Sacrifice

by Paul Finch

  Bad Friday!

  Almost the entire rest of the page was occupied by a massive, full-colour photo, no doubt shot by a passing motorist. The three crucified figures had been blurred out, though their outlines were visible, framed against the rutted ridge of the slagheap.

  ‘If it was hard keeping this thing quiet before, it’s going to be hell on earth now,’ Garrickson said.

  Heck found Claire alone in the MIR’s kitchenette. She was seated at the table, both hands cupping a mug of coffee which, by the skin on its surface, was only lukewarm. She gave him a wan smile.

  ‘And as good days go, how does this one rate?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m alright.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well … it’s nothing six months of leave wouldn’t fix.’

  He leaned against the sink. ‘You’ve hardly arrived and you want to go on leave already!’

  She tried to match his chuckle, but it was forced and flat.

  ‘Honestly,’ he said, ‘you did very well out there.’

  ‘Honestly … I don’t remember a thing I said. Any old crap could come back to haunt us after that.’

  ‘Nah, you did good.’

  ‘Well …’ She sighed. ‘I suppose the occasional bit of gibberish can be forgiven, seeing as I’d just witnessed my first live crucifixion.’

  ‘Anyone’s first live crucifixion. I’ve never seen one before either.’

  She took a sip of coffee and pulled a disgusted face. ‘Were they alive when they were nailed to those crosses?’

  ‘Yes … but probably unconscious. We don’t think they lasted very long.’

  ‘Thank God for that at least.’ She lifted the mug to her lips again, only to realise what she was doing and shove it away with a grimace.

  Heck picked the kettle up. ‘Want me to make you a fresh one?’

  ‘No thanks. I’ll have enough trouble sleeping tonight. Isn’t like you see on the films, is it?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Dead bodies on crosses. They hang there like dummies. Everything just goes floppy. Don’t look like real people at all.’

  ‘Maybe it’s best if that’s how you think of them. Might take a bit of the hurt away.’

  ‘Oh come on …’ She eyed him sceptically. ‘You don’t do that. Not with that scrapbook of faces you always keep with you. Shawna McCluskey told me about it. She said those are all the victims of violent crime who you’ve managed to get some kind of justice for. And that you …’ her voice trembled, as if about to break, ‘you check it every day.’

  Heck regarded her for several moments, before pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘Okay, yes … that book’s a record of the reasons why I do this job.’

  ‘The good versus evil thing again?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She sniffled, unconsciously knuckling away a tear. ‘That’s what you said the other day, isn’t it? About good versus evil.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you believe in good and evil, then yes. But my philosophy’s actually more selfish than that.’ He lowered his voice in case someone was earwigging out in the corridor. ‘Whenever someone gets murdered on my watch, Claire – or raped, or tortured – I take it very, very personally. I have to. So that I don’t become institutionalised. So that I never get to the stage where I accept whatever this job throws at me as another i that needs dotting, or another t that needs crossing. It’s too easy to forget, or at least pretend you’ve forgotten, the human cost of crime. I look at those faces every day to ensure I never make that mistake.’

  Another tear trickled down her cheek as she listened to him.

  ‘Here …’ He handed her a napkin. ‘But that’s just me. Everyone has to find their own way to deal with this tragedy. It’s not something we can coach.’

  ‘It’s a real battle, isn’t it?’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘With real casualties.’

  ‘Absolutely. It ain’t for the faint-hearted. But to be honest, that’s why you’re here. Because you fit the bill.’

  ‘If you say so.’ She half-smiled, dabbing at her eyes again, only belatedly realising what she was doing. ‘This is nothing, by the way. Delayed shock … that’s all.’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘Look, you’d better get on.’ She gestured brusquely at the door. ‘You’ve got work to do, and so have I.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. Stay in here and people will think there’s something wrong, and there’s nothing wrong. I’m okay.’

  Heck stood and moved away, turning back once. ‘Claire … seriously, you did very well. This is your first case and it’s like the Devil himself is at work. But you’ve dealt with it. You’ll be fine. I can feel it in my bones.’

  She nodded and smiled, as though amply reassured by his trust. Once he’d left the room, she finished her coffee, drinking it in slow but determined swallows, unconcerned by how foul or tepid it was. Yet even then, another tear stole treacherously down her cheek.

  Chapter 15

  The crime scene on the slagheap had been covered by a vast tent, which Gemma had hired from a firm in Cheshire who normally catered for celebrity weddings, and divided up with strips of tape into no-go zones still awaiting forensic examination, though official access ways now led between them.

  Heck, clad neck to toe in Tyvek, stood alone in the centre-most passage, gazing up at the three empty crosses, particularly at the middle one, on which Kate Rickman had died, a woman who – though she had once been married and worked as a dental nurse, living, to all intents and purposes, a normal middle-class life – had one day experienced a kind of epiphany, giving it all up to help the outcast and destitute. That fact, more than any other, illustrated a degree of forward-planning that put this current set of felons on a different level from most criminal organisations – which was not encouraging.

  Heck relayed all this into his Dictaphone, making additional notes on his clipboard. The cross had always been a brutal symbol of course, but his proximity to this particular example brought it home how much. It was a well-made object: it had been precisely measured, intricately squared-off; the upright and the crosspiece had been fitted together by someone who knew their joinery, and yet inevitably it was a heavy, ugly thing – sharp around its edges, coarse-grained. In addition it was spattered with congealed blood, mainly around the holes made by the nails, which, when they’d finally been extracted, were each as thick as a man’s forefinger and at least ten inches long – so long in fact that they’d protruded through the front of the crossbar. The holes left there were only pinpricks, but even so a single droplet of blood had run down from each one of them. At the lower end of the upright, where the victim’s ankles had been fixed, there was more than mere blood: strands of sticky tissue hung from the nails’ entry points – threads of human flesh and muscle.

  ‘DS Heckenburg?’ a voice carried across the interior of the tent. Another figure in Tyvek was approaching down one of the designated pathways.

  Heck swore under his breath.

  He’d argued with Gemma about this only that morning. Apparently, to assuage Merseyside’s annoyance that this multiple homicide was being taken off them before they’d even had a shot at it, but also because Gemma had decided she needed extra staff, she had requested and had been granted the assistance of a number of Merseyside detectives. On the age-old basis that two sets of eyes were better than one, everyone had since been informed that, from this point on, they’d be working in pairs. When Heck had asked who he was being teamed up with, he was told it was a promising young local officer, Detective Constable Andy Gregson.

  ‘Young?’ Heck had said.

  ‘Young,’ Gemma had replied, distracted – she was in the process of assembling notes for her morning video-conference.

  ‘How long has this lad been in CID?’ Heck had then asked.

  ‘Eight months, I think …’

  ‘Bloody brilliant!’

  She’d glanced up at him. ‘He’s just a spare limb, Heck! What do
you want … someone who’ll do their own thing? Someone who won’t listen to you?’

  ‘He’s a Scouser and I’m a Manc. What makes you think he’ll listen to me anyway?’

  ‘Let him know you’re in charge,’ she’d said, her voice snapping with impatience. ‘Tell him you’re in charge of this whole case! Christ’s sake, everyone else around here thinks you are!’

  ‘Andy Gregson, sarge,’ the young officer said, offering his hand. He was somewhere in his early twenties, of average height but lean build. His hair, which was shaved down to the bristles, was carroty-red in colour, roughly the same tinge as the freckles that dusted his youthful features, to either side of which hung a pair of unfortunately overlarge ears. His accent was strong Liverpudlian. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Yeah … same,’ Heck said, trying not to sound too insincere. ‘Look, I can’t waste time breaking you in. You’ve been fully appraised about Operation Festival’s remit?’

  Gregson nodded. ‘Yeah … bit of a shock to be honest. Didn’t realise it covered the whole of the north.’

  ‘You know to keep schtum?’

  ‘Had that drummed into me.’

  ‘Good. Because if anything leaks to the press from us and the brass get wind of it, we’ll have to post our resignations.’

  Gregson nodded again, but remained blank-faced and unemotional.

  ‘So … what do you know about the mechanics of crucifixion, DC Gregson?’

  Gregson shrugged. ‘Only what I’ve seen on the telly.’

  ‘On telly the effects people make it look easier than it is.’ Heck indicated the three crosses. ‘Try to imagine how difficult it would be in real life.’

  ‘Big buggers, aren’t they?’

  ‘Bigger than most people think,’ Heck replied. ‘We estimate they’re standing in pits that are at least two feet deep … which would have been dug beforehand of course; a job in itself on compacted slag. That means the central posts, which are solid oak, could be more than ten feet long.’

  ‘Heavy,’ Gregson observed.

  ‘Very heavy. Very awkward.’

  ‘And all this was done during the hours of darkness?’

  ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’ Heck said. ‘The killers would need to be team-handed at the very least to erect this lot in one night.’

  ‘Street-gang maybe?’

  ‘That’s something we’re considering, but I’m not convinced and I’ve made that point to the gaffers. Hardly a gangbanger thing, crucifixion. We’re talking numbers, though. Even if you silence the APs with drugs, hanging people on crosses is a messy business. Bringing three prisoners and three disassembled crosses to this slagheap would have been too risky, too time-consuming, especially in the dark. So I reckon the poor sods were crucified first. Brought here when they were already nailed, which would have required a bit more than a delivery van.’

  Gregson nodded. ‘I heard we’re looking for an HGV.’

  ‘Possibly an artic,’ Heck said. ‘Let me bring you up to speed on everything else …’ They tramped away, following another designated route up and over the ridge of the slagheap. ‘We now know that the Father Christmas costume Ernest Shapiro was bricked up in was not his. It was either homemade or might have been purchased from a fancy dress shop. Both of those options are being looked into. Likewise, the bricks were all new – so a full check is being made on thefts from sites, builders’ yards, wholesalers and such. Best of all, seems they’ve now found human hair beneath two of Shapiro’s fingernails. It’s possible we might get some DNA.’

  The news had only come through that morning, and everyone was excited about it, though a blob of DNA could only help convict someone if the perpetrator’s DNA was already on file, which wasn’t always the case.

  ‘The old geezer put up a fight, eh?’ Gregson said.

  Heck nodded. ‘With regard to the Valentine’s Day killings in Bolton, the arrow has been thoroughly swabbed, but it’s clean. It’s not unique – it’s one of an aluminium brand widely used at archery clubs around England. They’re all being investigated as we speak. We’ve also brought a criminologist in from Liverpool John Moores. He’s created a geographic profile. There are only four known crime scenes, so it’s not a totally reliable pattern yet in my opinion, but the anchor point is starting to look like Manchester. In the meantime, these crucifixion murders are our priority. “Ours” as in me, you and everyone else currently based at Manor Hill.’

  They left the tent and headed down the other side of the slagheap, a distance of about fifty yards, to a point where the broken surface of the heap gave way to a rough, single-track road running west to east. Beyond this lay more spoil-land covered with clinker and tufts of thorn.

  ‘We’ve located one recent tyre track on this access road big enough to indicate an HGV,’ Heck said. He walked thirty yards east to a point where another canopy had been set up, cordon tape fluttering around it. He indicated a patch of mashed-flat mud bearing what looked like a lorry’s tyre tread. ‘We’ve had a cast taken, obviously.’

  Gregson seemed unimpressed. ‘This is industrial land, sarge. Any number of HGVs, dumper-trucks, whatever, could have been up here in the last few days.’

  ‘True enough.’ They continued along the road to the outer cordon, which was now manned by two uniformed bobbies. ‘I’ll admit it’s a long-shot,’ Heck said. ‘But that tyre mark’s the only clear impression we’ve got … which means it’s probably the most recent, so we’ve got to run with it.’

  They stepped under the tape, entering a lay-by where various police vehicles were parked, their own included, and began stripping off their coveralls, gloves and boots. Underneath, Heck was in his usual slacks, shirt and tie. Gregson was the same, but his top button was fastened, his tie-knot neat and sharp, his trousers pressed to a razor’s edge.

  ‘How long you been in the job anyway?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Three years, three weeks and two days, sarge.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Two years, eight months, three weeks.’

  ‘Keep an exact account of everything, do you?’

  ‘Always came in useful when I was on the beat.’

  ‘Suppose it must have.’ Heck tossed his Dictaphone and notepad through the open rear window of his metallic-blue Peugeot 306. ‘Least I won’t need this lot anymore. Manor Hill still under siege?’

  Gregson nodded. ‘Turning into a bit of a circus, isn’t it?’

  ‘The world of Grand Guignol, DC Gregson.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Grand Guignol. It’s a French term. It was a theatre of the macabre in the early twentieth century. Freaks, gore, gothic horror.’ Heck pulled his jacket on. ‘Exactly what our perps are trying to create, in my opinion.’

  ‘What … put on a show? They’d do all this just to shock people?’

  ‘I reckon it’s a kind of artistic thing.’ Heck pondered. ‘A bunch of thickie criminals, the sort we normally deal with – there’s nothing in this for them. They nearly always want the obvious. Cash, drugs, sex. By contrast, these murders have been crafted, choreographed. It’s like there’s some kind of crazy aesthetic going on … that’s only my theory, of course. The bosses aren’t totally convinced.’

  Before he could explain further, his mobile began bleeping. When he put it to his ear, Jen Weeks, Operation Festival’s Head of Civilian Admin Support, was on the line.

  ‘DS Heckenburg!’ she said urgently. ‘HGV reported on fire. Witness says it’s been dumped on wasteland and deliberately set alight.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Place called Ingley Nook. Six miles from the crucifixion site.’

  Heck signalled to Gregson, who was about to climb into his Ford Galaxy.

  ‘I’ll take my own motor, sarge,’ Gregson replied.

  ‘Do you know this area?’

  ‘Well, yeah … my first beat was round here.’

  ‘In that case you’re riding with me.’

  Ingley Nook turned out to be a row of terrace
d former pit-cottages sitting alongside an unmade road, which wound across yet more spoil-land covered with ash.

  ‘Bloody undercarriage!’ Heck swore, as they jolted and bounced on the pot-holes.

  ‘One drawback of bringing a decent motor,’ Gregson replied.

  ‘You might have warned me.’

  ‘It’s worse than I remember … but I’ve not been round here for a while.’

  They travelled another two miles, all habitation falling out of sight into the smudged, dingy distance, before they finally sighted smoke and the flashing blue lights of two fire engines. When they got close, they saw that the lorry – which was articulated – had been driven off the track and down a shallow slope onto open ground, where it appeared to have crashed into the concrete foundations of a former colliery outbuilding.

  Heck parked up and watched as jets of water arced over the wreck. The rear section was still partly in flames, clouds of black oily smoke pulsing across the landscape, driven by a strong westerly breeze. The make and model was not immediately recognisable, while the rear registration plate had already gone, but the fire-fighters had it under control and it wouldn’t be long before the cops were allowed to make an inspection. In fact, the local station-officer was already trudging back up the slope, lifting his visor, loosening his heavy, flame-retardant tunic.

  Heck climbed from the car and flashed his ID. ‘Arson?’

  ‘No question.’

  ‘Accelerant?’

  ‘Probably petrol. Some genius chucked it all over the trailer section, inside and out, but not the cab. Good job. If the engine had caught there’d be nothing left.’

  ‘They made a mistake there,’ Gregson said.

  ‘We think,’ Heck replied. ‘Could this fire have been burning all last night?’

  The station-officer nodded. ‘Possibly. It’s a long way out – wouldn’t have been noticed straight away. Could have taken quite a while so long as the petrol tank didn’t blow.’ He moved off, barking orders at his men.

  Heck and Gregson started down the slope. The lorry was now a hissing, blackened skeleton. While the fire-fighters reeled in their hoses and gathered their equipment, Heck fished out his mobile and placed a call to Jen Weeks.