by Paul Finch
Laycock had only been the first.
And yet it got worse.
When he’d surmised the Nice Guys had come to the UK to clean house, Heck hadn’t realised just how thoroughly. Evidently, they were here to do it properly, to literally sterilise the place. Any weak links were to be eliminated; not just former clients, and former allies like Jim Laycock, but now their former boss as well – though they’d only got rid of him after beating and burning him, presumably to elicit information concerning his recent discussions with a certain duo of very senior police officers. Whatever the Nice Guys had learned from that torture session, it clearly hadn’t alarmed them – because they were still here. Though to be absolutely sure Silver had revealed nothing, they’d next have to pursue the only other people who were party to those prison interviews – namely Gemma and Tasker. Of course, if word reached the Nice Guys about the police finding Mike Silver’s body, they might expect a protective cordon to get thrown around Gemma and Tasker, putting them out of reach. In which case, their default position would almost certainly be to run, evacuating all their hidey-holes – both here and overseas – taking all evidence with them. An entire syndicate of gunmen and torturers, with direct contacts to networks of sadists, slavers, rapists, murderers and sex-traffickers all over the world would disappear from under British police noses like the proverbial puff of smoke.
It was a nightmare scenario. Heck either kept his suspicions to himself about the new dead guy being Silver – and in effect allowed the Nice Guys to go after Gemma; or he told SOCAR everything, in which case the new mole would then report to the Nice Guys and provoke them into running.
Only one solution was possible.
‘I need to speak to DSU Piper,’ he said. ‘No one else. Just her.’
Gribbins shrugged. ‘You ain’t got a phone anymore, pal. And you sure aren’t borrowing mine.’
Heck glanced at Fowler. A second passed and then, reluctantly, she took her phone from her jacket pocket. ‘Not in private,’ she said.
‘For Christ’s sake …’
She pulled it back. ‘Not in private.’
‘Listen …’ Heck tried to keep his voice steady. ‘It’s very important that you stop being a robot and following orders to the letter, and give me some leeway …’
‘We gave you plenty of leeway … and you chucked it back in our face.’
‘DS Fowler, I’m pleading with you …’
‘I’m sorry, DS Heckenburg. Unless you’re prepared to play by our rules … we’re done here.’ She hit the off switch on her laptop, closed it and tucked it under her arm. ‘For the time being there are no more private conversations. You’ve become too much of a security risk.’
She headed out to the hall, Gribbins following her, closing the door behind them.
Neither had been gone more than a minute before there came an explosive shattering of plate glass. Gribbins yanked the door open and charged back through, Fowler following, both with pistols drawn – both staggering to a halt at the sight of the gaping, jagged hole where the French windows had once been, and the twisted wreck of the coffee table lying on the other side.
Heck was already fifty yards up the garden, sprinting.
The duo hurried in pursuit, pistols drawn but neither of them rushing madly. Heck had a small head-start on them, but he couldn’t go anywhere. This was what they told themselves – so it was a quite a shock when they burst through the patio gate into the swimming pool area and found the storage shed open, but more important than that, the diving tower wheeled up to the rear boundary wall, its upper diving board protruding over the top into the woods beyond, and no sign at all of Mark Heckenburg.
Chapter 23
Heck charged five hundred yards through tangled thickets, ignoring the motion cameras as they turned on their pivots to watch him, before reaching the rearmost outer boundary, which was composed mainly of thickly woven hawthorn and stood to a height of nine feet.
Hefting the shears he’d brought from the shed, he went at the foliage hard, slashing and hacking his way through its outer carapace, burrowing on and on until he was clean through to the other side, though it cost him, his face and hands scratched, his blue flock tracksuit plucked and torn. Beyond it lay open, rolling farmland, stripped bare of crops and covered with stubble. Heck plunged across, tripping, stumbling. On the far side, he waded a brook that came almost to his knees, then clambered a low rock wall and found himself on another winding country lane. In no particular direction, he ran.
It felt ridiculous to be doing this – an invitation to disaster, but one thing was certain: there was no time for idling around in the company of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. He knew he was disrespecting the chain of command, not to mention breaking personal promises again, for which there might be severe consequences, but some things were more important than that.
He crossed a humpback bridge, and on the other side of that found a payphone on the verge. He entered the booth, grabbed the phone and asked the operator to reverse the charges to Gemma’s personal number. It cut straight to voicemail. He spent several costly seconds deliberating about who to call next. The only other number that came to mind was a certain landline in Battersea.
‘Shawna McCluskey,’ came the response.
Her tone was thick, nasal, as though she’d been crying, but it cracked with disbelief when the operator asked if she’d accept reversed charges from a Mr Heckenburg. There was fierce agreement, and the call went through.
‘You bastard!’ she said. ‘I’ve been suspended because of you! For the first time in my sodding career, I’ve been bloody suspended!’
‘Alright, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you.’
‘Oh, yeah, how? You’re not a bloody miracle worker, Heck! You’re the top man when it comes to saving your own arse though!’
‘Shawna, please … listen to me, I haven’t got very long.’
‘Thanks to you, I’ve got all the time in the world …’
‘Come on love, Lancashire loyalties, eh?’
‘Oh, is that what you’ve rung me for? To bag another favour? Not to apologise?’
‘Both … if you’ll let me.’
‘Make it quick,’ she said sulkily.
Heck glanced over his shoulder to ensure the lane was still deserted. ‘First of all … I’ve been trying to get Gemma and there’s no response.’
‘There won’t be. She’s in the air by now, on her way to Scotland. She actually rang me from Heathrow to tell me to go home. She sent me home, Heck!’
‘I know, I understand …’
‘Yeah, course you do.’
‘Look, I’ll call Gemma later, but if she speaks to you first, tell her to watch her back.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘No details … no time for that. Just tell her to keep her eyes open. She and Frank Tasker might be in trouble.’
‘As much trouble as I’m in?’
‘Shawna, I’ll say it again … I am sorry about this. I’d no idea Tasker was using such underhand tactics. But it’s totally my fault you’re in this crap-hole. I’ll take full responsibility, I promise. I’ll beg and crawl to Gemma when all this is over. I’ll stick my own head in the noose voluntarily.’
‘She’s not going to give you up for me,’ Shawna snapped. ‘She’s mad about you!’
That threw him a little. ‘That … erm, that’s rubbish, okay?’
‘It isn’t rubbish. But it doesn’t surprise me you don’t know. Like all fellas, you haven’t got a bloody clue. Anyway …’ Stoically, she attempted to get a grip on her anger. ‘Even if it was rubbish, I don’t want that either. You’re a better detective than me, Heck. You may as well stay on the case and do these Nice Guy bastards some damage.’
‘I intend to … I promise. But when it’s over I’m going to get you out of this.’
‘Course, I feel it incumbent on me – as an ex-friend of yours – to mention that half the cops in Britain are already afte
r this gang. Every firearms unit going is now attached to the case.’
‘The more the merrier. The main thing is you said something earlier. About bits of paper on that body in the sewer. Said they didn’t make any sense …?’
‘Yeah. They’d been soaked in effluent. Most of the ink had been washed off.’
‘Was any of it legible?’
‘I’ve hardly got that info to hand now, have I?’
‘You can’t remember?’
‘I suppose I ought to. As official Statement Reader … the one supposed to make sense of this whole mess.’ She sighed as she threw her thoughts back. ‘I seem to remember letters were missing, but what was there said something like “whips n stot”.’
‘What?’
She repeated it, spelling it letter by letter. ‘Told you it didn’t make sense. There were three dockets in total, and that was printed along the top of each one.’
‘Dockets?’
‘Yeah … or till receipts. Square bits of paper.’
‘And you say it was printed?’
‘Like a stamp or letterhead.’
Heck pondered this. ‘It didn’t mean anything to anyone?’
‘No one in the MIR.’
‘And these three dockets were in the dead guy’s pocket?’
‘Yeah … just crammed in there and forgotten.’
‘Well, the fact there was three of them means he had more than a passing interest in wherever it was they came from.’
‘So?’ she said.
Heck didn’t immediately respond. ‘You know … that term, “whips n stot”, it sounds vaguely familiar to me.’
‘You’re a mine of useless information. If you can’t suss it, no one can.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘So am I …’
A crunch of gravel drew Heck’s attention outside, where a silver-grey Ford Focus Titanium was pulling up in the lay-by.
‘You’re a gem, Shawna,’ he said.
‘Somewhat tarnished … thanks to you.’
‘How’s Gary?’
‘It was touch and go, but he’ll make it. So if you don’t do it for anyone else … get the bastards for him.’
‘Wilco.’ He hung up and stepped outside.
Gribbins, his gun concealed beneath his cord jacket, clambered from the passenger seat. Fowler came around the front. They regarded him warily, but with some relief.
Heck almost laughed. ‘You two think this is over?’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Fowler warned him.
But he’d already taken off, dashing around the other side of the booth, vaulting a low wall and sprinting into the undergrowth.
‘Bloody shit!’ he heard Gribbins bellow.
Fowler’s whipcrack voice followed. ‘Nick … NICK!’
‘Get in the car … head him off at the Canoe Club! This time he’s fucking had it!’
Heck ploughed on, dodging around trees and through patches of briar, crashing into and out of dense masses of undergrowth. The woodland was muddy, and he slid constantly, landing hard on his back at least once. Not far behind, foliage threshed as another heavy body forced its way through. From Gribbins’s London accent, he wasn’t a local, so he couldn’t know this area very well – but he’d said something about a Canoe Club. He must have a vague knowledge.
The ground dipped steeply. Heck plunged down it on his knees, tobogganing through heaps of soggy leaves, rolling when he hit the bottom. He’d blundered into a woodland trough, which he scrambled up the other side of, using roots to assist him, skidding in mud again as he stumbled onto a path. It bisected the line he’d been running in, heading roughly southwest to northeast. There was a further crashing in the leafage behind – he couldn’t loiter.
He took the path, heading northeast. A timber footbridge led over a deep, fast stream; probably the same brook he’d waded earlier. Forty yards after that, the path began to curve north rather than northeast, and then northwest. Heck glanced left, seeing lower ground covered with impenetrable underbrush. There was a rankness in there, insects whining. It was some kind of woodland basin, wherein the stream may have burst its banks, turning everything boggy. Was that why the path arched around it? He kept running, wondering why he could no longer hear sounds of pursuit. The path’s curve sharpened; it veered west, turning at such an angle it would soon be heading southwest. Was he running around in a circle purely to avoid getting his feet wet? It only occurred to him belatedly that Gribbins might take no such precaution – and right on cue, the big guy broke out of the underbrush in front of him, his corduroy trousers muddied to their knees. He was red-faced and sweating, his curly hair hanging in tendrils, but his lips twisted into an angry smile.
Heck slid to a halt. ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘Your arm’s in a cast.’
Gribbins pulled the Glock from his shoulder-holster, cocked it and pointed it. ‘Won’t stop me using this.’
‘Gribbins! Try ditching your “I’m a twat” badge just for a minute. You’re gonna shoot an unarmed fugitive? A fellow cop! Even Frank Tasker would have trouble explaining that.’
‘Don’t make me do it,’ Gribbins advised him.
‘I’m not making you do anything.’ Heck walked towards him. ‘You’ll be doing it, yourself.’ The moist flesh twitched between Gribbins’s brows. ‘Your call, pal.’
Gribbins threw the Glock aside and aimed a haymaker with his left hand. Heck blocked it and caught him on the collar bone with a downward counter-punch.
‘Fuck me …’ the big guy gasped, sinking to his knees.
‘You alright?’ Heck backed off. ‘Look … you’ve got an excuse. You’ve got a broken hand … so let me by. Say you couldn’t find me.’
‘Like you would …?’ Gribbins rose gingerly to his feet.
They grappled like wrestlers, but Gribbins, though he was bigger, was immensely disadvantaged. Heck twisted him around and threw him – Gribbins hit the ground heavily, the wind whooshing from his chest. But instead of lying there, he got straight back to his knees, and then to his feet.
Heck shook his head. ‘I don’t bloody believe this.’
‘You know the rules …’ Gribbins lurched at him again. ‘The only ones you can let go are the ones who’ve beaten the absolute crap out of you.’
Heck swung a left, but Gribbins ducked it, and barrelled into his midriff, wrapping bearlike arms around him, sending him tottering backwards. Heck clamped his fists and slammed them down like a mallet between Gribbins’s shoulders; once, twice, the third time knocking him down to the ground. Heck overbalanced too – he tottered from the path, falling full length into mulch and brambles. By the time he was back on his feet, Gribbins was up as well, but stooped and grimacing, drunk with pain.
‘Think you’ve done your bit,’ Heck said, circling around him.
Gribbins lunged for Heck’s collar with his good hand. Heck drove in a right, but smacked the plaster cast, raised as a shield. He yelled, yanked his hand back. Gribbins struck with the head, butting him – it only glanced the right cheekbone, but still stung, and made the retaliatory knee Heck rammed into his groin all the sweeter.
Gribbins gagged and staggered away. Heck followed with a crisp right, which caught him cleanly on the side of the jaw, snapping his head around. The big guy slumped to the ground, mouth running blood, eyelids fluttering closed.
Panting, Heck dropped to one knee, feeling the carotid in Gribbins’s throat. It pulsed normally. Gribbins groaned but remained unconscious. Heck rummaged inside his jacket pockets, finding what he was looking for: handcuffs. He took the inert form by its left leg and hauled it across the path, where he rolled it over into the recovery position, and then clapped the first bracelet around its left ankle and the other around a root arching up from the ground. A further search of Gribbins’s jacket located the handcuff key. Heck tossed it away into the trees, before searching again – only to come up with an empty holster.
Gribbins had thrown the Glock somewhere, but it was anyone’s guess where.
Neither had really been watching, and there was no time to go foraging now.
Heck checked Gribbins one final time – his vital signs were in order, and patted him on the head. ‘Had you down as all mouth and no kecks, pal. But you’ve impressed me. And that doesn’t come cheap.’
He traipsed on along the path, still unsure which direction he was headed in, or what he was actually going to do. The woodland opened, and he found himself on the broad bank of an expansive river, almost certainly the Avon. It flowed deep and glassy, emerald fronds streaming like tresses of hair under its surface. On the far side, which was maybe a hundred yards away, there were a couple of houses with a car parked outside.
Heck glanced along the river in either direction. Some eighty yards to his left, a steel footbridge with latticework sides extended to the other shore. On the right, closer, he saw a row of boatsheds, several kayaks beached on a pebbly slope and a tall steel rack with paddles arranged on it and a hi-viz coat hanging at one end. Evidently, this was the Canoe Club, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. The sheds were closed and padlocked. About thirty yards beyond the sheds, the path veered inland between trees, connecting to an open stretch of tarmac. This looked like a car park, but at present it was deserted. Heck gazed across the river to the houses again, eyeing the parked car, not liking what he was thinking. He glanced left at the bridge. The riverside path led straight up to it. Slowly, he began walking that way, brushing off fragments of thorn and leaf. He was about fifty yards short of the bridge, at a point where the path ramped up, the riverside turning from a slope into a brick embankment, when DS Fowler stepped from the bushes.
‘For a so-called top detective, you’re very predictable,’ she said. Then she noted the swelling under his left eye. ‘What’s happened to Nick?’
