inside the gloomy coffee shop darted madly about. Customers ran to the back, many probably scurrying out of the rear exit. They must have done. There were far more cups and plates left on the tables than witnesses who stayed to give their statements to the police.
Macintyre was no longer visible. He’d crawled under a car to wait the shooting out. The car was already pulling off when the final round of bullets hit John Miller, standing stupefied over his best friend’s crumpled body. He was thrown backwards into the Café de la Seine, landing on the remains of the shattered glass door, looking almost as if he was trying to climb in.
The car had sped away, its number plate covered, as Cass expected it would be. Somewhere not very far away from the chaos they’d left behind in Formosa Street, the failed assassins would be swiftly dealing with the vehicle. It was probably destroyed by now. Not that it would stop Cass’s team from looking for it. There were few enough leads without giving up on the car. Who knew? They might even find it. Stranger things had happened.
Formosa Street was silent. Shoppers were emerging from wherever they’d hidden themselves when the attack started, moving slowly, all focused on the two dead boys. One woman dropped her shopping bags and turned and screamed, her mouth forming a large O. Macintyre reappeared onscreen, dusting himself down as he got to his feet, his hat now in his hand. And then the one small piece of good news in this case came into frame.
A local beat copper, Jack Charter, had been patrolling the streets around the schools because shopkeepers had reported thefts of sweets and magazines by groups of kids; some of the shopkeepers had even claimed Miller and Jackson were among the culprits, but no newspaper would touch that. The boys were angels with the Angels, according to the tabloids. Cass thought they were probably just ordinary boys who weren’t above nicking the odd Mars Bar, and he thought that made their deaths even more tragic. An old ache stabbed at his soul and he pushed it away. This wasn’t the time.
On the screen, Charter ran into shot and grabbed Macintyre’s arm. Before he knew it, the boss of west London was handcuffed to a local uniform. He wouldn’t be going anywhere without taking the policeman with him. Cass liked that constable. He’d go a long way, thinking like that. The fight visibly went out of Macintyre and his shoulders slumped. Cass recognised the sigh of a man who knew he had a good few uncomfortable hours of ‘no comment’ ahead of him.
A small crowd had gathered around the dead bodies and all Cass could see was a sports kit bag lying in the road, its drawstring done up tight. The picture cut abruptly to a fuzzy haze. Whoever had been filming had obviously decided they’d seen enough.
Cass sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘That’s not one we want the parents seeing. I think they can probably live without that.’ The families had obviously taken the deaths of their sons badly, and now, probably tomorrow, he was going to have to go see them again. At least he could tell them that there’d been some developments. He couldn’t send anyone else to do it; the families were his responsibility and they needed to see the person in charge, but he wasn’t looking forward to seeing their pain, still red-raw and bleeding.
Claire perched on the edge of the desk. She crossed one leg over the other and as she leaned back on one arm, Cass couldn’t help but watch her. At twenty-seven, she was an undeniably good-looking woman, but he thought that by the time she hit thirty-five, she’d probably be beautiful. Her brunette curls were pulled back in what had probably started the morning as her usual sensible tight bun. He wondered if she realised how attractive she really was.
She tucked a loose curl behind her ear. ‘Who do you think filmed it?’
‘God knows. Maybe someone who wanted evidence of the hit? Maybe someone set Macintyre up