Kiss of Death

by Paul Finch

  Heck wasn’t surprised that Reed was ready to take the rap. It was the kind of holier-than-thou crap he specialised in pulling. There was no denying that it helped, though; it would certainly mean that Heck would have less difficult questions to answer than otherwise.

  With the undertakers’ vehicle clear, he flashed his warrant card and was passed under the next cordon. As he walked across the lorry park towards the flyover, he saw that most of the area underneath it was now screened off. Access to that zone was only possible through a forensics tent, at the front of which a burly bobby made Heck sign the official crime scene log. Inside, he took a clean Tyvek suit from its cellophane wrap, climbed into it and pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and shoes.

  From here, Heck entered the area under the flyover via a path laid with raised forensic boards. It led through various taped-off areas in which glaring arc-lights, low conversation and repeated camera flashes revealed that plenty of evidence-gathering was still in progress. In fact, there were so many live crime scenes here now that the pathway divided several times, and temporary signposts had been erected – which was useful as, in daylight, Heck couldn’t easily find his way back to the green van.

  When he got there, as it was the actual scene of a police murder, it was doubly cordoned off and surrounded by evidence flags, each one marking a spent bullet casing.

  The van itself, its nearside tyres hanging in rags from where Heck had shot them, was still front-on to the immense concrete pillar. It was in a filthy state, covered in dents where repeated gunfire had hit it – though, noticeably, none of the slugs had penetrated – and spattered up its nearside flank with gobbets of drying blood.

  Only one CSI was currently present, a young Indian woman, also clad neck-to-foot in Tyvek. She hadn’t initially noticed Heck and was standing inside the inner cordon, carefully photographing items laid out along the top of a white plastic trestle table.

  ‘Looks like an ordinary van from the outside, doesn’t it?’ Heck said conversationally.

  The CSI looked around. Her name tag said that she was Sumitra Bharti and advised that she was the Crime Scene Manager.

  ‘But check it inside, and I suspect you’d be surprised,’ he added. ‘Anyone riding in this thing’s on a one-way trip.’

  ‘And who might you be?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, sorry … DS Heckenburg.’ He showed his warrant card. ‘Serial Crimes Unit. Currently with Operation Sledgehammer.’

  ‘Oh …’ She evidently recognised his name. ‘You were one of the officers who …?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I was.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re back here so soon. Sounded like a bad night in Raqqa.’

  ‘I’ve not known many worse,’ he admitted, still fixated on the erratic spatters of blood. ‘I didn’t know Inspector Renshaw very well, but … he was going back to help one of his injured lads when he got shot. He didn’t need to do that. I mean, I think he probably made mistakes in his deployment, but you couldn’t knock his concern.’

  ‘If you were involved in this incident …’ Bharti said cautiously, ‘shouldn’t you be at home?’

  ‘Not these days. We don’t automatically get suspended any more.’

  ‘But I don’t think you should be here, should you?’

  He turned to face her. ‘That’s a matter of opinion, to be honest.’ Heck was on dodgy ground, and he knew it, but it wasn’t as if he was being investigated himself, and until a new task force was put together – which they simply didn’t have time to wait for – this was still his case. ‘I’ve got something to check that’s been bugging me all night …’

  She still seemed uncertain. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Have you examined this vehicle internally yet?’

  ‘Only to give it a cursory once-over. We’ve only just moved the officer’s body.’

  He nodded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘We’ve not been in with the hoovers and tweezers yet.’

  ‘No, but when you glanced in there, did you see anything unusual?’

  ‘You mean apart from the fact it’s like a mobile five-star prison? It’s heavily armoured, which you’re obviously already aware of. There’s no way to open the rear compartment from the inside, but it’s very comfortable. Insulated, so it’s probably warm in winter. Carpeted.’

  ‘Carpeted?’

  ‘Richly. There’s even a comfy chair.’

  That settled it, Heck thought. This van was how they’d been transporting the poor bastards after they’d lured them inside with false promises. He stood with hands on hips, regarding the wreck.

  ‘So … is that it?’ Bharti wondered.

  ‘Not quite. I realise you haven’t done a full internal yet, but … there isn’t a satellite-navigation system, by any chance?’

  ‘That, I can help you with.’ She turned to the forensics table. ‘It’s over here. It was probably fitted to the inside of the windscreen. Fell out of the van when the windscreen was dislodged on impact with the pillar.’

  Heck felt pinpricks of excitement as he gazed down at the small device; it was dusty but undamaged, its disconnected power-cable hanging over the table’s edge like a tail.

  ‘Does it still work?’ he asked.

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Can we try?’ He dug his pocketbook out. ‘There’re a couple of things I’d really like to check.’

  ‘DS … Heckenburg?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘This feels a bit irregular to me.’

  He glanced across the tape at her. She was watching him worriedly.

  ‘It’s nothing to be concerned about,’ he assured her. ‘This may be an important lead, but likewise it may go nowhere. But the sooner we know, the better.’

  ‘Well …’ She still seemed uneasy but turned, took a pencil from her pocket and, using the blunt end, depressed the satnav’s power switch. It immediately came to life.

  ‘All I need is recent destinations,’ Heck said.

  She tapped a couple of times on the touchscreen and a list of postcodes emerged. Even craning his neck, Heck wasn’t in a position where he could see them properly.

  ‘Can you read them out?’ he said, checking his pocketbook and the list of postcodes he’d copied from the wanted-persons documents.

  Bharti began to read, working her way down. The first one he didn’t recognise, but he made a note of it anyway. However, the next three were all familiar, corresponding with the top three already written in his pocketbook. They were the locations where Eddie Creeley, Leonard Spate and Ronald Ricketson had allegedly been abducted, in Humberside, Cumbria and North Wales respectively.

  Despite himself, Heck leaned forward to try and see more.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant … but you need to stay on that side of the tape.’

  ‘I will, I promise … but we need more. Can you scroll down a bit?’

  She did so, reading out additional postcodes, the next two of which related to the abductions of Terry Godley and Christopher Brenner.

  ‘Any more?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure how much juice there is left,’ she said, but she did as he asked.

  Another three postcodes appeared. Again, the first of these was not on his list. Heck wrote it down anyway. But the next one married up with the paperwork on wife and mother poisoner, Jerry Brixham, and the next with underworld contract killer, Peter Freeman, both of whom had also been on the Most Wanted list.

  This was falling into place more neatly than Heck could have imagined. He could just picture Ray Marciano handing over those documents, which he’d prepared himself, having located and made contact with the fugitives, and then Green Van Man collecting the unwitting victims from specified locations, using postcodes and his trusty satnav.

  ‘The battery icon’s now on red,’ Bharti said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘I’d say this thing’s about to die.’

  ‘That’s OK … thanks very much for this.’

  Heck backed away from the tape and glance
d down his list. He wasn’t sure exactly how much he’d learned here. All it had really done, in truth, was confirm his theory that Green Van Man had visited the locations on the paperwork, in each case – presumably – to collect his unsuspecting cargo. Also ‘presumably’, when the CSIs got inside the van properly, especially into the back of it, they ought to be able to uncover minute traces of everyone who’d travelled. That would be the final proof.

  But, of course, that would take time, which was in short supply.

  He analysed his list again.

  It wasn’t impossible that the postcodes he didn’t recognise could be equally useful. The area code on the top one looked like a London address; there was nothing hugely suspicious about that. Anyone living in London and driving around on a day-to-day basis would probably need use of a satnav. But the second one, he was less familiar with. He quickly dug his iPhone out and tapped it in.

  It referred to a location in Cornwall.

  Heck felt another prickle of interest.

  As far as he knew, no one on the Most Wanted list had any connection with Cornwall. And that had to be good news, because from the beginning this had never simply been an exercise in seeking to marry up locations on the satnav with names in his pocketbook … but in looking out for possible locations where Green Van Man might have taken those names to.

  ‘You suddenly seem energised,’ Sumitra Bharti said.

  Heck tucked his phone and pocketbook away. ‘You’ve given me a new lead, that’s why.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘Are there still items inside the vehicle … I mean, of evidential value?’

  ‘As I say, we haven’t swept the interior yet. We only got the satnav because it was thrown out during the crash.’

  ‘You’ve looked, though?’

  ‘Sure … there’re a few bits and pieces in the cab.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Most of it’s probably trash. Paper cups, a hamburger carton, that kind of thing. There’s a pistol, of course … which you probably know about. Some bullet casings. A bit of paperwork.’

  ‘How long will it take to assess all that stuff?’

  ‘It’ll be later on today. Once we’ve logged and photographed everything, we’ll email the images to your exhibits officer. Probably by this evening. We’ll be working through the night, so certainly before tomorrow.’

  Heck chewed his lip. ‘Can you do me a favour, Sumitra … can you copy me in on every image you send? I mean, me personally?’

  ‘That’s not normal procedure.’

  ‘Maybe not, but there’s no reason why you can’t, is there? I’m part of the enquiry.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s just that I’m likely to be away from the office for a few hours, and I’d like to keep abreast of everything while I’m on the road.’

  ‘I’ll have to record that I’m doing that, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Heck gave her his email address and thanked her profusely as she noted it.

  As he made his way back along the boardwalk, he had a spring in his stride, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. These weren’t leaps and bounds forward. But a new line of enquiry was always to be welcomed, especially when time was as short as this.

  He thought about Gemma’s last email.

  Another chat with good old Professional Standards. Then some psych counselling.

  Or, alternatively, a quick spin down to the most scenic corner of the UK?

  It wasn’t a real question, when you considered it – as much as a total no-brainer.

  Chapter 34

  Like most Brits, Heck mainly knew Cornwall as somewhere to go for a break.

  It wasn’t all idyllic and it had its fair share of crime, even murder, but a lot of it was idyllic; in truth, the whole of the West Country was famous for its pastoral ambience and picturesque villages where placid ways of life ambled on regardless of other events in the world. Even now, processing slowly into its heart via the clogged artery that was the M4, he was encircled by acres of verdant countryside, which, drenched gold in the August sun and dotted with harvesters and hay bales, seemed almost quintessentially English.

  Not that this lessened the frustration of constant slowdowns and standing traffic.

  At 6:30 p.m., sluggish from lack of sleep, he left the motorway south of Exeter, eventually stopping for a couple of cans of Red Bull at a café on the edge of Dartmoor.

  Heck was vaguely aware, as he walked across the café car park, that all was suddenly quiet, that wild scenery loomed ahead and a colossal sky arched above, fast turning lilac as evening drew on, but briefly he had other priorities.

  The two energy drinks had an adequately reviving effect, but even then he felt grotty.

  He glanced around the small eatery. Everyone seemed friendly enough, but there were many times out and about on SCU business when he’d have given a lot for a familiar face, especially after being on the go for hours, after getting shot at and being chased by a bulldozer for Christ’s sake, and especially after being told he’d done the hard stuff, so now it was time for someone else to waltz in and do the easy bit (and take the credit of course).

  But that was the job all over. Heck had learned that soon after signing up, and he hadn’t gone anywhere else, so he could hardly complain.

  ‘I never complain,’ he told himself as he traipsed back across the car park to his Megane.

  Though that, of course, was a lie – as Gemma would attest.

  ‘Darling Gemma … the stuff I do to be part of your world.’

  On reflection, while driving out of Moretonhampstead, some 250 miles from his start point that lunchtime, even Heck couldn’t believe just how much effort he was putting in here.

  A minor road, the B3212, now lay ahead, cutting through the very middle of the expansive, grassy wilderness that was Dartmoor itself. Heck had consciously opted for this lesser-known route because he’d hoped there’d be fewer vehicles on it than on the A30 to Launceston, but this was hill-farming country, its various hamlets connected only by the narrowest, most meandering lanes, and a couple of times he had to negotiate tractors and flocks of sheep.

  All the way, he pondered St Ronan on Cornwall’s north coast, a minor village located midway between Port Isaac and Tintagel Head. This, it seemed, was the location of the postcode he was tracking towards.

  Specifically, it belonged to Abbot’s Walk, St Ronan’s seafront road. Having checked the details before setting out, it was no more than a fishing village, with only a minimal tourist industry. Its population was roughly six hundred, which was low even by Cornish standards. When he’d made a search on SCUA (real name ‘SCU Advisory’), the name didn’t crop up at all, which indicated that, not only was it not the subject of any serious ongoing criminal investigation, it most likely never had been.

  Hoping to God that he wasn’t on a wild goose chase, Heck drove on, crossing the border between Devon and Cornwall just before 7:30 p.m., a green wilderness now unfolding on all sides of him, its distant horizons topped with tors or the sentinel relics of tin mines. He followed the A395 as far as he could, and, from here, a network of empty lanes ascended to a ridge where a weathered Celtic cross stood by the roadside, before descending again, bringing him finally to a dramatic coastal vista, the sheer cliffs of countless headlands plunging precipitously into foaming, cerulean seas.

  He reached St Ronan earlier than he’d anticipated, shortly after 8 p.m.

  The village was every bit as quaint as he’d expected, mainly comprising whitewashed cottages with pantiled roofs and flower-filled window baskets and built higgledy-piggledy down its own coombe to the water’s edge, where a stone quay curved outward like a bow, entrapping a small harbour filled with leisure craft.

  From the moment Heck arrived, the restful atmosphere might have made him feel that his worst fears were true and that Green Van Man had loved this place simply for what it was – if it hadn’t been for the island. He caught sight of this as soo
n as he crested the top of the coombe, and it almost caused him to crash. He actually had to pull his Megane up by the verge so that he could climb out and have a proper look.

  Directly northwest of the village, perhaps half a mile offshore, there was a hummock of land. It boasted a horseshoe of diminutive buildings around a small harbour of its own, but further inland it was dominated by a much more massive structure, possibly an old baronial hall of some sort. It may even have dated from medieval times, as its highest point was a central, flat-topped tower with what looked like genuine battlements.

  There might have been some doubt in Heck’s mind that he was looking at the same Gothic building that featured in those unexplained photos taken from Green Van Man’s rucksack – were it not for the scaffolding, which even from this distance, clad considerable portions of the edifice.

  His destination, Abbot’s Walk, was a small promenade of nautically themed shops and pubs running along the seafront. When Heck got down there, it was dotted with strolling couples enjoying a balmy summer evening, but perhaps inevitably, there was no parking available.

  He finally located a space in a small car park at the rear of an ivy-clad, sea-facing hostelry called the Rope & Anchor.

  Heck parked, grabbed his bag and walked down a passage back to Abbot’s Walk, crossed the road to the seafront fence and gazed again at the object of his interest. It was mid-evening now, and the sun had sunk towards the horizon, turning the sky ember-orange and the sea salmon-pink. The building on the island was fast losing definition, but there was enough daylight left for him to see it in more detail, especially when he popped a couple of coins into a local authority telescope standing on a plinth on the promenade.

  Medieval in origin perhaps, but large parts of it had been extended and rebuilt many times since then. With the advantage of the telescope, it actually looked to be comprised of several buildings, which clearly had been constructed at various periods and in different styles. The foremost of these, and seemingly the most modernised, was a towering Victorian entrance hall. It was built from dark stone, but glass occupied most of its windows, and television aerials nestled among its gargoyles and pinnacles. Behind that and much more impressive, mainly because of its height, was the immense battlemented structure that Heck had seen from the top end of the village. This part definitely looked medieval; it was more like a castle’s keep than the wing of a country house, though it was difficult to be absolutely sure as so much of it was covered in scaffolding. Many of the other buildings were similarly clad, which suggested that full-scale refurbishments were in progress.