H. Christ,’ Gemma said with slow disbelief. ‘You’ve set up your own incident room.’
‘Sorry boss, but I couldn’t let this go. I don’t care what anyone says.’
She picked a few documents up – gingerly, almost as if she wanted to check they were real but was hoping they weren’t. ‘You haven’t done all this in one evening. I know you haven’t … not when you were in the bloody pub getting wasted.’
Heck shrugged. ‘I had a feeling this was coming. I’ve been making copies of everything and bringing them here for weeks.’
‘You understand what this means, Heck?’ She turned to look at him with an expression that was more fear than anger. ‘This isn’t just a bit of indiscipline, this is an actual crime. This is all Laycock will need to bounce you right out of the job.’
Heck offered her his wrists. ‘You’d better take me in then, hadn’t you?’
Gemma gazed back into the makeshift incident room, at the thirty-eight lovely, smiling faces on its far wall. Even now, after seeing them so many times, their effect on her was physically sobering. Each one didn’t just represent a human life snatched away in its prime, but a devastated family: sorrowing children, tortured parents, a bereft spouse.
‘You may recall I drew up this profile some time ago,’ Heck said. ‘Women who were never likely to go off under their own steam. Career women, graduates, young mothers. Girls who’ve all got a good family life, good prospects, that sort of thing. You’ll notice there are no hookers or drug addicts here …’
‘Heck, I’m familiar with the facts!’ she snapped, sounding furious but still pale with shock. Her voice dropped to an intense whisper. ‘What I’m not familiar with is a level of disrespect for the chain of command that knocks everything else you’ve ever done into a cocked hat! In God’s name, what did you not understand about me telling you this case was closed?’
‘Every part of it,’ he replied brazenly. ‘Every single word.’ He wheeled around and tottered back into the lounge, where he slumped into the armchair. When she reappeared in the doorway, he picked up the telephone. ‘Shall I call for prisoner transport, or will you?’
She shook her head. ‘You have put me in some difficult situations, Mark Heckenburg, but this is …’
‘I’m sorry, Gemma,’ he slurred. ‘But we are where we are.’
‘Oh great. The philosophy of the drunk. That’s all I bloody need.’ She paced back and forth, rubbing at her brow with a carefully manicured finger. ‘You know, Heck, when we were hotshot young DCs at Bethnal Green, you were always three or four steps ahead of the game. You ran rings round the scrotes, the guv’nors. You were a risk-taker, but you so knew what you were doing. That’s what made it exciting to work with you. The angles and tangents we went off at – we never knew where we were going to finish up. It was like living in a high-octane cop movie. And then one day, DCI Jewson – remember him, fat belly, shaggy beard – we used to call him Grizzly Adams? A real old-stager, he was. He took me to one side and said: “Darling, you’ve got a great future. But you’re too close to young Heckenburg for your own good. That lad’s running before he can walk and he’s got way too many tricks up his sleeve. Mark my words, when he goes down – and he will – he’s going to take a chunk of the service with him.” Those were his exact words, Heck. I’ve never forgotten them. How could I? Because that’s when I decided that enough was as good as a feast, and that maybe me and you should cool things a little …’
A gentle snore from the other side of the room interrupted her.
She turned, to find Heck asleep in the armchair. She regarded him for several anguished moments, before shaking her head, taking him by the armpits and lugging him out of his seat, across his lounge and down the hall. Finally, with no little grunting and struggling, she deposited him on his bed, where she stared at him again for several long seconds. ‘Damn it, Heck, why do you always do this to me?’
He didn’t respond. So she switched the light out, before leaving the room.
Ian Blenkinsop sat in silence as he was driven down what he presumed were dark and empty roads. He presumed, because he couldn’t actually see. He was wearing a blindfold, a leather strap pulled tightly around his head, but with a cotton wool pad fitted over each of his eyes to prevent any possible chink of vision. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was unnerving, as was the presence of the two men who sat one on either side of him.
They never spoke, except to make the odd laconic comment about other road users, or the state of the towns and villages they passed through. Noticeably, they never once put a name to any of these places. Neither did they name each other. They were clearly aware that Blenkinsop was listening.
Not that he had much interest in their conversation at present.
He was physically weak, drained of energy and emotion. He was also nauseous; his gut tightened progressively until soon the muscles in his back and sides were tense and aching. His mouth had gone dry; his throat was constricted, and chill sweat bathed his cheeks. The motion of the car wasn’t responsible: it glided smoothly, without as much as a jolt. It was also air-conditioned, its interior fragrant of leather and felt.
‘Excuse me, I’m sick,’ he finally said. ‘Can we stop the car?’
‘Funny how so many of them want to be sick on the way back,’ one of the men remarked.
‘I’m serious. I’m going to throw up.’
‘Wait a minute.’
Slowly, the vehicle eased to a halt. There was a click as the handbrake was applied but the engine was allowed to continue running. Blenkinsop felt cool air as the door on his left-hand side was opened. Feet clumped on tarmac as one of the men climbed out.
‘Lean over this way, Mr Blenkinsop. And don’t even think about taking that blindfold off.’
Blenkinsop wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, but now he did exactly as instructed. The man on the right-hand side took hold of him by the collar of his coat, so that he wouldn’t fall out of the car completely.
‘Okay, let it go,’ the first man said.
Blenkinsop felt a surge in his belly, as though everything inside him was about to explode out of his mouth in a torrent. But to his surprise, it was only a trickle, and it felt frothy, light. It didn’t even taste of vomit. Rather disgustingly, he realised, it was the champagne he’d drunk earlier; that was all he’d taken into his system in the last few hours. He retched again – another trickle, this one even thinner than the first. The next one was a dry-heave.
‘That it?’ the man asked. ‘Okay, back in with you.’
Blenkinsop was pulled back into the vehicle. The man climbed in alongside him. The door was closed, and the car moved on.
The journey seemed endless. It had been lengthy when he’d been coming the other way – somewhere between two and three hours by his reckoning; and on that occasion he’d been in a state of eager anticipation. Now that he was riddled with horror and fear, it seemed infinitely longer. They’d first
