A Wanted Man [A PC Heckenburg Short Story]. Paul Finch

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Did you hear what he said?’

      She snickered. ‘He’s Sergeant of Comms, Heck. Obviously I heard him. But I didn’t hear you. What did you say to set him off?’

      Heck bit his lip. He didn’t mind being shouted and bawled at. That went with the police constable territory. If it wasn’t the yobs on the street after you’d collared them for something, it was their mums and girlfriends when you were searching their drum afterwards, or the gaffers back at the nick when they’d found out you’d filled in a form incorrectly. But this incident earlier hadn’t involved any raised voices, no red-faced effing and blinding. Just a slow, syrupy piece of condescending advice – which, as it was delivered over the divisional radio – would ensure everyone on duty that night was listening.

       ‘For future reference, 1415 …, the correct verbal procedure, as you’d know perfectly well if you ever behaved correctly, or even like a professional, is as follows. “Can I check a body on our beloved Police National Computer … please?” Followed by your location, then his surname, then his first name, then his age, then his ethnic status – IC1 for example – then his gender, then his place of birth, and so forth.’

      Typical of Don Crawford, that ridiculously over-preened twonk up at Comms. Apparently he had twenty years in the job but most of it he’d spent indoors. He was a stickler for paperwork … weren’t they all, tosspots like him! With his immaculate uniform – razor-creased trousers, shirt sleeves folded back to the regulation three inches, shoes like mirrors and all that – not to mention his blond flicked hair and his matching blond moustache and sideys, all so delicately clipped and trimmed. But he could afford to look like that, couldn’t he, spending every hour of every shift in his command chair.

      ‘Go on!’ Shawna urged Heck. ‘What did you say?’ She wore that impish, pixie grin of hers. She’d find it hilarious of course, when Heck finally told her.

      ‘I’d just stopped and searched two lads on Oldman Street.’

      ‘Justifiably, I hope?’

      ‘Hey, they were out at two in the morning. On a Wednesday. Plus, I was sure I’d heard smashing glass a minute earlier.’

      She looked amused and sceptical both at the same time. ‘Really?’

      ‘I was driving around, looking for the source of it, when I stopped them.’

      ‘And that’s when you thought you’d run a PNC check?’

      ‘Course.’

      ‘And gave verbal procedure a miss?’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘Look, I was under pressure. I was on my tod, there were two of them … they had a shifty look and they were giving me a packet of grief, telling me I’d stopped them purely ’cause they were Stone Roses look-alikes, that it was harassment. All the usual shit. So I grabbed the radio, trying to keep an eye on both of them … trying to keep my temper and at the same time get their details. But all I actually said to Crawford was: “Two scrotes for the box, sarge, if you’ve got a sec”.’

      ‘“Two scrotes for the box?”’ Shawna snickered again, then guffawed. ‘You’d better hope no members of the public overheard … a recipe for disaster, that. But listen, Heck, you can’t screw up Comms’s meticulous procedures … you’ve got to give ’em everything up front, you know that. Anyway, I take it there was no joy?’

      ‘No trace, not wanted, not known … you name it. Had to let the little sods go.’

      ‘Maybe someone’ll find a break in the morning?’

      ‘Yeah, and CID will get the prisoners.’

      ‘Never mind. Perhaps you’ll catch the Spider instead.’

      ‘Nah.’ Heck turned thoughtful again. ‘DI Channing reckons he’s well away. Waste of time even thinking about him.’

      ‘Give over,’ she said, ‘… you’d love to nail that bastard, wouldn’t you!’

      ‘Who wouldn’t? But … like I say,’ Heck shook his head with certainty, ‘he’s well gone.’

      ‘Just think … you nab the Spider and you can shove him up Don Crawford’s arse.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that?’

      Heck shrugged and said nothing.

      The so-called ‘Spider’ was a prolific housebreaker who’d been terrorising the whole of West Manchester for the last three years. The press had dubbed him with his bizarre nickname because of his apparent array of acrobatic skills. He often entered private residences via skylights or upstairs windows, usually having scaled the drainage pipes and wormed his way in through the narrowest of gaps. Having been chased in the past, he’d escaped over rooftops, leaping drops between structures and vaulting high garden walls. Even so, the nickname had caused annoyance in some quarters because it was felt it was over-sensational, thus diluting the seriousness of the felon’s crimes – though technically a burglar, he was primarily a sex offender, raping and beating the lone female occupants of the houses he targeted. To date he’d struck eighteen times, though his most recent offence had been a year last September, which suggested to Detective Inspector Channing’s thirty-man taskforce that he’d either been imprisoned for something else, had been injured or become ill, or maybe even had died.

      Heck wasn’t completely convinced by that, but what did he know? He had long-term ambitions to join CID, but at present he was a mere uniform, so his opinions weren’t required. Most likely they were right anyway. They’d had all sorts of shrinks and crime analysts working on the case. Heck had read the progress bulletins with interest, and though their authors acknowledged there could be no certainty about this, they all affirmed that predators of this sort rarely stopped of their own volition. The Spider might be lying low, taking a voluntary break from his nocturnal hobby, but most likely something had happened to him.

      ‘Anyway, don’t let Crawford get you down,’ Shawna said with another yawn. ‘Everyone knows what a self-important prick he is, sitting up there in his central-heated palace, acting like he’s running the whole show. The most excitement he gets in the day is bollocking bobbies.’

      ‘I’ll get another bollocking later, when Murph nabs me,’ Heck said.

      Murph, or Bill Murphy, was the section sergeant on their relief. A big, brutish-looking, raw-boned bloke, Murph belied his appearance with an inclination towards affability, but as a former sergeant in the Guards he could be a holy terror when he wanted to, and he too would have heard the public humiliation of one of his constables, and therefore, in his opinion, the public humiliation of his entire team.

      ‘Better get working then,’ Shawna said, primly fitting her hat back in place, tucking her ponytail out of sight. ‘Lock some scrotes up before morning and he’ll probably cut you a load of slack.’

      She opened the passenger door, the stale air of the wasteland wafting in. Heck gazed downhill to the silent edifices of the flats. Their last few lights had been extinguished. The only movement out there was provided by dead leaves and scraps of fluttering litter driven by the breeze. It was difficult to see where the next arrest was going to come from tonight.

      ‘1415

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