“Barry Cooper! Throw down your weapon!”

The last thing he wanted was for some poor train driver to be faced with a shoot-out and then kill a civilian with his engine.

Barry, knowing the parameters in which ARUs worked, threw his Glock up onto the embankment. As far as his pursuers were aware, they were now chasing an unarmed man and would be far more reluctant to use deadly force.

From further behind, the lead officer heard Ridley shout “Gun safe!,” scooping up the discarded Glock as he ran past. Ahead of them, the train’s headlights were getting closer.

“Barry, do not attempt to cross the tracks! We have armed officers on both sides! Stop running!”

When the train came round the bend and into view, the headlights were blinding—which was exactly what Barry was hoping for.

He left everything to the very last second. As he turned ninety degrees and darted across the track, he pulled the Webley from his waistband and shot one of the Armed Response officers who’d crossed the track. Before he could shoot the second officer, five bullets from five weapons entered Barry’s torso, hurling him backward, straight into the path of the oncoming train.

It took forever for the train to pass. Once it had gone, the lead officer ran to his man down and radioed for help. Ridley, Laura and Anik didn’t move; they just watched and prayed that the only dead person on this railway track was Barry Cooper.

The man down was alive, releasing Ridley and his team to find whatever was left of Barry. They looked up the track in the same direction as the train . . . and there he was. As Ridley led the way, he forced his eyes to focus in the darkness. What was lying there was definitely too small to be all of Barry, but looked like it could be a significant portion. Laura and Anik silently followed. And along the top of the embankment, a shadowy figure walked with them. Jack had had a bird’s-eye view of Barry’s death—it was a vision that was now burned into his brain and would stay with him for as long as he lived.

Both of Barry Cooper’s lower legs had gone with a relatively clean cut, but his left arm had been ripped out of the shoulder joint high up, next to the ear; the rest of his body had been tossed and turned a dozen times as it passed underneath the length of the train and was now a broken pile of bones and bloody flesh. Ridley got out his mobile and turned on the torch. Laura and Anik followed suit.

“Forget the legs,” Ridley said. “I want the rucksack.”

The three of them spread out across the train track and walked slowly back toward the Armed Response officers on the ground. The noise had now turned to a strangely calm silence, in which only scurrying foxes could be heard as they ventured out to see if they could find a small enough piece of Barry to sneak off with. Laura’s mobile torch glanced over one of Barry’s missing legs but, as per Ridley’s instructions, she ignored it in favor of finding the rucksack. When Anik froze, hand in the air, unable to speak, Ridley and Laura knew that he’d found something. The rucksack was still on the shoulder of Barry’s missing arm. Ridley opened it up and the only thing inside was money—£20 and £50 notes. All in bundles held by the same style of money wrap as the one they had found deep inside the coal chute at Rose Cottage.