Dead Man Walking

by Paul Finch

  ‘How often has Jimmy Hood stayed here?’ Strickland asked. ‘I mean recently?’

  Devlin shrugged. ‘On and off. Crashed on the couch.’

  ‘And you didn’t report it?’

  ‘He’s an old mate trying to get back on his feet. I’m not dobbing him in for that.’

  ‘When did he last stay?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Few days ago.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘What he always wears … trackie bottoms, sweat-top, duffle-coat. Poor bastard’s living out of a placky bag.’

  The detectives avoided exchanging glances. They’d agreed beforehand that there’d be no disclosure of their real purpose here until Grinton deemed it necessary; if Devlin had known what was happening and had still harboured his old pal, that made him an accessory to these murders – and it would help them build a case against him if he revealed knowledge without being prompted.

  ‘When do you expect him back?’ Heck asked.

  Devlin looked amused by the inanity of such a question (again false, Heck sensed). ‘How do I know? I’m not his fucking keeper. He knows he can come here anytime, but he never wants to outstay his welcome.’

  ‘Has he got a phone, so you can contact him?’ Strickland wondered.

  ‘He hasn’t got anything.’

  ‘Does he ever come here late at night?’ Grinton said. ‘As in … unusually late.’

  ‘What sort of bullshit questions are these?’ Wayne Devlin demanded, increasingly agitated by the sounds of violent activity upstairs.

  Grinton eyed him. ‘The sort that need straight answers, son … else you and your dad are going to find yourselves deeper in it than whale shit.’ He glanced back at Devlin. ‘So … any late-night calls?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Devlin admitted.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t keep a fucking diary.’

  ‘Did he ever look flustered?’ Strickland asked.

  ‘When didn’t he? He’s on the lam.’

  ‘How about bloodstained?’ Grinton said.

  At first Devlin seemed puzzled, but now, slowly – very slowly – his face lengthened. ‘You’re not … you’re not talking about this Lady Killer business?’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding!’ Wayne Devlin blurted, looking stunned.

  ‘Interesting thought, Wayne?’ Heck said to him. ‘Is that your bat out there … or Jimmy Hood’s?’

  The lad’s mouth dropped open. Suddenly he was less the teen tough-guy and more an alarmed kid. ‘It’s … it’s mine, but that doesn’t mean …’

  ‘So if we confiscate it for forensic examination and find blood, it’s you we need to come for, not Jimmy?’

  ‘That won’t work, copper,’ the older Devlin said, though for the first time there was colour in his cheek – it perhaps hadn’t occurred to him that his son might end up carrying the can for something. ‘You’re not scaring us.’

  Despite that, the younger Devlin did look scared. ‘You won’t find any blood on it,’ he stammered. ‘It’s been under my bed for months. Jimbo never touched it. Dad, tell ’em what they want to fucking know.’

  ‘Like I said, Jimbo’s only been here a couple of times,’ Devlin drawled. (Still playing it calm, Heck thought.) ‘Never settles down for long.’

  ‘And it didn’t enter your head that he might be involved in these murders?’ Grinton said.

  ‘Or are you just in denial?’ Strickland asked.

  ‘He was a good mate …’

  ‘So you are in denial? Can’t see the judge being impressed by that.’

  ‘It may have occurred to me once or twice,’ Devlin retorted. ‘But you don’t want to believe it of a mate …’

  ‘Even though he’s done it before?’ Grinton said.

  ‘Nothing this bad.’

  ‘Bad enough …’

  ‘You should get over to his auntie’s!’ Wayne Devlin interjected.

  That comment stopped them dead. They gazed at him curiously; he gazed back, flat-eyed, cheeks flaming.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Heck asked.

  ‘He was always ranting about his Auntie Mavis …’

  ‘Wayne!’ the older Devlin snapped.

  ‘If Jimbo’s up to something dodgy, Dad, we don’t want any part in it …’

  These two are good, Heck thought. These two are really good.

  ‘Something you want to tell us, Mr Devlin?’ Grinton asked.

  Devlin averted his eyes to the floor, teeth bared. He yanked his glasses off and rubbed them vigorously on his grubby vest – as though torn with indecision, as though angry at having been put in this position, but not necessarily angry at the police.

  ‘Wayne may be right,’ he finally said. ‘Perhaps you should get over there. Her name’s Mavis Cutler. Before you ask, I don’t know much else. She’s not his real auntie. Some old bitch who fostered Jimbo when he was a kid. Seventy-odd now, at least. I don’t know what went on – he never said, but I think she gave him a dog’s life.’

  So Hood was attacking his wicked auntie every time he attacked one of these other women, Heck reasoned, remembering his basic forensic psychology. It’s a plausible explanation. A tad too plausible, of course.

  ‘And why do we need to get over there quick?’ Strickland wondered.

  Devlin hung his head properly, his shoulders sagging as if he was suddenly glad to get a weight off them. ‘When … when Jimbo first showed up a few months ago, he said he was back in Nottingham to see her. And when he said “see her”, I didn’t get the feeling it was for a family reunion if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So why’s it taken him this long?’ Strickland asked.

  ‘He couldn’t find her at first. I think he may have gone up to Hucknall yesterday, looking. That’s where they lived when he was a kid.’

  Cleverer and cleverer, Heck thought. Devlin’s using real events to make it believable.

  ‘Someone up there probably told him,’ Devlin added.

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘That she lives in Matlock now. I don’t know where exactly.’

  Matlock in Derbyshire. Twenty-five miles away. Quite a diversion.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Grinton sounded suspicious.

  Devlin shrugged. ‘He rang me today … from a payphone. Said he was leaving town tonight, and that I probably wouldn’t be seeing him again.’

  ‘And you still didn’t inform us?’ Strickland’s voice was thick with disgust.

  ‘I’m informing you now, aren’t I?’

  ‘It might be too late, you stupid moron!’ Strickland dashed out into the hall, calling the two uniforms from upstairs.

  ‘Look, he never specifically said he was going to do that old bird,’ Devlin protested to Grinton. ‘He might not even be going to Matlock. He might be fleeing the fucking country for all I know! This is just guesswork!’

  And you can’t be prosecuted for guessing, Heck thought. You’re a cute one.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Mr Devlin,’ Grinton said, indicating to Heck that it was time to leave. ‘Like warning Jimmy we’re coming. Any phone we find on Hood with calls traceable back to you are all we’ll need to nick you as an accomplice.’

  Out in the entry passage, Strickland was already bawling into his radio. ‘I don’t care how indisposed they are … get them to check the voters’ rolls and phone directories. Find every woman in Matlock called Mavis bloody Cutler … over and out!’ He turned to Grinton and Heck. ‘We should lock that bastard Devlin up …’

  Grinton shook his head, ignoring the door to 41c as it slammed closed behind them. ‘He might end up witnessing for us. Let’s not chuck away what little leverage we’ve currently got.’

  ‘What if he absconds?’

  ‘We’ll sit someone on him.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Heck said. ‘But I won’t be coming over to Matlock with you.’

  ‘Okay … something on your mind?’

  ‘Yeah. Alan Devlin. Good show he put on in there, but
I don’t think Hood has any intention of going to Derbyshire. I reckon we’re being sent on a wild goose chase.’

  Strickland looked puzzled. ‘Why would Devlin do that?’

  ‘It’s a hunch, sir, but it’s got legs. Despite the serious crimes Jimmy Hood was last convicted for, Alan Devlin let him sleep on his couch. Not once, but several times. This guy is not too picky to associate with sex offenders.’

  ‘Come on, Heck,’ Strickland said. ‘Devlin’s in enough hot water as it is … he’s not going to aid and abet a multiple killer as well.’

  ‘He’s in lukewarm water, sir. Apart from assisting an offender, what else has he admitted to? Even if it turns out he’s sending us the wrong way, he’s covered. It’s all “I’m not sure about this, I’m only guessing that” … there aren’t even grounds to charge him with obstructing an enquiry.’

  ‘We can’t not act on what he’s told us,’ Grinton said.

  ‘I agree, sir. But while you’re off to Matlock, I’m going to chase a few leads of my own. If that’s okay?’

  ‘No problem … just make sure you log them all.’

  While Grinton arranged for a couple of his plain-clothes officers to maintain covert obs on Lakeside View, the rest of them returned to their vehicles and mounted up for a rapid ride over to the next county. Strickland was back on the blower again, putting Derbyshire Comms in the picture as he jumped into his car. Heck remained on the pavement while he too made a quick call – in his case it was to the DIU at St Ann’s Central. As intelligence offices went, this one was pretty efficient. It was regularly utilised by the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, so its functionaries tended to know what they were doing.

  ‘Heck?’ came the hearty voice of PC Marge Propper, a chunky uniformed lass, whose fast, accurate research capabilities had already proved invaluable to the Lady Killer Taskforce.

  ‘Marge … am I right in thinking that, apart from Alan Devlin, Jimmy Hood has no other known associates in the inner Nottingham area?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Okay … I want to try something different. Can you contact Roundhall Prison in Coventry? Find out who’s been visiting Hood this last year and a half. Any regular names that haven’t already cropped up in this enquiry, I’d like to know about them.’

  ‘Wilco, Heck … might take a few minutes to get a response at this hour.’

  ‘No worries. Call me back when you can.’

  He paused before climbing into his Peugeot. The other mobile units had driven away, leaving a dull, dead silence in their wake. The surrounding buildings were little more than blurred, angular outlines, broken by the odd faint square of window-light, most of which leached into the gloom without making any impression. The passage leading towards Lakeside View was a black rectangle, which bade no one re-enter it.

  Heck climbed into his car and switched the engine on.

  It was impossible to say whether or not they were on the right track, but it felt right. He still didn’t trust Alan Devlin, but the guy’s partial admissions had revealed that Jimmy Hood had been in this district as well as Hucknall – which put Hood close to all the identified murder scenes and in roughly the right time-frame. Of course, with the knowledge of hindsight, it was all so predictable and sordid. As Heck drove out of the cul-de-sac, it struck him that this decayed environment, with its broken glass and graffiti-covered maze of soulless brick alleys, seemed painfully familiar. So many of his cases had brought him to blighted places like this.

  His phone rang and he slammed it to his ear. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘We could have something here, Heck,’ Marge Propper said. ‘In his last three years at Roundhall, Jimmy Hood was visited nine times by a certain Sian Collier.’

  ‘That name doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘No … she hasn’t been on our radar up to now, though she’s got minor form for possession and shoplifting. She’s white, thirty-two years old and a local by birth. Her last conviction was over five years ago, so she may have cleaned up her act.’

  ‘Apart from the bit where she gets mixed up with sex killers?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  Heck fiddled with his sat-nav. ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Mountjoy Height, number eighteen … that’s in Bulwell.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Heck … if you’re going over there, you might want to speak to Division first. It’s a lively place.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning, Marge. But I’m only spying out the land. Anyway, I’ve got my radio.’

  The murkiness of the winter night was now to aid Heck – mainly because it meant the roads were empty of traffic, but also because, once he arrived in Bulwell, he was able to cruise its foggy, rundown streets without attracting attention.

  When he finally located Mountjoy Height, it was a row of pebble-dashed two-storey maisonettes on raised ground overlooking yet another labyrinthine housing estate. First, he made a drive-by at the front, seeing patches of muddy grass serving as communal front gardens, with wheelie-bins dotted across them and litter strewn haphazardly. There were only a couple of other vehicles present, but lights were on in most of the maisonette windows. After that, he explored at the rear, working his way down into a lower, winding alley, which ran past several garages. Some of these stood open, some closed. The garage to number eighteen didn’t have a door attached, but was of particular interest because a large, good-looking motorcycle was parked inside it.

  Heck glided to a halt and turned his engine off.

  He climbed out, listening carefully; somewhere close by voices bickered. They were muffled and indistinct, but it sounded like a couple of adults; he wasn’t initially sure where it was coming from – possibly number eighteen itself, which towered behind the garage in the gloom and was accessible by a narrow flight of steps running upward.

  He assessed the motorbike through the entrance, and despite the darkness was able to identify it as a new model Suzuki GSX, an expensive make for this neck of the woods.

  ‘DS Heckenburg to Charlie Six,’ he said into his radio. ‘PNC check, please?’

  ‘DS Heckenburg?’ came the crackly response.

  ‘Anything on a black Suzuki GSX motorcycle, index Juliet-Zulu-seven-three-Bravo-Foxtrot-Alpha, over?’

  ‘Stand by.’

  Heck moved to the side of the garage and glanced up the steps. The monolithic structure overhead was wreathed in vapour, but lights still burned inside it, and the argument raged on; in fact it sounded as if it had intensified. Glass shattered, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing – it might grant him the right to force entry.

  ‘DS Heckenburg from PNC?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Black Suzuki GSX motorcycle, index Juliet-Zulu-seven-three-Bravo-Foxtrot-Alpha, reported stolen from Hucknall late last night, over.’

  ‘Received, thanks for that. What were the circumstances of the theft, over?’

  ‘Fairly serious, sarge. It’s being treated as robbery. A motorcycle courier got a bottle broken over his head outside a fish and chip shop, and then had his helmet stolen as well as his ride. He’s currently in IC. No description of the offender as yet.’

  Heck pondered. This sounded more like Jimmy Hood by the minute. On the basis that he was now looking to make an arrest for a serious offence, Heck had the power to enter the garage – which he duly did, finding masses of junk littered in its oily shadows: boxes crammed with bric-a-brac; broken, dirty household appliances; even a pile of chains, several of which were wrapped around an upright steel girder supporting the garage roof.

  ‘DS Heckenburg … are you saying you’ve found this vehicle, over?’

  ‘That’s affirmative,’ Heck replied, pulling his gloves on as he mooched around. ‘In an open garage at the rear of eighteen, Mountjoy Height, Bulwell. The suspect, who I believe to be inside the address, is Jimmy Hood. White male, early thirties, six foot three inches and built like a brick shithouse. Hood, who has form for extreme violence, is also a suspect in the Lady Killer m
urders. So I need back-up ASAP. Silent approach, over.’

  ‘Received sarge … support units en route. ETA five.’

  Heck shoved his radio back into his jacket and worked his way through the garage to a rear door, which swung open at his touch. He followed a paved side-path along the base of a steep, muddy slope, eventually joining with the flight of steps leading up to the maisonette. When he ascended, he did so warily. Realistically, all he needed to do now was wait until the cavalry arrived – but then something else happened.

  And it was a game-changer.

  The shouting and screaming indoors had risen towards a crescendo. Household items exploded as they were flung around. This was just about tolerable, given that it probably wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in this neighbourhood. Heck reasoned that he could still wait it out – until he got close to the rear of the building, and heard a baby crying.

  Not just crying.

  Howling.

  Hysterical with pain or fear.

  ‘DS Heckenburg to Charlie Six, urgent message!’ He dashed up the remaining steps, and took an entry around to the front of the maisonette. ‘Please expedite that support … I can hear violence inside the property and a child in distress, over!’

  He halted under the stoop. Light shafted through the frosted panel in the front door, yet little was visible on the other side – except for brief flurries of indistinct movement. Angry shouts still echoed from within.

  Heck zipped his jacket and knocked loudly. ‘Police officer! Can you open up please?’

  There was instantaneous silence – apart from the baby, whose sobbing had diminished to a low and feeble keening.

  Heck knocked again. ‘This is the police … I need you to open up!’ He glimpsed further hurried motion behind the distorted glass.

  When he next struck the door, he led with his shoulder.

  It required three heavy buffets to crash the woodwork inward, splinters flying, bolts and hinges catapulting loose. As the door fell in front of him, Heck saw a narrow, wreckage-strewn corridor leading into a small kitchen, where a tall male in a duffle-coat was in the process of exiting the property via a back door. Heck charged down the corridor. As he did, a woman emerged from a side-room, bruised and tear-stained, hair disorderly, mascara streaking her cheeks. She wore a ragged orange dressing-gown and clutched a baby to her breast, its face a livid, blotchy red.