The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  At their feet, Robson groaned and tried to lever himself up.

  Heck smashed a kick into his face, knocking him cold again.

  ‘If Marvin Langton was here, you wouldn’t be so quick with that caper,’ Shaughnessy spat.

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s one of the disadvantages of being chief suspect in a murder case. You get a police tail. Kind of restricts what you can do, where you can go, who you can see.’

  ‘You’ll never make that gun charge stick.’

  ‘You wanna bet?’ Heck chuckled. ‘You think Operation Wandering Wolf won’t be more than willing to back me up on this? Any idea how much they hate you, son? They’ll be all over you like a rash. They’ll bury you so deep, your mates’ll need to pipe the sunlight down to you.’

  ‘And you’d let them would you, you bastard, when you’ve already admitted you know we’re not responsible for these crimes?’

  ‘Fucking right I’d let them. Firstly, because you’re responsible for an awful lot of other crimes, which somehow or other your bad-boy reputation keeps you safe from. But mainly because so far you’ve done nothing but foul up my investigation. I’m trying to catch a couple of killers here – a real nasty pair – and yet you keep getting in the way, diverting attention, distracting resources. I gave you two or three chances to come clean and prove you’re not involved in these crimes, but instead you had to give it the big “I am” for that fucking kindergarten you call a firm.’

  ‘I can do it now,’ Shaughnessy gasped as Heck applied extra pressure to his wrists.

  ‘Too late, pal. Now we do it tough.’

  He twisted all the harder, dragging a suppressed scream through Shaughnessy’s clenched teeth. This was more than mere rule-bending, but Heck felt secure. He doubted anyone in this neighbourhood would call the cops on behalf of Lee Shaughnessy, plus the green-and-white van was conveniently parked nearby, blocking the Mazda off from the nearest line of houses.

  ‘OK, OK!’ Shaughnessy gibbered. ‘I sent you that tip-off, that phone-call! Who else was it gonna be? You gave me your number, for Christ’s sake! Anyone else round here gonna have that?’

  Heck paused. ‘You made that phone-call yourself?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  Heck dug his mobile out, thumbing the keypad to check his records. ‘Date and time?’

  ‘I don’t know what time it was …’

  ‘Date and time, dog-breath!’

  ‘It was yesterday, I know that. First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Gimme a time specifically!’

  ‘I don’t know … between six and seven. I wanted to make sure you were at least half asleep, catch you off your guard, make it harder for you to trace me.’

  ‘Yeah, how did that work out for you?’ Heck examined the data. This part of the story checked out, at least. ‘What did you tell me?’

  ‘You don’t fucking remember?’

  ‘I want to hear it again! Word for word!’

  ‘Erm …’ Shaughnessy struggled to recall exactly. ‘That there was this lass, Mindy-May. Part-time stripper and prozzie. That she was hanging out in a brothel on Blaymire Close. That she probably knew something about the sex-shop murders.’

  That was close enough, Heck decided. He pocketed his phone. ‘OK, next question …’

  ‘Come on, man! I’ve confirmed it, haven’t I? Gimme something back!’

  ‘Hey! This isn’t a negotiation, you know. You’re under arrest! So next question … how did you know she was there? How did you know what she saw at Sadie’s Dungeon?’

  Shaughnessy struggled to breathe, he was in so much pain. ‘One of our dealers … look, copper, you’ve not cautioned me, so nothing I say here can be used to drop me in the shi–’

  ‘Don’t tell me my job. Just tell me what I want to know.’

  ‘She told one of our dealers.’

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Mindy’s a smackhead.’

  ‘I thought she was clean.’

  ‘Do me a fucking favour. They always say that.’

  Heck clamped down on the irritation this caused him. Sonja Turner was going to make a cracking witness. ‘And?’ he said.

  ‘Mindy worked for Barrie Briggs, who was on Vic Ship’s payroll, but she wasn’t joined to him at the hip. If she desperately needed gear, she’d happily buy it from us.’

  ‘So let me guess. She called the candyman, and he went round to see her at her new address … on Blaymire Close?’

  ‘Correct,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘He reckoned she looked a bit more strung out than usual. Asked her what the problem was, and it all came pouring out. She’d seen these two blokes get torched by some nutjob with a flamethrower. Once he’d heard this, he reported it straight back to me.’

  Heck contemplated this. If nothing else, it explained Mindy-May’s overall caginess. Being known as a stripper and a junkie would hardly help in her fight for her kids.

  ‘This dealer?’ Heck asked. ‘Did he tell anyone else?’

  ‘No chance. I made sure he knew not to.’

  ‘You made sure?’ Heck sneered. ‘You know what, Lee? I reckon you couldn’t organise a wank in a warm bath.’

  ‘He’s one of my best lads,’ Shaughnessy insisted. ‘I told him to keep it zipped. I trust him.’

  ‘One of your best, eh? That’ll be a euphemism for some walking sack of shit who can just about be trusted not to sell his own kids for pin-money. You tell him to keep it shut, so he only tells his pillhead girlfriend … who tells another pillhead, and suddenly it’s travelling every which way.’

  ‘Look!’ Shaughnessy pleaded. ‘We don’t want this fucking Incinerator any more than you do. Obviously we don’t. That’s why I tried to give him to you. Any war’s bad for business.’

  ‘Especially a war with Vic Ship, eh? You scared of him, Lee? Come on, you can admit to it – now you’re not showboating in front of your mates. Because if you aren’t, you ought to be. You’re sauntering around up here like the cock of the walk, but in truth you’re a set of street-corner tosspots. I’m only surprised he hasn’t killed you all already.’

  ‘We’re safe up here.’

  ‘Well, yeah … I’m the living proof of that, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’re a copper. It’s different. Vic won’t send any of his goons up here, not even that psycho with his torture wagon –’

  ‘What’s that?’ Heck said sharply.

  ‘We’re team-handed up here and Vic knows we’re packing. I tried to make a truce with him, and he didn’t want to know, but I’m gonna try again because –’

  ‘What psycho with his torture wagon?’

  ‘The one who did Cal and Dean.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’ Heck demanded.

  Shaughnessy shrugged. ‘Not much. Only that he’s got a raft of kit in this caravan, and he uses it on anyone he’s told to. Vic brought him in from outside so he can keep his own hands clean.’

  ‘Where’d you learn all this?’

  ‘We got an anonymous tip too.’

  Heck rammed the gun into his ribs with a gut-thunking impact. Shaughnessy cringed in pain.

  ‘Bastard!’ he gasped. ‘We got a tip – for real! Anonymous phone-call, just like you got. Whoever it was, they said this bastard was parked up at the Woodfold storage depot –’

  ‘East side of Blackhall?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Shaughnessy still winced in pain. ‘There’s an empty parking space next to the units. We went up there, see if we could get hold of him. But he’d already gone. If he’d ever been there … if he even exists.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last Friday.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘We got there early evening. Sixish. Like I say, he’d already skipped.’

  Heck spun the gang leader round and pushed him backward against the car. ‘I’ll tell you what, Lee: from this point on, you’ve only got two jobs to do. First, you go and have a word with this dealer of yours. Give him a damn good talking to – and I m
ean damn good! – and you find out exactly who he opened his yap to, and where the information travelled to from there.’

  ‘If that happened and it hit the streets, it could’ve gone anywhere.’

  ‘You’d better hope it hasn’t. Second, you use all the influence you’ve got, and by that I mean knock any heads together you need to, to discover who was behind that anonymous tip. If I can find out where mine came from this easily, you can find out where yours came from.’

  Shaughnessy looked bewildered. ‘You’re not locking me up?’

  ‘I don’t need to.’ Heck held the Makarov up again, now sheathed in a plastic evidence sack.

  ‘You reckon you can keep pulling that stunt?’

  ‘This stunt could be the end of your life as you know it, Lee. I’ve already told you, this gun isn’t a toy – it’s been used more than once. And now it’s got your fingerprints all over it. And while I might not log it into evidence today, it can appear at any time in the future, at any place of my choosing. You understand what that means?’

  ‘You think that makes me your bitch?’

  ‘I know it does, son. And if you don’t, you’re finally believing your own publicity … which wasn’t even a good idea for Al Capone, let alone a maggoty little dipshit like you.’ Heck slid the key into the handcuffs. ‘I’m letting you go for now – and the first thing you’re going to do is get yourself back into that piss-stained shed, or wherever else the rest of your rodent-like cronies are hanging out, and start asking those hard questions I told you about. And as soon as you get some answers I want to hear, you get on the blower to me. You’ve done it once before, so I’m sure it’ll be no hardship to do it again, especially as this time it’ll be saving your arse.’

  Shaughnessy dripped sweat. ‘How do I know you won’t stitch me up with that shooter anyway?’

  ‘Well, thing is …’ Heck had unfastened the cuffs, but now clamped the back of Shaughnessy’s neck with his left hand, and tripped him over his extended left foot. ‘You don’t!’

  Shaughnessy landed face-first alongside Robson. The impact drove the wind from him, knocking him dizzy. He finally managed to glance up. But Heck had vanished.

  Chapter 35

  As a rule, Heck disliked strong-arming people. But there were times of extremis when for the good of mankind you simply had to get a result, and if that required ruthlessness, so be it. In any case, he couldn’t imagine there were many who’d weep for Lee Shaughnessy. That said, he’d taken a risk, bushwhacking the guy out in the open. It seemed unlikely that Shaughnessy would press charges – he was the sort who’d prefer to resolve these issues on his own. But it had still been a risk.

  As Heck threaded back through the winding alleyways of the Lawkholme, it started raining again. When he reached his Megane, which was parked in a deserted lot at the rear of a block of boarded-up flats, it was hammering down. Jumping inside, he mopped his sodden hair back and made a quick call to Gemma.

  ‘Heck?’ she said.

  ‘Ma’am … I’ve got a possible fix on Sagan.’

  ‘On … Sagan?’ She sounded bewildered.

  ‘Yeah, and listen – before you lose it with me, I wasn’t looking for him. I’ve liaised with Lee Shaughnessy again today –’

  ‘Liaised with him?… I see.’

  ‘Sort of liaised with him. Last Friday he got an anonymous tip-off that the guy who tortured Calum Price and Dean Lumley to death had pitched up in his caravan in a parking bay near a bunch of lock-ups at Woodfold. That’s on the east side of the Blackhall ward. Shaughnessy and his crew went straight up there, looking for payback, but he’d gone.’

  ‘Lee Shaughnessy actually told you this?’

  ‘Yeah. I know that means it doesn’t sound kosher, but him and his crew know a lot about Sagan, ma’am – way more than I’d expect them to in normal circs.’

  ‘And they got this intel from an anonymous source?’

  ‘You’re right to sound sceptical, ma’am. I was sceptical too. But it’s worth checking, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you think there’s any possibility Shaughnessy was being truthful with you.’

  Heck glanced at the front passenger seat, where alongside his discarded gloves the Makarov lay in its plastic evidence sack.

  ‘I think he was being truthful. Whether the tipster was being truthful with him is another matter. We don’t know who this person is or what their motivation’s supposed to be, and of course there was no caravan at the lock-ups when Shaughnessy got there. The advantage we’ve got though, is CCTV. There’ll definitely be security cameras covering those lock-ups, and as we’ve even got the date and time – Friday, April 6, 6 p.m.-ish – it shouldn’t take long to work our way back through the footage. If we do catch a glimpse of Sagan leaving, we can utilise footage from the surrounding streets too. Could give us an electronic paper-trail – help us follow him to wherever he pitches up next.’

  Gemma gave a long, low sigh. It might just have been that she was tired, but there were times when Heck thought she found the leads he often gave her infuriating because they reminded her that he was still her best investigator despite his inability to follow procedure, not to mention the nefarious methods she suspected he employed.

  ‘I’ll get someone onto it,’ she said. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Behind the wheel of my car.’ He gazed through the windscreen at the intensifying downpour. ‘Though I’d probably be better off in a submarine.’

  ‘You coming back to the station?’

  ‘I’ve got one more lead to check out first, ma’am … and I promise that’s connected to the Incinerator.’

  ‘I believe you,’ she said wryly. ‘Why crack one murder case in a day, if you can crack two?’

  ‘These leads may be nothing, you know.’

  ‘I understand that. But good work anyway.’ She cut the call.

  ‘Not good work exactly,’ he muttered as he hit the ignition and put the Megane in gear. ‘But if it gets us somewhere …’

  Heck steered out onto the nearest road, which already lay under a glistening sheet of water. The rain was now coming down furiously, restricting his vision to a few yards. But he couldn’t afford to get marooned on the Lawkholme. There were things he urgently needed to do, so he pressed on across the vast sprawl of the estate as swiftly as he dared, wipers thudding. Thanks to the weather, he didn’t meet much traffic while negotiating the dreary backstreets, so his initial progress was steady. But once he reached the main road on the edge of the Lawkholme, he found that rush-hour was commencing, its sluggish rivers of headlights pulsing blurrily through torrents of rain. As he ploughed frustratingly slowly towards the town centre area, his phone buzzed several times. On the first two occasions he let it shift to voicemail because he needed to keep both hands on the wheel. The third time he managed to glance at the device and saw that the call was from DI Hayes – so he ignored it then too. He’d decided that he liked Hayes and trusted her, but the last thing he needed now was a supervisor on his shoulder. However, when the phone buzzed a fourth time, the call was from Eric Fisher.

  Now close to the town centre, Heck slid his car into the mouth of an entry, braked hard and put his phone to his ear.

  ‘What’ve you got for me, Eric?’

  ‘You were on the money with Cameron Boyd,’ Fisher replied.

  ‘I was?’

  ‘I’ve just got off the phone with him. He’s currently in Strangeways, where he’s rubbing shoulders with some very unpleasant people.’

  ‘He’s no shrinking violet himself.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s scared shitless because you’re apparently blackmailing him with a fake attempted murder charge – murder of a police officer no less.’ Fisher sounded unimpressed. ‘Which, if it’s true, is a bit naughtier than you simply having an unregistered CI.’

  ‘To date, Eric, he’s given us leads on a kidnapping, at least three blags and a whole bunch of murders. Trust me, it’s been worth it.’

  ‘Heck, if this clown ever
gets himself a decent solicitor –’

  ‘It’ll be his word against mine. Anyway, like I say … if his new intel’s good, I’ll cut him loose.’

  ‘Well, I think you’ll find it reasonably interesting. Shelley Harper – Vic Ship’s ex-girlfriend as was.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Seems her duties didn’t just include servicing the boss between the sheets. She also had a recruitment job with his firm.’

  ‘Recruitment?’ Heck remembered Mindy-May saying something about herself and Jess Green getting ‘recruited at the same time’.

  ‘She first came to his notice hostessing at one of his clubs, but ended up being one of several … well, “scouts”, I suppose you’d call them. Experienced girls who brought other less experienced girls on board to strip for him, perform in his porn vids and … well, whore for him.’

  ‘Cameron Boyd gave you all this?’ Heck was fascinated by that fact alone.

  ‘Sounds like Boyd had some peripheral involvement with Ship’s firm in his early days. Small-time pimp, minder for some of the girls … that kind of thing.’

  ‘And Ship had a few of these recruitment officers, did he?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘How did this thing work exactly?’

  ‘Sounds like they were real glamour-pusses themselves,’ Fisher said. ‘They worked the various clubs, checking out the talent. Suppose it’d be the usual thing – they’d spot a couple of party girls they liked the look of, offer them work, modelling, dancing … you know the rest.’

  ‘And this all happened in central Manchester, on Ship’s own patch?’

  ‘Not quite. According to Boyd, every one of these recruitment girls had her own area of responsibility.’

  ‘You mean geographic area?’