Stalkers

by Paul Finch

  Two minutes later, as she drove out of the car park, leaving Laycock fuming behind her, she grabbed a phone from her handbag and stabbed in a number.

  ‘Yeah, Des … anything regarding Heck? Anything at all? Damn it! I don’t care what it takes, Des, find him! And when you do, tell him I’m going to carpet my office with his bloody hide!’

  Chapter 36

  It was a long haul across the estuary, two hours at least, during which time the motor threatened to give out on three occasions. At length the boat beached itself in silt and mud, and Heck and Lauren had to plough knee-deep for another hundred yards before they found firmer ground. The massive petrochemical complex lowered over them, a futuristic city of pipes and tanks, its numerous flame-jets turning the night sky a vivid molten-red. They clambered through piles of rocks and rubble, and scaled a wire-mesh fence before entering its outer compound.

  There were numerous car parks here, but Heck had come inshore in the straightest line possible from Blacksand Tower, hoping that Deke had done the same thing on his way out. It proved a sensible ploy — the only vehicle on this first lot was a black Volvo XC60. They ventured towards it, glancing around. There was no sign of any staff.

  ‘If the alarm goes, leg it,’ Heck said, producing Deke’s car key.

  He pressed the fob button. No alarm went. The XC60’s headlights flashed once and its door locks thudded open.

  Relieved, they climbed inside. The car was brand new and state of the art, its lush, walnut-panelled interior fragrant of leather and crushed velvet.

  ‘The murder business pays well,’ Heck said, thinking about his old Fiat with its dented bodywork and broken air-conditioning.

  He switched the engine on and put the car in gear. The radio hummed to life: the station was tuned to low-key jazz. They headed cautiously up the exit road.

  ‘Think there’ll be a checkpoint?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so. Otherwise, how did he get in here in the first place? This is probably just a visitors’ car park.’

  He was correct. The barrier lifted automatically as they approached it, and soon they were on the A13, driving fast towards the capital. It was another hour and a half’s worth of journey, and midnight had been and gone when they entered the main conurbation. They crossed under the river through the Blackwall Tunnel, and worked their way across South London, finally entering Kingston upon Thames at one-thirty in the morning. Heck pulled up at the front of Deke’s house. Lauren, who’d been half asleep, opened her eyes, yawned — and then jerked upright.

  ‘This is a bit risky, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ve got to try and keep things normal,’ he said. ‘We dump his motor somewhere else, sooner or later it’ll be made for a knocker and an investigation will start. We leave it outside his house, it could be sitting here for months before anyone gets suspicious.’

  He switched the engine off and brandished the house keys. ‘For the same reason, there’ll be no more breaking and entering. This time we go through the front door.’

  She nodded. It made sense, but it was nerve-racking.

  Once inside the house, they closed the door firmly and switched a few lamps on. As before, the security camera tracked their progress. Heck took out Deke’s mobile and switched it on. As he’d suspected, an alert text had already arrived.

  ‘What do we do about that camera?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now. We’ve entered these premises because we’re concerned for the safety of the missing women. I’ve got full power under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. That said, I don’t want to get filmed making free with the owner’s food and drink.’ He took a cover from one of the cushions and tossed it over the camera lens.

  ‘We’re going to help ourselves?’ she said.

  ‘Only to the essentials. I reckon it’s the least he owes us, don’t you? That, and a bath.’

  Lauren glanced in a mirror. They looked like two corpses dug from a graveyard: damp, ragged, their clothes filthy with mud and oil, their faces battered and streaked with blood.

  ‘We’ll get some kip too,’ Heck added. ‘We need it.’ He set the alarm on his watch for five o’clock. ‘Should still give us time to search this place top to bottom.’

  While Lauren went upstairs to the bathroom, he entered the kitchen, checking in the fridge and bread bin. There was sufficient in there to make some sandwiches, which he duly did. There were also several cans of chilled beer. He took it all upstairs to the sleeping area. The door to the bathroom was open. Beyond it, Lauren stood under the shower. Heck placed the tray on a sideboard, and opened a wardrobe. Inside, in addition to an array of designer sports gear and army-surplus wear, there was a wealth of expensive clothing. He selected a few items that he thought might fit him. When Lauren appeared, wrapped in a towel, Heck took his own shower, luxuriating in the hot spray, flexing every aching joint, every strained muscle. When he came out, Lauren had put on one of the tracksuits from the wardrobe; it was black with a white trim, and elasticated at the cuffs and waist so, although it was too big for her, she was able to wear it in reasonable comfort.

  ‘Another four stone and it’d fit you like a glove,’ he said.

  She nodded and smiled, and tried to slide something out of sight — but she missed her sagging pocket and it fell onto the floor. It was Deke’s Glock 9mm. Red-faced, she scooped it up.

  Heck towelled himself dry and put on a pair of clean shorts. ‘I thought we agreed to leave all the weapons behind?’

  She shrugged. ‘I heard everything you said, Heck. But sorry, it doesn’t make sense that we should keep going into situations where we can’t defend ourselves.’

  ‘That gun was used to murder someone, Lauren. And you’re still in possession of it. Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘It’s just for insurance.’

  ‘Insurance against what … us dying or the Nice Guys living?’

  ‘Why don’t we face facts?’ Her voice rose. ‘You’re not going to arrest them. You can’t! You’re not a copper any-more, Heck, you’re just a bloke on the run.’

  ‘So they have to be punished in other ways, is that it?’

  ‘You heard what that bastard said they did to Genene.’

  ‘I didn’t join law enforcement to be judge, jury and executioner. All we can do is make cases for prosecution.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  He held out a hand. ‘Gimme.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I know you’re stressed, Lauren. I know you’re upset. But you think I haven’t felt the same way over the years? You think my heart hasn’t bled for the countless victims of crime I’ve had to deal with — innocent bystanders shot during bank robberies, timid householders beaten up in their own homes, children violated …’

  ‘None of that matters, Heck, because they weren’t your own!’ She glared at him, not just angry now but raging. ‘You talk as if you know these women who’ve been abducted and killed. But you don’t! You’ve never even met them. The day it happens to someone you really care about, to one of yours — you’ll see things differently.’

  ‘And how do you know it hasn’t?’ There was a taut silence, before he added: ‘You know your trouble, Lauren? You’re so wrapped up in how this tragedy has affected you that you’ve not even considered how others are having to deal with it.’

  ‘You’ve not lost anyone in this case.’

  ‘Not in this case, no. But as good as.’ He paused briefly, as if unsure whether to say more. ‘You think your sister has been raped, tortured and killed. Understandably you’re worried, you’re distraught. But I know for a fact that my brother was raped, tortured and killed. So how do you think that makes me feel?’

  ‘Your …?’ She was astonished; the anger drained out of her like water from a sieve. ‘You never told me.’

  ‘Yeah, well maybe it was none of your business. But seeing as you’ve more or less demanded to know about it …’

  He continued to
get dressed, pulling on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a fresh t-shirt.

  ‘Tom was three years older than me, and a bit of a rebel — I mean an intellectual rebel, not a troublemaker. He was doing his A-levels at Bradburn Tech when he first got into drugs. My mum and dad were creatures from another era. They didn’t understand any of that. When he got arrested for smoking a joint at a party, they were beside themselves. My dad’s response was to severely punish him rather than guide him. There was a complete breakdown in communications, and the next thing Tom’s dropped out of college and gone on the dole. Now he was on stronger stuff — pills and heroin. Instead of getting him help, my dad just bollocked the shit out of him, took every penny he got from the social, which of course only made things worse. Eventually, Tom and some junkie friend of his got caught burglarising the park cafe. It was a nothing crime. It wasn’t a residential property, there was no one in there, nothing worth taking. But unfortunately it was just around this time that some nutjob who the newspapers had nicknamed the “Bradburn Granny Basher” was doing the rounds of the town’s sheltered accommodation. He’d smash his way in, beat seven colours out of the OAPs living there, and make off with all their savings — usually about two or three quid. The team who’d been put together to bring him down were having no luck. One particularly lazy bastard DI, who was feeling pressured to get a result, decided that by some stretch of the imagination — and I mean a considerable stretch — the photo-fit they’d got of the Granny Basher matched the look of this young drug addict currently in custody for burglary.’

  Heck cracked open a can of beer and took a long sip. Lauren listened in silence.

  ‘As you can imagine, even with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in force, it’s never been impossible for a ruthless copper to frame a suspect … especially if that suspect is a strung-out junkie who’ll say anything to get a fix. Well, the inevitable soon happened. Tom got leaned on hard, and eventually confessed. The next thing, he’s been charged and convicted. He was eighteen by this time, so he was sent to adult prison.’

  Heck paused, sipped more beer. ‘He wasn’t up to that. He only lasted a month, but at a rough guess he must’ve been raped fifty times before he decided to call it quits. He went to the shower, took a razor and slashed both his wrists and both his groins. It took him two hours to bleed to death, and it was another hour before anyone found him.’

  He gave her a long, level gaze. ‘You want to know what the most painful part of all that was, Lauren? About three weeks later — three weeks, that’s all — the real Granny Basher got caught in the act by two sharp-eyed uniforms.’

  He shook his head, and finished the can.

  All Lauren could do was stutter: ‘I hope, well, I hope your family got some compo?’

  ‘Course we did, but surely you of all people realise how little that actually means?’

  ‘Yeah, I do … but hey, you then went and joined the police. What the hell possessed you?’

  Heck shrugged. ‘Exactly what my mum, dad and sister asked. I mean, after Tom’s death the police were personae non gratae as far as we were concerned. They were the biggest scrotes on Earth. And I just dropped everything and went off and joined them. You ask me why … I don’t know. It was vague, I suppose. I wanted to redress the balance, put right the grievous wrong that had been done to my family in the only way I could — by joining up and showing the useless bastards how the job should be done.’

  ‘Which you’ve been doing ever since.’

  He chuckled bitterly. ‘And what a smart move it was. My dad never talked to me again ’til the day he died. My mum tried to understand, tried to forgive, but I don’t think she ever really succeeded. And Dana — well, you’ve seen the way things are between me and her.’

  ‘From what I saw, that’s mainly you.’

  ‘That’s because she feels guilty about it now.’ He munched on a sandwich, but didn’t have much taste for it. ‘She tries too hard to be all the things to me that she wasn’t during the years she ignored my very existence. Things got so bad that I didn’t just leave home, I ended up leaving town — I was in the Greater Manchester Police at the time, but requested a transfer to the Met. I basically gave up my entire world because my family weren’t prepared to let me live in it. And Dana played her part, let me tell you.’

  ‘So now you’re teaching her a lesson?’

  ‘I don’t mean to, but I can’t pretend I don’t feel resentful. Anyway … the upshot is that you’re wrong. I do know what it’s like to lose a loved one to violence. But grabbing a gun so you can fight those responsible in the urban jungle, like some hoodlum, is the worst thing you can do.’

  ‘Heck … whether we like it or not, we’re already in that jungle.’

  Before he could answer, the phone beside the bed started ringing. They peered at it. It rang maybe four times before the answering-machine kicked in.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Deke’s pre-recorded voice said.

  ‘Deke?’ It was a man; by his accent, he was from the Midlands. ‘Might I remind you, we were expecting a progress report from last night. Anyway, contact us when you can. In the meantime, it’s a special for Alpha-Yankee-Zulu-Zulu-Zulu. Usual terms.’

  The caller hung up. Silence followed.

  ‘“A special”?’ Lauren said. ‘Sounds a bit worrying.’

  Heck crossed to the hidden panel they’d found the previous time, opened it and climbed the stair to the attic. When Lauren got up there, he’d already pulled one of the buff files and spread it open. A photograph showed a dark-haired man in his mid-forties. There was a sheet with typewritten information, including the address of the man’s home, which was in Hampstead, and his place of work, which was at an investment bank in the City. His name was Ian Terrance Blenkinsop.

  Heck showed her the coded tag on the file cover. It read: Ayzzz.

  ‘Alpha-Yankee-Zulu …’ Lauren’s words tailed off.

  ‘Looks like we came to the right place after all,’ Heck said. ‘We’ve just found our next lead.’

  Chapter 37

  When Ian Blenkinsop checked in for work that morning, he looked better than Sally had seen in some time: bright-eyed, clean-shaved, wearing a pressed suit. He was even smiling. But she was a little surprised when she saw that he was carrying an overnight bag instead of his briefcase, and especially so when he informed her that he was taking some unplanned leave.

  ‘I’m joining Yvonne and Carly at Lake Como,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I think I’ve been overdoing things a little and I need a break.’

  ‘Well … okay,’ she answered. ‘I mean, there’s probably nothing in your schedule that we can’t rearrange.’

  ‘Good, that’s excellent. Because I’ve got a flight booked for two o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘I see.’

  Sally wasn’t quite sure what else to say. This was a little irregular. Even someone as highly placed in the firm as Ian Blenkinsop occasionally had responsibilities that he couldn’t just drop on a whim. Of course there was no question that he’d been ‘off-colour’ the last few days; he’d almost gone through a personality change. This morning, though he’d only been in for a minute or so, he seemed a lot more like his old self.

  ‘I can’t wait to see them,’ he confided in her. ‘It isn’t a good thing being left on your own all summer, Sally. I think we’ll have to reconsider this arrangement in the future.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she agreed.

  ‘Anyway, I’m just letting you know.’ He slipped an envelope across the desk towards her. ‘Here’s the appropriate paperwork. No doubt, Mr Brahms upstairs will have something to say about it. Just refer him to my mobile if he does. I’ll take full responsibility. Oh Sally, there’s one more thing … if any more police officers come and want to speak to me, I’m abroad but you’re not sure where.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She looked astonished.

  ‘To be honest, it’s all becoming a bit of a nuisance. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but that chap who was here yesterday
, he’s from the Fraud Squad. They want me to witness for them in an embezzlement case. I’ve told them everything I know, which isn’t much. But they keep pestering. Frankly, I can’t be doing with it.’

  Sally still looked astonished. ‘Is this wise?’

  ‘Whether it’s wise or not, that’s what I’d like you to tell them. From this moment on,’ and he checked his Rolex, ‘I’m officially on holiday.’

  ‘But Mr Blenkinsop, if it’s a pending court case …?’

  Blenkinsop kept smiling, but suddenly his smile didn’t reach his eyes. There was a glint of sweat on his brow. ‘Sally darling, I don’t know anything. And if they need to go to the trouble and expense of tracking me down and sending a summons abroad, I’m sure they’ll finally realise that.’

  Sally didn’t look placated, and he knew why. She’d probably be quite happy for him to take a few weeks off. It would mean she could keep lax hours and that all she’d really have to do was answer the phone and make coffee for herself — but now she might have to divert a police enquiry too. Well, it was tough. She could thank her lucky stars it wasn’t her disappearance they were looking into.

  Blenkinsop left, but only after removing certain items from his desk. He extricated a diary from his top drawer, tore a single page from it and fed it carefully into the shredder. He nodded and smiled to her as he finally departed, but she had difficulty reciprocating, even though she intended to do as he asked. Sally knew which side her bread was buttered on. She was well paid here and Mr Blenkinsop was hardly a demanding boss. If it came to it, she wouldn’t be comfortable telling the police a lie. But then of course she’d only be following orders and couldn’t possibly be held to account for it. More than likely, as he’d repeatedly assured her before leaving, there was almost no chance the police would come to see him again.