A Woman of Force by Mark Morri

Author:Mark Morri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2020-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Deb walked into Bankstown Police Station feeling numb. She and Hughes had spent the ten-minute car ride from her home in silence.

Somehow, she had to keep a cool head. She was the boss, and while she was shattered that one of her men had been shot, Deb knew that there were protocols that had to be adhered to. It may sound callous, but it was the reality.

Whenever a police officer is shot, fatally or not, the investigation is carried out by what’s known as a Critical Incident Team, led by an experienced homicide squad detective. This task fell to Detective Inspector Mick Sheehy, a veteran and one of the most well-respected cops on the force.

Deb’s eyes met the tall blonde detective’s across the room and her heart sank. She could see in his eyes that even if Bill hadn’t been pronounced dead yet, he wasn’t going to make it.

Every part of her wanted to rush over and ask what had happened. She wanted to hug the officers who had been there when he was shot, but she knew she couldn’t. Even in this tragic moment, with everything so raw, she had to keep a calm head.

‘They looked like ghosts. They had vacant stares and were in total shock.’

Then she saw Robbo, who she knew had been in the gunfight, and he now became her main concern. He was in a small room, the door ajar, with Mick Ryan trying to comfort him.

Deb knew that in that moment she was a witness, not the boss of these guys. In some ways, she was now a colleague, who would be interrogated just like them.

When she walked into the room Robbo seemed ready to pour his guts out. As hard as it was, Deb had to say, ‘Stop. I’m just worried about your welfare, we can’t talk about anything.’

But he couldn’t be stopped. The shattered detective blurted out to his boss, ‘Deb, what if I shot him?’

Deb told him that no matter what happened, the Asian male started it by shooting at Bill, that was what started everything. As far as she was concerned there was only one bad person here, and that was the criminal with the gun. She told him to take it easy, to wait and see, and then as gently as she could, she told him to stop talking about it to her.

As she walked out of the room, his words lingered in her mind.

She didn’t want him saying anything more before he was formally spoken to, because anything relayed to her might come back on him or be misinterpreted later.

‘Robbo, don’t tell me . . . You know there’s a process that has to be followed,’ she’d reminded him.

‘Yes Deb, I understand,’ he’d said, but he was starry-eyed, totally in shock. All he wanted to know was how Bill was. Deb didn’t know, but she had a horrible feeling. She could see by the ranks of officers coming in that in all likelihood Bill was dead. Even now, she has no recollection of when she was told, or by whom, that Bill Crews was gone.

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