by Paul Finch
‘And?’ Heck said.
‘Well, I hit the brakes. Probably doing just over forty. The wheels locked and I went into a forward skid. Must have slid thirty yards, then bang, hit the stop. And the scaffolding just launched itself over the cab – it was like a flock of missiles all taking off at the same time. Most of them clattered down onto the road, but two smacked into the Megane. One hit the roof, the other went through the back window and straight through Freddie Upton. Jesus …’ Meredith licked his ashen lips. ‘The rest you know.’
‘And what happened to the cyclist?’ Heck asked.
‘Well, he didn’t actually swerve in front of me, or he’d have got killed too. He’d manoeuvred as if he was going to, and then he just darted back out of the way.’
‘Definitely a deliberate act?’ Heck said.
‘Seemed like it. Anyway, I lost sight of him after that. This was quite a built-up area. There was any number of side streets and turn-offs. Once he realised what he’d done, he probably scarpered.’
Heck eyed him carefully. ‘Gordon … the Traffic officers who investigated this incident spoke to a number of witnesses, and none reported seeing this cyclist. Not just at the time of the accident, but at any time during the ten minutes leading up to it.’
‘Course they fucking wouldn’t!’ Meredith blurted. ‘I told you, most of the time he was riding on my nearside. I was probably screening him from the other road users. Besides, they were all probably too shocked to notice. You ever witnessed a bad accident? I’m sure you have. Do you remember every single thing that happened?’
Heck could find nothing to dispute in that. ‘The thing is, Gordon, I’m wondering if this whole thing might have been stage-managed.’
Meredith stared at him for several disbelieving seconds. ‘What?’
‘As I said, this is a long shot. So keep your feet firmly on the ground. However, I am considering – and that’s the only word I can use at present, I’m considering the possibility that this guy on the racing bike had something to do with loosening your load at the café near Dorking.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I should also tell you that I have absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever.’
‘But why would he do that?’
‘It beats me, I’ll be honest. But this seems like a curious succession of coincidences, and that’s not something I encounter very often in my job.’
‘Nah.’ Meredith shook his head. ‘I don’t want to rain on your parade, Christ knows I don’t, but there’s no way someone could have been targeting Freddie Upton deliberately. When those scaffolding poles flew, any number of innocent people could have been hurt or killed, but you couldn’t have picked a target out specifically.’
‘I don’t think Freddie Upton was targeted,’ Heck said. ‘I think you were. Is there anyone who dislikes you enough to do that?’
Again, Meredith looked flabbergasted. ‘To trick me into causing a fatal accident? No … I’m a family man. I live quietly and mind my own business.’
That was the second time Heck had heard this sentiment expressed in the last two days. How often, it seemed, the collaterals were always the least deserving of such a fate. And yet how chilling that it was ordinary, innocent folk like these, whom the perpetrators probably didn’t even know and yet were happy to shatter like clay ducks.
‘When you came out of the supply depot at Leatherhead, did you notice anyone hanging around who shouldn’t have been?’
Meredith shrugged. ‘No.’
‘No one looked like they may have been following you afterwards?’
‘You think someone actually followed me to that truckstop?’ If possible, Meredith’s face had paled even more; folk were never happy to learn that they’d been under observation. ‘It couldn’t have been that cyclist. He’d never have been able to keep up. Not for that whole distance.’
‘I agree,’ Heck said. ‘He couldn’t have been working alone.’
‘You mean there’s more than one of them? For Christ’s sake, how many people could hate me that much?’
‘I don’t know, Gordon, that’s why I’m asking you. Did you see anyone hanging around, tailing you … did anything strike you as unusual that morning?’
‘No – oh wait. The CCTV at the supply depot. That would have caught someone.’
‘I’ve already rung the supply depot. Their cameras are focused on the inner yard, where all the goods are kept. I can’t believe this guy would have been waiting for you inside the actual yard. That would have been a bit conspicuous.’
‘This is incredible.’ Meredith looked shell-shocked, but his tone had lightened, and why not? – against all the odds, it suddenly looked as if he might be off the hook.
‘I said don’t get your hopes up,’ Heck reminded him, ‘and I meant it. I may still be imagining all this.’
‘No, no – what you’re saying makes sense. It’s unbelievable, but it actually makes sense.’
‘Glad you think so. That’s two of us, at least.’
When Heck left the prison it was lunchtime, and the traffic around Thetford was heavy. It would take him a good three hours to get back to Surrey as it was, so he pulled in at the first country pub he saw to get something to eat.
The Farmer’s Arms seemed a reasonable bet – all whitewashed stucco with a thatched roof and baskets spilling summer blooms under its mullioned windows. But he walked inside feeling tired and disheartened. His sprained ankle was aching slightly and, with his suit jacket ripped apart, he was back in casuals – jeans, a T-shirt and a light jacket – which, though they were comfortable, never gave him that official aura so beneficial when he was on duty.
It was an incredibly ugly thought that someone might have manufactured Gordon Meredith’s accident. Perhaps it was the wholesale indiscriminate nature of the thing – anyone could have died or been horrifically injured, literally anyone: a woman, a child, an elderly person. At the same time, the high level of chance reinforced the notion that this really was a bizarre kind of game from which the perpetrators were deriving immense enjoyment. While anybody might have been killed, it was equally possible that nobody might have. In his mind’s eye, Heck could picture his faceless adversaries eagerly awaiting the outcome of their scheme, yearning for it to pay off. And just out of interest, if it didn’t, what would they do? Presumably write that job off as a misfire and move on to the next one. Perhaps that had happened a dozen times already. It didn’t matter as it would never be anything more than an accident; these things happen, you know, and those involved had been very unfortunate.
The more Heck pondered this, the more disturbing it was to him how simple the overall ploy was. If you really wanted to hurt people – to maim them, to disfigure them, to kill them – what better way than to set up accidents? And what fun you could have planning it all and rehearsing. And of course, if you weren’t too picky about who specifically was to suffer – if you just wanted to injure someone – then it didn’t really matter if, on occasion, things didn’t come off. It wasn’t as if you weren’t covered. Fatal outcome or not, there would always be stooges like Gordon Meredith to cop the blame.
The pub taproom was half full, a bunch of regulars clustered around a widescreen TV. Heck sat at the bar and, as there was no bartender in view, helped himself to a menu. Everything in there was ‘guaranteed locally sourced and home-cooked’, and it all looked good. Opting for a steak sandwich with salad, he replaced the menu on the counter and glanced around, puzzled as to why there was still nobody serving. He spied a buxom redhead wearing an apron, but she was standing with the punters, all of whose attention was riveted on the TV. Heck glanced at the screen, wondering what the interest was, and seeing live news footage of what looked like a massive barrage balloon drifting languidly above hills and treetops, a helicopter in close attendance.
‘… in what is now thought to be a disastrous and outlandish accident,’ the newscaster was in the process of saying, his voice tense.
Heck looking away,
wondering at the absurdity of such comments. Disastrous? An escaped balloon?
‘The opening of the Southern Counties Agricultural Trade Fair at the Royal Surrey Showground has obviously been delayed,’ the newscaster intoned. ‘Nobody can say when it will actually go ahead.’
Surrey …
Belatedly, the word struck Heck.
He shifted round on his stool.
Now that he was looking closely at the screen, a diminutive shape was dangling beneath the balloon on the end of a line.
‘The problem is that we don’t know whether the man suspended from the dirigible – and he appears to be suspended by his left foot, is conscious or even alive,’ came a second voice from the television, possibly a reporter at the scene. ‘Medical experts tell us that if a person is inverted for long enough, some suggesting that it may be as short a time period as two or three hours, it can lead to blood clots and strokes … ’
The newscaster cut back in. ‘And there is absolutely no way the emergency services are able to bring him down at this stage?’
‘Well … as you can see, John, there is a police helicopter on the scene, and there are fire crews and ambulances in pursuit on the ground. But the dirigible isn’t stationary. It’s been caught in this strengthening northerly wind and is currently sailing across the Surrey countryside at a height of roughly four hundred feet, and speeds of up to thirty-five miles an hour. In that respect, it isn’t far off posing a hazard to passing aircraft.’
Heck climbed from his stool and crossed the taproom.
‘This is an extraordinary situation, James,’ the newscaster replied. ‘I mean, I’m assuming there are no protocols for dealing with this?’
‘It’s never happened before as far as we’re aware. Not in modern times. And to be honest, John, it’s difficult to see how this can end … ’
The scene reverted to the newsroom, where the anchorman was seated at his desk with a suitably grim expression. The ongoing drama, now with two police helicopters circling the escaped dirigible, continued as a thumbnail in the top left-hand corner.
‘We have a development on this breaking story,’ the anchorman said. ‘To recap, the escaped balloon is thought to be an advertising blimp, which was somehow released from its mooring at the Southern Counties Agricultural Trade Fair due to open today at the Royal Surrey Showground in Woking. We’re now getting reports that the man caught up underneath it is one of the Showground security guards. We must state that this isn’t fact. We can’t confirm those details. But what we seem to be dealing with here is a truly unprecedented accident, for which there are no established procedures … ’
Heck retreated from the crowd of viewers, fished his mobile from his pocket and tapped in Gail’s number. She answered it quickly, but in a distracted tone.
‘Tell me you’re watching this,’ he said.
‘Yeah, we’ve got it on the telly in the office.’
‘Is this, or isn’t it, a made-to-measure addition to our series?’
‘Heck … we don’t even know what’s happened yet.’
‘Have we got anyone over there?’
‘Where?’
‘The Trade Fair at Woking. What else are we talking about?’
‘Erm …’ She was clearly preoccupied by what she was witnessing. ‘There are local lads on the scene, dealing, yeah.’
‘We need to find out what happened.’
‘I’m sure we’ll get a report in due course.’
‘Look, Gail!’ He hadn’t intended to raise his voice, and tried to lower it again. ‘This could be the first live crime scene we’ve had – the first one we can tackle while we’re still inside the Golden Hour.’
‘Heck, I know what you’re doing here, and I can sympathise to a point—’
‘Will you get it out of your head that I’m trying to invent something! I don’t need extra work, Gail!’
‘All you’re doing is throwing a net over every unfortunate incident in the—’
‘There’s unfortunate and there’s bloody ridiculous. This one needs looking at.’
She sighed. ‘You want me to go to Woking, don’t you? Where are you?’
‘Norfolk. You tell me which of us is closer.’ Before he could say more, he was distracted by gasps of horror from the locals around the television.
‘Oh my goodness!’ came the strained voice of the anchorman. ‘Oh no, oh no … ’
Somehow or other, the news crew on the ground had managed to get closer to the errant dirigible. The figure dangling upside down underneath was much clearer; his spread-eagled posture and fluorescent green coat were clearly distinguishable. But for some reason, the blimp itself seemed to be deflating and with alarming speed – as if it had been ruptured. Even as a TV audience of millions watched aghast, the blimp nosed downward and commenced a rapidly accelerating descent. Four hundred feet, three hundred – by the time it hit two hundred it was little more than a ragged mass of swirling neoprene spinning towards Earth, its unwilling passenger arrowing ahead of it. To a chorus of horror on the television – clearly members of the public were gathered alongside the news crew – it vanished behind the roofs of a suburban housing estate. A cloud of dust and debris erupted upwards.
A dumbfounded silence followed.
‘I’m afraid we’re lost for words here in the studio, ladies and gentlemen,’ the anchorman finally said. ‘Obviously there was some kind of flaw in that inflatable object …’
Perhaps for the first time in his career, his words trailed off mid-sentence.
Then there was a hubbub of voices in the pub taproom. At the other end of the phone Gail was breathing in short, sharp gasps.
‘A flaw, my bloody arse!’ Heck said. ‘Listen, change of plan. Wherever that thing’s landed, you’ve got to go there. I’ll get back to base ASAP, but I’ll probably call in at the Thornton farm near Woldingham first – it’s on my way back.’
Gail replied as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Maybe that blimp got caught on a power line?’
‘It didn’t.’ His tone hardened. ‘You just watched it happen, Gail. Don’t slip any deeper into denial than you already are.’
‘Look, there could be any reason for what’s just happened.’
‘Which is why you need to go and find out everything you can – so that we can either include it in our enquiries or dismiss it. Or is there something else you’d rather be doing, DC Honeyford? Perhaps talking to FIU again and hearing for the umpteenth time that they haven’t got, and never have had, any Suspicious Activity Reports on Harold Lansing.’
Heck cut the call and, as he headed outside to his car, bashed in another number. The phone rang briefly, and then was answered.
‘Serial Crimes Unit,’ came a bass, husky voice. ‘DS Fisher.’
‘Eric, it’s Heck.’
‘Hey man, how you doing?’
‘Not so good. We’re up to our eyes in corpses down here.’ Heck climbed into his car.
‘I just saw that one on the news,’ Fisher replied. ‘Who’d have thought it in leafy Surrey, eh?’
‘That’s only one of them.’
Fisher, one of the most trustworthy intelligence men Heck knew, sounded vaguely surprised. ‘There hasn’t been anything else reported …’
‘You’re going to get it all, don’t worry.’ Heck opened his laptop, and was pleased to find that he was still within range of the pub’s wi-fi. ‘Chapter and verse. If you can spare me a few hours.’
‘A few hours?’
‘I need some background analysis, Eric. And whoever does it is going to have to dig very deep indeed.’
‘Well … I’ve got other stuff on. But nothing that won’t wait, I suppose.’
‘Good man. Listen, I’m about to email you some case notes referring to a bunch of supposed accidental deaths. Use any and every database you can, pal. Cross-reference all the names that crop up – the victims, the bereaved, witnesses, suspects. All of them. See if there’re any connections.’
‘These are all ju
st random incidents?’
‘Allegedly.’
‘So I may be completely wasting my time?’
‘If you are I’ll be delighted.’ Heck hit the send button, switched his computer off and dragged his seatbelt into place. ‘It’ll mean I can come home, and leave this lot to their own devices.’
‘Bunch of hicks, are they?’
‘Suffice to say I’m not getting as much cooperation as I might. Not that I can really blame them. At present we haven’t got squat.’
Fisher grunted. ‘I’ll give it my best shot.’
‘Better than that, if you can. I need something, Eric. I’m flying totally blind down here.’
Chapter 16
Gail’s initial decision was that she wouldn’t go anywhere near the blimp crash site at Tilford. It was a principle more than anything else. Mark Heckenburg hadn’t exactly pulled rank on her, but she hadn’t appreciated his tone. Besides, in her opinion he was hypothesising to a ridiculous extent. The idea that someone was staging weird and unlikely accidents was beyond the pale. It came out of a TV thriller, not real life. She had her own more down-to-earth leads to follow, and was damned if she was putting them on hold purely to soft-soap her partner’s know-it-all attitude. But as she went upstairs to the station canteen to get a ham sandwich and a cup of tea, she had to admit to being a little torn on the matter.
It would probably be remiss of her to not at least check with the officers investigating the blimp incident, to see if it matched up.
But matched up with what?
Harold Lansing had died in a road traffic accident, which was most likely – though this had yet to be proved – murder. There’d be nothing outrageously unusual in that. Vehicles had been used as murder weapons many times in the past. Then there was the pet shop business, the details of which she’d only skimmed through, though from what she’d seen the shop owner had clearly been lax; he obviously wasn’t looking after his animals properly, and two car thieves had got unlucky. The same applied to the lorry driver who’d shed his load. Most likely human error – a simple RTA. Nothing unusual, nothing … what was that word the news anchorman had used, ‘outlandish’?
