In the shared squad room, Jack, DS Laura Wade and DC Anik Joshi waited patiently along with the rest of Ridley’s team. They knew that when Ridley finally emerged, his handover would be short and straight to the point but, by God, watching him prepare was painful!

Ridley was known around the station for getting things done quickly, but that was because no one outside this squad room saw the upfront, focused effort he put in. Once he was organized, there was no stopping him, that was true; but this part—the part where he was getting himself organized—was like pulling teeth. It stemmed from his aversion to delegating. He overcame this by hand-picking and training his own team, giving precise commands and keeping a very close eye on each and every one of his officers.

“Do you think he’s like this in the bedroom?” Laura whispered to Jack. “Prepping at the speed of a tortoise and delivering at the speed of a train.”

By the time Ridley finally emerged from his office, Jack and Laura were in silent, shoulder-shaking hysterics. True to form, Ridley was quick and to the point.

“Our target is Donal Sweeney. Yard in twenty. DC Joshi, you’re with me.”

And Ridley was gone.

Jack got to his feet. “I wonder what he’d do if, one day, none of us followed him?”

Laura retracted her head into her neck, giving herself a double chin, and looked sideways at Jack, eyebrows raised, as if to say, You try it first!

She then led the way out of CID and down into the yard.

Donal Sweeney lived on a council estate just outside Dagenham. He was a 36-year-old former computer engineer who, after being made redundant three years previously, went off radar. No job, no signing on, seemingly no income. And now they knew why. He was a big man, according to a mugshot taken after a drunken brawl the week after he lost his job where he had pulled a couple of knives, so they were going in hard and loud. He was clearly volatile, and a dozen coppers arriving to arrest him could be dangerous.

This council estate was a typical high-density social housing experiment from the 1960s, duly forgotten about and now looking after itself as best it could. Petty criminals were rife, but crime wasn’t too bad as they tended not to “shit on their own doorstep.” More serious crime, such as murder, was restricted to people who were known to each other.

Anik sat in the passenger seat of Ridley’s car, watching Ridley give orders to an Armed Response Unit—they all wore holstered Glock 17 pistols strapped to their thighs, and two of them held on tight to a short-strapped Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. They stood with their legs unnecessarily wide apart, encased head to foot in Kevlar. Anik had always thought that armed officers must be both brave and crazy; it certainly wasn’t for him. He’d started the training last year, but as soon as the first simulated hostage scenario began, he lost his nerve. The idea of taking a life was something he could just about get his head round, but the idea of someone trying to take his life was impossible to accept. It takes one hell of a special person to race toward a crazed gunman to save a total stranger—and Anik wasn’t that special. He could handle himself well for a smallish man, but he’d never faced a gunman and never wanted to.