Sacrifice

by Paul Finch

  ‘Now we’re getting to the truth.’ Boyd examined his chewed, dirty fingernails. ‘I wasn’t on that train, but I was at Ardwick. I was checking train times on the noticeboard. I’m off to see my mum tomorrow in Hadfield. I come away, walk around the corner, and there’s you. Just jumped off this ladder. I didn’t have a fucking clue who you were, but you look like a right thug, you must admit. You came straight at me, spooked me, I ran. When you started chasing, that’s when I really legged it. What else am I supposed to do?’

  ‘So you’re claiming mistaken identity?’ Shawna asked him. ‘DS Heckenburg and DC Gregson were chasing someone else and somehow you got mixed up with that person?’

  ‘Telling me that couldn’t happen?’ Boyd said. ‘At night? The way this fella was going at it? Like a fucking madman, he was. Eyes rolling, sweat pouring.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s an interesting story, Cameron. But the chase actually started when you ran out of The Hayrick pub in Gorton, where DS Heckenburg and DC Gregson had been observing you earlier in the evening.’

  ‘Observing someone maybe. Wasn’t me.’

  ‘What we’re really interested to know, Cameron, is why you actually ran out of The Hayrick in the first place,’ Heck said. ‘We’ve got your phone so we know it happened as soon as you received a call from an associate of yours, Terry Mullany.’

  ‘Terry’s a mate. Rings me from time to time. Doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘So you admit you were in The Hayrick pub when you received that call?’

  ‘What does it fucking matter? I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘So why did you run like the clappers?’ Shawna asked. ‘Why were you so desperate to get away that you injured three innocent civilians, one of them severely?’

  ‘Deny the incident on the train all you want, Cameron,’ Heck said. ‘But we’ve got your prints on the weapon and we’ve got witness statements coming out of our back pockets. All we need to do is put you in front of an ID parade, and all the people you assaulted, not to mention everyone else on that train, will pick you out with no difficulty at all. And that’s before we even look at the CCTV footage.’

  ‘Put-up job,’ Boyd sneered. His demeanour was still that of someone who had nothing to worry about, but a trickle of sweat down his left cheek suggested otherwise. ‘Always the same.’

  ‘Let’s try something else,’ Heck said. ‘Where were you on Bonfire Night last year?’

  Boyd feigned amusement. ‘Wait, don’t tell me … you’re trying to frame me for those Desecrator murders?’

  ‘Where were you?’ Shawna asked.

  ‘Probably in some pub, watching fireworks I didn’t pay for … like every other fucker with any sense.’

  ‘Get over to Preston much, do you?’

  ‘Never been there in my fucking life.’

  ‘How about Yorkshire?’ Heck asked. ‘Get over there much?’

  ‘As little as fucking possible.’

  ‘Were you over there last December … specifically around Christmas?’

  ‘No. I like to spend Christmas at home.’

  Heck leaned back in his chair. ‘We have a witness who says different. We have a witness who can’t just place you in Yorkshire, but in Leeds, at the actual scene of the second murder.’

  Boyd snorted. ‘What fucking witness?’

  ‘You, Cameron,’ Shawna said. ‘You’re the witness.’

  Snodgrass glanced curiously up from his paperwork. Boyd was briefly speechless.

  ‘You look a bit surprised,’ Heck said.

  ‘You’re talking shite, that’s why.’

  ‘Is your DNA talking shite too?’

  Boyd stiffened. Snodgrass laid his paperwork down. Heck watched with interest. The criminal’s taut body language registered fear rather than guilt.

  ‘L– look!’ he stammered. ‘I don’t know what you think you’ve got, but me and Terry never killed anyone.’

  ‘You and Terry, eh?’ Heck said. ‘So you’re at least acknowledging that you and Terry are in this together.’

  ‘We’re in nothing together!’ Boyd raised his voice. ‘You got that, you fucking pig!’ Snodgrass placed a hand on his arm, but Boyd shook it off angrily.

  Heck remained studiedly calm. ‘So why did you both leg it when you realised we were onto you?’

  ‘That was nothing to do with this.’

  ‘What was it to do with?’

  ‘You’re not fitting me up for these fucking murders!’

  ‘I’m giving you a chance to tell your side of the story.’

  ‘You’ve got Terry in here too, haven’t you?’

  ‘He’s in the next room,’ Shawna confirmed.

  ‘He’ll be saying exactly the same. We had nothing to do with this Desecrator shit.’

  ‘A denial is the very least the court will expect,’ Heck replied. ‘But so far it’s your word against the forensics lab. The odds aren’t looking too good, pal.’

  ‘Excuse me, sergeant,’ Snodgrass intervened. ‘May I speak with my client in private?’

  Heck glanced from one to the other – Boyd suddenly wild-eyed and nervous, Snodgrass unruffled as ever. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Interview suspended, ten thirty-eight p.m.’

  A few minutes later he and Shawna were out in the corridor, sipping tea.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked quietly.

  Heck shook his head. ‘I think it’s a load of bloody bollocks.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Boyd’s not a serial killer. He’s a scrote who actually thought he was being clever in there by denying the blatantly obvious. A brainless idiot who thinks it’s a victory to waste time in the interview room.’

  ‘He’s got a track record of violence that goes back to being a juvenile.’

  Heck chucked his beaker in the nearest bin. ‘What’s in it for him? You’ve seen his form … he’s a thief and a drunk.’

  ‘Come on, Heck … we’ve got his DNA. It’s got to be him.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Shawna … I really don’t.’

  Before they could say more, the door to the interview room opened and Snodgrass stepped out. ‘Sergeant … my client would like another chat.’

  ‘Oh, he would?’

  ‘He’d like to confess.’

  At first Heck thought he’d misheard. ‘He’s putting his hand up?’

  Snodgrass replied with guarded confidence. ‘Not to these murders, no.’

  ‘A string of burglaries?’ Gemma said, looking every bit as harassed as Heck had expected when he’d gone out into the police station car park to meet her.

  As if the big development of the day – the Desecrator story going public – hadn’t been stressful enough, he’d now had to hit her with this bad news.

  ‘Aggravated burglaries,’ he said. ‘Pretty serious stuff.’

  She slammed her car door closed. ‘Him and Mullany?’

  ‘Yeah. They’ve coughed to three.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Levenshulme, Fallowfield and Stockport.’

  ‘Who’s dealing?’

  ‘GMP Major Crimes. They’re on their way over. They obviously want to talk to us.’

  ‘So this is why Boyd and Mullany ran?’ Gemma said.

  ‘Makes sense. They suspected the law might be onto them. It was, only for different reasons … course, they didn’t know that.’

  ‘And Boyd expects us to take his word for it? When the DNA tells us something completely different?’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a bit more to it than that, ma’am.’ Heck tried not to look as glum as he felt. ‘We’ve just learned something else, having looked through his antecedents. Seems he’s been inside recently.’

  They were now entering the station. Shawna met them in the entry passage. She took up the story. ‘He did twenty-eight days for assaulting a nightclub doorman, ma’am.’

  ‘When?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘November 24 last year,’ Shawna said. ‘Until December 21.’

  ‘E
rnest Shapiro was walled into that chimney in Leeds no later than December 17,’ Heck added. ‘While Boyd was serving time.’

  ‘So why didn’t Boyd tell us that when we first arrested him, instead of ’fessing up to other jobs?’

  ‘Because he didn’t know Shapiro had been in that chimney for well over a week,’ Shawna replied. ‘He thought it happened around Christmas itself, when he was back on the streets and a viable suspect.’

  Gemma stood silent, face white with disbelief.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Heck said gently, ‘Cameron Boyd can’t be the Desecrator.’

  ‘So the evidence we found at the Christmas murder scene was a plant?’

  He nodded. ‘An attempt by the real killers to fit Boyd up for the crime. The burned lorry was also a decoy. That’s why they didn’t burn the actual driving cab, because that was where Mullany’s fingerprint had been left for us to find. That was a decoy too.’

  ‘That fire could still have reached the cab,’ Gemma said. ‘They took a big risk.’

  ‘There was less chance of that if the fire was only lit shortly before we got tipped off. And the truth is we don’t know when the fire was lit. In retrospect, it seems unlikely it could have burned all night.’ Heck shook his head. ‘I should have sussed that thumbprint at least … it was too perfect. Plus, it was inside the cab. Why would someone really trying to cover their tracks have gone back inside once the fire was started? If the arsonist was careless enough to drop his book of matches, he’d have done it outside. But they couldn’t risk that in case it pissed down, soaked the thing and rendered the thumbprint useless to us. Someone’s been playing us like a fiddle … but we haven’t helped ourselves by missing the bleeding obvious.’

  Chapter 25

  ‘So who have you pissed off, Cameron?’ Gemma wondered.

  Boyd sat across the interview table, again showing his brown Halloween grin. He wasn’t exactly happy with the turn of events, but he seemed pleased to have regained what he considered to be the upper hand. ‘Dunno. How far afield are we going?’

  ‘You’re taking it very well that someone tried to frame you for a series of murders,’ Heck said.

  Boyd shrugged. ‘It’s only what you lot thought you were going to do … till you found out you couldn’t.’

  ‘Can you think of anyone in particular?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Now you want my help? Are you fucking serious?’

  ‘It’s you this maniac has got his sights on,’ Heck reminded him. ‘Not us.’

  Boyd snickered. ‘What do you want me to say? I’m a fucking criminal. I make enemies both sides of the fence, and I always have.’

  ‘Try thinking about it, Cameron,’ Heck persisted. ‘This person’s a cut above the normal gutter trash you associate with. The matchbook with the fingerprint on it would be easy enough to obtain … probably taken from a dustbin at the back of Terry’s house. But how the hell did your DNA end up on the Christmas victim? I mean, you being such a smart guy and all, I’m sure you’d have noticed if someone yanked out a lump of your hair.’

  Boyd shrugged. ‘Beats the crap out of me … oh, sorry, you’ve already done that, haven’t you? Don’t worry.’ He grinned again. ‘My brief’s taken pictures. We’re still going to rip you apart in court.’

  The ICU, though quieter than it would be during the day, was still busier than most other hospital departments at this late hour. Soft-soled shoes whispered on polished floors as personnel busied themselves between the rooms, checking notes and providing medication to patients. Andy Gregson was in a special bay at the far end of the main corridor. Heck appraised him through an observation window.

  The kid lay unmoving on a raised bed, his head invisible under layers of post-surgical wrappings and various feeding and breathing tubes. Cables connected him to a bank of bleeping monitors. He was also on a drip, which a young male nurse in blue scrubs was in the process of changing. Next to the bed, a very young woman – little more than a girl – was curled up on an armchair, asleep. No doubt this was Gregson’s wife, Marnie. Her make-up was smeared and sweaty, her shoulder-length auburn hair in disarray. Some thoughtful member of staff had laid a blanket over her.

  ‘Can I help?’ someone asked in a Glaswegian accent.

  Heck turned and found a stocky, red-haired woman alongside him. She too was in scrubs; the tab on her collar indicated that she was Mavis Malone, Head Nurse.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, showing his warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Heckenburg. DC Gregson’s partner.’

  She gave him a business-like frown, and he realised that she was assessing his own state of health. ‘You look like you’ve taken a battering yourself.’

  ‘It’s been a rough night.’

  ‘Can I fix that dressing for you?’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘I think it probably needs it.’

  Heck reached for his temple, and found only a sticky twist remaining of the plaster applied earlier. When his fingers came away, their tips were smeared red. ‘Erm … maybe … yeah.’ She smiled and led him to a side-desk. ‘How’s Andy doing?’ he asked.

  ‘He’ll be okay.’ She cleaned his cut, then carefully and delicately covered it with a fresh dressing. ‘He suffered a depressed skull fracture, which the neurosurgeon managed to elevate without any complications. We also evacuated the extradural haematoma underneath. The CT scan would have revealed if there was bleeding elsewhere, but there wasn’t. He’s now on Mannitol … it’ll help keep the swelling down.’

  ‘No disrespect, but that’s double-Dutch to me. Will he be properly okay? Will he be fit to work again?’

  ‘If his recovery stays on track, he’ll be perfectly fine.’

  Heck moved back to the window, wondering why he didn’t feel more relieved – probably because his senses were too dulled by fatigue. Beyond the glass, the young couple lay motionless; Marnie curled in her armchair, Gregson comatose in bed. They made a picture of damaged innocence. As a murder detective, that was something you saw often, but it always cut deeper when it was one of your own.

  Heck trudged tiredly back through the ICU, attempting briefly, but unsuccessfully, to wipe all concerns from his mind. With the DNA and fingerprint evidence gone, the enquiry had reached another dead-end. Where they went from here, he truly didn’t know.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,’ Nurse Malone said, smiling as he passed her desk.

  Heck nodded in appreciation of the thought, but it was difficult to smile back.

  Outside, the car park, which would be bursting at the seams during daytime, was now largely empty – apart from Gemma’s BMW, which had just pulled up in the next bay along from Heck’s borrowed Volkswagen.

  ‘Do I want to go back in there?’ Gemma said, getting out of the car and gazing reluctantly up at the huge, impersonal building, most of whose lights were now either turned off or dimmed.

  Heck shrugged. ‘Up to you, ma’am. But he’s out for the count.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘Apparently he’ll be okay.’

  ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Well that depends …’ Heck sniffed and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m tired … but I’m also wired. If that makes sense. Not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight.’

  ‘You’d be as well trying. Here …’ Gemma took a flask from her coat pocket; when she unscrewed the cap, there was an aroma of coffee laced with something else – Irish whiskey. She filled the plastic beaker and offered it to him. ‘Not saying this’ll help you sleep, but it’s always a good anaesthetic.’

  He took a couple of sips, before handing it back. ‘What did you think of Boyd?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as stupid in my entire life.’

  ‘He’s looking to his own interests.’

  ‘What … and he won’t help us find someone who so hates him they’d fit him up for a series of torture-murders?’

  ‘Like he said, there’re loads of people who hate him. While he’s on remand he’s pr
otected. His problem now is how to wriggle out of three aggravated burglaries.’

  She chuckled without humour. ‘Good luck to him on that. Did you speak to Marnie Gregson?’

  ‘She was asleep.’

  ‘Pity. She might have welcomed a few words of comfort from the partner her husband’s been bigging up to her.’

  ‘He’s been bigging me up?’ Heck was bewildered. What the hell had he done to merit that? Had he impressed the young detective with his world weary air? How about his irreverent attitude and reckless self-confidence? That Gregson was so much a rookie he failed to recognise all this as insecure bullshit made him somehow even more endearing, and his injury infinitely more painful. ‘I wouldn’t have had many words of comfort to give her, would I?’ Heck finally said. ‘I couldn’t even tell her Andy fell in a good cause.’

  Gemma didn’t reply to that. Instead, she glanced up at the sky. ‘Feels like rain …’ She hit her fob and the BMW unlocked itself. Once they were inside, she topped up the beaker and handed it over. Heck sipped again, glumly.

  ‘You know, Mark …’ Her tone became tentative; it was a rare occasion when she called him by his first name. ‘It’s been a soul-destroying day. But it’s not all bad. No one else is going to say this to you, so I will. What you did tonight … that was an amazing bit of coppering.’

  ‘Hey, I’m an amazing kind of copper.’ But he didn’t sound as if he believed it. He handed the beaker back.

  ‘I just want you to know how glad I am that you’re on the team.’

  ‘So is this the carrot as opposed to the stick?’ he wondered.

  ‘You can be an obnoxious prat sometimes, but … can’t we all?’

  He watched glassy-eyed as an ambulance screeched to a halt in front of the double-doors to Casualty. An emergency team spilled outside as the paramedics eased a stretchered form from the rear, one of them carrying a saline drip.

  ‘Me and you should have stayed together all those years ago,’ he said slowly. ‘We should have tried to stick it through.’

  She sipped at the fortified coffee. ‘Yeah, because that would make this mess go away.’

  ‘Then we wouldn’t have to do this in hospital car parks at three o’clock in the morning.’