Читать книгу A Wanted Man [A PC Heckenburg Short Story] - Paul Finch - Страница 6

Iconic symbol of the North West it might be, but it was an old and venerable signpost now, erected some time back in the mid-’50s. It was now ’97, so that meant it had been perched up there, what, forty years at least? It probably wasn’t in the best condition. No wonder it didn’t seem as brightly lit as it had on those fun shopping trips into Manchester he used to make with his mum and dad when he was a tot. It might even be flickering, though that could have been an optical illusion created by the four miles lying between here and there; four miles crammed with slate roofs, brick chimneys and spindly television aerials, most of which were only visible in outline at this deathly hour.

Granada Television, he thought to himself, wondering briefly what job opportunities there might be over there. Did they take on police advisers for their productions?

It wasn’t a bad idea, that. The problem was, of course, that he’d only been in the job a bit over two years, which would hardly impress anyone, much less a hardnosed TV exec. Anyway, who was he kidding? Heck wasn’t going anywhere. You didn’t vacate a seventeen grand a year gig just because you’d had a run-in with one of your line-managers. Sergeant Crawford was the prize wanker of prize wankers, everyone knew that – he got on all their cases from time to time, though perhaps Heck was more sensitive to it at present because of the problems at home. Either way, you didn’t pack your career in – and that was what Heck had here, not a job, a career! – just because some pompous arse-wipe felt better about himself if he gave out a few needless bollockings now and then.

The dead air of the force radio hissed incessantly, like wind filtered through decayed brickwork. It was a familiar sound to coppers alone on duty in the wee small hours, but it was never less than eerie. It called to mind a desert, or wilderness, creating a sense of isolation, but at the same time putting you on edge, hinting that things were going on out there just beyond the range of your vision and hearing. This was night in the city. A time and place where bad things happened. That had to be the case, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? You wouldn’t be watching from the shadows, a guardian of the peace, but also the hunter waiting patiently for his prey. Of course, none of that necessarily made you feel strong. You were vulnerable too, out here in the dark on your own, condemned by the nature of who you were, to plunge straight in at the first sign of trouble. Oh no, there was nowhere to hide when you were a copper.

That said, not everyone wanted to hide. Some were more than comfortable in this environment, even if they were relatively new to it.

Heck, for one.

His main complaint about dank, misty nights in late autumn was how cold they were, despite his thermal undies, and the thick, black waterproofs he wore over his uniform. But the restricted visibility, the stillness, the spectral mist – creepy yeah, but all for the good if it lured out the bad ’uns. Who knew, maybe tonight it would lure out the Spider himself?

That would suit Heck.

He adjusted the radio’s volume control and sat back, glancing down the slope at the rows of concrete tenements along the bottom. It was so late now that even down there – “Dodge City”, as it was known on the F Division – only one or two lights were still showing; orange and yellow blips in jumbled blackness. Then there was a sharp rat-at-at-tat on the driver’s window.

Heck whipped around – and saw the pretty, freckle-nosed face of PC Shawna McCluskey grinning through the glass. He slumped back again as she made her way around the front of the police van and climbed into the cab on the passenger side.

‘Thought I was about to catch you napping,’ she chuckled, flipping off her chequer-banded hat, shaking out her long, dark ponytail.

‘Gotta be quicker than that to catch me, McCluskey,’ he replied.

‘Challenge, eh?’ She pulled her gloves off and took a pack of foil-clad sandwiches from her anorak pocket, carefully unwrapping them. ‘Want one of these?’

‘What are they?’

‘Jam and peanut butter.’

‘God almighty …’

‘They’re good!’ she protested, her mouth already full.

‘Great for the waistline too.’

‘Loaded with sugar, yeah. Best thing on nights. Keeps you alert.’

‘I was born alert,’ Heck said, without conviction. He gazed back through the windshield. At present, it was a struggle to raise any enthusiasm for the usual night-shift banter, even with Shawna. ‘What you doing all the way out here, anyway?’

‘I’m on Four-Beat. Where else am I supposed to be?’

‘You still must’ve walked two miles from the nick to get up here.’

‘That’s what you do midweek, isn’t it?’ She munched contentedly.

Heck pondered that. If you liked a bit of action, midweek on nights could be a chore. Even in Salford, combine a midweek night shift with winter weather, and you were looking at tedium personified. One way to deal with that on foot patrol – in fact the only way to deal with it – was to slowly, systematically plod every street on your beat, no matter how far flung they were. Best to keep your eyes peeled and your ears pinned back, of course, but on the whole the emphasis should be on pacing yourself, because you might have nothing else to do but pound those pavements for the entire eight hours. Not that it was much of a problem for Heck. Increasingly these days, he was on mobile patrol. As a young, able-bodied bloke, his ability to arrive promptly at violent incidents was deemed desirable. As such, he generally didn’t have time to get bored.

He wasn’t bored now if he was honest; the main problem with quiet moments like this was the time it gave him to brood. Official police adviser at Granada TV. Yeah … right.

‘How come you’re not having your grub back at the nick?’ he asked.

‘Too conscientious,’ Shawna replied.

‘You’re entitled to a refs break.’

‘So what? Settle your arse on one of them armchairs at this time of night, and it’s difficult getting off it again.’ She yawned. ‘Doesn’t matter how many jam butties you’ve scoffed. What’s your excuse anyway?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re on the same refs as me, and I don’t see you skedaddling back to the nick.’

He shrugged. ‘Not hungry.’

‘Good answer.’ She crammed the last scrap of sandwich into her mouth, chewed it thoroughly and swallowed. ‘Bollocks too. So what is it really?’

Heck and Shawna were both twenty-one. They’d come through basic training together at Bruche and at GMP’s own establishment, Sedgley Park, and had both been assigned to the F Division at roughly the same time. Though they’d only known each other for that relatively short period, it had been an intensity of experience that had created a real sense of familiarity among all those participating. He ought to have realised she’d detect that something was bugging him.

‘You’re not your usual piss-taking self,’ she added somewhat unnecessarily.

‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.

‘Trouble with your mum and dad again?’

‘Well … there would be trouble with Mum and Dad, but as I’m not living with them anymore, it can’t be that, can it?’

‘Yeah, I forgot … you’ve got a flat in Hag Fold now, haven’t you? Awesome.’

‘It’ll serve.’

‘Till when?’

Heck sighed. ‘Excellent question.’

He pondered the crappy new place he was now being forced to live in, and perhaps unsurprisingly, wondered again about his chosen path in life. It was all very well telling himself this was his career. He loved the job for sure; two years in, and he couldn’t picture himself doing anything else. But he’d sort of sidestepped into it. And even now the perverseness of that decision perplexed him. Okay, after years of messing around at school, his qualifications weren’t exactly mind-blowing, so his career options had been limited. However, the police hadn’t been looking for academics, and they’d offered a lot – good money, a unique kind of camaraderie, a guaranteed job for life unless he really fouled up in some way. None of that was to be found in the normal workplace. But his mum and dad, and even his older sister, Dana, had been floored by the decision – and with more than a little justification. Heck’s brother Tom, a drug addict, had died in prison in 1992, having committed suicide after suffering unbearable brutality and sexual abuse at the hands of fellow inmates. He was serving life at the time for a series of violent burglaries for which he’d been framed by a lazy CID unit. The fact that Tom was exonerated shortly afterwards made no difference to the Heckenburg family; nor did the generous compensation they later received. Though a law-abiding clan, from that moment on the police had been their ultimate enemy, their nemesis – and not just the officers responsible, all officers.

And then Heck had gone and joined them.

It didn’t take long for family bewilderment to transform into a sense of anger and betrayal. His garbled explanations hadn’t helped much – all that stuff about it being his only career option, and even less convincingly, that he’d wanted to show the bastards how the job should really be done. He’d used that latter explanation so many times since, and the truth was he didn’t know if he believed it himself. Needless to say, he was shown the door of the family home. He’d opted briefly for police housing; he’d even lodged for a time with his uncle, a local Catholic priest, but that had caused further family disruption. So in the end he’d got his own place, a flat in the aforementioned Hag Fold, which was such a rundown district that it was never likely to satisfy for long.

Only yesterday he’d made yet another cap-in-hand approach to his parents, which was wordlessly rejected. So he now felt he’d reached the end of that particular tether. Quite clearly, there was nothing for him in his hometown of Bradburn. There was no reason ever to go back there, in fact it was worse than that. Bradburn was eight miles from Hag Fold and thirteen from Salford. But suddenly even that felt too close for comfort.

So what was the next stage, he wondered. A departure from Manchester. A not-so-fond farewell to the North West itself. He’d recently seen an article that the Metropolitan Police in London were looking to start recruiting again. An experienced constable would almost certainly interest them. That would be another massive rift in his life, but it wasn’t like he’d be saying goodbye to lots of things he’d miss. Sergeant Crawford, for one. Yep, the guy’s arsey attitude earlier this shift had come at just the right time for Heck.

‘Don’t tell me this is all down to that spat you had with Don Crawford,’ Shawna said, again almost able to read his thoughts.

Heck sniffed. ‘By “spat”, you mean that humiliating lecture he subjected me to, which everyone on the Division also overheard?’

‘Hey, it was instructive … he’s a sergeant, you’re a PC. What do you expect?’

‘He’s a shithouse. Did you hear what he said?’

She snickered. ‘He’s Sergeant of Comms, Heck. Obviously I heard him. But I didn’t hear you. What did you say to set him off?’

Heck bit his lip. He didn’t mind being shouted and bawled at. That went with the police constable territory. If it wasn’t the yobs on the street after you’d collared them for something, it was their mums and girlfriends when you were searching their drum afterwards, or the gaffers back at the nick when they’d found out you’d filled in a form incorrectly. But this incident earlier hadn’t involved any raised voices, no red-faced effing and blinding. Just a slow, syrupy piece of condescending advice – which, as it was delivered over the divisional radio – would ensure everyone on duty that night was listening.

‘For future reference, 1415 …, the correct verbal procedure, as you’d know perfectly well if you ever behaved correctly, or even like a professional, is as follows. “Can I check a body on our beloved Police National Computer … please?” Followed by your location, then his surname, then his first name, then his age, then his ethnic status – IC1 for example – then his gender, then his place of birth, and so forth.’

Typical of Don Crawford, that ridiculously over-preened twonk up at Comms. Apparently he had twenty years in the job but most of it he’d spent indoors. He was a stickler for paperwork … weren’t they all, tosspots like him! With his immaculate uniform – razor-creased trousers, shirt sleeves folded back to the regulation three inches, shoes like mirrors and all that – not to mention his blond flicked hair and his matching blond moustache and sideys, all so delicately clipped and trimmed. But he could afford to look like that, couldn’t he, spending every hour of every shift in his command chair.

‘Go on!’ Shawna urged Heck. ‘What did you say?’ She wore that impish, pixie grin of hers. She’d find it hilarious of course, when Heck finally told her.

‘I’d just stopped and searched two lads on Oldman Street.’

‘Justifiably, I hope?’

‘Hey, they were out at two in the morning. On a Wednesday. Plus, I was sure I’d heard smashing glass a minute earlier.’

She looked amused and sceptical both at the same time. ‘Really?’

‘I was driving around, looking for the source of it, when I stopped them.’

‘And that’s when you thought you’d run a PNC check?’

‘Course.’

‘And gave verbal procedure a miss?’

‘Well …’

‘Go on.’

‘Look, I was under pressure. I was on my tod, there were two of them … they had a shifty look and they were giving me a packet of grief, telling me I’d stopped them purely ’cause they were Stone Roses look-alikes, that it was harassment. All the usual shit. So I grabbed the radio, trying to keep an eye on both of them … trying to keep my temper and at the same time get their details. But all I actually said to Crawford was: “Two scrotes for the box, sarge, if you’ve got a sec”.’

‘“Two scrotes for the box?”’ Shawna snickered again, then guffawed. ‘You’d better hope no members of the public overheard … a recipe for disaster, that. But listen, Heck, you can’t screw up Comms’s meticulous procedures … you’ve got to give ’em everything up front, you know that. Anyway, I take it there was no joy?’

‘No trace, not wanted, not known … you name it. Had to let the little sods go.’

‘Maybe someone’ll find a break in the morning?’

‘Yeah, and CID will get the prisoners.’

‘Never mind. Perhaps you’ll catch the Spider instead.’

‘Nah.’ Heck turned thoughtful again. ‘DI Channing reckons he’s well away. Waste of time even thinking about him.’

‘Give over,’ she said, ‘… you’d love to nail that bastard, wouldn’t you!’

‘Who wouldn’t? But … like I say,’ Heck shook his head with certainty, ‘he’s well gone.’

‘Just think … you nab the Spider and you can shove him up Don Crawford’s arse.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that?’

Heck shrugged and said nothing.

The so-called ‘Spider’ was a prolific housebreaker who’d been terrorising the whole of West Manchester for the last three years. The press had dubbed him with his bizarre nickname because of his apparent array of acrobatic skills. He often entered private residences via skylights or upstairs windows, usually having scaled the drainage pipes and wormed his way in through the narrowest of gaps. Having been chased in the past, he’d escaped over rooftops, leaping drops between structures and vaulting high garden walls. Even so, the nickname had caused annoyance in some quarters because it was felt it was over-sensational, thus diluting the seriousness of the felon’s crimes – though technically a burglar, he was primarily a sex offender, raping and beating the lone female occupants of the houses he targeted. To date he’d struck eighteen times, though his most recent offence had been a year last September, which suggested to Detective Inspector Channing’s thirty-man taskforce that he’d either been imprisoned for something else, had been injured or become ill, or maybe even had died.

Heck wasn’t completely convinced by that, but what did he know? He had long-term ambitions to join CID, but at present he was a mere uniform, so his opinions weren’t required. Most likely they were right anyway. They’d had all sorts of shrinks and crime analysts working on the case. Heck had read the progress bulletins with interest, and though their authors acknowledged there could be no certainty about this, they all affirmed that predators of this sort rarely stopped of their own volition. The Spider might be lying low, taking a voluntary break from his nocturnal hobby, but most likely something had happened to him.

‘Anyway, don’t let Crawford get you down,’ Shawna said with another yawn. ‘Everyone knows what a self-important prick he is, sitting up there in his central-heated palace, acting like he’s running the whole show. The most excitement he gets in the day is bollocking bobbies.’

‘I’ll get another bollocking later, when Murph nabs me,’ Heck said.

Murph, or Bill Murphy, was the section sergeant on their relief. A big, brutish-looking, raw-boned bloke, Murph belied his appearance with an inclination towards affability, but as a former sergeant in the Guards he could be a holy terror when he wanted to, and he too would have heard the public humiliation of one of his constables, and therefore, in his opinion, the public humiliation of his entire team.

‘Better get working then,’ Shawna said, primly fitting her hat back in place, tucking her ponytail out of sight. ‘Lock some scrotes up before morning and he’ll probably cut you a load of slack.’

She opened the passenger door, the stale air of the wasteland wafting in. Heck gazed downhill to the silent edifices of the flats. Their last few lights had been extinguished. The only movement out there was provided by dead leaves and scraps of fluttering litter driven by the breeze. It was difficult to see where the next arrest was going to come from tonight.

‘1415 from Five?’ came the crackly radio voice of PC Linzi Gornall.

‘Go ahead, Linz,’ he replied.

‘Heck … can you look at a domestic on Kersal Rise, over?’

He glanced at his watch. It was ten past three in the morning. A domestic at this hour was likely to be a doozy. ‘Affirmative. What’s the address, over?’

‘Number eighteen.’

‘Roger, received …’ And then Heck paused, radio in hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ Shawna asked, half way out but now stopping.

‘I know 18, Kersal Rise,’ he said. ‘A lady called Alice Henshaw lives there. But she’s seventy years old and a widow.’ He put his radio back to his lips. ‘1415 to Five … any details, over?’

‘Neighbour reported screaming and shouting about two minutes ago, over.’

Heck glanced at Shawna. ‘That’s no domestic, that’s a break … quick, close the door!’

She jumped back in alongside him, and he threw the van into gear, swinging it around in a gravel-spurting three-point-turn.

‘Kersal Rise is off my beat,’ Shawna said. ‘I show up there, I’ll get a bollocking too.’

‘Tell them I picked you up en route. This isn’t a domestic, Shawna … and I need a wingman!’

‘You don’t think …?’

‘The Spider?’ he said, as he spun around the next corner, pushing his speedo past forty. ‘Dunno … but Alice Henshaw lives alone, and every address he’s attacked so far had a single female occupant. Plus it’s after 3 a.m. … the Spider always attacks between three and four.’

‘3395 to Five!’ Shawna shouted into her radio.

‘Go ahead, Shawna.’

‘I’m en route to 18, Kersal Rise with 1415 … we’re currently on Kingsway Lane, heading towards Station Avenue. Listen, Linzi … Heck knows the occupant of that address. It’s a woman living alone. We don’t think this is a domestic … it may be a burglary in progress, over!’

‘Roger, received …’ A split-second passed, before Linzi and the other Comms operators began calling up support units.

Kersal Rise would normally be five minutes away, in daytime traffic maybe ten, but this was now four a.m. and Heck had his foot to the floor. They made it in less than two. The house in question stood on the outskirts of another drear council estate, but was of old-fashioned terraced stock. The Rise itself sloped steeply up to the main road, and backed onto a deep cutting through which ran the Manchester-to-Southport railway.

‘How’d you know this lady?’ Shawna asked.

‘She’s a part-time cashier at the arcade on the precinct,’ he replied as he drove. ‘Last year she’s putting some takings in her car … and some fucking idiot’s lying in wait. He pulls a knife on her, snatches the money bag. Pure good fortune I was patrolling nearby. Soon as he sees me, he shoves her in the car, gets in himself, tries to drive … but I cut him off at the end of the access road. He jumps out again, legs it on foot, still carrying the takings … caught up with him at the other side of the car park.’

‘I remember. Good pinch. So that was her?’

‘Yeah. The scrote was Terry Robinson. He got three years. Alice was unhurt and got the money back … she’s been making me brews ever since.’

They skidded to a halt at the foot of Kersal Rise, bursting out of their respective doors. All the houses stood in darkness except for number eighteen. It was tall and narrow, its red-brick frontage showing distortions and fissures due to colliery subsidence. A single dull light glinted through its downstairs window.

‘Round the back, Shawna!’ Heck said.

‘It’s a terraced row … even in the van it’ll take me a couple of mins!’

Heck didn’t even want to wait that long. As he ran up the front path, he heard a wailing and weeping inside – and recognised the voice as Alice Henshaw’s.

‘Alright … but get on the blower, tell ’em we need help now!’

Shawna hovered by the van, grabbing her radio and shouting instructions into it.

Heck didn’t bother knocking or ringing the bell, just hit the hardwood door with his shoulder, exploding it inward, chains and hinges flirting loose. ‘Police!’ he shouted.

The light emanated from a room at the rear of the house, which he knew to be the lounge. It was dim but sufficient to illuminate the neat, lavender-scented hall and the single fluffy slipper lying near the foot of the stairs. Heck could picture the whole thing. Alice waking as the intruder entered her bedroom through its window, and fleeing downstairs, but her poor arthritic joints gaining her no advantage. The bastard catching her somewhere around here, dragging her through into the lounge.

‘Alice!’ Heck bellowed, barging down the hall with baton in hand.

The weeping upgraded into a shrill, desperate sobbing.

When he entered the room, two immediate things struck him. Firstly, the householder herself, lying curled in a ball on the couch to his left; her nightie had been pulled up and her underwear was around her knees, but it was her face that was bloodied, at least as far as he could see, because she was cupping it with both hands. Secondly, the narrow French window looking out into the small back yard stood partly open, swinging on the November breeze.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Shawna said, crowding into the room behind him.