Evil Valley (2 page)

Chapter One

H
E’D THOUGHT HE WAS
being smart, but instead he might just have put them in danger of getting shot.

Dan Groves, TV Crime Correspondent for the south-west of England, exchanged glances with Nigel, his long-suffering cameraman. It wasn’t so easy to do when both were hunched up in balls, trying to make themselves as small as possible behind the low garden wall. Dan tried giving his friend a reassuring smile, but the look he got in return said it hadn’t been successful. Nowhere close.

More manic shouting broke the silence. ‘Don’t come any nearer! I’ll shoot! I swear I’ll shoot!’

Dan shifted his weight, tried to ease the pressure on his aching knees. A police marksman was crouched just behind a car to their side, the muzzle of his automatic rifle only inches away from Dan’s head. It was glinting under the streetlights, unwavering in the man’s grip.

‘Any suggestions?’ Dan whispered.

The man’s reply was terse. ‘Just keep your bloody heads down. If you don’t want to be riddled with shot. Pair of idiots.’

‘Well, thanks for those kind and reassuring words,’ Dan muttered to himself.

The Manadon area of Plymouth on a quiet autumn evening, a pleasant residential estate just a couple of miles from the city centre. Usually the street would be busy with kids kicking footballs, the older ones hanging around talking, people coming and going, perhaps on late shifts from work or popping to the corner shop for milk, or cigarettes. Standard, contented suburbia.

Tonight, it was unusually quiet. But then, Dan reflected uncomfortably, it would be when it was the focus of a major police operation, had been cordoned off because a man had barricaded himself into one of the houses and was waving a shotgun from the window and threatening to shoot anyone who showed themselves.

And he thought he was being clever. When would he ever learn?

They’d been on a straightforward assignment to film a story about boy racers using one of the nearby roads as a racetrack when they’d been tipped off about the siege by a local gossip. For once, they’d arrived before the police, and Dan and Nigel had walked down the street to see what was going on.

They’d ignored the group of people running away. They’d taken no notice of the venomous yelling from the end of the row of terraces. Even the wise advice from a middle-aged woman, hurrying past with her arm around a crying young boy had been duly ignored.

‘Don’t you go up there,’ she’d panted. ‘It’s dangerous. He’s got a gun and he says he’ll use it.’

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Dan had calmed her. ‘It’s our job to run towards the sound of gunfire.’

He’d grinned, Nigel had smiled and they’d strolled blithely on. That was until the man’s screaming and waving of a very large shotgun had sent them ducking behind the garden wall. There they had stayed. And Dan couldn’t help but think their situation had not only turned from bad to worse, but then also deteriorated.

Half a dozen police cars squealed to a halt, their sirens screaming. At both ends of the street the familiar blue-and-white police tape was being hurriedly reeled out, a line of officers guarding it. Local residents were ushered quickly away, crouching to avoid any possible gunfire. And around them had crept a team of police marksmen, some scuttling crablike along the row of cars, dodging from vehicle to vehicle, others snaking up on their bellies. The house had been surrounded, and they were caught between a small arsenal of weapons in what Dan could only think uncomfortably of as no man’s land.

‘I swear I’ll shoot!’ came another yell from the house. ‘Keep back coppers!’

The policeman’s gun barrel tracked back and forth across the house. ‘Think I’ve got him,’ the man whispered into his radio. ‘In the upstairs window. Shall I take him?’

‘Negative,’ a voice crackled back. ‘He’s had a domestic with his wife. She stormed out. It’s happened before. He’s come out peacefully. Let’s see if we can manage the same again.’

‘Roger that.’

Dan had covered police sieges before, but always from the reassuring safety of outside the cordon. The cold of the pavement was beginning to seep up his back, making it ache. He shivered, pulled his jacket tighter around his chest. The sky was clear and his breath was fogging the night air.

Dan checked his watch, as unreliable as ever. It said nine, so it was probably more like a quarter past. Wessex Tonight’s late bulletin was on air at half past ten. If they were going to get the story on, they’d have to work out a way soon.

‘What will the cops do?’ Nigel whispered.

‘Not a lot. They’ll keep him contained and try to talk to him. It sounds like he’s on his own in there, so they’ll wait. They’ll only fire if he starts shooting, or comes out and waves his gun around.’

‘So what do we do?’

Dan shifted his weight again. His knees were throbbing hard, they needed to get some pictures and he had no intention of waiting around all night while the police tried to talk the man out. So far, they’d filmed nothing, hadn’t had the opportunity. Or the courage, more like. If it came to a choice between winning a TV news award and being peppered with shot, or no award and his precious skin intact, little consideration was required in Dan’s mind.

‘Well, we’d better try to get some pictures,’ he said. ‘Lizzie will go mad if we’re here and we don’t get anything.’

Nigel gave him a look, tapped the camera on his lap. ‘By we, I take it you mean me. And I have two young sons. Not to mention a lot of life left to live. In one piece, preferably.’

‘Sure. But there must be a way of sticking your head up safely for a few seconds to get some shots.’

‘Like what?’

Dan was about to shift his position, see if he could take a quick look at the house when he was interrupted by a voice booming through a loud hailer.

‘Mr Anderson … Mr Anderson … this is the police. Please come out so we can talk to you.’

‘Never!’ came the instant and screeched reply. ‘You’ll never take me alive, cops!’

The marksman rolled his eyes. Dan too groaned. ‘Great. Of all the nutters around, we have to get one who’s been watching too many Westerns. Look, we can’t just sit here. We’ve got to do something.’

‘Like what?’ Nigel asked, annoyingly reasonably.

A couple more marksmen scuttled up the pavement, just across the street. One was wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with “Police”.

Dan stared at them, felt an idea growing. ‘Have you got your rain hat?’ he asked Nigel.

The cameraman produced a battered old khaki model from his jacket pocket. ‘Yep. Why?’

‘When I was a kid, I remember reading in a war magazine about an old soldier’s trick for when they thought there might be a sniper around. It could just tell us whether it’s safe to stick our precious heads above the parapet.’

Dan grabbed a stick from the floor, poked it into Nigel’s hat and slowly and gingerly lifted it above the wall.

He flinched, expecting a shot. Nothing. He jiggled the hat up and down, moved it back and forth along the wall, as if its wearer was moving, waited, then did it all again. Still nothing.

‘There,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘All safe.’

Nigel narrowed his eyes. ‘You sure?’

‘Absolutely. That’s the situation thoroughly risk-assessed. All boxes of those irritating, endless forms ticked. If only I could operate the camera with the skill you’ve got, I’d take the pictures myself.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Nigel weighed the camera on his knees, shifted it to his shoulder and muttered something under his breath that sounded like a prayer. He popped up, filmed a few seconds of the house, then dropped back down again. Beside them, the marksman watched, his mouth falling slowly open.

Dan tried giving him a winning smile. It wasn’t reciprocated. He wondered if he’d just invented a new chapter in the Firearms Tactics manual. Perhaps an appendix entitled, “How To Baffle Your Gunman.”

He grabbed Nigel’s collar and guided him back along the wall, towards the edge of the cordon and their cars, filming all the way. They could drop the pictures in to the newsroom to make a decent report for the late bulletin, and still have time to get to the pub for a late beer. They deserved it after that.

He had no idea how guns would come to dominate the despair of the next week of his life.

Dan had meant to buy Nigel a drink by way of thanks, but found he didn’t have any money, so the cameraman had to get the round. It could have been the definition of the insult being added to the injury.

‘You are a disgrace,’ Nigel said, walking carefully back from the bar with a couple of pints.

‘You may have a point old friend, but it worked, didn’t it? We got the shots and the story. And good timing too, the man being talked out just before the bulletin with no one hurt. A rare happy ending all round.’

Dan held up his pint, took a sip of his drink. They were sitting in the Old Bank on Plymouth’s Mutley Plain, as the less than creative name suggested it was a converted bank, no atmosphere, but good and cheap beer and ideal to drop into for a quick drink. It was busy, students mostly, attracted by the low prices and curry night, but they managed to find a small table at the back.

‘So, how’s this new woman of yours then?’ Dan asked. ‘Going well?’

Nigel screwed up his face. ‘She’s nice enough, but a bit keen. She wants to get to know James and Andrew better, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I think she’s got me down as someone she’d be happy to settle with and she’s already working at it. She’s been divorced for a few years now and I think she’s getting lonely and wants to have someone around. It’s been four years since Jayne died, so she reckons it’s about time I did the same. It’s just … well …’

Dan knew exactly what Nigel was talking about. They’d started working together just a couple of months before his wife Jayne was diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis had quickly grown worse, the word treatment replaced by terminal. The scar of the intensity of the emotion of those last weeks of her life had never left his friend.

‘You’re still comparing everyone with Jayne?’

Nigel nodded. ‘Yep, and I do it with every woman I meet. That’s why I haven’t managed to make it last with any of them.’

‘It’ll come. When you’re ready. There’s no sense trying to rush it.’

Nigel stared into his pint. Dan could hear his thoughts. Four years was hardly rushing it. He knew his friend sometimes felt lonely, and with his sons seven and eight years old he’d love to have a woman around to help him in the difficult years to come. But not just any woman.

‘Anyway,’ Nigel said, looking up. ‘Enough of me. How’s life with you? How’s it going with Claire?’

‘Claire is … fine,’ replied Dan slowly. ‘Just … fine. When I get to see her, that is. I told you she’s been made a full-time Detective Sergeant now?’ Nigel nodded, sipping at his beer. ‘She was delighted by the promotion, but it’s brought loads more work. We try to get together at least one night in the week, and have a day out at the weekend, but with my work demands and hers it isn’t always possible.’

‘How long have you been seeing her now?’

‘A year and a bit.’

Nigel looked thoughtful. ‘So it’s about the sort of time you should be …’

‘Yes,’ replied Dan, quickly. ‘But we’ll tackle that when we have to. Look, shall we talk about something else, other than women? I’ve never really got the hang of them. Christmas is coming up. In my role as surrogate uncle to the boys, any ideas about what presents I can get them?’

‘Sure, yes. Well, I’ll probably get …’

Nigel was interrupted by his phone ringing, some grating pop tune, no doubt a gift from his sons. He reached for his belt, but just as he did, Dan’s warbled too. They looked at each other. A double call meant trouble, a breaking story and a scramble alert from the newsroom.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Dan. He hoisted the phone up to his ear. ‘What? Where? Yep, Nigel’s with me. We’ll go now.’ He cut the call, stood up, Nigel doing the same.

‘Let’s go. You won’t believe this after what we’ve just filmed, but it’s true. The cops have killed a guy. Totally separate incident – in Cornwall, just over the river, Saltash. By my reckoning, that’s the second time they’ve shot someone dead in five months.’

They each had a final gulp of beer, but left the two remaining quarter-full glasses on the table. Now that is the definition of urgent, Dan thought, as they strode out through the pub doors.

Everything was routine that night, as it always was now. He liked routine. Five years of serving his country in some of the world’s bloodiest hellholes meant routine was only ever a distant fantasy. Now it was real and he savoured it, delighted in it. Ordered days, everything in its place and at its time, just as he expected it to be. Another day of joyous routine – until the news came on the radio.

The film hadn’t been good, but it had passed a couple of hours. Now it was just before midnight, time to wash, clean his teeth and go to bed. It was the perfect time of night to sleep. Quiet in the other flats, quiet in the street outside. He enjoyed that peace, such a contrast to the days of trying to snatch some sleep amidst the shouts and screams and incessant gunfire. The cold too, an enemy almost as dangerous as the unseen rifles and bayonets, hiding in the quiet forest, always ready to pounce and steal away your life.

The toothpaste tube was nearly empty. Sloppy, he chastised himself. He made a mental note to buy some more on his routine Monday morning shop. He didn’t need to write it down. The Army experience taught you to remember your tasks. There was more toothpaste in the yellow plastic basket above the toilet, three tubes, all neatly stacked in order of their Best Before dates. But he liked to have plenty of supplies in reserve. It was prudent.

He turned on the radio just as Big Ben’s chimes rang out. Perfect. The midnight news. An ordered way to end the day, a round-up of all that he should know. He didn’t need to any more, didn’t have to be on constant alert to be despatched to some far corner of the former empire, but it was a wise habit to retain.

He washed his face to news of an unexpected rise in interest rates. That was irrelevant, the flat was rented and he had little in the way of savings now, just what he would need for these last days of life. He concentrated on his teeth, brushing gently but firmly, up and down, just as the army dentist had taught them. The money was gone, the preparations made and he had enough to live on until it was time to put the plan into action, however long that took. It was just a question of when. He couldn’t predict when it would be, but the time would come and he would be ready.