by Paul Finch
‘Look … it was a bit tasteless, I admit that. But you were only sent to the same place because it was ready to receive an occupant.’
‘And you couldn’t just have told me all this?’
‘Not after Rochester’s phony escape turned into a real escape. I knew you’d disapprove on principle …’
He nodded. ‘Well that’s one thing you were right about at least.’
‘Plus we’d made a hell of an error …’
‘You can say that again.’
‘So the less people who knew about it, the better.’ She stood up. ‘Heck, think about this … can you imagine the impact if the Eurosceptic British public ever learned we’d engineered a prison break for one of our worst killers purely to help the police overseas?’
‘Can you imagine the impact if they ever learned you’d been planning to hole him up in a country house in the Cotswolds for the rest of his life?’
‘Well, exactly. So you’ve answered your own question.’
‘And you think that by finally revealing all this to me – now that you’ve no bloody option because I’ve sussed it anyway, that will keep me on-side?’
She folded her arms. A defensive posture, he noted, and nervous; this was a new experience for her. ‘Heck … as far as the general public are concerned, this whole disaster has now been resolved. Mike Silver’s prison cavalcade was ambushed by his former associates, after which he provided them with a list of all former clients, who they sought to liquidate as a security measure. And we managed to intercept them halfway through. It was a big upset, a big crisis … but now it’s been resolved. And more to the point, we’re going to arrest a lot more people … both here in the UK and abroad. It’s been a costly battle, but it’s won us the war.’
He regarded her for several long moments, during which she flushed an even deeper shade of pink.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she said.
‘I’m just wondering what it’s worth to keep my version of events out of the newspapers … and subsequently prevent you, Frank Tasker, and whoever else was involved in this fiasco facing a public enquiry.’
‘You’d really do that?’ she wondered.
‘I don’t actually know. There’d be a furore for sure. On the basis that fall-guys’ heads always have to roll, quite a few people would lose their jobs. You, almost certainly. Maybe Tasker, though I’m not certain … he probably got his orders direct from the Home Office. Perhaps he’d just get busted down to DI like poor Jim Laycock, for whom I won’t forgive myself easily. But ultimately … well, that’d be all, wouldn’t it?’ Heck shrugged wearily. ‘The crisis has ended. The bad guys are either dead or in jail. Perhaps to say more would be a pointless exercise …’
‘Glad you see it that way …’
His expression tautened. ‘Except that I don’t … not totally. Because one thing we still haven’t accounted for, Gemma, is you deliberately trying to con me.’
‘Con you!’ She looked flabbergasted by this. ‘Heck … you know we run black ops from time to time, with “need to know” classifications. You also know the fewer bodies in the loop, the better. Plus, as you’re well aware, there’s a chain of command. I mean who the hell are you, anyway? A sergeant! With an attitude! And a well-blotted copybook!’
‘You can forget the heavy stuff,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’m not just any old sergeant. Me and you have been round the track together more times than a pair of shagged-out lurchers. And yet rather than bring me in on this, you bloody well locked me up! And not only that, you tried to guilt-trip me into keeping my nose out. Made me feel like an absolute shithouse who’d made your life a misery.’
‘There was more than a bit of truth in that.’
‘And now we’re square, is that it? You’ve managed to out-shithouse me?’
‘Enough melodrama.’ She tilted her chin. ‘Let’s cut to the chase … what do you want?’
He pushed his transfer request across the desk. ‘Just this. Straight away. No explanations in writing. No question-and-answer sessions. No fucking about in any shape or form.’
‘And where do you want to go?’
‘Anywhere … so long as it’s far away from you. So if that’ll be all, ma’am …’ He turned to the door.
‘Heck …’
He glanced back.
‘This is really stupid. You realise that, don’t you?’
‘Sorry … I don’t. I reckon it’s high time you guys started solving a few crimes yourselves.’ The door banged closed behind him.
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And if you can’t wait for your next Heck fix, read on for a sneak peek of Paul’s next book, Dead Man Walking, which will hit the shelves in November 2014 …
Prologue
August, 2004
The girl was quite content in her state of semi-undress. The boy wasn’t concerned by it either. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the interest she attracted as they drove from pub to pub that sultry August evening.
They commenced their Friday night drive-around in Buckfastleigh, then visited the lively villages of Holne and Poundsgate, before penetrating deeper into Dartmoor’s vast, grassy wilderness, calling at ever more isolated hamlets: Babeny, Dunstone and finally Widecombe-in-the-Moor, where a posse of legendary beer-swilling reprobates had once ridden Uncle Tom Cobley’s grey mare to an early grave.
The girl was first to enter each hostelry, sashaying in through the guffawing hordes, and wiggling comfortably onto the central-most bar stool she could find, while the boy took time to find a place in the car park for his sleek, black and silver Porsche. On each occasion she made an impact. The riot of noise under the low, gnarly roof-beams never actually subsided, but it never needed to. Looking was free.
She wasn’t behaving overtly flirtatiously, but she clearly revelled in the attention she drew. And why not? She had ‘all the tools’, as they say. A tall, willowy blonde, her shapely form showcased to perfection in a green micro mini-dress and strappy green shoes with killer heels. Her golden mane hung past her shoulders in a glossy wave. She had full lips, a pert nose and delicate, feline cheekbones. When she removed her mirror shades, subtle grey shadow accentuated a pair of startling blue eyes. In each pub she made sure to sit prominently: back arched, boobs thrust forward, smooth tan legs sensually crossed. There was no denying she was playing it up, which was much appreciated by the taproom crowd. For the most part these were beefy locals, countrymen to the last, but there were also visitors here: car-loads of lusty lads openly cruising for girls and beer; or bluff, gruff oldsters in denims and plaid shirts, down in Devon for the sailing, the fishing, or the moorland walking – they might only be away from their wives for a few days, but they too revealed an eye for the girls; in particular an eye for this girl. It wasn’t just that she smiled sweetly as they made space for her at the bar, or that she responded with humour to their cheeky quips, but up close it could be seen that she wasn’t a girl after all – she was a woman, in her late twenties, closer to their own age therefore, and because of this even more of a taunting presence.
And still the bloke with her seemed oblivious to – or maybe was simply unconcerned by the stir his girlfriend (or perhaps his wife, who knew?) – was causing. He was well dressed – beige Armani slacks, a short-sleeved Yves St Laurent shirt, suede Ted Baker brogues – and of course he drove an impressive motor. But he was plumpish, with pale, pudgy features – ‘fucking snail’, as one leery bar-fly commented to his mate – and a shock of carroty red hair. And he drank only shandies, which made him seem a little soft to have such a tigress on his arm – at least from the locals’ point of view. And yet by the duo’s body-language, the man was the more dominant. He stood while she sat. He bought the drinks while she disported her charms, leaning backward against the bar, her exposed cleavage inviting the most brazen stares.
‘Got a right couple, here!’ Harold Hopkinson, portly landlord of The Grouse Beater, said from th
e side of his mouth. ‘Talk about putting his missus on show.’
‘She’s loving every minute of it,’ Doreen, his foursquare wife, replied.
‘Bit old to be making an exhibition of themselves like that, aren’t they?’
‘Bit old? They’re just the right age. Where do you think they’ll be off to next?’
Harold looked surprised. ‘You don’t mean Halfpenny Reservoir?’
‘Where else?’
‘But surely they know? I mean …’ Harold frowned. ‘Nah, can’t be that. Look, she’s a bonnie girl, and he likes showing the world what he’s got.’
Doreen pulled another pint of Dartmoor IPA. ‘You really believe that?’
Briefly, Harold was lost for words. It all made an unpleasant kind of sense. Halfpenny Reservoir wasn’t Devon’s number one dogging location – it was a long way from anywhere of consequence – but it was well known locally and it got busy from time to time; at least, it used to get busy before the panic had started. He eyed the fulsome couple again. The woman still perched on her bar stool, sipping a rum and lemonade. Now that he assessed her properly, he saw finger and toenails painted gold, a chain around her left ankle decorated with moons and stars. That was a come-on of sorts, wasn’t it? At least, it was according to some of his favourite websites (the ones he only perused after Doreen had gone to bed). Of course, it wouldn’t have been unusual at one time, this kind of display. The swinger crowd would occasionally trawl the local boozers en route to Halfpenny Reservoir – somewhat more covertly than this, admittedly, but nonetheless ‘displaying their wares’, as Doreen liked to call it, looking to pick up the passing rough that seemed to be their stock-in-trade.
Things were markedly different now, of course. Or they should be.
‘They must be out-of-towners,’ Harold said. ‘They obviously don’t know.’
‘They’d have to be from another planet not to know,’ Doreen replied tersely.
‘Well … shouldn’t we tell them?’
‘Tell them what?’
‘I don’t know … just advise them it’s a bad idea at the present time.’
She gave him her most withering glance. ‘It should be a bad idea any time.’
Harold’s wife had a kind of skewed morality when it came to earthy pleasures. She made her living selling alcohol, and yet she had a real problem with drunks, refusing to serve anyone she suspected of sampling one too many, and was very quick to issue barring orders if there was ever horseplay in the pub. Likewise, though she consciously employed pretty local girls to work behind her bar, she was strongly antagonistic to ‘tarts and tramps,’ as she called them, and was especially hostile to any women she fingered for members of the swinging crowd who gathered for their midnight revels up at the reservoir – so much so that when ‘the Stranger’ had first come on the scene, targeting lone couples parked up late at night, she’d almost regarded him with approval.
Until the details had emerged of course.
Because even by the standards of Britain’s most heinous murders, these were real shockers. Harold couldn’t help shuddering as he recalled some of the details he’d read about in the papers. Though no attack had been reported any closer to The Grouse Beater than a treed-off picnic area near Sourton on the other side of the moor, twenty miles away as the crow flew, the whole of the county had been put on alert. He glanced around the taproom, wondering if the predator might be present at this moment. The pub was full, mainly with men, and not all of the ‘shrinking violet’ variety. Devon was a holiday idyll, especially in summer – it didn’t just attract the New Age crowd and the hippy backpackers, it drew families, honeymooners and the like. But it was a working county too, even up here on the high moor, the local male populace comprising far more than country squire and Colonel Blimp types in tweeds and gaiters; there were farm-labourers, cattlemen, farriers, hedgers, keepers; occupations which by their nature required hardy outdoor characters. And hadn’t the police issued some kind of statement about their chief suspect being a local man probably engaged in manual labour, someone tough and physically strong enough to overpower healthy young couples? At the same time, he was someone who knew the back roads so he could creep up on his victims unawares and then make his getaway afterwards.
There were an awful lot of blokes satisfying those criteria right here, right now.
The more Harold thought about it, the more vulnerable the young couple looked in the midst of this rumbustious crowd. Even if the Stranger wasn’t present, the woman ought not to be displaying herself like that. The man ought to realise that several of these fellas had already had lots to drink, especially those who were openly ogling; that temptation might get the better of them and that it would be so, so easy just to reach out and place a wandering hand on that smooth, sun-browned thigh. If that happened there might be trouble, swingers or not, and that was the last thing Harold wanted.
‘We have to say something,’ he said to Doreen.
‘What?’ she sneered. ‘Casually tell them all the local dogging sites are closed? How do you think that’ll go down? They might just be show-offs. Might just have come out for a drink.’
‘But you said …’
‘Just leave it, Harold. We don’t need you making a fool of yourself. Again.’
‘But if they are swingers, and they go up there …?’
‘They’ll be taking a chance. Like they always take chances. Good God, who in their right mind would go looking for sex with strangers in the middle of nowhere?’
‘But darling, if they don’t know …’
‘They’re adults, aren’t they! They should make it their business to know.’
Three minutes later – much to Harold’s relief – ‘the adults’ left, the woman swaying prettily to the pub door, heads again turning to watch, the man digging a packet of cigarettes from his slacks as he idly followed. In some ways it was as if they weren’t actually together; as if the man was just some casual acquaintance rather than a partner, which was a bit confusing. Still, it was someone else’s problem now.
Harold edged to the diamond-paned window overlooking the pub car park.
The duo stood beside the Porsche, the man smoking, the woman leaning on the car with arms folded, her bag dangling from her shoulder by its strap. They chatted together, in no apparent rush to go anywhere – perhaps they were just a dressy couple out for a few drinks? Harold felt a slow sense of relief. Probably a nice couple too, when you got to know them; it was hardly the woman’s fault she was hot as hell.
It was approaching nine o’clock now and the sun was setting, fiery red stripes lying across the encircling moorland. Maybe they were all set to go home? But then, when the man was only half way through his cigarette, he stubbed it out on the tarmac and placed it in a nearby waste-container. And when they climbed into the Porsche together and drove away, it wasn’t along the B3387 to Bovey Tracey, or even back through the village towards Dunstone and ultimately Buckfastleigh, it was along the unnamed road that ran due northwest from here. The next inhabited place it came to was Beardon, some fifteen miles away.
But long before then, it passed Halfpenny Reservoir.
It had been a vintage August day in the West Country, but the heat was finally seeping from the land, the balminess of the evening receding. An indigo dusk now layered the hills and valleys of Dartmoor.
By the time they reached the reservoir it would be near enough pitch-black.
The woman checked their rear-view mirror as they drove. Fleetingly, she thought she’d glimpsed headlights behind, but now there was nothing; only the greyness of nightfall. Ahead, the road sped on hypnotically, the vastness of the encircling moor oppressive in its emptiness. Tens of minutes passed, and they didn’t spot a single habitation – neither a cottage, nor another pub – though in truth they were too busy looking for the reservoir turn-off to indulge in any form of sightseeing. Even then, they almost passed it; a narrow, unmade lane, all dry rutted earth in their headlights, branching away between two gra
nite gateposts and arcing off at a slanted angle amongst dense stands of yellow-flowered furze.
They slowed to a halt in the middle of the blacktop.
‘This must be it …?’ the man said. It was more a question than an observation.
The woman nodded.
They ventured left along the rugged route, bouncing and jolting, spiky twigs whispering down the Porsche’s flanks, following a shallow V-shaped valley for several hundred yards before star-lit sky broke out ahead; the radiant orb of the moon suspended there, its reflection shimmering on an expansive body of water lying to their right. Like most of the Dartmoor reservoirs, Halfpenny Lake was manmade, its purpose to supply drinking water to the surrounding lowlands. A row of wrought-iron railings flickered past in the glow of their right-side headlamp as they prowled the shoreline road, and the solid, horizontal silhouette of what looked like a dam blocking off the valley at its farthest end, affirmed the mundane purpose of this place.
There were several sheltered parking bays along here, all notoriously a dump site for used condoms, dog-eared porn mags and pairs of semen-stained knickers – though any such debris now would be old and rotted; there was no one present to add new mementoes.
Apart from the man and the woman.
They parked close to the entrance of the second lot, and there, as per the manual, turned the radio down – it was tuned to an ‘easy listening’ station, so was hardly intrusive in any case – opened all the windows, and climbed into the back seat together. Here, they sat apart – one at either end of the seat, exchanging odd murmurs of anticipation as they waited for their audience.
And so the minutes passed.
The stillness outside was near absolute; a gentle breeze sighing across the heathery moorland tops, groaning amid the granite tors. The couple’s eyes roved back and forth along the unlit ridges. The only movement came from tufts of bracken rippling against the stars. It was almost eerie how peaceful it was, how tranquil. A classic English summer’s night.
