Sacrifice

by Paul Finch

  Its heavy steel roller slammed full-on against the locked door, the jamb of which buckled and split. The other officers watched in disbelief, as Heck rearranged the gears, reversed the machine, and drove it forward again.

  The second impact was the one.

  Heck was almost thrown over the handlebars, but this time splinters flew as the door cracked across its middle, its jamb shattering and hinges catapulting in every direction. Heck jumped off, ramming his shoulder against the sagging door, which gradually gave way to a complex mass of disassembled steel shelves erected as a barricade.

  ‘A little help, folks,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Shawna and the uniform joined him, as he yanked and pulled at the twisted metal. Within seconds they’d worked their way through it, but long before then it was obvious that the room on the other side – a ten by six storage chamber – was empty. It was equally obvious how this had come about.

  Its high, letterbox-narrow window was still closed. But below that, at the foot of the far wall, Enwright had torn away a few carpet tiles, revealing a square aperture in the stone floor. This would normally be covered by planks, but these had also been removed, and below them a narrow shaft dropped into darkness.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Heck groaned.

  ‘What the hell is it?’ Shawna said.

  ‘A priest’s hole.’

  She looked dumbfounded. ‘Leading where?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ He produced Gemma’s pen-light from his pocket, knelt and shone its beam as far down the shaft as he could. A floor of beaten earth was visible about ten feet below. A descending series of small niches had been cut in the stone on the right-hand side as hand and footholds.

  ‘Heck!’ came Eric Fisher’s voice from the office. ‘There’s all sorts of interesting stuff on this desktop.’

  ‘We haven’t got time for research, Eric!’ Heck called back.

  ‘This is important.’

  ‘Bag the hard drive, then.’ Heck seated himself on the edge of the aperture, and turned to the uniform. ‘Let your gaffers know what’s going on. Tell them the fugitive’s making his way out via a subterranean tunnel. It can’t lead too far, so the grounds need searching top to bottom.’

  The uniform nodded and hurried away. Heck buttoned his suit jacket, winked at Shawna, and lowered himself down. The walls enclosed him tightly from either side and back to front, the air dank and stuffy, but at least he had full movement. When he alighted at the bottom, he shone the pen-light in front of him. Rather than a tunnel, it exposed a tight squeeze of an alleyway built from sweating, crumbling brickwork. It was less than five feet in height and so narrow that a man could only move along it sideways.

  ‘Bloody spider hole,’ Heck said to Shawna, who had stopped just above him.

  ‘So how the hell did Enwright get through it?’

  ‘He’s probably had lots of practice.’

  ‘Watch what you’re doing,’ Shawna said, as he advanced at a crouch, left shoulder thrust forward.

  The air became steadily more difficult to breathe and water dripped on his head; the geometry of the passage seeming to contract the further along it he progressed. At first he thought this an optical illusion, but soon his clothing was snagging on jagged bricks. His scalp scraped along the ceiling, making it ever more difficult to ignore the tons of rock and soil above his head. If this thing extended to inordinate length – for hundreds of yards, maybe thousands – Heck knew that he was going to have trouble. Close behind, Shawna, who was of considerably smaller frame than he was, was already grunting and panting.

  ‘How far do you think we’ve come?’ she asked in a strained whimper.

  ‘Not far enough. We can’t even be clear of the school yet.’

  ‘Bloody hell …’

  They continued for several more minutes, cramped, sweating hard despite the chill. All the way of course, the thought that Enwright had done this before them was a motivator – it couldn’t just bring them to a dead-end. Even so, Heck felt a surge of relief when he spied a pall of natural light about fifty yards ahead. They accelerated, unmindful about scuffing and tearing their clothing. When they reached the end, the dusty light revealed that a modern steel ladder had been erected in the exit shaft, the upper section of which had been reinforced with recent brickwork.

  Heck scrambled up towards another square aperture, through which he could hear the chugging of an engine.

  ‘The bastards are here to pick him up,’ he said urgently. ‘They haven’t even left the school grounds yet.’

  He emerged at the top via a purpose-made trapdoor, and found himself in what looked like an old cottage kitchen, gutted of furnishings and filled with rags and dirt. The broken rear window had been covered on the outside with planks, though beams of sunlight slanted through. On his right, an arched internal doorway connected with another area, probably a living room. He ventured forward, peeking in. The living room was equally derelict, consisting of dust, crumpled newspapers and a couple of sticks of abandoned, mouldy furniture. The windows in here, which opened to the front of the building, were also covered with boards, but the entrance door, only six yards to his left, stood ajar. By the sounds of the engine, the lorry was just the other side of this. Heck heard voices – he fancied one belonged to Enwright, but he hesitated to dash out there. The phrase ‘this is too easy’ was unpopular with experienced coppers for good reason.

  He moved to the window, but Shawna now appeared behind him and headed straight for the door. ‘Shawna, wait!’ he hissed.

  BOOM … the thunderous detonation blew the lower half of the door inwards, and the young policewoman’s legs were swept from under her.

  Heck flattened himself alongside the window. Through the chinks between the planks he glimpsed the lorry pulling away along a narrow, wooded lane, though a single person had remained behind. It was Gareth Holker, the tall, spike-haired youth from the school photographs; but he’d given up his uniform for a hooded sweatshirt and, over the top of that, camouflaged waterproofs. He was also armed, carrying an over-and-under shotgun sawn down to half its normal length.

  ‘You want to save this soulless land, officers?’ he shouted, laughing. ‘You need to try a lot harder than that!’

  Even with his restricted vision, Heck saw that the youth’s face was white as milk, his eyes gleaming like black jewels.

  ‘Heck …’ Shawna gasped.

  He gazed over to where she lay amid smoking, splintered wreckage. Her slacks were torn to ribbons, blood soaking through them.

  ‘Don’t move, darling,’ he said quietly. ‘Play dead, okay?’

  ‘You dare call us desecrators!’ came the deranged voice outside. ‘You couldn’t have been further from the truth! We were venerating these special days … making them holy again!’

  BOOM … half the planking covering the window was blasted out. But that was the second barrel, so Heck chanced it and darted past the window, throwing a quick glance outside and seeing the youngster thumbing two fresh cartridges into the shotgun breech. Then he was down alongside Shawna, whose face was tinged an unhealthy green.

  ‘First they pummelled my pretty face,’ she whispered. ‘Now I’ve lost my lovely legs.’

  ‘You’ve not lost anything.’ He took her pulse, which, not surprisingly, was racing.

  ‘Bloody thick policemen! You dare complain that these festive occasions are being ruined, but what have we got at present?’

  BOOM … the outer wall took the brunt of this one, the whole cottage shuddering.

  ‘Vomit-inducing materialism all December! Pissheads falling out of pubs on St Patrick’s Day! Supermarkets selling corsets and fishnet stockings in time for Halloween!’

  Heck glanced towards the door. What remained of it hung from a single hinge – only this was masking Shawna from Holker. There was no option but to try and drag her further in. Heck got straight to it, lugging her by the armpits, despite her choked gasps of agony. Her shredded legs smeared trail
s of gore behind her.

  BOOM … the remaining planking blew in through the window frame. Heck ducked as he pulled the casualty around the corner and into the kitchen, where he fished the radio from his pocket.

  ‘This is DS Heckenburg … we’re under fire again!’

  ‘We’ve drawn a line in the sand, copper!’ Holker shouted. ‘We’re marking these feast days properly … by taking out the trash!’

  BOOM …

  ‘This is DS Heckenburg, any units to respond?’ But all he was getting was static. The air was probably jammed with messages.

  ‘Marking them indelibly …’

  BOOM …

  ‘So that no tin-pot entrepreneur will ever again stick cartoon images of Santa all over the discount beer shelves in his shop without someone jogging his memory that a man died in a chimney precisely because of idiots like him!’

  Heck dragged his phone out and stabbed in a quick number.

  ‘Heck?’ came Eric Fisher’s voice.

  BOOM …

  ‘So that no sleazy nightclub owner will ever again host a wild party on New Year’s Eve without someone mentioning that, thanks to his attitude, a student was once forcibly drowned in a tub of Scotch whisky … oh yes, Sergeant Heckenburg, there’s lots more to come!’

  ‘Eric!’ Heck jabbered. ‘We’re being shot to pieces here. Shawna’s down … severe gunshot wounds to both legs!’

  ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘I can’t say … some kind of gamekeeper’s cottage. But we can’t be too far from the main building. Tell everyone to shut their bloody gobs and listen for the shooting. And get another ambulance!’

  BOOM …

  He glanced into the living room. More splinters, more smoke. Only fragments of the front door remained. Outside, there was a clunk-clack as the shooter reloaded.

  ‘It’s a pity lives need to be lost!’ Holker shouted. ‘But that’s always the way of it, eh? Blood must be shed if a point is to be made.’

  Heck lurched to the kitchen window, glancing out between the planks. An old yard lay on the other side, hemmed in by a high brick wall, and filled with tyres, tangled weeds and corroded bicycle frames.

  BOOM … more exploding timber, more shattering glass.

  Heck kicked and punched at the planks in the kitchen window, until one by one they were knocked out.

  ‘Hey,’ Shawna moaned, ‘hey … don’t even think about leaving me in here …’

  Heck didn’t look back; there was nothing to be gained from hunkering down and waiting for the cavalry. If that nutcase Holker decided to come inside, they’d be easy meat. The last plank fell, and he clambered outside. The house was a free-standing structure – there was nothing even near to it, just woodland on all sides – and no way to slide around the front without being seen. He glanced upward, seeing that the eaves were low; no more than eight feet in the air.

  ‘We may die too!’ came Holker’s voice from the other side of the building. ‘We don’t care. We’re ready to sacrifice ourselves. Clearly you’re not!’

  Heck scrambled up onto the wall, and from there over a rotted guttering onto the lower slope of the roof, which was loose and mossy, especially difficult in his lace-up leather shoes. Slates broke and slid away as he yomped his way up.

  ‘But we’re going to save the soul of this sterile, chav-ridden country and remind them what made it great!’ Holker bellowed. ‘What made it one of the best and most pleasurable places in the world to live!’

  BOOM …

  Why he hadn’t yet entered the cottage to finish his victims off, Heck couldn’t imagine, but maybe his brief was not to kill the cops, just hold them at bay. He’d now reached the apex of the roof and peered down the other side.

  The youth was in the same position where he’d been in before, but prowling a little to the left and then a little to the right. He pumped another shell into the building, more glass and woodwork erupting inwards. Somewhere below Heck’s feet, Shawna was sobbing.

  ‘We’re going to shame this land into realising that life isn’t just one fucking party,’ Holker shouted. ‘That prayers need to be said and offerings made. We’re going to remind them what matters … by showing them the price of forgetting.’

  He triggered his shotgun again, before breaking it and digging in his pockets for more ammo. Heck threw himself over the central ridge, and slid downward on his ankles and backside. Holker only sensed the danger and looked up when Heck was in free-fall. He had no time to raise the weapon before the cop had slammed on top of him, flattening him on the ground, the impact of which was enough to knock Heck sick never mind the schoolboy.

  Heck jumped up first. The shotgun had come loose, so he grabbed it by the barrels and slung it, before swinging around. Holker got to his feet more shakily. He looked groggy; in fact his nose was bloodied – but the whiteness of his cheek and the glaze across his eyes owed to more than pain and shock. This was a seriously disturbed kid, Heck realised, who had finally reached the end of his tether.

  Holker came at him with a wild right hook. Heck ducked and hacked a good one into his belly. Holker toppled forward, gagging. Heck followed it with a left to his kidneys, and then a karate blow to the nape of his neck.

  Holker slumped to the ground, insensible. Heck landed on him from behind, knees first. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he intoned, fixing the lad in a no-nonsense wristlock. ‘But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say …’ a local patrol car screeched to a halt alongside him; the blue flashing lights of an ambulance weren’t far behind it, ‘… may be given in evidence.’ Heck stood up as a clutch of uniforms spilled out of the car, dragging Holker up with him and pushing him into their hands. ‘This one’s locked up for attempting to murder two police officers. That shotgun needs making safe … better get the SFOs on it.’ He turned to the paramedics hurrying from the rear of the ambulance with their tackle bags. ‘The casualty’s inside. Hurry please …’ He grabbed his phone again, bashed in Gary Quinnell’s number and banged it to his ear.

  ‘You still on the west gate?’ he shouted.

  ‘Affirmative. What’s happened with Shawna …?’

  ‘She’s being attended to. You haven’t seen that HGV yet?’

  ‘Nothing yet, sarge …’ But in the background, Heck could hear a fast-approaching rumble. He went cold as he pictured the heavy wagon, all six or seven tons of it ploughing towards the lone CID car parked across the open entrance. ‘Hey, it’s here now!’ Quinnell yelled. ‘Jeeesu …’

  The phone went dead.

  ‘Gary!’ Heck bellowed helplessly. ‘Gary!’

  A rasping chuckle drew his attention to the patrol car, where Holker was now leaning against its nearside flank as the uniforms searched him. He smiled at Heck, bloody-mouthed. ‘Another one down, Sergeant Heckenburg? You’re not doing very well today.’

  Heck approached him. ‘We’ve wrapped you bastards up, at least.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Your friends won’t get far.’

  ‘They won’t need to.’

  ‘We’ll get them all.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but will you get them in time?’

  Heck was distracted from this conversation – mainly by the sight of Shawna being brought from the cottage on a gurney, but now he realised what the prisoner had said, and something in the way he’d said it made Heck’s sweat-soaked hair stiffen.

  Holker’s battered face was written with a kind of devilish glee; his eyes, dead and black as buttons, only enhanced the effect.

  ‘Care to elaborate?’ Heck said.

  ‘Let me see, erm …’ the prisoner’s sickle grin broadened, ‘… no. Except to say good luck. Because, trust me, you’re going to need it.’

  ‘Get him out of here.’

  The uniforms turned Holker around, and the patrol car’s rear door swung open.

  ‘Oh, there is one thing,’ Holker said. ‘This next one
’s going to be a good one. It always had to be … the tenth one, you see. A real celebration.’

  Heck strode away. ‘Try gloating when you’re watching the world from a one-by-two window.’

  ‘This time we’re going to do something special … with a very special victim.’

  Heck ignored him, heading towards the ambulance.

  ‘Surprised you haven’t already missed her, to be honest.’

  Heck halted in mid-stride.

  ‘She was on the telly often enough. Surely you haven’t forgotten her already?’

  Heck spun slowly round, staring at the prisoner in disbelief. And before he could stop himself, he’d lunged across the two or three yards between them, grabbing Holker by the collar and ramming him back against the patrol car.

  ‘You’d better be lying to me!’

  ‘Yeah, of course … I’m getting beaten up for nothing!’

  ‘Where is she … tell me now!’

  ‘Not telling you where, I’m afraid.’ The demented youth cackled. ‘I’ll give you a clue, though … this next one’s all about treason. And traitors … just like your girl, eh, Sergeant Heckenburg? Because she betrayed the entire nation, telling those lies about us. Not letting the people know what they had a right to …’

  Heck tightened his grip on Holker’s throat. ‘What are you going to do to her, you little shit?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out … if you’re good enough.’

  Chapter 44

  They watched Claire with strange fascination.

  None of them spoke, even though they were fixating on her. There appeared to be four of them in total. She’d thought there’d be more, but one of them was presumably driving the vehicle, the steel floor of which juddered beneath her as they followed endless, winding roads. The lorry’s sides, which enclosed them in sepulchral dimness, vibrated.