by Paul Finch
Heck wondered if the bastard had turned his lights off. But then realised the truth.
A steep flight of stone steps dropped to a lower level.
The Peugeot descended them with a violent crashing and jolting, but still made it to the bottom, where it roared away along an entry that connected at its far end with another main road. Heck was half-minded to jam his anchors on, but just touching the brake sent him into another skid. Instead, he tromped the gas, and he too went down the steps, buffeted between his seat and the car’s ceiling. He struck the bottom with such force that he thought his airbag might deploy.
Thirty yards on, meanwhile, the battered Peugeot veered left, disappearing again.
‘Still in the town centre!’ Heck shouted. ‘Think we’re on Bradburn Low Road, heading south.’
Bradburn Low Road was not the best route from Heck’s perspective, as it led away from the central conurbation into the residential districts, where there were lots of backstreets, garages and carports to serve as hiding places, and of course plenty of potential collaterals should there be civvies about. But they never made it that far.
The Peugeot breached the next set of lights. Other road users veered away, horns yowling. The Peugeot hurtled through, but Heck had to negotiate the chaos more carefully, only one eye fixed on his target. Even though an open road now lay ahead, it again went left. Heck followed, jolting down a dirt ramp and then running along the cinder towpath to the Leeds–Liverpool Canal, which was at times so tight that a line of wrought-iron fencing on the left gashed his bodywork, while on the right his wheels trundled the heavy stone slabs edging the waterway.
Again, he relayed this info through the radio.
When the fence fell behind them, the Peugeot swerved left again. Now they were on Anderson Brow, all that remained of Anderson Pit: a virtual desert, a rubble and clinker-littered spoil-land. It was stippled with flashes, ochre-yellow mini-lakes formed where worked-out coal seams had collapsed. As a child, Heck had believed these were bottomless; as an adult, he knew they might as well be – they were deep enough to swallow a car whole.
The Peugeot surged ahead, but erratically, zigzagging – possibly because it had taken so much damage, or because the driver was tired or maybe even injured.
Only when it was nearly too late did Heck realise the true reason.
Bits of old mining equipment, hunks of corroded machinery, were strewn across the ravaged ground. He had to spin the wheel, as though in a dodgem car, to evade them.
‘Anderson Brow,’ he shouted at his radio. ‘Headed east.’
Beyond these hazards, the ground sloped downhill. A vista opened up, black as night, though across its centre lay a thin, ribbon-like road, the yellow blobs of streetlights arrayed above it.
‘Anderson Brow, approaching Hinks Lane, fifty plus!’ Heck yelled. ‘Will some of you bastards please get your arses here!’
What lay between here and Hinks Lane was anyone’s guess, but the Peugeot was prepared to chance it, almost taking flight as it clattered over another obstruction. Heck swerved in pursuit. The road drew rapidly closer, but now, just as Heck was gaining again, the rutted track transformed into wet grass; suddenly it was like the Cresta Run.
One second Hinks Lane looked a long way away, the next it was right upon them.
There was no traffic in sight, but Heck couldn’t imagine there wouldn’t at least be a fence. He braked hard, his Megane shrieking into a tailspin, the world cavorting past his windscreen, before, with a howl of blistering rubber, he ground to a halt beside a low wall, about four feet tall, made from heavy green stone. The Peugeot slammed into the wall side-on, and yet somehow, though it was a shuddering impact, its driver got his foot down again.
The Peugeot lurched forward, this time following the wall.
Heck tried to do the same, but for several crucial seconds got nowhere, his back wheels churning mud before catching and jerking him onwards.
The Peugeot had gained eighty yards. It cut left through an open gateway onto Hinks Lane. Heck managed to do the same – only to find that about fifty yards ahead the Peugeot had skidded to a halt on the left side of the road. Even as Heck watched, a hooded figure jumped out of it, ran around the car and hared away on foot across the next stretch of wasteland. Heck pulled up behind it, leaped out and gave chase. He dragged the torch from his pocket, aiming it ahead as he jabbered into his radio, catching sight of a grey-clad shape at the extreme end of his visibility, but also scanning the ground in front of him – something about this felt wrong.
Abruptly, the running figure changed direction, veering back towards the road. Heck was bewildered – something was badly wrong.
A small building hove into view on the left. Little more than a brick outhouse, with a black doorway in the side. Heck’s heart thundered as the running figure made a beeline for this and vanished into its interior. Did he have another weapon in there? Could that be his base? It seemed unlikely; it didn’t look as if there’d be room to swing a cat.
Heck came to the doorway himself, and peered in, breathing hard – seeing only the metal handrail to a dank concrete stair, which spiralled down underground.
The air-raid shelters, he realised, heart sinking.
Most of the derelict mills and factories in Bradburn dated to the prewar years. Nearly all had constructed their own air-raid shelters, many of which were still intact and in fact interconnected, meaning there were masses of maze-like tunnels and chambers underground: an incredible playground for adventurous kiddies, but a parental nightmare given they were also a hangout for tramps, druggies and the like.
It felt rash – because clearly at no stage tonight had his opponent been on anything less than familiar terrain – but Heck followed him down there.
He halted at the bottom, having descended about twenty feet, sweat dripping amid a fog of breath. The stagnant reek of abandoned tunnels assailed him. His torchlight roved over walls of brickwork scored by time and damp, spray-painted with slogans so old as to be almost indecipherable. There were two further routes from here, arched black entrances that bade no one enter. A distinct but dwindling echo of footfalls sounded from the right.
Heck lurched along that way. The torch speared maybe thirty yards ahead, yet still he stumbled over heaped masonry and spiked himself on the wreck of a broken school chair. Just beyond that, the passage turned a sharp corner, bringing him around by ninety degrees, so that when it ran straight again, he felt as if they were doubling back. He progressed another hundred yards before hearing a sound ahead – a sluggish grating of metal.
‘No … NO!’
He galloped forward, but no sooner had the steel gate emerged into his torchlight than he heard the echoing clunk of a bolt being thrown.
It must have taken a strenuous physical effort to close that gate; its hinges had to be ancient, but it was massive and ungainly and it completely filled the passage. Its lower half was of riveted steel, thick with rust though still very solid. Its upper half consisted of a square steel frame fitted with thick bars. Heck threw his shoulder against it, but though it gave slightly at the top, it wouldn’t budge at the bottom, which was almost certainly where the bolt had been rammed home, probably driven into a socket bored in the concrete floor.
He shone his torch through, and saw that the fugitive had turned to face him. He was no longer running, but slowly – very slowly – retreating into the darkness. He stood just a little shorter than Heck, his bodily dimensions hidden by a dusty grey boiler suit, beneath which he wore a grey sweat-top with the hood pulled up. Underneath that hood it was so dark that only a partial face was visible, the vague outline of a jaw. Clouds of hanging breath spilled out.
‘You out of your mind?’ Heck gasped. ‘You really think you can rampage around this town, burning people alive?’ He pointed through the bars. ‘Listen … I don’t care who you are or why you think you’re doing this, but I’m telling you, pal, I’m bringing you in … alive or dead, it’ll be your call. But it’s going
to happen. You’ll make a mistake, nutters like you always do, and I’ll be there at just the right time.’
The figure halted, as if contemplating this threat. More thick breath wafted from under his hood. Then he turned and bolted into the darkness. And Heck knew why. He’d been correct when he’d thought they were doubling back on themselves. They were now almost back at Hinks Lane. There’d be an exit to it nearby – but one which, thanks to the bolted gate, he himself couldn’t reach. He’d have to go the long way around.
He ran back, as fast as he could, making it to the stair in what felt like record time, though in reality the minutes had flown by. He ascended breathlessly, panting so hard that it hurt his chest. Then he had to negotiate the rough ground again, tripping and stumbling until he reached the road. By now, a quarter of an hour had passed. The night was silent.
The only vehicle sitting under the row of streetlights was his own dirty and dented Megane.
Chapter 32
Having summoned the Fire Brigade, who managed to make the brothel safe and also searched the premises for further victims, finding none, Gemma was left with a devastated crime scene. By the time Heck returned there, uniforms were in the process of taping the building off, along with the access-ways at the side and rear, and doing their best to hold back a horde of curious onlookers. Gemma had already despatched a small number of bobbies to start calling on the neighbours to establish whether there were any witnesses. She herself was outside the tape, smoky-faced and wearing her disposable gloves, relaying her detailed initial assessment to Comms by phone.
She cut the call as Heck approached.
He shrugged. ‘I lost him.’
‘So I heard.’ Her blank expression gave nothing away.
‘It didn’t help that I didn’t get much support.’
‘It didn’t help that you gave misleading directions.’
Heck sighed. When support units had finally located him, he’d only then discovered that he wasn’t actually on Hinks Lane, but Culraven Road, a parallel route across the same colliery spoil-land, but a mile and a half further west.
‘What can I say, ma’am? My memory for local geography’s a bit rusty –’
‘Save it for when you get back to the nick.’ She pulled her gloves off. ‘In fact go there now. Write it all up while it’s still fresh in your memory. You can give me a ride back too.’
They walked down the street, which swam with shifting patterns of blue light thanks to the beacons of the patrol cars blocking off its far end.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’ Heck pinched thin air. ‘I was that close to him. Literally. Bloody barred gate was all that separated us.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘An enquiry like this, you only get so many chances.’
‘We’ll get more. I mean, we came up here to catch John Sagan, but this Incinerator guy … he’s a special case in his own right. He loves it, and he’s going to keep on doing it.’
Gemma didn’t reply. They’d reached a section of road now taped off as a special RVP for Wandering Wolf personnel, whose vehicles were still arriving. Gibbshaw climbed out of the first, pulling his coat on. He was DSIO Sagan, so this was officially nothing to do with him, but at times like this it was all hands to the pumps.
‘Something good?’ he asked.
‘Nothing good,’ Gemma replied. ‘But it’s the Incinerator again. Two blasts of intense flame. Two vics.’
Gibbshaw glanced at Heck. ‘I hear you got close?’
‘Not close enough. But the VRM …’
‘Stolen plates,’ Gibbshaw said. ‘Lifted last year on the outskirts of London.’
‘I see.’
‘We’ve circulated them anyway. But if he’s got one set of iffy numbers, it’s highly possible he’ll have more. All he needs is a quiet place in which to swap ’em around, and he’s gone.’
‘Yeah,’ Heck replied. ‘Damn.’
*
Gemma made another couple of calls while they drove back to the station, and once Heck had parked went straight indoors without speaking to him. Heck meanwhile circled his Megane to check how smashed up it was after the chase – finding that it was every bit as bad as he’d expected. As he stood there gloomily, wondering if there was any chance at all he could pass this bill on to the taskforce, another vehicle came roaring into the car park and screeched up alongside him. It was Katie Hayes’s beige Ford Contour, and by the pungent, oily reek from under its bonnet, it had been going at some pace. The lady herself leaped out, pulling off her baseball cap, releasing an untidy mass of long, black, sweaty hair.
‘Heck!’ she all but shouted. ‘You know we have rules up here about police pursuits?’
‘I have a rule too. I pursue the bastards till I catch them.’
‘Except it didn’t work out that way, did it?’ Her eyes flashed and there was a real catch in her voice; she was hopping mad.
Deciding he didn’t need this hassle now, he turned and walked towards the personnel door.
She followed him. ‘It would also have helped if you’d given us proper directions.’
He turned back tiredly. ‘Ma’am, after so many years away, I’m not totally au fait with the road layout in this town. But I know what’s really pissing you off – you wanted to be there for the takedown tonight, and you weren’t. By the smell of your engine, you’ve been screwing it all over Bradburn. You really wanted to get in on it, didn’t you?’
‘You cheeky chauvinist sod!’ she said slowly.
‘What?’
‘So I’m driven by the same enthusiasm for the job you are, but I get slagged off for it?’
‘I’m not slagging you off, ma’am.’ He held up a placating hand. ‘I’m truly not. What I am saying is that you’ve got to take it on the chin sometimes. We don’t always get our man. Believe me, I’m as cheesed off about it as you are. And I’m sorry about the misdirection. Genuine mistake, OK? I’m not really the Lone Ranger. I do believe in teamwork, I just need a team who can keep up with me.’
Perhaps because she understood that sentiment well, she chose not to rise to it.
‘I hear you got some face-time with him?’ she said.
‘Nearly. No distinguishing features, if that’s what you were going to ask. I’ll tell you what, though, he knows his way around. Ran through those backstreets like a rat in its own tunnel, knew about the air-raid shelters, lured me right into them …’
‘So he’s local. Puts him firmly back in Shaughnessy’s court, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Or he’s a private citizen who also happens to be local – and who has a big beef with the mob.’
‘Heck, come on …’
‘Or he’s neither of those things. He’s just done his homework very well indeed.’
‘So basically we’ve gained no ground whatsoever?’ Hayes said.
A few yards away, the personnel door opened. DS Sally Gorton and a couple of other female officers in plain clothes emerged, escorting Sonja Turner, aka Mindy-May. Clearly they were en route to the safehouse.
‘Not necessarily,’ Heck said.
Gorton’s team were headed towards a parked-up Qashqai, but now he hurried to catch up with them. ‘Sonja, wait!’
The girl pulled a weary face. ‘Aww, no … I need sleep.’
She seemed as bolshy and irascible as earlier; it hadn’t been moderated by one iota of grief – which meant she hadn’t yet been told about the deaths at Blaymire Close. That was a good thing; Heck hoped she wouldn’t be told until they’d finished with her, as it might shock her into silence, and that would help no one.
‘There’re a couple more questions I need to ask,’ he said.
‘Listen, mate, I’m fucking exhausted, all right?’
‘HEY!’ he shouted back with such force that it stopped the party in their tracks. ‘There’s a madman out there burning people alive, and you’re complaining that you’re tired!’
‘DS Heckenburg –’ Gorton tried to intervene.
‘This is important,’
he told her.
Gorton turned to Hayes, walking up from behind. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Leave it, Sally!’ Hayes said curtly.
‘I want to ask you a very important question, Sonja,’ Heck said. ‘Are you for actual real?’
Her cheeks paled a little. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Have you been totally straight with us?’
‘I’ve – I’ve told you everything there is.’
He tilted his head. ‘I wonder if you have?’
Her voice became wheedling, tired again. ‘Look, I don’t understand …’
‘Who else apart from Sookie and Scott Cowley knew you were hiding in that knocking shop?’
‘No one.’
‘You told no one else at all that you were there?’
‘I said “no one”, didn’t I!’
‘You were in that minging bedroom, what … twelve days? How did you survive?’
Now the girl looked frightened as well as bewildered. From her evasive body-language, Heck could tell that she was struggling. She wasn’t happy answering these questions. It might just mean that she was genuinely exhausted, but it could also mean that she was being deceptive.
‘Sookie looked after me,’ she stuttered. ‘Brought me food, cups of tea, all that stuff.’
‘You’re sure that Sookie told no one?’ he said. ‘What about Cowley?’
‘Why would they do that? They knew I was frightened, that I needed to hide.’
‘How many other girls work in that brothel?’
‘Couple. But Sook sent them home the night I turned up. Said they’d have to work the streets for a couple of weeks.’
‘And you’re sure none of them saw you?’
‘Yeah. She took me straight upstairs and put me in that room.’
‘What about when Sookie had her own customers in? Could any of them have noticed you?’
She shook her head. ‘I always kept quiet, and that room was locked.’
‘What about going to the bathroom? Could one of the johns have spotted you then?’
‘I never did … there was an en suite bog and shower attached. Surely you saw that?’
