Made To Be Broken (21 page)

The heat of the day slid away, leaving the night with a sharp chill. Outside, the car park was close to empty, with only a single marked police car and four staff vehicles standing in the car park. The car that had come through the window had been taken away on the back of a low-loader by the police.

In the far right corner, over the meat counter, a bulb flickered continually. No one cared enough to notice, let alone change it.

Liam Scott was the store manager and he had never known a day like it.

He was considering resigning. His mum had always wanted more for him. She wanted him to attend college or university but he had insisted on leaving school as soon as he could and had taken the first job that he’d been offered. In his defence, he had been able to progress through the company and work up to the position of manager, but he would never have imagined that managing a store would leave him in a store at night, virtually alone, after a child had been murdered while he had been on duty.

He used to think the idea of being so close to a real life crime scene was thrilling but he now knew otherwise. There was nothing thrilling about seeing a young child dead in your store.

Bridgette’s mum had wailed like a broken animal when the car hit. Unable to move her legs, pinned beneath one of the wheels, her screams pierced the air around her, with the only word escaping being the name of her daughter. But Bridgette was silent. Bridgette couldn’t hear her mum’s screams and eventually the screams had slipped away as unconsciousness took her.

All those customers that had taken their phones out, minutes after they had apparently got over their shock, sickened Liam. There was no social value in death. In murder. In this whole craziness that was overtaking the city. His mum was right. He should have applied himself more. Dreamed higher. Now was the time to do that. This was the push he needed. When he finished up here he was going to do something about his situation.

He handed steaming mugs of coffee to the two cops guarding the scene at the front of the store, then stepped away. He was anxious around the uniforms but there was only him and three other staff left in store, and it was creepy being here when it was so quiet, so he stayed close to them.

He could apply for jobs in the city, in offices where nothing happened. He could study online and progress things from there. He had the brains. This wasn’t what he wanted.

Tim from the bakery walked towards him. A huge grin on his face.

‘So, what’re the odds our store would be affected by all this then, Liam?’

He sighed. Everyone loved a drama. ‘I don’t know, Tim. Extreme, I imagine.’ He straightened the boxes of cereals on the shelves in front of him.

‘Oh you bet they were, but look at us now.’ Liam didn’t think it possible but Tim’s face split into a wider grin.

‘Right in the thick of it aren’t we?’ Tim’s hands were firmly in his pockets, no inclination to do any work.

‘I suppose we are.’

‘Something to go home and talk about tomorrow, eh?’

‘I’ll be sleeping tomorrow, Tim.’

‘Oh, yeah, course. But, after that.’

Liam had stopped listening. He could see a group of about half a dozen youths approaching the two police officers at the front of the store. They were dressed in dark nondescript clothing; jeans and dark hoodies, and it looked as though they were all carrying things in their hands. Their shoulders were bunched up, their elbows bent, and they looked ready for trouble. Liam felt a prickle of fear run down his spine.

‘So, what do you think?’ Tim was still talking.

‘What?’

‘About the girls? Are you not listening? They’ll be interested in what we have to say. I might get myself a decent date out of this.’ He rubbed his hands together.

Liam’s stomach rolled over.

Voices were raised and easily heard through the broken pane at the front of the store. The group were angry with the police. The police called for back-up using their radios.

There was a smash as one of the group threw what looked like a brick through another of the store’s windows.

Tim stopped blathering and looked to where the sound had come from.

The group were shouting, he could hear words about murderers, arms were being waved for added emphasis and the crowd in front of the officers grew.

Things were getting frantic.

Both officers turned, threw their mugs on the ground. One looked Liam in the eye and shouted at him to get further back inside.

He didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed Tim by his sleeve and pulled him towards the back of the store. Tim was rooted to the spot.

‘Tim!’ he shouted in his face without letting go of his sleeve. He didn’t like the sound of the group that were outside. They were angry and it was obviously targeted at the supermarket. As far as Liam could see, he was affiliated with the supermarket and he didn’t want to hang around to see how this group would deal with that fact. He pulled on the sleeve again. This time, Tim finally moved.

Liam heard the dulled whirl of the double doors sliding open and another smash. Glass shattering. Then another. There was a wine display at the front of the store; this was obviously being hit by something.

Liam paused for the briefest of moments as it struck him what was happening. He was about to be caught in the middle of a riot where the people outnumbered the police. The store was being entered. Emotion driving actions couldn’t be contained. They weren’t safe. As that moment froze in his mind it dulled and slowed, dragging his dark thoughts in like a black hole. The smashing and shouting and screaming were filling his head. If he and the other members of staff were caught by this group, they’d be trashed like the produce in the rest of the supermarket.

Tim no longer needed to be persuaded to run. He was the hundred-metre sprint champion three years running at school. Though the hundred-metre sprint was only a short distance and nowhere near as long as the length of the store. The back of the store was where the stock came in and the loading bay doors were. He’d forgotten Liam had been tugging at him to move. His instinct took over. But he could hear him panting behind him. Ragged and strong.

Tim was channelling that feeling of having competitors at his heels, waiting for him to let up, slow down, fall, and it pushed him on and forward. And instead of fellow runners at his heels, he had attackers. People who wanted to do him harm.

He wasn’t going to look back to see how close they were. He’d seen them when they threw the brick through the window and he wasn’t going to hang around to see how quick they moved. He’d heard stories about out of control mobs. Panic-driven flash mobs who lost all identity of the person they usually were and became part of a pack.

Hunted in a pack.

Tim’s heart hammered in his chest, so hard that he thought it might break right through his rib cage. It slammed hard. His vision was shrinking. His breath ragged.

He kept running.

Down the aisle.

Through the door, down the corridor.

Into the huge, cool storeroom.

He was nearly out and free.

The loading bay doors were closed.

Tim looked around him. Panic sucked the air right out of him. His breath was coming fast and uneven. He felt as though he had run twelve one-hundred-metre sprints, one after the other. How the hell did you open the bay doors? He was hot and his brain was slowing. He couldn’t think.

Liam caught up with him and bent double, panting.

‘Kirsty and Don are behind me. I saw them running across the back of the store from the clothing area.’

Yeah, but that didn’t solve the problem in front of them.

‘How do we open the doors, Liam?’

‘There’s a large red button at the side of the door. You open them; I’ll go and see what’s happened to Kirsty and Don.’ Liam ran off in the direction he had come from. Into the store. Towards the oncoming mob.

Great. As soon as the doors opened he would be out of there, not waiting around to be someone’s football.

He felt a little safer in here and walked down the concrete ramp towards the huge steel doors, trying to get his breath back. It was harder than he imagined. Sucking in air seemed to be a struggle and his chest hurt. But he was safe now. As long as he could get the doors open, he was out of there.

The room was silent. I seated myself on the corner of Aaron’s desk. Martin had wheeled his chair over to us, Ross stayed at his own desk with his head down and a couple of the other staff obviously listening in. It was shocking that it had come to this. We were losing control of the situation – not just this incident, but also the situation as a whole. The bigger picture. The digoxin killer. This was his doing. He may not have started this incident at the supermarket, or this may or may not have been his intention, but he bloody well was behind it, and sitting here, listening in on the airwave, hearing colleagues relaying information from the ground back to the control room was frustrating and a little bit frightening. I didn’t doubt any one of the people in this room would say they were frightened by what was happening, by what had happened so far. They’d be on the wrong side of the blue line not to be. This was something we hadn’t seen before and it was natural to have a fear of the unknown.

The air crackled and fizzed with the sound of breathless cops trying to relay messages of activity on the ground to the control room. It made trying to keep up a difficult affair. I had to tune myself into the sounds, something I hadn’t used to such an extent for a while now. There was a time I could be wearing my radio and tune it out into the background as I talked to witnesses, victims or just fellow cops but automatically pick up my own call-sign or any incident of note. Listening to the police radio was like tuning into another piece of yourself. Once you find the right channel, you’re all set; right now I was still finding that channel and only picking up some of the words that were coming through.

They were rushed. With only two cops guarding the scene and an unexpected angry mob turning up they had their hands full. Yes, they were guarding the scene and they had to protect themselves, but it seemed they had a mob to deal with outside the supermarket and also a group that were advancing inside the store, so now the most immediate issue was saving life and limb, the innocent lives of the supermarket staff.

Enough people had died.

As well as the voices of the two cops there were rushed updates from colleagues speeding to their aid with two-tones providing a soundtrack over the whole incident.

I could also hear the angry horde chanting, shouting and the sound of missiles landing at their destinations.

I imagined the destruction being caused.

‘How long …’ panting, crackling, ‘… back-up?’

The calm voice of the control room operator responded, ‘three minutes out.’ But I knew the calm was a working façade. Like us he would be glued to his screen, watching for the caller ID to pop up, his earpiece, waiting for more. To know everyone was safe. His heart in his throat, swallowing hard to clear it so he could work and support his colleagues.

‘CS spray disseminated … Need to stop them all going into the store.’ Martin blew out a deep breath. Still we didn’t move.

‘Charlie Tango two one to NH.’ NH being Nottinghamshire’s control room call sign.

It was quieter now, less crowd shouting coming through, but a definite sole voice screaming out. The recipient of the CS I imagined. Its effects short-term but effective.

‘Go head, Charlie Tango two one.’

‘We have one under arrest and the staff have all made it out safely through the rear loading doors. Repeat, all staff are safe but this crowd are angry so we’d appreciate that back-up as soon as.’

‘Good to know, Charlie Tango two one. Back-up should be with you shortly.’

I stood up from the desk, the corner having dug a deep wedge into my thigh. I was stiff and uncomfortable but I was relieved that the officers and supermarket staff were safe.

‘I’ll put the kettle on. Make us all a cuppa. Then we’ve got work to do.’

‘Charlie Tango two one to NH. The offenders are back and there are more of them. We need that back-up and we need it now.’

I stopped moving and listened. My hearing tuned in only to the sound of the radio and nothing else.

‘NH, the supermarket staff are in the police vehicle. There is nowhere else safe to put them. There is quite a crowd gathered around the front of the building and more keep coming. We seriously need that back-up. They’re loud, leery and definitely looking for trouble. Lots of shouting about killer goods and—’

There was a loud thud that sounded as though it was close to the mic of the user. I moved back to my spot on Aaron’s desk where the radio was and turned the volume button up. Aaron flinched. The space around his desk felt claustrophobic as the rest of the team closed in to listen to unfolding events. Martin and Ross had both pulled their chairs up either side of Aaron, and a few others were gathered behind them, while others spanned out from the sides. Ross’s face was a closed mask. Cold and hard.

Aaron was ramrod straight and was making sure his tie was on properly and evenly. He looked uncomfortable, but I knew we were crowding him.

‘Charlie Tango two one?’

‘They’re throwing bricks. Requesting PSU.’

The Police Support Unit would be better placed to deal with public order of this magnitude. I felt impotent.

‘NH to Charlie Tango two one?’

There was silence in return. And silence in the incident room.

The silence dragged out for what seemed like an eternity but what must have realistically only been a couple of minutes. In that time the control room kept trying to make contact with the officers at the supermarket. A couple of marked cars and PSU vans were barrelling their way towards the two officers needing assistance. Two-tones punctured the air as the assisting officers updated control as they sped through the night to support their colleagues and protect the members of the public who were trapped inside a police vehicle, which didn’t seem to be a very safe place to be right now.

‘Charlie Tango two one to NH.’

‘Thank fuck,’ said Ross.

‘Go ahead, Charlie Tango two one.’

‘There’s been a lot of damage; bricks are being thrown at the vehicle the supermarket staff are in. It’s bedlam here. Back-up is pulling in now. I don’t know if it’ll be enough. We need to get these members of the public out of here urgently.’

‘There are more units on the way to you, Charlie Tango two one.’

There was a loud roar, then the sound of smashing glass then the radio went silent again.

The mic opened up with the PSU van saying they were about a minute out. But a lot could happen in a minute.

All was quiet, broken only with the occasional whispered comment. I was itching to get out and help but that was the job for the uniform staff; our job was to work the murder case behind it all because that was what would stop this escalation of events. Not that we were doing that right now. Now we wanted to make sure our colleagues were safe. And finding out that information meant sitting here listening to the police radio.

It crackled to life with a start after several minutes of deathly silence.

‘getting bottles and bricks thrown …’

‘Papa Sierra Uniform zero one to NH. Show us at location please.’

The serious back-up was now there. I hoped things would calm down.

‘Offenders running.’

‘Request dogs and Papa zero eight.’ The helicopter.

‘Running towards the main road. They’re scattering.’ Heavy footsteps were falling as the commentary continued. The foot chase was on and a dog officer was requested as well as the helicopter. Officers and supermarket workers were safe. They needed to round up the ringleaders of the night and try to contain the public panic.