by Paul Finch
‘Possibly.’ Gemma maintained her cool. ‘But we’re not moving on them yet.’ She called out: ‘DS Fisher … can I have you in here please!’
Eric Fisher ambled in. ‘Ma’am.’
‘Two things,’ she said. ‘First of all, anything on the CCTV from the lorry park in Longsight where the burned Scania was stolen?’
‘No useable images, ma’am. But other footage from cameras between Longsight and Manor Hill is still being examined.’
‘Okay, good. Secondly, what’s the next special day coming up?’
‘Well … there’s all sorts, ma’am. The Queen’s birthday might be worth thinking about.’
‘What date is that?’ Garrickson asked.
‘April 21,’ Fisher replied. ‘It’s not got any underlying religious significance of course, but it’s well known.’
‘It’s not that big a deal surely?’ Quinnell said.
‘Does it need to be?’ Shawna wondered.
‘We don’t know,’ Gemma said. ‘Not enough to make assumptions either way.’ She stood up. ‘Okay, here’s the plan … Mike, draw up a rota. I want two-man teams working around the clock, obbing every move these two bastards make, up until and if necessary beyond April 21.’
Garrickson nodded. ‘Ma’am.’
‘Eric … pull off everything you can on these two.’ She handed over the paperwork for Boyd and Mullany. ‘They’re now our prime suspects. I want to know where they’ve been living, what they’ve been up to, who they’ve been seen with … the works!’
Fisher grabbed the documents and withdrew.
Gemma circled her desk with the air of someone who at last had a target to aim for. ‘Heck … that print was an excellent spot. Well done.’
He nodded.
‘Shawna, come with me. Did you have dealings with Boyd and Mullany when you were up in Manchester?’
‘No … after my time, ma’am. But I can speak to some of the lads up there who will have done …’ Shawna’s voice faded as she and Quinnell followed Gemma outside.
Heck went out after them, but diverted to the vending machine in the corner. Claire was already in attendance there, blowing the froth off a beaker of steaming cappuccino.
‘Kitchen kettle kaput?’ he asked.
‘Oh, hi,’ she replied. ‘No it isn’t, but that instant stuff in there is so vile. Not that I’m sure this’ll be much better.’ She risked a sip and promptly pulled a face.
Heck smiled and got himself a tea.
‘I’ve just seen your car,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
‘Ah, that …’ He tried to laugh. ‘On-the-job wear and tear.’
‘Is it drivable?’
‘Not legally. Least, Gemma won’t let me take it out. Borrowed another from the local CID pool. Volkswagen Golf. About a thousand years old. No matter what, I always end up driving a shed. How are you bearing up, anyway?’
‘No problem,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Certainly being kept on my toes. I got in this morning to find eighty-five messages on the answering machine. One of them was from a TV documentary maker. He was wondering how close we are to wrapping this thing, as he’s planning a new film about torture-killers, and he’d like to include “the Crucifier” – his choice of name, not mine – at the top of the show.’
Heck snorted. ‘Murder groupies. That’s something else you’ll need to get used to.’
‘I doubt they’d be so keen if we stuck them face-to-face with the real thing.’
‘I’m not so sure, to be honest.’ Heck swigged his tea, and tossed the empty beaker into the nearest bin. ‘Look, I’ve gotta go … we’ve got some new leads.’
‘Heck,’ she said, as he moved away. ‘Thanks.’
He glanced back. ‘What for?’
‘Everything … being a mate, trying to gee me up.’
‘We all need a slap on the back now and then.’
She nodded and smiled, but he couldn’t help noticing that she already looked sallow-faced, tired – and it wasn’t yet mid-morning.
Chapter 20
When Gracie and Chantelle came round together in the pitch-darkness, all they could do was hold each other and weep.
It hadn’t taken long for the grogginess caused by the drug to wear off, and the full horror of their predicament to seep through them. They were in an underground dungeon; they could tell that from the dankness and the stink – sewage of some sort was close by.
‘This must be a game,’ Chantelle stammered. ‘Some kind of cruel, spiteful game.’
‘I don’t think this is a game, Chant,’ Gracie replied.
‘So why they doing this?’
‘Can’t help you there, darling.’ Gracie didn’t know where she was finding it inside herself to be the stronger one, even though she too was shivering with terror.
Some of the stories she’d heard in the past were so horrible that she didn’t want to think about them: not just the girls who’d been murdered – murders were ten-a-penny; they were almost a relief after some other things she’d been told: girls who’d been held prisoner for years in wardrobes with only tiny holes through which to breathe; girls who’d been found with their eyelids fastened down by superglue, their pussy lips stapled together; girls who’d been chained up in cellars and used as baby factories.
God alone knew what awaited them down here. Gracie had already decided that she would kill Chantelle before she let anything like that happen to her, and then she’d kill herself. She didn’t know how she’d do it, but death by almost any means seemed preferable to prolonged torture and abuse. But whatever their predicament eventually demanded of her, all she knew at present was that she had to be strong for her childlike friend. So she stifled her own sobs, and wiped away her tears and the mucus running from her nose, and squeezed Chantelle all the harder, the younger girl’s head resting on her shoulder. Gracie kissed the dry, ropy hair and brushed it down.
‘Why do they do these things to us, Grace?’ Chantelle wept. ‘Why do they hate us so much? We don’t hurt anyone.’
‘I don’t know, pet … I just don’t.’
‘All we do is offer a service. We’re the ones who take all the risk, we’re the ones who have to deal with the dirt … and we don’t get much for it. A few quid, that’s all.’
‘I know, pet.’
‘Remember two years ago when that bastard beat me up, lashed me with his belt until I could hardly walk? Called me a pox-ridden whore?’
‘Yes I do.’
Gracie could hardly have forgotten; it was a Saturday night in high summer and she was the one who’d half-carried Chantelle to hospital, and had then stood alongside her in A&E, propping her up because there was nowhere to sit down. They’d waited there nearly three hours, being virtually ignored by the staff, who’d assumed from their tarty garb and smeary make-up that they were just another pair of slatternly girls who’d got too drunk in the city centre.
‘Why would he do that?’ Chantelle gabbled. ‘I go for health checks all the time. I wouldn’t go on the street if there was something wrong with me, you know that.’
‘I know …’
‘And that pretty little blonde girl. What’s in this for her?’
‘Who knows, pet. Maybe she’s a prisoner too?’
‘I don’t think so …’
‘No.’ Gracie didn’t think so either.
In retrospect, there’d been something altogether too confident about that platinum-haired totty-maude. A slip of a seventeen-year-old – she couldn’t have been more than that, Gracie decided – approaching two street-walkers as casually as you like, not batting an eyelid at the squalid environment where she found them. How had a forty-four-year-old like Gracie not seen through it? It had been a well-rehearsed routine, she realised: telling them lies about porno films, offering silly money, providing a plush ride. It was like she did it all the time. Gracie couldn’t conceal a whimper of her own at that thought.
‘What?’ Chantelle asked.
‘It’s nothing … it�
��s nothing, pet.’
‘What … tell me?’
‘I hope you’re happy, you little bitch!’ Gracie bellowed into the darkness overhead. When she’d first woken up down here, she’d probed her way around the encompassing wall. There’d been no entrance, which meant they’d been dropped down from above – they were in a pit of some sort. ‘You hear me?’ she shouted, her voice so shrill it became a screech. ‘You bitch! You nasty little bitch! This how you get your kicks is it, imprisoning people who’ve never done you no wrong?’
‘Shhh!’ Chantelle mumbled, pressing snot-stained fingers to Gracie’s lips. ‘You’ll make them angry.’
Who cares? Gracie nearly said. What can they do to us that they aren’t already planning? But she didn’t say that. Instead, she pulled her friend close again and wrapped her arms around her. This time they sobbed together.
Chapter 21
After learning about Cameron Boyd and Terry Mullany, Mike Garrickson organised two sets of four teams whose brief was to spend the next few days pursuing round-the-clock surveillance on them.
In Longsight, Manchester – a shabby district by any standards – Heck, Gregson and three other pairs of detectives were to alternate eight-hour shifts, which they’d mainly spend sitting in cars across the road from Boyd’s council flat, or idling along the dingy streets, dressed in scruffs, covertly following his every move, taking note of whomever he spoke to and keeping in touch by a reserved radio channel. Several miles away in Rusholme, an identical operation was being run with Terry Mullany.
If they hadn’t known beforehand that Cameron Boyd was a criminal, it would be easy to deduce it. He was about six feet tall and well built, but there was a feral look about him: he was lean-faced, narrow-eyed and permanently unshaved. His hair was a greasy mouse-brown thatch, his cheeks pitted and scarred. His hands and neck bore the usual plethora of tasteless tattoos; his wardrobe consisted mainly of oily denims, old leather and army surplus. When he walked, he strutted, shoulders hunched and head thrust forward like a wolf. His mean-spirited attitude was evident just from his daily activities, though ironically he never did very much. The surveillance team rarely saw him before lunchtime, but usually around then they would tail him from his flat to the local fish-and-chip shop, or to the bookies, or to the newsagents where he’d buy himself a newspaper, some cigs and a carton of milk. Occasionally, he’d call in at the off-licence and reappear with a plastic bag filled with tins of lager. Everywhere, people stepped out of his way. He didn’t open doors for the elderly or for mothers with kids; he casually flicked his butts onto the floor, and scrunched and tossed his beer cans and chip wrappers without looking for a bin. In the evenings, he made rounds of all the pubs and socialised with other rodent-like individuals, only emerging after midnight to totter home, usually stopping at least once to piss on someone’s gatepost.
Even wearing his professional head, Heck found it difficult not to be depressed by the banal routine of Boyd’s lifestyle: the empty days, the casual bone-idleness, the endless leeching off the state, the cosy acceptance that not a penny of this money was being put to good use. Heck was aware that he was being judgmental. But so what? That was part of his job description. Of course the one thing they didn’t observe while they were tailing Cameron Boyd was crime. And this was the real crux of their frustration. While Heck still wasn’t convinced that Boyd was the mastermind behind these murders, he was clearly linked to the case in some capacity – though that in itself, given the target’s history of routine criminal offending, was a baffling mystery – and the desire to solve it had become a nagging imperative. If nothing else, Heck had assumed that if they sat on Boyd twenty-four-seven they’d eventually catch him doing something illegal, which would give them a way to get to him. But that hadn’t happened. They were also interested in any lock-ups he might lead them to, as these could conceivably have been where the crucifixion murders had occurred. But Boyd apparently had access to no such premises, and neither, from what Heck was told by Shawna McCluskey, did Terry Mullany.
The ninth day of this tedious stakeout was the Queen’s birthday, which, aside from brief news items concerning gun salutes in Hyde Park and at the Tower of London, generated minimal excitement. Cameron Boyd didn’t interrupt his humdrum existence to celebrate it either. Or desecrate it. But as there were further special events coming up, a decision was taken to persist with the surveillance.
The day after the Queen’s birthday saw Heck and Gregson spending more uneventful hours in yet another unmarked vehicle close to Boyd’s flat. This time they were ensconced in the driving cab of a grubby old Bedford van parked about twenty yards down the street, rather than on the open waste-ground opposite. The new position required them to keep watch through the wing-mirrors and rear-view mirror, which seemed to demand extra concentration and was even more tiresome than normal. The van’s interior was pretty odious too – grimy and damp, reeking of cigarettes and vinegar from the fish-and-chips the last team had scoffed. Not that this kept hunger at bay now that the end of the afternoon was approaching.
‘Whose turn is it to get tea?’ Heck asked.
‘Mine, I suppose.’ Gregson thumbed at his eyes to remove any last vestige of the forty winks Heck had allowed him earlier on. ‘Usual?’
Heck grunted in the affirmative. ‘Usual’ could either mean a burger and fries from the McDonald’s on the nearby precinct, a couple of greasy sausage rolls from the baker’s shop just beyond it, or a bacon and ketchup bap from the deli on the next corner. He’d reached the stage where he wasn’t bothered which.
Gregson, looking suitably like a workman in boots, jeans and a donkey jacket, slid out of the van and wandered idly away.
Heck continued to watch the rear-view mirrors, again wondering if it was possible they were on completely the wrong track. Could it be that his initial gut feeling had been correct, and that this case was nothing at all to do with Boyd and Mullany? The burning lorry in which the latter’s thumbprint had been found could be a coincidence; the melted tyre treads hadn’t definitively proved that it was the same vehicle that had been on the slagheap. But no; the discovery of Boyd’s DNA was undeniable – that was something they had to find an explanation for.
Heck brooded on this for several more minutes, while outside the van the wind sent litter skittering down the street. This was Norfolk Avenue, which in an odd way sounded quite pleasant. Just as Suffolk Avenue – which was the next one along – did, and Cumbria Road beyond that, and then Hampshire Street and Derbyshire Walk. Pity they were all run-down crapholes with rusty, ramshackle cars along their kerbs, broken-down fences and gardens filled with festering heaps of household trash.
The door suddenly thudded open and Andy Gregson climbed back in, in more of a rush than usual. He handed Heck a bag containing a pasty and a can of Coke, and then thrust an evening paper at him. ‘Check that out,’ he said.
Noting the uncharacteristic flush to Gregson’s cheeks, Heck shoved his food onto the dashboard, and unfolded the paper.
Its main image, which filled almost the entire front page, had been recycled from the numerous internet pictures taken of the crucifixion scene by passers-by on the motorway, though now the victims were less blurred than they had been. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The gigantic headline read:
DESECRATION DAY!
Above it, there was a smaller strap:
Cops in desperate hunt for serial killer dubbed ‘Desecrator’
Heck’s hair briefly prickled as he read the opening two paragraphs:
With the blood still drying on the motorway bridge where twin mass murderers Jordan and Jason Savage were killed during a police chase, and the dust still settling after the furore caused by the crucial errors made in that enquiry, the Herald can exclusively reveal that a new maniac is on the loose. This latest madman, who has claimed seven lives in a brutal six-month murder spree, is being referred to by the taskforce charged with catching him as ‘the Desecrator’ because he appears to be following a ‘feast
day’ cycle.
Despite taking great care to publicise himself, and using disgusting methods designed to desecrate our most beloved holidays and festivals, the unknown assailant has to date been murdering with impunity, the police apparently helpless to stop him.
The recent triple crucifixion on Merseyside, which so appalled the nation, is only a small part of this horrendous chain of events …
‘They’ve got everything,’ Gregson said. ‘They’ve linked each case. They’re even calling him “the Desecrator”. How the hell did they get that detail?’
The name ‘Desecrator’, as unintentionally coined by Shawna McCluskey, had stuck. Nicknames tended to be adopted through force of habit in serial murder cases. In this case especially, with an unknown number of subjects, it had seemed easier for the team to simply refer to ‘the Desecrator’ rather than ‘the perpetrators’ or ‘those responsible’. All along though, given the sensitivity of this investigation, Heck had thought it unwise to create so sensationalist a hook. Now he’d apparently been vindicated.
‘One of your lot probably,’ he said.
Gregson’s cheeks coloured even more. ‘You’re saying someone in Merseyside’s blabbed?’
‘Or someone in SCU. What does it matter? Someone always blabs in the end. The press make it too worth their while. We were never going to keep this quiet for long.’
He laid the newspaper down, only able to imagine the anger on the top floor at Scotland Yard, and wincing at the thought of the phone calls that were now going to bombard Gemma’s office. She got paid a lot more for undertaking such responsibilities of course, and maybe that was some consolation … but he was still glad he wasn’t in her shoes at present.
‘There’ll be an enquiry,’ Gregson warned.
‘So there should be.’ Heck sat up. ‘Not our problem though. On the subject of which, what’s the next big occasion to look forward to?’
Gregson consulted his notebook. ‘St George’s Day … that’s tomorrow.’
Heck mulled it over. St George’s Day. For some reason, that didn’t bode well.
