Hunted (Detective Mark Heckenburg Book 5)

by Paul Finch

  He poked at it with a pair of tweezers, attempting to tease it into view.

  It was a tooth – and by the looks of it human, a molar in fact. What was more it had recently been removed from its owner’s jaw, because though several of its roots had been snapped, a couple had been wrenched out in full, and tiny threads of reddish-brown tissue were still attached. He fed it into a small sterile evidence sack, which he then sealed. When he held it up to the sunlight, the tooth’s underside was crusted reddish-brown. More blood – which was explainable, because this was an adult-sized molar, and adult molars didn’t come out easily.

  Heck pocketed it, marked the spot of its discovery with an evidence flag, and continued his search, but nothing else of consequence emerged in the next hour, at the end of which he took some pegs and fluorescent tape from the boot of his car and cordoned off several areas. It irked him that this crime scene – and he already had a strong feeling that this was what the accident site was – had not been preserved for more detailed forensic examination. Of course that could still be arranged, though it might already be too late.

  Reigate Hall was an unusually attractive building for a police station, built from eroded Georgian brick with a lopsided roof of crabby, moss-covered slates. It looked more like a moot hall or village almshouse than a focal point of modern day law enforcement, and faced onto a pleasant open green, at one end of which stood an old parish church, and at the other a timbered, ivy-clad pub called the Ploughman’s Rest, which was where Heck’s room had been booked. The green was surrounded on its other sides by whitewashed terraced cottages, craft shops, and village stores.

  Detective Chief Inspector Will Royton appeared to suit this benign environment perfectly. He was a tall, well-built man in his late forties, with a bald pate and salt-and-pepper tufts behind his ears. He had an amiable air and a friendly face, and he greeted Heck in his office with a smile and a firm handshake.

  ‘You found us all right?’ he said, wasting no time in heading off down the adjacent corridor.

  Heck followed. ‘No problem, sir.’

  ‘Only I’m a bit puzzled …’ Royton glanced back as he walked. ‘I mean about why the Serial Crimes Unit wants to look at the Lansing incident. Wouldn’t have thought it’d be your cup of tea at all?’

  Heck shrugged. ‘There may be nothing in it for us, sir, but, I don’t know, something about it caught my guv’nor’s attention. I won’t be in your way for long.’

  At the end of the passage, a pair of glazed double doors gave through into the main CID office. Here, Royton paused to think. ‘You mean caught her attention on the basis that it may actually have been a double homicide?’

  ‘Too early to say, sir.’

  ‘On the basis that it may be part of a series of homicides?’

  ‘That would really be running before the horse to market.’

  ‘Nevertheless … you wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t a possibility.’

  ‘It’s a very remote possibility.’

  ‘A possibility is a possibility, Sergeant. For what it’s worth, if something that serious is occurring on our patch, I’m glad you’re on board. We can always use someone with expertise.’

  They pushed through into the detectives’ office, or DO as it was usually known, a modern, spacious area lined with desks, chairs, and computer terminals, but only occupied by one or two individuals at present, all of whom were beavering away at their desks. Royton led Heck to its farthest corner, where a large window half-covered by Venetian blinds gave out onto the village green. In front of this, two desks directly faced each other. A young woman was seated at the one on the right, tapping at a keyboard. She didn’t look up as they approached.

  ‘But I have to tell you,’ Royton added, ‘you’re not the only one who found this event suspicious. DS Heckenburg, meet DC Gail Honeyford.’

  The woman glanced round. She was even younger than Heck had first thought; in her mid-twenties at most, her lithe, youthful form accentuated by a tight blue skirt and blue silk blouse and scarf, her brunette tresses tied in a single ponytail. A pair of fashionable shades were perched above her fringe.

  ‘Erm … hello,’ Heck said, mildly confused.

  ‘That’s your desk.’ Royton indicated the empty workstation. ‘You’ve got a telephone line, computer link, everything you need. I thought this would be an appropriate place to put you, as you two will be working together.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Gail’s already on the Lansing case,’ Royton explained.

  Heck tried not to look as perplexed by that as he felt.

  ‘Divisional CID here at Reigate Hall thought it a curious incident too,’ DC Honeyford said. ‘Before Scotland Yard did, in fact.’

  ‘Okay …’

  ‘Something wrong?’ Royton asked him.

  ‘No sir, it’s fine,’ Heck said. ‘Only no one told me.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have asked?’ DC Honeyford said. ‘Just a thought.’

  This is going to be great, Heck told himself.

  ‘As long as we have an interest in this too, it seemed an obvious thing to put you two together,’ Royton added. ‘Create a two-man taskforce. You wouldn’t want to do it all on your own, would you?’

  ‘Well … as I say, sir, I’m only really here to see if this case fulfils the criteria for an SCU enquiry.’

  ‘So you’re not actually here to investigate the crash,’ DC Honeyford said. It was an observation rather than a question.

  ‘I was under the impression that had already been done.’

  ‘Oh, this is superb.’ She sat back as if her worst suspicions were confirmed. ‘You’re gonna be a load of help.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ Heck fished the evidence sack from his pocket and tossed it onto her desk. ‘Perhaps, while I’m getting my stuff from the car, you can log this in for DNA analysis?’

  She peered down at it with distaste. ‘That’s a tooth.’

  ‘Yep. Found it at the crash site.’

  She glanced up. ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Nothing too strenuous.’ Heck backed towards the door. ‘Just my job.’

  Chapter 7

  It soon became evident to Heck that, while there were no obvious serial elements attached to the two attempts on Harold Lansing’s life (if that was what they were), there was something vaguely weird about both. The fatal crash could conceivably have been an accident, though it was difficult to see how a man like Lansing, who had suffered no previous mishap on the roads and had no driving convictions, could have pulled out at such a dangerous spot without consulting the safety mirror first.

  The previous incident was even more puzzling.

  Lansing had owned a small fishing beat on a quiet stretch of the River Mole between Brockham and Sidlow; the rather unfortunately named Deadman’s Reach. He was in the habit of spending several hours here each weekend, coarse fishing for barbel, bream, and chub. Not a particularly dangerous pastime, one might have thought, except that on the afternoon of Saturday 21 June a large(ish) model aeroplane, which Lansing only caught a fleeting glimpse of but later described as ‘World War One style, and bluey-yellow’, nosedived him from a considerable height. Lansing, who at the time was in his usual spot, standing with rod in hand on a small stone quay on the west bank, tried to dodge away, lost his footing, and fell into the river, which was running swift and deep. Some eighty yards further down, he was swept over a weir. Had it not been for another angler, who spotted him struggling under the surface and by pure good fortune happened to be a strong swimmer, Lansing would have died there and then.

  But a model plane as a murder weapon?

  Heck had never heard of such a thing.

  Apparently a local flying club, the Doversgreen Aviators, had been using a meadow just behind Deadman’s Reach at the time. All the club members who’d been present that day had been interviewed since, and all had insisted that the stringent safety regulations built into their sport had been strictly observed. None would admit to
having lost control of their model aircraft, or even to having owned any model matching the description given. Lansing, though he’d half drowned and had been kept in hospital for quite a few days afterwards, had later told the police that he’d thought the plane, which had struck his arm as he’d tried to evade it, leaving a massive bruise, had then gone spinning out of control and landed in the water alongside him. The riverbank had later been searched but no such model was recovered.

  Like the incident at Rosewood Grange, this whole thing read like an ultra-freakish accident, but two such events in two weeks – happening to the same person?

  Heck pondered these unsatisfying facts later that afternoon as he parked his Peugeot in a car park to the rear of the Ploughman’s Rest, booked himself in, and took a single heavy travel bag up to the room he’d been allocated, which was small, cosy, and neatly furnished, its lattice-paned, ivy-fringed window overlooking the green.

  When he came back downstairs, he spotted Gail Honeyford in the snug. A smart suit jacket was draped over the back of her chair and a glass of what looked like iced lemonade sat on the table alongside her, but again she was tapping away on her laptop. He hadn’t seen much of her after they’d been introduced that afternoon. Vacating the office for the pub was not unusual in CID circles when there was someone new in the team who needed ‘breaking in’, but it wasn’t often the case that you fled to the pub to try and get some work done. Had she felt she was more likely to make progress with whatever she was doing if she didn’t have to keep updating the new guy?

  Heck wandered towards her, hands tucked into his jeans pockets. She watched him from the corner of her eye, but her facial language remained neutral.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.

  ‘Suppose it’s a free country.’

  ‘Was when I last checked.’ She glanced at him fleetingly, unamused by the quip. He pulled up a chair. ‘That was supposed to be a joke, by the way.’

  ‘Hilarious.’ She got on with her work.

  ‘We’ve really started on the wrong foot, haven’t we? Can I get you a drink maybe?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘DC Honeyford … you ever heard the phrase “work with me”? I’m trying to be friendly here.’

  ‘Yeah, I appreciate that, and look …’ She sat back, her expression softening – which suited her. On closer inspection, she was peaches-and-cream pretty with fetching hazel eyes. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve come over a little brusque. But you aren’t going to be around here very long, so I don’t see the point in us developing a relationship. Professional or otherwise.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we supposed to be forming a taskforce?’

  ‘That was the boss’s idea, not mine. I’ve already got this case covered.’

  ‘Okay, fine. In the meantime, you sure you don’t want that drink?’

  ‘I’m sure. Thanks.’

  Heck strolled to the bar, where the landlord, a jovial, beefy-cheeked local man with a frenzy of ginger hair was happy to serve him a pint of Best. When Heck sat down again, DC Honeyford clucked with barely disguised annoyance.

  ‘Problem with the laptop?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good; perhaps we can get on then. What’s the hypothesis?’

  She glanced up. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You’ve obviously done a lot of work on this, and I respect that massively. So what’s your main theory?’

  ‘If you must know, this is a murder – and it’s almost certainly connected to Lansing’s business affairs.’

  ‘You’re sure Lansing was the target, and not Dean Torbert?’

  She glanced at him again, as if he was some kind of buffoon. ‘If it wasn’t Lansing, that model aeroplane attack was a hell of a coincidence.’

  ‘Coincidences sometimes happen.’

  ‘Torbert was a first-year university student. He hadn’t lived long enough to upset anyone that badly.’

  ‘How do we know he wasn’t the one with the grudge? Perhaps it was Torbert who tried to run Lansing off the road, and it all went horribly wrong.’

  ‘I’ve looked into that. They didn’t even know each other, let alone have a grudge.’

  ‘What’s the background on Torbert?’

  She shrugged. ‘Spoilt little rich kid, boy racer … take your pick.’

  ‘How did he come to own a Porsche?’

  ‘Mummy and Daddy are both wealthy, and separated. Sounds like he bounced between them like a shuttlecock. They rivalled each other buying him expensive presents.’

  ‘A Porsche?’

  ‘Look – this is Surrey, stockbroker country.’

  ‘Where did Torbert actually live?’

  DC Honeyford sighed, not remotely afraid to show how frustrated the persistent questions were making her. ‘With his mother. In a millionaire pad in Guildford.’

  ‘I’m not a native, but that’s nowhere near Reigate, is it?’

  ‘It’s not too far away, but I agree; it seems odd Torbert was over in that neck of the woods at such an early hour. No one knows what he was doing there. But it’s no crime to drive around the county, is it? I mean, he may have had a girl this way – or even a boy. Who knows?’

  Heck mulled this over. If Dean Torbert had simply been another bored youth who got his kicks tearing up and down the country lanes in his latest souped-up toy, it reinforced the impression that his involvement in this incident was no more than a bit of tragic misfortune. In fact, it would have been odd from Torbert’s perspective if some kind of accident hadn’t occurred. As a uniformed bobby up in Manchester, where, as a rule, idle young men did not get high-powered cars for Christmas, Heck had still watched on numerous occasions as their mutilated corpses were cut from heaps of twisted wreckage after a night spent blistering the blacktop.

  ‘Torbert was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ DC Honeyford added, clearly hoping to bring the conversation to an end.

  ‘But overall, you still think this was murder?’

  ‘Of course it was. But whoever did it lured Lansing out into the oncoming traffic to try and make it look like an accident. Any speeding road user would have done the job. Look, DS Heckenburg …’ She seemed genuinely exasperated by his sudden appearance in her life, and had to take a second to compose herself. ‘This thing must be connected to Lansing’s professional life. He ran a chain of multi-million-pound companies. He’s worth a fortune, but his finances are a tangled web. I’ve been trying to penetrate them for the last three days.’

  ‘Who would stand to gain most from his death?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Why are you even interested? I thought you were only here to see if this was part of a series?’

  Heck shrugged. ‘If you can prove to me that it isn’t, I’ll happily go home. Then I won’t have to stand here looking over your shoulder.’

  ‘You won’t be looking over my shoulder anyway!’ she replied, her cheeks colouring. ‘I can assure you of that!’

  ‘Ahhh, so that’s it. You’re worried I’m going to steal your thunder.’

  ‘No, of course I’m—’ She paused, regarding him for a long time. Then, with slow, careful deliberation, she closed her laptop. ‘Yes, if you want the truth. That’s exactly what it is. Listen, DS Heckenburg …’

  ‘Call me “Heck”. All my friends do.’

  ‘DS Heckenburg. I made CID in three years by showing nous and initiative. That’s what I do. That’s my thing. If I get a sniff of something, I chase it down. I work hard. I don’t give up on it. The fact is, I wasn’t at all happy when I heard the coroner’s verdict on the Lansing case. But no one would listen to me. In fact, they said I was barmy.’

  ‘That’s because the gaffers don’t like unsolved murders. Doesn’t look good on the crime stats.’

  She waved a hand, uninterested in his opinion. ‘Will Royton only okayed me to look at this again because he’s a decent bloke.’

  ‘Not because he trusts your judgement?’

  ‘Er … maybe a bit of that, but
I had to badger him for two or three days before he was persuaded. Course, the truth is he’s not even persuaded now. That’s why I think he’s happy to see you here. He hopes you’ll swan in, some big shot from the Smoke, and wrap this whole thing up in a single day. Then I can get back to my routine duties and there’ll be no more discussion. Well sorry, but that isn’t going to happen.’

  Heck sipped at his pint. ‘Sounds to me like you want Harold Lansing to have been murdered?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘Neither did I. I mean you want your instinct to have been proved right.’

  ‘And that’s somehow incorrect of me?’

  ‘Not at all. Look.’ Heck put his drink down. ‘I’m here for a similar reason. Another officer looked at this case and felt the same way as you. You’ve been very honest, Gail, so I’ll be honest too – I can call you “Gail”? Feels less formal than DC Honeyford.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘I’m only actually in Surrey as a favour to my guv’nor, who’s doing a favour for someone else. As soon as it becomes evident there’s nothing in this case for SCU, I’ll head home. I promise you. You’ll have a clear run at it without any interference from the Yard. But for the moment it can only help if we work on this together. You’ve already gone out on a limb. I appreciate you’re an independent-minded detective, but you must have felt pretty alone on this so far.’

  She watched him warily. ‘Just so long as you know I’m not your gofer.’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘I know you work for a specialist outfit and all that, but I’m good at my job too.’

  ‘I totally believe that.’

  ‘I’m not going to be bossed around or made to feel like an office junior.’

  Heck displayed empty palms. ‘Not my style at all.’

  ‘Someone else surrendering to your charms, Gail?’ came a gruff but amused voice.

  A man had approached them, unnoticed. He was tall, with a big, angular frame, clad in a rumpled brown suit and an open-necked green shirt. He had longish, sandy hair, pale blue eyes, and gruesomely pockmarked cheeks – as if he’d ploughed his fingernails through rampant acne while still a juvenile. He’d wandered over uninvited and now stood so close that Heck could smell his rank combination of cigarette smoke and cologne.