by Paul Finch
‘What’s this, Alan?’ Gail wondered. ‘An attempt to create extenuating circumstances?’
‘You tried to kill him, Heckenburg. You’re just as guilty of attempted murder as me.’
‘So is that an admission?’ Gail persisted.
Devlin glanced round at her. ‘I’ll hold my hand up – but only to that thing with the bridge. I didn’t have anything to do with any other murders. And our Wayne had nothing to do with any of it.’
‘But he was with you at Thornton Farm. The security camera caught two of you.’
‘He was just doing what I told him.’ Devlin removed the glasses from his sweat-slick nose and rubbed their lenses with his thumbs. ‘He comes over like an ’ardcase, but truth is he’s thick.’
‘You know why that doesn’t work for me, Alan?’ Heck said. ‘Because your Wayne played his part well enough back in Nottingham, when the two of you tried to divert us to Matlock so Jimmy Hood could escape.’
‘Listen to me.’ Devlin rapped on the table. ‘Our Wayne’s as thick as that. He can’t see the consequences of his actions. He doesn’t ask questions, he just plays a role, does what he’s told.’
‘Still sounds to me like he was aiding and abetting attempted murder at Thornton Farm bridge?’ Heck said.
‘Hardly. When we got to the farm’s north entrance, I was the one who went up the road. I was the one who checked the bridge out. He stayed with the van, so he didn’t know nothing about the river. When I got back, I told him your car would go into a ditch. That you’d probably get roughed up a bit, but nothing worse.’
‘You’d better hope Wayne’s version of events matches that,’ Heck said. ‘We’ll be speaking to him shortly. Course, if you can join all the dots for us right now, that interview might not take very long.’
‘First I need a guarantee you won’t be charging him with attempted murder, not even with aiding and abetting.’
Heck shook his head. ‘No guarantees, Alan. Like I say, we’ve already got you bang to rights. This is just for clarity.’
‘You’ll ruin that lad’s life.’
‘He’s already halfway to doing that himself.’
‘Just as long as you know he had absolutely nothing to do with these other accident-murder things, and neither did I.’
Gail mused. ‘We can only make a decision on that when we know exactly what happened at Thornton Farm.’
‘Okay …’ Devlin half smirked again. ‘But I’m telling you, you won’t like it.’
‘I didn’t when I got dumped in the river,’ Heck said.
‘No, this is worse. You think I’m a bastard, you should look to some of your own.’
‘Explain,’ Gail said.
‘You probably won’t believe this.’
‘Try us.’
Devlin looked at Heck again. ‘It was in all the papers about Jimbo – you must’ve seen that? Me badmouthing you and all them Nottingham coppers.’
‘So?’
‘That’s how he found out about me.’
‘Who found out?’
‘One of your mob.’
Gail looked puzzled. ‘Another police officer?’
Devlin nodded. ‘He got in touch by phone, said he’d been reading the papers and thought I had a case. But he reckoned it was all done and dusted for Jimbo.’ He glanced at Heck. ‘Said there was nothing to be done legally, but if I wanted to get back at you in other ways he knew where you were; said you were a bit off your normal patch down in Surrey and didn’t know your way around. It wouldn’t be a bad time for us to come and bushwhack you. “Bushwhack”. That was his word, not mine.’
Heck listened intently. Gail on the other hand looked astonished and not a little doubtful. ‘Some bloke you don’t know rang you up with information like that – right out of the blue, encouraging you to ambush a police officer? And you just bought it?’
Devlin shrugged. ‘Not at first. I asked him why he was doing this. He said you were a bent bastard, Heckenburg, and needed taking out. Said you were always being investigated but no one on the force could touch you, you were that cute.’
‘What was this copper’s name?’ Heck asked.
‘He wouldn’t give me his name. But I’m not fucking stupid. I rang him back on the same number a bit later that night. Someone else answered, and said they were on a DS Pavey’s phone. That ring a bell? Detective Sergeant Pavey?’
Gail and Heck regarded Devlin in stiff silence.
He shrugged. ‘You don’t believe me … you’ve got my phone in your lock-up. Feel free to access its records. I don’t mind. You’ll see I’ve been in contact with this fella.’
‘How did you feel about all this?’ Heck finally asked.
‘Manna from heaven, wasn’t it? I only knew you as a name. You could be working anywhere in the country, no one was going to tell me. And then this comes along. Normally I wouldn’t have acted on it, but I’d only just been to visit Jimbo, and he’s having a nightmare. Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t stop crying. I had to put things right for him, any way I could.’
‘So you took Pavey up on his offer?’ Heck said. ‘Is that what you’re telling us?’
‘He hadn’t made an offer as such. But I came down here the next day, got hold of a knocker I could do a job in—’
‘How did you know to approach the Snake Eyes?’ Gail interrupted. She still sounded sceptical. It had taken her a tad longer than Heck to get used to the idea that a fellow police officer was implicated in this.
Devlin regarded her with something like pity. ‘Everyone knows everyone else in this game.’
‘What’re you saying, Alan?’ Heck said. ‘That you’re still an active gangster?’
‘Let’s just say I still know plenty firm in Nottingham.’
‘Oh, I’m sure.’
‘You don’t break off those kinds of relationships, Heckenburg. They’re lifelong.’
‘And how did this relationship work out for you?’ Heck asked.
‘I went to see some faces … told ’em who you were, where you were, that I wanted to square things up for Jimmy.’
‘And they sent you to the Snake Eyes?’ Gail said.
Devlin shrugged. ‘Why not? The target was in Surrey, the Snake Eyes were south London-based. Well within strike range. Seems the Snake Eyes owed our lot for some deal they’ve had going with them. Don’t ask me what, because even if I knew, my life wouldn’t be worth living if I grassed it up. In return, the Snake Eyes found me a billet and a motor to do the job in. But that’s the only involvement they had. The rest was down to me.’
Heck pondered this; oddly enough, it rang true. ‘And how did you know about Thornton Farm?’ he asked.
Devlin adjusted the glasses on his sweaty face. ‘You’ll have to ask your mate Pavey. It was the morning of 24 July. He knew we were down here by then – keeping tabs on us, I suppose. He called us again; said you were up in East Anglia, but stopping somewhere called Thornton Farm on the way back. He even gave us the address. Said it was well isolated, ideal for what we had in mind. But we had to scoot to get there ahead of you.’
Gail now looked incredulous at what she was hearing. ‘How did DS Pavey know about that dangerous bridge?’
‘He didn’t.’ Devlin glanced at Heck again, eyes gleaming with a touch of his old belligerence. ‘That was all me. We were just going to lie in wait. Run you off some lonely road. Give you a kicking. But when we checked the place out and I saw there were two bridges … well, seemed perfect. No one would ever know it was deliberate. Not even you.’
Heck returned the penetrating gaze without speaking.
There was a long, thoughtful silence.
‘One thing we need to be clear about, Alan,’ Gail finally said. ‘When you moved the danger sign, leaving that dangerous bridge open to the public, was it your precise intention to kill Sergeant Heckenburg?’
‘Not kill him as such. Just fuck him up.’
‘It was a river. You surely realised there was an extremely good chance he woul
d die.’
‘What was it you said to me once, Sergeant Heckenburg?’ Devlin chuckled. ‘“Accidents happen”?’
‘What about DS Pavey?’ Gail asked. ‘You say he didn’t know about the dangerous bridge. But did he at least know that you planned to seriously injure Sergeant Heckenburg?’
‘Well, I can’t answer for him. But I wouldn’t say he brought me all the way from Nottingham to give lover boy here a tickling. Would you?’
It was early evening when Gail emerged from the personnel door at the rear of Brixton Police Station. Heck was waiting, arms folded, leaning against his Mazda.
‘Done?’ he said, as she approached.
She nodded. ‘Charged him with attempted murder and, bearing in mind that motor of yours, criminal damage to the tune of fifteen grand.’
Heck smiled. ‘That was a nice touch. What about the lad?’
‘Conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.’
‘He’s only young, but given his record he should get a couple of years at least.’
‘Then you’ll have to watch your back all over again.’
‘Occupational hazard. In the meantime, DC Honeyford, your busy shift is about to get a hell of a lot busier.’
She nodded glumly.
‘What’s your theory?’ he asked her.
She shrugged. ‘Ron must have overheard me and Will Royton discussing your proposed trip to Thornton Farm. He was in the canteen at the time. I should’ve realised. Bastard’s always earwigging. Even when there’s nothing in it for him.’
‘You know what you’ve got to do?’
‘Yep.’
‘I can do it for you – if you want?’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘No. This one’s on me.’
They drove back to Surrey, one behind the other, taking the A3 down to the M25, and the A25 to Reigate. Their cars came to rest side by side in the station car park. They got out and locked the doors.
Gail looked strained and nervous as she took in the night air, but as before, her street garb of jeans, sweat-top and trainers suited her. Young though she was, despite her slight tendency to neurosis, it was now plain to Heck that she was right at home in the macho world of CID. She didn’t just look like a plain-clothes cop, she sounded like one. She had the guts, the attitude and the nous. She might not be as tough as Gemma, but she was on her way. Though first there was a certain monkey she needed to get off her back.
‘These are great collars, you know,’ Heck said. ‘They’ll put your name in lights for this lot.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘At the end of today it’ll probably be a good idea if I put in for a transfer.’
‘Nah … what little I know of Will Royton, I don’t think you’ll have a problem.’
They crossed the green together on foot, approaching the Ploughman’s Rest side by side but several yards apart, like gunfighters advancing on a saloon. Heck almost expected someone to burst out and challenge them. When they entered the downstairs bar it was crowded with drinkers, which created a warm, jovial atmosphere. Ron Pavey was in the midst of it, slumped against the bar counter, holding court among his usual clutch of junior detectives. He didn’t initially notice Heck, who leaned on the door jamb to watch. Pavey only spotted Gail as she wove her way through the throng towards him, not recognising her at first as she wasn’t her usual preened self. When he did, he made a double take. Then he grinned broadly, pushing out his arms to create an alley through his noisy posse.
‘Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been doing some real police work at last?’
‘Ron Pavey,’ she replied, taking the pint from his hand and passing it to one of his cronies, and then snapping a cuff on his wrist, ‘you’re being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Detective Sergeant Mark Heckenburg.’
‘What?’ he laughed, his eyebrows arching, though his cheeks had reddened.
She twisted his arm into a painful gooseneck. He gasped as she forcibly turned him round. There were mutters of surprise and consternation. A bottle went over as the space around him widened. Other conversations fell silent.
‘You don’t have to say anything unless you wish to, though it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something you may later rely on in court!’
‘What the fuck … you stupid bitch!’ he shouted.
She snapped the other bracelet into place. ‘Anything you do say will be given in evidence.’
‘Fucking idiotic airhead bitch!’ He wrestled violently. ‘What’s this fucking game about?’
‘A little help here, please,’ Gail said, struggling to hold on to him.
There was brief inertia around her before two or three of the other detectives, though half-dazed with surprise, laid hold of the prisoner.
‘We’ll walk him to the nick,’ Gail said. ‘No point calling for transport when we’re this close.’
Pavey continued to struggle and swear while she and her assistants wheeled him across the thunderstruck barroom. As they passed each other in the doorway, Heck grinned into his face and said: ‘Well, well … look what the cat dragged out.’
Chapter 30
‘Heck? It’s Eric.’
‘Hi, mate,’ Heck said, having to cup his other hand to his ear to shut out the uproar in the Custody Suite. Several officers from Street Thefts had now arrived, a couple of senior rank, and were in loud, angry dispute with Gail Honeyford, Sergeant Maxwell, who was the Reigate Hall Custody Officer, and Will Royton, whom Maxwell had called in as soon as he’d clapped eyes on his latest prisoner.
‘Sounds like it’s all kicking off there?’ Eric Fisher said.
‘You have no idea,’ Heck replied, stepping into an empty interview room and closing the door. ‘Anyone ever talks to you again about sleepy Surrey and its quiet country lanes, don’t you believe it.’
‘Listen mate, have you got five minutes?’
‘The paperwork mountain has just grown exponentially, but I’ve always got five minutes for you, Eric. Better make it no more than that though – this isn’t my phone, the battery’s running low and I haven’t got a charger for it.’
‘Okay. Listen, you wanted me to chase up these weird accidents, and see if there were links between the names involved, yeah?’
Heck pulled up a chair. ‘That’s true.’
‘At first it was an absolute non-starter. Most of these people don’t even live in the same part of the country. None of them have got any kind of form, let alone criminal records I could cross-reference, or anything like that. The ones down as APs have no connection whatsoever to each other or to any of the people accused of injuring them.’
‘Okay. Well, you tried …’
‘Hang on, that’s not the finish. I was ready to knock off, but kept telling myself “one more push”. I got to thinking about doing searches on surnames in general, rather than specific individuals. I mean, it was still a long shot. But guess what?’
‘You didn’t come up with something?’
‘Yes I did. The Thornton family.’
‘Okay …?’
‘Seems there’s a younger sister, Tilly.’
‘I haven’t met her,’ Heck said, ‘but I’ve heard about her. She’s away at uni.’
‘Yeah, well back in 2007 she was at public school in Gatcombe, which is just outside Reigate. In the April of that year, she was at a house party there. Apparently it was going on all night. A neighbour complained and got fobbed off with a mouthful. He called local plod, and the party was broken up. Quite a few of the kids got arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Tilly Thornton was one of them. Thanks to having a clean record, she got off with a juvenile caution, but I don’t suppose her family were very happy.’
‘Okay,’ Heck said again, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Now tell me who the complaining neighbour was. I know you’re dying to.’
‘Heck, it was Harold Lansing. He moved out to the country later, but at the time he was a townie. His hou
se was in Gatcombe.’
‘Eric – contrary to what they say about you, you are a prince among men.’
‘I take it you’re happy?’
‘I’m happier.’
‘Well here’s some further info to complete the job.’
‘Go on.’
‘Maybe a coincidence.’
‘Just tell me!’
‘Tillly Thornton’s a student at the University of Surrey. Guildford Hall of Humanities.’
‘I know.’
Fisher paused. ‘So was Dean Torbert. Remember him? The spoilt brat in the Porsche?’
‘Was he indeed?’ Heck had to conceal tremors of excitement as he slipped out of the interview room and sneaked past the heated debate still raging in the Custody Suite.
Gail was standing her corner despite Pavey’s colleagues from Street Thefts alternately pleading with her to drop the whole thing, insisting it was all some ridiculous misunderstanding, or making ill-concealed threats about what might happen if it proceeded. Such height of feeling was only to be expected. You didn’t arrest a fellow copper without it causing an eruption. But Will Royton, having seen and heard at least some of the evidence, was standing foursquare beside his own detective, and now it sounded as if the local internal enquiries mob were en route.
Heck sidled unnoticed into the outer passage before asking Fisher: ‘Did Torbert and Tilly actually know each other?’
‘That, I can’t tell you. Surrey Uni’s a big operation.’
‘Like you say, it could be a coincidence.’
‘Another one?’ Fisher said.
Heck pondered it again. ‘You got an address for Tilly?’
‘I’ll text it to you when I can dig it up.’
‘Good work, mate. Guildford’s only fifteen minutes’ drive away.’
Fisher sounded surprised. ‘You’re off to see her now?’
‘Without going into the details, I don’t particularly want to hang around here.’
It wasn’t just that Heck hoped to avoid the fireworks going off by the dozen in the Custody area. That other thought had now come back to haunt him – the one that had briefly struck during the battle with the Snake Eyes; that sometimes criminals were even cleverer than you thought, that sometimes they played games within games.