every bit of grey pallor, dark circles under their eyes, underfed, unwashed and grubby. God, if they only knew how pathetic they all look! Drugs drove Greg mad- such a waste of young lives, and such a reservoir of criminal activity. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Looking at these six, he doubted that the murderer could be among them- they all looked shit scared. A man who had led the police on a merry chase after murdering his partner in cold blood wasn't likely to be too bothered about a simple drugs bust.

"Ok, Sally, push this sad lot back into the cells and bring in the next."

Lestrade took another couple of swigs from the coffee, and then looked at the six new suspects as they shuffled in. And found his attention immediately drawn to the third one in, a tall, dark haired young man who, unlike the others, had a look of utter boredom on his face.

"Bloody hell, that's Sherlock Holmes".

"Pardon, sir?" Sally looked at him quizzically.

"You don't know him, Donovan- before your time with me. He's the third one out of that line-up. Put him on his own in an interrogation room. I'll need to get his statement before that bloody brother of his shows up."