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  “I would also like to send out a message to the press who seem to be taking sides with the monster who has maimed three innocent people. The Welfare Reforms are working. They might be unpopular, but most reforms are unpopular. It is certainly unpopular that a growing number of the working people who do get up in the morning, and do go out to work, end up taking home less income than those who do nothing. Something has to be done to address this, and address it we will.”

  There was another dramatic pause. “But let me get one thing perfectly straight here. The person responsible for these wicked, cowardly and unjustifiable attacks will never achieve his aims. We will overcome this appalling chapter in our history, and we will never allow violence to win.” He stopped again, looking about as sincere as any other politician who was keen to get a message across to the TV viewers, many of whom were employees, or friends and relatives of employees, petrified about the safety of their loved one.

  “As we leave the police in Manchester to get on with their investigations, our job as government is to try and guarantee the safety of our DWP colleagues until this cowardly individual is taken into custody. We aim to do this in a very robust, and a very visual way and we are finalising these plans presently with the Ministry of Defence. I would like to send a message out to all our colleagues, throughout the country. Please, go to work tomorrow as usual, and don’t let the politics of fear win over the excellent work that you are doing on behalf of the British public. Thank you.”

  *****

  “You’re live with Sky News, and wow, that was a powerful message from the Secretary of State, he used the word coward three times in that short announcement. But there was very little more than that, in terms of substance. Ian Riley, our political editor joins me. Ian, your thoughts on that announcement please?”

  “Thank you Sue, I think it’s obvious to everybody that the only information that we gained from that announcement was that the government are standing by their welfare policies, and that they consider the man responsible for the attacks as, nothing more than a coward.”

  “He said that three times,” added Sue.

  “Yes, I think that there must be some kind of a psychological aspect to that. Maybe the government strategy is to try and make the attacker realise the error of his ways?”

  “Well, I must say that my initial reaction was fear. I personally thought that Ian David Smythe was actively goading the man who has attacked the three DWP staff, giving them all life-changing injuries. It seems a dangerous game to play, doesn’t it?”

  “Well yes, I mean, if that is the case. But let’s remember that this is a major ongoing police enquiry. The best detectives and officers of Manchester are working around the clock on this, so if it was a case of goading, then I’m rather confident that they will know exactly what they are doing.”

  “And, of course there was the rather vague announcement about robust and visual protection for the DWP staff. Any idea what that means?”

  “Well, one thing that it doesn’t mean is extra police. The government have cut the service down by twenty thousand officers, and as we are all acutely aware, the police service is stretched to breaking point. The rather vague announcement can only refer to one thing, Sue.”

  “And that is?”

  “In a nutshell, it would suggest that the army are being drafted in to protect the DWP staff.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thursday Tea-time

  It was dark outside, and the Manchester rush-hour was in full-flow. The DWP staff at Othen House in Middleton had finished work, but were all staying-put, waiting for relatives, friends or loved ones to phone, to let them know that they were outside, on the Tesco car park, waiting to drive them home.

  The staff had been discussing this contingency plan all day, under the leadership of their manager. They had all agreed that once all of the staff member’s lifts had arrived, the building’s two security guards were going to walk them all out to the supermarket car park at the rear of the three-story grey, concrete and glass building, and to the relative safety of their own lives away from the DWP.

  The mood inside Othen House was just as angry and anxious as it was at all of the DWP offices up and down the land. The people working in all of nation’s Jobcentres, DSS offices, Child Maintenance and Pensions offices were all feeling the same nightmarish tension, and it was an open-secret that most of the staff were planning to phone in sick the following day, and the following days after that. They were discussing it openly, the thought of another day amid this unbearable tension was too much for most of them. They knew better than most people how easy it was to get a sick-note for stress and anxiety, and a great many of them were planning to do just that, at least until this hellish situation was over.

  There were seventeen staff members in the staff-room, each waiting for the chance to get out of this awful place, and this overwhelming, suffocating environment. Despite the high-friction, one or two colleagues were still keen to try and carry on as normal, and perhaps even have a bit of a laugh, if it was at all possible, just to break the tension. They were all standing around the TV, in their rest room on the second floor. The BBC News presenters were replaying Ian David Smythe’s announcement.

  “Well, what’s that supposed to mean, guaranteeing our safety robustly?” asked one member of staff.

  “It’s just politician bullshit, it probably means they haven’t got a bloody clue what they’re going to do!”

  “Ah, just wait a sec everybody, I think I know what he’s talking about. Come over here.” One of the colleagues, Margaret Wilkins was standing by the window. She was a portly, friendly looking woman in her fifties, and she seemed quite excited as she gestured her chubby hand towards the group gathered around the TV. They all walked across, eager to see what was so interesting outside.

  “Jesus Christ! Is that the army?” shouted another lady, visibly shocked, and also a tiny bit thrilled by the sight of several armed soldiers standing beside three dark green Jeeps, as a huge green army truck reversed down the sloped street at the side of the building.

  “Wow! Bloody hell, that’s just made me feel a lot safer!”

  “I know! Phew, I can’t actually believe how much weight that’s taken off my shoulders!”

  The staff were all smiling and feeling the first sense of relief since this whole drama had been announced the previous day. It was a good feeling, and suddenly, there was laughter in the air as a sense of safety reassured them all. But it was to be extremely short lived, as the sound of frivolity in the room gave way to terror.

  In an instant, while many of the staff were standing at the window, looking down at the soldiers and their vehicles, there was a bang, a smash sound and a scream. Margaret Wilkins, the lady who’d called everybody over to the window, fell to the floor, clutching her face.

  There was panic and confusion, and nobody really knew what was happening. The screams and shouts for help only added to the terror.

  “Get down! On the floor!”

  “Margaret’s been shot!”

  It took a minute for the screams and wails of fear to subside, but as the staff crawled across to where Margaret was lay, it soon became apparent that the attacker had struck again, with a gun this time.

  *****

  The scene was one of utter confusion as the first wave of police officers arrived at Othen House, known more familiarly as Middleton Jobcentre. There were army vehicles, they looked like they’d been abandoned outside, and there were reports of one casualty, inside the building on the second floor. It was believed that the victim was suffering from gunshot wounds.

  The ambulance hadn’t arrived, and DWP staff were performing first-aid on Margaret, taking advice from the 999 call handler. All around, people were panic-stricken, most were lay down on the floor, frozen to the spot. The general consensus was that the gun-man was waiting for another opportunity to strike.

  All of the DWP staff were in shock, naturally, but the shock wasn’t normal. It was double-wa
ve of shock and confusion, as they all tried to figure out why they had placed themselves in such danger in the first place. It had been all that anybody had talked about all day. Scary, paranoid discussions about “what if he attacked one of us.” Now, it felt that the sick-joke was on them, and nobody felt any desire to talk about it.

  Those that were tending to the victim were doing a great job under the leadership of the 999 official. Margaret had been shot in the face, and the wounds were made-up mainly of gun-shot blast and shattered glass from the window, which had literally exploded just an inch away from her face. There was a lot of blood, and a lot of burns, but Margaret was alive, and she was conscious, complaining that her “face felt like it was on fire.” It could have been a lot worse, and there was a sense of relief amongst everybody in the building that Margaret hadn’t been killed.

  As each emergency vehicle arrived outside the Jobcentre, the place was quickly becoming illuminated with blue revolving lights, which brought a small sense of comfort and security to the staff members who were completely bewildered by this unimaginable horror.

  Across the road there was a lot of shouting, and as each new police crew arrived on the scene, things started making more sense. It became apparent that the gun had been fired from the mill across the road.

  Warwick Mill was a gigantic, abandoned old red-bricked Victorian mill. It had been derelict for some years now, and it seemed that it had created the perfect opportunity for the cowardly DWP attacker to sneak inside and take his indiscriminate shot at one of the DWP staff members across the road.

  There still wasn’t an ambulance in attendance, some twenty-five minutes after the shooting had taken place. The commanding officer at the scene was Inspector Massey from Middleton police station, who was waiting for his superiors to arrive and take over the madness. The soldiers reappeared, carrying their machine guns before them, creating even more confusion to the chaotic situation. Police officers weren’t aware that the military had been drafted in, and looked surprised as the soldiers came back to report that the attacker had managed to get away via the back of the mill, and had then disappeared into a housing estate.

  The situation really couldn’t have been any more bonkers. After informing the police of their intentions, the army officers headed back out onto the crowded road, heading back towards the dark, imposing old mill which overlooked the Jobcentre.

  Not long after the ambulance had finally pulled up, members of the press began arriving, starting with a reporter from the Middleton Guardian, whose offices weren’t very far away. Then followed the BBC Manchester radio car, and Granada Reports, and they wasted no time in capturing the unfolding drama on their recording devices.

  *****

  Miller was in Middleton less than forty-five minutes after the attack. The scene which greeted him couldn’t have been any more chaotic, as large crowds of people had gathered close to the police cordon line. It soon became apparent that many of the people in the line were relatives and friends of the DWP staff, and they were frantically trying to find out what was happening. Plenty of rumours were flying about, but there wasn’t any official news from inside the building, and understandably, the relatives outside were hysterical, and were becoming extremely irate with the police officers who were trying to keep the cordon line secure.

  “What a fucking mess.” Said Miller to Rudovsky, who had jumped into the car with him as he raced out of HQ.

  There was a screech of tyres, and Saunders scrambled out of his own vehicle.

  “What’s happening?” asked the DI.

  “Not sure yet, just got here. It’s a nightmare though.” Miller was standing in the middle of the road. This was Oldham Road, the busiest road in town, and it was usually grid-locked with rush-hour traffic in both directions at this time. This evening, it was just police vehicles, and the flashing neon blue of their lights.

  “Look at all those smashed windows.” Said Miller, pointing up at the Jobcentre’s second floor window that had been shattered by the gun-shot. “That’s where he’s taken his shot. What a cheap, lousy bastard.” Miller nodded up at the sinister looking mill that towered above them.

  “How’s the victim?” asked Saunders, as he looked up at the derelict old building which stood in darkness.

  “They reckon she’s been blinded. All her face is peppered with gun-shot so it’s a rifle of some description, a cartridge that’s gone off in her face. The ambulance crew are still in there with her now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, they only got here a few minutes ago.”

  “For God’s sake.”

  “Oh, wait a sec, I think they’re coming out now.”

  Miller was right, the paramedics appeared in the doorway, with their patient lay on the trolley. Miller leapt over the traffic railings and started jogging across towards the doors.

  “Hi, I’m DCI Miller, I’m in charge of the investigation. What’s the latest?”

  The senior paramedic stepped aside to talk to Miller as the first-responder and the ambulance driver rushed the trolley past, on its way to the ambulance.

  Several police officers were assisting the medical professionals as they made their way to the ambulance. A small number of media representatives were photographing and filming, but it was impossible to see the victim as a huge brace obscured the view.

  “Hi, she’s okay, she’s in a stable condition, but we’re very concerned about the wounds that she’s sustained. There is a lot of gunshot residue on her face, the tattooing effect from the gunpowder suggests that this was a hunting rifle, the damage to her face looks like it was a birdshot load.”

  “Go on,” Miller was intrigued.

  “Well, we do a lot of training on gunshot wounds. It’s so we know what we’re dealing with when we get to a shooting job. I’ve never seen this kind of injury in the flesh before, but I’ve seen it on pictures. I’m pretty certain that it’s a hunter’s ammunition, a gunshot cartridge packed with thousands of small ball-bearings. It was fired to injure, not to kill.”

  “Wow, that’s very interesting, thanks very much.”

  “It’s alright. We think she’s been blinded though. Definitely in the left eye. The surgeons might be able to save her right one.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  “Got to go, cheers.” The Paramedic started jogging to his vehicle. Miller, Saunders and Rudovsky all looked at one another, and then across the road at that big, scary, dark mill.

  “This is totally out of hand now.” Said Rudovsky.

  “Look at the size of that place,” said Miller. “It’s going to take hours, if not days to work out where he’s taken his shot from. How many broken windows can you see there?”

  “A lot.”

  “Precisely. And scenes of crimes won’t bother going in there until daylight. Risk assessments will need doing, there’s no way of knowing if the floor is even holding up in there, it looks like it was deserted years ago.”

  “What happened with the army? I heard on radio that they’d gone looking for him.”

  “Yes, they did. It happened just as they were just pulling up.”

  “I suppose that explains the random parking. Where are they now?”

  “Not sure. The last I heard, they’d chased after the attacker, but it was at least a minute, maybe two after the attack. Ah, wait, here they come now.”

  It was a bizarre sight which Miller, Saunders and Rudovsky were met with, as six fully armed soldiers marched noisily towards the Jobcentre, their full battle uniform on, complete with combat helmets and machine guns strapped across their chests. It was like a scene from 1980’s Belfast, not a suburb of modern-day Manchester.

  “Hello,” said Miller, walking towards them.

  “Sir!” Shouted the first of the soldiers, he was a sergeant, Miller quickly spotted his stripes on his combat jacket.

  “I’m DCI Miller, I’m heading up the enquiry.”

  “Okay, thank you Sir!” The sergeant sounded as though he was shouting, but
Miller quickly came to realise that this was just how the soldiers spoke when they were on duty. As aggressive and over-the-top as it seemed, it was ordinary military conversation. “We were just arriving at the location when the shooting took place. It was a confusing picture, it took a moment or two to realise what was happening, and then once we had an understanding of the situation, it took several minutes to gain entry into the grounds of the mill.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No Sir, we did not see the individual, but we have identified the escape route he made, and we have also done a sweep of the building, and identified the location where he took his shot, Sir.”

  Miller was visibly impressed. “Wow, that is fantastic work. How did you find the location so quickly?”

  “Oh, it was a gunshot blast Sir, you can smell those cartridges a mile away. We sourced the window where he took the shot, it’s on the third-floor. You’ll find it very easily, he’s left you something on the window-sill.”

  “What.. really… what is it?”

  “It’s a note Sir, addressed to DCI Miller.”

  *****

  “Welcome to North West Tonight, I’m Roger Thompson. We start this evening’s programme with some breaking news, which concerns the DWP attacks. In the past hour there has been a fourth attack, this time at Middleton Jobcentre. Our correspondent Suzie Sands is there, Suzie, can you please tell us what has happened there this evening please?”

  The news presenter looked edgy, and almost scared as he handed over to the reporter. She was standing in the dark at the police cordon line. Dozens of police vehicles were illuminating the buildings on both sides of the busy Oldham Road. The cameraman had the army jeeps and the truck in shot too. It looked like something from a TV drama show, not a news bulletin from Middleton.

  “Yes, thank you Roger. The scene behind me is one of total confusion and terror. Just a few minutes after five pm, a member of the DWP staff here at Othen House was standing by the staff-room window, when that person was shot in the face, we believe from one of the windows in the mill directly across the road.”