Whispering Death

47

It was Joy, the senior teller, who’d activated the silent alarm. The gunman had ordered her to step back from her window, but then he was distracted by the sudden emergence of Mr Ely and Mrs Grace from the manager’s office, so she’d darted forward, pressed the red button, darted back again.

But Challis didn’t learn this until many hours later. Right now all he knew was an alarm had sounded at the police station, a handful of Waterloo uniforms under Jeff Greener had responded, and he and Murphy had a siege on their hands.

The first thing he did was try the bank’s back door. Locked. He went around to the High Street entrance. Also locked. Then someone on the inside opened the venetian blind briefly. He saw a huddle of people in the middle of the main room, controlled by a man wearing a balaclava and pointing a shotgun. The blind was closed again.

So he phoned the bank. Rowan Ely answered, sounding frightened, and Challis said, ‘Rowan, I need to talk to him.’

He heard muffled sounds, as though Ely was holding the phone to his chest, then the manager was back, his voice crackling in Challis’s ear: ‘He says you don’t call him, he calls you,’ and the connection was cut.

This was the heart-in-the-mouth stage, adrenaline fuelled, a sense of sand running out, and Challis’s chest tightened. He turned to Pam Murphy and ordered the closure of High Street and its side streets and alleyways for two hundred metres in each direction. ‘Nobody allowed in, and shopkeepers and shoppers to be screened before being allowed out.’

‘Boss.’

Then he made a number of phone calls. First, the Force Response Unit; second, a hostage negotiator; third, reinforcements from other Peninsula stations; fourth, the superintendent.

‘Just in case you feel tempted to complain to the press about resources, Inspector,’ said McQuarrie, ‘how about I put a bomb under Force Response and the negotiators?’

‘I’ve already contacted them, sir,’ said Challis.

Wondering if he’d redeem himself today, he pocketed his phone and walked into the middle of High Street with a megaphone. There was movement in the bank’s front window again, a hooked finger twitching the blind slats. Then the gap disappeared, the blind trembling briefly behind the glass.

He raised the megaphone to his mouth.

A small window, set high in the wall above the ATM, blew out.

Glass and shotgun pellets flew over his head. He jolted in fear and retreated to the police line.

‘Boss?’ Pam said, grabbing at his arm. ‘You all right?’

‘Back to the drawing board,’ Challis said shakily. He glanced around, his gaze alighting on Cafe Laconic. ‘Command post,’ he said, and strode across to negotiate with the owner.

Then nothing. Late afternoon edged into evening. The Force Response Unit arrived, a dozen men and one officer, armed with assault rifles and dressed like extras in an American cop film. And acting like it, too: they were rarely called upon to do anything but take part in training exercises, and now here was the real thing. Their eyes gleamed and their forefingers twitched.

The commander was a man named Loeb, sculpted out of blonde hardwood. ‘We can use that busted window,’ he said. ‘Toss in a teargas canister, stun grenade, the guy’s disorientated, my guys rush in and take him down.’

‘He has a shotgun, determination and an itchy trigger finger,’ Challis said. ‘We wait for the hostage negotiator.’

‘I say we consider-’

Challis shook his head. ‘We give the hostage negotiator a chance, you know the drill.’

‘It’s getting dark.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Could take hours for the negotiator to get here.’

‘Could do,’ agreed Challis.

He was saved by the Cafe Laconic staff, who brought out trays of coffee and sandwiches. Challis gulped his latte. Strong, as he liked it.

His mobile phone rang. He answered, listened, pocketed the phone again. ‘The negotiator’s about ninety minutes away.’

‘Jesus.’

Challis shrugged. He was in charge and, as far as he could see, that meant saying ‘no’ to everything. He didn’t tell the FRU officer that the hostage negotiator had only just touched down at Melbourne airport. Her name was York and she’d been attending at a hostage situation in Shepparton. A fruit grower, burdened by debts and claiming that a Mafia standover man was bleeding him dry, had shot the family dog and threatened to shoot his family.

In the end, he’d shot himself.

I can’t see that happening here, Challis thought. Meanwhile it was his job to tell the gunman that a hostage negotiator was on the way. He swallowed a few times and walked out into the intersection again. ‘I need to speak to you,’ he called, hunching to present a smaller target.

Nothing.

Challis turned around on the spot, a quick reconnaissance of the intersection and nearby streets. The town seemed to be filling rapidly, an avid crowd of locals and strangers forming behind the barriers, possibly drawn to Waterloo by the TV images. Plenty of media, Challis noted: reporters, cameramen, the Channel 7 helicopter, four or five women holding microphones to their flawless mouths. They were all hungry and, like the crowd-and indeed the police-would be swapping guesses, black humour and misinformation.

He wasn’t fired upon. He walked back to the command post.

Then Jack Porteous was blocking his way into Cafe Laconic. ‘Quick update, Inspector?’

‘How did you get though the cordon?’

‘Is it true you were fired on from inside the bank? Are the police properly resourced for a siege situation?’

Challis nodded to Greener, who came forward from the shadows. ‘Senior Constable Greener will escort you back behind the line.’

Then more stasis.

Movement, when it came, was quick and clean. The main door of the bank opened and three figures appeared. Challis recognised the senior teller, just as she lurched forward as if shoved in the back, stumbled, fell to her hands and knees in the street. Now he could see that another woman was behind her. Young, dark-haired, attractive, scared. Scared because a powerful forearm was choking her windpipe and a shotgun was tucked into the hinge of her jaw. Of the gunman, all Challis could see was the forearm and a black woollen head.

And just as quickly they were gone, disappearing inside the bank, and Challis and Murphy were scuttling across the road to help the teller. Her knees were scraped. ‘It’s all right, you’re safe now,’ Pam said, and Joy staggered, almost a dead weight, as the detectives guided her into the cafe.

‘I say we go in,’ said the FRU officer, hovering over them.

‘And to hell with collateral damage, right?’ said Pam, elbowing him aside.

‘My boys are trained…’

They ignored him, Challis asking, ‘You up for a few questions, Joy?’

She smiled shakily. ‘A stiff drink would help.’

Challis glanced at the cafe proprietor, who nodded and reached for a brandy bottle and a glass. When it had been delivered and the teller had swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, Challis began:

‘First things first: we need to know who’s in there.’

‘Apart from the hold-up man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mrs Grace, Mr Ely, Erin and Maddie.’

‘Who was the woman in the doorway with you?’

‘Mrs Grace. Susan Grace. She has a safe-deposit box with us.’

‘Erin and Maddie are staff members?’

‘Yes. Erin’s our financial planner. Maddie’s just a trainee, only been with us a month, poor thing.’

Another gulp of the brandy. ‘Sorry, I’m all shaken up.’

She was a slight woman with a cap of red-blonde hair, and she began to cry. Pam hugged her, giving Challis a look that he couldn’t decipher. He raised a questioning eyebrow, but she turned to the teller and said, ‘Joy, about the customer, Susan Grace-are you sure that’s her name?’

‘Yes.’

Challis cocked his head at Murphy. The question hadn’t been frivolous. ‘Do you know her from somewhere, Murph?’

‘There was an incident a couple of weeks ago,’ Pam said, going on to describe it, a woman with a foreign accent being accosted in the street.

‘You’re sure it’s the same woman?’

‘Positive.’

‘She’d been to the bank?’

‘I think so.’

Joy was swinging her gaze from one to the other. ‘Mrs Grace isn’t foreign.’

This was a side track they didn’t have time for, so to cut it short, Challis said, ‘Is she local, this Mrs Grace?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Did she give you the impression of knowing the man with the shotgun?’

‘Good God, no.’

He turned to Murphy. ‘You made a note of the time, date, description, car rego?’

‘Of course.’

‘Follow it up later.’

‘Boss.’

He turned to the teller. ‘Have you seen the gunman before?’

‘Never.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Not very well. He’s wearing a beanie and sunglasses and has a moustache. Average height.’

‘Is there a reason why he let you go, Joy? Does he intend to let the others go soon?’

‘No. He was very clear. He wants blankets and clothesline twine.’

‘What?’

‘Four or five blankets, huge ones,’ the teller said.