of bright pink, one on either cheekbone. He stuck a thumb over his shoulder at the half-closed door, turned and perambulated down the corridor, his gait slow and delicate.
Heck stood up and brushed his hair with his hand, before knocking.
‘Yes?’ came an irritable voice.
Heck walked in, closing the door behind him.
‘Ah-hah … the arresting officer!’ Gemma said. ‘Or something to that effect.’
Her personal office was always fastidiously neat – and rather bare, in fact some would say ‘spartan’ – and yet surprisingly small, given her high rank. Of course, this made it all the easier for it to be filled by her towering personality.
Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper was formidable; a force of nature. Her beauty helped her in this regard. It was fierce, leonine (hence the nickname) – she had wild, ash-blonde hair, blue eyes, red lips, flawless features – all the usual accoutrements of fine femininity, yet somehow it combined to create a warrior rather than a princess. In addition she was tall and athletically built, and she dressed to enhance this; men could be reduced to jelly in Gemma’s presence for all kinds of reasons. Heck knew this better than anyone, because at one time, many years ago now, he’d shared her life and her bed.
‘Morning, ma’am,’ he said.
She pointed to the chair in front of her desk. He sat.
‘You know why I want to see you?’ She leaned forward, fingers steepled. She was pale in the cheek, but her anger seemed to have abated a little, presumably because she’d vented most of it on Bob Hunter – though there was still a menacing snap in her tone.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Because this …’ and she dropped a file related to the M1 enquiry on the desk; it landed like a paving stone, ‘… should have “Cowboys and Indians” written on it. Particularly the bit at the end. You know, the bit where the damage runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds … caused by a frantic car-chase, which you instigated. The bit where the two perpetrators suffered horrific, life-ending injuries. I mean, killing the two chief suspects, Heck … that kind of faux pas knocks everything else that went wrong on this enquiry into a cocked hat.’
‘Ma’am …’ Heck shrugged helplessly. ‘These guys had a lot to lose. They were never going to come quietly.’
‘I understand that, but we still have to be accountable for our actions.’
‘If we have to account to Joe Public, we’ve no worries. He’s fine with it.’
‘Joe Public is an arsehole!’ she replied, her voice sharpening again. ‘Joe Public will turn on us viciously the first time we do the slightest thing he doesn’t agree with. Don’t pretend Joe Public is our mate, Heck, because he isn’t.’
‘Ma’am …’ Heck tried his most earnest tone. ‘You can surely see I had no choice but to pursue the suspects?’
‘Even though they were armed and you weren’t?’
‘Well … yes. I knew it was a risk, but it was less of a risk for me than it would have been a risk for the general public if those two were allowed to remain at liberty. For what it’s worth, if I’d been going there to make an arrest, I’d have taken armed support with me, but it didn’t happen that way.’
Gemma pondered this. There was no doubt she was torn. If Heck’s actions leading to the fatal accident were reckless, he’d also showed exceptional bravery, which was something she valued in her officers.
‘Even if the suspects had got away, ma’am, I couldn’t afford to lose that van,’ he added. ‘It was chock full of physical evidence.’
‘Celebrating its capture hardly seemed appropriate, given that two men had died.’
‘I know that.’
She sat back. ‘It won’t surprise you to learn that Max Humphreys has distanced himself – by some margin – from the comments Bob Hunter made on the hospital steps.’
‘No, that doesn’t surprise me.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Max Humphreys of the Thames Valley Police, nominal SIO in the M1 Maniac enquiry, had struck Heck from the outset as an uninspiring leader; too old and tired, too disorganised, and alarmingly prone to avoiding responsibility. For all that, Bob Hunter’s triumphalist attitude in front of the press had been very ill-advised, given the errors that would later emerge.
‘Now in actual fact,’ Gemma said, ‘I’m not too concerned that you were involved in that extremely injudicious press conference. I know you were acting under Hunter’s orders, and I’ve already had it verbatim from DCs Quinnell and McCluskey that you were against the idea. But I’m very concerned at the way this investigation ended overall. What should have been a feather in our cap has brought ridicule on us. The press are ripping us a new one.’
Heck snorted. ‘To be fair, ma’am, the press did their own bit to turn the M1 Maniac into a monster. They created the name, they caused the anti-gay panic. In fact, the whole thing’s ended too quickly for them. They wanted more and more – a show-trial, exemplary sentences, maybe a protracted appeals process. And now they can’t have it, and they’re looking for scapegoats …’
‘Have you finished?’ she asked, eyebrows arched. ‘Because anyone would think you believe the investigation was handled well!’
He shook his head. ‘Ma’am, Chief Superintendent Humphreys …’
‘I’m well aware of Max Humphreys’ shortcomings. He’ll be getting exactly the same bollocking up at Thames Valley that you lot are getting now. But Max Humphreys is a carrot cruncher, whereas we’re supposed to be experts. We were advising him, leading the enquiry, and by the looks of it, missing stuff that was right under our noses.’
Heck nodded, unable to disagree. ‘That’s why I spent three days going back through the files. I’d never known any case before where we just weren’t getting anywhere.’
‘And it was good initiative. So congratulations. And I mean that, Heck.’ She sighed, the annoyance finally sapped out of her. ‘If you hadn’t done what you did, God alone knows how this thing would have ended. But … and I appreciate it may not seem very important after how close you came to getting killed, this is not the way the brass want the Serial Crimes Unit portrayed. Like some redneck posse charging around. Especially not after the investigation was botched. Needless to say, the Savage family is pushing for a public enquiry. The coroner exonerated us of any wrongdoing, the case is officially closed and it’s in no one’s interest to rake over it again, so I’m sure we’ll be spared that … thank God. But at the end of the day it’s about professionalism. We need to keep the mayhem to a minimum.’
‘Has anyone told the criminals that?’
She arched an eyebrow again. ‘Are you trying to be clever?’
‘No, ma’am … but, it’s not an irrelevant point.’
‘One way or another, the criminals will go down. My concern is that SCU may go down with them.’
‘How so? We stopped the M1
