by Paul Finch
Hazel appeared behind the bar from the kitchen. She’d changed into a grey, slim-fit tracksuit and wore a cardigan over the top. She’d also brushed her straggly hair back and tied it into a pony tail. She didn’t exactly look fresher – faint hints of mascara still marked her cheeks – but she seemed calmer to be back on home turf.
‘All windows and doors secured?’ Heck asked her. ‘Back door, back gate?’
She nodded.
‘How many rooms upstairs?’ Gemma asked.
‘Eight in total,’ Hazel said.
Gemma gave that some thought. ‘The probability is we’re going to be okay. But we don’t want any last-minute disasters. So I suggest we lock all the rooms that have locks on them, and keep checking on the others for as long as we need to. This place is sturdy, but it isn’t invulnerable. Nowhere is.’
‘I can start that now,’ Lucy said, glancing uneasily at the darkened stairway. ‘Haven’t been up there for half an hour at least, so it’s about due.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Mary-Ellen said, drawing her baton.
Lucy looked relieved and they went up the stairs together.
‘Hazel, we need to damp that fire down,’ Heck said. ‘I know the room’s nice and warm, but if this guy’s outside and he sees our shadows moving past the windows, he could easily take a pot-shot at one of us.’
Hazel nodded and went to deal with it.
‘The rest of you!’ Heck said, turning to the taproom. The villagers listened attentively. ‘The best thing you can do is stay exactly where you are. We’re much safer in here together. And it’s probably not going to be for much longer. We’ve got armed reinforcements on the way, and they’ll be here anytime now.’
‘Have you been up to the Ho?’ Sally O’Grady asked in a querulous tone. Clearly no one had broken the bad news about the recent murders yet.
‘Yes, I have.’
‘And did you speak to them? Did you tell them they should come down here?’
‘Listen …’ Heck hesitated, but these people weren’t dumb; he knew they’d be able to read his body language and conclude something was wrong. Besides, hiding unpleasant truths didn’t always help if you wanted to gain compliance. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve had one or two casualties tonight.’ They regarded him, glassy eyed. ‘I wouldn’t be doing you any favours if I lied to you about this. I’m very sad to tell you that Bessie Longhorn and Bill Ramsdale aren’t with us anymore.’
There were muffled whimpers in response.
‘And neither is Annie Beckwith.’
Ted Haveloc swore under his breath.
‘Is anyone keeping firearms in the village?’ Heck asked. ‘Forget whether they’re legally or illegally held. We’re not looking to prosecute good citizens for minor breaches of the law. If you’ve got a gun and you’ve got ammunition, please tell us now. So we can go and get it.’
There was a painfully long silence.
‘Sergeant Heckenburg, we’re none of us farmers here, or gamekeepers,’ Bella McCarthy said, which particularly disappointed Heck, as she and her husband, with their apparent remit to fill their early retirement with every kind of activity on the country sports calendar, might have been most likely to assist in this matter.
‘We hate guns,’ Burt Fillingham added, as usual taking it upon himself to make a moral point on behalf of everyone else. ‘We live in the mountains for our health.’
Heck glanced at Haveloc. ‘Ted, you’re a native Cumbrian and a lifelong outdoorsman. You don’t do a bit of poaching on the side?’
Haveloc stiffened. ‘Never have, Mr Heckenburg, never will.’
‘I assure you, no one will get in trouble.’
‘I should think we won’t!’ Burt Fillingham blurted. ‘Aren’t we the targets here? And why do you need guns if there are armed officers about to arrive?’
Heck wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. The firearms team was a bit overdue by now. It was past three hours since Mabelthorpe had left his message – not long past, but past. It was still the case they could arrive at any moment. But there was something else. Maybe it was that old nagging instinct thing, but Heck increasingly felt there was something about this killer they hadn’t yet accounted for, some factor currently concealed from them. After everything that had already happened, and the energy they’d expended just managing to keep a few of their number alive, it didn’t compute that it could suddenly be so easy to save everyone else.
Mary-Ellen now reappeared at the foot of the stairs with Lucy, and made a beeline for the hatch in the bar-top, passing through it and indicating to Heck and Gemma they should accompany her into the kitchen. They did so, with Hazel also in attendance.
‘Listen,’ Mary-Ellen said in a low voice, ‘I don’t think this pub is quite as secure as we’d like to think. None of the rooms upstairs can be locked from the outside, so it’s not like we can create containment areas if the bastard manages to get in.’
‘At least tell us the windows can be locked?’ Heck said.
‘Well yeah, most of them.’
‘Most of them?’
‘There’s a broken catch on one of the guest bedroom windows.’
‘That’s no problem,’ Gemma said. ‘We can nail that one shut.’
Hazel nodded, implying they had her full permission.
‘Yeah, but look,’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘Outside this building there are sheds, outhouses, lower sections of roof. Easy access to the top floor. If miladdo really wants to get in, he’s in. And then what happens … panic down here, everyone running around in a tizzy. Meanwhile, he comes downstairs and picks us all off with his Magnum.’
‘Maybe we should use one of the other houses?’ Hazel suggested.
‘No house is safe from a determined burglar,’ Mary-Ellen replied. ‘And the closer we get to morning, the more determined he’s gonna be. Either that or he’s gonna leg it. Problem is, we don’t know which.’ She paused. ‘Seriously guys, the sooner those shots get here the better.’
There was no immediate response. Heck in particular found it difficult to conceal his growing sense of concern. Gemma was the first to notice this.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Heck chewed his lip. ‘I don’t like being passive. Just sitting waiting for help that may never arrive …’
Mary-Ellen frowned. ‘But Mabelthorpe said …’
‘Mabelthorpe isn’t up on the motorway, where it’s Carma-bloody-geddon,’ Heck retorted. ‘Mabelthorpe was trying to be helpful, but he doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on with the firearms team. And if by some miracle he’s found out a bit more since the phone lines were cut, there’s been no way for him to tell us. The shots may still turn up. They’re …’ He glanced at his watch, ‘they’re only forty minutes late. But then again, they may be sitting in a traffic jam ’til dawn. Twenty miles away, thirty, tops. But it might as well be thirty thousand.’
‘So what do you propose?’ Gemma asked quietly.
‘That we get these civvies out of here ourselves. I mean right out of the Cradle and down to civilisation.’
‘Mark, how can you do that?’ Hazel asked.
‘We’re only working on the assumption the other cars in the village have been sabotaged,’ he said. ‘I mean it’s a reasonable assumption – but we should at least check. I know it means someone has to go back out there, but I don’t see any other way.’
‘Well … I’ll be honest, I don’t like sitting around doing nothing either,’ Gemma said, which rather surprised Heck, because he tended to be the risk-taker, while she usually counselled caution. ‘Especially as we can’t secure this place,’ she added. ‘Until the firearms lads get here, and Heck’s right – we don’t know they’re coming until they actually arrive – we’re still vulnerable.’
‘But we’ve only got one dodgy window,’ Hazel argued. ‘Surely, together, we can defend that?’
‘No, on reflection I think Heck’s right too,’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘This guy’
s got a .357 Magnum. He can shoot out every window in the pub if he wants, and the lock off every door.’
‘But the firearms officers are on their way,’ Hazel protested.
‘And the killer’s already here,’ Heck said.
‘You don’t know that … I mean, just because he cut the phone lines … You’re going to go outside and risk your lives again for that?’
‘Hazel … he’s already murdered five people that we know about,’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘He’s obviously on a bender. Let’s be realistic, the only way he’s not going to extend it to Cragwood Keld is if he decides he’s had enough. And what are the chances of that, eh? Until support arrives we’re easy meat for him … easy meat.’
Heck didn’t comment on that, because it was a discomfortingly accurate assessment of their situation. Whether or not their opponent had started his criminal career as a serial sex-slayer, he’d now morphed into that most dangerous and unpredictable of felons – a spree killer. Throughout the modern history of the world, odd, disaffected men had simply gone crazy, grabbed guns and other weapons, and started cutting people down for no easily identifiable reason. In most cases, it went on and on until it ended with the perpetrator’s own death, either self-inflicted or at the hands of law officers. The problem was, in this fog, with whatever advantage it was he’d given himself, even the arrival of a firearms unit would be no guarantee of safety. Suppose they drew up in front of the pub, and jumped out in the usual swaggering SWAT-team fashion – only for him to emerge from the mist behind them, Magnum blazing? It would be over in seconds.
There was one other certainty too: the more they dithered here, the more the threat would grow.
‘I agree it’s a risk,’ Heck said, glancing through the kitchen door at the subdued crowd seated around the dull embers in the pub fireplace, and then out through a narrow gap afforded by a slightly displaced curtain. It only hinted at the blank miasma shrouding the village. ‘But I’m sorry, it’s a risk we’re going to have to take.’
Chapter 24
There were dumbfounded expressions when Heck asked which of the villagers had their car keys with them. Faces previously haggard from lack of sleep jerked into full wakefulness.
‘Sorry guys, but this is important,’ Heck said.
Still there was no instant response. Expressions were now worried as well as mystified.
‘Let me explain,’ he said. ‘PC O’Rourke and I are going to sneak around the village, checking on your vehicles. If possible, we’re going to bring a couple back here and drive you all out of the Cradle. We’ve decided not to wait.’
‘So does this mean the invisible men of your firearms department are going to remain that way?’ Bella McCarthy asked. ‘Invisible?’
‘No,’ Heck said. ‘They’re on their way, and they’re doing their damnedest to get here. But we can be a bit more proactive as well.’
‘Do you think that’s actually necessary?’ Burt Fillingham asked. ‘Or will it just make you feel better about yourselves? Bear in mind it’s our motor vehicles you’ll be smashing up.’
‘I’ll be honest with you,’ Heck replied. ‘I’ve reason to believe your cars may all have been disabled already. Perhaps extensively. But we won’t know unless we go and look.’
‘Is this for real?’ Bella McCarthy wondered. ‘A few minutes ago you told us we’d soon be safe. That reinforcements were coming. Even if they aren’t, it’s only just over four hours to sunrise. Can’t we just sit it out here?’
No obvious reply suggested itself to Heck. It was that tightrope again, where you don’t want to fall on the side where everyone panics and gets hysterical, but likewise don’t want to fall on the other side, where everyone is too complacent because they think there is no danger. Gemma solved the problem for him.
‘The weather forecast has changed,’ she lied. ‘The fog is going to linger all day tomorrow and maybe tomorrow night as well. That means whatever problem may be hampering the specialist firearms unit may persist. As we said before, we’ve no reason to believe anyone who stays in this pub is in imminent danger. But as police officers, we can’t just sit around indefinitely.’
‘The best thing we can do is see if we can find our own way out of the Cradle, guys,’ Mary-Ellen added. Our shooters will likely still turn up, but we don’t want to take any chances. All we need is access to a few cars so we can make a decision.’
There was another silence as the villagers took this in. As usual, the chirpy Irish lass who they dealt with on a more regular basis than their local detective, appeared to have a reassuring effect. One by one, five sets of car keys clattered onto the table.
‘Thanks.’ Heck circled around and scooped them up. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Fillingham. We won’t smash anyone’s vehicle. They’re no use to us if they’re not roadworthy.’
The three cops moved back into the kitchen, where Hazel, with an astonishing degree of domestic thoughtfulness, had now made a pile of cheese sandwiches for them. She shrugged, almost embarrassed. ‘You guys can’t run on air all night.’
Gemma, who would be the least useful out there as she didn’t know the layout of the village, was staying behind in the pub. So she stepped aside while Heck and Mary-Ellen, who hadn’t eaten since the morning before, wolfed the snack down. Mary-Ellen then accompanied Hazel out into the rear yard to see if they could improvise any tools into weapons. Heck polished off the last sandwich, and then turned to face Gemma, who regarded him with a vaguely troubled expression.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked. ‘I mean apart from the obvious … that I’m about to do something massively against my better judgement.’
‘Look … Mark, if you’ve genuinely been looking for some kind of leadership from me in this, I’m sorry I’ve not delivered.’
‘I’m sorry I asked you up here in the first place.’ Heck mopped his lips with a napkin. ‘And I mean that in a nice way.’
‘You think it would have been kinder not to tell me you thought the Stranger was in town?’
‘You’d have found out in due course through the normal channels. But … oh shit, I might as well admit it.’ He blushed. ‘I suppose I saw an opportunity to create a kneejerk response … to pull you out of your comfort zone.’
Rather to his surprise, Gemma smiled. ‘You mean like, where I’d be at your mercy?’
‘Sort of.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t do it deliberately, you understand. It was all in the back of my mind. I must have liked the idea of watching you try to take charge of a situation where you didn’t know the lie of the land, didn’t know the people … all set in the worst weather, in the wildest place imaginable. I thought even Gemma Piper, Scotland Yard’s Little Miss Perfect, will screw that up.’ Heck paused for thought. ‘I ought to have known you’d have the sense to take a back seat and let someone who supposedly knows what he’s doing take all the difficult decisions, only chipping in now and then with useful stuff – like that fib about the weather forecast.’
‘I hope that doesn’t backfire on us.’
‘Well, the alternative is telling the villagers there’s a maniac out there who’s gutting people alive and cutting the eyes out of their heads.’
‘I know, I know … the thing is, you and Mary-Ellen going out there again isn’t just against your better judgement, it’s against mine as well. But I’ve never known anything like this. We really are between the devil and the deep blue sea. I think there’s at least as much chance he’ll attack the pub while you’re out as there is that he’ll attack you two.’
‘Maybe just one of us should go and check the cars …?’
‘Oh, do me a favour. One of us, two of us, three, four … the fact is, he’s armed and we’re not. Just go and find some wheels, and get back here pronto, alright?’
Mary-Ellen and Hazel reappeared in the doorway.
‘Nothing more than a few spades and rakes,’ the former said, having found nothing out in the yard they could use in self-defence. ‘Not even a decent pick-axe.’ She patted the baton
and CS canister on her utility belt. ‘I think I prefer my traditional appointments.’
Heck nodded. ‘Good call.’
‘Still no sign of the firearms team?’ she asked.
‘No, still no sign. In which case … you ready?’
Very solemnly, Mary-Ellen saluted.
‘Don’t mess around out there,’ Hazel said brusquely.
‘Not likely,’ Heck replied, as they coated up, pulled their gloves on and stepped out into the yard. The other two women followed.
‘Hazel’s right,’ Gemma said quietly. ‘Be careful. Don’t even think about splitting up. Not for any reason.’
Hazel’s message was to embrace Heck and kiss him on the lips, even forcing her tongue between his teeth. Aware of Gemma watching, he gently resisted that. There was reproach in Hazel’s eyes as he pulled away.
‘Gotta go,’ he said.
She gave a short, terse nod.
He and Mary-Ellen slipped out through the back gate, which was closed behind them. A second later, they heard the pub’s back door slamming as well, and a double-thunk as its bolt was thrown and the barrel-lock turned. They moved one behind the other to the edge of the building, peering over the white picket fence and across the pub beer garden and the leaf-cluttered emptiness of its car park. On all sides, banks of curdled mist corralled their vision. The next nearest building from here was a vaguely visible slate structure housing the pumping equipment that processed water from the tarn.
They crouched to deliberate.
‘The way I see it, we make a circuit of the village anti-clockwise,’ Heck whispered. ‘Start in this northeast corner and work our way around.’
Mary-Ellen nodded.
They clambered over the fence, crossed the pub garden and car park, and circled around the back of the pump-house, following an east–west path which eventually brought them to the low wall at the rear of Dulcie and Sally O’Grady’s property. Here, they paused again – but heard nothing. The fog lay in a deep, motionless gloom. They jumped over the wall, and crept through Dulcie’s frost-hardened flower beds. Beyond that, around the right side of the house, was a car-port wherein sat Sally’s Volkswagen Polo.