But the beaten-up Chevrolet that pulled in alongside Gemma’s BMW did not belong to DI Alex Jeffries. When DI Des Palliser climbed out, Gibbens looked even more surprised.
‘Something we should be told about, ma’am?’ he asked, looking suspicious.
‘If there is, Tony, you’ll be the first to know. Okay?’
‘Sure.’ He lifted the tape.
‘So what is this?’ Gemma asked, as she and Palliser headed up the gravel drive.
‘That bloke I interviewed at Goldstein & Hoff?’ he said quietly.
‘Blenkinsop … yeah?’
‘This is his house. And apparently he’s one of the APs.’
She stopped and stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’
He nodded.
‘
Come on.’
They flashed their warrant cards to the uniformed sergeant at the front door, then donned Tyvek coveralls from the sterile container in the porch and pulled on pairs of latex gloves and shoe-covers, before being guided towards an internal door connecting with the garage. Neither of them was quite sure what to expect, but then no officer ever was when he or she first approached a murder scene.
Even to sensibilities as battle-hardened as theirs, the sight of the impaled man was a sobering shock. He was still transfixed mid-way up the steel spike. What looked like several bucketfuls of blood had spilled across the cement floor beneath him, and were now slowly coagulating. The lower section of the spike was crusted crimson. Blenkinsop’s waxen face, which they could only see upside down, was a rigid grimace of agony. Gemma glanced to the ceiling, where someone had gone to great trouble to saw out a large square section of boarding.
‘Whoever set this up wasn’t taking any chances,’ she said.
Palliser couldn’t at first reply. He’d turned a shade green as he surveyed the punctured body. It was always difficult, even with years of CID experience, to be cool about a corpse, which, a few hours earlier, you’d seen walking around and had engaged in conversation.
‘Remind me what it was that bothered you about this fella?’ Gemma said.
‘Well …’ Palliser cleared his throat, making an effort to get it together. ‘He was way too nervous. Wouldn’t even let us take a DNA sample.’
‘He’s hardly the sort to be involved in routine crime.’
‘Nothing routine about this, ma’am.’
‘Agreed. Let’s have a look at the other one.’
They moved through the house, the uniformed sergeant still chaperoning them, and descended to the cellar. This was a more conventional crime scene: wrecked furniture, and a deceased party who had clearly been dispatched by gunshots. Gemma picked her way as close to the body as she dared. A wallet lay open beside it, and personal documents were strewn around. She crouched to get a closer look.
‘Brian Hobbs,’ she said, reading the name on the credit cards. ‘This a genuine ID?’
‘We don’t know that yet, ma’am,’ the sergeant responded. He’d remained on the stairs, not wanting to trespass on the scene.
Gemma nodded, before beckoning Palliser to the far side of the room, where they were out of the uniform’s earshot.
‘How’d you actually get onto this?’ she asked quietly.
‘Force radio. Was on my way home when it came over. Sixteen, Templeton Drive. Remembered it straight away. Blenkinsop.’
‘There was no reference in Heck’s paperwork to Blenkinsop?’
Palliser shook his head.
‘What about this guy, Hobbs?’
‘Not as I noticed.’
‘Because I think I’ve seen
him
before. On a couple of crime scene glossies in one of Heck’s folders.’
Palliser looked startled. ‘Okay … okay, now I’m getting excited.’
‘Well don’t get too excited. Half this fella’s head’s been blown off. I can’t be absolutely sure.’
‘On the FR they thought this might be a robbery-homicide.’
‘What … Blenkinsop killed one of the robbers then fell through a trapdoor they’d prepared for him earlier?’ She looked scornful as she turned to the uniformed sergeant. ‘Have we found a firearm anywhere?’
‘Not yet, ma’am. We won’t do a thorough search until the Lab get here.’
Palliser nodded towards the wallet. ‘That’s what probably gave the first impression.’
Gemma shook her head. ‘There’s still money in it. Whoever got that wallet out wanted to know who this guy was and where he was from.’
Palliser eyed her. ‘Three guesses who that was.’
She crouched again to analyse the spilled documentation – and to check the address on the driving licence, which was fifty-eight, Rentoul Street, Coventry.
She thanked DS Gibbens on her way out.
‘You done, ma’am?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Absolutely, Tony. Thanks very much.’
‘That’s it?’
‘For the moment.’
‘See you then.’
‘See you,’ she said, climbing into her BMW.
Before Palliser jumped into his Chevrolet, he heard Gibbens muttering to the uniforms on the tape about the privileges of special squads, and how ‘those lucky buggers will be back in bed before one’.
‘I wish,’ Palliser said, as he sped away after his boss.
Heck pinched the motor from outside a council flat in Finchley belonging to a well-known car thief. It was a Lexus LS, and the property of one Errol Buchanan, who, according to observations by Scotland Yard’s Organised Crime Division, had been involved in car-ringing operations for the best part of a decade. The Lexus, which would initially have been stolen, was now – on paper at least – Buchanan’s property. It would probably have been intended for sale abroad, but Buchanan, a reckless, self-indulgent bastard even by car thief standards, had presumably fallen in love with it and decided to keep it.
This was why Heck had no qualms about taking and driving it away. Not that he’d have hesitated to lift it from a law-abiding citizen if he’d had no other choice.
It was close to one o’clock in the morning and he was bulleting up the M1 motorway. That last telephone message went through his head again and again: he’d been told simply to head north and await further instructions, which he would receive en route. They’d threatened that if they saw any sign the police were following, both Dana and Lauren would suffer unimaginable consequences. There was no gloating this time, no taunting. It had been a quick, straightforward message, delivered in a businesslike monotone.
But to hear Dana’s voice – in pain, in terror …
It had been bad enough that they’d got Lauren, but Lauren was an ex-soldier who’d lived with fear and violence as part of her profession, and, even if she hadn’t, she’d willingly bought into this escapade. Dana on the other hand, was an estate agent and housewife, the mother of his beautiful young niece.
Lauren’s words hadn’t seemed prophetic at the time, that night in Bobby Ballamara’s gaff, about Heck’s sister suddenly not being there anymore. But they had remained in the back of his mind and, to some extent, had started him thinking that he needed to readdress his priorities. Only yesterday, he’d decided he was going to see Dana again when all this was over. Try to be a proper brother to her, try to be an uncle to Sarah, but now …
Heck had trouble keeping below a hundred m.p.h., but knew that he had to because otherwise he’d pick up a traffic patrol and that would defeat the entire object. They’d be watching his progress, the voice on the phone had said. If he tried to pull anything, the outcome would stagger even a hard-ass cop like him. Heck didn’t know exactly what he was headed for here, but it was plain he had no option. He
had
to go and meet them.
The lights and motorway bridges flipped by like speeded-up cine film. At this time of night, the northbound carriageway was almost empty. He passed Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton. Then Deke’s phone rang.
Heck banged it to his ear. ‘Yes?’
‘Take the M6. Follow it north. Any sign you’ve got a police tail, on land or in the air, the ladies in your life are carrion.’ The line went dead.
Heck hit the M6 north of Rugby, blazing towards Birmingham. He’d warned Ian Blenkinsop that this thing wasn’t going to end happily. There was now a sinking feeling in his gut that he was fast approaching that denouement.
He passed between Coventry and Nuneaton, where he came to a contra-flow, and swerved through it recklessly, barely slowing down. His many cuts and bruises, some of which on a normal day would send him to casualty, meant nothing. Heck had tunnel vision; all he saw was the empty motorway spooling out ahead.
The phone rang again.
‘Go into the rest-lounge at Corley service station, and wait. We’ll contact you there at exactly two o’clock.’
Heck did as instructed. At Corley, he shot up the access ramp so fast that he skidded across six or seven parking bays before he was able to bring the Lexus to a halt. The engine – which he’d only managed to activate by breaking the housing on the steering-column and inserting a key between the ignition heads – stalled and cut out.
Seconds passed as the vehicle cooled and Heck prepared himself for the ordeal ahead. He glanced across the car park.
Corley services was one of those typically impersonal motorway structures – all sheet glass and bare concrete. There were lights inside, but few people visible. The car park was almost deserted. He climbed out and waited warily. Behind him, there was the occasional
VOOOM
as some other nocturnal traveller rocketed past.
He looked at his watch. It was one-fifty.
Slowly, he walked across the tarmac, his footsteps clicking. As soon as he entered the station, he scanned for suspects. The shop was empty, aside from an overweight young man sitting at the till. Behind the fast-food counter, two girls in uniforms and paper hats had drawn down the trellis and were now tidying things away. There were very few customers: a dishevelled businessman who walked out past Heck, carrying a briefcase; two maintenance guys in steel-capped boots and fluorescent jackets, also on their way out; and in the rest-lounge itself no one at all except an elderly lady in a pinafore, moving up and down with a mop and bucket.
Heck bought himself a coffee, and sat in a window seat. He glanced at his watch. It was one-fifty-five. He sipped the tepid brew, all the time watching the lounge entrance. Bang on two o’clock, three figures came filing purposefully in, and
Heck’s hand clenched on his mug. But it was two girls and
a man, all in their early twenties. They were laughing and chatting. The young man was carrying a guitar. They bought coffee and sat down in another area.
Heck relaxed a little, but continued to watch the entrance with hawkish intensity.
The minutes ticked by. At two-fifteen, they left. Heck crossed the room for a refill, and resumed his seat.
There was a massive crash outside the window, like an explosion of gunfire.
He jumped, whipped around – and saw that it was a lorry unloading crates of foodstuff. He drank his second coffee. It was nearly two-thirty when someone else came into the rest-lounge. Heck regarded him warily. It was a rugged, burly man, wearing a green sweater and green, canvas trousers. He got himself a coffee and sat nearby with his back turned. Heck’s eyes locked onto him. Still the minutes ticked by. The man didn’t move, even when he’d drained his cup. Heck was shifting into hyper-tense mode, his breathing short and shallow; there was a streak of chill sweat down his back.
The man got up again. He walked across the lounge area. And left. Heck peered out through the window, and saw him climb into a battered old Mazda, which he drove off towards the motorway.
Confusion was now replacing Heck’s nervousness. They had definitely said Corley service station, hadn’t they? They
had
said two o’clock? He glanced again at his watch. It was almost three. He looked back across the lounge. The only other person in there was the cleaning lady. Even she looked to be leaving. She thrust her mop into the bucket and headed towards the entrance – where she stopped and turned to face him.
And beckoned.
Heck rose unsteadily to his feet.
He followed her out through the lobby into the car park, where she left her cleaning utensils next to a wall, and set off walking towards the rear of the building. She was moving quickly, keeping a good five yards ahead of him, though this was made easier for her because he was following cautiously, constantly glancing over his shoulder. She crossed the slip-road leading to the garage, and took a paved path between two motel blocks. This was lit, but at this late hour the blocks themselves were in darkness. The warmth and light of the service station was falling away behind.
Heck slid his hand under his jacket, seizing the Colt Cobra’s grip, but the woman strode on ahead without speaking. She was short and dumpy in stature; from the glimpse he’d had of her, she looked to be in her late sixties. The paved path terminated at a line of bushes, but now another path – this one unpaved – wound off through them. The woman followed it, so Heck had no option but to do the same.
Beyond the bushes there were fir trees. These closed in thickly from both sides, and were wet with dew. The path narrowed and steepened as it descended a slope. Again, Heck glanced over his shoulder – but no one was bringing up the rear. He looked back to the front, and saw that the woman was no longer in sight. Jarred, he lurched forward, hurrying to catch up with her – and emerged on a quiet canal bank. A stretch of black water rippled in front of him. Its brick-built sides were thick with moss and other rank vegetation.
The woman was waiting there, facing him. She had lank, thinning hair and a pudgy, wrinkled face, but she was wide-eyed – almost certainly because she was frightened. When she spoke, she had a strong Polish accent.
‘The man say you go that way.’ She pointed west along the canal bank.
‘What man?’ Heck asked.
‘I never see him before. You go.’
‘He paid you to give me this message?’
‘No question. I need money. You go!
Go!
’ And without waiting to see if he would comply, she hurried back up the path towards the service station, vanishing from view.
Heck glanced again over his shoulder. Around him lay only the blackness of night, the stillness and silence of the dead hours.