ROGUE

Paul Finch

Brentwood Press

Copyright © 2024 by Paul Finch

Paul Finch asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Source ISBN 978-1-9162057-4-1

Cover design by WHITEspace

Find out more about the Author and his books

www.paulfinch-writer.blogspot.co.uk

For all those readers, who hung on loyally, awaiting the next Heck instalment during his enforced hiatus.

PROLOGUE

November. Swirling leaves; skies the colour of sheet-steel.

It didn’t matter that most shop fronts sparkled with Christmas, or that roasted chestnuts were being sold on street-corners. It was still November, and when his aimless jogging took him off the rain-wet streets, he entered a colourless realm of dead branches and muddy riverside tracks. And it was cold too, of course. Always cold. Not that deep, gnawing winter cold. But the seeping autumnal kind. The damp kind. The sort that penetrates your bones. It was made worse this year because even though running was now the only thing he did, he rarely dressed properly for it, most of the time wearing sweatshirts without vests, shorts without underpants, training shoes without socks. Jogging stiffly and slowly, feeling the cold but not noticing it. His heavy, trudging footfalls taking him in whichever direction he happened to be facing. One day south towards Putney, another day east towards Battersea, another north through West Brompton and South Ken. It didn’t matter which way, really, because he never did anything when he reached his destination. One time, he trotted as far west as Twickenham. On this occasion, the pelting rain had turned to icy hail, and armoured as he was with studied indifference, that was something he couldn’t ignore. So, he’d ridden back on the Tube, the only person in his compartment for five stops.

Not that he’d noticed. As was often the case, he’d been elsewhere at the time.

A woodland at twilight.

Stroboscopic gunfire.

A car turned to perforated scrap.

And blood. So much blood.

The sordid imagery wouldn’t leave him even when he got back to his flat, that soulless, spartan shell overlooking the District Line. It had been his for thirteen years, though he’d never done much to personalise it. Partly because he was there very little, but also because it was no more than a flop, a base from which to conduct his real life, which was out on the streets. And because at some point he’d planned to exchange it for a larger model, one that he could share. Something like the one they’d had together up at Finsbury Park, maybe. Though those halcyon days were fading from his memory so indecently fast now that he struggled to recall them in actual colour.

The world had lain at his feet, as the saying went.

Now something else lay there. Something he would never get used to the thought of, let alone the sight of it, which, three months later, was still burned into his mind as though by a branding iron. He stood by the window sipping tea as a southbound train thundered past below. He’d made the tea over an hour ago because he’d decided that he had to do something with his time. Of course, he’d then forgotten to drink it. Much as he routinely forgot to eat.

Hunger, thirst. None of these things seemed to count anymore.

It had taken a telephone call to make him think about his cooling cuppa. His sister, Dana, at the other end. Insisting that he try to keep positive, that he look forward and not back, that he come up to stay with her as soon as it was feasibly possible, that he try not to dwell on things, that he try not to get upset or angry, and above all, that he look after himself, because at the moment there was no one else to do it for him … to start with, that he make sure every day to get something into his system. He hadn’t taken the call. He never took calls. But at least in this case he’d listened to it on playback. And if nothing else, it had reminded him that he had a cup of tea waiting in the kitchen, which he’d half-heartedly warmed in the microwave.

The one consolation in the midst of this desolation, the only consolation, was the thing in the shoebox concealed under a loose floorboard in the spare bedroom. The thing he’d hidden amid a bundle of impressive-looking but out-of-date and unimportant personal documents. The thing he’d wrapped carefully in a sterile evidence sack, though he’d never surrendered it to any official Exhibits Officer, and never would.

Because this was his, and his alone.

Another train rattled past. It was late afternoon, but dark already, the lightshow below flickering kaleidoscopically. None of which he saw. His mind had strayed again.

To a quaint English woodland, strafed by gunfire.

No breakthrough yet, but killers aren’t untouchable, warn angry cops

Scotland Yard chiefs report no new developments after the shocking slaughter of 26 police officers during a gun attack at a North London pub last September.

The horrific crime, which occurred at the Ace of Diamonds public house in Barnet, on the evening of September 6, still ranks as the worst assault on police officers serving in mainland Britain in the country’s history. But the 26 police officers who died were only part of the story. Several others were critically wounded (and may yet add to the death-toll) when a pair of unknown gunmen entered the pub mid-evening, where a large number of off-duty officers were gathered to celebrate a recent success, and opened fire on the unsuspecting crowd with automatic weapons.

The two male suspects, who were masked, were pursued a short distance by surviving officers as they fled the scene, but eventually made good their escape.

Though a dedicated taskforce of nearly 200 experienced detectives was put together to investigate the atrocity, three whole months have now passed with no arrests made and there are worries that the case may go cold.

The victims of the attack were members of the Serial Crimes Unit, a specialist department of the National Crime Group, whose remit is normally to investigate cases of serial murder, but who recently participated effectively in a cross-force operation ranged against a multinational crime syndicate based in London and believed to be controlled by the Armenian oligarch and international businesswoman, Milena Misanyan, who died during the course of the enquiry.

Speculation is rife that the Misanyan organisation, which – despite the loss of its leadership in London, the arrests of significant numbers of its British-based operatives and the freezing of various bank accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars – is still active, had placed a ‘kill’ order on the police unit most responsible for its demise.

But taskforce SIO, Detective Superintendent Mike Garrickson of the National Crime Group’s elite Organised Crime Division, wouldn’t be drawn on this, saying simply: ‘A number of avenues are open to us at present. It would of course be foolish to dismiss the possibility that this was a revenge attack on behalf of Milena Misanyan, but many of those officers who became casualties at the Ace of Diamonds had been involved in other high-profile enquiries and had accounted for the arrest and conviction of some serious career criminals. We’ll get to the bottom of this, but there’s much work to be done first.’

While the police forces of England and Wales still reel with outrage and grief, other police spokesmen have been less cautious in their language.

‘Only someone who thinks they’re untouchable by law would try something like this,’ one of them told this newspaper. ‘They aren’t. And they’re going to learn that very soon. If necessary, the hard way.’

1

‘Well, well,’ Heck said. ‘If it isn’t DI Penhaligon and her famous performing chimp.’

The two detectives who’d entered the interview room glanced at him irritably.

‘Jesus, Heck,’ Mal Brindle muttered.

‘You know, Mr Heckenburg …’ DI Penhaligon took the seat opposite him, ‘whatever gallery you think you’re playing to … it isn’t there anymore.’

‘No,’ DS Toby Crick scowled. ‘Most of them are dead.’

‘So, as soon as you accept that the best way to help yourself is to cut out the wisecracks,’ Penhaligon added, ‘and the out-and-out rudeness, and start cooperating, the sooner we can bring this thing to a satisfying conclusion.’

‘Sorry.’ Heck sat back. ‘Didn’t realise that helping me out was the purpose of these sessions.’

She watched him intently. She was a willowy, green-eyed blonde. Younger than he was, but with an immediate air of crisp efficiency. ‘We understand that this is a terribly difficult situation … and that you lost a number of close associates. But if someone else was a person of interest in regard to the Ace of Diamonds shootings, I imagine you’d be the first to complain if we didn’t pursue that line of enquiry with as much vigour as possible.’

‘It’s just that we seem to have had this conversation about four times now,’ Heck said. ‘And all the while, the real killers are getting further and further away.’

Crick was younger than Heck too, but hunched and ugly, with black hair shorn down to greasy bristles. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only object of interest in this enquiry and we’re not the only investigators.’

‘Oh, yeah …’ Heck chuckled. ‘The Gangbusters are on the case. Bet that’ll scare the living shit out of whichever mob did this. Either that, or it’ll cost them a few quid. Again.’

Penhaligon didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she flipped the switch on the camera, the lens of which was located just overhead. ‘You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court. The time is now eleven-thirty a.m., and the date is November 25th …’

Heck sat waiting. To his left, Mal Brindle straightened his tie. To his right, Sheila Watts was already scribbling notes.

‘This is an interview with Mark Heckenburg, formerly detective sergeant with the Serial Crimes Unit. I am Detective Inspector Jude Penhaligon of the National Crime Group Internal Investigations Branch. In company with me is Detective Constable Toby Crick, also of IIB. Also in attendance are Sergeant Mal Brindle, official Police Federation representative for the Serial Crimes Unit, and Mrs Sheila Watts, solicitor.’ She shuffled her notes and switched her attention back to Heck. ‘The purpose of today’s interview is simple. We want to make sure we understand the meaning of some new information that’s come to light.’

Heck shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that bringing you two to a state of understanding could ever be considered simple. But I’ll do my best.’

Air hissed through Brindle’s teeth. Sheila Watts didn’t look up.

‘It’s come to our attention that you arrived late at the party at the Ace of Diamonds on the evening of September 6th,’ Penhaligon said.

Heck was puzzled. ‘It was a party. There was no set time by which we were required to arrive. We got there when we got there.’

‘But apparently you were later than most.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘What time did you set out for the party?’

‘Seriously? What kind of time-wasting bullshit is this?’

‘Heck!’ Brindle warned him.

‘Just answer the question,’ Crick said.

‘I don’t know what time I set off. Shortly after eight.’

Penhaligon remained cool. ‘So, you set off from the SCU HQ at Staples Corner?’

‘Where else?’

‘You didn’t go home first?’

‘If I’d gone all the way to Fulham with the intention of heading north again to Cockfosters, the evening would’ve gone before I’d got there.’

‘But you didn’t go there straight from Staples Corner, did you?’

Heck gazed at her, wondering what she thought she knew. ‘I called in at a pub around the corner from the office.’

‘The Duke of Albion, by any chance?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What was the purpose of this visit?’ she asked.

‘I wanted to have a word with someone.’

‘Let’s not be coy, Heck … I can call you “Heck”, can I?’

‘Normally that’s reserved for mates. But I don’t suppose there’s any point in me objecting.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘So, let’s not be coy, Heck. Who was this person you were meeting?’

‘I imagine you already know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be asking me.’

‘DC Gail Honeyford from SCU?’

‘Right again,’ he said.

‘And what did you talk to her about?’

‘Personal stuff.’

‘There’s no such thing in an enquiry like this, Heck,’ Crick said.

Heck flicked him a glance. ‘I said she could call me Heck, not you.’

‘“Personal stuff” is an interesting answer, actually,’ Penhaligon said. ‘I understand that you and Gail Honeyford once had a relationship?’

‘That’s ancient history. And it wasn’t a relationship, it was a one-night stand, which both of us regretted the next morning.’

Penhaligon pursed her lips, almost smiled. She seemed pleased by that admission, as if it told her something pertinent about his character.

From the outset, Heck had been uneasy to learn that it was Jude Penhaligon who would examine his role in the Ace of Diamonds massacre. Famous for her frosty, unemotional demeanour, her good looks and always respectful manner concealed a calculating mind, a suspicious streak a mile long, and a hard-line adherence to the rulebook. In court, she’d allegedly once said: ‘I’ve never met a fellow police officer yet who I’d trust to play things straight. By its nature the job doesn’t encourage that. So my role is to enforce it.’

‘That was down in Surrey a few years ago, wasn’t it?’ she said, knowing the answer full well before she even asked. ‘When you were investigating the murder of a local businessman?’

‘That’s correct,’ Heck replied.

‘So …’ Penhaligon looked purposely unsure, ‘you and Honeyford fell out, yes?’

‘I wouldn’t say we fell out. We wanted to keep it professional.’

‘And yet several years later … when DC Honeyford was looking to join the National Crime Group, specifically the Serial Crimes Unit, she mentioned your name several times in her application.’

‘I imagine because we were friends and she thought I could help swing it for her.’

‘Not for any other reason?’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as you were secretly still her boyfriend,’ Crick put in.

Heck snorted. ‘Ask anyone who knows me in the unit, and …’

The ridiculousness of that answer hit him almost as soon as he’d uttered it. Fleetingly an image swam before his eyes. An upstairs function room strewn wall to wall with twisted, crimson bodies. More blood spattering the bullet-scarred furniture. A shroud of gun-smoke hanging over everything.

Crick nodded. ‘Like we said, they’re all dead. How convenient for you.’

Heck glared at him. ‘If you’re looking for ways to press my buttons, you’re succeeding … do you really want to keep doing that?’

‘Heck!’ Brindle said sharply.

Penhaligon was typically unfazed. ‘Let’s keep it civil, eh?’

Crick’s cheeks had reddened, but he seemed pleased rather than annoyed. ‘The speed with which you seem ready to resort to violence is pretty telling.’

‘Nothing to do with the provocation I’m getting?’ Heck glanced at Penhaligon. ‘My friends were the ones killed, so maybe this sidekick of yours should keep it civil, too.’

‘Couldn’t hurt,’ Sheila Watts commented, not looking up from her writing.

‘We were talking about your relationship with DC Honeyford,’ Penhaligon said.

‘Which, as I explained, is purely professional,’ Heck replied. ‘And there are others who weren’t at the Ace of Diamonds who will confirm it.’

‘In that case, why did DC Honeyford get angry and excited when you and she were talking together at the Duke of Albion. We have a witness who was in the pub, who says that Honeyford got quite het up at one point.’

‘Maybe.’ Heck tried to throw his thoughts back to the events before the Ace of Diamonds slaughter. ‘If you want the truth, I was trying to talk her into going to the party.’

‘Why would that upset her?’ Crick wondered.

‘Because Gail’s headstrong. She wants to go far in the job. At the time, she was angry that DSU Piper had demoted her to office dogsbody.’

‘And for that reason, she wouldn’t attend a party?’

‘She was sulking. And I couldn’t persuade her to change her mind. That’s because she blamed me as well as Gemma.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because Gail and I were doubled up on Operation Sledgehammer, which was the last case SCU worked. It was a big one, too, and if Gail hadn’t been demoted by Gemma, she’d have been there for the takedown … but she wasn’t.’

‘So, you got the glory and Gail Honeyford didn’t?’

‘Like I say, she sulks.’

Penhaligon arched an eyebrow. ‘She’s that petty?’

‘She’s got stuff to learn. Look, I don’t know what you think was happening at the Duke of Albion. How is any of this important?’

‘You can leave the questions to us,’ Crick said.

‘I think I’m entitled to ask a couple,’ Heck retorted. ‘Because I know a fishing expedition when I see one. I also know that generally they’re the last resort of horseshit enquiries that are leading fucking nowhere.’

‘Heck!’ Brindle again.

‘The only horseshit here is you expecting us to believe that Gail Honeyford got upset because you asked her to a party,’ Crick replied.

‘I’ve just explained …’

‘You’ve explained nothing.’

‘We deem it far more likely that DC Honeyford was upset in that pub because you were talking her out of going to the party,’ Penhaligon countered.

Heck almost laughed. ‘And if I’d done that, and she’d not liked it, why would she have obeyed me?’

‘Because despite everything you’ve told us, she’s still your besotted girlfriend,’ Crick said.

‘Oh, I get it. And I knew the hit was coming, so I didn’t want her to be there?’

They regarded him blankly.

‘The solution is plain,’ Heck said. ‘Speak to Gail Honeyford.’

‘You think we haven’t?’ Penhaligon replied.

‘And you think she’d have told us anything different from you?’ Crick snickered. ‘Especially when you’ve had so much time to get your stories straight.’

Heck shook his head. ‘This is total bollocks.’

‘Heck,’ Brindle warned again.

‘You see, Heck …’ Penhaligon eyed him closely, ‘my suspicion is that this whole thing is actually about you and your complex relationships with policewomen.’

‘Yeah … haven’t you heard?’ Heck preened himself. ‘I’m a regular Lothario. That’s why I’m thirty-nine years old and still living on my own.’

‘You also had a thing with DSU Piper, didn’t you?’

‘That’s ancient history, too.’

‘But that wasn’t a one-night stand, was it?’

Heck hung his head. Briefly, any thought of Gemma was almost too difficult to bear. ‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘And yet your relationship with DSU Piper had deteriorated since then. Isn’t that the truth?’

‘We were DCs when we were together,’ he said. ‘But as soon as Gemma started getting promotions, we stopped seeing each other.’

‘A break-up that you apparently instigated.’

‘So?’

‘So, you clearly can’t handle it when your loved ones do well,’ Crick scoffed.

Again, Heck struggled to prevent the pain from imprinting itself on his features. ‘It was more complicated than that.’

Penhaligon shrugged. ‘We’ve got the time if you have.’

‘Is this really relevant, ma’am?’ Mal Brindle interjected. He was a short, shrewish man with a white beard and moustache and intense grey eyes. ‘Rooting through DS Heckenburg’s private life? It’s common knowledge that he and Gemma Piper stopped seeing each other over a decade ago.’

‘Strictly speaking, while he’s on suspension, he’s not DS Heckenburg,’ Crick replied. He glanced at Heck. ‘A status you’re going to have to get used to, I suspect.’

Brindle gave Penhaligon a level stare. ‘And that could be construed as a threat.’

‘It probably wouldn’t be relevant if it wasn’t for the fact that ever since Heck and Gemma Piper found themselves working at SCU, they’ve had a noticeably volatile relationship.’ Penhaligon looked at Heck again. ‘Isn’t that so?’

‘We haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on procedure,’ he admitted.

Crick openly laughed. ‘You can say that again.’

‘But we didn’t dislike each other,’ Heck added. ‘Far from it.’

‘You didn’t dislike each other,’ Penhaligon said thoughtfully. ‘And yet on the eve of the Ace of Diamonds massacre, you’d verbally agreed a transfer to the Metropolitan Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Command, specifically the Flying Squad.’

‘The situation at SCU wasn’t tenable,’ Heck muttered.

‘You mean working under a supervisor you couldn’t stand?’ Crick said.

Heck glanced at him. ‘You’re fishing again, monkey boy, and you’re still way off.’

‘You know, I agree with you this time,’ Penhaligon said. ‘It was more complex than that. For example, the late DI Jack Reed had a role to play, didn’t he?’

Heck mused. ‘Jack Reed and I had our differences, but we’d patched things up. I saved his life during Operation Sledgehammer.’

‘You did indeed.’ Penhaligon paid fleeting reference to her notes. ‘That was an impressive piece of policework. Nevertheless, there was a developing relationship between DI Reed and DSU Piper, which you weren’t too happy about. Isn’t that correct?’

‘Bit of a snake-pit, SCU,’ Crick remarked. ‘Everyone shagging everyone else.’

‘That’s a ridiculous statement!’ Brindle cut in. ‘As well as being insulting and, once again, highly provocative.’

‘The relationship that concerns us is the one between Gemma Piper and Jack Reed,’ Penhaligon said.

Heck gave her a pitying stare. ‘And that’s why you think I organised a hit that led to ninety-five percent of my own unit dying? Pardon me, ma’am, but are you for real?’

‘It would be OTT for a normal person,’ she conceded. ‘But for someone like you …?’

‘A jealous control-freak with the women in his life,’ Crick added.

‘Keep going,’ Heck said. ‘You might catch a tiddler through pure luck.’

‘How about someone under severe mental strain?’ Penhaligon asked him. ‘Someone under so much strain, in fact, that his overall commander, Joe Wullerton, Director of the National Crime Group, no less, had ordered him to attend psychological evaluation?’

Heck hesitated to respond. That she was aware of this shouldn’t have surprised him. Yet again, DI Penhaligon had done her homework thoroughly. She regarded him across the table, her handsome features inscrutable, her green eyes focussed intensely.

He shrugged. ‘It’s not unusual in SCU. We see a lot of bad stuff.’

‘But in your case, he’d wanted it fast-tracked.’

‘Again, you’ll have to speak to him.’

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Brindle interrupted, ‘but we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with this.’

‘I agree.’ Sheila Watts closed her notes. For the first time, she looked up at the rest of them. ‘All I’m hearing, DI Penhaligon, is insinuation and inference. The few questions you’ve actually put to my client he’s answered perfectly reasonably. Now, on the assumption that he is not going to be put under arrest, might I suggest that we’ve gone as far as we can today?’

*

On the way out, as they crossed the open-plan floor where the rest of IIB were beavering at their desks, Heck found himself side-by-side with Toby Crick.

‘Twenty-six coppers dead,’ Crick said from the side of his mouth. ‘Another thirteen critically injured. One lying in a fucking coma. You really think you’re going to walk?’

Heck spoke sideways too. ‘Don’t bother with the crocodile tears. All that’s bugging you is you haven’t got twenty-six coppers to put in jail.’

‘I’m going to bring you down. Even if I have to do it tough.’

‘Yeah?’ Heck turned to face him. He wasn’t angry, but a tad louder than might be usual, bringing silence to the expansive room. ‘Go for it now. Should give the rest of the office a laugh.’

‘All right, all right.’ Mal Brindle hustled forward, steering Heck towards the door. Out near the lifts, the older copper could only shake his head. ‘Christ’s sake, Heck … you really don’t help yourself with this endless bleeding belligerence.’

‘I agree,’ Heck said tightly. ‘Especially when I should be saving it for the real bastards.’

2

For several seconds, Torvald had no clue where he was. He didn’t even know whether he’d just woken or had been awake for some time. The weak daylight filtering around the sheet of cured animal hide nailed across the window was sufficient to show him the room he was lying in, but he wasn’t sure for how long he’d actually been looking at it. There was no way to tell because he had no memory extending back beyond this sudden moment of clarity.

He tried to shift himself around, but his body was heavy, sluggish, his limbs dead-weights, lifeless lumps of meat and bone. There was no pain, however, and when he attempted to spread the fingers on his left hand, he fancied that some sensation was returning to them, though only as the faint prickle of pins and needles.

Of course, none of this explained why he was sprawled on his back on the floor of what appeared to be someone’s cabin or hut. Because that was what it looked like. The room, which was about ten feet by seven, had been built from lumber, rugged stuff still with bark and twigs attached, as if someone had simply hacked and split logs in order to construct it. The floor, now that there was sufficient life in his hands to nudge at it with his knuckles, comprised planks, though they were gritty and splintery, while the ceiling, which was slanted, almost like the ceiling of a lean-to shed, was hidden in shadow but hung with netting.

Torvald tried to sit up.

At first it was difficult. Again, not because he was in pain, but because his motor-functions were so dull. Even if sensation was returning to his extremities, most of him felt leaden and cumbersome. It was an effort to flex his arms and his legs, more minutes passing before he was able to perform any trick so complex as rotating his shoulder joints, and at least quarter of an hour before he was sufficiently stable to dig his left elbow into the floor and gradually lever himself upward into a sitting position.

The room, which was dank and very cold, and smelled of creosote, remained still, no sound intruding from beyond it. Torvald looked it over properly. A pile of wooden crates stood on his left. Their lids were screwed shut, so he had no idea what they contained, though an oil lamp sat on top of them, along with a bundle of candles tied together with string, several boxes of stay-light matches, and a couple of bottles of turpentine. Rolls of twine were suspended from the wall behind these, along with several fishhooks. Higher up, what looked like an old-fashioned whaler’s harpoon was balanced on three brackets and ran almost the length of the cabin’s interior. Torvald was fascinated by that, but also a little unnerved. Where on Earth was he? And how could anyone have left him here when it was so bitterly cold?

It was actually amazing to Torvald how it was only in the last two or three minutes that he’d started to realise just how frozen he was. His hair was literally stiff, his skin tight and pimpled, his breath pluming in thick, white clouds. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was wearing ski-pants and walking boots, and a double-thickness plaid shirt and windbreaker. Ordinarily, that would be fine for moving from house to shop, shop to bar and so on. But clearly, he’d been lying for some time in whatever this place was, which was neither heated nor insulated. Laboriously, he clambered to his feet, immediately going dizzy, wobbling as he reached full height, needing to lean against the crates. Had he been drugged in some way?

He threw his thoughts back, struggling to remember.

That made him dizzy again, but he was steadier on his feet now. Almost full control of his body had returned, the numbness and disorientation having fled. But damn it, he was so cold.

He swore, trapping his hands in his armpits to try and squeeze some warmth back into them. Surely, he wouldn’t have come out without gloves and a scarf at this time of year, not to mention a proper winter jacket. There … this time of year.

So, he did remember something?

He blundered towards the door. He felt sure that it was late November. But how had he got here and where was he? He turned jerkily, scanning the interior, his eyes coming to rest on a bizarre symbol spray-painted onto the log wall behind him. He hadn’t noticed it previously because he’d been facing the wrong way. Again, though the logs from which the wall was comprised were crude and knobbly, the image was clearly visible. It was large and done in jet-black paint, its central portion vaguely anvil-shaped, though jutting up and away from it at both of its top corners were complex branch-like structures. Was it a stag? Yes, it was. He was gazing at a stag’s head with a massive spread of antlers.

For some reason Torvald couldn’t pin down, this didn’t encourage him.

He lurched back to the door. There was no lock on it, just a piece of rope serving as a handle. When he pulled on it, the door swung open and a blast of even colder air blew in. He stumbled outside, groggy again, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight, though it wasn’t particularly bright, more that dim grey twilight of a midday in late autumn. He glanced around, not just bewildered now but frightened.

The ground was trampled snow. On his left, it rolled off in a broad expanse, before tilting away from him until it dropped out of sight. On his right, it rose steeply into a great fell, the top of which he couldn’t see for the roof of motionless, low-hanging cloud.

More immediately to Torvald’s right, however, there was something else, which, for several seconds at least, absorbed all of his attention.

It was a squared-off timber post, about eight feet in height and painted black all over. Nailed down the side of it that faced him, one every foot or so, were tufts of straggly hair. He approached, but only warily, a slow, terrible suspicion growing on him. They ranged in colour from brown to flaxen to grey, some were thicker and shaggier than others, some longer and more lustrous. All, however, were stiff and coated in frost, and flecked around their edges with frozen blood. When he looked even more closely, gingerly peeling one back with a fingertip, a patch of crimson skin was adhered to its underside.

Scalps.

Almost certainly human.

As he stood there, eyes bugged, jaw slack, he involuntarily placed a hand on his own spiky blond thatch to ensure it was still intact. And never even heard the projectile whistling towards him until it skimmed over the top of his knuckles, thunking into the post, where its four-inch glass tip exploded, spattering the black-painted wood and the mat of grey hair hanging above it with liquid.

Immediately, both began to sizzle.

Torvald stumbled backward in shock.

The bolt, or quarrel, or whatever it was, had been about ten inches in length, the rear six of which looked to be made from aluminium. Though the glass point had shattered, it hung in place, several slivers having embedded themselves. Whatever fluid it had contained now drizzled down the post, streaking across a bunch of hair so fair and lush that it was almost like a wig, and again there was hissing and spiralling, foul-smelling smoke as the organic material disintegrated.

Reeling with horror, Torvald tottered around. The dim daylight diffused most strongly through the stony ceiling of cloud on his left, indicating which way was west. It was also the same direction from which the quarrel had flown at him. But to run the other way, up the fellside, in his sluggish state, would be inviting disaster. Instead, he scrambled around to the rear of the cabin, which – now that he saw it properly – was no more than a hunting shack. Built from crude materials and in rickety, ramshackle fashion, it wasn’t designed for anything other than storage. As he rounded its first corner, another quarrel swooped in, glancing from the woodwork above his head and shattering, though by a miracle the spray of caustic fluid missed him. Gasping, Torvald reached the other side of the flimsy structure. All he’d hoped for was to use it as a shield. But instead, he found a motor sled parked against the cabin’s rear wall. It was an excellent piece of engineering, broad of runner, with a steel and rubber Ripsaw track at the rear, its streamlined bodywork painted venom-green. Better than this, though, there was a bunch of keys dangling from its ignition.

More than familiar with snowmobiles, Torvald leapt into the saddle and turned the key.

And nothing happened.

He turned it again. And again.

And again and again, frantically, until his wrist hurt.

No response.

Aside from a cruel, roaring laugh, which sounded from beyond the cabin.

Torvald clambered to his feet and backed away, still trying to keep the structure between himself and whoever it was out there. He couldn’t see them, so presumably they couldn’t see him. Wasn’t that a rule? Not necessarily, because after the first quarrel had been discharged at him, when he’d turned to look, he’d seen no one at all. Just the white of the snow and the broken, black humps of rocks. Which meant they were camouflaged.

He continued to retreat, face fixed on the receding cabin, determined that whenever this threat actually materialised, he would see it straight away. The one thing he didn’t expect, though, was to hear a sudden grumble of engines, and almost immediately afterwards, to see men appear, one on either side of him, at a distance, each riding his own motor sled. The machine on the left was Arctic blue in colour, the man riding it wearing jeans, a sweater, a white cagoule and a white, commando-type balaclava with holes cut for the eyes and mouth. The rifle strapped diagonally to his back was also covered, wherever possible, with white tape. The man on the right, meanwhile, rode a black and silver sled, and was clad in similar garb but with the addition of white waterproof leggings. He too wore a rifle on his back, which was partly bound with snow camouflage. Torvald’s gaze flitted from one to the other, though perplexingly, neither were making aggressive moves towards him. They rode slowly and smoothly, cresting the snowy hummocks with ease, making no attempt to unharness their rifles, neither of which had been used against him so far. Because while these looked like military battle-rifles, they did not project quarrels with glass tips and acid contents.

Assuming the two riders were decoys, Torvald swung back to face the cabin, which now stood forty yards away. And only caught a glimpse of the figure crouching on top of it, again in winter whites, before he heard the twang of a high-tensile string and another of those dread missiles hurtled towards him. Though he saw it this time, a fast-approaching black dot, it travelled with such speed that he was only just able to throw himself aside. It buried itself in the snow behind him. Torvald looked wildly up. The masked men with the rifles continued to pursue their lazy paths, careful to keep their distance. He glanced back at the cabin. Now, there was no one in sight.

‘Who are you?’ he howled, voice shrill with terror. ‘What am I doing here?’

A thud sounded from the cabin. The marksman had jumped down on the other side.

Torvald began to run.

Though much recovered, it was still difficult for him, limbs still heavy – hungry as well, he now realised – and frozen to his core. But which way to go was an issue solved by instinct.

The fellside to the east soared skyward so steeply that it was more like an escarpment. Ahead of him, meanwhile, the land narrowed dramatically, which left only the western route. A masked man still rode there, turning a slow, steady circle as though intending to head back on himself, but as before, he seemed uninterested in events. Knowing he must chance it, because, if nothing else, it would always be easier running downhill, Torvald tore across the snowscape towards him. The rider didn’t respond, allowing the fugitive plenty of room to get by. It was early season, and the snow was not deep. It crunched to just past Torvald’s ankles, but his joints were stiff. He wobbled as he ran, several times almost tripping. His breath came in hard, harsh pants, but now at last the terrain was sloping downward. Somewhere behind, an engine revved more loudly. He glanced to his right. The rifleman decked completely in white came level with him. Again, he rode slowly, making no belligerent moves, but noticeably he was on the same course as Torvald. When the fugitive looked to his left, it was the same with the other sled-rider.

They were shepherding him.

Did that mean they wanted him to go this way? That couldn’t be a good thing, but what did any of this mean? Who even knew what was good or bad?

‘For Christ’s sake!’ he hollered at them, though his throat had filled with phlegm.

Ahead, the ground tilted more dramatically, and then, without warning, he was down among jumbled boulders, some of them the size of cars, the alleys between them so narrow and crooked that he had to turn sideways just to slither through.

But even in his terror, Torvald laughed.

At least this was the end of the motor sleds. Certainly, if this rockslide continued for any distance. He paused briefly, heart hammering in his aching chest, to gaze back towards the higher ground, now visible as a ridgeline of snow against the dark grey sky. They’d already appeared there, both of them, for the first time side by side, and had halted, their engines turning over noisily as they peered down at him.

To Torvald’s astonishment, they’d removed their balaclavas.

Not only that; he recognised them.

The unruly red hair, the twinkly button-green eyes, the curious cast of their faces, noses and mouths slightly protruding as though they were animal snouts. And now at last, much of the memory of what had led to this thing tumbled down on him like a collapsing roof.

On first seeing them in the Honningsvåg bar, he’d thought of them as the ‘Rat Brothers’, because they could only be brothers, twins, given that they were virtually identical. He’d been saying goodbye to Arvid, Dag and Egil, who were heading south for the winter. It had turned into quite a party, and then the Rat Brothers had come in, one of them wearing one of those ridiculous fur hats complete with wolf ears that the Sámi sold to the tourists from the cruise ships, and they’d been pleasant and amusing, and they’d got chatting to him and the others, and they’d even bought him a beer.

Had he simply got drunk? Was that what all this was about?

Almost certainly he’d have got drunk, because that would have been the last drink he’d share with his friends until February. But the lack of hangover today implied that significant time had passed since then. Which surely meant that he’d been drugged as well.

‘Who are you?’ he shouted again, but they simply watched him, faces devoid of emotion.

Then there was a whisking sound, and another quarrel ploughed through the frozen snow caking the upper surface of the rock on his left, jamming upright, the snow melting and hissing as its payload was unleashed.

Torvald swung left but saw only more jumbled rocks with crooked crevices snaking between them. He continued downslope, frantic now, contorting his body to get through the narrower gaps, catching his booted feet and twisting his ankles, barking his shins on jagged edges. Despite the chill, sweat lathered his face and seeped through his plaid shirt. Another missile whistled past, how close he couldn’t say, exploding against a boulder. Again, he saw the trickling fluid smoke as it cut runnels through the age-old rock.

But now perhaps his luck was changing, for as he stumbled downhill, a wider, straighter avenue opened in the middle of the rockslide and though it steepened precariously, the landscape below came more clearly into view. He glimpsed a grey expanse of water, only sections of it sheeted by ice. He spotted nothing that resembled a road save a narrow ribbon of dirty snow following the water’s edge, which might have been created by off-road tyres, but also, directly below him, there was a jetty, and at the end of that, a boat.

Torvald was under no illusion. The spare snowmobile at the hunter’s cabin had been left for him purposely, both as an enticement and a monstrous disappointment. It might be the same thing here, but all he could do was try.

He ran the remaining couple of hundred yards downhill, the gradient at last flattening out, the rocks far behind him, so that he was continually able to extend his stride. When he risked a glance over his shoulder, the slope rose sheer at his back but there was no sign of movement. In all other directions, similar landmasses towered, snowclad, boulder-strewn. Beyond the water, the far side of the fjord ascended through the clouds. Torvald didn’t recognise this place, and maybe that should have worried him more than it did, though he consoled himself with the knowledge that though he lived and worked on the North Cape, he was no expert. No man was. There were too many miles of uninhabited coastline. It didn’t matter, though, because now the ground was almost level. He urged himself on, digging each foot into the snow. Staying upright now was all-important. A trip or stumble could be catastrophic. When he crossed the flattened track, the snow carpet gave out and he ran onto shingle, the lapping grey waves lying just ahead. He threw another glance over his shoulder. Still, no one was visible, but he knew that his opponents were camouflaged.

Despite this, he slowed to a walk, panting as he mounted the steps to the jetty. The boat rode and tilted at the far end, tethered by a single rope. He strode quickly down to it, footfalls thudding on the wood, the breath rasping like knives in his lungs. The boat looked safe enough, though. When he got to it, it was open and about ten feet long, with two oars and an outboard motor at the rear lowered to the vertical. The motor even carried an ignition switch, which meant that he wouldn’t need a key. Again, it seemed too good to be true. But he would never know unless he tried.

He unhooked the tether from the post and jumped down. The boat rocked, but quickly settled. As if by the grace of God, a zigzagging pathway lay visible through the shifting sheets of ice in front of him, most of which would not be heavy enough yet to impede him anyway. Torvald sat at the tiller, said a quick prayer, and flicked the switch.

The motor churned noisily to life.

Unable to believe his good fortune, he worked the bar as the boat nosed its way forward, cautiously guiding it into the twisting canal. As he did, he glanced back ashore. The jetty was already falling behind; ten yards, twenty, thirty. There was still no sign of movement, no figures on the shingle or the snow beyond. And then there was a heavy, resounding thunk, and the small craft juddered.

Torvald gripped at either gunwale, a chill scurrying down his spine.

What was it? Had he hit something under the surface? And then, as the brown seawater gurgled in around his feet, he understood.

Another quarrel. Only this one had struck cleanly. Right on the waterline.

Torvald stared in disbelief at the smouldering, ever-widening hole just to his right. Water surged in through it so quickly that the boat commenced tilting upright. The next thing he knew, he was splashing hopelessly back towards shore.

Norway’s North Cape is not the coldest part of the country – the Gulf Stream sees to that – but at five-hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, no man can immerse himself in the sea and expect to live more than a couple of minutes.

Torvald’s limbs were all but dead by the time he reached the jetty, his clothes so waterlogged that they tugged on him like leaden weights. Choking with the cold, throwing up mouthfuls of icy brine, he hauled his weary form up the stepladder and fell shivering onto his hands and knees. When he finally looked up and along the timber walkway, the Rat Brothers had driven down from the high ground, presumably by some route Torvald hadn’t seen, and halted just before the line where the snow gave out. They now sat one to either side of a third vehicle: the powerful venom-green sled that he’d failed to start up at the cabin. It was amazing what a can of petrol could do, of course. No doubt there’d been several in the crates inside the flimsy structure. More eye-catching at present, though, was the figure who had ridden that third snowmobile.

He’d now dismounted and was in the process of handing what looked like a heavy, high-tech crossbow to the Rat Brother on the right. The redhead took possession of it almost reverentially, as if it was no less worthy of respect than its owner.

That owner now came up onto the jetty. He stood six-foot-five, at least, and was as broad as a bear in his white winter-combat fatigues. When he pulled off his white balaclava, another head of thick red hair appeared, this one tousled and damp with sweat, as well as a dense red beard and moustache, and a face burned nut-brown by distant exotic suns.

Torvald could do nothing except squat there like a frog, his hair feathering with frost, his limbs locking as much through fear as cold. The red-bearded giant was halfway along the jetty when he tugged off one of his white gauntlets. Reaching to a sheath at his hip, he drew the largest knife Torvald had ever seen. Perhaps a foot in length, broad-bladed, its tip curved, one edge serrated, the other honed to such sharpness that it glinted in the failing light.

The perfect knife, no doubt, to scalp a man.

3

‘Well …’ DI Penhaligon said, ‘Director Wullerton’s main concern seems to be that Heckenburg’s been at the sharp end of some pretty tough enquiries in recent years, and that he’s never had any formal counselling.’

Toby Crick sniggered. ‘And that’s supposedly why he wanted him fast-tracked to the shrink. Doesn’t really add up, does it?’

The man seated behind the desk in front of them remained stone-faced. ‘And you think Joe Wullerton would lie about that?’

Crick’s grin faded. ‘Well, I …’

The desk guy stood up. He was in his fifties, with a thicket of stiff red/grey hair on his broad head, and a squat, solid build. Despite the Savile Row suit and diamond tiepin, he had a brutish, apelike aura, which his solid East End accent only added to. He strode to an interior window, lifted the blind and gazed out at the Incident Room, a riot of ringing phones and hurrying staff. He was Detective Superintendent Mike Garrickson of the Organised Crime Division, and this was his team. Or rather, the ones outside in the MIR were. The two in his office were only here on attachment because their case overlapped with his, but in terms of rank he was still so far above them that he might as well have been God.

‘So, what do you reckon, DC Crick?’ Garrickson asked. ‘You seriously believe that, after losing twenty-six of his best officers and counting, some misguided sense of loyalty would prevent Big Joe from expressing genuine misgivings about one of our suspects?’

Crick blushed slightly. ‘I just think there must have been specific things that made him worry about Heckenburg. That’s all.’

Garrickson looked round. ‘Did he by any chance mention that Newham shoot-out as a specific thing?’

This was another reference to Operation Sledgehammer, a massive and only partially successful enquiry, the fall-out of which continued to rain about their ears.

Penhaligon nodded. ‘He did, sir, yes. That was one of his prime concerns. One police officer was killed in that incident, and three others were severely wounded. Heckenburg was the only one left standing. Later during that same investigation, Heckenburg himself was abducted and ended up literally having to fight for his life. Director Wullerton was very concerned that this was too much even for him. DSU Piper, who was Heckenburg’s senior line-manager on Sledgehammer, felt the same thing.’

Garrickson pondered.

From what he knew about DI Penhaligon, it was not atypical of her that she’d fully appraised herself of all these things and yet was still going about her enquiry in detached and organised fashion. She’d know full well that everyone in the job would be rooting for Heck if for no other reason than coppers always rooted for each other, but also because it seemed so damn unlikely that Heck, with his track-record of zealous law-enforcement, could be involved in the mass-murder at the Ace of Diamonds. But she wouldn’t be doing her job if she allowed any of that to interfere with her thinking. No investigator could afford to get side-tracked by sentiment, especially not if the suspect was a fellow police officer. And it wasn’t as if there weren’t always a few oddities when Heck was involved.

‘Do you mind me asking what’s on your mind, sir?’ Penhaligon enquired. ‘You’re the only one here who’s actually worked with Heckenburg. Perhaps you can share an insight?’

Garrickson cracked a brief half-smile. ‘I’m thirty years in this job, Jude … I’m long past the stage of thinking I’ve got insight. But you’re right, I did work with him, and … the only way I can see the Mark Heckenburg I knew conspiring with criminals to kill fellow coppers would be if he’d had some kind of complete psychotic breakdown. Now, you’ve interviewed him four times. Did you detect even a hint of that?’

Crick shrugged. ‘He’s surly and aggressive.’

‘So am I,’ Garrickson said. ‘And I’ve not just lost everyone I was close to in the job. And then there’s Gemma Piper. Believe me, that would’ve been an absolute choker for him.’

Again, they mulled over the flawed relationship that had existed between Mark Heckenburg and Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper. At one time, it had been overtly romantic. Working together as detective constables in the CID unit at Bethnal Green, they’d not only been formally recognised as a couple, but had set up home together. They’d been two peas in a pod, two halves of a whole.

‘And yet when Superintendent Piper wasn’t killed during the first wave of shootings, Heckenburg put her in his car and drove her in pursuit of the gunmen,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Continuing to pursue them until the gunmen turned on them a second time.’

‘The fly in that ointment, Jude, is that Heck and Gemma Piper were always going to be an item again.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Penhaligon was surprised. ‘That’s not an opinion that’s held widely.’

Garrickson moved to the external window. The blinds were open. Beyond it lay the busy streets of Finchley. The Organised Crime Division was based at London Bridge these days, but for the purposes of this enquiry, the Major Incident Room was located in London’s second-most secure police station.

‘I felt it in my bones,’ he said. ‘They might have ended up estranged from each other, they might have spent the last few years fighting like cat and dog … but that was because they cared for each other. Look back through the record. The number of times Gemma protected Heck from misconduct charges is astonishing. The fact that Heck never sought any kind of transfer out of SCU, that he always seemed content to be in Gemma’s orbit …’

‘Until the week of September 6th,’ Penhaligon reminded him coolly, ‘with the annihilation of SCU just around the corner.’

‘Heck was headhunted for that Flying Squad job,’ Garrickson reminded her. ‘Bob Hunter told you that, himself. He didn’t go looking for it.’

‘But at first Heckenburg didn’t want it … and then he changed his mind.’

‘Whatever caused that change of heart doesn’t have to have been illicit. Suppose Heck and Gemma were on the verge of getting back together, which they couldn’t have done if she was still his gaffer in the Serial Crimes Unit.’

Penhaligon considered this. It wasn’t impossible that practicalities had driven a wedge between the once happy couple but that affections had lingered, albeit repressed. By all accounts, when support units finally located Heckenburg’s wrecked vehicle after the Ace of Diamonds shootings, having pursued it to the woodland area where he and Piper were ambushed, they’d found him seated in a near-trance, cradling the casualty’s head in his lap, and had had the devil’s own job separating them. But then Penhaligon had also heard that Heckenburg had been undercover many times during his career, and could put on a real performance when he wanted to.

‘The trouble is, sir,’ she said, ‘… this is all speculation.’

‘Which is all that you’ve got, Jude. There’s no evidence that Heck dragged Gemma Piper into that car and drove her to the ambush point purposely. When you put that to him in previous interviews, he claimed that she got in the car willingly to aid in the pursuit of the suspects. That wouldn’t have been unlike Gemma. Didn’t Gail Honeyford tell you that Heck was going to try and put things right with Gemma? That same night?’ Garrickson glanced at Crick. ‘You say it doesn’t add up? Well it does to me.’

Crick looked at Penhaligon. He’d already voiced concerns that Garrickson had been too close to several persons involved in the massacre to be made SIO, plus that he’d once had his own reputation for being a rule-bending wideboy who wouldn’t necessarily be of help to Professional Standards. Penhaligon, as always, had kept her own counsel on the matter.

‘What about this comment he made to DCI Hunter?’ she said. ‘That he didn’t think SCU had much future?’

‘And what about Hunter’s later decision to change that statement?’ Garrickson responded. ‘Mainly because he wasn’t sure exactly what Heck said?’ She didn’t reply. ‘Think what you like, Jude, but it’s not evidence. You’re not going to convict Heckenburg for twenty-six murders on the basis of a questionable statement.’ He pondered again. ‘What do you plan to do next?’

‘Well, he’s obviously not going to confess,’ she said. ‘And there’s no word anywhere on the street that puts him in the frame.’

‘There’s no word on the street that puts anyone in the frame,’ Crick added. ‘Which suggests to me that this is a very unusual case.’

Garrickson eyed him. ‘DC Crick, the deadliest crime syndicates in Britain would hesitate to do something like this. Of course it’s unusual. Of course no one’s talking. But that doesn’t mean there’s a rogue copper involved. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘In answer to your question, sir,’ Penhaligon said, ‘we were planning to continue our obbo.’

‘Until when? Until Heck’s dumb enough to lead you to the assassins? You don’t know this fella at all, do you?’

‘We’ve also got a Lawful Interception order on him, so …’

‘And let me guess … he’s given you jack-shit so far?’

‘We know he’s clever,’ Crick said.

‘He’s also at his wits’ end.’ Garrickson paced his office. ‘He’s got no mates, no job, no woman. He knows you’re watching his flat, probably that you’re listening to his phone-calls, so he’s barely got a home that he can call his own …’ He relapsed into thought. ‘On reflection, maybe sitting on him a bit longer is the only thing you can do. But don’t come kicking my door down if you catch him littering, or shoplifting, or drink driving, or even committing fucking bank robberies.’ He indicated the incident room. ‘All I’m interested in is this.’

‘If we’re extending the obbo, sir,’ Penhaligon said, ‘I’m wondering if we can …’

‘Borrow more men?’ He returned to his desk. ‘Sure. As long as the overtime comes out of IIB’s budget. Every penny of mine’s going on tracking what’s left of Milena Misanyan’s firm.’

A display board in the corner of his office was untidily tacked with headshots, the central one of which depicted a beautiful woman of Middle Eastern ethnicity.

‘If this atrocity didn’t originate with that bitch, I’m a fucking Dutchman,’ Garrickson muttered, and though Penhaligon didn’t approve of the old school language, she understood it. In the brief time she’d been a resident here, the late Milena Misanyan, a powerful organised crime figure in Eastern Europe, had displayed a cruelty and ruthlessness beyond anything Britain had seen probably since the English Civil War. A lot of people had died terrible deaths at her command, and though Operation Sledgehammer had dismantled much of the British arm of her organisation, it hadn’t accounted for everyone on these shores, let alone overseas.

‘And Ray Marciano still hasn’t been apprehended,’ Penhaligon said, referring to Misanyan’s previous top man in the UK, ‘… thanks to Mark Heckenburg.’

Garrickson regarded her long and hard. ‘Quite an escape route Heck provided for him. If any of you guys fancy proving what a stroke of genius it was by taking your own two-hundred-foot swan-dive off a castle into the sea, be my guest.’

She could hardly argue with that and didn’t try.

‘Ray Marciano’s dead,’ Garrickson said. ‘Even if he isn’t, he may have been a bent copper, but he’d never have involved himself in massacring his former colleagues. The truth is, whoever this hit team were, I suspect they’ll have been sent by one of Misanyan’s allies abroad. Which means they’re now way out of our reach. Either that, or they’ll never say a word for fear of being castrated, skinned and cooked alive in some fucking oven in some overseas hellhole.’

Again, he was lost in thought. Penhaligon turned to Crick and nodded at the door. He sloped out. She turned back. ‘One thing, sir?’

‘Shoot.’

‘I thought you didn’t like him?’

‘Who … Heck?’ Garrickson frowned. ‘I bloody don’t. He’s the biggest cowboy in the job. But at least he’s in the job. Or was. Because if he’s genuinely gone to the other side, I shudder to think what damage he could do.’

Penhaligon considered that for several moments.

All she’d seen of Mark Heckenburg in reality was the scruffy, objectional oaf she’d interviewed and obbo’d over the last few weeks. But she’d been around long enough to know that you judged people by their appearance at your peril, and that all those stories about Heck being a smooth operator when the mood was on him had to have originated somewhere. If nothing else, that made him an even more intriguing adversary than she’d previously thought.

4

If the gloomy weather in November had been appropriate for the time of year, the next month dawned less seasonably. The final days of autumn had seen collapsing temperatures and clear skies at night, leading to frost and white winter mist. But on the first day of December, westerly winds blew in, bringing milder conditions and deluging rain. It bucketed down especially hard in Fulham that Friday lunchtime, when a yellow Fiat Punto drove onto Cherrybrook Drive. Across the road, ensconced in a beaten-up BMW, the rain thundering on its roof and streaming down its windows, Jude Penhaligon and Toby Crick watched with interest as a trim, dark-haired girl wearing jeans, trainers and a grey sweat-top climbed out, raised an extensive blue cagoule over her head, carrying it like an umbrella rather than putting it on as a coat, and scampered to No. 16, where she hung impatiently on the doorbell.

‘Well, if it isn’t the girlfriend,’ Crick commented.

‘She’s not his girlfriend, remember,’ Penhaligon said.

‘According to him.’

‘You don’t think she’d have visited him a few times before now if she was more to him than just a work colleague?’

Crick shrugged. ‘Where’s she working from at the moment?’

‘Harlesden. Seconded to Division.’

‘Bet that was a blow for her. Didn’t she transfer in from Surrey just to work NCG?’ He couldn’t keep the smile from his voice.

‘I imagine she’s suffered worse blows this year.’

Crick didn’t reply to that.

He wasn’t sure why he’d so taken against Mark Heckenburg and become so determined to implicate him in the Ace of Diamonds murders.

Very few others inside the job thought Heckenburg guilty. Most were simply bewildered by the accusation, but that was often the way when other coppers were in the frame.

Crick didn’t know the guy personally; he hadn’t known any of the casualties. So he had no real skin in this fight. He didn’t like to think that his antipathy might be due to jealousy, but deep down he suspected that it probably did. Heckenburg was a known troublemaker, but he had an impressive arrest record. He was clearly a divisive character; Crick had only had to ask around, and there were plenty who disliked the bloke, but likewise, there were others in whom he’d instilled a deep sense of trust and loyalty. Like this rather tasty DC Gail Honeyford, who, with the rain sweeping over her in sheets, gave up on the bell and hammered on the door with her fist. Few of Crick’s fellow officers reacted to him with either of those extremes. Most of the time they acknowledged his presence and that was it.

A thud drew his attention back across the road to where Heckenburg had now answered the door. Honeyford staggered in past him, a drowned rat seeking shelter.

*

‘Why’ve you not been replying to my calls?’ Gail demanded as she tottered, drenched, up the narrow stairway.

Heck followed her. At the top, he took her coat and ushered her into the lounge of his flat, where he spread it out over the dining table near the window.

‘Heck?’

‘Why do you think?’

‘Jesus …’ Gail brushed back her mop of wet, stringy hair. ‘Your life’s not over. You can’t isolate yourself like this.’

‘It’s not that.’ He handed her a towel, and then showed her his mobile phone, specifically the number of calls he hadn’t bothered to answer: twenty-five.

Fleetingly she was lost for words. ‘They’re monitoring your calls as well as sitting at your front door?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘Shit.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s only what I’d do if I was investigating me.’

‘They can’t really think that you … I mean Gemma, all the others …?’

Her words faded as she appraised him properly. The lean, handsome cop with the shock of unruly black hair and penetrating blue eyes was a shadow of his former self. She hadn’t noticed at first glance because there were no lights on in the flat and a dull greyness pervaded every room, but now she saw that he had lost weight, half a stone at least, and that his complexion was pale, his cheeks covered in unshaved stubble, dark smudges under his eyes.

He looked broken, a desperado who was capable of anything. But what else could she expect under the circumstances?

‘They’ve got me down as a formerly good cop who’s become unstable,’ he said.

‘Unstable?’ That brought her back to reality. ‘You’d have to be a raving madman to kill your own mates! For what it’s worth, no one else believes you were in any way connected. It’s only these IIB bastards, trying to make names for themselves again.’

‘Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.’ He moved to the window. He seemed weary, apathetic. ‘IIB are all it takes if they can make their ducks line up. Didn’t help that Gemma insisted on joining the pursuit in my car. Made it look like the shooters missed her the first time, so I made sure they didn’t miss her the second.’

Gail couldn’t believe it. ‘They think you were targeting Gemma … and that the rest were just collaterals?’

‘Me and Gemma had our moments.’

She shook her head, stumped. Heck and Gemma had been meant for each other if ever Gail had known such a thing. Though officially separated for a decade, they’d been more like a married couple than the average pair of newlyweds: their body language tactile and intimate; their squabbles regular but the anger never lasting. Yes, their actual relationship had been thwarted by circumstances, but they wouldn’t have been the first to suffer that.

‘Heck,’ she said, ‘I know you’d both have denied it to the end of time, but you bloody loved each other!’

‘There’s only me and you to say that, though, isn’t there. And any statement you made to that effect would be hearsay.’

She rubbed her hair with the towel. ‘Okay, what about the bastard you hit with the bottle? Would that be a normal way to treat your own trigger man?’

‘Again, they’ve only got my word that it happened that way.’

‘There was blood on the broken glass.’

‘Which is untraceable.’ Heck shook his head, bewildered. ‘No DNA matches in the whole of our database. Even Interpol can’t help.’

Gail was stunned. ‘But that would rule out even one of Milena Misanyan’s goons.’

‘Which is probably why they think it was a set-up.’

‘To make you look innocent, you mean?’

He gestured as if that was surely obvious. Gail struggled to recollect the incident.

The two masked gunmen who’d attacked the SCU party in the private function room at the Ace of Diamonds pub had been armed with automatic weapons, and cut everyone down where they stood, with the exception of Heck and Gemma, who’d both been out in the carpark at the time, rediscovering each other. Not realising that they’d missed two of their targets, the killers had then fled in a white Subaru XV. Heck had given chase in his own Megane. Gemma, though in a state of shock at having just watched the obliteration of her unit, had insisted on going with him. The pursuit had lasted nearly ten minutes, until the Megane had rounded a bend on a country lane just over the Greater London boundary in Hertfordshire, and found the Subaru parked up and the gunmen disembarked. In the ensuing hail of fire, Heck’s Megane came off the road and was raked with bullets. This was the moment when Gemma had suffered her catastrophic injury, a single high-velocity round penetrating clean through her upper body. Heck, unscathed, had chased the killers on foot, and tangled briefly with one of them, smashing him over the head with a bottle of champagne that he’d been planning to share with Gemma earlier, and then stabbing him in the neck and shoulder with what remained of it. However, the killers had still escaped, Heck finally taking refuge in the encircling woods, which they’d blasted with automatic fire before driving their Subaru into the back of a lorry, the VRM to which Heck hadn’t seen, and gunning it away into the night.

On reflection – and the detective inside Gail had to do this, they must always consider every option – it wasn’t impossible that, had Heck been in cahoots with the assassins, he could have playacted his hand-to-hand battle with them, or even invented it entirely (there was no one there who could report otherwise), and, as a diversion, plant the broken glass, having smeared it with the blood of some entirely innocent person who wasn’t even on the police radar.

But, hell … it was a stretch.

Nothing that Gail Honeyford knew about Heck made her imagine for one second that he would do something like this. Yes, her own relationship with him had been fraught. He could be aggravating, he always wanted to go it alone (which had especially annoyed her as she was partly in this job to show the men they couldn’t have it all their own way), he played faster and looser with the rules than anyone else she knew. But he wasn’t just one of the good guys. He was someone to have in your corner. You could rely on him for that much.

She shook her head. ‘They can’t convict you on this. It’s ridiculous.’

‘I wish I was as sure about that as you are,’ he replied.

‘Are there no favours you can call in?’

‘With twenty-six coppers dead, and more to follow maybe? Favours won’t cut it.’

‘Mike Garrickson’s SIO … and you’ve worked with him before.’

Heck gave a wry smile. ‘We weren’t exactly best mates.’

‘Was it so bad that he’d see you burn?’

‘No, but whatever success Garrickson’s having, it’s not getting me off the hook with IIB. Not yet anyway.’

She pondered. ‘Is Garrickson any good?’

‘He’s been with the Organised Crime Division a while. He ought to know his stuff.’

‘But you don’t trust him to get a result?’

Heck gazed from the window as another train hauled past below. The December afternoon was now so dark that strobe-like lights flickered over him. ‘He may find them.’ Fleetingly, his vision glazed. ‘The difficult part is deciding what happens after that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Getting them to talk, name their paymasters, their accomplices …’ He frowned. ‘Help dismiss the innocent from the enquiry.’

She understood his concern about that. Even assuming Garrickson arrested the two shooters, why would they make life easier for Heck if he’d been one of their intended targets?

‘Whole thing’s a sodding nightmare,’ she muttered.

He glanced round at her. ‘You came to SCU because you wanted a more eventful career, Gail. This eventful enough for you?’

‘Heck, could it have been anyone else the unit had locked up?’

He almost laughed. ‘There are so many of them that even I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘You said in your initial statement that you thought they were speaking in foreign accents.’

‘I thought they were,’ he said. ‘I can’t be sure.’

‘But that has to narrow it down. What about the Nice Guys Club? They were mostly foreigners.’

‘That’d be a possibility, but only one of hundreds.’

Gail was more exasperated than she could say. Every potential avenue she opened, there was some immovable object in the middle of it. ‘And all the while Garrickson works his leisurely way through these possibilities, you have to sit here, suspended, under suspicion, your reputation falling to bits?’

He nodded glumly. ‘That about sums it up.’

‘What’ve the Federation said?’

‘They’re on my side. They believe me. But all they can really do is chaperone me through the interviews and advise that I keep my chin up.’

‘And you’re obviously not going to do that?’

The statement puzzled him. ‘What choice is there?’

‘No, Heck … it wasn’t a question, it was an observation. You’re not planning to do that, are you! Just sit around, waiting for something to happen.’

He glanced at her again. She was watching him strangely, suspiciously almost.

Gail was a natural when it came to detective work because she had razor-sharp instincts. Yes, she was prickly and irritable; yes she was a bottle of pop, she could explode at the slightest provocation. But she was durable as well as smart, and had proved her worth many times down in Surrey and during Operation Sledgehammer. She didn’t have long service in yet, but you couldn’t kid her easily.

He moved towards the door. ‘Let’s have a brew, eh?’

She followed him into the small, tidy kitchenette. ‘I mean, I know you can be calm in a crisis, Heck, but this attitude of defeat is completely new. What happened was beyond belief, appalling, it gutted us all … but this is not the Heck I know. So, what’re you really planning?’

He took two mugs from a cupboard, tossed teabags into them and flipped the kettle on, not even noticing that it was empty of water. ‘I can’t do anything while I’m being watched.’

‘But you have got a plan?’

He looked round, oblivious to the kettle’s noisy rattling. ‘Gail, my career’s over. But I don’t care anymore. Everything that matters to me has gone. I’m never going to be a copper again. I don’t want to be a copper again …’

‘Oh, give it a rest,’ she said. ‘Here … I’ll make that.’

She took the kettle from its mount and filled it with water, before replacing it. ‘Sugar?’

‘Sweeteners please. Two. The milk’s in the fridge.’

He roved back into the lounge, stopping to assess the immense spread of the blue cagoule on the dining table. It was Gail’s, but it had to be three sizes too big for her. Possibly she’d inherited it from one of her former famously tempestuous relationships.

‘So, this calm demeanour is all about taking stock,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Working out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. If there’s any such thing.’

Gail came in and handed him his tea. ‘What if I told you that Gwen Straker’s looking to reconstitute the unit?’

Heck was genuinely surprised. ‘SCU?’

‘She’s been making the case to the NPCC for several weeks now. She’s saying that if we don’t do it, if we just give up, that’d be the ultimate triumph for the villains.’

His thoughts raced. ‘Gwen wants to be departmental boss?’

‘Why not? That’d work for us, wouldn’t it?’

It would indeed work. Gwen Straker had been Heck’s first DI when he joined CID at Bethnal Green. One of the first black female detectives in the Met to make high rank, she’d been an excellent detective because she’d had to be. She’d also become a personal friend to both him and Gemma, who were young DCs together at the time, not just teaching them and mentoring them, but mothering them, too. More recently, Gwen Straker, now in her fifties but the much-respected detective chief superintendent in charge of the Met’s Cold Case team, had co-commanded Sledgehammer, helping Gemma unravel one of the most complex and widespread murder investigations of modern times.

It wouldn’t just work. It would be ideal. Or it would have been ideal.

‘You say she’s having to make a case?’ Heck said. ‘Does that mean she’s not finding a sympathetic ear?’

Gail sipped her tea. ‘Sledgehammer was supposed to show the brass that SCU was indispensable. It sort of did that … or at least it would have made it embarrassing for them to have to close us down. And then the Ace of Diamonds happened, and SCU was gone anyway. I mean, they’d never put it in those terms, but these bastard gunmen did the NPCC a favour, didn’t they?’

Heck hung his head as he tried to work his way through the whole new realm of complexity this latest development had thrown up for him.

‘Well?’ Gail said. ‘Surely that gives you something to live for?’

He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Gwen can be persuasive, but disbanding SCU was all about saving money, so she’s asking them to look a massive gift-horse in the mouth. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Look, Heck … I’m trying to give you something to hang onto.’

‘I’ve already got something.’ He put his tea on the table and swung round to face her, brandishing her cagoule. ‘What do you reckon?’

*

Toby Crick was finding it increasingly difficult to pretend that he wasn’t bored. It was now six o’clock and another astoundingly uneventful shift was drawing to a close. At least he’d shortly be eating. DI Penhaligon had just come into sight in the rear-view mirror, outlined against the evening traffic as she rounded the corner carrying pizza boxes.

He sat up and stifled a yawn.

‘Anything?’ she asked, sliding in behind the wheel, handing him his pineapple-and-salami.

‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘Oh … Honeyford left.’

She looked at him; then glanced across the road. The Punto was missing. ‘When was this?’

‘Five minutes ago. You didn’t want me to stop her, did you?’

‘No, so long as you’re sure it was her.’

‘It was her.’ He opened his box, the heat and aroma wafting over him. ‘Came out the same way she went in. Coat over her head, running to her car to avoid the rain.’

‘Toby …’ The DI stared at him. ‘It stopped raining nearly two hours ago.’

A second passed before the penny dropped.

‘Shit!’ He slammed his pizza box closed.

Penhaligon did the same, grabbing her radio as she jumped from the car. ‘Attention all units …’

5

It had been easier than Heck had expected. A pair of jeans, a pair of white training shoes, a grey hoodie top, and Gail’s all-enveloping blue cagoule, not just to carry over his upper body but to conceal a rucksack containing a few basic essentials. He’d still expected to be stopped the moment he got onto the street; he was taller than Gail and, it went without saying, a completely different body shape. But it was dark, he supposed, and whoever the surveillance team over in the BMW comprised, they must have been getting tired and bored.

Even so, he knew it wouldn’t be long, so he drove the Punto no further than Fulham Road, where he pulled into a pay-for-parking bay. He threw the cagoule into the back seat, turned his phone off, and dug around inside the rucksack. The first thing he located was an old pair of handcuffs, but with any luck he wasn’t going to need those yet. He shoved them back in. Next he found his torch, which he also shouldn’t need, but then he pulled out some leather gloves and a grey woollen scarf. He donned both of these before leaving the vehicle, throwing the rucksack onto his back and starting to walk. Within a couple of minutes, he’d drawn money from two separate telling machines, one for the NatWest and one for the Nationwide. In both cases it was the entirety he was allowed to withdraw in one day, which came to a total of £800. He then went into the station, where he paid cash for a day’s travel card, before riding the District Line to Earl’s Court, where he took the Piccadilly Line north. At this stage, though, he didn’t feel there was much possibility that he was being followed. He’d got clean away from Cherrybrook Drive, and he doubted they’d even have put a BOLO on him yet. He was nothing more than a suspect at present, and not even a particularly good one. He hadn’t been charged with anything; he hadn’t even been arrested, so he couldn’t be classified as wanted or a fugitive. Even so, it was best not to be careless. So, he continually and covertly assessed those around him, though there was no one remotely suspicious, just the usual batch of worn-out Londoners on their way home after another hectic day. There wasn’t even an air of pre-Christmas excitement because these were mostly adults, not children, and all they saw on December 1st was another three weeks of work.

The problem would come when he got to N22, because if there was anyone waiting there, that would be a targeted obbo. He was now sure that Jude Penhaligon’s cool and unflinching exterior concealed a mind like a laser beam; she’d already have had time to set that up. As such, he didn’t get off the train at Turnpike Lane, but at Wood Green, and then headed southeast on foot, not taking the main streets, but the side ones and the back ones, proceeding with his hood up and the scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose. It wasn’t perishingly cold yet, but the temperature had dropped since the rainstorm earlier, so it wouldn’t look especially odd.

The object of his interest was Harrington Hawke Row, the home street of DC Gary Quinnell and his wife and two children. Despite his tendency to quote the psalms, the big Welshman had been a popular fixture at SCU for quite a few years now. The fractured skull he’d suffered during Operation Sledgehammer had seemed very unfortunate at the time, but less so now in that it meant he’d been too ill to attend the party at the Ace of Diamonds.

How Gary had been likely to respond when DS Heckenburg was declared a suspect in the mass-shooting had been governed by two factors: a) his love for his fellow man (though he could occasionally be heavy-handed with the underworld, this was only when they’d assaulted or abused his other fellow men, and especially his fellow police officers); and b) his status as one of Heck’s best friends in the job. He hadn’t rung Heck once since he’d been suspended, though almost certainly this had been because he’d guessed there’d be a phone-tap. However, he had written a letter. The same letter Heck currently had stuffed into his jeans back-pocket.

On the face of it, Gary had been offering his condolences and prayers, and he’d concluded with:

I’ve got no doubt that you’re innocent. So, at this stage nothing is different between us. I imagine you’re having a pretty lonely time of it at present. But if you ever find your way here, my house is yours, my stuff is yours. Just treat it as your own.

Your malingering, likely-to-be-off-work-for-several-weeks-yet buddy

Gaz

Innocent enough to those who didn’t know Gary Quinnell and his relationship with Heck, and intended to look exactly that, because neither of the two cops knew whether anyone else was reading Heck’s mail before it was delivered through his letterbox.

Though in reality, at least to Heck, it meant something completely different.

My stuff is yours. Which included Gary’s metallic blue Volvo saloon, currently residing in his garage, the third along from the end on open land at the bottom of Harrington Hawke Row. A spare key to which was always kept taped to the bricks behind an old tin bath that had to be a memento from Gary’s grandparents’ days, and which now hung on the wall just to the left of the car.

Just treat it as your own. Which spoke for itself.

Your malingering, likely-to-be-off-work-for-several-weeks-yet buddy. In other words, ‘I’m off work for a while yet, so not only will I not need the car, I’ll have a perfectly good reason for not noticing that it’s suddenly gone missing and therefore not reporting it. At least, not until you’ve had a chance to get well away from here.’

But the first thing Heck saw on turning the corner from Cobham Road onto Westbury Avenue, and spying the north end of Harrington Hawke Row, was a uniform patrol car. Just sitting there, its blue light swirling.

He swore quietly. He’d never intended to knock on Gary’s door, but had still needed to go down the guy’s street to reach the garage.

He backed round the corner to think things through. His geographical knowledge of London was primarily centred on those districts where he’d done jobs, and so, a map of Noel Green and Duckett’s Park was only sketchy in his mind’s eye. He thought there might be a parallel street to Harrington Hawke, Rusper something or other, just on the other side of it. But he’d still have to pass the dawdling patrol car. He could walk past the back of it, and as there were still lots of commuters striding back and forth along Westbury, while the traffic itself was slow-moving and pumping out heavy veils of winter exhaust, it might not be too risky. But before he could chance it, a spotlight picked him out.

Heck froze.

Another patrol car had stolen up on him and halted at the kerb, its passenger now framing him in torchlight. No words were heard. It was the silence of cool appraisal. Heck stayed rigid. He knew that to say anything, even in modern day cosmopolitan London, would be a dead giveaway. Local Plod would be looking for someone with a Northern English accent. But then, the torchlight clicked off.

‘Sorry, sir, mistaken identity. Nothing to worry about.’

The window powered back up, the patrol car gliding away.

Heck lurched back along Cobham Road for a couple of hundred yards, at which point he ducked into a newsagent to buy a paper.

Might make him look more like a punter, he supposed.

‘Coppers all over the place tonight.’ The Asian guy behind the counter nodded past Heck, who glanced through the window and saw two uniform foot-soldiers ambling past. ‘Obviously something happening.’

Heck didn’t want to comment in case one of them came in here asking questions. That bloody northern accent again. He shrugged and pulled a wry expression as if to say: ‘What can you do, eh?’

The Asian chap handed him his change. Heck rolled the paper up and shoved it into his back-pocket before leaving the shop and taking Meads Road north to Russell Avenue. Getting to the garages off Harrington Hawke Row undetected now depended on him circling his way round to it from a different direction. He thus walked along Russell Avenue and then turned south along Mark Road. By this time, he hadn’t seen any police personnel for a couple of minutes, and this wasn’t for lack of glancing over his shoulder just to ensure there was no one tailing him. Mark Road brought him back to Westbury, but far to the east of Harrington Hawke Row. As he crossed to the other side, another police car drove past. Again, he froze midstride, but this one showed no interest in him and continued south.

‘Don’t get paranoid,’ he muttered. ‘For Christ’s sake.’

He now turned east along Lordship Lane. The problem with this circumlocutory route was that, while he was clearly putting distance between himself and the surveillance units watching the Quinnell premises, more and more time was elapsing since his escape from Cherrybrook Drive, giving DI Penhaligon ever more opportunity to get organised. Given that Gary was a close associate of Heck’s, one of the few remaining, she might even have gone to speak with him personally. Gary would say nothing, but Heck was less sure about his wife, Clara, who’d been very upset when her husband was hurt during Sledgehammer. She’d been particularly upset with Heck because he’d been with the big guy at the time, which in her mind had made him partly responsible. With luck, Gary wouldn’t have mentioned anything to Clara about the recent letter he’d written to Heck, but when husbands and wives got vexed with each other, you never knew.

At Tottenham High Road, he turned south again, which led him to yet more local fuzz. He’d no sooner veered south onto Seven Sisters Road than he spotted another uniform car parked up outside the tube station, its driver chatting to a foot patrol. Having already approached from over a hundred yards or so, Heck realised that he couldn’t just turn round and go back. So, he kept on, hands in his pockets, head down.

They didn’t cock him a snook, and once he was past them, he turned left along the residential horseshoe that was Stonebridge Road, a cut-through allowing him access back to Tottenham High Road, where he continued south. He’d walked so far now that under normal conditions he’d be feeling it, but at last those long, meandering jogging sessions were paying a dividend. At the junction with Gladesmore Road, he halted to think. He was surely now far outside any dragnet they’d cast for him in the vicinity of Harrington Hawke Row. He turned northwest along St Anne’s Road and threaded his way through Chestnuts Park, thankful for the darkness created by its many bushes, but then had to slow down, watching through the railings as yet another patrol car prowled the park’s edge. Beyond that, he went east along St Anne’s Road, turning south down Hermitage Road, heading west again along Oakdale, and taking a foot-tunnel under the Gospel Oak-to-Barking Line, cutting along Stanhope Gardens. At Carlingford Road, he made his way northeast via Langham and Ivatt Way and crossed the Belmont Recreation Ground.

Which was where he hit his first real snag.

The garages at the bottom of Harrington Hawke Row were accessible from the other side of the Recreation Ground by a simple pair of wrought iron gates. Even if these gates were closed and chained, he could probably climb them. However, now he found himself confronted by a wall of towering back-fences, and on the other side of those, a brand-new housing estate.

Heck stood there stupefied.

If he forced his way, he would, for the first time that night, be breaking the law. That didn’t bother him per se. If he succeeded tonight, this whole mission would become one of extreme illegality – assuming he could push it right to its finish – but the problem was that committing a crime now, even a relatively minor one like smashing someone’s garden fence, would grant all the officers scouring these neighbourhoods a power of arrest, which meant they could haul him to the nearest nick, where Jude Penhaligon could hold him overnight and sweat him for long hours about what his plan actually was, because she wouldn’t be fooled that he didn’t have one.

Heck paced the perimeter, clambering over mounds of bricks and other building rubble, looking for a way around the new fences, and ultimately finding that there wasn’t one. One good thing, however. The fences were so new that he suddenly realised he could probably lift one of their panels rather than break it. It wasn’t even noisy as he did it, though when he hurried across the back garden on the other side, a motion-sensitive light came on. Cursing, he ducked behind a shed and waited. There was no sound, the only lights from the house filtering past closed curtains. The motion-detector went dark again, and he dashed out. The light was restored, but this time he ignored it, running down the side passage to the gate at the end. Checking the front of the house, he saw more lamplight behind closed curtains. There’d likely be another motion-detector here too, but it shouldn’t matter. The drive was open and beyond that lay an access road, at the far end of which he could see the open space where the garages were.

Enough stealth. Now it was time for speed.

Heck stepped through the gate, closed it as quietly as he could, ventured forward until the next light came on, and bolted, sprinting down the drive and along the suburban avenue. There was no shouting behind him, no sound of pursuit. When he glanced back, the outside light had gone off again. He slowed to a fast walk as he crossed the open space towards the row of garages, now visible as a line of dark, square-shouldered outlines about forty yards to his front and right.

At which point, somewhere on his left, a pair of headlights sprang to life.

A blue beacon began turning.

It was a whole second before Heck, chilled to his marrow, realised that he hadn’t been caught in the full glare, and that the vehicle was moving away to the left. He darted right, scrambling across twenty yards of open ground and ducking behind several mounds of discarded tyres. As he did, the police car screeched to a halt. With a clunk, a handbrake was applied.

Heck hunkered down, listening as a couple of doors banged open.

‘What was it?’ a male voice said.

‘Dunno,’ another replied. ‘Thought I saw movement. Nothing obvious. Flicker in the corner of my eye.’

Heavy feet approached, crunching grit.

Heck remained crouched, forehead slick with sweat. Considering the rest of the force supposedly didn’t think he’d done it, they certainly seemed to be everywhere.

He glanced around. Directly ahead, a narrow passage ran between the heaped tyres and a rickety old fence. Some thirty yards farther on, it became a passage between the fence and the garages. That was all he needed because the way into Gary’s garage was through the back.

But for the moment he held his ground.

The feet had halted about ten yards off. A beam of light roved along the top of the tyres.

‘Fucking rat or something?’ the doubtful one of the two officers said.

‘Fucking big rat.’

‘Thought you only saw a flicker?’

‘I don’t know … not sure what it was.’

The two pairs of feet moved away, but it wasn’t ideal because it sounded as if they were headed towards the garages. Heck remained in place, but as the footfalls receded, risked a peek, seeing two burly uniforms, their backs turned, their torchlight playing over the cindery ground in every direction, not to mention across the garage doors. He continued to wait, but almost jumped out of his skin when something brushed his right hand. He looked down, his eyes now attuned to the darkness, and was fascinated to see that there actually was a rat. No doubt there were lots of them around here. But this one, a fairly large specimen, was snuffling at the ground next to his hand.

It turned away, and he grabbed it by the hindquarters, flinging it before it had a chance to rear around and bite him. It landed on the open ground with a soft thud and a piercing squeak.

The coppers spun round, their double-beams spearing back and fully capturing the startled rodent, as it shook itself and scampered away.

‘Told you,’ one of them said as they walked back from the garages.

‘Dunno.’ The other one still seemed unsure. ‘Thought it was something taller than that.’

‘Optical illusion. Probably running along the tops of those tyres.’

‘Suppose.’ Officer Unsure still didn’t sound convinced, but the pair of them meandered back towards their car.

Heck hunkered down again, advancing on all fours towards the back of the garages, crawling through mud, wastepaper and other rubbish, stopping every few yards to risk a look. The patrol car was moving off, but only slowly. Its front windows were down, both the driver and passenger training their torches outward. Heck ducked quickly as a beam swept over him. The vehicle halted again.

He swore under his breath.

But no one got out this time, and as he listened, he heard one of the men conversing with the crackly voice of the CAD operator.

‘Good,’ he muttered. ‘Despatch them somewhere else. Give them some real police work to do.’

Once behind the garages, he stood up. It was a narrow passage, which he couldn’t move along without turning sideways, but each garage had a door in the back. Most would be locked, but Gary kept a spare key on top of the lintel. Heck pulled a glove off, felt around up there, and located it. Relieved, he inserted the key. With much grunting and sweating, it turned, and the door opened on a coal-black interior. He couldn’t risk turning his phone on to activate the light in case someone was trying to track it. So, he ventured forward very carefully, very slowly – and immediately kicked a cardboard box, which moved half a foot or so, dislodging something balanced on top of it. With a succession of ear-shattering clatters, all kinds of metallic objects hurtled down from a precarious set of DIY shelves.

Heck stood still. The reverberations seemed to last forever. In fact, they were still going on when he heard the two doors to the police car bang open again.

Stealthily as he could, he closed the garage door behind him, felt for the keyhole and found it, but the damn lock was even stiffer on this side. He could force it, but that would make more noise. And now he could hear gruff voices – not from the front of the garages anymore, but from the back. One by one, they were trying the rear doors.

Heck retreated, sweat dripping as he came up against Gary’s blue Volvo C30. With nothing else for it, he groped around the car with his hands, moving down the nearside of it towards the front of the garage. Its heavy steel door was electronically operated, so he wouldn’t just be able to lift it and duck outside again. When he got there, he squatted, shuffling backward into a tight space between two cupboards. He could just about wedge himself in there, though he wasn’t hidden. Not from someone with a torch in his hand.

The voices now sounded as if they were right outside. It was impossible to work out what they were saying, but the door remained shut, and after several exchanges, it all went quiet.

A torturous ten seconds passed before there was a click and the back door opened. Heck closed his eyes. It wasn’t possible that his plan was going to end here. Not when he owed so many people so much. Not when he thought of Gemma, and the horrendous injury those malevolent maniacs had done to her. He held his breath as a slow, heavy tread pressed down the alley between the car and the garage wall, attempting to squash himself even further into this tiny gap, knowing that it was futile. The feet halted alongside him. Silence. Then a hand fumbled along the wall above his head, a switch was thrown, and the garage’s interior lights blatted to life.

‘Well, well,’ a voice said. ‘You’d have woken the entire neighbourhood … if anyone was asleep yet.’ It wasn’t an angry voice, though. It sounded amused. What was more, it was warm, genial. And Welsh.

6

‘I’m just glad you weren’t asleep,’ Heck said, getting to his feet.

Gary nodded. ‘I probably wouldn’t have heard you if I hadn’t been in the garden at the time, chucking out some rubbish.’ Even now he carried a brown paper bag clinking with what sounded like cans and bottles. ‘Had to move bloody quickly, boy, I’ll tell you that.’

Even wearing a cardigan, tracksuit bottoms and slippers, the Welshman was an impressive physical specimen. Thanks to his being off sick for a while, he’d lost weight; it was especially noticeable in his lean face. But his red/gold hair, all of it shaved off when he’d been operated on back in the summer, had grown back, and he still looked big enough to play number eight for the Metropolitan Police Rugby Union Team, which he hoped to do again once he’d made a full recovery.

‘We’re all owed a lucky break,’ Heck said, brushing himself down. ‘What did you tell the uniforms?’

‘That I was chucking out some more rubbish from the garage.’

‘And they bought that?’

‘Why wouldn’t they? It’s my garage.’

‘Well … they’re only here because you’re my mate.’

‘Not today they’re not.’ Gary tossed his bag of cans into a corner. ‘We’ve had a gang of juvenile pickpockets on the plot. Right bunch of tearaways … their camp got approached on Ducketts Common earlier this evening. Scattered them across the borough.’

Which explained the heavy police presence, Heck realised with a vague sense of relief, though it irritated him that he’d got all muddied up for nothing. Now he understood why they’d ignored him on the corner of Cobham Road. Not that this meant he was totally in the clear.

‘Someone may still knock on your door,’ he said. ‘I only shook my tail a couple of hours ago.’

The Welshman shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen you, have I? You didn’t even reply to my letter, you rude bugger.’

Heck nodded with gratitude, though he couldn’t help feeling that, for the first time ever, there was a distance between them.

He knew that he didn’t look like much. Scruffy, dirty. A tad wild-eyed. He tried to smile, to show that this was still him, that he wasn’t some scrap of humanity who’d gone Looney Tunes since the terrible event that had shattered all their lives. But he hadn’t used those facial muscles in so long that he couldn’t do much more than twist his mouth into a half-hearted grimace. Besides, he suspected that the gap between them was down to more than his new, scarecrow-like state. Heck was under suspicion of killing their mutual friends. Gary had lost at least as many close ones in the massacre as he had. More than likely, he’d regard it as complete nonsense that Heck was somehow involved – otherwise he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing now. But he was a copper, too, experienced enough to have seen some very strange things in his time, and wise enough to understand that you didn’t always know people as well as you thought, and that often the very reason why the most successful monsters were successful was because they could pass for nursery school teachers.

Gary Quinnell was here now, laying on an escape route for him. But was there still a kernel of doubt? How could there not be?

‘Can’t tell you how grateful I was for that letter,’ Heck said.

‘That letter’s why I knew it had to be you in my garage. Who else’d try to pinch a ten-year-old Volvo?’

‘How long can I have it for?’

‘Clara’s got her Polo, which we can use all this weekend. But I’ll need it on Monday, so I’ll have to report it then.’

Heck nodded. ‘That should be enough.’

‘What happened?’ Briefly, Gary looked physically pained. ‘Seriously, boy … what the actual fuck?’

‘Surely you’ve been told everything by now?’

‘I’ve heard the official line. For what that bollocks is worth.’

‘That’s much as it was. Two masked assailants launched a disciplined assault with high-powered weapons. Entered the party unnoticed, laid down a field of continuous fire until near enough everyone was dead. Drove away again at high speed.’

‘They didn’t elude you.’

‘Yeah …’ Now, Heck did manage to smile, with a depth of regret that looked as if it might bring tears to his eyes. ‘And look at the result of that.’

‘Come here.’ They stumbled together into a heavy, clumsy man-hug. ‘Can’t bloody believe they’d think it was you.’ Gary almost sounded tearful himself.

Heck extricated himself. ‘They’re theorising that I got pissed off about Gemma and Jack Reed … that I’d gone funny in the head thanks to our recent caseload.’

‘As a result of which pressure, you planned and executed the murder of the entire team? The same group of people you lived on top of, the ones you worked with day and night, the ones who’d become a replacement family for you?’ Gary didn’t sound suspicious now as much as outraged. ‘In which fucking universe, boyo? Tell me that.’

Heck leaned on the Volvo. ‘Bob Hunter didn’t help me. I spoke to him the night of the party. I’d just accepted the Flying Squad gig. Told him there was no future for SCU. But what I meant was there was no future for me in SCU. Not if I wanted to get things going with Gemma again. ’Course, he didn’t know that.’

Gary pondered. ‘So, is going on the run really going to help, do you think?’

‘Ordinarily no. But the thing is, Gaz …’ Heck struggled to phrase it. ‘Look, I’ll come clean. I’m not going on the run. I’m …’

Gary held a palm up. ‘If you aren’t going into hiding, I don’t want to know what you are doing, okay? There are certain things you could tell me, and I’d have to decide against letting you take my car. Then there are other things that would mean I’d have to nick you here and now.’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘So, isn’t it better if you just plain tell me nothing?’

‘Well …’ Heck shuffled his feet, ‘what I can tell you is that I can’t stay in that flat any longer. I couldn’t stand the place when I had a job to go to. Imagine how it feels now.’

‘Not sure I want to hear about that either, to be honest,’ the Welshman murmured. They’d all been living in a pall of gloom. He couldn’t imagine how deep the darkness for Heck.

‘How are you, anyway?’ Heck asked.

‘Well … when Gemma first signed me off back in August, my scheduled return-to-work date was this Monday. Light duties, of course.’

‘No more dizzy spells?’

Gary made a vague gesture, which, given that it could have meant anything, Heck found rather worrying.

‘So, what’re you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Off to see Joe Wullerton. See where he can fit me in.’

Heck smirked. ‘Well … the Yard being the Yard, the Pen-Twiddling Squad’ll probably find room for you.’

‘I was thinking I might prefer the Making Chains Out of Paperclips Division.’

‘Either would be secure. They can always find extra funding.’

Gary nodded, smiled – but it was forced. The joke had run its course.

‘Time to let you go,’ he said.

Heck nodded too.

‘We’d best turn the light off before I go out, eh? No sense drawing attention to ourselves.’

Heck flicked the switch, plunging them both into thick darkness, which was only slightly dispelled when Gary opened the door.

‘Heck?’ There was a brief, uneasy hesitation in his voice. ‘I know I said don’t tell me, but … I can’t just walk away without asking you this at least. You’re not going to do anything stupid?’

Silence followed, during which the big Welshman’s silhouette stood motionless in the doorway.

‘Gaz … so many of our best mates are dead, or crippled …’

‘You ever heard the phrase “vengeance is mine”?’

‘Of course, but …’

‘Sayeth the Lord?’

‘There’re lots of people out there who have no truck with the Lord, Gaz.’

‘They will have when they die. Whether they like it or not.’

‘Gaz, mate … I’ve got a couple of leads, and I’m just going to ask a few questions. I can’t promise there won’t be any strong-arm stuff. But I’ll be operating outside the law anyway. So, I won’t have much option. And to be fair, that’s never bothered you up to now.’

‘It’s not about me today, boy, it’s about you.’

‘Rest assured, I’m not going to do anything stupid.’

The seconds stretched on interminably, before Gary moved out of sight, closing the door.

Heck fumbled for the tin bath, but carefully so as not to knock it down and cause another ruckus. When he found it, he felt underneath and retrieved the spare keys to the Volvo. He unlocked the car, slid inside and switched the interior light on.

For a couple of seconds, he sat alone, the typical musty smell of a family vehicle filling his nostrils. The faint taint of sweat, of schoolbags, of ice lollies, chocolate. Maybe a hint of McDonald’s. It had never been easy to picture, but he’d always assumed that at some point he, too, would have a family. Not now, of course, with his horizons so utterly empty.

He opened the rucksack, rummaged inside and took out two more items. The first was a bundle of printouts from the internet, headshots for the most part, downloaded from the SCU personnel files before he’d been suspended. The second was a kind of scrapbook, but so battered, burned and torn, repaired and re-repaired so often with roll after roll of sticky tape that it didn’t really resemble anything. It was almost the size of a telephone directory thanks to the numerous extra leaves that he’d stuck in the back of it over the years, though its immense thickness was also due to the wads of overlapping photographs glued to the front and back of every page. These too were mostly headshots, and they represented all ages, all races, all sexes. Invariably they depicted persons caught in a happy moment: at birthday parties, or on Christmas morning, or sunning themselves on foreign beaches. None of them had known that a relatively short time after the camera had clicked that day, they’d be just another murder statistic. Though in this case it was different. Because these people had not been forgotten.

Not by Heck, at least.

They were all in here because these were individuals whose killings he’d not just worked on but for whom he’d obtained some kind of result.

It was one of the few personal items he possessed, and probably the only one he treasured.

It had followed him all his career as a homicide investigator. Not just as proof of his triumphs – it wasn’t that at all, in truth – but almost as a Bible, something he would consult each morning before he commenced work, to remind himself why he did what he did, and to keep the human cost of these crimes firmly in his mind so that he’d never relax at his post or become complacent in his role.

Now the SCU headshots would need to be attached. There was room for them at the back; it was never a problem to gum new pages into place. But the rule was that this could only happen when their slayers had been brought to justice. For the moment he had to content himself with tucking them in loosely rather than fixing them there. He didn’t want to break the rule, even now, when these would likely be the last additions he’d ever make.

That said, there was one picture he hesitated to put anywhere near the book.

Gemma. His golden girl.

Unlike the others, this image was very personal to him. He’d taken it himself, when they’d been an item. It showed Gemma on a stone pier somewhere in the Channel Islands, zipped up in an anorak, the wind tousling her flaxen hair, which though long and loose as she’d often worn it back in her twenties, was as wild and unmanageable as ever, her face fixed in a beautiful but enigmatic smile. So often she’d criticised him for maintaining his log of the deceased, arguing that he was taking on a guilt that wasn’t his, that he was only extending the pain that each one of those terrible investigations had inflicted on him.

We’re just part of the legal process, Mark. Professional witnesses. So often she’d said that to him. We can’t afford to get any more involved than that.

‘Oh, God …’ His eyesight glazed over.

You bloody loved each other, Gail had told him.

Heck couldn’t comment on Gemma’s feelings. He’d never be so bold. But from his own point of view, it was true. All these years they’d spent in close proximity to each other, and he’d still felt a buzz of excitement every time she walked into the room. Oh yes, he’d hidden it. He was DS Heckenburg after all, the guy with the baggage. His family life was a train-wreck, something he was still running from even though it haunted him nightly, a torture he took out on the villains. It had made him more machine than man, a cold-blooded bastard who’d stop at nothing to bring justice to the streets. It was no wonder he took God-awful risks, that he had no life outside the job, that he had no room for anyone else. At least, that was the way it had appeared. To himself as much as the rest. But not to Gail Honeyford, who with that extra degree of perceptiveness that made her such an effective copper, had seen through the charade. Had seen that deep down inside him there’d been a form of happiness, a concealed contentment. Yes, he was a mess, but he wasn’t some twisted, unemotional monster. He was actually pretty normal. Much like anyone else. And that had been squarely down to Gemma Piper, who he’d wanted so much that if he couldn’t be her lover anymore, he’d been ready to stick around as her friend, and if not that, as her colleague.

Not that he’d needed to, because …

The pain clenching in his middle was almost physical. Like acid eating his organs.

Because despite every one of those irresistible, elemental forces keeping them apart, they’d somehow been pulling it back together again. He’d made the essential sacrifice in offering to change jobs. And when he’d looked into Gemma’s lovely eyes and told her that, she’d at first been angry that she was losing her ‘best detective,’ but then he’d seen the change there, the slow realisation that they wouldn’t need to pretend anymore. That it was okay, it was all going to be fine, perfect …

He hunched where he sat, teeth clamped on his bottom lip to prevent the groan of agony escaping as a scream. Only when he realised the picture had screwed up in his fist and was now crumpled, did he make an effort to relax, to knuckle the tears from his eyes. He straightened the image out on the dashboard, gazing at it longingly, achingly.

And then he glanced at the scrapbook on the front passenger seat. Awaiting its final entry.

‘No … sod it!’ He’d deny it, he’d ignore it, he’d push it away from him. ‘Not yet … you don’t go in there yet, babe.’ It was pathetic, of course, ridiculous, pointless. But he still opted for the glovebox and laid her in there instead, almost reverentially, on top of Gary Quinnell’s battered old driver’s manual.

He closed the box. Sat back. Took a breath. Used fingers to wipe the wet streaks from his cheeks. Then shoved the scrapbook back into the rucksack, threw it onto the rear seat, turned and faced forward. And hit the fob to the garage door.

Silently it lifted.

On the other side, the night awaited him.

Vengeance is mine … sayeth the Lord.

Heck replied as before. ‘There’re lots of people who have no truck with the Lord.’

They will when they die.

‘Rest assured, I’m not going to do anything stupid.’ He drove out. ‘Just sending them to meet Him a lot quicker than they planned for.’

7

It was mid-evening and Friday night’s usual horde of drunken, belligerent idiots hadn’t yet commenced cramming Charing Cross Hospital’s A&E. That was something for Gwen Straker to be thankful for, as she made her way in, leather overcoat swishing at her knees, but it was the only thing.

She met Jude Penhaligon just inside the entrance. The DI wore her usual air of deadpan seriousness. ‘Sorry to bring you in on this, ma’am. Especially at this time on a Friday night. But technically, while DC Honeyford is only on temporary secondment to Harlesden CID, and Operation Sledgehammer is officially still open, you are her senior supervisor.’

Gwen Straker didn’t reply as they went through into A&E together, flashing their IDs to the triage nurse on duty. It wouldn’t have been the first time that Gwen and her husband, Dom, had been down the pub with friends when her phone had rung and she’d been asked to come in. Dom understood that as well as anyone. She’d been a cop thirty years, the entire duration of their marriage. That said, it was a rare occasion when she’d been asked to come in for something like this, but then the Ace of Diamonds disaster was still reverberating in police circles all over the country. Nothing was normal at present.

DC Crick was standing to one side, leafing through a copy of the Evening Standard at the same time as trying to keep out of the nurses’ way. He glanced up at Penhaligon and nodded at a curtained-off treatment bay. ‘She’s in there.’

‘She has a name!’ Gwen snapped.

Crick was startled, wondering who this bolshy middle-aged black lady was. He saw immediately that she was attractive but while the jeans and sweater, not to mention the long, black leather coat, apparently discounted any possibility that she was police, he still detected authority, and quickly straightened up.

‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Straker from Cold Cases,’ Penhaligon explained. ‘Joint-SIO on Operation Sledgehammer.’

‘Oh, ma’am … yes.’ So much for her not being police. She was five-star police. He straightened up even more. ‘Sorry.’

‘You are?’ Gwen asked.

‘DC Crick, ma’am, NCG … Internal Investigations Branch.’

‘I’d never have guessed. I take it the “she” you were referring to is DC Gail Honeyford?’

‘That’s correct, ma’am.’

‘Is she injured?’

‘Not as such.’

‘Maybe a bit shaken up,’ Penhaligon said.

‘We’re all that, aren’t we,’ Gwen replied. ‘Or we should be. It’s only been three months, after all.’

Crick looked twitchy.

Penhaligon, characteristically unruffled, said: ‘Why don’t you go and get us all a coffee, Toby? There’s a machine at the end of the corridor.’

‘Forget the machine,’ Gwen cut in. ‘Go and find the canteen. Mine’s a herbal tea.’

Crick sloped away. Gwen Straker had a rep for being a caring, empathetic boss, who subsequently was very popular with the rank and file. Clearly though, there was steel there too. He was relieved to have been dismissed.

Gwen still hung back from the treatment bay. ‘Have you cautioned her?’

‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Penhaligon said. ‘At present, she’s a victim, not a suspect.’

Gwen’s eyes probed at her. ‘Clearly, you don’t believe that?’

‘There’s not a mark on her. So … no, I don’t personally believe that Mark Heckenburg had to physically overpower her.’

‘Any more than you believe her explanation for why Heck went to that party in the first place?’

‘I just go where the evidence leads me.’

‘Even tenuous evidence like this?’

Penhaligon remained calm. ‘Ma’am, this is the second time that Gail Honeyford will have shown herself to be in Mark Heckenburg’s corner. That makes it very difficult to see her as a neutral witness. Now, whatever you think … and I know you lost some friends at the Ace of Diamonds, and that you only weren’t there yourself by the grace of God, I have a job to do, too. And if I have a suspicion that any police officers were involved in this crime, no matter how indirectly, I’m going to do my damnedest to bring them to book.’

‘Well, aren’t you the admirable one? Do you know why I wasn’t part of the Ace of Diamonds massacre, DI Penhaligon?’

‘I believe you were down in Cornwall, ma’am.’

‘Yes. Supervising the recovery of thirty-seven corpses. Murder victims, all of whose unmarked gravesites had been detected by Mark Heckenburg.’ Gwen kept her voice level but so intense was her stare that even Jude Penhaligon’s ice-pale cheeks coloured a little. ‘So, when you’re spending your day finding ways – no matter how indirectly – to connect officers like Heck to atrocities like the Ace of Diamonds, I’d like you also to consider the much more direct ways that they might also have contributed to the resolution of major criminal investigations and made life safer for everyone who lives in this country.’

‘Doesn’t make him incapable of murder,’ Penhaligon replied.

Gwen rolled her eyes, yanked back the curtain and entered the bay.

Gail Honeyford glanced up from the chair beside the gurney, where a female nurse was dabbing ointment on the visible weals marking her wrists. ‘Hello, ma’am.’

Gwen had always thought Gail a bit of a looker, a doe-eyed brunette with a slim, athletic figure, but an efficient officer too, who valued presentability. For all these reasons, her unusually bedraggled state was a bit of a shock, even though all that actually meant was that her hair was wet and her makeup had run. She certainly didn’t look beaten up.

‘How are you feeling?’ Gwen asked tersely.

‘I’m okay,’ Gail replied. ‘It all happened a bit quickly. Before I knew it, he had the washing line round my body, then round my hands …’

She offered her mildly injured arms for their inspection. Suspecting that now wasn’t the best time, the nurse nodded, smiled and withdrew. Penhaligon drew the curtain closed again.

‘Heck’s a man of many talents,’ Gwen said. ‘Who’d have guessed that bondage was one of them.’

‘He didn’t hurt me, ma’am,’ Gail replied. ‘I want that on the record. He did not hurt me.’

‘You sure you want any part of this on the record, DC Honeyford?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘You sure you want this thing going anywhere beyond these four walls?’

Gail looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think we can just ignore …’

‘Oh, we’re not going to ignore it. Don’t you worry, DC Honeyford.’ Gwen folded her arms. ‘In fact, there’s only one reason I haven’t cautioned you already. And that’s because we’ve lost far too many other good officers in the last few months. The Police Service of England and Wales needs you even if it doesn’t necessarily want you. But of course, my enforced patience isn’t limitless. So, I’m going to give you one further chance to tell me what happened off the record … before I decide if there’ll be any further action.’

Gail’s expression hardened. Defiance came easy to her, Gwen noted. But then she’d already heard this from Gemma Piper.

‘I told DI Penhaligon what happened,’ Gail said.

‘You told her a pack of lies!’ Gwen retorted. ‘No … look at me. Look at me!’

Gail, who’d glanced disdainfully away, glanced back, still surly.

‘Don’t even think about trying that truculent bullshit with me, my girl!’ Gwen said. ‘If I have to, I won’t hesitate to instruct DI Penhaligon to arrest you right now on suspicion of obstructing police officers and attempting to pervert the course of justice.’

Gail turned wary. ‘I told you what happened. I can’t say more than that.’

Gwen pursed her lips. ‘DC Honeyford, who were you with before you joined the National Crime Group?’

‘Surrey CID, ma’am, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

‘You see a lot of action?’

‘It was steady work.’

‘Why did you apply to join the National Crime Group?’

‘I did some work with DS Heckenburg. He was on attachment from SCU in Surrey.’

‘You investigated a murder case with him, isn’t that correct?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘An investigation that was complicated but ultimately successful?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You also, at Mark Heckenburg’s encouragement, arrested a fellow police officer?’

Gail reddened slightly. ‘That was over something different, but it’s true, ma’am, yes.’

‘With or without Mark Heckenburg’s encouragement?’

‘Yes, Heck was there … he advised me.’

Gwen regarded her carefully. ‘So, whenever Heck’s been in your life, it’s been a bit more than steady work, hasn’t it?’

‘I don’t see how any of this is relevant …’

‘You’ve run the whole gamut of police experiences, haven’t you? You and him? And as such, you’ve formed a real bond.’

‘Ma’am, if you’re suggesting that I allowed Heck to tie me up tonight, then you don’t know anything about me at all …’

‘Oh, I think I know quite a bit, Gail.’ Gwen Straker was not a tall woman, and though she might normally be renowned for her maternal style, at present she radiated intensity. ‘I know you’re a hardcase, I know that you don’t play second fiddle to men. I know that you like nothing better than to run up a flag for policewomen everywhere. But perhaps you can understand why posturing of that sort doesn’t cut much ice with either me or DI Penhaligon?’

Gail glanced from one to the other. Gwen Straker’s reputation always went before her; to have achieved so much in the job, especially having joined at a time when ethnic minorities in the service were virtually non-existent and women had to work doubly hard just to get noticed, made her a legend in itself. DI Penhaligon, meanwhile, was notorious as the Ice Queen of internal investigations, and a ‘thief-taker of thief-takers’. But if the junior officer was intimidated, she wasn’t showing it yet.

‘Now, I’ve no doubt that you and Heck cooked up this little scheme to help him evade IIB’s surveillance,’ Gwen said.

‘That’s not true.’

‘How do you think it looks? Gail … he’s under suspicion of involvement in multiple murders.’

‘No disrespect, ma’am,’ Gail said, and shook her head, ‘but you know that’s total crap.’

‘You realise Heckenburg’s killed before?’ Penhaligon put in. ‘In the line of duty, but he’s still done it. And more than once.’

‘He did it before, so that means he did it this time?’ Gail scoffed. ‘Good luck selling that in court.’

‘Gail!’ Gwen shouted.

‘Ma’am!’ Gail replied. ‘Heck was your protégé, your best pupil. You know he didn’t do this.’

Gwen made an effort to calm herself. ‘You see, that’s the difference between you and me, DC Honeyford. I’m long enough in the tooth to know that it doesn’t matter what I think. Especially not when there are grounds for suspicion. You told DI Penhaligon that Heck went to the Ace of Diamonds to try and win Gemma Piper back. To make her his girlfriend again. Is that not true?’

Gail nodded. ‘That’s what happened.’

‘You sure?’ Gwen arched an eyebrow. ‘You sure that’s all? You sure you’re not withholding evidence, Gail? Committing perjury, maybe? Because that’s how serious this is.’

‘Perhaps that never occurred to you,’ Penhaligon added.

Gail snorted. ‘So now I’m an Ace of Diamonds suspect too?

Penhaligon shrugged. ‘You’ve not completely incriminated yourself yet, but you’re doing a good job.’

‘Prove it,’ Gail told her. ‘Go on … stop blustering and lock me up. Hit me with some actual charges. You can’t, can you? Because you haven’t got a damn thing.’ She switched her gaze to the DCS. ‘And that goes for you too, ma’am.’

Even for Gail Honeyford this was a big step, openly challenging a detective chief superintendent and being impudent and hard-faced in the process.

Gwen frowned in disbelief. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You didn’t put me under caution just then because you knew you couldn’t. Because you knew you wouldn’t have a damn leg to stand on.’

Gwen shook her head. ‘You know, this behaviour alone is verging on gross misconduct.’

‘Why?’ Gail demanded. ‘Because I spoke up for a valued colleague when IIB were performing intellectual gymnastics in their efforts to implicate him in the murders of his best friends? And aren’t I the girl who, like you said, ma’am, once shopped a bent colleague? Aren’t I the kind of officer the service is crying out for these days? An independent woman? A straight dice?’ She sneered. ‘I’d like to see you try, that’s all I can say.’

‘Where is he?’ Gwen said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘He must have said something.’

‘You mean while he was tying me up?’

‘You’re sticking with that line?’

‘Yes, because that’s what happened.’

Before they could say more, the curtain was drawn back and an A&E staff nurse peered in, curiously and rather disapprovingly. Evidently, she’d heard the raised voices.

‘Now, if you don’t mind,’ Gail said, ‘my rope burns need seeing to.’

The senior officers stepped out.

‘What now?’ Penhaligon asked as they walked down the corridor.

‘I suppose you’d better find him,’ Gwen said.

‘What about Honeyford?’

‘Like she said … prove it.’

8

It didn’t look like a dangerous place from the outside. Though it didn’t look salubrious either.

The 1960s and 1970s had seen pubs and clubs built into the fabric of the multiple blocks of flats coming to dominate Britain’s inner-city areas. Not everyone, even then, had thought it a great idea, worrying that what, on the face of it, seemed like the timely provision of recreational facilities on the doorsteps of deprived neighbourhoods could in due course turn into a nightmare with noise, drunkenness, fighting and drug-dealing spinning out through the subways, cellars and corridors of these vast new residential properties. Now, well into the twenty-first century, that fear had proved to be so well-founded that most of these unrequested amenities had gone without trace.

But not all.

Some apartment block pubs had been well-kept and managed, and their reward was long life. Some, though not many, had avoided the worst ravages of inner urban yobboism through pure good fortune. Others, like the Earl of Rone, were still here because they’d come to house a clientele that preferred not to attract attention to itself and had the muscle to maintain that discreet status. The Earl of Rone wasn’t even visible from the outside, apart from its sign, which hung from a gallows-like structure at one end of a leaf and litter-strewn parking lot hemmed in on all sides by towering tiers of Haringey flats. Admission to the pub was gained through two red swing doors sitting halfway along a ground-floor concrete passage.

Heck waited in the Volvo, watching carefully, wondering.

Minutes passed before he climbed out and locked the car. He’d bought new clothes before coming here; only another set of jeans, a black hoodie top and an anorak, but his previous kit had been caked with mud and he’d had neither the time nor inclination to visit a launderette.

Again, he took stock of the situation before zipping his waterproof up. There were lights from most of the flat windows above him, one or two of which twinkled festively. But there was no sound. It had grown colder as the evening had worn on, and his breath smoked as he walked down the passage towards the red doors.

They swung back, the passage continuing, only now plastered in dingy white, a row of several bins on the left. Just ahead there was another door, this one ajar by several inches, letting out sounds of music and harsh laughter. As Heck approached, the door was barged wide open, and two men emerged, shrugging into coats, pulling on gloves. They were thirty and forty at a guess, with rugged faces and prison tats on show. Heck didn’t recognise them, but as they drew close they fell briefly silent, before the older one snickered.

‘I’d be careful in there, officer,’ he said as they passed, his accent strong Cockney. ‘There’s a few blokes might want to have a word with you. Best keep your radio handy. Oh, I forgot … haven’t got one, have you?’

The twosome guffawed as they headed out.

Heck went into the pub anyway.

For a Friday night, it wasn’t exactly packed, a few roughnecks gathered at the snooker tables, a few others dotted alone or in groups around the rest of the interior. Some half-hearted Christmas decorations were on show, mainly tinsel and glitter, while the music playing was cheesy seasonal stock.

As Heck made his way across the room towards the bar, several conversations ceased.

‘Smells like bacon,’ one of the snooker players commented. ‘Making me hungry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ his mate replied. ‘We’ll all be scoffing in a minute. Pig bastard.’

Heck placed both hands on the bar, but the sole barman, a big guy with slicked-back black hair and an open-necked white shirt showing a neck chain, shook his head.

‘Forget it. I’m not serving you.’ Quietly, he added: ‘Get out of here while you still can.’

‘Scotch,’ Heck said. ‘Make it a double.’

The barman looked irritated. He leaned forward. ‘Maybe you don’t hear too well. This is for your own good.’

Heck felt under his anorak and brought out a claw hammer, which he laid on the bar top. The barman looked genuinely startled.

‘My good will still be good enough, don’t worry,’ Heck replied. Sensing someone approach along the bar from the left, he swung sideways, fingers spread on the hammer’s handle. ‘Just keep coming, Tookey!’

Stan ‘Tookey’ Tookson was a lanky, long-haired brute with pockmarked features and sunken eyes. He grinned weirdly, his right hand buried in the pocket of his shabby combat jacket, where doubtless a weapon nestled, a Stanley knife or knuckleduster – he’d used both in the past. But now he hesitated.

‘There might be no law protecting me anymore,’ Heck said, ‘but that means there’s no law protecting you either.’

Elsewhere in the pub, a crowd was forming. Five or six, all cut from the toughest cloth, had stopped what they were doing and were clumping together, watching him with a hatred so fierce the heat of it seared him from two-dozen yards away. A couple carried snooker cues. Another swigged the last dregs from his beer bottle, before slapping it repeatedly into the palm of his other hand.

‘Get out, you fucking idiot!’ the barman hissed.

Heck turned to face them, his hand on the hammer.

A few yards away, Tookey grinned like a demented hyena.

More came over, kicking chairs. A glass hit the floor and smashed. No one looked at it.

And then another door banged open, an internal door with stairs behind it, and someone else appeared. A handsome, thickset black guy wearing a plaid shirt over a white vest. He was aged in his late forties, but in good shape physically. His moustache was short and trim, his greying hair cropped very close. A second guy appeared behind him: white, but a virtual mountain, a Giant Haystacks look-alike, complete with matted locks and straggling beard, wearing a tasselled black leather jacket over an age-old Black Sabbath T-shirt.

The black guy glowered at the mob, who shuffled awkwardly, but didn’t disarm themselves. Slowly, he came towards Heck.

‘You trying to ruin my rep?’ he said. ‘You know you can’t come in here.’

Heck shrugged. ‘Public bar, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s my bar. And I don’t want you here.’

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Leroy Butler’s bar, and it never could be with his criminal record. But though it was technically owned by someone else, he was still the boss – he’d put the money up and he made the decisions – and everyone knew it.

Heck shrugged again. ‘Didn’t get the memo.’

Butler’s eyes blazed; his voice tightened. ‘What’s wrong with you? You wouldn’t be advised to come in here if you were on the job. But now you’re off it!’ He stuck a thumb over his shoulder. ‘And these fucking apemen are going to rip you a new one. Tell me why I should even try to stop them.’

‘Because you and me go back?’

‘That’s one way of putting it. Another is that I served eleven years on account of you, you bastard!’

Heck frowned. ‘You robbed banks.’

‘So? I was a bank robber. I was doing my job.’

‘And I was doing mine. But a bit better than you. What’s up, Leroy … no such thing as professional courtesy these days?’

Butler shook his head. ‘There’s a time limit on that.’

‘And I pulled your kids out of a house fire.’

‘For which sole reason I’m letting you walk out of here. Digger!’ Butler signalled to the man-mountain. ‘Show him the way. Make sure none of this lot follow him.’

Heck held his ground. ‘And I got your missus back. She’d been kidnapped, remember?’

Butler snorted. ‘If you think that buys you credit, sod off. Doreen was shacked up with someone else by the time I got out.’ He signalled Digger again. ‘He’s leaving now.’

‘And I need a gun.’

Butler looked incredulous. ‘You want to run that by me again?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing you repeat.’

Butler seemed bewildered but was furious, too. A few of the others had stolen closer to eavesdrop, but he angrily waved them away, including Digger. He yanked up a barstool and perched on it, leaning so close to Heck that his breath-mints were noticeable.

‘You think …’ His voice trembled. ‘You seriously think you can come in here, to my place, wave a fucking hammer, threaten my customers, and then demand a fucking piece?’ He shook his head. ‘You know what this means, Heck? This means you’ve finally overstepped the mark … this means I’ve got to come down on you.’

‘Will I get the gun, though?’

Butler’s fury dissipated, but his bewilderment remained. ‘What’s this about, for Christ’s sake? You’re DS Heckenburg, the scourge of lowlifes everywhere. Suddenly I hear you’re under suspicion of topping a few people. Other cozzers, no less. I don’t believe it. Because while you’re not squeaky clean, you’re still the baddest assed deputy in town. And then you come in here asking for illicit hardware. What the flying fuck is going on?’

Heck eyeballed him intently. ‘Can’t draw it from the police armoury, can I?’

‘Let me guess.’ Butler sat back. ‘You’ve got a sniff of the real shooters?’

Heck shrugged, aware that this wasn’t a denial.

‘Go tell your porker buddies,’ Butler said. ‘Save yourself a lot of unnecessary pain.’

‘Can’t do that, Leroy.’

‘Can’t? This is your fucking life you’re talking about.’

‘It’s too complicated.’

‘Nothing is that complicated.’ Butler leaned into him again, voice low. ‘You realise what this’ll mean? I give you something, and it makes you one of us. You won’t just be a bad boy copper anymore, or a misunderstood hero. You’ll be a fucking crim. And there’s no way back down that road. Trust me, I know.’

‘Nice speech, Leroy. But you wouldn’t have bothered with it if you didn’t intend to help.’

‘Fucking cheek of you.’ Butler paused to think, glancing at the thugs standing watching. ‘You know there’s no easy way out of tonight. There can’t be.’

‘I know,’ Heck said. ‘And as long as I get the piece, it’ll be worth it.’

Butler shook his head. ‘Nutso as ever.’

‘Leroy, whatever our differences, you’re a businessman. I’m not asking for a freebie.’

‘How much green you got?’

Heck hooked a wad of twenties from an inside pocket. ‘Eight hundred. But where I’m going, I’ll probably need half of it.’

‘You’ve got two hundred. Cough up the rest.’

This was daylight robbery of course, but that was Butler’s stock-in-trade, so Heck counted out six hundred, shoving the remainder back into his anorak. When he offered it, Butler nodded at the barman. ‘Him. We’ve had a right old knees-up tonight.’

The barman took the cash to the till, but not without checking a couple of notes against the overhead light. ‘Looks kosher,’ he muttered.

‘’Course it’s kosher,’ Butler said. ‘Officer of the law, isn’t he? Or was. Can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.’ He stood up. ‘Stay here.’

He disappeared back through the internal door.

Heck waited by the bar. Digger watched him like a hawk, but most of the others had lost interest, going back to their games of snooker or sitting drinking, though that didn’t prevent the occasional baleful glance being levelled in his direction.

‘You’ve got some balls, Heckenburg, I’ll give you that,’ the barman said.

‘That’s about all I’ve got,’ Heck replied, not looking round.

The internal door opened again and another of Butler’s heavies entered the pub. A shaven-headed black guy with a scarred face and shoulders like an ox. He wore an overcoat and was pulling on a pair of gloves. He slid round behind the bar, exchanged a few quiet words with its custodian, and vanished into a backroom. Butler now appeared too, carrying a shoebox-sized package wrapped in Christmas paper.

‘Here.’ He handed it over. ‘Early Christmas prezzie. Consolation for losing your career.’

Heck tucked it under his arm and made to cross the pub.

‘Uh-uh,’ Butler said, Digger stepping into Heck’s way.

Heck halted, puzzled.

Butler pointed to the door behind the bar connecting with the backroom.

Heck’s stomach knotted, but he went the way he was instructed, Digger and Butler following. As expected, the backroom was stacked with extra chairs and tables, crates of beer, a glass-washing machine and such. But there was another door at its far end, standing open on a yard. It was dark out there and looked bitterly cold, but the shaven-headed black guy could be seen waiting, gloved right fist pressed tightly into his left palm.

Heck couldn’t put the brakes on because Digger was right behind him. But before he went out, he turned to Butler, who’d stopped a few yards away. ‘I’ve got one more request.’

‘Save it. We’re square.’

‘I may have to meet people over the next few days. I need my face.’

Butler snorted.

‘Christ’s sake, Leroy … I nearly died in that house fire at your place. I had to get out through the roof. And I got the bastards who set it.’

Butler shrugged. ‘What am I, an Agony Aunt? We’re done.’ Heck was pushed roughly outside. ‘Yo … Digger!’ The big guy looked round before following. Butler seemed amused. ‘Let’s humour him. Don’t mark his face.’

9

Heck wasn’t sure how he managed to drive as far as he did. It was probably no more than a few miles in reality. But he kept his hands on the wheel and his foot to the pedal until he thought there was a chance he’d pass out from pain, at which point he pulled shakily off the main road. He didn’t know where he was but wallowed along an overgrown backstreet that led between scrapyards, and finally reversed into one of several derelict garages.

Once there, he eased his backrest down and reclined on it.

They’d worked on his arms, his legs, his ribs, his belly, his back. Fists for the most part, boots now and then. But no pipes thankfully, no bricks, no bats. He was confident there was nothing broken, but still felt as if he’d been dragged backward through an industrial mangle. Were he to strip off now, he’d be a black and blue patchwork. The one bleary glance at his face in the rear-view mirror showed the drawn, sallow features of a man at the end of his tether but minus any tell-tale cuts or bruises.

‘Now we’re square, Leroy,’ he mumbled, sleep at last claiming him.

When he woke again, it was the early hours. He lay in icebox darkness, his aching frame huddled and stiff. He switched the engine on, flooding the car with warmth. He could have left it running all night. He had money to refill the tank tomorrow. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it might alert someone in the vicinity to his presence. He hadn’t seen any habitations when he’d parked, but he hadn’t been fully compos, and anyway, why advertise his presence? He’d overpowered Gail with her full compliance, but she couldn’t admit that, which meant that he’d committed an offence and was now a fugitive. DI Penhaligon wouldn’t need any other reason to clap the cuffs on him.

He turned the engine off after half an hour and tried to sleep again. Even agonised and exhausted, it didn’t come easily. Gemma’s face swam before him. Laughing at some joke in the early days of their relationship; sterner later on, when he and she had stopped seeing eye-to-eye on so many things; then porcelain pale, a serene sculpture as she lay motionless in that bullet-scarred woodland.

‘How did we go in such a short time from planning a future together to having no future at all?’ she’d asked on the last day of their partnership, after he’d told her that he was breaking it off. She’d looked bewildered rather than upset, but Gemma had always been a toughie. She rarely wore her heart on her sleeve.

‘It’s not the case that you’ve got no future,’ he’d said. ‘There are loads of good blokes who’d be chuffed to bits to have you on their arm.’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘No, but …’

‘But what? I can do a lot better? You trying to tell me you’re doing me a favour? How about what I want?’

He’d been taken by surprise at how awkward he’d felt, especially as there’d been no visible acrimony. ‘We just have to go our separate ways, Gemma,’ he’d said. ‘It’s best for both of us.’

‘You must be a madman, Mark Heckenburg … to throw this away.’

‘Can’t you feel that it’s going wrong?’

‘We’ve faced rough times together. There’s nothing on the table now that we couldn’t work through. But … I’m not going to stop you doing what you want, Mark. That’s always the thing with you. Because you do policing your way and your way only, and you think it’s the same with everything else. And yet so often, you’re the one who pays for it.’

The irony of that final exchange was off the scale of course, given the situation now. But she’d still been right. Dear Lord, she’d been so right. What a decision he’d made that day. He couldn’t fathom his own thinking. If there’d been any at all. He’d been younger, then, but not so young that he couldn’t have realised that life wasn’t a game. That when you had something so valuable, you didn’t gamble with it on a whim.

What had Gemma called him? A madman? She’d certainly think that if she could see him now. And again, she’d be right.

*

When he woke again, it was still black, but now rain was hammering on the decayed planking of the roof overhead. Droplets occasionally passed through, hitting the car like bullets. Somewhere in front of him, beyond the gap yawning onto the waste-ground, it gushed down in a curtain. He could hear it thrashing the dirt, running in rivers from broken gutters. It had a gradual soporific effect, but not before he’d warmed the car for another twenty minutes or so.

The third time, his eyes flickered open on weak daylight. It was December, which meant that it was probably around eight o’clock now. But it wasn’t the light that had disturbed him. He glanced left and saw the scrawny features of a man in rags, sporting a ratty beard and moustache. He was peering in through the front passenger window, scrabbling at the door with a metal rod. He evidently hadn’t realised that there was someone inside. Heck put that right, flicking the interior light on and offering the guy a fist, though that effort alone pained him abominably. The tramp’s toothless mouth dropped open. He showed empty hands, the rod clattering to the floor, before melting away into the dimness.

Heck flicked the light off again, but he didn’t sleep easily after that. Someone now knew he was here. Likely, another of those witless hobos who trudged the streets of London gabbling nonsense to themselves, so ignored by everyone else that they might as well be invisible. But he was still compromised. He switched the engine on again. Just for ten minutes, he told himself. It might be raining out there, but it was numbingly cold.

When he woke up the next time, the engine was still running. The garage juddered as a massive piece of machinery ground its way past the entrance, its yellow beacon rotating, churned-up liquid mud flying in fountains. Workmen in boots and hooded waterproofs strode alongside it, shouting to each other.

It was still raining. Pouring, in fact.

Heck raised his seat, stiff and aching, a corroded statue creaking into half-life. Glancing at the dashboard clock, he was shocked to see that it was after ten. When the work-gang had passed, he drove out, slithering through the mud, headlights piercing the rain as he gradually made his way back to a road.

Several minutes passed as he drove the wet, nondescript streets. It was only when he saw Clapton Public Library that he realised he was in Walthamstow. He hadn’t driven in any particular direction the night before, just got his foot down, wanting to put distance between himself and the Earl of Rone. He thought he’d been heading north, but in his semi-delirious state, appeared to have drifted east. Which was roughly the direction he wanted to be going. Though he had a couple of things he needed to deal with first.

Off the A107, he parked on a side-street behind Clapton Underground and hobbled into a pharmacy to get himself some painkillers. Then he took the A104 east, stopping again in Leyton, at the far end of the car park attached to a lorry drivers’ café. Before getting out, he leaned into the passenger side footwell and grabbed the Christmas package.

Something inside had shifted weightily each time he’d picked it up, though it now entered his head that this might be a half-brick or something equally useless, and that he’d been subjected to the rip-off of all time. But when he tore the paper away and lifted the lid on the shoebox inside, he saw that Leroy Butler had given him more bang for his buck than he’d ever anticipated.

It was a snub-nosed Colt Cobra revolver, a .38 Special as it was known in the States, a weapon that packed ferocious stopping power. Equally useful, its serial numbers had been removed, by the looks of it with acid. That didn’t necessarily make it untraceable. For all Heck knew, it could have been used in umpteen murders already. But none of that mattered. He was on a one-way ticket here. No other outcome was possible.

There were several other goodies in the package. The gun was already loaded, but there were two boxes of spare shells, and a sound suppressor, better known as a ‘silencer’, for attachment to the muzzle. Again, Heck didn’t know whether this additional piece of kit had been used before, or how many times – and if it was plenty already, it wouldn’t necessarily be effective – but he was hardly in a position to test it. In addition, he hadn’t asked for it, so it could only be regarded as a bonus.

He put the extra ammo back into the Christmas box, backheeled it under his seat and, reaching around himself, which shot prongs of pain through his midriff, tucked the .38 into the back of his waistband, tugging his hoodie and anorak down over the top of it. Grabbing his rucksack, he manoeuvred himself out and walked slowly to the café, trying not to limp too obviously.

The waitress who took his order wasn’t fooled. She was in her forties and a buxom bottle-blonde wearing an overly tight pink pinafore. It was a hard look, but she seemed genuinely concerned. ‘You all right, darling?’

‘Thanks,’ Heck said with a difficult smile. ‘Accident the other day. No real problems.’

‘What can I get you?’

‘The Full English, please. Oh … and a pot of coffee.’

‘Coming in five.’

He rifled through his rucksack while waiting, bringing out a buff envelope, inside of which he’d stowed a much smaller envelope made from clear plastic. He glanced up, watching the other patrons of the café. Blue-collar guys mostly, midway through thankless weekend shifts. None showed any interest in him, though he didn’t doubt that there’d be a BOLO out by now. Even so, he opened the outer envelope and slipped out the smaller transparent one. Inside this resided the current most important thing in his life.

A single piece of crucial evidence.

So crucial in fact that he’d deliberately held it back from the Ace of Diamonds investigation team. So crucial that he’d held it back from everyone.

Fleetingly but vividly, he lived again the fight in the wood on London’s northern fringe. Running at a stoop through late-summer undergrowth, a bottle of Moët in one sweat-slick fist. Throwing himself down against the stone wall that separated the woods from the road, and just above him, a rifle appearing in gloved hands, a deafening, staccato fusillade erupting from it, stroboscopic flashing in the peaceful glade, what remained of Heck’s Megane flying apart in metallic shreds.

An icy cold settled through him as he turned the envelope over in his hands. ‘Little bastard,’ he whispered. ‘Snake Fletcher … you slimy, deceitful turd. I’m going to scrape you off the sole of my shoe with broken glass.’

10

This being a Saturday, Scotland Yard wasn’t as busy as usual. It was primarily the civilian staff who seemed to be absent, but Gail still had to wait in the lobby until a young secretary came down to get her, and then escorted her up several floors to the National Crime Group’s command suite. On arrival there, she was ushered into a side office, where the secretary resumed her seat and indicated with a bright-eyed nod that Gail should take it from here.

Gail hesitated at the Director’s door. She was in her best skirt-suit and had done as much as she could with her hair and face, but somehow she didn’t expect this to help her out much. Time and again, she’d told herself that if she mouthed off once too often there’d be a price to pay. She was a lifer. Being a cop was her career, not just a job. Or that had been the plan. But now it was out of her hands. She could have kicked herself, except that she still didn’t think she could stand aside and watch while an innocent man like Mark Heckenburg was pilloried.

She straightened the lapels of her coat and patted her rain-damp locks, then knocked.

A voice called her through. She opened the door and went in.

A plush interior lay beyond: a luxurious pile-carpet; a lengthy desk of polished mahogany topped with leather; floor-to-ceiling windows giving panoramic views over Westminster and the Thames, though at present lead-grey clouds and pulsating rain spoiled the ambience.

Joe Wullerton was standing to one side of his desk, hands behind his back. He was stone-faced as she entered. “Come in, DC Honeyford … take a seat.”

Gail did so; there were several to choose from, arrayed down one side of the expansive office. She was unnerved to see DI Penhaligon already sitting there, while the presence at the other side of the room of DCS Gwen Straker, standing but leaning against Wullerton’s desk with arms folded, didn’t bode well either.

The silence seemed to elongate as nothing else was said.

Gail glanced at Wullerton. As Director of the National Crime Group, he was one of the highest-ranking police officers in England and Wales, and yet something of a conundrum. He rarely affected suits and ties, even on weekdays preferring an open-necked shirt and cardigan, which was how he’d dressed now. He had a stern look; he was in his fifties, with a tough wrinkled demeanor and thick, droopy moustache, but he also had a reputation for being affable and easy going. He certainly could be hard if the situation required, but most of the time he was said to be fair.

There was another knock and again Wullerton bade whoever it was enter. Gail was puzzled to see DSU Mike Garrickson come in, grimacing as he peeled off his sodden trench-coat. Garrickson was from the Organised Crime Division and currently SIO on the Ace of Diamonds enquiry. Outside that remit, he had no role in disciplinary matters.

‘Sorry I’m late, sir,’ Garrickson said to Wullerton, hanging his coat on a stand in the corner. ‘None too Christmassy weather.’

‘I doubt it’d feel like Christmas even if it was snowing,’ Gwen Straker remarked.

‘Yeah,’ Garrickson muttered, before noticing the two junior officers seated to one side. ‘Anything going on here I should know about?’

‘Lots,’ Wullerton replied, sitting behind his desk. ‘That’s why we asked you to attend, Mike. Take a seat if you would. Gwen … the floor’s yours.’

The DCS nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Garrickson found himself a chair but looked suspicious.

‘Mike, I take it you’re aware that Mark Heckenburg’s absconded,’ Gwen said.

‘From where?’

‘He evaded the IIB surveillance on his flat last night and hasn’t been seen since.’

Garrickson frowned. ‘You with Professional Standards now, Gwen?’

‘Not quite.’

‘In the process of said evasion,’ Joe Wullerton put in, ‘he assaulted and falsely imprisoned DC Honeyford here.’

Garrickson nodded. ‘Okay. And I guess you’re about to tell me this means I should bump him up my list of suspects?’

Gwen remained patient. ‘Just hear me out, Mike, yeah?’

Garrickson glanced at his watch but waved that she should continue.

She did: ‘There are a number of reasons why Detective Sergeant Heckenburg caught the attention of the Internal Investigations Branch. To start with, he arrived late at the Ace of Diamonds party on the night of September 6th. It was near enough mid-evening when he got there. Now, a very suspicious person might infer that this meant he was waiting for something to happen and hoped to arrive after it was all over.’

‘Or alternatively, he was just late,’ Garrickson said. ‘That happens too.’

‘Mike!’ Wullerton said. ‘None of us wants to consider Mark Heckenburg a viable suspect in this crime. But for the moment, let Gwen speak.’

‘Before arriving at the Ace of Diamonds party,’ Gwen said, ‘DS Heckenburg made a comment to DCI Hunter of the Flying Squad, whom he was speaking to on the phone, that the Serial Crimes Unit had no future. When the attack was actually launched on the Serial Crimes Unit party at the Ace of Diamonds, DS Heckenburg was one of only two SCU officers present who did not get mowed down in the initial hail of fire. The other was Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper. As the killers tried to escape, Heck pursued them in his own vehicle, taking Gemma Piper with him. The pursuit lasted approximately ten minutes, at which point another ambush was launched. We all know the result of that one, yet strangely, DS Heckenburg was again uninjured …’

Garrickson butted in: ‘Gwen, this is not even circumstantial …’

She persisted: ‘We know that DS Heckenburg had been in an on/off relationship with DSU Piper for quite some time …’

‘More off than on, ma’am,’ Gail spoke up.

Gwen glared at her. ‘You keep quiet till you’re spoken to, miss. I won’t tell you that twice.’

Gail clamped her mouth shut. It was easier than usual to be cautious in this company.

Gwen continued: ‘We also know that DS Heckenburg had become irritated by a relationship that Gemma Piper was developing with DI Jack Reed, who was another of the fatalities at the Ace of Diamonds.’

This time Gail couldn’t help herself. ‘It only made him want to ask Gemma out again. He wasn’t angry. He just thought he’d missed his last chance, that was all …’

Gwen stared daggers at her, and Gail fell silent.

‘We also know,’ Gwen said, ‘that Mark Heckenburg had been working under highly stressful circumstances for quite some time and was exposed to – shall we say – some of the most hellish murder investigations any of us have ever seen.’ She glanced at Wullerton. ‘You yourself, sir, felt it necessary that he receive psychological counselling.’

Wullerton shrugged. ‘It’s standard procedure.’

‘Of course. I’m not saying otherwise …’

‘This is like something off Agatha fucking Christie,’ Garrickson cut in, ‘except we’re not about to get a big reveal, are we?’

‘You, Mike,’ Gwen said, ‘are pursuing a main line of enquiry that links the Ace of Diamonds to Milena Misanyan’s organisation.’

‘So?’

‘So, we also know that on the night when Milena Misanyan died and her entire criminal operation was exposed …’

‘By DS Heckenburg, ma’am,’ Gail interrupted.

‘I’m fully aware of that, Gail! We know that on that night, a corrupt ex-police officer called Ray Marciano eluded the Devon and Cornwall response units that Heck’s request for assistance brought in … by all accounts because Heck allowed him to.’

‘But none of these leads actually mean anything, Gwen.’ Garrickson sounded more than exasperated. ‘We’ve checked them all twice. IIB are still working on them, and yet there isn’t a single thing you’ve mentioned that doesn’t have an alternative explanation.’ He turned to Wullerton. ‘Look sir, you know what Heck’s like. He has a genius for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Christ knows, he’s driven me up the wall in the past. I worked with him on one enquiry and that was enough. But he’s never bloody shown any inclination to start slotting his own team. I mean, IIB can run with this if they want, but as far as I’m concerned, Heck’s a low priority suspect.’

Gwen turned to Penhaligon. ‘Did I miss anything, Jude?’

Penhaligon remained impassive. ‘Not deliberately, ma’am, I’m sure.’

‘So, that’s what this is!’ Garrickson stood up. ‘A progress report? I’ve been pulled away from the MIR for this?’

‘He’s done a runner, Mike,’ Gwen retorted.

‘Yeah, but I fail to see how that’s my problem. Or yours, actually. You’re not even NCG. Aren’t you supposed to be back in the Met, working Cold Cases?’

‘Not until Operation Sledgehammer is officially closed,’ she said.

‘Operation Sledgehammer’s been resolved.’

‘Sorry, Mike,’ Wullerton put in. ‘It dovetails with your enquiry now, so not quite.’

Garrickson glanced back at Gwen. ‘So … you want in. Is that it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I have other work to do. It’s DC Honeyford who wants in?’

Gail was so startled by this that she jumped to her feet. ‘Ma’am?’

Gwen pointed sternly at her chair, and she sat again, visibly struggling not to say something she might regret.

Garrickson eyed Gail carefully, trying not to make it too obvious that he liked what he saw. ‘Suppose I can always find room for another willing body.’

‘Good,’ Gwen said, ‘except that she wants to work under DI Penhaligon.’

Now, even the unflappable Jude Penhaligon looked startled. ‘Excuse me?’

‘DSU Garrickson doesn’t care about Mark Heckenburg,’ Gwen said, ‘but Heck is still your prime suspect, isn’t that true, Jude?’

Penhaligon seemed lost for words.

‘So, it’s you who’s going to be looking for him,’ Gwen added. ‘With minimal assistance from the Organised Crime Division, which is why you’re going to need Gail.’

‘Ma’am!’ Penhaligon objected. ‘I already have a …’

‘You already have a bagman, yes, I know. DC Toby Crick.’ Gwen nodded as she spoke, acknowledging the DI’s usual arrangement, sympathetic to it, even. But her tone was firm. ‘Unfortunately, Crick’s not going to be as much use to you as Gail, because he clearly hates Heck and thinks he’s a villain, even though he doesn’t know anything about him. Which makes him an investigator with preconceived notions and inflexibility of mind. Gail Honeyford, by contrast, didn’t just work very closely with Heck on Operation Sledgehammer, but they also formed a two-man taskforce down in Surrey, their investigation leading to the resolution of several murders and the arrest and conviction of a notorious South London gang leader for a number of armed robberies. More important than her ability to catch crooks, though, is her relationship with Heck. Yes, she likes him. She’s his mate. But she’s also well versed in his methods. As I’ve already explained to DC Honeyford herself, you may not want her, but you’re going to need her.’

‘Ma’am …’ For the first time any of them had seen, the uber-cool DI Penhaligon looked flustered. ‘Does my guv’nor at IIB know about this?’

‘He will do in half an hour,’ Wullerton said. ‘When I’ve rung him.’

‘And obviously you’re okay with this, sir?’ Penhaligon said.

He mused. ‘Chief Superintendent Straker made a very good case. It’s not like it’s going to be soaking up manpower we can’t spare. DC Honeyford isn’t doing much else at the moment anyway.’

Gwen turned to Garrickson. ‘Sorry, Mike … you’re really only here so that we could put you in the picture that the Heckenburg angle is now being taken care of by new personnel.’

‘Who’ll be reporting to you?’ Garrickson asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

She shrugged. ‘If they want. Gail’s still technically under my command. Jude can report to her gaffer if she wishes. Whichever one it is will then relay it to you.’

‘So long as you know I only want anything juicy.’

‘Sure.’

‘Don’t be wasting my bloody time, Gwen!’

Gwen looked hurt. ‘As if I would.’

‘Well … good.’ Wullerton glanced at Gail and Penhaligon. ‘That’s it, ladies, thank you.’

The twosome got to their feet, neither doing much to conceal their disgruntlement.

‘When do we start?’ Gail asked Gwen.

‘That’s up to DI Penhaligon.’

Penhaligon gave Gail only the most cursory glance. ‘Monday morning, eight-sharp. You know where my office is?’

‘Somewhere here, isn’t it, ma’am?’ Gail replied. ‘Down in the basement, no windows.’

Penhaligon’s lip curled. ‘I’ll tell you what, make it seven-sharp. Then you can take your pick of the few dirty, broken, lopsided desks we’ve actually got available.’

‘Let’s keep it friendly, shall we,’ Wullerton warned them. ‘We’re all on the same side.’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’ Gail looked at Gwen. ‘Are we done, ma’am?’

Gwen nodded. ‘We’re done. And don’t forget, DC Honeyford … given that Heck assaulted you, you now have a legitimate reason to arrest him.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t you?’

Gail didn’t answer, just walked from the room.

Penhaligon made to follow, but Gwen called her back. ‘Jude?’

The DI looked round.

‘Lose Crick,’ Gwen said.

Penhaligon was surprised. ‘DC Crick is the only other member of staff I’ve got working on this.’

‘Now you’ve got Gail Honeyford.’

‘But I always work with Toby Crick. We know each other …’

‘I know him too … least I do now that I’ve done some digging. He’s prejudiced.’

Penhaligon almost laughed. ‘And Gail Honeyford isn’t?’

‘Gail doesn’t hate Heck the way Crick does.’

Penhaligon shook her head. ‘I can keep a lid on that.’

‘My way, you won’t need to. Then, you can focus entirely on the enquiry and hopefully get to the actual truth.’

Penhaligon visibly bit down on a response. This wasn’t just dictating how she was expected to work, of course, it was something of a smear. She prided herself on always getting to the truth, with or without interference from above. But as usual, she was too sensible to make an issue of it.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ She headed for the door.

‘It’s for your own good, Jude,’ Gwen called after her. ‘Hate is no use on a manhunt like this. You hate someone like Heck, you’ll make mistakes because you’ll underestimate him. And you really don’t want to do that.’

‘No, ma’am, of course not.’ Penhaligon nodded to the rest of the brass. ‘Sir … sir.’

She left, closing the door behind her.

‘You talk like he’s John bloody Dillinger,’ Garrickson chuckled.

Gwen shrugged. ‘I just don’t want someone in there who’s going to bend the facts to fit his own fiction.’

He chuckled again. ‘You can’t fool me, Gwen.’

She gave him an enquiring look.

‘You came over then like you want to nail Heck’s balls to a flagpole. Gimme a break. That laundry list of charges you read out against him wasn’t worth pants, and you know it. Plus, everyone knows you were his substitute mum when you were both in CID.’

‘Did tough love ever hurt anyone?’

‘Tough love?’ Garrickson’s voice hardened. ‘Let’s not pretend that something else isn’t going on here. Firstly, you’re trying to save Heck’s career. You don’t believe for one second that he was involved in that shooting, but now you’re worried he’s going to do something stupid in response, and who better to talk him down than Gail Honeyford, one of his last surviving mates? Secondly, and this is the bit that bugs me, you think it entirely possible that Heck will catch the bastards, don’t you? I mean, the real bastards … the ones who actually did it. And you want SCU, aka Gail Honeyford again, to be there for the takedown.’

‘No,’ she said po-faced. ‘Heck’s a suspect.’

Garrickson turned to Wullerton. ‘Are you buying this, sir? No one with any sense thinks Heck’s good for these murders, least of all DCS Straker here.’

Wullerton made a vague gesture. ‘Twenty-six police officers were murdered, Mike. If Mark Heckenburg’s responsible for that, we want him banged up. If he’s not, we want the one who is. Either of those outcomes suits me.’

Garrickson swung back to Gwen. ‘You’re not going to solve this one by letting Heck go all Wild Bill Hickock. Organised Crime are on this. We’ll bring in the ones responsible.’

‘It’s not a contest, Mike,’ she replied.

He grabbed his coat. ‘Bloody right. It’s no contest at all.’ He strode for the door. ‘You know where I am if you need me, sir.’

It slammed closed behind him.

Wullerton blew out a lengthy breath. ‘Well, that went well.’

‘I trust you don’t believe that ridiculous accusation he just made, sir?’ Gwen said. ‘I mean, Mike can get a bit paranoid …’

Wullerton raised a palm. He’d regularly sat in awe of Gwen Straker’s subtle man-management skills. She could control any room, no matter who was in it. Given the chance, he knew that she was perfectly capable of controlling him.

‘Let’s not get into that,’ he said. ‘The decision’s made. All I need from you is the paperwork.’

‘Sir.’ She, too, headed for the door.

‘Gwen?’

She glanced back.

He regarded her gravely. ‘The decision is indeed made. And I sincerely hope we don’t end up regretting it.’

Gwen left, adding under her breath: ‘Me too.’

11

The so-called Black Chapel had been an Odinist cult whom the Serial Crimes Unit had investigated before they were diverted onto Operation Sledgehammer. Essentially, they were a bunch of freaks. A gang of sociopathic misanthropes hailing from all corners of society but of a like-mind when it came to hatred of Christianity. Who knew their various reasons? It was highly possible that some had been abused by clergymen when they were younger, but Heck had suspected at the time, and still did, that most of them were rootless hooligans whose own ineptitude had ruined just about every aspect of their lives, and who’d looked for somewhere else to lay the blame, dim memories of boring Sunday mornings in church and strict nuns in school finally providing the perfect scapegoat.

Idolisation of the Norwegian black-metal band, Varulv, had finally pulled them together under the deranged leadership of one Ranald Ulfskar (aka Albert Jones), a former roadie with the band, who’d subsequently led his new pals on a homicidal rampage against the priesthood in East Anglia, claiming three lives. Ulfskar/Jones and four of his acolytes were all now serving life sentences, though father and son outfit, Varulv, had successfully shirked any responsibility for the atrocities. Identifying their music as ‘Viking’, they’d struck a muscular Nordic pose throughout their careers, preaching a dark, nihilistic creed, espousing the martial glories of Odin and Thor and the satisfaction derived from ‘making blood-sacrifices out of Christian cowards and weaklings’, writing online to condemn ‘those Semites and Christ-lovers whose simpering ways had weakened Europe in the face of the Bedouin hordes’, but no actual links between them and the Black Chapel had ever been proved.

Heck had still wanted to investigate Varulv, who now lived in anonymous retirement on a hunting estate somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. But the lack of direct evidence had seen him overruled. Varulv’s chequered history in their Norwegian homeland, where their baleful influence was said to have led to at least one church-burning and the murder of an elderly churchwarden, was insufficient grounds, it was decided. They played provocative music and indulged in hate-speak, none of which, distasteful as it was, made them into murderers. And these days they didn’t do that either, having withdrawn into self-imposed exile.

‘Think we may have been a bit previous there,’ Heck said to himself, bringing the Volvo to a halt on Rimmington Avenue, some fifty yards down from the gates to St Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church, Dagenham.

The church shared a side-entrance with St Agatha’s Junior High, so it was convenient that today was a Saturday. However, even with no kids on the site, it wouldn’t be cool to be seen hanging around a school. All it would take was some curious local resident to call 999 and the roof of the world would fall on him. Heck drove on, circling the block until he found the entrance to the church car park. This would normally be closed by a chain; this being the weekend, the chain was down, though a polite notice offered a warning that it could be raised at a moment’s notice. Not wanting any kind of incident, Heck opted to park on the road.

He walked across the car park, hands in pockets, to all intents and purposes an everyday guy popping in to see his parish priest. Except that he didn’t enter the church through its front door but took the path down the side of it. St Agatha’s was a place of worship dating back to the industrial age, a great Gothic block of dingy red brick, which blended in neatly with the tiers of drab, medium-rise flats standing behind and around it. Though the rain had eased off, water ran noisily down its gutters and dripped from its soot-encrusted gargoyles. It was only midday, but the sky was darkening; partly due to the heavy grey cloud-cover, but it was December too – in less than two hours it would be dark for real. It was also bitingly cold, no more than three or four degrees, which the dampness exacerbated.

At the eastern end of the church, Heck came to a small paved yard. He halted, waiting and watching. On the far side of it, about forty yards away, stood the old church hall, an ugly, one-storey building made from white stucco. Heck didn’t really know what went on there during the day. Standard church hall stuff, he presumed: coffee mornings, jumble sales, rehab sessions for drunks and druggies. Whether events were held on Saturdays he didn’t know, though it sounded quiet. However, at least one thing about St Agatha’s Church Hall was permanent: it was the home of caretaker Jimmy ‘Snake’ Fletcher.

‘Bastard,’ Heck said under his breath, his gaze telescoping across the yard to the church hall door, which stood invitingly open. If nothing else, this meant that said caretaker was at home, and why would he not be?

‘I’m not going topside at the mo,’ Snake Fletcher had told Heck when they’d last spoken. ‘I’ll be laying low for a while.’

Heck started across, walking slowly, quietly, glancing up and around, but only the grimy faces of saints and angels watched him from the stained-glass windows.

Snake, who’d given the impression that his job here at St Agatha’s was as much a refuge for him as an earner, was another ageing metalhead who, at one time, had been road crew for Varulv. He’d also been an informer against the Black Chapel when they’d commenced their murder spree. He’d been appalled, he said, at the behaviour of his one-time friend and drinking buddy, Ranald Ulfskar/Jones. Yes, they’d both loved the crazier, thrashier edge of the metal spectrum, and had not just got wasted together in the traditional rock‘n’roll way but had shared the band’s pagan/Viking philosophy. They’d tattooed Nordic runes on their bodies, and attended firelit woodland orgies, where, drunk and high on all kinds of illegal substances, they’d sworn their service to the ancient gods of the north … but Snake had drawn the line at human sacrifices, which to him was nothing more than murder.

Or so he’d said.

Initially he’d seemed honest. It was Snake – who’d already had a partial relationship with Heck, due to earlier criminal cases involving his family – who’d alerted the Serial Crimes Unit to what he suspected were the Black Chapel’s next intended victims. It was Snake who had named Ulfskar/Jones as the cult’s prime mover. But it was also Snake who’d insisted that Varulv themselves, a father and son duo, Karl and Eric Hellstrom, were innocent of any crime. That they might have mocked Christianity and preached hard-line Aryan beliefs, such influence having led directly to violence in several European countries, not just the UK, but that they themselves would never have got their hands dirty. They were too smart, too smug, too content now with the quiet retirement they enjoyed on their lavish hunting estate.

Heck entered the church hall.

He stood in its entrance passage but didn’t call out. That would be the normal thing to do as a police officer. But Heck wasn’t here as a police officer. Not anymore.

It was a rundown place as he remembered, though now it seemed even dirtier and dustier.

‘They not been working you too hard, Snake?’ he muttered. ‘Or have they tried to get you to do a job, and you didn’t give a shit … because you’re a Viking and they’re a bunch of soppy Christians?’

He descended the stairway to the basement, and round the first turn, the piece of emerald-green graffiti that had struck him the first time he’d visited this place, struck him again.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here …

… if you had any in the fucking first place

He’d first seen it last July. Apparently, it had been the work of some local shithead with nothing better to do, and at the request of the parish priest, Snake had been going to clean it off, but he seemingly hadn’t bothered, or hadn’t tried very hard.

Heck continued down, and just like the last time, the notion that he was descending into the underworld – not the land of shady connections that crims inhabited, but the real Underworld – was enforced at the bottom, where a long, straight corridor built from brick and overhung with dangling rags of dust-thick cobweb led into obsidian blackness. He took the torch from his anorak pocket and flicked it on, its intense beam picking out a couple of facing doors standing open at the far end, and just beyond those a heavy steel sliding-door, which stood closed.

Drawing the .38 from his waistband, he cocked it and held it by his side as he advanced. His rubber-soled trainers aided with stealth, while so much adrenaline now flooded his system that he barely even limped. His ears were pinned back for the slightest sound, his gaze narrowing on the sliding-door, the one behind which Snake had made his living quarters. It appeared to be closed, which was usually the way of it, but that didn’t mean it was impossible to get in. As male specimens went, Snake Fletcher wasn’t up to much. Somewhere in his fifties and so myopic that he needed to wear bottle-lens glasses, he was also thin, grizzled and ratty, and rarely washed. His multiple tasteless tats and age-old biker gear of oil-stained denims and worn-out leather told the tale of a counterculture past that was now … well, long passed. These days, he tended to wear overalls and push a broom, but he was no less an odious individual, especially now that Heck knew he’d been protecting the real villains of the piece.

Two gunmen had assaulted the SCU party at the Ace of Diamonds. And only two. Heck had seen them. He’d chased them. He’d fought with them. They’d been armed with automatic weapons. This already separated them from the likes of Ulfskar/Jones and his pathetic crowd, a street-gang in truth, who’d killed their victims with basic hand-weapons, even using farm tools at one point, and who’d all been in jail at the time anyway.

More important, of course, the two gunmen had spoken in a language that wasn’t English.

A language so foreign to Heck that he couldn’t recognise it at the time and still didn’t. And Norwegian would easily tick that box.

The Hellstroms aren’t involved, Snake had said, referring to the actual killings. Why would they be? Much better to be the gurus who sit on the mountain and get the kudos without taking any of the risk.

Even at the time, Heck had noted that the bastard had not excused them from responsibility because in his view they weren’t evil enough; it was more because they wanted to avoid personal trouble. Quite clearly, they were evil enough, they were more than evil enough.

As Heck walked, his mind ran through it again.

And it wasn’t difficult.

There’d only been two gunmen … just like there were only two Hellstroms.

The Hellstroms didn’t just spout vengeful Viking bullshit, they believed it too.

They were full-time hunters, which likely meant they had access to firearms and were proficient in their use.

And they spoke a foreign language.

And then there was that other thing.

Heck recalled the last time he’d been down here, when he’d happened to glance at the cover of an extreme metal mag called HellzReign. On it, for the first time, he’d seen Varulv, Karl and Eric Hellstrom, the father and son black-metal act. If you’d set aside the Hollywood Viking garb they’d been wearing, the chain mail and sculpted leathers, the blood-drenched skull that one of them had been clutching, there’d still been something malevolent about them. Both were brawny, solid, as if they worked out, while Karl, the father, was pale-faced and tough-looking, with long black hair, a thick black beard and moustache, and the iciest green-eyed stare that Heck had ever seen. Eric, a younger, blond-haired version, had emanated no less menace, the fanaticism in his face somehow intensified by his youth.

More important than any of that, though, were the items that Eric wore on either wrist.

Heck’s thoughts strayed back to that final, terrible clash in the bullet-shredded wood.

Reaching up from that position where he crouched against the dry-stone wall.

Gripping the barrel of the rifle just as its magazine ran dry.

Swinging the bottle of champagne up and over his head.

The guy on the other side of the wall not expecting this.

The bottle impacting on his white balaclava, exploding in all directions.

The gunman turning limp as Heck yanked the gun away and tossed it, then tried to drag him bodily over the wall.

The dazed guy oozing blood from his grisly head wound as he resisted.

Heck yanking at his arm, stabbing his neck and shoulder with the jagged shard.

Then the other one coming, shouting as he pelted along the road.

Heck fleeing into the trees as another weapon opened up, raking the undergrowth.

And in his hand that thing.

That thing he’d torn loose from the first gunman’s wrist.

That leather bracelet hung with Gothic symbols: daggers, wolf heads, inverted crosses.

Just like the one on the cover of HellzReign, on Eric Hellstrom’s wrist.

Heck patted at his jeans pocket, to ensure that the evidence envelope with its vital contents was still there. It was, and he couldn’t resist smiling. Though it wasn’t a real smile. He hadn’t smiled since September 6th, but at least it was an approximation.

Because this leather bracelet, with all its juvenile pseudo-rebellious adornments, was the smoking gun. The sure-fire proof. This was the reason that Heck would put a bullet through each of the Hellstroms’ brains rather than arrest them and be forced to watch as they spent the rest of their lives in the relative comfort of a high-security prison, where their many millions could secure not just greater perks and privileges than the norm, but the friendship and loyalty of staff and fellow inmates alike.

He halted. Directly in front of him stood the steel sliding-door.

It had once enclosed a coal store or something similarly utilitarian, and accordingly was massive and filled with rivets. It had never been designed to lock, yet once Snake had made his base there, he’d found some means of fastening it from the inside. Heck would only gain entrance previously by giving a coded knock, two taps followed by a pause and then two more. There was no obvious reason why he shouldn’t adopt the same approach now. Snake would admit him as he always had, because he’d have no reason to assume that Heck had become suspicious of him (though in truth, if the roles had been reversed, Heck would never have trusted one of the few survivors of a massacre that he and his friends had engineered; he wouldn’t even be in London).

He held the .38 behind his back, and knocked with his torch-hand, banging the base of the device against the steel. Twice, a brief pause, and then twice again. There was no response. Nothing. Not even a scuffle of muffled movement.

Heck knocked a second time, pressing his ear to the metal. Still nothing. It was possible that Snake had gone out, he supposed, or what was that he’d just said … had left town?

‘Not so dumb after all.’ Heck flattened his gloved hands against the steel and tried to push the door to the right. It wasn’t locked and slid open on greased runners.

Heck backed away, stabbing torchlight through the gap, flirting it all around the dark, squat chamber on the other side, but spying nothing of consequence: bits of second-hand furniture, including an old truckle-bed with a mass of dirty sheets heaped on it, a clutter of mops, brushes and the like. All stuff he’d seen the last time he’d been here, but all of it with an air of abandonment. The air in there was cold, still. No warmth lingered from the portable electric fire Snake had used. There was no fetor of dirty armpits or unwashed clothes, no reek of recently extinguished dog-ends. In fact, there was nothing personal anywhere. Heck’s torch roved as he entered the hovel, but everything he now saw had the look of detritus, like it lay where it had fallen, like it was disposable.

Irritable, he kicked his way round, sending rubbish flying.

‘Snake, where the fuck are you?’

If Snake had done a runner, the only option would be trying to find out where he might have gone from someone else. The parish priest could conceivably help, as he was probably the only other person who’d known that Snake had lived down here. But Heck didn’t want to start questioning people. Not only was he no longer a cop, his warrant card had been confiscated, so he couldn’t even pretend that he was. And anyway, Snake would now know that he was under suspicion of conspiring to murder police officers, so, why the hell would he have been truthful with anyone about where he was going?

Heck knew the Fletcher family vaguely. He’d first met them when he was at Tower Hamlets Robbery in the mid-2000s. Having arrested Billy Fletcher, Snake’s younger brother, for knocking over a string of corner shops, he’d then cut a deal with him, which allowed them to put the rest of the gang away. But Billy, while he might be grateful enough to help, was still under Witness Protection, and so Heck couldn’t get near him. The rest of the family, meanwhile, were a hotch-potch of drunks, addicts and petty thieves. It was impossible to imagine that they would side with Heck against Snake – if they even knew anything.

Chest tight with frustration, he moved back out into the corridor, shoving the gun into his waistband. Whether he liked it or not, it was going to have to be the parish priest.

And then he heard something … a dry, rustling sound.

He halted, listening. And heard it again. It was from somewhere just ahead.

Heck advanced stealthily until he was level with the two facing doorways. He raised his torch. Through the entrance on the left lay a narrow brick chamber in which two massive cisterns quietly churned. It wasn’t that, he was sure. Then he heard the sound again.

He swung to his right. Beyond this other door, what looked like a disused furnace occupied a vault-like room, a great charcoal-black oven, yawning open, its hatch having fallen from corroded hinges, its hollow belly filled with ancient ashes.

The sound came again; another dry rustling. Definitely from inside this second room.

Heck hesitated. Nothing was moving as far as he could see, and most of the room was in view – except for a narrow space on the left side of the furnace, between the mechanism itself and the wall. That lay in complete blackness.

Quietly as he could, Heck freed the .38 from his waistband.

Now he heard it a third or fourth time: a scraping, scuttering sound.

Cautiously, he advanced. ‘Snake?’

The movement ceased. Heck stopped again. The gap on the other side of the furnace was about a foot in depth and ran some six or seven feet to the back wall. Room enough for someone to hide. Easily.

He cocked his revolver, then backed up a foot or so before circling around to look into the gap. Most likely, he expected to see a rat in there, hunched and hissing.

But when he shone his light in, there was nothing. Just dust and rags.

The scuttering sound exploded in Heck’s left ear, as if directly alongside him.

He jumped and spun, gun resting on torch as he pointed both into a black, jagged recess in the wall next to him. What he saw in there made his skin crawl.

A section of cylindrical wire netting, the internal structure remaining from an old flue, poked down from above. It was thick and sticky with soot, but inside it, he could see that a living thing – a bird – was suspended by a single wing. It was a pigeon, coated in blood and oil. Little more than a skeleton, it nevertheless flapped and fluttered again, making futile efforts to get free. Heck uncocked his weapon, sheathed it in the back of his jeans, and reached into the hole, putting the poor creature out of its misery. But as he turned to leave, his torchlight fell on something that stopped him in his tracks. On this side of the furnace, a heavy steel drawer had been pulled out, disgorging a wad of half-burned paperwork. On the very top of it, he saw the bearded, scowling visages of Karl and Eric Hellstrom.

He grabbed at it, yanking it loose.

It was that old copy of HellzReign, for the most part charred beyond recognition, its blackened pages falling from his hand in fragments. But enough of the cover remained to show Eric Hellstrom’s right wrist, and the Gothic bracelet around it.

Heck tore it loose and folded it. In the unlikely event that he’d ever be required to prove his suspicions, this would suffice. He slid it into his back pocket and turned to leave – and again his eyes caught something.

Among the other clump of semi-burned papers hanging from the drawer was what looked like another music magazine. This wasn’t HellzReign. Even glancing at it, it appeared to be more concerned with mainstream heavy rock. Heck still took it out to look at it, because what had caught his attention this time was an advert, which someone had repeatedly circled with red biro.

DEICIDE

Upcoming metal band on the road needs more than a few helping hands!

Yep, you heard it here first

Road crew wanted

Experience essential, good rates

Underneath that, there were several telephone numbers and email addresses. Then there was a list of tour-dates. By the looks of it, they were for this year. This winter, in fact.

Aware that Gary Quinnell would have no choice but to report his car missing on Monday, December 4th, from which point the vehicle could easily get clocked by roadside cameras equipped with number-recognition software, Heck scanned hurriedly down the list, stopping on that date.

December 4 – Winter Gardens,

Lonsdale Sands, Lancs

He tore this page loose as well and stowed it inside his anorak.

As he returned along the passage, he was of a lighter frame of mind.

‘December 4th, Snakey. Your date with destiny.’

12

Gail Honeyford had never expected to stay long with Harlesden CID. In consequence, she’d never filled her desk drawer with anything other than the most basic personals. Admittedly, she hadn’t expected to be putting them into a cardboard box quite so soon, but at least that meant she didn’t need an especially large one.

She’d half-filled it when her phone rang. She recognised the number and ignored it. The second time it rang, she realised she had no option but to answer. ‘Ma’am?’

‘What are you doing?’ Jude Penhaligon asked in her cold, clipped way.

‘Clearing my desk. Seems that when the brass want something, the paperwork travels fast.’

The DI considered this. ‘How are your colleagues taking it?’

‘Well …’ Gail glanced at the rest of the office, which, this being a Saturday evening, was thankfully empty. ‘At first they were all tea and sympathy, me being more or less sole survivor of a decimated unit. But then they found out I was going internal, and seeing how no one believes Heck did it except you, they’ve now decided they hate me.’

‘Don’t be fooled by tea and sympathy,’ Penhaligon advised. ‘The only time they’re really going to like you is when they can stick their hand up your skirt. But they’re not even allowed to say stuff like that anymore, so what bloody use are we?’

Gail stuck the phone under her jaw before bumping out of the office, box in hand. ‘I always appreciate it when supervisors share their personal experiences, but at present I’m a bit busy. Is there a purpose to this call?’

‘There is, as it happens. Plans have changed.’

‘Okay …?’

‘Get yourself a grab-bag sorted. First thing tomorrow, you and me are heading north.’

Gail left the station via the personnel door. ‘Let me guess … Heck’s sister?’

‘She’s his closest living relative. Seems like an obvious place to start.’

‘You think it’ll be that simple, do you, ma’am?’

‘He’s got to find an ally somewhere.’ Penhaligon’s tone had stiffened, as if her reputation for iron self-control was already being tested by the junior officer’s relentless insubordination. ‘Unless you have a better idea?’

‘Well, one thing’s for sure …’ Gail climbed into her Punto, throwing the box into the back seat. ‘Heck’s been twelve years in the National Crime Group. That means he’s investigated cases and developed contacts all over England and Wales. It’s an absolute slam-dunk that wherever he does finally hole up, it won’t be anywhere near London. So, the North’s as good a place to start as any.’

She hit the ignition and redirected the call through Bluetooth.

‘This must be why I was told to bring you along,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Because of your astonishing insights. DC Crick would never have come up with something like that.’

Gail drove out of the personnel car park. ‘Speaking of the poison dwarf, how did he take it when you told him his services weren’t required?’

‘DC Crick has other duties to attend to. This isn’t our only lead.’

‘Bet he was pig-sick, wasn’t he?’ Gail couldn’t conceal the pleasure that thought gave her.

‘It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He just has to do his job.’

‘Bet he’s doing it with a smile on his face, too.’

‘Look, DC Honeyford … you can put a sock in it with the smartarsery, okay?’ Fleetingly, the DI sounded tired, as if she really didn’t need this fight, which again implied that even she was now feeling the strain. ‘And divest yourself of any notion that me and you somehow enjoy equal status. Not only am I the ranking officer in this situation, I don’t even want you on my team …’

‘I don’t want to be on it either.’

‘And I’m really, really not interested in taking lip from you.’

Gail braked at a red light. ‘That’s no surprise. I thought there’d be a raging control-freak beneath that cool exterior.’

‘Button it, Honeyford! I mean from now on. Unless you’ve got something to say that’s relevant to the enquiry.’

‘Well, ma’am, seeing as you know absolutely nothing about your quarry, and I know an awful lot, I guess I’ll cast the deciding vote on what’s relevant or not. Yeah?’

The DI struggled not to retort immediately. She was clearly furious. Raging like a beast under that ripple-free surface. But these were unusual circumstances and they both knew that neither exploding with anger nor simply pulling rank would work, especially not when Gail’s future in the job was so precarious already.

The silence was painful, though. So, Gail filled it.

‘For example, do you know anything about Mark Heckenburg’s background?’

‘Born Bradburn, South Lancashire,’ Penhaligon replied robotically. ‘Joined the Greater Manchester Police at the age of eighteen. On completion of his probation, voluntarily transferred to the Met, joined CID at Bethnal Green, and worked lengthy attachment to Tower Hamlets Robbery Squad …’

‘I’m not talking about his record,’ Gail interrupted. ‘Anyone can reel the facts off a print-out. I’m talking about his background. The things that have happened to him off-camera?’

‘I’m sure none of that has any pertinence …’

‘Are you? So tell me, DI Penhaligon, what do you think about the fact that when Heck first joined the police it so upset his mother and father, who’d recently lost a son to suicide thanks to him having been framed by corrupt officers in Greater Manchester, that they not only never spoke to Heck again, they issued orders that he mustn’t even be invited to their funerals? Orders that were obeyed in full.’

Penhaligon remained silent.

Gail was pushing the envelope of acceptable behaviour even by her own standards. But the DI, even fuming, was smart enough to know that this could not be ignored.

‘And then look what happened after the Ace of Diamonds massacre,’ Gail added. ‘In which a whole load of his colleagues were murdered. Because you’d decided to investigate him as part of some imaginary conspiracy, he was advised to stay away from their funerals, too. I mean, seriously, ma’am … I’m not blaming you personally, but how fucking crass is that?’

‘DC Honeyford, the Internal Investigations Branch does not need to explain its reasons and rationalisations to you …’

‘I already know them. And they wouldn’t fill the back of a postage stamp …’

‘All right, enough!’

A detective inspector who was famous for keeping her cool had finally lost it. Gail didn’t consider this a success in itself; she’d only been letting forth because the bastards had deserved it. Again, she was surprised that she’d worn Penhaligon down so quickly, but then she’d learned from one of the true masters of annoyance: Heck.

‘I appreciate that you’ve had a difficult time of late,’ Penhaligon said with forced calm. ‘Believe it or not, I know what it’s like to lose friends. Not all of them, I confess … but friends who were very close to me. But the piece of elastic this gives you will only stretch so far. So, you can cut this mouthy bitch thing straight away! Okay? We’ve got a long journey ahead tomorrow, and I’ve just about had my fill of you already. Neither of us wants to work together, but for some reason that eludes my understanding at present, you and I have been put on the same team … and ours is not to reason why. So, I’m going to appeal to you on two levels. First of all, you need to respect the decision that has brought us to this, even if you don’t understand it. And above all, you need to respect the command structure, which we’re all part of, and without which the entire police service would fall into the toilet. Secondly, and more personally, you may think your career’s compromised now, but actually you haven’t seen anything yet. You give me any more fucking grief, DC Honeyford, and when this is over, however it pans out, I’ll do everything in my power – which is more considerable than you seem to realise – to ensure that you aren’t just launched out of the National Crime Group, but out of the entire fucking stratosphere! Do I make myself clear?’

‘I’m getting to the stage where I don’t care,’ Gail replied.

Oddly, given how determined she’d been to make a splash in this job, that was true. She felt listless now that she’d said her piece. The feisty career girl no longer too bothered.

‘I don’t care, ma’am,’ Penhaligon corrected her.

‘Erm … ma’am.’

‘You not caring is fine if that means I’m not saddled all day tomorrow with a gobshite. It’s even better if it means you decide not to pull your weight. Because then I can report back what a useless fuck-up you’ve proved to be, and hey presto, my problem’s solved.’

13

Lonsdale Sands was one of those British seaside towns – an archetype, some would say – that no longer figured on the tourist trail. Back in the day, it had been part of Lancashire’s big three, along with Blackpool and Morecambe. Holiday resorts purposely created by the mill-owners of the nineteenth century and used almost exclusively by the working class, they had remained popular and busy well into the twentieth, until the decline of heavy industry and the advent of cheap package tours abroad. Though they were officially still in service in the twenty-first century, they were shadows of what they’d once been, offering empty, windblown promenades, abandoned caravan parks, rundown amusement arcades and lodgings for asylum seekers rather than holidaymakers.

Blackpool and Morecambe had diversified a little, the former looking to its nightclub scene to attract the stag and hen crowd, the latter, still with its vast sky and clean sea-air, assuming the mantle of retirement land. Lonsdale Sands, though, had simply vanished from the average Brit’s mental map. Even Heck, a Lancashire lad by birth, had only vague awareness of it. But he knew where it was: one of the northernmost points on the Fylde Coast; a flat, dreary stretch of shoreline, rain-washed for most of the year (including summer), cheerfully bypassed by both the M6 motorway and the West Coast Mainline.

Deicide couldn’t be up to much if this was one of their tour spots.

Heck pondered that as he drove north up the motorway. The band’s name amused him.

Deicide.

The murder of a god.

They wouldn’t be the first to strike such a pose. Lots of modern metal bands toyed with apocalyptic imagery, with nihilism, Satanism and the like. He’d once heard of an outfit called Asmodeus, another called Belial, another called Orcus. Ominous names which, if his Catholic schooling was anything to go by, had once belonged to genuine demons. He wondered what had gone wrong since the days of progenitor metal bands like Led Zeppelin, who’d called themselves that because Keith Moon of The Who had joked that they’d go down like a lead balloon, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, who named themselves after an over-zealous gym master. Ozzy had a lot to answer for, he supposed. But even outside the genre, there’d been others. Hadn’t John Lennon once proclaimed that the Beatles were bigger than God? And yet where was Lennon now? Dust in a box. And where was God? Well, that was a big question, but the world still turned, night followed day, birds flew, fish swam.

We’re grains of sand, Heck thought to himself … in the eye of the Creator?

He’d heard that said somewhere, but he couldn’t think where.

One thing was sure: if God was up there, Heck himself would have quite some explaining to do when he arrived at the Pearly Gates. Especially when all this lot was finished.

But sometimes the system you had, the so-called failsafe you relied on to keep civilised society separate from the brutes, just wasn’t adequate. All his adult life, Heck had taken evil men down. It had been more than a job; it had been his obsessive quest to extract these relentlessly destructive elements from society. Yes, admittedly, a couple had died by his hand, but always in circumstances that were legally permissible. The vast majority he’d put in front of a court and let the law of the land deal with them.

‘Vengeance is mine,’ Gary Quinnell had reminded him. An oft-quoted passage.

It sounded fine in principle and Heck understood its appeal, but unless you were a committed believer, it wasn’t so easy to get totally on board with it. For example, when and where was this vengeance supposed to fall? It was true that most villains came to a bad end, and then they might even have a bad afterlife. But if you didn’t see it, if you didn’t somehow know for a fact that they were smoking on a griddle in the caverns of Hell, how could you find closure? And when, as in this case, the opposition was simply so foul that it needed to be torn down in an epic way, and you – perhaps because you weren’t just dead inside but burned out and hollow, with literally nothing left to live for – were the ideal person for such a job, it felt like a blatant abrogation of duty not to take on the work yourself.

He accelerated away from the M6 Toll, pushing the car from eighty to ninety to a hundred, before realising his error and slowing back down to seventy. The last thing he wanted now was to get pulled by Traffic.

At least the motorway was relatively clear, this being a Saturday evening. Not that he wasn’t feeling the strain of the last few days. His limbs and body still ached, and given that he’d barely slept the night before, he soon found himself nodding at the wheel. The dashboard clock showed that it was just after six p.m., but he was dog-tired, and the weather wasn’t helping; the further north he travelled the more the rain turned to squalling sleet, the road surface deteriorating. He pulled off at Sandbach Services, parked in the farthest bay he could find from the main building and grabbed some shuteye. An hour later, he forcibly woke himself, walked lamely to the station, drank a large coffee, and bought four cans of Red Bull for the remainder of the trip. He was back on the northbound by seven-thirty. The road was even emptier now, its bridges whipping past in a blur, one turn-off after another flying by: Junction 17, Congleton; Junction 18, Northwich and Chester; Junction 19, Manchester Airport.

Previously, whenever he’d crossed the Thelwall Viaduct near Warrington, he’d always felt that he was leaving the Midlands and entering the true North. From here, it was only an hour’s drive to Junction 32a, from where he could eventually make his way to Lonsdale Sands, though he’d be at his home-stop of Bradburn much sooner.

Bradburn at eight-thirty on a Saturday night.

What was Dana likely to be doing?

If she was out somewhere, that could be a problem. Perhaps he should just drive on, but suddenly the extra seventy miles this would entail seemed onerous. He could use another break and he needed to get this conversation with his sister over and done with. Taking the first opportunity to avoid it would be the coward’s way.

When he pulled off at Junction 26a, the sleet was settling; not thickly, but lying in streaks on the verges and gutters. No sooner had he hit Bradburn’s outskirts than Christmas neon glimmered at him from gardens, windows and rooftops. But Heck’s hometown wasn’t in a good place these days. Formerly an industrial hotbed, it had suffered several unemployment crises since the end of that era. Crime and substance abuse had subsequently gone up, and there was much derelict property. The latest thing to strike the poor old place was the death of the High Street. It was happening everywhere, but it was especially melancholy to see Bradburn’s town centre, which he’d once known as a hive of activity, boarded up, the festive lights twinkling overhead for the awe and admiration of no one.

As he approached his home neighbourhood, the so-called ‘Old Town’, his mind switched to other things, and he started watching the pavements and entrances to alleys. The Old Town, aka St Nathaniel’s Parish, was a network of old-fashioned terraced streets, broken here and there by the odd industrial property. It had once been everyone’s postcard image of what towns like Bradburn were all about. But at night, with so many streetlights out of order, so many backstreets, so much dereliction, it was an unlit labyrinth where an army could lie in close-by concealment. Though of course, if they were here, they wouldn’t be watching for Gary Quinnell’s Volvo C30.

Heck felt safe enough driving the neighbourhood a couple of times, though he didn’t overdo this; prowling continually would only increase the risk. When he was certain he’d seen nothing amiss, he pulled into Cranby Street. Here, the terraced house that had once belonged to his late parents and now was owned and occupied by Dana and her daughter, Sarah, sat at No. 23.

He parked six houses down and waited: listening, watching.

The wind wailed, sleet slashed the car, colourless chunks of it slithering down the windscreen. Aside from that, nothing moved.

Focussing on the house, his thoughts inevitably strayed.

It wasn’t much, but this had been his home throughout his childhood and teenage years, and what happy times they’d been. When his brother Tom had still been alive, when their father wasn’t yet the sour-faced, ill-tempered man he’d become, when Heck had been ‘Mark’, a school sports star with an uncomplicated life, friends across the neighbourhood and all his days ahead of him.

He struggled to bring himself back to the present. This was no time for mawkishness.

He scanned the street, which remained resolutely empty.

Maybe his evasion of the IIB surveillance team hadn’t been such a big deal? The vast majority of Mike Garrickson’s taskforce would be focussed on the Milena Misanyan connection, which was why the case had been given to Organised Crime in the first place, and everything he’d seen about Bradburn notwithstanding, Greater Manchester Police were unlikely to be able to spare significant numbers of their own to cover this fringe line of enquiry in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Even so, it wasn’t impossible that there’d be police spotters on the plot somewhere.

Heck couldn’t just stroll up to the house and knock on the door. The most he could chance was a walk-by. That should be safe enough if he left the street at its far end, balanced his way over the Leeds/Liverpool Canal by the lock gates, and worked his way back via the playing fields where, as a junior Rugby League player, he’d once lit up the Old Town.

Still, he hesitated,

If they grabbed him now it was over. It didn’t even matter whether he took the .38 with him or hid it in the Volvo. If he got nabbed on the street, they’d search the car and would find it then. So, he slotted it back into his jeans and climbed out. The sleet hit him in a swirling blast. He wrapped his scarf round his face, pulled his hood up and stuck his hands into his anorak pockets as he trudged along the pavement, slowing a little as he approached No. 23, glancing right as he sloped past his sister’s front window, but not stopping. At the end of the street, he teetered his way across the lock gates, and trudged over the rugby fields, now fully exposed to the elements, the sleet blowing over him in sopping, freezing sheets.

The front room of Dana’s residence had been occupied, but not by Dana herself. Instead, he’d seen a bunch of teenage girls, either sprawled on the furniture or cross-legged on the floor. Gossip mags had been spread among them, pop music playing, and they’d been drinking wine. It was easy to work out what all this meant. Sarah, his niece, who’d been a young schoolgirl when he’d last sat down and spoken to her properly, was having a get-together with her friends. Which likely meant that Dana was out somewhere.

There was only one way to confirm this.

It would have been nice for once if his luck actually held, and rather to his surprise, it did.

The Forge & Clarion pub had stood in the centre of the Old Town throughout the early part of his life. Of course, it was long demolished now. Not only that, the fish and chip shop to the right of it, the Cycle Repairs on the left and the row of terraced houses behind it had also gone, leaving only weedy rubble in their wake. And yet the red-painted phone-box that had stood on the corner there for as long as he could remember, remained. He crammed himself inside it, as much to find shelter as to make a call. Of course, it was frigid, his breath fogging the dank interior. But thankfully, he had change, and a few minutes later, the call was ringing out at the other end.

‘Hello?’ Sarah said.

‘Hi Sarah, it’s Uncle Mark.’

There was a brief, surprised silence. ‘Hi, Uncle Mark! I’ve not heard from you in ages.’

‘Yeah, I know … sorry about that. Listen, is your mum at home?’

‘No, she’s out at the club.’

‘The club?’

‘The Labour Club. She goes there every Saturday now, with Len.’

‘Got herself a new fella, has she?’

‘Yeah, he’s really nice. She met him at work.’

‘That’s good …’ He paused, trying to figure out where to go from here.

‘Have you not got her mobile?’ Sarah asked.

‘I’ve tried it a couple of times,’ he lied. ‘Must be out of power.’

‘Oh, she’s always doing that.’

‘Look, it doesn’t matter, it’s all right. I’ll catch her at some point.’

‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ the girl said quickly, as if to stop him hanging up.

‘You don’t need to be sorry, love. These things happen. We’ve just got to deal with them.’

‘Are you all right, though?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. How are you?’

‘Great. I’ve just got some mates round.’

‘Okay, I won’t keep you.’

‘Oh, you’re not keeping me. It’s okay …’

‘Don’t worry, darling … I love you, all right?’

‘Yeah. I love you too.’ She sounded mystified by his tone, but only briefly. ‘Are you going to come and see us a bit more?’

Outside, the sleet swept against the booth, plastering its entire left side. The icy cold seeped through, wrapping him head to foot.

‘I can’t,’ he finally said. ‘Not at the moment.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘Yeah. Just remember … I know there’ve been things in the past. But I’ve always loved you and your mum.’

‘I won’t forget.’ Again, Sarah sounded puzzled. ‘You should never worry about that.’

‘Okay … now you get back to your mates.’

‘I will. See you soon … oh, and I’ll tell Mum you called.’

‘Yeah … yeah, do that.’

The line went dead, but it was several seconds before he could put the phone back on the hook.

*

Bradburn Labour Club was a one-storey building, a prefab with the 1960s written all over it. This too had once been surrounded by terraced properties but now stood alone in open space. The next nearest building, a newly built car dealership, stood about fifty yards away, at the end of a road, which otherwise had only empty lots on either side.

Heck waited a couple of minutes after he’d parked, watching his rear-view mirror. He still saw nothing suspicious. This could simply mean that IIB were really good at clandestine surveillance, though, sincerely doubting that, he climbed out and walked towards the club.

It wasn’t quite Christmas, but he could already hear festive music emanating from the interior. It was even louder when he went inside, because it wasn’t a juke box or a disco, it was a live band. When he traipsed along the club’s central corridor and entered the dark and crowded entertainment area, he saw a bunch of old-timers on stage in white shirts and dickie bows, belting out oldies as though they were close to their last breath, which, from the look of the drummer, was a distinct possibility.

Heck scanned the room, his gaze gradually adjusting to the dimness. Most punters were congregated around tables, chattering, laughing and drinking rather than listening to the music. The narrow aisles between them were busy with folk heading to and from the bar. Even so, he didn’t spot Dana until she’d spotted him.

‘Now, stranger!’ a delighted voice said.

He spun round. She too was approaching from the bar, her handbag swinging by a strap as she carried a large glass of white wine and a pint of bitter, though, very promptly, she handed these drinks to another woman, and instructed her where to take them before throwing herself onto him, clamping his whole body in a fierce, sisterly hug, which had him blazing with pain.

Seconds passed before they broke apart again.

‘What are you doing here?’ Dana demanded, still amazed.

She looked good. She was in her late forties, but had kept well, her dark brown hair cut square at the shoulder, her trim figure decked out in a black, sparkly number, which only enhanced it. By her full but delicate makeup, she was out to enjoy herself.

‘Just thought I’d swing by,’ he said. ‘Say hello.’

‘Swing by?’ She frowned. ‘You mean you’re not stopping?’

‘I’m passing through, Dana. I can’t stop.’

‘Are you back on the job?’

‘I wish.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe they did that to you.’

‘They think they’re doing right.’

She snorted. ‘Pull the other one. They’ve gone for the easy option, you mean.’

‘It’s not all of them. I’ve had a lot of messages of support.’

‘Big deal. Messages are cheap.’

‘It’s not like there isn’t some evidence to implicate me. It’s only circumstantial, but they’ve got to investigate, even if they don’t want to.’

‘Come on, sit down …’ She took his arm and lugged him through into an adjoining room, a smaller drinking area, which was properly lit and where the music from the band was muffled. Other folk occupied most of the chairs and benches, but there was some space, and she steered him to a small table, ushering him into one of its two empty seats. ‘So, if you’re not on the job, why are you passing through?’

He shrugged. ‘Just going to see someone.’

Dana sat opposite, and for the first time seemed to notice his stubbly beard and drawn features. ‘Who you going to see, Mark?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Okay, I know, I know … shouldn’t ask questions. Look …’ she tried to distract herself, ‘let’s get you a drink, eh?’

‘Something non-alcoholic. While I’m driving.’

Dana stood up and, again playing the older sister, couldn’t resist touching his brow. ‘You’re freezing. What about a cup of tea?’

He nodded. ‘That wouldn’t be a bad idea.’

‘Babs!’ Dana shouted to the barmaid on duty at the corner of the bar-top that shouldered its way into this side room. ‘Brew over here, if you don’t mind! Milk and two sweeteners!’ She stepped away from the table. ‘I’ll go and get Len, so you can meet him.’

Heck caught her wrist. ‘Best if you don’t.’

She looked surprised again. ‘He’s a nice fella. He’s not like the last one.’

‘It’s not that, it’s just … the fewer people who know I’m here, the better.’

Dana sat down again. This time, she gave him a long, level stare. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You know I can’t tell you.’

Now she noticed his clothes. Clearly it was outdoor gear, and though relatively new, it was already dirty and creased. He’d slept in it too, so perhaps she could smell it as well.

‘You’re after them, aren’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve found out who really did it, and you’re after them.’ Her voice rose. ‘Are you mad! On your own!’

‘I’m suspended, Dana,’ he hissed, leaning forward. ‘I shouldn’t be investigating anything. If I bring the rest of them in on this, they won’t let me anywhere near it.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What does that matter as long as they catch them?’

‘At the very least, I have to be sure what I’ve got. I can’t send the whole team on a wild escapade that leads to nothing.’

‘And that’s all you’re doing?’ Clearly, this was what she wanted to believe. ‘Just checking something out?’

‘That’s all I’m doing.’

‘You’re a fibber, Mark Heckenburg. I could always tell when you were fibbing when you were little, and you’re fibbing now.’

‘I’m being a bit economical with the truth, I admit, but you know what coppering’s like … everything’s need-to-know.’

‘Except that like you’ve just said … you’re not a copper anymore. So what radio are you going to use if you need help? And where’s that help going to come from if no one knows you’re up here?’

‘I’ve got all the back-up I need, don’t worry.’ It’s tucked into the waistband of my jeans. ‘Dana …’ he allowed a plea to creep in, ‘don’t make this any harder, eh?’

Dana was about to reply in her trademark spitfire fashion when she noticed that Babs had reappeared at the bar, mug of tea in hand. She got up, digging into her handbag for her purse.

Heck glanced around the room while he waited, seeing loops of green tinsel hanging against the old-fashioned frosted windows. It was a curious feeling to be in this part of the world at this time of year. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to spend a family Christmas, or even to share it with anyone. He’d been to Christmas parties, of course, and on Christmas police pub crawls, but ever since the break-up with Gemma he’d spent Christmas Day alone. Her mother had continued to invite him for Christmas dinner for several years after they’d split, despite Gemma not wanting her to. Melanie Piper had strongly approved of Heck – one of the few people in his life who had – but he’d never accepted the invitations because he’d felt it would be inappropriate, and in due course they’d ceased.

A cloud of sleety flakes billowed against the glass, breaking his thought process.

‘This is a real mess, isn’t it?’ Dana said, sitting down, pushing his tea across the table. ‘All our lives we’ve had things like this.’

‘Let’s not go there again,’ he replied.

‘Have you got anywhere to stay tonight?’

‘Yes.’

She arched an eyebrow, perhaps detecting another untruth. ‘Will it be more comfortable than our couch?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, where are you actually going, Mark? I suppose it must be somewhere north, otherwise you wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

‘Somewhere north, yeah.’

The awkward silence after this extended painfully.

‘How much trouble are you going to get into?’ she asked.

He shrugged. Didn’t answer.

‘Worse than it already is?’

‘Probably couldn’t be.’

‘Will it help prove that you’re onside?’

‘That’s my plan.’

She sat back. ‘It’s an absolute disgrace that it’s come to this. All the arrests you’ve made, all the madmen you’ve put away … and you still have to prove yourself.’

He shrugged again. ‘Beats sitting at home.’

‘I’m guessing you’ll be gone south again when it’s all over … so when am I going to see you next?’

This was the difficult one. How did Heck tell her that she probably wouldn’t without upsetting her so much that she’d get on the phone the moment he left? And yet, as Dana had already proved, she wasn’t easy to lie to.

‘I’m not liking what I’m seeing in that face,’ she warned him.

‘Look, Dana … none of us wants to be in this situation. But we are where we are.’

‘Why did you ever join that job, Mark? It’s ruined your entire life.’

It was tempting to say that if he could roll back time, he would. But in actual fact, he didn’t think that. It was difficult to envisage any life than the one he’d led, to have any friends other than the ones he’d made inside the job (most of whom were now dead), to have any life-partner other than Gemma.

‘Thanks for the tea.’ He pushed the empty mug towards her. ‘But I’ve got to go.’

She nodded, a tear in her eye. ‘You’d have really liked Len. You and him could’ve had a good chat afterwards, while I got you both a fish supper. He was fascinated that you’ve been a copper for so long. You’d have had a lot to talk about.’

‘We still will.’

She didn’t reply.

‘I’ll call you soon,’ he said.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘See you later.’

She looked away.

Outside, the sleet was turning to snow. It wasn’t yet adhering to the roads or pavements but was gathering on the cars’ windows and roofs. Heck would get up the motorway, he decided. Find himself a lorry park somewhere, and park leeward of one of the larger HGVs.

It would be another bracing night, though.

14

Lonsdale Sands was every inch the forgotten point on the Fylde Coast that Heck had imagined. Granted, a Sunday afternoon in winter probably wasn’t the best time to visit, but it wasn’t far off Christmas and yet there was a dreary air as he drove along its seafront.

The previous night’s snowfall had already dwindled to a few pathetic patches, but the air was brittle with cold. The sky was a vast, grey awning, the Irish Sea a colourless sheet, scarcely a ripple breaking its surface. The promenade was deserted save for a few gulls pecking at the stained paving. Even the parking areas off the main drag, which Heck usually found full whichever town he visited at whatever time of day, were mostly empty. Across the road, several towering, square-shouldered buildings faced out to sea. They were impressive from a distance, four or five storeys in height, built from white stone, Art Deco in design – original 1920s masterpieces – and yet when you passed them close by, you saw from the lights in their ground floors that, far from being palladia, or grand hotels, or dance halls, most of them were selling carpets or second-hand furniture, their grimy windows plastered with posters offering discounts. From the dingy stonework higher up, and the boarded upper windows, their other floors were not being used, if they were useable at all.

Heck didn’t know the exact address of the Winter Gardens but calculated that it would be on the front somewhere.

And it was.

The whole Winter Gardens thing dated back to late-Victorian times, when in response to British coastal resorts losing business due to inclement weather, the Winter Gardens Company had set about creating indoor entertainment facilities where food and drink could be had, live music performed, and lounges and conservatories provided for rest and relaxation. Many seaside towns acquired them, and at one time Lonsdale Sands Winter Gardens had been as busy as those of its nearest neighbour, Morecambe, and just as famous. It was still operational now, primarily as a music venue, whereas others, like Southport and even Bournemouth, had been shut down decades ago.

Despite that, Lonsdale Sands’ former pride and joy didn’t offer much at first sight.

It wasn’t even one of the Art Deco buildings, instead presenting a monolithic façade of red brick, parts of which appeared to have been sold off for the use of other businesses. While the entrance was obvious enough, double-sized and recessed beneath a glass and wood canopy decorated round its edge with different-coloured lightbulbs, there was another door a few yards to the left of it, which led into an amusements arcade, and a few yards to the right, a window to a shop, over the top of which dusty pane, letters in flaking gold leaf read: Memorabilia. None of these attractions looked to be open at present, the darkened interior to the Winter Gardens itself standing behind a rigid metal lattice.

Heck followed a parking sign which sent him around the back, taking a brick passage so narrow that two vehicles could not have used it at the same time, and found himself in a yard at the rear of the main building.

His initial thought on seeing this was unease. One way in and one way out. It wasn’t designed to be a trap, but could easily turn into one. But then he noticed a second entrance, this one gated, though the gate was open, which appeared to connect to the housing estate at the rear of the complex. If nothing else, that would give him options.

Not wanting to attract undue attention, he swung the Volvo round as though making a complicated three-point turn and, before driving out onto the housing estate, took in as much of the unloading yard as he could. It was hemmed in from north and south by high brick walls, and where it backed onto the Winter Gardens, there was an outward-jutting concrete lintel, a raised timber platform and as well as a side door, a huge pair of corrugated steel sliding doors, which presumably could be drawn apart when heavy equipment needed to be taken through. The yard itself was made from tarmac, quite old and broken, its white-painted parking bays only just distinguishable. Overall, it was squarish in shape, and about seventy yards by seventy, which wouldn’t make Heck’s life easy.

In a yard so small, anything he did was likely to be seen by someone. But having two exits would help with a speedy getaway.

*

‘So, what’s she like, this Dana Black?’ DI Penhaligon asked as she drove.

In perfect synch with their mood, Bradburn, though they were now navigating the centre of it, looked utterly desolate. Christmas decorations were in evidence, but there was much clapped-out property: rows of boarded-up shops, houses and flats that hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years, business premises where even the ‘To Let’ signs were weather-beaten.

‘I don’t know her personally,’ Gail replied. ‘She’s Heck’s only surviving sibling. His older sister by nearly a decade. She fell out with him like all the rest did. But she was the first to try and make peace again.’

‘Did Heckenburg reciprocate?’

‘Slowly, bit by bit. Still don’t think they get on brilliantly.’

‘Does he have a relationship with anyone that isn’t awkward or stormy?’

‘His family background’s a tragedy,’ Gail reminded her. ‘Those detectives in GMP who jailed his brother for life for a series of aggravated burglaries he didn’t commit never got punished. In all cases, the OAP victims were severely beaten, so that was the fate that befell Tom when he finished up inside. Sounds like he got raped too, repeatedly. He was only young, after all. No wonder he took his own life. Ironic that this was about one week before the real culprit got apprehended.’

‘And Heckenburg then went and joined the police?’

Gail glanced sidelong at her. ‘Something else that doesn’t impress you about him, eh? Amazing what you can find when you’re looking hard, isn’t it?’

‘You think that was normal?’

‘It was a couple of years later, but …’ Gail sighed. ‘Yeah … I suppose it’s an odd one.’

Penhaligon was interested that Gail seemed confused and a little saddened by that, as if even she wasn’t always sure why she was so loyal to Mark Heckenburg. The motivations of most men the DI encountered in her work were easy to discern: they wanted to feather their own nests, by fair means or foul. But Heck was clearly a more complex individual. And that wasn’t always a good thing, not when you needed to know your opponent.

‘Did he ever bother explaining it to anyone?’ she asked.

Gail shrugged. ‘Only Gemma Piper. But she never divulged it because it was kind of confidential.’

‘How close an item were they really … Heckenburg and Piper?’

‘My take is they were mad for each other. But at the same time, they were fire and water. Heck was the wild card, Gemma the straight bat. They just didn’t fit together.’

‘That doesn’t always mean people fall out of love.’

‘You expect me to comment on that?’ Gail said. ‘If I say they never did, you’ll put Heck down as the jealous type. If I say they ended up hating each other, that’ll be a motive too.’ They drove on, crossing more woe-begotten housing estates. ‘I’ll just say this, it should have lasted longer than it did. Dana certainly thought that. Sounds like she saw a kindred spirit in Gemma. No-nonsense, independent woman. Blue-collar background.’

‘Dana’s not a scrote, then?’

Gail mused. ‘Sounds like her ex was a shithead. But he’s long gone, and she cracks on and never looks back. Force of nature, too, according to Heck. You don’t get on the wrong side of this lady, or so he once told me.’

‘And what are the chances she’s going to tell us where Heck is?’

‘None whatsoever. But now we’re here, it’s possible she’ll at least invite us in for tea and biscuits. So that we can have a chat with her. And maybe get a little bit further than we would if we only spoke to her on the phone.’

‘Really?’

Gail laughed. ‘No. Not at all.’

15

Heck had heard all kinds of incredible stories about rock bands on tour. How they’d needed to charter their own airliners, and that was just for the hangers-on. How they’d clogged up major highways with hundred-truck processions loaded not just with their gear, but their catering as well. How in addition to their regular armies of roadies, they’d brought swarms of riggers, lighting techs, carpenters, sparkies, bouncers, costumers, hair stylists, groupies. But his first impression now, on coming sharply awake in his car and realising that the yard beyond the gate was suddenly bustling, was that Deicide weren’t quite in that league.

Heck was parked across the road from the rear car park gate, but could clearly see that the back doors to the Winter Gardens were wide open, bright light streaming out as the afternoon dimmed, and a team of about twenty or thirty road crew milled about, unloading boxes, cases and complex bits of equipment from the backs of several cars and a couple of medium light goods vehicles. Both these vans were marked with the band’s logo, a pair of piercing red eyes gazing from beneath a black hood, with a clenched steel-spiked fist alongside it.

Aware that he could only see part of the yard through the open gate, Heck didn’t want to get out of his car and approach on foot for fear that Snake would see him first. He watched carefully, but a couple of minutes passed, and he saw no one he recognised, his frustration growing. The dashboard clock read 14:37. It didn’t seem likely there’d be many more crew members due to arrive. The ones already here hurriedly humped their bits of gear into the venue as if concerned that they were running late. And still there was no sign of his target.

‘Snake,’ he said under his breath. ‘Where the bleeding hell …’

Snake appeared. Sauntering casually into view in the middle of the yard, while deep in discussion with one of the other roadies.

But this was Jimmy ‘Snake’ Fletcher as Heck hadn’t seen him for some time. He was still a thin, unhealthy specimen, bespectacled and grubby, his beard thin, his greying collar-length hair matted and tangled, but now he’d dispensed with the caretaker’s overalls that had been such an essential part of his cover at St Agatha’s Church, and was back in oily jeans, a tour T-shirt that looked even older than he was, and a beaten-up Wrangler jacket.

Heck watched and wondered when the time might be right to make his move.

Nothing he could immediately envisage was problem-free. At no stage while carting the band’s kit in and constructing the set, even a set that was likely to be as basic as this one, would the little bastard be on his own. Heck didn’t know how likely other members of the crew would be to interfere if he simply walked over there and snatched the guy. But there was no saying they wouldn’t, and even from this distance some of them were pretty big lads. It occurred to him that maybe the best thing would be to wait until the band were playing. It seemed possible that by then a lot of the crew would have done their jobs for the day and be back in the vehicles, playing cards or grabbing a nap, maybe wandering the streets looking for something to eat. It certainly couldn’t be any more difficult launching an ambush then than it would be now. Except that now a further complication arrived.

Heck was first alerted to the approach of four motorbikes by the belly-quivering rumble of their souped-up engines as they cruised past him in single file along the narrow, terraced street, swinging one by one through the gate and drawing up alongside each other in a line.

Two things struck him straight away.

Firstly, the four bikes were quality. A Yamaha MT-07, a Triumph Tiger 1200 Explorer, a Honda PCX-125 and a Suzuki GSX-R. Secondly, their riders were Hells Angels, or something of that ilk. On each broad, leather-clad back were emblazoned the bright orange words:

LOW RIDERS

Heck knew about this outfit vaguely from his early days in GMP. They were a Manchester chapter, and a rough bunch by almost any standards. He’d first joined the police nearly twenty years ago, and even then, they’d been regarded as a low-level but active crime syndicate rather than a freewheeling gang of highway enthusiasts.

The main question, though, was what were they doing here?

It wasn’t impossible that they were either supplying the band with drugs or perhaps muscling them for protection, but if so, they surely wouldn’t be so open about either. And anyway, none of the roadies seemed remotely concerned by their presence. The other possibility, he thought, with a sinking stomach, was that they were providing security.

He continued to watch, but the four bikers, while they’d kicked down their stands, turned off their engines and removed their helmets, were simply sitting on their machines, chatting, sharing cigarettes. They patently weren’t here to help, as in to shift heavy crates around, which had never been a serious proposition, but it seemed equally implausible that they were here as guards.

To guard who? Deicide? Who were evidently so far down the food-chain that even most metal fans had probably never heard of them, and who, even if they’d been under some kind of threat, would probably have struggled to afford their services.

But this question too was answered in short order, when, of all people, Snake Fletcher, sloped over to the four horsemen and spoke to them. Heck couldn’t hear what they were saying, but by the parties’ relaxed body-language, it was a friendly enough conversation.

He swore through gritted teeth.

They weren’t here to protect Deicide. They were here to protect Snake.

16

The woman who answered the terraced house door was very attractive, somewhere in her late forties, with dark hair cut to the shoulder and a trim but shapely physique. She wore jeans and a sweater and had clearly been in the process of cleaning because she was stripping off a pair of rubber gloves. A faint smell of bleach emanated from inside.

She made them for coppers before they even showed their warrant cards, her cheery smile instantly fading.

‘Mrs Black?’ Penhaligon asked.

The woman hung onto the door as if she intended to close it again shortly. ‘Sorry, I don’t know you.’

‘My name’s Jude Penhaligon. This is Gail Honeyford. We’re …’

‘Police officers.’ The woman nodded at Gail. ‘I’ve heard her name mentioned. I still don’t know you.’

‘Can we come inside, Dana?’ Gail asked. ‘It’s all right if I call you Dana?’

‘No, it’s not all right, and no you can’t come inside.’

She made to close the door, only for Penhaligon to insert her foot. Dana glared at them.

‘You surely realise this is for your brother’s own good?’ the DI said.

‘What is? You lot trying to fit him up for a bunch of murders he didn’t commit? Trying to send him to prison for the rest of his life even though he’s completely innocent? That didn’t help my other brother. How’s it likely to help Mark?’

‘His guilt or innocence hasn’t yet been determined. But we really need to talk to him.’

‘Good luck with that … and kindly remove your foot if you don’t want to lose your toes.’

‘Dana, you know we’re not just going to leave,’ Gail said, trying to sound conciliatory. ‘Someone has to talk to you about Mark and it may as well be us.’

Dana gave Gail a look of special contempt. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be one of Mark’s colleagues? Didn’t you actually work in the Serial Crimes Unit with him?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Well, you clearly learned nothing from the experience.’

‘And maybe you’ve learned nothing from all those years of being his older sister,’ Penhaligon countered.

Fleetingly, Dana looked shocked. ‘How dare you! How bloody dare you! Lady bloody Muck! You think you can just roll up here …’

‘Dana!’ Gail interrupted. ‘DI Penhaligon’s only saying that Mark often walked a tightrope when it came to policework. You know that as well as anyone.’

‘And you seriously think that in a million universes he’d have murdered his own colleagues?’

‘What we think is immaterial, Mrs Black,’ Penhaligon replied. ‘We really need to talk to you, and it’d be better for all of us if it was inside rather than out.’

*

As on so many occasions during Heck’s career, an opportunity to make ground came suddenly and unexpectedly, and required him to act more by instinct than intellect.

An hour had passed since the four motorcycle crew had arrived. Deicide’s roadies were still hard at work, Snake among them (though he didn’t seem to be doing quite as much heavy lifting as the others, which was probably understandable given his emaciated frame), but the bikers remained on their bikes, watching the labour, earning easy money. Every so often, Snake slouched over to speak with them. A couple of times, one of the bikers in particular, the guy on the Yamaha, who was shorter and squatter but broader-backed than the others, simply shook his head.

It crossed Heck’s mind that if Snake was asking if there was anything unusual to report and they were simply telling him ‘no’, then they weren’t doing a great job. Not once had they glanced out into the adjoining street or even looked behind them. If they had, they’d have clocked Heck sitting in the Volvo. But he knew that he couldn’t count on this level of laxity if he made any kind of aggressive move towards his target.

It was 15:41 and December twilight was falling. The headlamps of most of the vehicles in the Winter Gardens yard had been turned on to help the crew as they made their final preparations. Thanks to this – because otherwise the scurrying shapes of the men would doubtless be blending together by now – Heck was able to spot two of the bikers, the Honda and Triumph riders, dismount from their machines, walk across the yard and vanish down the alley connecting with the seafront. At 15:52 they returned, carrying two large hotdogs each, the extra ones for the two colleagues they’d left behind.

While they ate, Snake sloped over again, spoke tersely and shrugged. He seemed irritated. Heck theorised that he’d been hungry, too, but that no order had been taken on his behalf. The thesis proved correct when one of the bikers pointed at the alley leading to the front. With a disgruntled air, Snake turned and walked that way himself, vanishing from sight.

Heck sat bolt upright.

The little sod had gone to buy his own hotdog. Which meant that for a few minutes he’d be on his own, or at least away from his security detail.

Heck hit the ignition, threw the Volvo into gear and pulled it out of its parking space. He’d first come this way having driven through the Winter Gardens yard. He obviously couldn’t drive back the same way and would have to go around the outside, though initially this defeated him. The housing estate was a rabbit warren of terraced streets with no obvious direct route back to the promenade. Cursing, he drove as fast as he dared, constantly having to brake because the ways were too narrow thanks to double-parking, or because local kids kept darting across the road ahead of him. When he came to a left-hand turn, which appeared to head back in the right direction, it led him into a parallel street where the choices again were left and right, both of which were the wrong direction. He went right, glancing frantically at the clock. It read: 16:01. Ten minutes had passed already.

He swore again, just as another cut-through appeared on his left, at the end of which he saw the lights on the promenade and the seascape beyond. He swung that way hard, swinging left again onto the seafront road.

Once more though, things weren’t as simple as he’d hoped for.

Whereas previously the space in front of the Winter Gardens had been eerily deserted, now there were people everywhere. Rock fans, he realised, seeing kids in fashionably tattered jeans and embroidered jackets. Those already here were early, so they weren’t queueing at the venue doors just yet, but stood in gangs on the prom, talking loudly, or crisscrossing the road in small groups.

Heck wove his way through, eyes scanning for the hotdog stand. Almost immediately, he spotted two market-stall type shops that hadn’t been here earlier, but one sold badges and posters, the other T-shirts.

‘Come on, come on!’

And then he spotted it, perhaps fifty yards past the Winter Gardens. A fast-food van was parked close to the seafront wall, its hatch propped open, the white-coated guy inside doing a roaring trade as he served lidded Styrofoam trays to the teenagers queueing there.

Heck prowled past, scoping out the queue. Was there any sign of Snake? Was it possible that he’d been served already and the chance had gone?

The bastard wasn’t easy to spot, of course, being of equally diminutive physique to many of these younger people and wearing a similar get-up. But as Heck passed the van and glanced back one final, exasperated time, he saw the scruffy beard and dirty glasses.

The guy was standing about fifth in line.

This gave Heck a few more minutes. But now, perhaps predictably, with the crowd gathering for the gig, there was scarcely a parking bay available. Doubtless if he kept going, he’d find somewhere eventually, but that was no good. To affect a successful kidnap, the vehicle would need to be close to the snatch. And now there were other issues.

Snake might have been away from his biker pals, but he wasn’t standing there alone. These people were concert goers and were here to have fun. It was a fair assumption that most wouldn’t be interested in intervening in violence that was nothing to do with them. But already this was an awful lot of people. It seemed highly possible that there’d be at least a couple of have-a-go heroes.

17

Dana Black stood rigid in her living room, showing no sign of offering the aforementioned tea and biscuits or even inviting them to sit down.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘Mark was finally starting to convince me that you lot aren’t just a gang of corrupt careerist arseholes who’d drop anyone in it to improve your own positions. That some of you actually want to do good out there. Well … congratulations on persuading me back to my former position.’

‘Your brother’s no angel, Mrs Black,’ Jude Penhaligon replied. ‘Let’s stop making stuff up. This is not the first time he’s been investigated.’

Dana shook her head in disgust.

‘He assaulted DC Honeyford,’ Penhaligon added. ‘He tied her up in his own flat.’

Dana checked Gail over. ‘Yeah, I can see he gave her a really rough time.’

‘That’s not the point …’

‘It’s every inch the point, darling. If he handled her with kid gloves, why the hell would he hurt the rest of them?’

Penhaligon was briefly thrown by this irrefutable logic, so Gail stepped in.

‘Dana … for what it’s worth, near enough the whole job’s on Mark’s side. But if there’s any suggestion he was involved in the Ace of Diamonds shooting, it’s something we have to look into, and even then it’s only one line of enquiry we’re following.’

‘It should have been your last line.’ The red in Dana’s cheeks was searing. ‘It should have been the very last thing you thought of. But they obviously don’t teach loyalty in police training colleges anymore. If they ever did.’

‘We don’t close ranks when it comes to multiple murder,’ Gail replied.

‘We don’t close ranks ever,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Not anymore. Those days are gone.’

‘Well, that’s something else you should be ashamed of,’ Dana shot back. ‘I mean, has it never entered your heads that in one night my brother lost almost everyone he cared about. And not just friends and colleagues. You know that, Miss Honeyford, even if your boss here doesn’t. It was way, way more than that. What kind of state do you think he’s in?’

Gail made a helpless gesture. ‘That’s another reason we need to find him.’

Penhaligon had moved to the mantelpiece, where two framed images stood out among the other more routine family photos. One depicted a much younger, very short-haired Mark Heckenburg in a pristine police uniform, helmet under arm as he stood ramrod-straight for the camera on a crowded parade ground somewhere, most likely after his passing-out at Bruche. The other was an original newspaper clipping, very grainy and smudged, but it portrayed an older Heckenburg, now in civvies, holding up a certificate and shaking hands with a senior officer. The headline above it read:

Bradburn-born detective wins sixth commendation

‘Quite a prize you’ll bag for yourself,’ Dana said, following her gaze. ‘Real trophy, my brother, eh?’

Penhaligon turned back to her. She was well-used to facing down this sort of accusation: that to be so good at internal investigations, she must really enjoy it. That sending other coppers to prison clearly gave her a buzz, and the bigger the name, the more she doubtless liked it. She’d long passed the stage of explaining that it was the size of the crime that counted, not the name or rank of the culprit. Even when she did, people couldn’t ignore their revulsion that one police officer should hunt others. Personally, she’d never understood that rational beings of any ilk wouldn’t share her firm conviction that if coppers were allowed to commit crimes, it wouldn’t just undermine the police service but society as a whole.

Not, she was starting to admit, that it was anything like so cut and dried with Mark Heckenburg. But he was still a suspect.

‘I can’t help wondering why you’re so angry, Mrs Black?’ she said. ‘Surely a more normal reaction would be to be worried for your brother? Even frightened.’

Dana hesitated before replying: ‘Mark can look after himself.’

‘Even under circumstances like these?’ the DI asked. ‘When nobody’s seen him or has a clue where he might be. Unless, of course, you’ve seen him? And you know he’s okay?’

Dana made no reply.

‘Dana?’ Gail said, recognising the guilty silence. ‘Has Mark been here?’ Another silence followed. ‘He has, hasn’t he?’

Still, Dana said nothing, probably because she knew that she wouldn’t be able to lie effectively.

Gail glanced at the ceiling. ‘Is he here now?’

‘You need to leave,’ Dana said. ‘Both of you.’

‘You’d better let us look around,’ Penhaligon replied.

Dana shook her head. ‘You want that, you get yourself a warrant.’

‘We don’t need a warrant.’ Penhaligon moved to the living room door. ‘Your brother’s under suspicion of committing an arrestable offence.’

‘But obviously we don’t want to cause any problems for you,’ Gail added hurriedly. ‘So, why don’t you just help us out? And yourself, Dana. If he’s not here, there’s no reason why we can’t look around, is there?’

Dana glanced from one to the other, mouth clamped shut, before stepping aside, arms folded. They split up in the narrow hall, Penhaligon taking the kitchen, Gail heading upstairs. The house was so small that it didn’t take them long to realise that no one was hiding there.

‘When did he leave?’ Penhaligon asked, returning to the hall.

Dana stood in the living room door, still with arms folded, still silent.

‘Dana?’ Gail pleaded, descending the stair. ‘As the sensible older sister, you must realise that this isn’t going to end well for Mark. At this moment, he’s not even a police officer.’

‘He’s an outlaw,’ Penhaligon added.

‘Help us to help him … please.’

Dana strode down the hall and opened the front door. ‘I’ll never tell you where Mark is. I don’t care what you say he’s done. You may not close ranks anymore, but we do.’

‘Dana …’

‘And I don’t care if he’s an outlaw, either! He’ll still give you lot the ride of your lives. Now, do one! The pair of you!’

Five minutes after the front door had banged behind them, they were still parked up in Penhaligon’s car, trying to assess how much they’d gained from this trip so far. The DI made a scrupulous note of her mileage, while Gail pondered the last conversation.

She hadn’t enjoyed a single moment of it. She might have a rep herself for being a spiky customer, but those who knew her would always say that she did right by the public. She didn’t like playing the authority card where it wasn’t required, hated imposing the might of the law on people like Dana Black who were just plain upset. But hurtful though it was, it wouldn’t help anyone if they didn’t bring this thing to the quickest possible resolution.

Penhaligon meanwhile glanced round at her. ‘Talking your language, was she? All that guff about coppers sticking together whether they’re right or wrong?’

Gail shrugged. ‘What else would she say? He’s her brother.’

‘Who she doesn’t get on with brilliantly. According to you.’

‘He’s clearly won her over since I last heard.’

The DI turned the ignition key. ‘He seems to have this ability to win certain kinds of women over. Her, you … and Gemma Piper, who, by all accounts, was besotted with him.’

Gail looked sharply round. ‘She wasn’t besotted with him. She bollocked him more than anyone else in the unit.’

‘Even though she also made him … what was that phrase I heard, which frankly I can scarcely believe … her Minister Without Portfolio?’

Gail looked front again. ‘There was nothing below board about that. It just meant that, whenever Gemma was SIO, Heck had what she called a roving commission. The freedom to develop and chase down his own leads. That’s how she thought he worked best.’

‘A roving commission, eh?’

‘For want of a better term.’

Penhaligon shook her head. ‘The more I hear about DSU Piper, the more I wonder if she wasn’t a tad unstable herself.’

Gail bridled again. ‘She was a brilliant detective. She caught more high-level villains than you’ve ever met.’

‘Yeah, and she also made a notorious rule-bender into her Minister Without Portfolio. I mean, seriously …?’ She put the car in gear, and they drove. ‘You’re really impressed by this fella, aren’t you?’

‘He was a friend when I needed one. Maybe that’s something you’ve never had.’

‘A friend who takes you down with him, Gail, is no friend at all.’

‘He didn’t take me down with him.’

‘He nearly did.’

‘He’s doing the dangerous bit on his own.’

‘Well, at least you’ve got that clear in your mind.’ Ahead of them, dark and empty streets unfolded. ‘Because for Mark Heckenburg, this is the road of no return.’

*

‘Hey mate, I asked for a large hotdog, yeah?’ Snake said, glowering up at the ludicrous figure in the white coat and white porkpie hat.

The vendor looked surprised. He glanced down at the Styrofoam tray resting on the chippie van counter. It was open, its lid filled with golden-brown chips saturated with salt and vinegar, the tray itself laid with a fifteen-inch bratwurst in an equally long finger-bun, coated with mustard, ketchup and crispy fried onions.

‘That is large,’ he said.

Like fuck!’ Snake shouted, letting all his worries and aggravations of the last few hours flood his goblin features and turn his Cockney voice peevish with contempt. ‘Though at least it explains why you northern cunts are all such dickless wonders. And it’s not fucking worth this, either!’

He slammed a dirty fiver on the counter, took the tray and turned away, shouldering roughly past a couple of the youngsters waiting in the queue.

‘How you doing, Snake?’

Snake was just popping a chip into his mouth. He glanced up, puzzled.

He only had a second to take in the crumpled anorak and jeans, the wolfish, bearded grin, the dead eyes and the mop of unruly black hair. This was a leaner, rangier, dingier and much, much dirtier version of Mark Heckenburg than Snake had ever seen.

But it was still Mark Heckenburg.

Snake shouted inarticulately as one of the gloved hands swept in, slamming the tray of food out of his grasp, splattering his face and glasses with mustard and ketchup, filling his hair with chips and onions. The second hand followed, this one balled into a fist as it cracked into the left side of his ribcage.

Snake squawked and doubled over, a girl screaming nearby as Heck followed with a second blow and a third, and then grabbed his victim by the hair and commenced dragging him around the corner of the fast-food van.

At the back of it, though blinded by tangy sauce and fuddled with unbelievable pain, Snake glimpsed a vehicle – a blue Volvo, he thought – slotted so tightly into the narrow space between the van and the promenade’s seawall that no one on the passenger side would’ve been able to climb out.

‘You … you can’t do this!’ he gibbered. ‘You’re not a copper anymore.’

Heck hit a fob, a lock bleeped and the Volvo’s boot opened.

‘It’s because I’m not a copper anymore,’ he said, ‘that I can.’

Snake shrieked hoarsely as Heck bundled him into the darkness and slammed the lid.

18

Though there’d been plenty of people about when Heck had first opted to pull a U-turn off the seafront road, drive onto the promenade itself and park behind the mobile food vendor, there hadn’t been enough of them to cause him any kind of problem. Nearly all had ignored him, most just idling out of his way. Now, however, though it was only a few minutes later, the prom was thronging, and this time there’d been some kind of incident, so people surged in to see what was going on.

Heck revved the Volvo forward but couldn’t hit the gas because the crowd was now slower to move. He hadn’t made it thirty yards when one of them appeared in his headlights who wasn’t for moving at all.

He wore a leather biker jacket and a steel-studded belt on jeans that were shredded at the knees. Underneath the jacket, his torso was bare and muscular, while his hair fell to his shoulders in damp, dark tangles. Even so, Heck only realised that this was one of the so-called Low Riders, when the guy slammed his gloved hands down on the Volvo bonnet, leaning forward to peer through the glass at his charge’s abductor. Others, gaining courage from this defiance, or just plain curious, gathered behind him.

Heck threw the Volvo into reverse and backed up. He craned his neck round to check that the gap between the back of the chippie van and the seafront wall was still clear. It was, so he accelerated, glancing back to the front only once and seeing the bare-chested biker running after him, others following.

‘Bloody concerned citizens,’ Heck muttered. He swung the Volvo backward through the gap, though it was a close call. He was certain he’d shaved paint from its nearside flank. ‘Sorry, Gaz!’ Back in open space, he floored the accelerator.

The Volvo reversed at frightful speed, curving sharply left, before Heck yanked the handbrake, put it back into first and spun it round in a full but tight circle, hitting the seafront road and heading north. The crowd, as crowds are wont to because quite often very little brain is at work, instead of fanning out across the seafront road to create a human blockade, had followed in a chaotic, shouting mob. This meant that for half a second the route was largely clear, which was all Heck needed.

He banged the Volvo up through the gears as he shifted from twenty to thirty to forty, holding back just sufficiently for the one or two stragglers in the road to scamper out of his way. And then floored it again.

There was a muffled shouting and thumping from the boot, which he ignored. He’d have fiddled with the sat-nav but at present had no destination in mind. He glanced into the rear-view mirror as he drove. Night had fallen, so it was a confused mass of flitting shapes and bright lights. Though two lights in particular seemed to be following.

Motorbikes, he realised. Racing in pursuit.

Thankfully, he was still able to navigate his way out of town quickly. This being a Sunday evening, only the area around the Winter Gardens was busy. The rest lay empty and he rocketed through, braking neither for red lights, roundabouts nor intersections. In no time he’d reached the new Lancashire Link Road, a dual carriageway that ran straight as an arrow for eight miles before joining the M6 motorway, though all the way he had chasing motorbikes for company. Two had soon become four, though the first two, the Triumph and the Suzuki, were further ahead than the others. By the time he hit the Link Road, they were right on his tail, though not sitting directly behind him. Evidently, they’d done this sort of thing before and had learned the hard way that if a target vehicle suddenly braked, it was the chasers who came off worst. As such, the Triumph kept to Heck’s offside, the Suzuki to the nearside.

For several miles, their riders were content to sit there. Again, it was a sign they’d done this before, not crowding him because they didn’t fancy him swerving at them.

Though such caution couldn’t last. With Heck showing no sign of stopping, powering along the straight empty carriageway at sixty-plus, the Triumph finally jerked forward, speeding past him on the right. Though it was travelling fast, Heck could still have sideswiped it, but still there were only two people on his kill-list, three at the most. And these guys, criminal scumbags though they doubtless were, were not among them. Things changed though, when the Triumph was ten yards in front, and slowed to a steady seventy. while its rider felt under his jacket, pulled out a pistol and, holding it aloft and away from him, fired three warning shots. Heck decelerated. The two bikes, hemming him in from front-right and rear-left, decelerated along with him. As Heck slowed, he lowered the driver’s window, reached around his back, freed the .38 from his belt, and leaned into the open frame as he took aim.

Clearly, because he hadn’t used a firearm in the abduction, the bikers had assumed that Heck wasn’t carrying. Only now did the Triumph rider realise his error and take evasive action. But it was too late, and he was too close.

With a single shot, Heck punctured his rear tyre.

The machine sagged onto its backside, fishtailed crazily, and clattered into the central barrier, cartwheeling over it, bucking its rider high and wide in the process.

Heck tromped the pedal, the Volvo roaring forward again. The Suzuki swerved in his tail-lights, its rider enraged by what he’d just seen. Heck watched through the rear-view mirror as the bastard drew a pistol of his own. For a half a second, he was directly behind the Volvo.

Heck hit the brakes.

The Suzuki man was deft, just managing to skip out of the way.

Heck tromped the gas again. The Suzuki stuck close, now in Heck’s nearside blind-spot. At any second, Heck expected bullets to slam into the Volvo. But the guy held off, maybe concerned about hitting the idiot he’d been paid to protect. He throttled up on Heck’s left, looking for a better angle. Heck only saw him when they were level, the muzzle of a pistol pointing at his passenger window.

Heck swung the Volvo left, veering the bike onto the shoulder.

It was all the bastard could do to stay upright. He shoved his pistol back into his jacket so that he had two hands free to control his machine, but Heck continued swerving at him. Panicking, the biker braked. Heck swung left again, this time colliding with him. The blow would have sent the Suzuki spinning to oblivion had the grass verge not ended abruptly, the shoulder giving way as a slip-road cut sharp left towards a service station.

The biker scooted away along it, swaying precariously. Heck followed, not because he was determined to finish the job but because he’d now veered so far to the left himself that to manoeuvre back onto the straight at this speed might have seen him flip over. As it was, his tyres screeched, the stench of blistered rubber filling the Volvo’s interior as he careered along. First up on their right, a secondary slip-road led to a filling station, but this being a Sunday night, its forecourt was deserted. The biker headed in at speed, weaving between the pumps, spinning round when he’d passed them, his own rubbers shrieking as he halted in a cloud of dust and exhaust, the Suzuki facing back the way it had come.

Heck skidded to a chassis-shuddering stop on the other side of the pumps, just in time to see the biker draw his pistol again as he leapt off his machine and ran for cover behind the first corner of the petrol station shop.

That was fine by Heck. His next two shots were aimed at the Suzuki, the slugs smashing into it, knocking it onto its side. A fountain of fuel shot from the ruptured tank.

Heck lowered his weapon. And promptly heard the whining roar of engines on the Link Road. The rest of the pack were here.

Chucking the .38 into the open rucksack, he knocked the Volvo into first and turned a quick half-circle, heading around the shop to the parking area and then, hopefully, the slip-road again. He wasn’t home free. That other bastard was still here somewhere but had already proved unwilling to shoot willy-nilly while Heck had the captive in the car. Of course, what Heck hadn’t expected as he passed the last corner of the small building was for the biker to now be wielding another weapon.

A huge length of chunky, rusty pipe, which the guy swept round like a battle-axe as he stepped out from the right.

It took out the entire windscreen, showering Heck with safety glass. The Volvo slid out of control, striking a kerbstone at velocity, tipping and rolling. It landed back on its wheels, but Heck was initially too dazed to get going again. The biker now loomed in the side window, pistol levelled in both hands. With a thud, he pumped a round through the bonnet into the engine, the car juddering, its mechanism immediately dying.

‘Get the fuck out!’ a gruff voice instructed.

Heck, vaguely aware of blood trickling down his face, glanced right. Straight into the muzzle of a Makarov semi-automatic.

‘Get out, I said!’

Sluggishly, limbs uncoordinated, Heck complied. The biker, who wore a black helmet with a tinted visor, backed away, his firearm still levelled. It was not the bare-chested guy who had tried to stop the car on the prom. Underneath this one’s leather jacket there was a black T-shirt with the red face of a devil emblazoned on it.

Heck stood with hands raised, facing him warily.

‘Get him the fuck out!’ the voice instructed.

Again, Heck did as he was told, leaning into the car for the keys. From the other side of the petrol station, he heard the growl of the back-up bikes, circling wildly no doubt, seeking their confederate. Arms still raised, he trudged to the back of the car, where he activated the fob. He stepped back as the boot lid rose automatically.

Snake, his face and glasses spattered with goo, was curled in a foetal ball in the big empty space underneath. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he whimpered.

‘Get him out!’ the biker barked, the gun trained on Heck’s head.

It was another of those moments. Heck reached down. But instead of giving Snake a helping hand, located the heavy jack clipped in place just out of sight, yanked it free, turned and whirled it at the biker with as much force as he could manage.

It hit the gun, knocking it askew, before spanging up and caroming off the helmet, packing such power that the visor broke loose. The biker tottered backward, allowing Heck to run at him and launch a flying kick into his midriff, sending him sprawling onto his arse. Heck landed lithely and, with another kick, sent the Makarov away across the parking area. The third kick struck the biker’s groin with crunching impact. Gurgles of agony exploded from the damaged helmet.

Heck lurched back to the boot. Inside it, Snake still lay helpless and terrified, but the Volvo, minus its windscreen and with a 9mm hole punched through its engine block was done. Instead, Heck hauled the snivelling wreck out, planted him on his feet and, with one hand bunched in the jacket at the back of his neck, frogmarched him first to the Volvo’s passenger door, from the other side of which he retrieved his rucksack, and then forcibly ran him across what remained of the car park, crossing the slip-road and a grassy verge, before plunging through a mass of privet hedges into another service area.

Here, on the other side of a second slip-road, a lorry drivers’ café, a small brick building with windows all around it, hugged the edge of an open gritty expanse on which HGVs were parked at different angles. Heck launched his hostage forward at a fast walk. The sound of motorbike engines was loud to his rear. He glanced back but saw nothing beyond the privets. It sounded as though the reinforcements had found their injured buddy but weren’t sure which way his assailant had fled.

‘Back on the road, eh, Snake?’ Heck said. ‘Back doing the only thing you were any good at.’

‘It’s a living, isn’t it,’ Snake whimpered. ‘Not against the law …’

‘How you finding Deicide? They as much fun to be around as Varulv? Or are they more interested in making music than killing people?’

Snake was still a sickening mess and now managed to look bewildered. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? Varulv are history.’

‘They will be, pal.’

‘Jesus, Heck! You’re not saying you think Varulv had something to do with the Ace of Diamonds! That’s bloody mental!’

Heck said nothing as they crossed the second slip-road, and rather than enter the cafeteria by its front door, which would have caused utter chaos given that lots of customers were visible through its windows, he opted to circle round to the rear.

‘Surely it was that foreign bird you took down?’ Snake blathered. ‘That Milena whatever her fucking name was. They were a full-on cartel! Surely, it was them?’

‘You’d have thought, wouldn’t you?’ Heck pushed him onto the parking area, increasingly aware of howling motorbike engines. ‘And yet still … you ran!’

Movement drew Heck’s eye along the stretch of slip-road. Several hundred yards off, two sleek, speeding machines had skated into view. Heck broke into a half-run, shoving Snake in front. They passed the café’s stinking, overstuffed bins and the equally foul-smelling entrance to the Gents, before turning another corner onto a paved concourse, where a few damp tables and benches gave a salutary lesson in how not to set out a picnic site. Past that was the grit and the wagons. Heck halted, breathing hard, sweat chilling down his back. Snake’s narrow shoulders heaved; his head drooped and he sagged, ready to collapse.

Beyond the café, the bikes came roaring up the slip-road

‘F… face it,’ Snake stammered. ‘You’re fucked …’

Heck pulled the rucksack onto his back, looping the straps over his arms, before lurching forward, steering his prisoner hard as he made a beeline for the nearest heavy vehicle, which even as they approached, revved to shuddering life.

‘Fuck’s sake, Heck …’ Snake’s legs were like rubber, his body swaying. Heck lugged him right up to the rumbling, juddering monstrosity. Weary as he was, the eyes goggled behind Snake’s ketchup-stained lenses. ‘You can’t be bloody serious!’

It was a car transporter. Sixty feet and twelve tonnes of skeletal steel, ramps, cables and hydraulics. And that didn’t include the ten cars with which it was currently loaded: three of them on its lower storage deck, three on its middle deck, four more on top, the front one tilted downward on a head-rack mounted above the HGV’s cabin.

‘Heck … Jesus Christ!’

The vehicle pulled slowly forward. Owing to its sheer size, its driver had failed to notice the two guys tottering alongside, trying to get a handhold. As he slowed again at the lorry-park exit, he didn’t realise that this was the perfect opportunity for someone to scramble aboard his lower deck. Heck now did, dragging his hostage after him. Even when the rig wallowed out onto the Link Road, its driver hitting the gas as he checked his side-mirror, he still failed to spot them, because now they’d taken cover between a Toyota Yaris and a Vauxhall Zafira.

*

It was a new level of uncomfortable.

The lower deck was thick with a sludge of oil, and covered with rivets, brackets and other anchor-points for its vehicular cargo. It also afforded minuscule space. The vehicles were a couple of feet apart at the most. They rocked and jolted despite the network of heavy-duty straps harnessing their wheels and undercarriages. But at least the deck was solid and extended all the way from the transporter’s offside to its nearside. There were no gaps through which Heck and Snake might fall onto the road.

As the service station dropped behind them, Heck felt secure enough to stand up and peer back over the roof of the Zafira, staring along the straight ribbon of tarmac. The lorry café had already dwindled to nothing, but not so much that he didn’t spy a pair of headlamp beams needle out from it, followed by a pair of motorbikes.

‘Bastards!’ he said under his breath.

19

There were several ways to look at this, Heck thought.

He and Snake could hunker down here between the Yaris and the Zafira and work on the basis the bikers didn’t know they were aboard the transporter, hoping the narrowness and darkness of the gap would prevent their being spotted even when the bikes passed close by. Or he could assume the enemy knew exactly where they were and would now be content to follow, which might mean that he’d finally have to start taking pot-shots at them.

Another possible option was trying to get his prisoner off the transporter before the Low Riders caught up with them, which idea was put paid to half a second later when the hefty vehicle swerved down a ramp, at the foot of which it joined the M6, heading north. The rig accelerated rapidly, its grimy steelwork jolting and bouncing, though the extra speed made things easier in one regard. The vehicle was carrying ten cars. If Heck and Snake could get inside one, what were the biker clan going to do? Drive up and start shooting wildly on the off-chance they hit the right target?

Heck stood up again, bracing his body against the Zafira. A cold headwind blasted him while the trailer rocked and swayed, its cargo rattling thunderously. He turned round and saw the ramp they’d descended receding fast. Nothing else was coming down it.

This was promising. Had the Low Riders called it off? Pulled onto the shoulder? Perhaps things had been getting too tasty. There’d already be questions to answer about the illegal discharge of firearms. Even if it was simply that they’d fallen far behind, the more time that passed, the better. This might be Sunday evening, but the traffic was always thick on Britain’s motorways, the M6 dotted with headlights as far back as Heck could see. Crazy Hells Angels or not, would these nutters really launch a murderous attack with so many witnesses around?

Not that Heck and Snake didn’t still need to conceal themselves.

He turned forward again, eyes watering in the headwind. In front of the Yaris was a Fiat 500. They could possibly edge their way along to that. Tiny margins of foot-space ran nearside and offside of the anchored vehicles, on each side a steel ledge of six inches or so. There were safety barriers along the outer rim, though they only reached to knee-height. At this speed, it would be perilous. Besides, on this lowest deck, they were almost at road-level. All the bastards would have to do to spot them would be ride alongside.

That left one other possibility.

The decks of the car-transporter were actually a series of hydraulic ramps. Once back at base, they would slant downward so the cargo could be driven on or off. But that didn’t mean the driver would never need access to the upper decks mid-journey. Hence, a steel ladder was fixed on the transporter’s nearside, ascending to the top of the frame. It had never been intended for use while the vehicle was in motion, of course. But there was a first time for everything. Heck glanced at Snake, slumped at his feet, burbling like a brain-damaged monkey. Whatever they did, this was not going to be easy. He looked back along the motorway and the river of headlights. He couldn’t tell who was who or what was what. But if he and Snake were going to move, the sooner the better.

‘Okay!’ he shouted over the roar of the engine and the clatter of cables and couplings, and took a fistful of collar, yanking the prisoner to his feet.

Snake groaned. His filthy glasses hung askew, and he didn’t seem to know where he was.

‘Climb!’ Heck said.

Snake looked slowly round at him. ‘Climb?’

‘You understand English, don’t you? Climb!’

Snake made no resistance as he was manoeuvred against the ladder. Heck grabbed it with one hand but ensured that his other was bunched even more tightly in Snake’s collar. The ladder looked ridiculously narrow, as though it had been designed for a child. Its rungs were cold and wet, affording only a treacherous grip, while the flickering, hallucinatory black/yellow lighting of the motorway created an air of the unreal. But Heck figured that if he could get Snake to go up first, he could perch behind and below, so if the bastard slipped and fell … but that didn’t really bear thinking about. Snake might be skin and bones, but it would be difficult withstanding anyone dropping on top of you in that situation.

‘What’re we doing?’ Snake groaned. He looped an arm round the steel upright and crushed his body to it, his mop of unwashed hair whipping.

‘Shift round to the front of this ladder!’ Heck shouted. ‘And climb!’

‘Climb?’ the captive mouthed, only now seeming to fully realise what was being demanded of him. His eyes bugged behind their greasy lenses. ‘Are you fucking mental?’

‘I’m not debating it!’ Heck bellowed. ‘Get up!’

‘I’ll be killed!’

Heck released the collar, reached over his shoulder into the rucksack, brought out the .38 and dug it into Snake’s ribs. ‘You’ll be killed if you think you’re staying down here.’

‘Shit, Heck …’

‘Get up that ladder!’ Heck yelled into his ear. ‘Or I’ll shoot your kneecaps off and drag you up by the fucking gonads!’

Snake may have thought he’d known Heck previously, but the bloodied, bristling face leaning into him now, mouth flecked with foam, was a new aspect to the guy. Shivering with terror, the captive nodded compliantly. But only by shoving his firearm into the back of his jeans again and keeping a firm grip on the bastard’s jacket was it possible for Heck to slide him around to the other side. At first, he had to get him to step over the knee-high railing without tripping – which caused no end of problems – and only then could Snake find a purchase with his left foot, and all the while the motorway sped past just below them.

‘Get up!’ Heck pushed him from behind, planting a hand on his fleshless backside.

Whimpering, shaking, the captive commenced climbing the ladder. Hand over hand, one clumping, heavy-soled boot following the next. As soon as he’d ascended a few feet, Heck swung his own body round and climbed in pursuit.

It proved a challenge.

The wind, honed to an icy edge, lashed at them. The motorway embankment passed in a darkened blur. Heck was hanging on for his life, he realised. One slip and he was a bouncing, broken wreck on the blacktop, and strawberry jam as the next vehicle failed to avoid him. He marvelled that Snake was making any progress at all, though perhaps in this regard, the idiot’s semi-stupor was a help rather than a hindrance. In fact, he’d now almost made it to the second deck.

‘Wait there!’ Heck shouted up.

Snake halted, his body compressed to the rungs.

Heck scrambled up behind him. From this position, he could reach across the ledge and just about make contact with the passenger door-handle of the nearest vehicle, a Mini Cooper. But when he got hold of it, the handle resisted him.

It was locked.

For a mini-eternity, Heck hung swaying over the abyss, vision hazing, freezing wind hammering his body, conscious that at any moment Snake could simply collapse on top of him, carrying them both to annihilation.

‘Top deck!’ Heck yelled. ‘Get your arse in gear … we’re already halfway there!’

Laboriously, Snake climbed again. A couple of times, his soles slipped from a rung or he struggled to get a handhold.

‘Don’t you fucking fall!’ Heck warned.

‘Christ’s sake!’ Snake wailed.

‘Get moving! It’s not much farther!’

It wasn’t – a few feet only. But it was still the longest, hardest climb of Heck’s life. And he wasn’t sure what kind of reward lay at the top. If nothing else, they could simply lie low on the top deck. It wouldn’t be as easy there as below. The vehicles on the two upper decks were secured on wheel-runs, between which there were gaps. But that didn’t matter if they could fix themselves in place. Of course, it took an age to cover that last short distance. They were now fifteen feet above the road, which, with the swaying and banging and the iridescent lighting, induced its own sense of vertigo. The palms of Heck’s hands burned; his head swam. Wind spilled over him like an Arctic current.

‘Almost there,’ he called up.

Snake grunted. Again, his hands slipped free. Briefly, he hung back, clinging on by three fingers. Heck scrambled up until he was directly behind him.

‘Come on, Snake … you can do it!’

Snake continued up, his thin torso at last arching over the top rung of the ladder onto the nearside wheel-run. This time, there was no safety-rail to negotiate.

‘Clear the ladder!’ Heck shouted, clamping one hand on the back of Snake’s belt. It was too easy to imagine the skinny, groggy bastard clambering onto that top deck and then pitching head-first down between the runners. ‘Just be careful …’

Snake shuffled sideways on his knees as he made room for Heck. The next thing, they were perched next to each other on the narrowest possible gantry. It was a foot and a half in breadth, but again, they were alongside vehicles: a Volkswagen Polo on the left, a BMW 1 on the right. Heck slapped at the rear nearside handle of the BMW. He got a grip and pushed it, and mercifully this handle clicked upward.

He lugged the door open and ushered Snake inside. He then used the door to lever himself to full height and peer back along the motorway. The same river of glaring headlights receded to the horizon. Looking to the front, road-signs flipped past one by one, at least two that he saw warning about an approaching turn-off to Lancaster. He glanced back the other way, scanning for any indication of pursuit.

Several vehicles sat directly behind. Their drivers must have seen what he and Snake were up to. They’d be dumbfounded, no doubt. They might be calling the police right now, having mistaken the stowaways for illegal immigrants. That wouldn’t be good, but nothing would happen before they were miles and miles up the M6, and for the moment at least they’d found what they needed: shelter and a hiding place.

Heck ducked down, following Snake onto the rear seat of the BMW, slamming its door closed behind him. The sudden reduction of noise was ear-pummelling. Absurdly, the captive was sitting upright on the back seat, as if riding in a taxi.

‘Jesus!’ Heck dragged him down into the foot-well.

‘What we doing in here?’ Snake moaned.

‘Just keep your head down.’ Heck commenced searching him. ‘You’d better not have any sharps on you.’

‘I don’t … don’t inject …’

‘Good. Where’s your phone?’

‘Where do you think? Back with the rest of my kit, at the Winter Gardens.’

‘Okay …’ Heck sat back.

‘Jesus, Heck … where we going?’

‘Scotland … to meet your mates.’

‘My mates?’ Snake looked stupefied.

‘Varulv.’

‘Fuck, man … you serious?’ Snake tried to get up again. ‘All the way to Glencoe?’

Heck pushed him back into the footwell.

Despite that, Heck looked up himself, seeking another signpost. But the BMW was at the rear of the transporter’s upper deck, and now that they were inside it, nothing was easily visible. He glanced behind them again, and this time saw a pair of headlights approaching fast in the passing lane. He hunkered lower but kept watching. The vehicle turned out to be a Peugeot 306 rather than the pair of motorcycle lamps he’d initially feared. He still kept low as the Peugeot accelerated past them.

Again, Snake attempted to readjust his position.

‘I said stay down!’ Heck warned him.

‘Gonna puke … need to get out.’

‘There’s no getting out of this car.’ Heck looked again through the rear-view window and saw another car encroaching on the outside. He watched it warily. This one was a new model Lexus Mk III. It drew up to the offside rear of the transporter and seemed to hover there. Almost unconsciously, Heck reached for the .38. But then the Lexus accelerated again, speeding past. He felt a surge of relief – and a blast of cold air as the nearside rear passenger door was flung open.

‘Snake, what the …?’

Heck spun round but Snake was already outside, clinging to the BMW’s open door as he tried to stand upright, one hand spread ineffectually across his face so that as the vomit exploded, it sprayed between his fingers, flying everywhere in the wind.

Heck scrambled along the rear seat, only to halt halfway over. He wouldn’t be able to get outside without pushing Snake out of the way, and the bastard already looked dazed as he teetered there, elbows hooked limply over the top of the door. Heck turned about and kicked his own door open, edging out on the other side.

Again, that ferocious airstream hit him, the world blurring past. The only way to circle the BMW from here was to ease himself around its rear end, working along its bodywork with his fingertips. All the way, the rig jolted and bounced, and at the very back of the vehicle, he had to step over the gap between the wheel-runs, which was four feet wide at least.

At which point someone opened fire.

The first Heck knew of it, a diagonal line of holes had punched its way across the BMW’s rear window just to his right. In the deafening clangour of the motorway, he hadn’t heard a weapon, but when he glanced round, he saw that a motorbike had materialised at their rear offside, its helmeted, leather-jacketed rider aiming up at him with a handgun. A second bike was coming up fast from behind, weaving dangerously between the cars.

Heck scrambled to the BMW’s nearside, where Snake still clung to the rear door.

‘Snake!’ he shouted. ‘Quickly!’

Snake looked dully over his shoulder.

But before Heck could lay a hand on him, there was another blast of gunfire, this time from the left. Heck was stunned to see the Lexus, which, somewhere ahead, had switched over to the slow lane, before falling back. It now sped along behind them on the left, its driver’s window rolled down. It was difficult to see how anyone could control so powerful a vehicle and shoot accurately at the same time, but perhaps he didn’t need to be accurate. This second fusillade was automatic fire, and it swept the BMW front to rear, myriad shells ripping through glass and metalwork. Snake shouted incoherently as the nearest windows shattered, slugs smashing out through the roof and nearside panelling, one of them slicing the upper hinge on the passenger door, which sagged downward. Snake went down with it. The sole of his right boot lost its purchase on the metal runner. His right leg slipped through the gap first, followed by his left, and then he was falling properly.

Heck lunged but wasn’t able to grab him. However, Snake’s left hand caught the upholstery on the inside of the door, rending a great strip of it downward, so that instead of falling clean through the trailer to his death, he hung there alongside the next vehicle below. It was the Mini, his knees and calves battering it as he swung. The ladder was only a couple of feet to his left, but Snake was too horror-stricken to notice.

Highly likely the pursuing pack could no longer see Snake, though he wasn’t their target.

All three opened fire again, at the same time. Blasts of staccato light shimmered both left and right, volleys of shots peppering the BMW. Heck swung himself down through the gap between the runners, both hands grasping the BMW’s bumper bar, and prayed that the gunfire hadn’t weakened it.

But it had.

The bumper broke loose, and for a split-second he was plummeting … only to crash-land on his knees on the roof of the Mini. It bounced on its shocks, and for another half-second he knelt there, racing along at eighty-plus with nothing to grab hold of and a void on all sides.

He threw himself flat.

If anything, the Lexus was now even closer. Heck glanced left, just in time to see another strobe-like flash. The Mini caught it, slugs hammering its body. Heck slithered to the left, sliding off over its nearside, but at the same time grabbing anything he could for support, such as the handle on the passenger door. As he already knew, this was locked, so it didn’t open, but it allowed him to swing out, loop his left arm round Snake’s hanging body, and drag him in.

Frantic, Snake released the strip of fabric and threw himself fully onto Heck, wrapping both arms round his shoulders, burying Heck’s face in his odorous pigeon chest.

‘Shit, Snake …’ Heck grunted. ‘Bleeding smothering me!’

He managed to disentangle himself and risked another glance over the top of the Mini. The Lexus was falling back further. Looking the other way, he saw the two bikers falling back as well, weapons still drawn but not shooting. Possibly the proximity of Snake to their target was forcing them to exercise caution.

‘Climb towards the front!’ Heck shouted, pushing Snake ahead of him.

If Snake was so valuable, then getting into one of the other cars together might just keep them both alive. In addition, the closer they were to the front, the more chance there was of the driver noticing what was happening, thinking he was being hijacked and radioing for help.

Another fusillade swept in, wilder, less targeted, the bullets dinging off the trailer’s skeletal framework, chunking into the bodies of the vehicles.

Heck swore, but he and his prisoner had now made it to the second car along the middle deck, a Mercedes-Benz C-Class. This too was unlocked. Heck opened its rear passenger door and heaved Snake inside, ducking low and crawling in behind.

‘Get down!’ he shouted.

Snake did so and for several seconds they were face-to-face, eyes protruding, sweat dripping. Outside, the storm of bullets abated.

‘Fuck, Heck!’ Snake hissed. ‘These things aren’t armour-plated, you know!’

‘Tell me about it! I thought these bastards were trying to keep you alive!’

‘Probably want their money more than me!’

‘What’re you talking about?’

Snake swallowed and adjusted his glasses, which hung lopsided. ‘Didn’t reckon it was safe bringing seventy-five big ones on the road. So, I got three keys to three different storage lockers. There’s twenty-five gs in each, and three paydays during the tour: beginning, middle and end. Each time, I give them a key. They’ve only had one so far, but probably reckon they’ve more chance recovering the other two if I’m dead than they have if you whisk me off to Christ knows where …’

‘Great friends!’ Heck ducked as more thunderous impacts deadened their ears, slugs demolishing windows, slashing through bodywork and upholstery.

Whimpering, Snake flattened himself in the Merc’s rear foot-well, Heck on top of him. Even then they almost died, a chasm bursting open in the nearside rear door half an inch from Heck’s head. Though he knew it was ridiculously dangerous, he couldn’t help but take advantage, putting an eye to this new jagged aperture.

Just in time to see the Lexus accelerating past.

Still firing, another blaze of blurry flame angled downward from the driver’s window as he overtook them on the inside.

It was almost too late when it struck Heck what this actually meant.

‘Shit!’ He jack-knifed up onto his knees. ‘He’s going for the sodding tyres!’

20

When the panic-stricken driver of the car-transporter lost control of his vehicle, it was travelling at eighty miles per hour. Fortunately for other road-users, it was in the slow lane, but that didn’t prevent it fishtailing sideways as it glided off the carriageway, charged headlong down a steep embankment and then hit a wall of thickets, tearing explosively through them, careering unstoppably downhill as the slope continued to steepen.

Inside the Merc, there was no protection of any sort, Heck and Snake thrown violently about, hitting the ceiling repeatedly, the screams of tearing metal and erupting glass filling their ears. But their world only truly flipped when the entire colossal machine tilted sideways, and despite its furious forward momentum, began to topple.

‘Oh my God!’ Snake howled.

Heck just had time to lever himself upright and gaze back through the rear window, where he caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of the motorway embankment retreating at mind-boggling speed, a flattened wreckage of broken trees and shattered branches littering the monstrous, muddy trail that veered behind them. And then the car-transporter was on its flank, still travelling headlong, tunnelling downhill through the woods.

Heck and Snake were hurled from side to side, half-buried as twigs and dirt flowed in through the broken windows and buckled bodywork.

*

Even after the mechanical leviathan had ground to a shuddering halt, the reverberations of its death rang in their ears. Ages seemed to pass as they lay in a tangle of bruised limbs, splintered wood and fresh-churned earth. Heck was the first to come to his senses, kicking with both feet at the passenger door above his head even though it had been bludgeoned shapeless in its frame. Four heavy blows later, it cracked loose and was flung open.

Groaning with effort, he extricated himself from Snake’s semi-insensible form, manoeuvred round in the narrow, filth-clotted hole and stuck his head out of the aperture. What met his eyes was stunning. They were deep in woodland, but now at the foot of a lengthy slope. Behind them, the passage the car-transporter had torn for itself meandered back uphill. The transporter itself lay eviscerated, its mechanical back clearly broken, fragments of it scattered as far as the eye could see along the twisting trail: bolts, screws, shreds of tyres, scraps of metal, smashed-off doors and hubcaps. Its expensive cargo hung in their bonds, equally mangled, in many cases fuel spewing from their shattered innards.

Heck gazed along the tunnel they’d carved. The motorway lay hundreds of yards to their rear, too far away for him to see. Obviously, there was no sign of either of the two motorbikes or the Lexus. With the track no more than pulped earth and smashed timber, the latter wouldn’t be able to get down here; even the bikes might struggle. Most likely they’d hurtled past after running their prey off the road. Whether they’d try to find their way back presumably depended on how quickly the motorway cops responded to the accident.

He reached down, grabbing Snake by a knot of hair.

‘Ow … shit!’ the captive whimpered.

‘Up!’ Heck scrambled out onto the Merc’s flank, dragging Snake after him. ‘Now!’

‘You’re ripping my bloody hair out, you dickhead!’

Mercilessly, Heck lugged him up through the window aperture, throwing himself backward, falling onto the rugged ground. Snake landed heavily alongside him, gasping with pain as the wind was piledriven out of him.

‘You know that was your fault, don’t you?’ Snake said as Heck hauled him to his feet.

Heck didn’t want to think about that. He took another grip on the bastard’s jacket, this time on his left lapel, and started him forward, the pair limping side-by-side along the length of the fallen giant. But as they passed the driver’s cab, which also lay on its side, Heck heard a moan from its interior.

‘Fuck,’ he said under his breath, stopping and glancing back.

The uphill trail behind was now mostly obscured by the wreck, but he was certain he would hear them attempting to descend before he saw them, which probably gave him a couple of minutes. He released Snake and pushed him towards the nearest line of trees.

‘Over there. Wait for me. Try to run and I’ll blow your brains out’

Snake sloped groggily away. He didn’t look fit to walk any distance, let alone run.

Heck clambered up onto the top of the cab via its engine, and found the driver’s window shattered, so he could gaze down inside. The driver was just below him, suspended sideways in his seatbelt. Again, all manner of woodland rubble had poured in through his imploded windscreen, including a number of splintered branches, though none appeared to have skewered him. Though dazed and filthy, he seemed to have full movement, and by the looks of it was coming round from brief unconsciousness.

‘You okay, mate?’ Heck asked.

The driver glanced up. A middle-aged guy, his face a mask of blood. ‘Okay … I think,’ he said. His accent was Liverpudlian. ‘What happened, mate?’

Before Heck could answer, the dual rumble of motorcycle engines sounded somewhere back up the track. Which meant they hadn’t hurtled past but had pulled up on the shoulder and now were trying to find a way down.

‘Lie low, yeah?’ Heck said. ‘Play dead.’

‘Play dead?’

‘Mate, there were blokes shooting at your rig. You think that’s going to end just because you’ve crashed?’

‘But hang on, don’t leave …’

The engines approached. Heck could hear them jolting and grinding as they bounced their way down the torn, muddy trail.

‘Get me out of here,’ the driver pleaded.

‘No chance. You’re injured and I’m no medic. Besides, there isn’t time. Play dead.’

Heck jumped down and ran stumbling towards the trees. ‘Up!’ he shouted, seeing Snake sitting cross-legged against one of the trunks.

‘Not moving, you twat,’ Snake grouched. ‘I’ve had enough of this. No way am I …’

Heck backhanded him, sending his glasses flying, then dragged him to his feet by his hair, turned him round and pressed his chest and face into the bark while twisting his hands together at his back and roughly cuffing them.

‘You fuck!’ Snake wailed, snot and blood spooling from his nose. ‘I’ve got rights …’

‘You think a system you’ve given a V sign to every day of your useless life is going to protect you now? I don’t think so.’

‘My glasses! At least, I need my glasses.’

Heck was frustrated to realise that this was probably true. He glanced back up the track. Not too far beyond the transporter’s shadowy bulk, two separate headlights were spearing down through the gloom. He cast quickly around his feet and thankfully found the grubby, square-framed specs without having to scrabble in the grass and dirt. They weren’t broken, so he folded them and shoved them into the pocket of Snake’s oil-stained Wrangler.

For half a second, they were nose-to-nose.

‘Now, listen,’ Heck said in a low voice, pressing the muzzle of the .38 into Snake’s left temple. ‘Be under no fucking illusion. A lot of people I knew and loved are dead because of you. That means you’re coming with me even if it’s through hell and high water. But first off, it means we’re going into this wood. Now, you go on sit-down strike again, you even drag your feet … more important still, you make any attempt whatever to signal these goons, you even make a peep … and you die first. You understand, Snake? Even if I’m outgunned a hundred to one and have no chance of getting out of this, I will ensure that you get popped before anyone else. Do you fucking believe me when I tell you this?’

Snake grunted in the affirmative, so frightened that he had to avert his eyes.

‘Right. March!’

By the change in tone of the motorbikes’ growling, Heck deduced that they were slowing down on the far side of the transporter. He and Snake were already into the trees, though, moving as quickly as they could.

He had no plan, of course. This whole thing was being made up as he went along. It was liberating in a way, that after a couple of months watching the world through a rain-streaked window, he was up to his neck in trouble again. Except for the part where he no longer had the authority of the Crown. Or a radio by which to call for help.

He had the .38, of course. But that wasn’t necessarily comforting.

He was going to kill the Hellstroms. There was no question about that. But he didn’t necessarily want to pull the trigger on those only peripherally connected to them. As such, Snake might – might – walk away from this if he cooperated sufficiently, and the Low Riders would definitely live to ride again. At least, that was the plan. It all depended what kind of ‘do or die’ situations they put him into.

They were now a hundred yards into the woods, and it was so dark that it was difficult to see anything, let alone walk straight and fast. However, Heck kept them on the move, prepared to risk that they might blunder into a tree. Snake was the one in front, so he would take the brunt of it, anyway. Behind them now, Heck could hear a pair of belligerent voices swapping obscenities. He chanced a glance over his shoulder, seeing a distant beam of light sweeping the outer dells of the wood, searching for tell-tale tracks.

He pushed Snake on, both their eyes now attuning to the dimness. This was helped by the leafless state of the canopy above and the glint of starlight from occasional patches of snow. The deeper they delved into it, the greater the gaps on their right, through which Heck now saw the broad, sparkling surface of the River Lune.

He veered towards it, pushing Snake in front. He could still hear the voices of the two bikers, though they were fading a little. They emerged onto the riverbank. Serene as ever, the flat, rippling surface of one of Northern England’s greatest rivers shifted slowly east-west in front of them.

‘Heck,’ Snake moaned. ‘You don’t want to do this, man. These Low Rider fuckers … they’re bad news. They’re gonna cut you up.’

‘Yeah, they’ve done a great job so far.’

‘Don’t be an idiot all your life!’ Snake didn’t raise his voice, but his tone intensified. ‘They’re big time in Manchester. They do contracts for syndicates, for fuck’s sake!’

‘I’m really scared.’

Heck now spotted the black outline of a jetty protruding into the water just ahead. There were even a couple of rowing boats riding on mooring lines at the end of it. His thoughts raced as he shoved Snake towards it.

‘Just leave me,’ Snake said. ‘Go. Once they’ve got me back, they won’t follow you.’

‘I guess you haven’t got your head round it yet,’ Heck retorted. ‘Whether you live or die this next couple of days depends entirely on services you need to provide. These mobile monkeys have sweet fuck-all to do with it.’

‘Yeah, perhaps that’s Lancashire Plod in the woods behind you?’ Snake’s voice rose. Suddenly, he sounded scornful. ‘Maybe they’ll only give you a namby-pamby caution, not skin you alive while I stand and watch.’

Heck hit him again. It was a flat hand but dealt with stinging force to the left side of his face. Snake’s head jerked right; he choked with pain.

‘My nose,’ he whimpered. ‘Think you’ve broke my fucking nose …’

‘Good thing about noses,’ Heck replied as they reached the landward end of the jetty. ‘You can’t break ’em enough.’ He looked around and behind.

More flickers of torchlight were distantly visible. They were still coming, the two voices rising in volume.

‘This way!’ Heck diverted from the jetty back into the trees. When they’d gone forty or fifty yards, he stopped, grabbed his prisoner’s collar and slammed him backward against the trunk of an elm. Snake gasped in pain. The whole lower half of his face was red with gore, sticky crimson excrescences dangling from his nose.

‘You fuck up now,’ Heck whispered, ‘and you’ve got less than a minute to live.’

Again, Snake was too groggy to respond.

Heck stuck the .38 back into his waistband, pulled out a key, reached around the thin, shivering body, unfastened the cuffs, and, stepping nimbly to the back of the tree, pulled one wrist around it from the right, the other from the left, and clamped them together again. He kicked the captive’s legs away, so that he landed on his backside.

Heck glanced behind him, estimating that the approaching torchlight and accompanying voices were now no more than a hundred yards distant. He pulled off his left trainer, yanked off the sock, rolled it into a ball and crammed it into Snake’s mouth, causing him to gag.

‘Breathe through your hooter,’ Heck said. ‘I don’t care if it is broken.’

Stripping his belt off, he tied it round the prisoner’s head to hold the sock in, before buckling it tightly at the back. Pulling his trainer back on, Heck scarpered away through the trees towards the river, running along the jetty to its far end. It was forty yards in length, and as it was early winter, the river wasn’t yet as deep as it might be. This meant that at the landward end, the timber structure ran for fifteen yards above a dry, pebbly slope. Heck grabbed a boathook propped against the mooring post and loosened one of the tethers. Leaning forward, he grappled the newly freed boat and pushed it out towards mid-stream. The current caught it almost immediately. It drifted sideways, but at ever greater speed, travelling further out, and further and further west. It was fifty-odd yards from shore, still moving sideways but gathering pace, when Heck ran back along the jetty, jumped down onto the shingle and slid himself beneath the timbers.

He lay still, heart banging, sweat pinpricking his face as two pairs of heavy, trudging feet came to the trees’ edge, and then crossed the rugged ground. He listened intently. He was sure they wouldn’t be able to see him, not even when they climbed onto the jetty and stood directly over the top of him, though whether they’d already spied him from the trees was another matter.

At first, neither spoke. Then: ‘Fuck me, look at that bastard!’

They’d spotted the rowing boat, which must now be a good seventy or eighty yards away, and probably wasn’t too far from rounding the next bend in the river.

They clumped down to the jetty’s far end. Thanks to the crisp, clear night, Heck could still hear them talking.

‘Can we hit it from here?’ one asked.

‘Not and be sure we don’t hit Croxton, for fuck’s sake!’ the other replied. ‘Do that and who the fuck’s gonna cough up?’

‘We sure they’re in there? Could it be a decoy?’

‘Decoy for what? There’s nothing else round here.’

Knowing he had to act quickly, Heck slid himself out, climbed up onto the timbers and crouched. He wasn’t a heavy man; thirteen-stone-four at his last weigh-in, and probably several pounds lighter now thanks to his exercise regime of the last few months. But they would likely still hear him as he approached. Then he realised that one of them was on the phone, reporting in to whoever had tactical command. That could only help.

He rose up and advanced on the balls of his feet.

The woodwork squeaked. He paused, crouched again. But they didn’t look round, and now were ahead of him by only twenty yards, standing with backs turned. The one on the right was shorter and squatter than the one on the left, but both were hulking, brutish figures even in silhouette, the tassels of their leathers visible against the glittering river. As Heck drew closer, the stencilled wording re-emerged on their backs: Low Riders.

Heck was now close enough to smell the funk of dope mingled with engine grease and patchouli oil. They were less than ten yards away, so the .38 was tight in his fist. It would be easy to pop them where they stood and resolve the problem straight away. They were armed after all, the one on the right gesturing with a pistol as he spoke into his phone, the one on the left busy slotting his own piece back under his jacket.

But still Heck didn’t shoot.

You’re a cop, not a killer, his conscience told him.

That meant he shouldn’t be doing this at all, of course. But he was. Not that making things worse ever seemed like a good plan. He was now upon them.

With a single, arcing blow, .38 still in hand, he clubbed the phone guy in the nape of the neck. The target dropped both his pistol and his phone as he sagged to his knees, before tumbling sideways over the jetty’s edge. The river surface slapped beneath the weight of the second rowing boat as he landed in it. Startled, the other biker spun, pulling his own weapon from under his jacket, only to find the .38 in his face, its muzzle an inch from his nose.

‘Drop it, shithead!’ Heck told him.

Like many of these guys once they were past thirty, the second biker had allowed himself to go. He was heavily built because he was overweight, his belly pushing his stained T-shirt between the flaps of his leather jacket. His neck was as wide as his head, but closer inspection revealed an immense double-chin covered in the same scraggy fuzz that grew on his jaw, under his nose and in a thicker, greasier mat on top of his skull.

He hadn’t released his pistol yet, holding it flat against his chest.

Heck cocked the .38’s hammer.

The biker grinned, a row of mismatched ivories in the moonlight, but Heck’s eyes had adjusted sufficiently to see the whole of his pitted, doughy face, and it wasn’t confidence that was etched there. As a police officer who’d dealt often with ultra-violent suspects, Heck had long practice at going in hard.

‘You think I went to all that trouble on the motorway to let some unwashed manatee get in my way?’ he said. ‘You’ve got till three. One … two …’

The biker’s weapon clattered onto the jetty.

‘Okay …’ Heck said, ‘hands out where I can see them.’

Silently, the biker complied.

‘Good. Now back up. Two feet. No more, no less. Do it.’

Again, the biker complied. His face remained split by an unimpressed grin, but his eyes darted left and right as the reality that he’d screwed up began to weigh on him.

‘I’m getting a vibe off you I’m not keen on,’ Heck warned him. ‘Try anything and the world’s short one Low Rider. Not that I think it’d miss you.’

‘You know who we are, pal?’ the biker asked.

‘That’s the dumbest question given what I’ve just said.’

‘We’re not just some motorcycle club. This won’t be forgotten.’

‘Hell on wheels, eh? Well, if it’s payback you’re looking for, you’ll have to stand in the queue. Circle round to the edge there.’

Again, the biker did as he was told, but his arms had lowered imperceptibly, and Heck, eye to eye with him, didn’t immediately notice. When he did, it was too late. In a dexterous move Heck hadn’t thought him capable of, the biker jerked his left hand. A hunting knife slid from his leather sleeve. He caught its hilt and swung it round.

Heck leapt backward. The blade missed his belly by inches. Not wanting to shoot, he jumped again as a backhand blow followed. Encouraged that he still hadn’t been shot, the biker came on aggressively. But this time, Heck blocked his arm with a basic defensive move, smashed a knee into his groin, and as he doubled over, caught him with an upswing, the thick steel of the .38 splattering his nose across his face.

The blade slackened in the biker’s tattooed fist, and when Heck hit the wrist with a karate chop, it went skittering along the jetty. He followed with another chop, this to the side of the neck, and then a left hook, clattering the guy’s head sideways. The biker tottered, groggy, but at least now was facing the right way. When Heck swung the gun again, cracking it into the side of his sweaty head, he toppled like felled timber, also landing on the boat, full length on top of his unconscious mate. Panting, Heck untied the mooring line, grabbed the boathook again, reached down, caught the vessel and pushed it away from shore.

As before, it travelled under its own steam. He stood and watched as it slid further and further out until caught in the east-west current. More minutes passed, but there was no movement from the boat as it headed swiftly downstream.

Heck turned and kicked each of the two bikers’ pistols into the water. He could have taken them with him, amassed himself an arsenal. But he was still determined that, if remotely possible, only two men – three at the most, including Snake – would die. For that reason, having only one piece and two boxes of shells would focus his mind. That said, he saw no harm in picking up the hunting knife, just as a little something extra.

He pocketed it, then thrust the .38 into his jeans and walked back to land, wondering what condition his hostage would be in. It shouldn’t have been impossible for someone resolute to work that improvised gag loose and start shouting, though more likely Snake hadn’t done that because he was too weak and weedy, too sunk in a mire of self-pity. When Heck got back to him, the captive was still seated with his back to the tree, his hands cuffed behind it, his jaws jammed painfully ajar by the mass of dirty material. The belt was still tight, holding everything in place. When his captor ripped the gag loose, Snake groaned and made a show of sucking in air, before gingerly extending his bottom jaw.

‘Your rescuers are on their way to Dublin,’ Heck told him.

‘Did you kill them?’

‘I don’t think so. But I could’ve done. You need to remember that, Snake.’ Heck squatted behind the tree and unfastened the cuffs. ‘I’m currently the master of life and death in more ways than you and your scuzzy mates ever imagined possible.’

‘You’re very melodramatic.’

Heck jerked him upright and clamped his hands behind his back again. ‘And you’re a dirty, shit-smelling little no-mark who’s made mistakes all his life but never made a bigger one than the day he turned this thing personal.’ He started walking him. ‘From now on, it’s going to pay you not just to do everything you’re told, but to do it obligingly, yeah?’

An engine suddenly rumbled, and a pair of headlamps sprang to life on their right.

Caught squarely in the double-cone of light, Heck and Snake stumbled to a halt. Neither had noticed that a single-lane tarmac road, ending at a pair of concrete bollards, lay so close by, or that several picnic tables occupied the open glades positioned to either side of it.

‘Stay where you are,’ a voice said. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’

The car was the same Lexus they’d seen on the motorway. One man had jumped out from behind its wheel – by the interior light he was the only one who’d been in it – but he was covering them with what looked distinctly like a Steyr TMP machine-pistol.

He remained close to the vehicle, so the glare of the headlights obscured much about him, but Heck could tell that it was the same bare-chested guy who’d tried to stop the Volvo back in Lonsdale Sands.

‘Guess you forgot you were dealing with various sets of wheels, eh?’ the guy said.

‘So, now the monkeys have been dealt with, the organ-grinder shows his face,’ Heck replied. ‘Except you’re not really the organ-grinder, are you? More like the crank-handle.’

The Steyr guy grinned and stepped forward. He was less grizzled and beaten up than the other bikers. Handsome even. He seemed genuinely amused. ‘I can see you’re every bit the hardcase I was warned about. Well, this is interesting … isn’t it? What do you do when a copper goes rogue?’

‘You put your gun down and embrace him like a brother. And the next day you fork out for a full set of dentures.’

The Steyr guy laughed. ‘Very good. Unfortunately, the real answer is “whatever you fucking want”. Let Croxton go.’

Heck was puzzled. ‘Croxton?’

‘I can see you’ve not got your gun drawn, copper … so, do what I say, or I’ll blow you away one piece at a time.’

Heck raised his hands, but only by a couple of inches. He was still partly shielded by his prisoner. For his part, Snake shook his head and blathered as if he’d gone dizzy.

‘I … I, erm … Armstrong, I …’

‘Don’t use my name, you pillock!’

Heck smirked. ‘You think I’m going to be testifying in court any time soon?’

Armstrong’s smile faded. ‘Not now, no. Croxton, over here!’

‘You ever killed anyone before?’ Heck asked him. ‘You look like Charlie Hunnam with his hair dyed. You see that show, Sons of Anarchy? All these prissy Hollywood types striking “mean bastard” poses?’

‘Shut up! Croxton … get over here. What’re you waiting for?’

Released from Heck’s grip, Snake lurched across the open space. It was twenty yards at the most, yet he was having trouble. Meandering as though drunk, blocking the gunman’s view of his intended target.

‘Out the way, Croxton!’ the biker shouted. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, pig!’

‘I hear you’re a dealer,’ Heck said. ‘That I can believe. I also hear you take out contracts. That sounds like bollocks.’

‘Croxton!’ the biker bellowed, as Snake blundered directly into his path.

Again, Snake burbled something incomprehensible.

Then stumbled forward and pitched heavily against the guy, sending him tottering sideways. It was all that Heck needed, as he bounded across the glade, drawing his .38 and sweeping it round like a club. The biker still hadn’t levelled his weapon again when the chunky steel thundered into his left temple, and his world tilted upside-down.

*

When the biker came round, grunting and shaking his blood-dabbled head, he was still in the woods, in the glow of his car’s headlamps. He’d been disarmed, of course, and was seated with his back to a tree trunk, his hands cuffed around the rear of it.

As his dizziness eased, he saw a figure slumped at one of the picnic tables. It was the guy who’d been calling himself Dezzy Croxton.

‘Fucking idiot!’ the biker snarled.

‘Croxton’ gave a helpless shrug. ‘Christ’s sake, Armstrong … I’ve lost count of the kickings I’ve had tonight. Half the time I don’t know where I am.’

‘Wait till you see the kicking you get when I’m out of these things.’

‘Yeah, you’re quite the tough guy.’ Heck strolled into view, peeling his way through the biker’s wallet. ‘Kyle Armstrong. Club President of the Low Riders, no less.’ He glanced up. ‘I imagine you’re pretty scary when you come riding into some little town team-handed on a Bank Holiday, or when you’re providing security at a festival and there’s a load of fourteen-year-olds you can push around.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the biker snapped.

Heck tossed the wallet into the bushes and held up a set of car-keys. ‘I’m the guy you’ve just supplied a spanking set of wheels to.’

Armstrong looked aghast. ‘No … no way, man. No way … you can’t take my Lexus.’

‘That’s the least you owe me.’

‘Fuck’s sake, man! That motor’s almost new!’

‘Good. We’ve got a long way to go.’

‘I just got it in lieu of a whopping payout!’

‘For drugs, no doubt.’ Heck pondered. ‘So, indirectly … this is the proceeds of crime. Which means I acquire it guilt-free … even better. I like the cellophane on the VRMs, by the way. Blurs them to the cameras. That’s a neat trick, I’ve got to credit you.’

Armstrong bared his teeth. ‘You take that Lexus, man, I swear I’ll never stop coming after you.’

‘You think I’ll be leaving you here alive?’

The biker’s mouth sagged open, as if this possibility had never occurred to him. Then he snapped it closed and shook his head. ‘It’s not just me. You don’t shit on the Low Riders. No one does.’

Heck nodded. ‘I believe that. I think you and your mob are just dumb enough to carry grudges you can’t fix till the end of time.’ He turned to Snake. ‘On your feet. We’re going.’

Snake rose unsteadily, but for the first time that day looked hopeful. ‘The Lexus?’

‘What else,’ Heck said. ‘Get in.’

Relieved, Snake tottered to the car.

Heck produced an iPhone. The biker didn’t need to look closely to know that it was his.

‘In which case,’ Heck added, checking through the phone’s contents, ‘to counter the risk that you and your boys might keep coming after me … if I even get a sniff of that, I’ll be sending this to the Manchester Drug Squad with an explanatory note. I’m sure they’ll be fascinated by all the contacts you’ve got in here.’ He chuckled. ‘Not to mention some of these very unredacted texts. Jesus wept, talk about making it clear what business you’re in, Kyle.’

‘You’re a fugitive,’ Armstrong argued. ‘They won’t buy.’

Heck switched the phone off. ‘No self-respecting anti-drugs team turns its nose up at anonymous donations. As long as there’s intel, they’ll buy.’ He shoved it into his pocket and walked to the car.

‘Hey, man … you can’t just leave me here,’ Armstrong shouted. ‘I’ll freeze.’

‘Should’ve put a vest on.’

‘Seriously, man … it’s perishing. I won’t last the night.’

Heck paused by the Lexus. ‘I doubt it. You hear that?’ They listened, and from somewhere in the near distance, heard a hubbub of muffled voices. ‘That’s the North West Motorways Group. They’re busy obviously … probably crawling all over that car-transporter like ants. But they’ll be here soon.’

The biker looked concerned. ‘What about my piece?’

‘Over in the bushes somewhere. But not so well hidden that they won’t find it easily.’

‘You twat!’

When Heck threw his rucksack into the back seat and climbed in behind the wheel, Snake was already belted into the front passenger seat. He was clearly more comfortable but looked haggard and spooked. ‘You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?’ he said.

Heck hit the ignition, put the car in gear and swung it round in a three-point turn. ‘You should too. We condemned men have to get our jollies while we can.’

21

‘So, how’s the lorry driver?’ Jude Penhaligon asked.

DS Rani Kulkani glanced round as she led them through into the Lancaster Police Station Custody Suite. ‘In shock, mainly. Got a nasty cut on his head, but it’s nothing really. Stitches job. Not that he’s proving very useful. Says he can’t remember a thing.’

‘But he remembers reporting that someone was shooting at him on the motorway?’ Gail asked.

‘Yeah, but he doesn’t know who or why.’ Kulkani halted at the custody desk, signed a form for the sergeant on duty there, and handed it over for their countersignatures. ‘Says he saw no faces. Can’t even be sure which vehicles were involved.’

‘Is the suspect talking?’

‘No.’ Kulkani led them down a side corridor. She was a short, very smartly dressed Indian woman. ‘But we’ve identified him as Kyle Armstrong, thirty-five years old, from Crowley, Manchester. Form as long as your arm. GBH, dealing, firearms, you name it.’

The ‘we’ she referred to was the Lancashire Constabulary’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit. Though motorway officers had made the arrest, given the nature of the potential offences under investigation, there’d only been one department who was going to handle it.

‘But no firearms were actually found on him?’ Penhaligon asked.

‘Not on him, but we recovered a submachine gun in the vicinity. It’s gone for ballistics examination.’

‘Gunshot damage on the transporter?’ Gail enquired.

‘Plenty, but as this thing only happened three hours ago, we can’t officially marry it to the weapon. Not yet. The suspect’s hands look good for firearms residue, though. Even without that, it’s highly likely it’s down to this fella. It’s right up his street. He’s got warnings for weapons and violence on every database.’

‘Clearly, that didn’t make any difference to someone tonight,’ Gail said.

Kulkani stopped by an interview room door. ‘There’s always a bigger fish, I suppose.’

‘These cuffs he was hooked to the tree with,’ Penhaligon said. ‘You’re checking them for prints?’

‘As we speak. They’re GMP-issue originally.’ Kulkani ushered the uniform on guard duty aside. ‘That would figure, this Armstrong character being a Manchester native.’

‘You reckon he brought them here himself?’ Gail said. ‘That sometime in the past, he lifted them off some unfortunate Manchester bobby?’

Kulkani pushed the door open. ‘Can you think of any other reason they might be at the scene?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Gail replied, going in first.

‘Anyway, my gaffer’s happy for you have a word, ma’am,’ Kulkani told Penhaligon, handing her a bunch of printouts. ‘So long as you know that this is still our case. And that you’re willing to share any intel you gain by other means.’

‘Fine by me.’ The DI took her coat off. ‘I sincerely doubt there’s any connection between this case and our investigation, but when we heard about it on the Force Radio, we couldn’t ignore it. If you can tell your DI we appreciate his courtesy.’

Kulkani nodded and closed the door on them.

The suspect, Kyle Armstrong, sat alongside a thin man in a grey suit. Armstrong himself was dressed in paper and looked bedraggled and pale-faced. An Elastoplast clad a fresh cut on his right temple. His wrists were still cuffed together and resting on the scarred table in front of him.

Gail activated the tape machine, checked that it was running, and nodded at Penhaligon. The detectives sat down, side-by-side, facing the prisoner.

‘Good evening, Kyle. I’m DI Penhaligon, and this is DC Honeyford. You understand that you’re still under caution?’

He shrugged.

‘For the tape … the suspect shrugged,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Aside from ourselves, the only other person present is Mr Adamson, duty solicitor.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Interview commencing 23.17 hours.’ She looked up, her expression blank. ‘We’d like to talk to you, Kyle, about an incident that occurred tonight on the northbound stretch of the M6 motorway between …’ She threw quick glances at the paperwork. ‘Junction 32a, Bay Horse, and Junction 34, Lancaster. Do you know the incident I’m talking about?’

Armstrong regarded her bleakly. ‘No comment.’

‘Kyle, it’s been alleged that you were one of a group of men who rode up on motorbikes, and maybe in a car as well, behind a Scania car-transporter, registration PK18 MVY, and opened fire on it with handguns. Is that correct?’

He sniffed. ‘It is correct that it’s been alleged, yeah.’

Penhaligon was unfazed. ‘Is it correct that you were one of these men?’

‘No comment.’

She sat back. ‘I mean, if you weren’t involved, you should say so. The fact that you’re not doing looks suspicious. Don’t you agree?’

‘No comment.’

Another quick glance at the paperwork. ‘I understand that you’re a member of a Manchester motorcycle gang called the Low Riders? That you’re actually its president?’

‘No comment.’

‘Surely you can admit to that? Isn’t that something a guy like you would be proud of?’

‘No comment.’

‘It doesn’t look too good for you on this occasion, of course.’ She purposely read the paperwork more closely. ‘Because when the car-transporter was found wrecked on the edge of Halton Woods on the north bank of the River Lune, there were two motorcycles parked nearby. A Yamaha MT-07 and a Honda PCX-125. Neither of them is registered to you, but to a Philip James Hogan of 15b Layland Avenue, Crowley, Manchester, and an Anton Richard Ryerson, of 28, Whitebrook Rise, Boothstown, Salford. Both of whom are known to be active members of the Low Riders. On top of that, the clothing we took from you earlier would certainly seem to imply that you’re also a member …’

‘Given that your jacket has “Low Riders” emblazoned across the back of it,’ Gail put in.

‘So, what’s the story, Kyle?’ Penhaligon asked coolly. ‘Did you borrow one of the lads’ bikes for tonight’s little escapade?’

He shrugged. ‘No comment.’

‘Or did you follow your normal instinct and nick it?’ Gail wondered.

‘No comment.’

‘What happened to the other Low Rider. Is he still in the woods somewhere, hiding?’

‘No comment.’

‘Is he still armed? Because if he is and other police officers confront him, it could end badly.’

Armstrong looked bored. ‘No comment.’

‘The really weird thing, of course,’ Penhaligon added, ‘is that, whatever happened once you’d run this car-transporter to ground, it didn’t go entirely in your favour, did it?’

‘Something to do with you being found chained to a tree.’ Gail said. ‘Like a fly on sticky tape.’

Armstrong glowered at her. ‘No comment.’

‘Well, someone obviously got the better of you,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Did the other biker turn on you for some reason … or did he run away after he saw some third-party sort you out?’

‘No comment.’

‘Not a good look, is it?’ Gail said. ‘The leader of the pack … getting sorted out!’

The DI leaned forward. ‘You do understand that we found a highly proscribed weapon in your close vicinity, almost certainly one of the weapons used in the attack, and that you are already showing for firearms residue? Your clothing will tell the same story. That’s the same clothing that half a dozen other motorway users have already described as being worn by the motorbike shooters. And then when the police arrived, you were present at the scene. The only one. Apart from the victim of course.’

‘No fucking comment.’

Gail snickered. ‘We getting to you, Kyle?’

‘Some chance,’ he snapped.

‘We’re not actually from this part of the world,’ Penhaligon said.

‘You don’t say.’

‘We’re from Scotland Yard.’

He snorted. ‘You think that cuts any ice? Just means you’re even more corrupt than the others.’

‘It also means we might come at this thing from a slightly different angle,’ Gail said.

‘Whoopie-do. No comment.’

‘You really are dense, aren’t you?’ she said, ‘You do realise that Lancashire Constabulary are looking at you for attempting to hijack that car-transporter? Lot of valuable vehicles on that rig. At least, there were until you shot it all to hell.’

He said nothing but was clearly listening. And not liking it.

‘Kyle …’ Gail smiled again. ‘You’re looking at real time here. This is attempted robbery and attempted murder. Now look … both you and we know you’re not going to give up any of your mates. That means you’re going to carry the can all on your own. The whole weight of it. And that’s not going to be in any way lightened by your refusal to help us.’

‘No comment.’

She leaned forward. ‘We, on the other hand, DI Penhaligon and I, are inclined to be broader minded about what you were really up to. But it’s not our custody you’re currently languishing in. Is it?’

Armstrong briefly locked gazes with her. Then he whispered something to the duty solicitor.

‘Can I have a private word with my client?’ Mr Adamson asked.

*

‘This dipshit will do life before he talks to any of us,’ Penhaligon said as they stood sipping coffee in the corridor.

‘I’m not so sure,’ Gail replied. ‘He won’t name any names. Least, none of his chapter. But he’s still relatively young. I don’t think twenty-five years in a cage will appeal all that much.’

DS Kulkani then came down the passage towards them. She didn’t speak at first as she was too busy studying a printout. Finally she looked up, regarding them with a new level of uncertainty. ‘We’ve got a match on the fingerprints. From the handcuffs, I mean.’

‘Yeah?’ Gail said.

‘You say you’re Professional Standards?’

‘I am,’ Penhaligon confirmed.

Kulkani nodded. ‘Well, that would figure. The culprit is Mark Heckenburg, detective sergeant with the National Crime Group. Currently suspended from duty.’

She gave them a frank stare.

Penhaligon glanced at Gail, stunned, all her cool reserve fleetingly forgotten.

‘Told you this one was ours,’ Gail said.

Before they could say more, the door to the interview room swung open and Mr Adamson stood there. ‘Detectives … my client would like to make a statement.’

*

‘My name is Kyle Armstrong and I am President of the Low Riders Motorcycle Club,’ Mr Adamson began, reading his client’s words aloud. ‘Which is based in Manchester.’

On the other side of the table, Gail and Penhaligon were in company with DS Kulkani. DI Ted Forrester, the SOCU tactical commander, watched and listened via a live video feed.

‘A few weeks ago,’ Adamson read, ‘I was contacted by a man who called himself Dezzy Croxton, who claimed to be road crew for a band called Deicide. The band were making a tour of northwest England, which would last from early November to just before Christmas. Apparently, Dezzy Croxton thought he was in danger. Some rogue police officer, a very unstable individual, or so he said, was out to get him. He offered us £75,000 to keep him safe during the tour. Twenty-five up front, twenty-five halfway through, twenty-five at the end. For this reason, because I was led to believe that this rogue police officer, whose name we were never told, was very dangerous, I decided that me and the rest of my crew would carry weapons, and by weapons, I mean unlicensed firearms. It was my decision to do this. I knew it was illegal, but I didn’t want any of my boys getting hurt or killed.

‘We did not know Dezzy Croxton when we met him. He was a dirty, weaselly character with a bad attitude, but none of us knew what he’d done to get into trouble. Anyway, it was earlier this evening when this supposedly out-of-control police officer made his move. Croxton went to buy some food outside the Winter Gardens in Lonsdale Sands. We assumed he’d be okay, as he’d only be gone a minute. But that was when the rogue officer appeared. I saw the attack happen. I was at the front of the concert hall, and suddenly this man was violently manhandling Dezzy Croxton. He was in his late thirties, I’d say. About six-one, lean build, dark hair, scruffy beard. Wearing a hoodie, an anorak and jeans. He looked a mess, as if he’d been living on the streets.

‘He got Croxton into the boot of this Volvo C30 before any of us could intervene. Four of my boys pursued him away from Lonsdale Sands along the Lancashire Link Road on their bikes. I went after them in my Lexus. I am not naming any names, but two of my lads got hurt in that chase. All the way along that road he was shooting at them, and when one of them tried to get hold of him on the lorry park near the M6 junction, he proved that he was every bit as dangerous as we’d been told. He attacked my lad from behind and violently assaulted him. After that, when the rest of us arrived, he ran away again. I know it sounds incredible, but he dragged Croxton onto the back of a car-transporter. We pursued him onto the northbound side of the M6, and up it towards Lancaster. Me and two others. I am not naming any other names. I cannot do that. It is part of our code in the Low Riders. And don’t automatically assume that the bikes you found later were being ridden by their owners. That is not the way it works.

‘We followed the car-transporter closely. That was all we intended to do. But then we saw that the kidnapper had taken Croxton up to the top deck. It looked as if he was going to throw him off, so we took pot-shots at him. We had no choice. We had to save our client’s life. At no stage was anyone trying to injure the driver, or even, if we could help it, cause damage to the transporter or its load. It was difficult to aim at that speed and in the dark, plus we were concerned that we might be causing danger to other road users …’

‘Yeah, right,’ Gail snorted.

Adamson frowned at her before continuing.

‘So, we stopped shooting. But it was already too late. The driver totally lost control and slid off the motorway just after the bridge over the River Lune, and his vehicle went down the embankment and vanished into the woods. I wasn’t able to follow it because I was in the car. But my sat-nav told me that if I took the next turn-off there was another route. All this time, I was very concerned for my client’s safety. I drove down to the woods, and when I got there, the first thing I saw was my client being forced through the trees by his abductor at gunpoint. I challenged them and drew my own weapon, but there was no shooting. My client got free but tripped. This gave his abductor a chance to knock me unconscious. When I woke up, the abductor had not just taken my gun but also my car keys. He’d already handcuffed me to a tree and now threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again. After that, he drove my client away. That is all I can tell you.’

*

‘Heck rode ten miles on the back of a car-transporter,’ Jude Penhaligon said, sounding dazed. They were back out in the corridor again. ‘I’ve heard it all now.’

Gail pondered. ‘I won’t say I told you so, but I told you …’

‘What you actually told me was “only Heck can cause that much havoc”,’ Penhaligon corrected her. ‘That was your sole basis for bringing us to Lancaster.’

Gail had to admit that. It had been her first reaction on hearing about the motorway incident over the radio. ‘Even so,’ she said, ‘was I right or was I right?’

‘We don’t know that for sure.’

‘No, but this weaselly character, this Dezzy Croxton … sounds to me like Jimmy Fletcher.’

Penhaligon looked puzzled. ‘Jimmy Fletcher? Where’s this name come from?’

Gail took her phone out. ‘He was the grass who gave Gemma Piper the Black Chapel. That was SCU’s last case but one.’

‘Did you have dealings with him?’

Gail shook her head as she placed a call. ‘It was just before I transferred in from Surrey. But I’ve read statements by him and seen photos. It was a crappy description that idiot gave us back there, but … somehow it’s still the dead-spit. Plus, Fletcher was a roadie too. That’s another similarity.’

‘This is supposition, though?’

‘And you concluding that Heck killed twenty-six coppers because he was jealous isn’t?’

‘Gwen Straker,’ came a yawning voice on the phone.

‘Sorry for disturbing you at this Godforsaken hour, ma’am.’

‘It’s all right, Gail. What’s the matter?’

‘We’ve got a lead on Heck. And you’re not going to like it.’

22

When Snake awoke, he was cold, there was a crick in his neck, and he was stiff with bruises. At first, his glasses were too smudged to see through them. He took them off, rubbed the lenses on his sleeve, and when he put them back on, saw that he was still inside the Lexus.

He remembered everything from the previous day and night. It was no surprise that he felt as if he’d been worked over with a mattock, or that his hair and beard were sticky and stank of ketchup. The car was nice, though: luxuriously comfy, even if its interior was now chilly, which meant that the engine had been switched off for some time. He wondered where Heck was, because the driving seat was empty.

He took his glasses off again to try and clean them properly, this time using his mustard-stained T-shirt. And when he replaced them, was finally able to see beyond the windows.

He was flabbergasted by the scenery greeting him. Because that was the only word for it.

Scenery.

The car was parked in a vast, V-shaped valley. Immense, snow-capped mountains rose on either side, soaring to unimaginable heights, their frozen upper ridges sharp-drawn on a glacial early-morning sky in which a few faint stars still twinkled. The car itself appeared to have pulled up on the side of a narrow, single-lane road, amid a stand of pine trees. The silence, even when he released his seatbelt and opened the door, was all-consuming.

Until he heard a faint but distinct thud.

Moving cautiously, and not a little bit gingerly with so much of his body beaten and aching, he slid outside and stood up. The cold was intense, the air very still in that typical way of mountain country. Again, he gazed round, fascinated by the encircling massifs. They were colossal, their steep slopes clad with firs further down, but higher up rising through aprons of dark, tumbled scree to sheer faces of bare, jagged rock.

Another low thud distracted him.

Snake closed the car door quietly, though even then it echoed on the frigid air. Hobbling left, he threaded through the small wood, until he came to the edge of high ground. Down below, a lengthy body of water mirrored the mountains and the grey/blue sky perfectly as it wound away towards the other end of the valley. Despite its size, its surface would have remained unbroken, literally like a swimming pool, had it not been for the ripples expanding outward from a point some sixty yards offshore, where Heck had just hit it with a round from his .38.

Even as Snake watched, the ex-cop, who was standing on a shingle bank close to the waterline, raised his weapon, now extended by ten inches or more – a sound suppressor, the captive realised, oddly unnerved – and fired a third time. Another dull thud, and sixty yards away, the surface was broken again.

Snake considered that he’d lived his whole life by wit and instinct. That was the only way when your everyday existence revolved around criminality in its various forms. It was the only way to have done the things he’d done and been the places he’d been and still make it to fifty-five. All that wit and instinct was now screaming at him to turn round and walk away as fast as he could. This was not the relaxed and affable Mark Heckenburg he’d got to know over so many years. This was someone very different, very strange and, yes – there was no denying – very scary. But given his depleted physical condition, not to mention the nature of this place, which, picturesque though it was, had the air of extreme solitude and remoteness, flight wasn’t really an option.

*

‘Well, well … Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ Heck said, as the ragged figure limped down the pebbly slope towards him.

Snake spread his arms. ‘Where the hell are we?’

‘You don’t recognise it?’ Heck looked surprised ‘This is Glencoe.’

‘Glencoe!’

‘There or thereabouts.’

‘You must’ve been driving all night?’

‘Just shy of five hours. Luckily, there was enough fuel. Just.’

Snake looked round again, stunned. ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve heard about this place, but …’

‘So, you’ve never been here before?’

‘Nah.’ Snake shook his head. ‘Every bit as incredible as they say, isn’t it?’

‘You know … you bother me, Snake.’

Snake glanced round, his awe-stricken smile fading.

‘You bother me a great deal.’ Heck noted that his captive’s eyes continued to flicker down to the .38, which he deliberately hadn’t put away yet or even unscrewed from its suppressor. In fact, as Snake watched, Heck purposely reloaded it. ‘Don’t worry about this, by the way. Just getting some practise in. Making sure the silencer works. You know what these things are like. Use them a few times and they get louder and louder.’

‘I’ll take your world for it,’ Snake replied.

‘It does, by the way.’

‘What?’

‘It works.’

‘Okay. So …’ Snake’s eyes switched up to his face. He tried to sound bold, matter-of-fact. ‘In what ways do I bother you?’

Heck still didn’t put the gun away but rested its extended barrel against his right shoulder. ‘There’re some inconsistencies we need to iron out. I mean, while there’s just us here and no one else.’ He paused, waiting.

Snake shrugged.

‘You’ve never been here, you say?’ Heck said. ‘You genuinely didn’t recognise this place?’

‘Come on, Heck. It’s Haggis Land. They’ve got the best mountains in Britain, but they all look pretty much the same.’

‘Yet, when we were getting shot up on the motorway down in Lancashire, and I told you we were coming looking for your old mates, Varulv … you were quite specific that this meant we were going to Glencoe?’

‘Ah …’ Snake’s smile dropped again. ‘Said that, did I? Look, we were being chased at the time. I was in a state of shock. It just came out …’

‘But it’s true?’ Heck asked. ‘That this is where we’ll find them?’

‘Yeah, all right! Shit, man … you got me!’ Snake wheeled around in a miniature circle. ‘Brollachan House isn’t too far from here.’

‘Brollachan House?’

‘It’s where they live. The Hellstroms. It’s part of this big hunting estate they own. Look, Heck, come on … you’re not mad because I was trying to pretend I didn’t know any of this?’

‘Not at all. Lying’s only what I’d expect from a sneaky little turd like you.’

‘Come on, man … put the gun away. You’re scaring the crap out of me.’

The gun stayed at Heck’s shoulder. ‘You can take me to this Brollachan House, can you?’

‘I can point you in the right direction.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

Snake’s face fell further as it dawned on him that only one answer was permissible. ‘Yeah. I can take you.’

‘It’s not too far?’

‘Assuming this road leads us back to the A82, eight … nine miles, maybe.’

‘How about as the crow flies?’

‘I don’t know. Five or six.’

Heck nodded. ‘That’s more manageable.’

Snake frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘On foot.’

‘What … we’re walking?’

‘We’ve no choice.’

Snake glanced back towards the pinewood. ‘You emptied the tank?’

Heck chuckled. ‘You thought I’d stop at a filling station? That would’ve been stacking the odds against me, don’t you think?’

‘So, how do we get away after?’

Heck didn’t bother answering that. ‘’Course, there were only so many precautions I could take. Soon as it turned daylight, I removed that cellophane from the registration. Wouldn’t want a Police Scotland Traffic car getting suspicious over that, would we? Which means it’s possible that a camera with number plate recognition might have clocked us by now.’

‘I don’t think there’s too many of them up here.’

‘No, you’re probably right. But it only takes one.’

Snake sighed. ‘In that case … I suppose we’d better get going.’

‘Wait a minute.’

Snake glanced back.

Heck hadn’t moved. ‘Do you take me for a total fucking simp?’

Snake frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I told you I’d expect you to lie. What I wouldn’t expect is you not to lie. What I wouldn’t expect was for you to actually tell me where Karl and Eric Hellstrom were holed up. But you did, didn’t you … under no pressure.’

‘I wouldn’t say no pressure …’

‘Which is particularly weird, given that you don’t even think they did it. Or so you say.’

‘Heck, come on …’

‘You told me exactly where they’d be, Snake. And that was after leaving a paper-trail leading to you that a rookie cop with six months in could’ve followed.’

‘Look, I left Dagenham because I knew you’d be coming for me. I heard you’d survived the Ace of Diamonds. I heard that you were under suspicion yourself, but that you hadn’t been locked up. And it sounded increasingly like you weren’t going to be. I mean, that was never going to happen. Whatever they tell the leftie press, coppers stick together, don’t they. In the end. Point is … what else could I do? I had to evacuate.’

Heck regarded him steadily. ‘In such a panic that you left clear evidence indicating where you were going?’

‘Heck, come on … you’re not going to kill me?’

‘That remains to be seen.’ Heck paused to think. ‘So … you knew that, somehow or other, I’d suss that Karl and Eric Hellstrom were the Ace of Diamonds shooters?’

‘Listen, mate …’

‘You going to keep denying it? Even though you know I know it was them?’

Snake sighed again, glancing away as though he half-expected help to be somewhere close at hand, even though the monumental valley remained empty and still.

‘It was them, wasn’t it?’ Heck said. ‘The Hellstroms are the ones who killed my friends?’

‘Of course it was them.’

‘And you knew I’d find out, didn’t you?’

Snake made a wild gesture. ‘Christ, what else? You always do. And as I’d categorically assured you they weren’t involved with the Black Chapel, I knew you’d have questions …’

‘So, why’d you let me catch you?’

Snaked looked baffled. ‘I didn’t let you catch me.’

‘Okay … why’d you let me keep you? Why didn’t you run away when you woke up? That car’s … I don’t know, three hundred yards off. It’s not even in sight from here. You could’ve knobbed off easily.’

‘And where could I go?’

‘To your mates at Brollachan House, where else?’ Heck lowered the revolver, the suppressor resting in the palm of his left hand. ‘You know, the bastards you were a roadie for all those years. Why didn’t you? I mean, we were up to our necks in shit back there on the M6. I’m alone and flying blind on this whole op. It could’ve gone tits up at any minute. But you made sure it didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Down by the River Lune … when I was trying to jump those two bikers. You could’ve got that gag loose and shouted. But you didn’t.’

Snake shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was something to do with you just having saved my life?’

‘I saved your life because I needed to crowbar some info out of that great thick skull of yours. Be assured, Snake, it was nothing personal. And then after all that, you virtually disarmed Kyle Armstrong on your own. That pathetic drunkard’s walk, you did. When you fell on top of him? Gave me more than enough chance to gain the upper hand, didn’t it?’ Heck shook his head. ‘You must think I was born yesterday.’

‘Look …’ Snake’s whole body-language had turned defensive, his eyes wide. ‘If I’m more onside than you think, why is that a problem?’

‘What?’ Heck laughed. ‘You mean, secretly you’ve always wanted Varulv to go down? What for … organising the Black Chapel, murdering police officers … what?’

‘Take your pick.’

‘Now you are lying, you little shite.’

‘Come on, Heck!’

Heck pumped his trigger. With a dull thud, a huge chunk of turf was blown out a few inches from Snake’s left foot.

‘Shit, man!’ Snake danced away from it but didn’t get far because now the barrel was trained on his chest.

‘Be warned, Snake, I’ve got limited ammo,’ Heck said. ‘A few practise rounds were going into the loch, and that was going to be it. So, you can be certain that the next one I fire is going to need to count. If you’d wanted Varulv to go down, you wouldn’t have persuaded me and Gemma Piper that they weren’t involved in the Black Chapel murders, would you?’

‘I gave you the actual killers … what more did you want?’

‘How about the people who planned the Black Chapel and organised it?’

‘Can you imagine the heat that would’ve brought down on me? Especially when I couldn’t prove it.’

‘We’d have proved it!’ Heck shouted. ‘We’d have done it by the book! We’d have got the whole lot of them! All you would’ve needed to do was give evidence!’

‘And then what? Go into Witness Protection? Spend the rest of my life in Nowhereville?’

‘You mean that’d be worse than the life you live now? Oh …’ Heck became thoughtful. ‘Apart from the bit where suddenly, out of nowhere, you’ve got seventy-five grand to spend on a bunch of bonehead bikers.’ He gave the informant a long stare. ‘Frankly, Snake, if the Low Riders were seriously supposed to be your defensive shield, I don’t think you got value for money. I mean, at least you only paid them twenty-five, but even then you got robbed. The question stands, though … where the fuck did you get a chunk of cash like that?’

Despite his long kip in the car on the way up here, Snake was looking tired. And not a little confused. He indicated a nearby boulder. ‘Can I sit down?’

‘In a minute you’ll be lying down. Talk.’

‘Karl Hellstrom sent me the money. While I was still down in London.’

‘Wow. Pretty generous considering all you did was keep his name out of it.’

‘Heck … I gave you the Black Chapel. That was a big score for you. You should’ve left it there.’

‘I might’ve done if someone hadn’t then gone on and wiped out my entire team …’

‘I had no idea Karl and Eric were going to do that.’

Heck shot the ground again, this time even closer to Snake’s foot. Again, the captive jerked away, eyes bulging behind his glasses.

‘Heck, I’m not that much of a madman!’ he pleaded. ‘I’d have warned you if I’d known they were coming for you lot.’

‘Why did they do it?’

Snake looked tired again. ‘Why do you think? They’re a cult. Look … Heck, some of these black-metal extremists. This is not a bunch of pseudos playing at it. This is not just an excuse for full-on sex parties. You saw what the Black Chapel did. All that Aryan bollocks, all that pagan-Odinist blood sacrifice bullshit. I mean, to these people it’s real.’

‘And the Hellstroms are their high priests?’

‘As near as.’ Snake slumped down onto the boulder even though Heck hadn’t invited him to. ‘They’ve avoided any kind of prosecution in the past, but they’ve got their fingerprints over all these fucking crimes. The church-burnings in Norway, the murder of that old churchwarden, the rape and murder of a nun in Northern Spain, which no one over here has even heard about … and then the Black Chapel killings.’

‘And they carried out the Ace of Diamonds slaughter themselves?’

Snake glanced up. ‘Don’t look surprised. They could have hired someone, I suppose, but how would that have looked? These guys had just sent a whole bunch of their most dedicated acolytes to jail minus parole dates. And they still won’t get their own hands dirty? They get their foot soldiers to carry out some of the worst misdeeds possible, and when they’ve all been wiped out, Karl and Eric stay safe in their castle and hire someone else? Hardly the Viking way, is it?’

‘So, it was to save face?’

‘And to have revenge. SCU fucked the Black Chapel. Therefore, the kings must avenge their warriors, but revenge means nothing if the ones who deserve it most don’t get to pay.’ Snake shook his head. ‘Which is where you come in.’

‘You mean because I survived?’

‘Not only that … you defied them.’ Snake shrugged dramatically. ‘You injured Eric, you almost caught Karl, and yeah … because you’re the last loose end.’

‘So, they paid you to lead me up here?’

Snake snorted. ‘They only paid me inasmuch as they promised they wouldn’t kill my whole family, and anyone my family knows, and anyone who knows them … you know how these things work. They’ll probably still do it anyway. I mean, they know it’s me who tipped you off about the Black Chapel. Ranald Ulfskar may be doing life, but he’s telling everyone who’ll listen what a fucking traitor I am, and how I set them up.’

‘So, you bring me all the way up here, and you’re not even sure that you get to live?’

‘Story of my life.’

‘And the money to buy protection? That was just to make it look kosher?’

‘Appearance was all that mattered. Hence a gang of muttonheads like the Low Riders.’

Heck paused for long seconds to take in the encircling mountains. ‘So, Varulv are expecting me?’

‘Yeah, but they don’t know exactly when,’ Snake said. ‘You know I’ve had no way to contact them since you grabbed me.’

‘And the Low Riders don’t know anything about Varulv?’

Snake shook his head. ‘They were purely working for me.’

‘In which case … there’s still a chance to take the main men by surprise.’

Snake looked startled. ‘You’re not still thinking of going through with this?’

‘Been a lot of wasted effort these last few days if I don’t.’

‘Heck …’ Snake got up and stumbled towards him. ‘Revenge is a luxury most people can’t afford. It’s also amateur night … it never makes you feel better. I didn’t think coppers bothered with stuff like that?’

‘Then you don’t know coppers, do you?’

‘Why don’t you just take me in? Nick me lawfully? You can tell your gaffers everything I’ve just told you? I’ll take that Witness Protection deal if it’s still on offer.’

‘How do we prove it?’ Heck asked him. ‘Your word won’t be enough. These guys are multi-millionaires. Can you imagine the attack-dog legal team they’ll have?’ He pursed his lips. ‘No, I’m going down anyway. Might as well make it worthwhile.’

Snake made a few more protestations, but briefly all Heck could think about was Gemma, and the hole in his life that now could never be filled. He also thought about his Uncle Pat, who was a Catholic priest of the two-fisted variety. Back in Bradburn, he’d waged personal wars against the drug-dealers who’d plagued the day-to-day life of his parishioners. Once, he’d almost died, when a feral street gang had viciously assaulted him. But for all that, he still retained his forgiving nature. Heck, himself, had been raised a Catholic.

Vengeance is mine.

That phrase again.

But what if the whole thing was baloney?

That was an ugly thought. There were too many people roaming the world doing wicked deeds whenever the fancy took them. Hurting others and not caring about it.

Snake’s voice intruded on his thoughts. ‘Look, Heck … it’s your funeral. If this is what you want, fair enough. But what’s going to happen to me? Seriously, it’s time you told me.’

Heck looked round at him. ‘There are three ways I can deal with you, Snake. I can kill you now, shoot you and weigh you down with stones in Loch Torr over there. And that’s a big temptation, trust me. Or I can let you go. Or I can take you with me. Killing you’s no good, because six miles to Brollachan House is still six miles over rugged country I’m unfamiliar with, plus it’s likely to be going dark by the time we get close, so I’m going to need a guide. For the same reason, I can’t let you go. I could never trust a maggot like you not to get on a phone somewhere and let them know I’m on my way.’

Snake nodded resignedly. ‘So, we’re walking?’

‘Sure are. And the sooner the better.’

Snake ran a clawlike hand through his scraggy, oily hair, said a couple of foul-mouthed things under his breath, and turned wearily to the north.

23

There was no need for Gwen Straker to have gone to the Serial Crime Unit’s HQ at Staples Corner in North London. She could easily have gained full access to the policy file and other documentation concerning the unit’s investigation of the Black Chapel, both electronic and otherwise, from her own office at Scotland Yard. But an inner voice told her that only by putting herself in Gemma Piper’s shoes, as much as was feasibly possible, could she give herself a real feel for that enquiry.

Either that or she was just being morbid.

She hadn’t been anywhere near Staples Corner since the Ace of Diamonds shooting. Almost no one had, on Mike Garrickson’s orders. It wasn’t exactly a crime scene, but though he’d been reluctant to get on the IIB bandwagon and seriously consider that the motives behind the massacre might be homegrown, he’d still locked the SCU offices down in case his team, or members of IIB themselves, wanted to have a snoop around in there.

It wasn’t long after dawn when Gwen arrived at the premises, to which she still had key and card access thanks to her joint-command status on Operation Sledgehammer. Parking in the otherwise empty, litter-strewn car park, she thought long and hard before getting out and entering the bleak, medium-rise office block that towered over her.

So many friends and close acquaintances had died or been horrifically injured at the Ace of Diamonds, Gemma Piper included, that it was still proving difficult to confront the actual reality of it. Like the majority of long-service coppers, Gwen had been around violent death most of her adulthood, but that wasn’t always as onerous as it might sound. When it was a stranger, it was relatively easy to block out the significance of what had happened. Ultimately, that person was just a stat. Maybe a face on a file, but no more. They had to be, otherwise you couldn’t bring the full weight of your intellect to discovering what had happened. But when it was one of your own – and this was such an old story – it didn’t pan out like that. Ever.

Tremors passed through her as she used her key to cut the incident tape criss-crossing the personnel door. When she entered and deactivated the alarm and then walked into the lift and ascended towards the command suite, it was positively uncanny. When the door slid open at the top of the shaft, she fully expected to walk out into the midst of hive-like activity. To see familiar faces dashing to and fro, carrying urgent paperwork. To hear the banter and the bashing of keyboards. To sense Gemma Piper’s immense presence before she even saw her, the female field-marshal resident in her War Room. Because that was the way Gemma had always run her major investigations. As if they were military situations. Everything moving swiftly but efficiently. Gemma herself exercising mesmerising control at the heart of what to an outsider might resemble utter chaos but in fact was a very well-oiled machine.

To Gwen, who’d spent her last few years at Cold Cases, where the aggrieved parties were usually long dead, and sometimes the perpetrators were dead too, there’d been a perhaps more analytical but sometimes more leisurely approach. She’d still found the rush and tumble of Operation Sledgehammer invigorating, a throwback to her younger days as a divisional DI. But she’d been glad to be in partnership with Gemma, to whom any enquiry, no matter how big or fast-moving, was all in a day’s work.

All the areas she walked through were eerie in their silence and stillness: the rec room, the conference room, especially the conference room, as it had been adapted into the MIR for Sledgehammer, a semi-disorderly state in which it remained poignantly preserved. But Gemma’s office was the worst, because here lay the personal touch. A spare overcoat hung in the corner, there was paperwork in the in-tray, a lunchbox still containing a fragment of mouldy sandwich showed from a half-open drawer. Propped up on a row of filing cabinets, a calendar sat open on September 6th, the date of the Ace of Diamonds slaughter.

Gwen fought to prevent the intense emotion welling up and overcoming her, and went hurriedly about her business, taking a seat, opening her laptop, logging into the Intelligence Vault at SCU Advisory. This was the whole purpose of coming here, she told herself. And the sooner she plugged in, the quicker she’d be able to focus. For ages after she’d taken that phone-call from Gail Honeyford at heaven knew what ghastly hour, she’d tossed and turned, mulling things over, trying to work out the best course of action with the least hassle, but inevitably knowing that it would lead her here.

*

Several hours later, having familiarised herself with the most salient details of the Black Chapel investigation, and even having made one or two follow-up enquiries by telephone, Gwen was still torn with uncertainty.

Not because Gemma Piper’s written observations weren’t streamlined, coherent and concise, but because of what they told her about Karl and Eric Hellstrom, Heck’s current suspects for the Ace of Diamonds outrage.

They’d been a father and son black-metal band, Varulv, a demonic duo from Trondheim in Norway, who’d first started making music in the early 2010s, but who were strongly inspired by earlier bands, several of whom had been influentially antisemitic and anti-Christian. But Varulv had not been Satanists, as other Scandi extreme metal bands who’d gone before them had claimed to be. They’d defined themselves as ‘Odinists’, though this still meant that they hated Christians and Jews with a passion.

It all sounded menacing, but in short, Gemma Piper hadn’t bought it.

If they’d really been committed to this cause, she’d written, they’d gone into retirement in Scotland surprisingly early, Karl at the age of forty-eight, his son, Eric, only twenty-two. They were multi-millionaires by this time, of course, but then, when Gemma had looked into their background in detail, they’d never been particularly poor or downtrodden, never leading privileged lifestyles but certainly comfortable. Their acolytes on the other hand, clearly attracted by the fury and anarchy of the music and the rampant nihilism of the lyrics, invariably came from the ranks of the lost and disadvantaged, and they were the ones who’d committed the crimes.

According to Gemma Piper’s notes, at the end of the Black Chapel enquiry Heck had tried to persuade her that – even though they had five murder suspects under lock and key – they ought to investigate Varulv as well. Gemma had resisted. Firstly, because she hadn’t wanted to turn this into a God versus the Devil circus, citing the 1980s and the ridicule and scandal that half those ‘Satanic abuse’ enquiries had attracted. More important than that, though, as she’d pointed out in her summing up on the last page of the policy file, Varulv were not themselves dangerous. To them, Odinism was a money-making pose. Gemma had copied and pasted in several publicity shots of the band, in which they glowered at the camera while wearing Hollywood-type Viking regalia, and quoted references from their songs to Viking military victories, adding that many of the details and dates were incorrect. These Odin-worshippers, these New Age Norseman wannabes, hadn’t even done their research about the real Norsemen. She’d also pointed to Varulv’s vast merchandising operation, their plethora of badges, stickers and T-shirts portraying snarling wolf-heads, horned helmets, blood-spattered battle-axes. ‘Cheesy’ didn’t come close to describing it.

To Gemma, Varulv were conmen selling a form of music and philosophy, which even by the standards of the black-metal bands that had started the movement, were derivative and second-rate. For that reason alone, she couldn’t justify the additional huge expense of pursuing Varulv themselves. She’d even refused Heck permission to investigate on his own …

When the landline on Gemma’s desk suddenly rang loudly, it was such a shock in the sepulchral silence of that disused office, surrounded as it was by that maze of other dusty, silent offices, that Gwen physically jumped.

She put the receiver to her ear. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Straker.’

‘Ah, yes …’ It was an older man, slightly accented. ‘Jan Stenberg, Chief Inspector … Kripos.’

‘Hello, Chief Inspector,’ Gwen replied. ‘Thanks very much for calling me back. I’m sure you must be having a busy day, so it’s greatly appreciated.’

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to help?’ He might have an accent, but as always with Scandinavians, his English was impeccable.

‘I’m enquiring about a case that Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service looked into in 2014,’ Gwen said.

‘I will tell you anything, if I can. Though I may not have immediate access to the files.’

‘I realise that. It’s a personal opinion I’m seeking. I understand you were one of the leading investigators on the case I’m interested in …’ Gwen checked her notes. ‘It was the murder of Lukas Michelsen. He was a sixty-six-year-old churchwarden, I understand. In Tromsø. He was found near the blazing ruin of a medieval church, beaten with a bat and with a note left on his body calling for a religious war.’

‘Ah, yes.’ She heard the recognition in Stenberg’s voice. ‘Those church-burning people. The metal band thing.’

‘That’s correct. You don’t sound surprised that I’m calling you about this.’

‘I had this conversation with Detective Superintendent … Piper I think is how you say it.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘It was during your Black Chapel murder investigation,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to her team. It was reported even here in Norway. But you think there may be a connection? Is that the purpose of your call?’

‘I don’t know is the honest answer.’ Gwen sat back. ‘But I’d be interested to hear your take. As I understand it, two men were convicted of that church-burning in Tromsø and for the murder of Lukas Michelsen after he tried to interfere.’

‘Gunnar Gronlund and Ulrich Klepp,’ Stenberg said. ‘The first of them was seventeen years old, the second was nineteen.’

‘So young and so vicious, eh?’

‘They were big fans of this metal band, Varulv.’

‘Yes, I know about that. But it interests me that Varulv were not prosecuted themselves.’

Stenberg paused to consider. ‘There was much bad press for them. So much that in time they left Norway and relocated to the United Kingdom.’

‘But there was no suggestion they, too, should be prosecuted?’

‘For conspiracy to murder, you mean? When there was no conspiracy?’

‘There wasn’t?’ Gwen asked. ‘You only need to glance at their back-catalogue of songs. They’re full of references to killing Christians and driving them out of the “sacred Nordlands”. To burning their places of worship.’

‘These were their views, or so they claimed,’ he replied. ‘But there was never any proof connecting them to this particular case, though we did look into it.’

‘Sorry … you said, “so they claimed”.’

He paused again. ‘You ask for my personal viewpoint?’

‘Yes please.’

‘These guys, Karl and Eric Hellstrom, were … how would you say in Britain, “all mouth”. They wanted the notoriety and the money that went with this image they made for themselves. But they never committed any crime.’

‘Maybe they were just careful about that?’ she said. ‘They could still have instigated that murder.’

‘They made arguments that thriller writers often indulge in dangerous fantasies on the written page, and that no one blames them when horrible crimes occur, even if the criminals have copies of those books on their shelves. So why, they asked, is it always different with rock bands. We realised at an early stage that this would be a difficult defence to break down. And in any case, it remains a fact that nowhere could we find evidence they had instructed Gronlund and Klepp to burn the church at Tromsø or to kill or even assault anyone who stood in their way. Also, one should look at the individuals responsible. Gronlund and Klepp were what you might call troubled people. Their early lives were difficult. They were young but both already had long criminal records.’

‘You’re saying they were just as likely to commit acts like these if they hadn’t become followers of Varulv?’

‘It is possible,’ he said. ‘The Hellstroms’ racist teaching might have given them a kind of focus, but they were already known to the police for doing bad things.’

Gwen considered that. It would have been next to impossible to mount a prosecution of Varulv under those circumstances. There was no chance the CPS would have gone for it.

‘I had this same conversation with Superintendent Piper,’ Stenberg added. ‘And she concurred, I think. It seemed to me that her own suspects in your Black Chapel case were of a similar type. In any case, all the trouble will now be going the other way for the Hellstroms.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Gwen said. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You haven’t heard?’

‘Haven’t heard what?’

‘Ah. Our Northern Office is at present investigating the murder of a Hellstrom family member. Torvald Pedersen. Again, I think this is unconnected …’

‘Can you give me some details?’ Gwen interrupted.

‘Pedersen’s body was fished from a lake in Troms og Finnmark, which is in my country’s North Cape. He had been beaten, stabbed and scalped.’

‘Scalped?’ she said, startled.

‘Yes, it was a gruesome case.’

Gwen had been a detective for most of her thirty-plus years in the job, and she didn’t think she’d ever come across a scalping before. ‘That kind of thing happens in Norway?’

‘Not at all,’ Stenberg replied. ‘Troms og Finnmark is a peaceful region. It has a small population and low crime.’

‘So, what’s your thinking on this one?’

‘We are not connecting it to the Hellstroms’ past misdeeds. By all accounts, this Pedersen was not close to them. A distant cousin.’

‘What do you think happened to him?’

‘We have an open mind, but he was a known drinker. From what we understand, he would travel for miles in the company of people he met in bars.’

‘He could have met the wrong person, then? A sex-attacker maybe? While he was drunk?’

‘That is one possibility. But as I say, we have several ideas.’

‘Well, good luck with it,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a nasty case.’

‘Is there anything else I can help you with, Detective Chief Superintendent?’

‘No, that’s fine. Thanks very much.’

‘Please call again if you have additional requirements.’

‘I will. Thank you.’

Gwen replaced the receiver and pondered, chewing on a pen as she eyed the scattered paperwork in front of her and the clutter of open files onscreen.

Troubled people, Stenberg had said.

She hit a few keys, calling up the criminal records of the five men whom Gemma Piper had charged with the Black Chapel murders.

‘Troubled people,’ she said aloud.

There was no denying that here.

Cult leader Albert ‘Ranald Ulfskar’ Jones was an ex-pimp and regular bar-room brawler, not to mention the son of an alcoholic prostitute mother, who, while he was a child, would let him watch her with her clients. Second-in-command Sherwin Lightfoot was a hard-drinking former EDL member, who had never held down a job due to persistent absenteeism and his habit of making threats to fellow workers. Cult soldiers Michael Hapwood and Jason Renwick were also regular jailbirds, a convicted thief and drug-dealer and a gang-member respectively. While even the crew’s weakling, the one whom Gemma had cracked first, Dennis Purdham, had been a homeless addict for a time, as well as a pickpocket and burglar, and had been in and out of mental hospitals.

If any bunch had been likely to cause mayhem with or without the influence of hate-preachers like Karl and Eric Hellstrom, it was this motley band.

Evidently, Gemma Piper had thought the same.

Gwen sat back again, wondering hard.

Heck’s instincts had often been good. But not always. No one was right all the time. And this appeared to be one such occasion. Gemma, on the other hand, had been bang-on, and that correct decision on her part almost certainly held good now.

Mike Garrickson hadn’t been far wrong at that meeting in Joe Wullerton’s office, when he’d accused Gwen of planning for Heck to lead them to the real killers, but now she had reservations about that. If these Varulv guys had just been a pair of painted performers, a couple of pantomime villains looking to retire at the first opportunity, how could they seriously be regarded as viable suspects in the Ace of Diamonds shooting? Why would they have endangered the gold-plated lifestyle they’d secured for themselves? No matter what Snake Fletcher thought he knew about how evil they were, or said he thought he knew – and it could only have been Snake Fletcher who’d put Heck onto the Hellstroms, and by rep he was about as reliable as a pinpricked condom – poseurs posed. They didn’t kill.

Not that this made things any easier. Far from it.

Gwen yawned and rubbed at her eyes. She was surprised when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was already approaching midday. As well as sleepy, she felt hollow and hungry, and had a deep craving for coffee. Before leaving the building though, a final thought occurred to her.

It was a whim, in truth. Something of nothing, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to put it from her mind until she’d acted on it, and so dug her phone out and composed a hurried text to Sophie Cotillard, her favourite criminal intelligence analyst at Interpol headquarters in Lyon.

Hi Sophie.

DCS Gwen Straker here. NCG, Scotland Yard.

Sorry for the unexpected and informal approach. But I have a quick question, and I’d appreciate it if we could avoid going through the usual official rigmarole.

Anything in the databanks about … scalping?

Yes, you heard that right. Scalping. Like we used to see on cowboy films.

Anything at all on killers whose MO involves scalping their victims? Any open cases or ongoing investigations? Any unsub for whom this is a current, very good fit?

Also, anyone convicted of this? Either serving time or otherwise.

Also … could it be the trait of any known OCG? A prescribed punishment perhaps, or a particular trademark?

Basically, I’m looking for anything at all we may have on scalping as a modern-day pastime. Sorry, I know this is out of the blue and an absolute liberty. But you know how much I love you guys and value your work.

Gwen Straker

‘Christ knows why I’m bothering,’ she said, yawning again as she hit Send.

She exited the sad, silent office. It wasn’t as if there wasn’t a mountain of their own crap building up, and building up fast.

24

It was a picturesque winter’s day, the snow-tipped summits luminous against a dim blue sky adrift with wisps of pink cloud. The sun barely peeked over the high ridges. Breath fogging, Heck and Snake tramped across ground that rose and fell, from low, deep-frozen bog-land to higher, dryer glens sugar-coated with frost. The ice-cold air was harsh on the lungs, but Heck was unrelenting. Every few hundred yards, when Snake, walking in front, complained of weariness or pains in his joints, the response was a terse ‘Move it!’. If that didn’t work, a kick in the backside did.

‘You look like shit, yourself,’ Snake grumbled as they plodded on. ‘Don’t know how you can keep going.’

‘That sandwich was all we needed.’

‘We’ll get worms off that.’

The sandwich they referred to had been a half-eaten chickenburger, layered with limp lettuce and coagulated sauce, and squashed into a soggy carton, which they’d found at the back of the Lexus’ glovebox.

‘We only got a bite each anyway,’ Snake added. ‘What good’ll that do us?’

‘You don’t need any more than that,’ Heck replied. ‘You’re a fucking scarecrow.’

‘You’ve been watching too many Bear Grylls programmes. We need proper sustenance. We need rest.’

A blow to the left ear drew a choked yelp from the informant.

‘The next thing I need to hear from you, Snake, is that we’ve entered the Hellstroms’ hunting reserve. Until then, save your breath.’

Snake said nothing, but grunted and groaned as they trudged on over rugged, ever-ascending ground, up braes and along ravines, the hours wearing on until the cold gnawed at their bones. Only when they crossed a mountain stream that had frozen solid did he start complaining again. ‘We’re going to die out here, Heck. We’re not dressed for this.’

‘You know what your beloved Norwegians say? If you step outside your house and you’re warm enough, you’re wearing too many clothes. Keep walking.’

‘I’m thirsty.’

‘Lick some frost.’

They pushed on, a white, freezing mist rising. Every few minutes the ground levelled off, now for hundreds of yards at a time. It struck Heck that this was a unique aspect of the Scottish mountains, as opposed to the Lake District or Wales: you could climb and climb here, seemingly to the clouds, only to then discover yet more flat landscapes, vast tracts of ordinary countryside existing far above sea level. Of course, the immense emptiness of these high, bleak moors, the hollowness of the air, the crunching echoes of their feet as they trod over ice and impacted snow, was ghostly in its aura, almost alien. If it hadn’t been for the occasional clumps of pine and gorse, they could have been on Titan or Io.

Slowly, the day descended into a still, pale twilight, stars twinkling in a sky that had now turned purple. Heck checked his watch and was surprised to see that it wasn’t yet half-past three. It was getting darker earlier than he’d been used to. Not by a great deal, but sufficiently to concern him that if they didn’t reach their destination soon, there’d be problems. Roughing it out here would be a challenge at any time, but through the deep sub-zero of a midwinter Highlands night, with no shelter and no protective clothing, they wouldn’t make it.

A minute later, though, there was better news.

Snake sighed with relief, coming to rest against a low drystone wall that bisected their path. It only reached about thigh-height, but there were three strands of barbed wire along the top, with tufts of matted, decayed fleece hanging off them. He leaned against it, body and shoulders stiff, head drooped.

‘This it?’ Heck asked, looking past the wall down a gradient that dropped into mist.

‘This is the edge of it.’ Snake heaved for breath. ‘They guard this place like their lives depend on it. Karl told me he’s the only landowner in these parts who uses wire, and he doesn’t give a shit.’ Snake made a pantomime attempt to mimic a Nordic accent, but it just sounded American. ‘“No fucking freedom to roam here, uh?”’

‘How far to Brollachan House?’ Heck asked.

‘Christ, I don’t know. Look, I’m not doing this thing from memory. I never came this way, anyway. I was in a van and we came from the road. Plus it was a one-off. Eric’s eighteenth birthday. Seems a fucking lifetime ago now.’ Snake’s features were sallow with fatigue, almost yellow. Sweat dripped from the point of his long, thin nose. ‘But the house wasn’t too far onto the estate once you’d accessed it from the A82, so if we’re still going straight north … probably a couple of miles.’

‘Probably?’ Heck said.

‘You’d better hope it’s that.’ Snake shook his head. ‘Because there’s nothing else out here.’

‘How big is this estate? Overall?’

‘Fuck knows. Nineteen thousand acres, give or take a few.’

‘Nineteen …?’ At first, even Heck was taken aback by that, unable to comprehend the kind of wealth that could acquire you so much loch and glen and moor.

‘They’ve got grouse shoots, deer forests, several rivers where they own exclusive fishing rights …’

‘And how many staff work here?’

‘I don’t know.’ Snake perched his backside on the lip of the wall. ‘Like I say, I’ve only been once, and I didn’t go anywhere except the house and the immediate grounds. There were no footmen or any of that shit, but there were people doing odd jobs and stuff. Mostly outside. Doesn’t matter, anyway. They’ve sent them all on holiday. They don’t want any witnesses around for when you arrive.’

Heck gazed down past the wall. Dusk was falling, turning the mist into impenetrable winter murk.

‘Heck, listen … for old time’s sake, listen to me, eh?’ For once, for maybe the first time since Heck had abducted him, Snake sounded earnest. ‘The population of the whole of Scotland is five and a half million, tops. Yet the landmass itself, and this is just the mainland … is about thirty thousand square miles. That’s about one hundred and eighty people per square mile, and most of them are in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Think about that. There are more fucking sheep up here than people. Fuck that, there are more Highland cattle, there are more fucking capercaillies. What I’m saying is, if this thing turns to shit … you’re really going to be on your own. There’ll be no one to help you. No one!’

Heck stared into the mist. Face fixed, eyes narrowed.

Snake levered himself up from the wall. ‘Heck, look … you can still go back. They don’t know you’re here yet. You really going to throw your life in the shitter over this? That’s assuming you even survive this thing, which is hardly a given …’

Heck grabbed him by the lapels of his sweat-damp jacket and threw him over the wall.

Snake landed headfirst on the other side. The blow was so heavy that this time he could scarcely even squawk. Not even when Heck vaulted over in pursuit, hauled him back to his feet and marched him down the slope.

25

‘You know … you’re a bit of a conundrum.’

Gail glanced up from her paperwork. Jude Penhaligon was seated close by, watching her laptop screen, where the Skype link was open but thus far remained blank. The coffee bar was mostly empty of customers. It was a pretty ordinary place: tiled floor, strip-lighting, tables mopped until they gleamed but no one seated at them. Beyond the big windows, vehicle headlights speared back and forth along the M6 motorway.

‘I’m sorry?’ Gail said.

Penhaligon didn’t look round. ‘Your antagonism to Professional Standards surprises me.’

‘Well … there’s been lots about this trip that’s surprised you so far, hasn’t there, ma’am.’

Penhaligon ignored that. ‘A few years ago, you arrested a well-regarded detective sergeant in Surrey CID. He was later convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.’

Gail shrugged. ‘He was guilty as charged and a total asshat.’

‘So, when bad coppers become a problem for you, it’s okay to take them out of the game? But not when they’re a problem for others?’

Gail put her pen down. ‘It’s not that simple, though, is it? You lot go looking for bad coppers even where there aren’t any.’

‘We haven’t had to look very hard for Heckenburg, have we? We’re now after him for kidnapping as well as assault.’

‘And the context has nothing to do with it?’

The DI shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what context you’re talking about. At present, we don’t even know what the hell he thinks he’s doing.’

‘I think we’ve got some idea. You wouldn’t have parked us up North if we hadn’t.’

Penhaligon was careful how she responded to that. She liked to think that she was a smart enough detective to know when to trust a colleague’s instincts, even if that colleague was utterly insufferable. But she wasn’t giving praise if it wasn’t necessarily due.

‘We’re still up North, DC Honeyford … because this is the part where your Mark Heckenburg expertise supposedly kicks in.’

‘It’s a possibility, that’s all,’ Gail said. ‘Snake Fletcher was Heck’s lead informant on the Black Chapel case. Which was a nasty business. We’re talking three torture-murders. After it was over, Heck wasn’t entirely happy that SCU had collared everyone involved. He was particularly suspicious about this Norwegian rock band. He reckoned they’d been mentoring the killers, or something like that.’

‘Mentoring?’ Penhaligon pursed her lips. ‘That’s a new one. The criminal offence of mentoring someone.’

Gail couldn’t help bristling again. Over the last few hours, while not exactly attempting to put herself into DI Penhaligon’s shoes, she’d been telling herself that she had to readjust her thinking, that it couldn’t be a case of ‘I protect my mate whether he’s right or wrong’. But sarcasm was more than she could bear.

‘So … you’d have let Charles Manson walk, would you, ma’am?’ she asked.

Penhaligon didn’t reply, just glanced at her watch.

‘The point is,’ Gail said, ‘this rock band live somewhere in Scotland. And if this guy who Heck nabbed is Snake Fletcher … well, most likely he’s making him lead the way. Which is why I think we should be heading up there right now, not cooling our heels in Lancaster.’

‘Scotland’s a big place, Gail. And you want to just mosey on up there with no further intel?’

‘It’s too remote a possibility to go up there and make further enquiries? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, it’s not.’ At last, the DI deigned to look round at her. ‘I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis in actual fact. But let’s not forget, Gail, that at present Mark Heckenburg is not a police officer. He’s a murder suspect, who, even as we watch, appears to be committing crimes the length of the country. When we catch up with him, and we will – though not by charging blindly into the vast emptiness of the Scottish Highlands – this needs to be at the forefront of your mind, okay?’ Penhaligon shook her head. ‘That nonsense down by the River Lune … I mean, I’ve never heard anything like that, but it sounds like the kind of craziness Mark Heckenburg gets up to regularly. It doesn’t make him a daredevil, or someone to be admired …’

‘Who said it did?’ Gail interrupted.

‘At present we’ve got a bunch of bikers in hospital with very severe injuries.’

‘I know.’ Gail feigned concern. ‘Don’t know if I’ll be able to get over that.’

‘And how do you feel about the driver of the car-transporter? He’s badly hurt, too. Or is that just typical of the kind of collateral damage that happens when Heck pulls one of these wild escapades?’

No smartarse answer was possible to that, not even from Gail.

‘Even if he’s not guilty of any crime at all,’ the DI added, ‘which at present there is zero chance of, he still needs reining in. You surely don’t disagree with that?’

Gail was about to reply when Penhaligon’s laptop came to life, the Skype call coming through. She accepted and a tired and harassed-looking Detective Chief Superintendent Gwen Straker appeared onscreen.

‘Ma’am.’ The DI signalled to Gail to pull her chair around the table.

Gail did so, allowing the DCS to see them both.

‘Ladies,’ Gwen said, her attention divided between her own screen and a pile of documents on her desk. ‘How are you two doing?’

‘We’re fine, ma’am, but we’ve been busy,’ Penhaligon answered.

‘Yes. From what I hear, spending the whole day helping Lancashire Constabulary put cases together against the president of this motorbike gang, Kyle Armstrong.’

‘We’ve been helping Lancashire interview motorway users who witnessed the car-transporter incident, ma’am,’ Penhaligon corrected her. ‘But mainly that was to help ourselves establish which offences Mark Heckenburg is guilty of.’

Gwen nodded. ‘Perhaps you can enlighten me about that?’

‘It was clearly him on the back of the transporter. The descriptions match. And he did appear to have a hostage with him. The Lexus Mark III …’ the DI glanced at her notes, ‘index BC48 XLZ, and the two motorbikes, a Yamaha MT-07 and a Honda PCX-125, appear to have been tailgating the vehicle over several miles, their riders and drivers shooting repeatedly at its upper decks, where Heckenburg and his hostage were holed up.’

‘Did any of these witnesses report Heck returning fire?’

‘Not as yet,’ Penhaligon said.

‘Not as yet?’ Gwen looked interested in that. ‘So, you’ve got more people to interview around the Lancaster area … even though it seems obvious that the subject of your enquiry has moved away.’

‘Ma’am …’ Again, Penhaligon had to clamp down on a sharp riposte.

It infuriated but also fascinated her how, despite the many internal enquiries she’d led, and for all the unfair flak that had flown her way as a result, only now, on the trail of Mark Heckenburg, was she regularly struggling not to lose it. Everyone involved in this case was able to niggle at her in ways that couldn’t easily be resisted, and DCS Straker was no exception. A treasured figurehead in the Met, not just because she was a poster-child for police officers of colour, but because she was also a damn good SIO, she was another, it seemed, who appeared to have a blind spot where Heckenburg was concerned.

‘Ma’am … we’re currently lodged in the motel at Lancaster Services on the M6, where, having outlined the full situation in my last report to you, I am now awaiting further instructions. In the meantime, I’ve advised Lancashire’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit that we can assist if they need us. If they don’t, I’ve also requested they copy us in on any further information that may arise regarding the car-transporter incident as it likely has considerable relevance to our own enquiry.’

‘Well, it sounds like you’ve dotted every i and crossed every t, DI Penhaligon. What time are you thinking of signing off today?’

Penhaligon glanced at her watch. ‘We were on the go till four this morning. We’ve done an eight-hour stint today as well, so …’

‘So, you’re both having an early night?’ It was one of those loaded questions senior supervisors asked that weren’t really questions at all.

‘Erm, well …’

‘Good,’ Gwen said. ‘Because you’ve got a rendezvous tomorrow with Police Scotland in the car park of the Glenmartin House hotel, which is off the A82, just outside Tyndrum in Stirlingshire. The contact is a DCI Alan MacDonald from Argyll and Dumbarton Major Incident Team. I’ve given him your ETA as six tomorrow morning. I wanted it to be earlier, but given that we’re working almost entirely from supposition here, that’s the soonest he can get his troops together.’

‘I see.’ Penhaligon didn’t voice her very obvious objection to this, even though neither she nor Gail needed to consult a map to work out that Tyndrum was a good four-hour drive away, at least. ‘Well … that shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘From your tone of voice, it is.’

Penhaligon shrugged. ‘I’m just surprised that we’re dashing up to Scotland given what’s been happening down here.’

‘Do you want to arrest Mark Heckenburg, or not?’

‘Of course.’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Gail interjected. ‘Does this mean there’s something to confirm our suspicions about this rock band?’

‘Let’s just say that new matters have arisen, which have informed our thinking,’ Gwen replied. ‘To start with, I’ve spent most of today taking a deep dive into the Black Chapel case. And you were right. Heck definitely had a theory about these black-metallers, Varulv. He was convinced they were the emotional force behind the Black Chapel murders. The problem with that is that having an emotional impact on an offender is not the same as enabling or assisting him. DSU Piper didn’t believe that Karl and Eric Hellstrom were involved in the Black Chapel killings. Which, from what I can see, means that it would be totally absurd for them to then get involved in the Ace of Diamonds incident, let alone carry it out themselves. So, what’s troubling me now, ladies – what’s deeply troubling me – is that if Mark Heckenburg isn’t apprehended quickly, he’s going to do something very regrettable.’

‘Ma’am,’ Gail said, ‘I know Heck’s got a rep for being a loose cannon, but he’s not the sort of copper to routinely pull the trigger on people. You know that.’

‘Gail, you need to look at the bigger picture. Look what Heck thinks these men did to the rest of SCU … to Gemma, for heaven’s sake! You know Heck as well as I do, and that means you know how devoted he was to her, even if he’d never admit it.’

‘It’s also the case that he’s behaving like a maniac,’ Penhaligon put in. ‘Let’s not deny that.’

‘He’s desperate,’ Gail argued. ‘He’s a fugitive, he thinks he’s completely alone, that everyone’s out to get him.’

‘Which doesn’t make my concern that he might kill a bunch of innocent people any the less likely,’ Gwen replied.

‘Ma’am, this is Heck we’re talking about. Come on …’

‘Gail, don’t pretend that you’re not worried, too.’ Gwen leaned closer to the camera. ‘Don’t look me in the eye and tell me you think that if we sit on our hands and do nothing, all this will be okay.’

Gail shrugged, sighed. ‘I know we need to save Heck from himself. Send us where we need to go, ma’am, and I won’t let you down.’

Gwen nodded. ‘Okay. Well, it seems that Karl Hellstrom and his son, Eric, are co-owners of a hunting estate in the Western Highlands, which seems to be their permanent place of residence. Its centrepiece is a seventeenth century hunting lodge called Brollachan House. The main access to this is via an entrance gate located off the A82, on the road to Glencoe. Tyndrum’s about an hour and a half south of there, so you’ll be liaising with Police Scotland first. Don’t worry, you’re not going in alone.’

Gail scribbled all this down.

‘You’re very quiet, Jude,’ Gwen said. ‘I thought you’d be champing at the bit now we’re all on the same side about getting Mark Heckenburg off the streets.’

‘The only question I’ve got, ma’am,’ Penhaligon replied, ‘is do we know for a fact that Heckenburg’s following this path? We’ve only got the word of a drug-dealing biker that this hostage Heckenburg’s got with him is Jimmy Fletcher. That wasn’t even the name Kyle Armstrong gave us in his statement. If we’re wrong on this, me and DC Honeyford heading all the way up to the Scottish Highlands is quite a wild goose chase.’

‘Check your emails,’ Gwen replied. ‘I’ve just sent you one.’

Penhaligon pulled up her inbox. The DCS’s message had a single attachment. When they opened it, it was a black and white snapshot of some kind of altercation occurring alongside a stationary vehicle in an otherwise empty parking area. Three men were visible, all in dark clothing, all slightly blurred as if everything had been happening at high speed. One of them lay on his back on the ground, twisted in pain, clutching his crotch, while another was in the process of running off-camera, dragging the third one behind him. Only this third man’s face was visible as he glanced upward, presumably unintentionally, towards a CCTV unit. He was thin-featured – ‘a weasel’, was how Kyle Armstrong had put it – with glasses, wet, stringy hair and a scraggy beard.

‘That’s DC Gary Quinnell’s car, by the way,’ Gwen added. ‘So, I’ve already saved him the trouble of giving me an unconvincing sob story tomorrow morning about how he’s only just found it stolen.’

Penhaligon shook her head as she restored Skype. DC Gary Quinnell, too. Another one prepared to put everything on the line for Mark Heckenburg. Again, she wondered where that kind of allegiance came from. She already knew that Heck had enemies in the job, but his friends were as tight as they came. She had enemies too, but when it came to her friends, they were people like Toby Crick. It was difficult not to be disheartened when you thought in those terms.

‘That isn’t an ideal match for the mugshots of Jimmy Fletcher that we have on file,’ Gwen added, referring to the weasel on the footage. ‘But a few years have passed since he was last in custody, so that might explain it. I’ve asked round and those who know him of old reckon it’s as close as damn it. Before either of you ask, it’s a screengrab from the forecourt of the Lancashire Link Road petrol station at Junction 32a on the M6, where Heck appears to have climbed aboard this car-transporter.’

‘We have to assume it’s Snake Fletcher,’ Gail said. ‘Everything’s pointing to it.’

Penhaligon remained circumspect. ‘We know the vehicle Heckenburg’s now travelling in is Kyle Armstrong’s Lexus Mark III. We also have the VRM. Now, there must be a few ANPR cameras between here and Tyndrum?’

‘Only on the motorway,’ Gail argued.

‘So, given that if he didn’t travel by motorway he’d only get there next week,’ Penhaligon said, ‘what are we reading into the fact that no cameras have clocked this particular car thus far? I’m assuming they haven’t, ma’am, otherwise you’d have mentioned it already?’

‘DI Penhaligon …’ Gwen chose her words carefully. ‘I’m not sure that a standard ANPR system is one hundred percent reliable in situations like this.’

‘You mean because Heckenburg’s such a genius that he can outfox it?’

‘He’s not just some scrote,’ Gail butted in. ‘He’s a copper. He knows what’s what.’

‘And in any case, we must now assume that this rock band, Varulv, are his primary target,’ Gwen said. ‘I’m not pretending this isn’t a long-shot, Jude. But we’re facing a potential catastrophe here, and this may be our only chance to nip it in the bud. Seeing as you and the rest of IIB have been pretty keen to implicate Heck in a crime of some sort, I’d have thought you’d jump at this chance to catch him in the act of committing one. That said, we still need to hand this part of the enquiry over to someone with adequate jurisdiction, and that means Police Scotland. Now, yes … I’ve already spoken to DCI MacDonald on the phone and I could easily leave it at that, but I’d also like to have some of my own people on the ground in case it goes belly-up. Presumably, you don’t have a problem with that?’

‘No, ma’am,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Of course not. So … what’s the plan when we speak to MacDonald?’

‘Fill him in on the case,’ Gwen said. ‘As much as we’ve got. I’ve already emailed him a load of bumph on the Black Chapel. Then go up to the house with him. Remember that he and his team will have tactical command, but play any card you need to get in on the interviews with Karl and Eric Hellstrom.’

‘Do we treat them as suspects too, ma’am?’ Gail asked.

Gwen made a weary gesture. ‘I’d love to, but we’ve no grounds for that. Talk to them, by all means. Pick up anything you can. But Mark Heckenburg is your priority target. At the first opportunity, identify him to MacDonald and his team, who will take the appropriate action.’

‘And if Mark Heckenburg is there,’ Penhaligon said, ‘he’ll be armed. Or so Kyle Armstrong warned us. In which case, we’ll need to tell Police Scotland the same thing.’

‘Already taken care of,’ Gwen replied. ‘There are ARVs on call. But for tonight, mobile patrols will give the property passing attention. Until we can give them something more solid, they can’t justify a permanent or armed guard on the premises. Now … you people get yourself some kip while you can. Hit the road first thing. I’ll call you back if there’s anything new.’

After the Skype session ended, DI Penhaligon looked pensive. ‘It’s an early start, considering all we’re going to be doing is talking to people.’

Gail shrugged. ‘Heck’s been two steps ahead of us all the way. The earlier the better.’

The DI glanced at her. ‘You look peeved. Why? Even if we don’t get to Heckenburg in time, Police Scotland will. Doesn’t matter who stops him so long as someone does. Assuming you and DCS Straker are right, of course.’

Gail smiled wanly. ‘I’m still harbouring a faint hope that we’re not.’

Penhaligon stood up and closed her laptop. ‘You’re certainly loyal to your colleague, Gail. Nine times out of ten that would be very commendable.’

‘Meaning this is the one time it isn’t?’

‘You heard DCS Straker. We’re going to Scotland to stop him killing innocent people. Loyalty has its limits.’

Gail shook her head. All her usual truculence had gone. Instead, she looked worried, tired. ‘I don’t know how it’s come to this. I really don’t.’

‘Emotion.’ Penhaligon tucked the laptop under her arm. ‘It’s the worst thing you can have in this job. This intensity of repressed feeling between Heckenburg and DSU Piper. Thinking about it, didn’t that always look like a disaster waiting to happen?’

‘I think a gang of cold-blooded murderers had a role to play, too.’

‘Granted. If nothing else, though …’ briefly, the DI seemed conciliatory, ‘Heckenburg’s determination to get even with these rockers from Norway takes him out of the frame for the Ace of Diamonds.’

‘I just hope he doesn’t pay a price for that, anyway.’

‘If you’re worried about Police Scotland having twitchy trigger-fingers, they’re not renowned for that.’

Gail shrugged again, toughening up, trying to imply that this wasn’t a great concern.

‘I’ll meet you in the car park at two a.m.,’ Penhaligon said. ‘Try and get some sleep. I know it won’t be easy.’

‘Easy?’ Gail muttered after she’d been left there alone. ‘I’d have more chance with one leg in an arse-kicking contest.’

26

As they descended into a lower glen, the mist thinned out. Here, a wooden footbridge with low handrails led over a burn. The woodwork was slippery with frost, but below it, the water gushed unfrozen along a rocky channel. On the other side of this, there were dense stands of trees. Snake swung round.

‘We’re well into the estate,’ he said. ‘Not too far from the main house. So, I’m making one last appeal. Heck, these guys’ll kill you for sure. They want you to come. They’re ready for you.’

Heck halted, too.

‘You’re out on your feet, anyway,’ Snake said. ‘And what condition do you think they’ll be in? They’re a pair of fitness fanatics. They’ve got a gym up there, a swimming pool, they hunt every day. They’re survivalists as well as Odinists or Satanists or whatever else you want to call it. Look, you saved my life on the M6. You pulled me in when I thought I was going to drop underneath that car-transporter. Let me give you the same deal. Turn round and go back. I’ll carry on … tell them I couldn’t persuade you to come. That as far as you’re concerned, it’s over. You, meanwhile … go to the car and knob off back to England.’

‘There’s no petrol in the car.’ Heck nudged him with the silencer. ‘Keep moving.’

Snake trudged leftward, following the course of the burn. ‘No petrol … Lord help us.’

‘It’s always been a one-way ticket,’ Heck reminded him.

‘At least take a rest.’

‘I don’t need a rest. You’d be amazed what the human body’s capable of when it’s motivated enough. Besides, there’s no time for resting.’

‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Because in a very short time, coppers all over Scotland will be looking for us.’

Snake glanced back, scornful. ‘You reckon?’

‘I know. The people following us are not as stupid as you. It’s tonight or never.’

They plodded on, travelling solely by the moonlight reflecting from the frost in the grass and the ice along the edge of the burn.

‘I’m not going to be any use to you when this fight comes,’ Snake warned him. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, I know that.’

They roved glumly on for another ten minutes, until the outline of a building materialised at a turn in the water. By the looks of it, it was a cottage. Smallish, built from granite blocks, with a heavy slate roof, but neat and tidy, stained glass in some of its windows, a small wall encircling it, leafless trees and bushes in the garden. There were no interior lights showing even though it was only early evening.

Heck stopped, grabbing Snake’s shoulder. ‘What’s this place?’ he asked quietly.

‘Gillie’s cottage.’

‘Gillie? Like a gamekeeper?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No sign of life.’

‘I told you … they’ve all been sent away.’

Heck pressed the muzzle of the silencer into the back of Snake’s neck. ‘Forward. Quietly.’

They proceeded, but with more stealth, Heck’s gaze locked on the approaching structure. The last thing he needed now was to get into a scrape with some Highland Games champion. But the building remained dark and still, and by the time they’d reached its perimeter wall, he was reassured that the estate’s staff had indeed been dismissed.

‘Over,’ he said, prodding Snake again.

‘Do you really need me from here?’ Snake mumbled. ‘We’re almost there.’

‘Get over!’

The hostage scrambled over the wall, Heck quickly following. From here, they wove their way between the trunks of what looked like fruit trees to the cottage itself, and from there commenced a slow circuit of the property, following a lightly gravelled path, halting before each window to listen and peek inside. At no stage did they hear or see anything untoward. Heck glanced continually overhead but spotted nothing resembling an alarm box.

‘Don’t sweat that,’ Snake said in a low voice. ‘We’re smack in the middle of a private estate, in the middle of bloody nowhere. Who’s going to break in here?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Heck muttered, testing the next window with his outspread gloved hand, and then, content that the lead framing its stained-glass imagery was old and weak, ramming it with his left elbow.

The entire thing fell through, though not quietly, the multicoloured shards raining onto what sounded like a paved floor. They stood taut, listening. But again, the seconds passed and nothing happened in response.

‘In!’ Heck grabbed Snake by the scruff of his collar and upended him over the sill.

The guy yowled as he landed hands-first on multiple broken edges.

‘Get over it.’ Heck straddled through after him. ‘What’s a little cut?’

He yanked the prisoner back up, and they moved again, slowly. The moonlight intruding through every window painted a clear picture of what looked initially like a small, rustic living room: a single sofa and rocking-chair facing a granite fireplace rather than a television set; lamps dotted around; a wall of leather-jacketed books; a side-table bearing a silver tray on which resided a bottle of malt and two crystal tumblers.

‘Even the staff do well up here, eh?’ Heck remarked.

‘Different kind of life,’ Snake said sulkily. ‘Tell folk you’re in service, they think you’re a joke. But if you’re in service to the nobs, you get more than a few perks.’

‘How far are we from the house?’

‘If you’re talking about putting the lights on, I wouldn’t. Probably half a mile, but like I say, they’re waiting for you. Why give ’em a heads up?’

Heck kept his pistol level as he mooched. He found a small kitchen, and beyond that a kind of scullery in which there were basic utility items. From there, another door led past a downstairs toilet and into a brick-built tack room, its walls hung with bridles, harnesses and other items of gleaming leather saddlery.

‘How many bedrooms here?’ he asked.

‘Christ’s sake, I’ve never been in here. Why would I? Can’t be room for more than two, though.’

Heck headed back across the downstairs, steering the captive in front, until he found what he was looking for: a telephone. He yanked its cable from the wall.

‘What’s that for?’ Snake sounded nervous again.

‘Get upstairs.’

‘What now? I thought we were solid.’

‘Upstairs.’

Snake stumbled up the cottage’s crooked stair, complaining all the way, Heck close behind. There was a narrow landing at the top, where two doors stood diagonal to each other. The first led into a tiny box-room, the second to a small bedroom with a slanted ceiling. The bed in there was single and laid with a fleece coverlet. There was also a wardrobe, a bureau with a jug of water, a basin, a hairbrush and shaving kit on it, and a set of drawers underneath. There was a wardrobe too, which, when Heck looked inside, was filled with suits of clothes, some for the outdoors, some for the indoors. As Snake had said, the cottage had the aura of a servant’s quarters, though a servant who was currently absent.

‘Looks like you’ve told me the truth so far,’ Heck said.

‘So?’ Snake sounded hopeful.

‘So, here’s your reward. A bed for the night.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Heck jabbed the silencer into the nape of his neck. ‘Hands behind your back.’

Snake obeyed but hissed with disbelief when Heck lashed his wrists together, using a long piece of leather, a lunge line that he’d taken from the tack room.

‘On the bed!’ Heck said.

‘Come on, what the hell’s this?’

‘On the bloody bed!’ Heck pushed him down, face onto the mattress, where he proceeded to hog-tie the skinny bastard, binding his immobilised wrists tight to his ankles.

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this after everything I’ve done for you,’ Snake whimpered.

‘You knew who murdered my friends but chose to go along with it rather than tell anyone. You were lining me up for the chop, too. You thought I’d let you walk?’

‘It wasn’t by choice. I told you, they’d have killed my family.’

‘In that case, consider this a favour.’

‘A favour?’

Heck stepped back. ‘I can’t leave you to your own devices, Snake. There’s no way to lock you in here. You could easily get out and send a warning up to the big house. Plus, this way it looks like their plan was working till I twigged you. This way, no one’ll blame you. I had a gun, you didn’t. They might believe it more, though, if I rough you up a little.’

‘I’ll pass on that,’ Snake said hurriedly.

‘Your shout. You want some water before I go?’

‘Given you’re never likely to return … yes.’

Heck brought the jug over and tipped it against Snake’s mouth. It was difficult for the captive, lying sideways, but he gulped at it noisily.

‘You know I’ve had no food for God knows how long,’ he complained.

‘Whatever happens up there, someone’ll find you by tomorrow.’

‘What if I need the bog?’

‘No one’ll notice in those keks, pal. But if it bothers you, once you get loose, there’s a whole wardrobe there. Help yourself.’

‘You bastard!’

‘And if you don’t shut up, I’ll gag you again. And this time it won’t be a sock, it’ll be underpants.’

‘You can’t do this …’ Snake’s voice diminished as Heck clumped back downstairs.

He didn’t leave the cottage straight away. Some of Snake’s gabbling had rung true. They hadn’t eaten in a while, and he did need a rest of sorts. According to his watch, it was now mid-evening, still not particularly late. But it was also likely that Police Scotland would soon be looking for him, if they weren’t already, so he couldn’t waste too much time. He went into the kitchen, where the cupboards were bare aside from a hunk of stale bread, and when he opened the fridge, found the remnants of some cheese and a jar of honey. He ate all he could, before treating himself to a dram of malt, which was unsurprisingly delicious – it broke over his tongue like sweet, peat-flavoured smoke – and then rested on the living room couch for the next forty minutes. He’d considered the possibility that sleep might claim him, but the cottage fire remained unlit, so the room was cold, which held torpor at bay. On top of that, he was still wired, muscles tense, ears alert for the faintest sound.

It reminded him of the times he’d ‘crossed the pavement’ as it was known in police parlance; that moment when you actually went forward to confront armed criminals. As part of the National Crime Group, a British police agency dealing exclusively with the worst of the worst, it was required of Heck that he hold AFO status, in other words be an Authorised Firearms Officer. This meant that, though he wasn’t quite a Specialist, or SFO, he was trained to handle guns on duty to an exacting standard. Even so, engaging the enemy in gun battles was not something he’d done regularly. With so many SFOs available these days, that didn’t happen with British police detectives the way it once had, but it wasn’t unknown. And those final, heart-thumping, throat-tightening moments before it all kicked off were still the worst that a UK police officer – probably any police officer – could experience. The trick was never to dwell on what might go wrong, just focus on the job at hand and the essential part that you had to play. Nothing else could enter your thoughts except maybe that you trusted your colleagues implicitly (because you had to, because if they didn’t give you all the cover you needed, who would?). Of course, on this occasion he didn’t have colleagues. And there was no one to give him any sort of cover.

He stood up and walked across the room. His eyes had now adjusted sufficiently to take in the oil painting above the fireplace. It depicted a tartan-clad Highland warrior.

It was a suitable distraction, making him wonder about the guy who lived here, the gillie. In Heck’s mind’s eye, he’d pictured him as some hairy monster in a kilt, who could probably toss the caber farther than an Englishman could throw a tennis ball. But more likely he was someone who, though he’d be an outdoors type, would also be completely attuned to a slow-paced rural lifestyle now all but extinct elsewhere in the UK, someone completely at peace with his green and pleasant world.

‘Peace, Gemma,’ Heck said, climbing out of the cottage the same way he’d climbed in. ‘That must be wonderful.’

27

Heck knew nothing about Brollachan House, except that it was a typical fortified manor house of the Western Highlands, and the one-time focal point of a great earldom. On learning that it was now the Hellstroms’ main stronghold, it had been too late for him to do any research. He didn’t even know what the venerable old structure looked like.

All he saw of it now were its lights.

On first sighting these, he halted and crouched in a gorse thicket to watch and wait. The main building was perhaps two hundred yards away, located at the farthest end of an extensive, frost-carpeted lawn, and the light seemed to pour out of every part of it. So much so that, fleetingly, it might even have been on fire. Sadly, though, it wasn’t. Not yet.

He advanced from here on hands and knees. The nearer to it he drew, the more the moonlight exposed its dimensions. It was huge, as they so often were, these Highland bastions, square-shouldered, with a number of chimneys all smoking, and what might be a battlemented upper parapet. There was no sound, though, as he crouched there. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm that he was still alone.

He was, and it seemed almost eerie, the only movement his own steamy breath as it wreathed around him. He’d got much closer to his target than he’d ever, in truth, thought he’d be able to. He was now in the gardens, deep in what he thought of as the strike-zone. So, it wasn’t impossible that guards of some sort might be dotted around here. But he’d seen and heard no one thus far, and with everything he thought he knew about Karl and Eric Hellstrom, especially from what Snake had told him about their hunting skills and survivalist instincts – even more especially as they knew he was coming – this felt wrong. But then again, they didn’t know exactly when he was coming. How long could you maintain a status of high alert with nothing seemingly happening?

Still, however, he waited, ears pinned back. If anyone was here, he was certain there’d be some give-away: some ill-considered whispering as one guard swapped banter with another, a crackle of radio static, or a yipping of dogs.

Nothing.

He rocked back onto his haunches, taking the .38 from his waistband, and the silencer from inside his anorak. He’d only removed it for ease of portability, but now screwed them back together as he rose to his feet and strolled boldly across the last twenty feet of lawn, the dark bulk of the mansion towering over him. He was exhausted, of course, bone-tired. But this was it. After all these months, the final reckoning. He’d called on every ounce of whatever he had left just to get here. And he wasn’t in the least worried about that.

Because after this, there was nothing else.

*

‘Did you sleep, in the end?’ Jude Penhaligon asked.

Gail, who was slumped in the front passenger seat, had yawned very audibly several times since they’d set off and even now was bog-eyed with fatigue, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again even though they had hours of driving ahead of them.

‘Half and half,’ she mumbled.

‘Know that feeling,’ Penhaligon replied.

Gail didn’t argue with that. No doubt the DI had lain on a similarly firm mattress to her, under equally crisp, sterile sheets, staring into the dimness of another basic, box-shaped room as headlight reflections from the motorway chased each other continuously across the barely furnished walls and ceiling, the constant muffled roar of HGVs penetrating even the treble-glazing. ‘Why the hell would we have slept?’ she muttered.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing. Glad you’re driving, that’s all … ma’am.’

Gail looked from the window. They’d been back on the road for just under an hour, the motorway soaring ahead into black emptiness. It was difficult to work out exactly where they were, but if you squinted hard, you could just about discern fell-tops rearing in silhouette against the bright pattern of stars. This meant they were in the Lake District, at least, and well on their way north.

‘You know, Gail,’ the DI said, ‘I understand that you’re finding this whole thing heart-breaking. But surely you can see that stopping your friend from doing something that might mean he goes to prison for the rest of his life, or maybe even gets shot down in the street, is for the best?’

‘I’ve no argument with that, ma’am …’

‘Call me Jude if you prefer. You don’t have to keep showing a deference you don’t feel.’

Gail gazed out into the rushing darkness. ‘I don’t want to see Heck kill anyone. And not just because he’d go to jail. Because he’d hate himself for it afterwards. You said that night in Charing Cross Hospital that he’s killed before … as if implying that was in his nature. But it isn’t. He’s taken lives, yes, but only in self-defence or in defence of others. And even that bothers him. I mean, he pretends it doesn’t, but it does. There are lots of things that bother him deep down that he never talks about. That’s Heck’s main problem. Keeping things bottled up.’

‘It’s not his main problem at the moment’.

Gail frowned. ‘No, but … there’s something else, you know.’

‘I’m all ears?’

Gail shook her head. ‘I’m not entirely convinced that Varulv are so innocent. Back in the day, they put out some pretty hateful material.’

Penhaligon shrugged. ‘It’s not an offence to hold an opinion, even if it’s the most obnoxious thing anyone’s ever heard.’

‘Heck wouldn’t go off on one like this because of a viewpoint. Something else has got to him about these guys.’

‘That something is most likely Jimmy Fletcher. If he’s anything like the average grass, he’ll have an angle and that angle will be self-serving.’

Gail shook her head again. ‘Heck’s got loads of grasses. He knows when they’re spinning him a line.’

‘Does he? When he’s desperate, screwed up, at the end of his tether?’

‘I just don’t think we should be so quick to dismiss his theory.’

The DI shrugged. ‘Well, it’s not me you need to persuade. It’s DCS Straker.’

‘To be honest,’ Gail sighed, ‘much as we all love her, DCS Straker’s involvement in this hasn’t helped. Quite the opposite.’

Penhaligon looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Think about it. Heck had been sitting alone those three months in that grotty little flat of his, stewing in his own juice, in a state of abject self-isolation … biding his time. And then, as soon as I mention that Gwen is trying to put SCU back together, he makes his move.’

‘“Makes his move” as in persuades you to take a fall for him?’

Gail was aware that her cheeks had coloured but hoped the DI wouldn’t notice in the faint glow from the dashboard. ‘Believe what you want, but Gwen and Heck go way back. She was as much a fixture in his career as Gemma Piper, though in a different way. The more control Gwen takes, the less trouble Heck would want to cause. If he’d waited until the whole Serial Crimes Unit had been reconstituted, he couldn’t do the thing he’s doing now.’

‘He couldn’t?’

‘You don’t see it, do you?’ Gail sat up straight. ‘It’s you people at Internal Investigations who’ve made all this possible for him. IIB ensured that he got suspended, which meant that he wasn’t a Serial Crimes Unit officer anymore. This in turn meant that SCU couldn’t be blamed for anything he did. But if Gwen manages to reconstitute the unit and gets Heck reinstated, then anything he does will be a reflection on her.’

‘So, you’re saying he had to act straight away?’

‘He clearly didn’t think he could wait any longer.’

The DI was silent for quite a while. ‘So now, having told Gwen Straker last night that you didn’t think he’d hurt anyone, you’ve decided he’s on a one-way ticket after all?’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite in those terms. But he’s zilch to come back for, has he?’

Penhaligon said nothing else as they powered into the darkness.

*

It was so late when Gwen Straker got home to Greenwich that she tiptoed through from the interior garage door to the hall, where she hung her coat on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, and then tiptoed again into the kitchen, where, when she made herself some supper, a cheese and ham toastie and a cup of tea – near enough the first thing she’d eaten all day – she did so as quietly as possible.

Only peaceful silence reigned upstairs and at this Godforsaken hour, she didn’t want to disturb that. Mind, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d pulled a late one and Dom had come down in his dressing gown, yawning, to ask about her day and keep her company while she decompressed. In truth, Gwen had the best husband a policewoman could hope for. And it wasn’t just that he was affable and understanding, a brawny if gentle shoulder to cry on, and a Denzel Washington look-alike into the bargain. He was totally onside.

Gwen was a black woman who’d been thirty years a cop. And Dom, who she’d already married before she’d joined up, was a black man. Back in those long-ago days there’d been deep divisions between their community and the police. It had been bad enough at work, where, like many female recruits back then, she’d had to run a gauntlet of sexist comments, and in her case had also had to face veiled (and sometimes not so veiled) racism. And of course, at the end of each shift she’d gone home to Brixton, to friends and family who, while they’d not been overtly hostile to her career choice, had been baffled and wary. She hadn’t exactly lost friends, but there’d been a gradual cooling of certain relationships and a whole clutch of confidences she knew she wouldn’t be taken into anymore, alongside numerous conversations that she was no longer invited to.

But none of that had applied to Dom. He’d stood behind her four-square. Perhaps he’d been a little bemused at what she’d done, but he’d been supportive, nevertheless. A chartered surveyor, in training back then but with a good future ahead of him, he’d never been much of a rebel, but he’d had a wide circle of friends, many of whom had suffered unjustly at the hands of the law. He could easily have pointed this out to her, have made an issue of it, maybe even complained that it was cramping his style. But he never had.

So, it was the very least she could do now, if he wasn’t coming downstairs to hold her hand voluntarily, to ensure that she didn’t wake him.

And yet, as she perched at the breakfast bar and munched her toast, it occurred to her, not for the first time, how many she knew who would never enjoy this level of domestic bliss. Ironically, though Brixton had been poor back in those days, the first word on everyone’s lips when it came to urban deprivation, perhaps half or maybe more of her girlfriends had eventually got hitched to decent partners and had gone on to have contented lives. That would be about the average strike-rate nationally, she supposed, for all racial groups. But it was in the police where the prospects for this appeared to be much lower. So many cops she knew, men and women alike, led turbulent domestic lives. The hours the job demanded were a big problem, of course. But there were other things. Cynicism thanks to what they saw and dealt with all day, fatigue (those damn hours again), and of course stress. And then there were the so-called stress-relievers: pills, alcohol, and in some cases an inability to resist playing away.

And then there were people like Heck and Gemma Piper, whose situation was a whole lot more complex. Back at Bethnal Green, when they were DCs and she was their DI, she’d considered them ‘her kids’. They’d been the two brightest detectives in her team, even though they’d been relatively young. She’d encouraged that by partnering them up and giving them the best jobs that came along. They’d also been hot for each other, almost from the first day. And Gwen had encouraged that, too. Other supervisors called it a mistake, but she’d disagreed. Yes, it might have been a distraction for them at first, but this was a dirty, dangerous job, and she wanted her kids to be happy.

‘What else can you do?’ Dom had asked when she’d told him. ‘Nature will take its course. You can discourage them, split them up physically … hell, you can have them reassigned to opposite corners of London. But if they want each other, they’ll find each other.’

She placed her crockery in the dishwasher and stood back to think, wondering if she ought to feel guilty. She’d mentioned it to Dom again, more recently, and he’d responded that it was ridiculous. Heck and Gemma had been adults, they’d made their own bed. And it was nonsensical to think that anything she’d said or done all those years ago might have contributed to this current crisis …

There was a loud electronic ping.

Gwen stared at her phone on the worktop.

At this hour?

Tentatively, she picked the device up and opened it.

The text was from Sophie Cotillard at Interpol.

Hi Gwen

Sorry for late response. Busy day.

Scalping? How intriguing.

We have several cases on record. Three in US in last 50 years. But all perps are dead.

More currently … scalping is a partial trademark of the Tatarstan Brigade. You familiar with that name?

Gwen was.

‘Oh my God,’ she breathed. Then louder still, horrified beyond belief. ‘Oh God … oh God Almighty!’

28

The great front door stood before him. A mighty slab of oak filled with iron rivets, something you’d normally find on a medieval castle rather than a country house, and that certainly matched the mood of this place. Up close now, Heck could see that it was built from colossal blocks of rough-hewn granite. No doubt, the building struck a handsome pose when seen from a distance on some sun-drenched summer afternoon, a great castellated villa framed against the brown and purple hillsides. It would be postcard Heaven. But up close it was astonishingly functional. As he circled round it, he passed numerous casement windows that were curtained, or doors that were closed and locked, but the overall structure lacked ornamentation. There’d been no pediment over the main entrance; no gargoyles leered down from the parapets. And again, the security felt lax. Still there was no sign of staff, never mind armed guards, while he detected no cameras, broke no ankle-height laser beams, triggering alarm systems. It wasn’t even the case that motion-sensitive lights sprang to life, leaving the extensive wooded gardens cloaked in blackness.

All this served as an increased warning. Heck didn’t need his police sixth sense to know that something had to be afoot here. They were waiting for him, after all.

He continued, even so. He’d come all this way and would do what he must.

Eventually, on what was surely the farthest side of the house from the point where he’d started, he reached a bay window, which again was heavily draped on the other side, though warm lamplight filtered out. The window comprised three large panes, the two outer ones fastened by locks that were little more than levers hooked onto pegs. He pressed his ear to the glass. There was no sound beyond, not even the dull drone of a television. Reaching under his anorak, he brought out the fat biker’s hunting knife.

Carefully, and as quietly as he could, he waggled its point into the crack between the jamb and the window frame, pushing it from side to side with increasing vigour, the aged wood twisting, warping and finally fracturing, the gap then widening until it reached a point where he could slid the blade upward and flip the lever loose.

The window opened quietly on well-greased hinges.

Heck stowed the big blade in his jacket again and clambered through.

Immediately on entering, a thick warmth embraced him. Briefly, it was like a dream.

Three months had passed since he’d knelt shivering in that woodland clearing, the boles of the trees slashed by bullets, the shrubbery hanging in ribbons, and had cradled Gemma’s dying body, while only a few miles away almost the entire team he’d worked and bantered with lay in their own blood and viscera, mown down from point-blank range while unarmed. All those numb days that had followed. The greyness of his flat. The greyness of the world outside. The scenes on the television, those he could bear to look at: coffins draped with Union Jacks in slow procession headed into the rain-deluged graveyard, followed by legions of mourners, faces white, eyes red; the Home Secretary standing grim-faced as she addressed a shellshocked Parliament; police chiefs giving interviews, too concussed by shock to make sense, ashen to the gills as they stuttered in their attempts to explain the unexplainable.

‘We have several leads that we’re working on,’ National Crime Group director, Joe Wullerton, one of the more coherent, had told a reporter, despite looking typically stiff and uncomfortable whenever required to turn out in a suit and tie. ‘The public can rest assured that the people responsible for this outrage will be found and brought to book.’

And today is the day, Heck told himself, standing behind the curtain.

Though it still didn’t seem real. The utter devastation of that night. The sense of loss and desolation. He doubted this would make a difference long-term – it certainly wouldn’t heal the hurt – but if nothing else, there had to be some satisfaction in knowing that the bastards responsible had finally got theirs.

And he would ensure they did, and that they knew it. Because he’d look both of them square in the eye before he killed them. Quietly, he closed the window behind him. Then waited again, listening. As before, there was only silence. At length, he hooked the drapes back an inch or so.

It was a surprisingly small room.

An antechamber of some sort, lamplit and containing nothing but a blackened stone fireplace, several armchairs and a sofa. All looked overstuffed and were strewn with magazines, most of which, when Heck ventured forward, were foreign editions of popular country sports titles. Framed images adorned the walls, mainly depicting scenes of Highland life. Nothing thus far implied darkness or devilry.

He crossed to the door, which stood slightly ajar, and listened again.

There was no sound from anywhere else in the house. A weird feeling of uncertainty was growing on him. He should be able to hear something, even if only the two Hellstroms were present. Surely, they’d be conversing? It was late evening now, nearly eleven o’clock. But the lights were still on, so no one had gone to bed.

He eased the door open and glanced out.

Beyond lay a much vaster chamber, something he’d more readily associate with these great Caledonian hunting halls. It was laid with paving stones, huge timbers ranging overhead, antlered skulls decking every wall. There was another stone fireplace, though this one was immense and flames roared in it, leaping and crackling from a mountain of fresh-cut logs. A few items of comfortable if scruffy furniture were arranged in front of it. Beyond those, he saw tapestries, oil paintings, in distant corners suits of Cromwellian-age armour.

Again though, nothing remotely devilish. Or even Nordic.

Maybe this was part of the Hellstroms’ disguise: living like gentleman-lairds while secretly running a black-hearted cult that feasted on Christian blood.

Somehow though, he was starting to think that things here weren’t that simple.

On the far side of the chamber, a staircase led up to a balconied section of the next floor.

Heck gazed up at it, his hand clenching into a talon on the edge of the door as a figure suddenly walked past along it. Even from this distance, he couldn’t have failed to recognise the older half of the Norwegian black-metal duo, Varulv.

Karl Hellstrom.

Heck had only seen him from an angle before he’d vanished from view, but that had been sufficient to identify a strongly built man, broad at the chest and trim at the waist, his V-shaped physique enhanced by a black sleeveless vest, long dark hair descending his back. Heck hadn’t been able to see the guy’s face, nor what he was carrying, but it had looked like a tray of some sort because Hellstrom had been carefully balancing it in front of him.

For several seconds, Heck waited by the downstairs door, pondering his next move.

It was all very well wallowing in his desire for vengeance, but in truth he’d had no real plan thus far other than a vague intent to sneak into the place, and then barge in on his unwitting hosts, opening fire as he did. But for some reason, after what he’d just seen, a kernel of doubt had planted itself. The Hellstroms were supposedly expecting him. They didn’t know when, but they were the ones who’d lured him here, so they ought to be prepared in some way. And yet, Karl Hellstrom had not looked like a man anticipating trouble. If anything, he’d been going about his everyday business, carrying out some routine chore. On top of that, there was no indication that anyone else was here. No gang of mercenaries were slumped in front of the fire, drinking and laughing as they waited to be activated.

Something wasn’t right.

On reflection, Heck was not specifically trained for this sort of thing, so ought he have been able to get this far: into the actual house? Did that mean the luring process was still going on, and the reception party was waiting upstairs? A sudden conviction that the Hellstroms were well aware of his presence and just biding their time became intense. Under normal circs, he might have turned and fled. But not this time. Not when he’d come all this way.

Gun cocked, silencer in place, he opened the door and warily crossed the great hall.

A log spat loudly. He spun, weapon levelled.

Nothing behind him was different, save for a wayward ember fizzling out on the hearthstone. Feeling increasingly vulnerable, he glanced around and up. Still alone in the vast chamber, he continued to the foot of the staircase. And ascended.

The stairs were built from solid, dark wood, and didn’t creak. All the way up, the oak-panelled wall on his left was mounted with antique weapons: dirks, daggers, hook-handled pistols, circular shields emblazoned with clan motifs, even several of the great basket-hilted broadswords that had once defined the Highland warrior caste.

It was an impressive array, though none of it was as deadly as the automatic weapons that had sprayed the SCU team that night. The AK-47 assault rifle had been in use for generations, primarily because it was light, portable, easy to use, required minimal maintenance and was supremely deadly. Thanks to Heck’s tangling with one of the two gunmen, one such weapon had been left at the scene of the crime, but the other was still unaccounted for, and just one of those beasts alone could have cut down the entire Highland army at Culloden more swiftly and efficiently than the massed ranks of Redcoat infantry had ever dreamed.

If either Hellstrom appeared at the top of the stairs now, carrying it, it was over for Heck.

But the father and son kill-team remained elusive.

He reached the top, glancing right first, along the balcony and into the corridor beyond, and then down the passage on his left. This latter, too, was deserted. It was well-lit, doorways along either side of it – some closed, some open – but again there was no sound. And again, this seemed so unnatural. Pivoting constantly to ensure that forces weren’t gathering at his rear, Heck progressed left, the hand gripping his .38 moist inside its glove, his heart banging so loudly that at first he didn’t hear the steady electronic bleeping.

When he did, he halted. Another open door stood just ahead.

An odd smell now tainted the air. Disinfectant, antiseptic, but underlain with something else, something less wholesome, something foul.

Heck checked behind again. Still, he was alone.

Holding his breath, gun dressed down, he glanced round the doorframe,

Beyond lay as ordinary a bedroom as you could find in a residence like this; very spacious, very comfortable, and yet now it had been adapted into something else. Instead of a plush four-poster with carved pillars and a rich canopy, its central fixture was a hospital bed, canted slightly upward so that the patient lying in it was at an angle. Various monitors were arrayed along either side, a drip-feed suspended from a pole at the far end. The patient, who was immediately recognisable as an adult male, lay perfectly still, his shaved head facing up from the pillow, but his eyes sunken and closed, his chest rising and falling weakly. An abundance of tubes and cables connected him to the various pieces of equipment, but as most of his naked upper torso was visible, Heck could also see a mountain of gauze and padding, much of it bloodstained and rancid, bandaged crudely around his left shoulder and to the left side of his neck. Already, the faint foul odour had become a nauseating stink.

Heck stood stock-still as bitter memories flooded back to him.

That final fight in the woodland. The broken bottle he’d thrust repeatedly into the gunman’s neck and shoulder. How many times had he done that, he wondered, his scalp tingling? Seven, eight? More?

It was ridiculous, of course, that he felt a sudden twinge of remorse.

He tottered forward into the room.

Why shouldn’t you feel remorse? his inner self asked him. You’re not one of these people. You’re a police officer.

It was true. Unless you were a complete sociopath, it never came easy wreaking violence on anyone. Not even those who had just slaughtered your friends.

‘Fuck it doesn’t,’ Heck said, sounding strangled.

He raised the .38 and advanced to the end of the bed, squaring it on the chest of the shrunken form. From this close, it was clearly Eric Hellstrom, though most of his hair had been shorn away, leaving only clumps of bristle. His face and shoulders were corpse-thin, his ribcage a pair of xylophones. The middle of his scalp was bisected back to front by an ugly tramline of black, blood-caked sutures, which must have run eleven or twelve inches from one end to the other.

Heck had whacked the bastard on the head with the bottle of champagne, he recalled. That was how it had broken. Even then, it was a shock to see the guy still in this condition. The Ace of Diamonds attack had occurred at the beginning of September, and it was now December. No doubt his father had got some drunken sawbones to fix him up, rather than taking him to a real medical centre, which might have explained a bit of botching, but to see him like this was unexpected.

‘What the fuck do I care?’ Heck tried to tell himself, moving the gun from the patient’s chest to his face. He’d come too far for this moment, through too much fire, too much water.

And yet, suddenly it seemed too easy. Indecently so.

Indecently? He almost said it aloud. This was the piece of shit who …

… who was now lying helpless in front of him, by the looks of it deeply unconscious.

As Heck again hesitated, enraged with himself, a glint of light caught his attention.

Glancing right, he spotted a tray of surgical items, scalpels, scissors and the like, next to a roll of what looked like fresh bandages. He couldn’t understand why this felt significant.

And then remembered that Karl Hellstrom had been carrying something along the landing.

He twirled left just as the older member of Varulv, who, with practised stealth, had come unnoticed from the closet on the far side of the room, launched himself forward like a human rocket.

29

Everything about Karl Hellstrom bespoke raw, bestial power: the big shoulders and wedge-shaped body in its tight black vest; the black leather band on each wrist; the huge, gym-toned biceps. His face was a mask of elemental rage, his teeth bare amid dense facial hair, his Viking locks whipping in a frenzy.

He’d struck at Heck’s gun-hand before Heck could turn properly, the .38 sent flying. However, Heck wove around the flailing second blow, and when he launched a right cleanly into the guy’s mug, it was harder than he’d ever hit anyone, the bone mallet of his fist cracking into Hellstrom’s left eye-socket. The Viking seemed surprised by the pain this inflicted, and staggered sideways. He swung again in retaliation, but it was wild and uncoordinated, and Heck ducked away before throwing himself forward, smashing a brutal headbutt into Hellstrom’s nose.

Hellstrom toppled backward out of the room, blood already spouting from the flattened cartilage. Heck followed, aiming a kick at his crotch, only for the Viking to grab his ankle and lift it over the horizontal. Heck landed heavily but threw himself aside as a boot crashed down where his face had been. He jumped to his feet, swung round and barrelled into Hellstrom’s midriff, ramming the guy’s groin with the top of his head. The Viking, who seemed bewildered that he hadn’t already felled his opponent, hacked blade-like elbows into Heck’s back, before wrapping him in an enormous bearhug, lifting him and flinging him sideways. Heck’s head struck the wall as he cartwheeled, tearing out a chunk of plaster. Dizzied, he scrabbled away on all fours, but his opponent was slow to press his advantage.

Heck got up again, still dazed. He tottered sideways, striking the barrier overlooking the great hall. Hellstrom came at him again, snarling. Heck slammed him in the mouth with a forearm smash, following through with another right hook, again socking the bastard’s left eye, which was already bruised and closing, the rubbery eyeball squelching. Hellstrom reeled away. Heck dodged around him, whumping a left into the side of his mouth, blood and broken teeth flying, before landing another right, this on the point of the Viking’s bearded chin. It was a thudding impact, but still a surprise to see the black-metal hardman spin with the force of it, only the newel post at the top of the stairs keeping him upright. Heck hurtled in with a kick, striking Hellstrom in the middle of his back, breaking his grip on the woodwork. Snatching a knot of his long, sweaty hair, the ex-cop forced him to the topmost stair and flung him forward, sending him crashing head over heels down the staircase.

Hellstrom landed at the bottom in a twisted, groaning heap.

Heck hobbled down after him, drawing the hunting blade from under his jacket, but on reflection, tossing it away. Why look to a weapon like that when, instead, he could unhook one of the massive basket-hilted broadswords from the wall?

Hellstrom, his left eye swollen like a plum, leaking blood copiously from under its lid, tried to scramble to his feet. Heck jumped the last four treads, landing full on top of him with both knees, crushing his ribs against the stone-flagged floor. Bones audibly cracked, Hellstrom’s breath whistling out of him as he grunted in agony.

Heck stepped back again, panting, but only so that he could bring the ancient sword round and press the tip of its blade against the Viking’s throat.

Hellstrom raised his hands in surrender, but Heck shook his head.

‘Looking like Ragnar Lodbrok’s got to be worth something,’ he wheezed. ‘But that wasn’t quite the fight I expected. What’s up, not so tough when you’re not packing lead? Don’t worry … I still think I’ve got it in me to kill the shit out of you.’

‘Then do it!’ Hellstrom retorted, his accent strong even though he struggled to form words through a mouth bereft of teeth, gobbets of bloody spittle hanging in his beard. ‘Just don’t give me some fucking English speech-making!’

‘And after that, I’m going to finish your son …’

‘Ja? Why you bother, huh?’ Hellstrom was grey-faced with pain, but suddenly sounded amused. ‘Eric is fucking brain-dead. You not see?’

Heck hesitated. ‘What are you talking about … brain-dead?’

‘You do big number on him, ja?’ Hellstrom gasped at the pain of his fractured ribs. ‘That night in wood. You forget? I no think.’

‘What’re you saying? That bang on the head? With a champagne bottle, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Hey, idiot cop!’ Hellstrom hawked and spat blood; his one good eye stabbed at Heck with laser-like malevolence. ‘This wound you inflict. In shoulder. It go deep. Cuts veins, chips bone. In time, infected, ja? Over weeks, stinks worse and worse. Poison builds up inside ... travels to head. And hey!’ He clapped his hands, though it made him wince. ‘Fucking brain abscess!’

Heck wondered with irritation why this news made him feel queasy. ‘And it never occurred to you to take him to a real hospital?’

‘Are you real? Dumbass cop!’

‘I see’. Heck pondered this. ‘So … was it worth it, Karl? Being king of the Odinists for a few years? When it all ends like this?’

To his surprise, Karl Hellstrom laughed, though it was a crazy kind of laugh, his one good eye wild and staring. ‘Fuck you, cop! Dumb fucking pig! You think we believe this shit?’

‘You’d bloody better, the amount of carnage you’ve caused.’

‘Who believe this? You believe in Santa Claus? Fucking Tooth Fairy? It was for this!’ He levered himself up on his left arm and gestured with his right. ‘Stum sønn av en tispe!’

Heck glanced round at the regal environment. ‘This place? You mean the money? That’s all this was ever about? A pose … so you could coin it?’

‘And for fun.’ Hellstrom’s battered face split into a mocking grin. He patted his chest. ‘This true. The fun of being outlaw, ja? Of being rebel! Of laughing at Church and government …’

‘And anyone who didn’t like hate speech, I’m guessing?’

‘Fuck this political shit, ja?’ Hellstrom became scornful. ‘We have no politics. You think these fucking idiots who follow us not do violence anyway? You blame us? For real? These braindead … these menneskelig søppel burn churches and kill priests because of songs?’ He spiralled a fingertip by his ear. ‘You think nothing wrong with them?’ He shook his head. ‘Me? No guilt for actions of fucking idiots.’

Heck kept the tip of his sword at Hellstrom’s throat. ‘As defence lines go, you’ll want to work on that a bit … given that your very next move was to avenge the Black Chapel.’

‘Avenge?’ Hellstrom spat another wad of blood; he seemed outraged by the suggestion. ‘These idiot children ... these fucking imbeciles?’

‘So, what was it? You thought you’d head off a secondary enquiry at the pass? Thought you’d stop us coming looking for you by wiping us out? Bad call, pal, bad call. There was never going to be a second enquiry. You were home-free … until the Ace of Diamonds.’ Heck shook his head. ‘That’s what you get when you start believing your own publicity.’

Hah!’ Hellstrom seemed genuinely amused. He glanced across the vast room. ‘So you say. Dumb fucking cop.’

Only now did Heck sense that there were others present.

At first, he detected them on the stairs behind him, and probably on the balcony as well. But before he could swing round, there was movement downstairs too, and when he looked, two figures were approaching from different sides of the great hall.

At first glance, they were near-identical. Tall and lean, with the same mops of carroty red hair, the same rangy, loose-limbed frames, the same loopy grins plastering their pale faces. They were somewhere in their late-twenties, and wore padded khaki anoraks unzipped over sweaters, jeans and heavy walking-boots. They were also armed, each of them advancing slowly with a rifle levelled at his shoulder, each one squinting through its hi-tech scope. And these weren’t just any rifles, either. Heck recognised them immediately as Dragunov sniper rifles. Russian-made semi-automatics, accurate with a 7.62×54mm round over one thousand five hundred yards, and a muzzle velocity of eight hundred and thirty yards per second.

One shot would tear an average sized man in half.

Despite this, the scene was almost comical. As if Heck had briefly left the real world to be confronted by cartoon characters. The fact that one of them wore a curious hat made from some kind of animal hair, fake wolf ears jutting out, only added to its surreal nature.

Slowly, he straightened up. ‘So, when does the rest of the loony bin daytrip arrive?’

‘Idiot!’ Hellstrom hissed again, shaking his head.

Heck glanced behind him. A couple of men were on the stairs. They, too, wore rough outdoor clothes and khaki jackets. They, too, were armed, though not with Dragunovs. In their case, it was AK-47s. A third stood on the landing, similarly armed. They stood cold-eyed and hard-mouthed as they trained their weapons down on him.

A deep, beast-like chuckle drew Heck’s attention back across the hall to the hearth. Among the other items of furniture there stood a wingback armchair. It was positioned at such an angle that, from here, the man seated in it could not be seen. Except for his ring-bedecked right hand, which held a tumbler of whisky.

Bewildered, Heck glanced again at the red-headed twins, who, though they were only a miniscule distance away, continued to mark him through their scopes. The one in the wolf-hat signalled at him to drop the broadsword. Heck released it and it clattered to the flagstones. The figure in the armchair chuckled again, deeply, and then got slowly to his feet. It was a shudder-inducing moment, if for no other reason than the guy’s sheer size.

He was six-foot-five at least, and as broad as a bear. His three-piece grey tweed suit and blue silk shirt and tie only added to his aura, as though an unfeasibly big and powerful man’s prowess could be underlined by his excellent sartorial taste. If only it hadn’t been for the ugly mass of prison-type scrawl on his huge, gold-covered hands, or the multiple scars and nicks that pitted his nut-brown face, so prevalent they weren’t even concealed by his bushy red beard and moustache.

‘I don’t understand this “loony bin” thing,’ he said in a bass voice, his accent solidly Russian, though clearly he had at least as good a command of English as Karl Hellstrom. ‘But I think, my friend, you insult my sons.’ He finished the last of his malt and then strolled across the hall. ‘You must introduce your friend, Karl … yes?’

Hellstrom glanced up through his sweaty, blood-streaked hair. His battered face was ashen. ‘Mr Tarasov … here is Detective Heckenburg of Serial Crimes Unit, London.’

The Bear grinned, showing a row of impossibly white teeth. ‘You are as good as word, my friend, Karl. And you have suffered, which stands you high in my estimate. So, Sergeant Heckenburg, after all this time …’ the Bear thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, appraising Heck in blokeish fashion, ‘we finally meet.’

30

It was well ahead of schedule when Gail and Penhaligon drew into the Glenmartin House hotel parking lot in one of the most picturesque corners of central Scotland. They’d made good time, the ‘Godforsaken hour’ emptiness of the M6, the M74 and the A82 allowing them to reach their destination before even a vestige of daylight broke on the forested ridges to the east.

However, the car park was already buzzing with activity, headlight beams from Police Scotland Range Rovers crisscrossing each other, figures milling in the glare. Such was the ruckus that lights had come on inside the hotel, a couple of uniformed officers in hi-viz slickers already standing at the front door, apologising to staff.

‘Something’s afoot,’ Penhaligon said, applying her handbrake.

As she and Gail climbed out, pulling on their waterproofs, a shortish, foursquare man approached them. He was aged about fifty, with sandy hair and a lined, characterful face. He wore a sweater and jeans, a heavy-duty vest and, over the top of that, a waxed blue jacket with POLICE stencilled on the back and the breast pocket. Immediately, Gail spotted the Glock holstered at his hip. A tall dark-haired girl, with exotic, near-Italian looks, was just behind him, similarly armed and attired.

‘MacDonald, DCI,’ he said, offering a firm handshake. ‘Argyll Major Investigation Team. Amy Stewart, my DS.’

Penhaligon shook with him. ‘DI Jude Penhaligon, DC Gail Honeyford. National Crime Group. Glad you got here early, sir. We weren’t expecting you for quite a while yet.’

MacDonald frowned. ‘Given the way things have changed in the last hour, we got here as soon as we could and have brought as many as we could spare. I understand the vehicle your suspect was travelling in is a Lexus Mark III, index BC48 XLZ?’

‘That’s correct,’ Penhaligon said.

‘It was found abandoned just after four o’clock this morning on the shores of Loch Torr. That’s roughly nine and a half miles due southwest of here.’

‘Have you alerted armed response?’ Penhaligon asked.

‘A couple of ARVs have been despatched. Both are on their way now, but the first is heading over from Dundee and the second coming down from Inverness, so they’re both going to take a little time. Truth is we’ll probably get there first.’

‘What about alerting the occupants of Brollachan House?’ Gail asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not that easy, I’m afraid. We don’t really know anything about them. By all accounts they’re reclusive at the best of times. We’ve found phone numbers for the estate manager and the housekeeper, but nobody’s answering.’

‘Can’t someone just go and knock on the door?’ Penhaligon asked.

Another shake of the head. ‘First of all, we’re spread pretty thinly out here. We have a mobile unit en route, but again it’ll take time to get there. And when it does … well, the estate you’re talking about is thirty-two square miles across. And the house itself more or less bang in the middle.’

‘Air support?’

‘On its way. But it’s coming from Glasgow, so it’ll get here when it gets here.’

‘I see you and your sergeant are carrying,’ Penhaligon commented.

MacDonald shrugged. ‘MIT are authorised to draw pistols if we need to. Obviously, I can’t equip you in the same way, but I’ve got some spare body armour in the boot.’

‘That’ll work,’ Penhaligon replied.

‘We need to move it, guys,’ DS Stewart reminded them.

MacDonald headed towards an unmarked Range Rover. As he led them over there, Gail scuttled to catch up with him. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but … what’s changed exactly?’

He glanced at her, puzzled.

‘You said something had changed in the last hour,’ she reminded him.

‘You been off the air for a while, or something?’

‘We have, yes.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess mobile phone signals are probably not that easy to come by way up here.’

He halted and pursed his lips. ‘So you’ve had no contact with DCS Straker at Scotland Yard?’

‘Not since yesterday evening.’

‘I see. Well … it seems she has a new lead on who she thinks might be behind the shooting of your officers down in North London.’

Gail and Penhaligon glanced at each other. ‘Do tell,’ the DI said.

‘Do the words Tatarstan Brigade mean anything to you?’ he asked.

Penhaligon looked nonplussed, but Gail blanched. ‘Good Lord,’ she breathed.

‘They don’t to me,’ Penhaligon said.

‘A St Petersburg crime syndicate,’ Gail explained, her voice tremulous with sudden understanding. ‘Good Christ, is that what all this is about?’

Penhaligon was now terse. ‘Can someone please explain what’s going on?’

‘We need to move it, I’m afraid,’ MacDonald said. ‘Perhaps we can talk on the way?’

Gail and Penhaligon, now wearing body-armour, clambered into the back of DCI MacDonald’s Range Rover. Amy Stewart installed herself in the front passenger seat, while the DCI himself slid behind the wheel. A moment later they were back on the road, the rest of the Police Scotland vehicles falling into line behind them.

‘The Tatarstan Brigade …?’ Penhaligon said again.

Gail tried to explain as best she could. ‘It was before my time in SCU, but a couple of years ago, Heck and Gemma Piper were hunting a torturer-for-hire. A professional sadist called John Sagan. The trail led them up to Manchester, where this Sagan character had hired himself out to one faction in a gangland war. One of the enforcers on the other side was an equal maniac whose weapon of choice was a flamethrower. The press had dubbed him ‘the Incinerator’, but he later turned out to be a Russian called Grigori Kalylyn. His nickname was ‘Nayka’, and he was a brodyaga, or a specialist enforcer for the Tatarstan Brigade. I can’t remember exactly what he was doing in the UK, but it was something to do with the Russian mob wanting to gain a foothold over here to expand their drugs distribution network. The main thing is that this guy Nayka … he got killed. There was some kind of massive shootout between the two sides, and he got caught in the middle. Something like that. I don’t think it was ever really clarified what happened. It was a mess, though. Others died too, but Jesus, wouldn’t that explain the Ace of Diamonds … the Russian Mafia?’

‘You mean hitting the police team that was involved in this Nayka’s death?’ Penhaligon said, looking thoughtful.

‘They’re not exactly known for their forgiving nature, let’s be honest.’

‘This Russian angle is the main reason we’re carrying,’ MacDonald put in. ‘It’s also the reason we’ll be treading warily when we get to Brollachan House.’

‘What evidence has DCS Straker actually got?’ Penhaligon asked. ‘This is all news to me.’

‘I got off the phone with her about fifty minutes ago,’ MacDonald replied. ‘The connection is unproved as yet. She went so far as to say that it was tenuous. However, she is very concerned indeed. So much so that, even though she’d just gone off-duty after a lengthy shift, she’s now gone straight back on again. She’s making as many enquiries as she can at this bloody awful hour, but she seems fairly certain that she’s onto something. So, we’re not taking any chances.’

‘Sir,’ Gail said, trying not to sound as shaken as she felt, ‘you’re aware that our suspect, Mark Heckenburg … the one we first came up here for, is actually a fellow police officer who’s currently under suspension?’

His eyes flickered towards her in the rear-view mirror. ‘I am. And?’

‘Well, sir … if he’s up against a Russian hit-team. And he’s on his own …’

‘What are you trying to say?’ MacDonald asked.

‘Might we make an effort to get there a little more quickly?’

‘DC Honeyford … it’s still dark, and the roads between here and the Brollachan estate are narrow, difficult and in parts covered in black ice. We won’t be any use to your man at all if we don’t make it because we’re upside-down in a ditch.’

This was a valid point, Gail supposed. And to be fair to the DCI, they were travelling at somewhere between forty miles per hour and fifty. They weren’t exactly crawling.

‘In any case, he’s a suspect in a crime, himself, isn’t he?’ MacDonald asked. ‘An armed suspect?’

Gail couldn’t lie. ‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m sorry. We’ll get there when we can, and the dice will fall where they’ll fall.’

31

‘So, Grigori Kalylyn … Nayka? He was your … nephew?’ Heck asked.

Despite his determination to look defiant, he felt a distinct prickle of unease.

The Bear whose name was Tarasov chuckled a deep, bass chuckle. He was seated in a stiff-backed chair, which they’d pulled out from under the hall’s grand mahogany dining table. Heck stood in front of him, hands cable-tied behind his back. Tarasov’s twin sons, Alexei and the one in the wolf hat, Rudi, stood to either side, rifles dressed down. Tarasov’s other three byki stood further back, AK-47s slung at their shoulders. The fact they seemed uninterested implied that they didn’t speak English. Karl Hellstrom, meanwhile, still looking much the worse for his fight with Heck, slouched at the dining table a few yards away, watching sourly.

‘You find it strange Nayka was nephew?’ Tarasov asked.

‘Well …’ Heck shrugged, ‘only in that he proved to be quite a dangerous guy. But with you, I think I’d more likely get hurt making daisy-chains.’

Rudi Tarasov, who clearly understood at least a bit of English, snapped to, shouting in Russian as he shouldered his Dragunov, its muzzle pressed into Heck’s neck.

‘Heckenburg, you fucking idiot!’ Hellstrom snarled. ‘I tell you already. This is Vasily Tarasov, Deputy Field-Commander, Tatarstan Brigade. You wish to antagonise these guys? For real? Go somewhere else, ja? So stink of your body roasting on spit does not poison my house.’

Tarasov merely smiled. ‘You no fear me, uh?’

‘No disrespect,’ Heck said, ‘but I don’t even know you.’

‘You think ignorance will save you?’ Hellstrom shouted. ‘Cop motherfucker! You kill this guy’s nephew and think they never come for you?’

‘I haven’t killed anyone,’ Heck said, his eyes never leaving Tarasov’s, which this close up were a weird shade of jade. ‘At least, no one Russian.’

Tarasov stroked his moustache with a thumb. ‘You swear this?’

‘Absolutely.’

In actual fact, Heck had killed a Russian. Grigori ‘Nayka’ Kalylyn had died during that violent incident down in Bradburn when a half-ton chunk of church architecture had fallen on top of him. Heck had given it a little nudge, of course, though its perch had been precarious and it most likely would have fallen anyway. At least, that was what he’d kept telling himself. Though afterwards, for the sake of Heck’s long-term survival, Gemma Piper had ensured that when the story hit the press, Nayka had died during his employer’s conflict with rival British gangsters and that it had been nothing to do with any police officer. The story had held ever since, which was the main reason for Heck’s surprise that only now had it come back to haunt him.

‘You’re talking about the shootout at the church?’ Heck said. ‘That wasn’t me.’

Tarasov steepled his ring-covered fingers. ‘But you were there?’

‘I was there, yes. But I didn’t kill your nephew.’

‘So … what? You hold hand as he die, yes? Join him in prayer for saving of his soul?’

‘No. He was dead when I got to him.’

The Russian’s odd green eyes hardened. ‘You think I believe this fignya?’

Heck held his nerve. ‘Don’t confuse our police with your own, Mr Tarasov. Ours wouldn’t collude in covering up a murder.’

‘Who say murder?’

‘Or even a fatal shooting by an officer … even if it was justified. They’ve got too many mini politicians in their ranks. You understand that? Little people whose main interest is drawing top brass wages for day-long virtue-signalling. Most have barely done a shift on the streets and they’re already wearing chief superintendent’s pips. You think a crowd like that would risk their own fucking jobs to save mine?’

Tarasov considered this. ‘You speak well, my friend. And you entertain my sons.’ Heck glanced sideways; the loopy brothers were indeed grinning again. ‘This will be sad for us.’

‘Even if they did try to protect me,’ Heck said hurriedly, ‘our media love the sound of their own self-righteousness. It’d be all over the press. “Hero or Zero?” “Wild West cop is relic from unhappy past”.’

Tarasov smiled all the more, but Hellstrom couldn’t keep listening.

‘Name of a fucking name, Heckenburg!’ he stammered. ‘Look at this man. You think he care? You were there. That is enough. Look at this … look!’

He dug a phone from his jeans pockets, and lurched to his feet, showing the screen in close-up. At first Heck couldn’t make out what he was seeing.

‘Is that …’ he said, ‘is that some guy’s who’s been …’

‘My nephew,’ Hellstrom said. ‘Torvald Pedersen.’

Heck’s eyes flickered to Tarasov, who grinned broadly, showing all his shark teeth, and then back to the photograph. It depicted what Heck had first thought was the vandalised face of a shopfront mannequin: ash-pale, mouth agape, eyes rolled white, red stains streaked down it from a red paper crown. Though on closer inspection, that crown was actually a circlet of torn, ragged flesh.

‘This guy’s been scalped?’ Heck said, though it wasn’t really a question.

‘Scalping is only start of it.’ Hellstrom snatched the phone away, slumping back into his chair. ‘I never see Torvald again … I never want to.’

Heck looked at Tarasov. ‘I’m guessing this was your work?’

The Russian laughed loudly. ‘Not just funny man. Quick to learn.’

‘Idiot cop,’ Hellstrom said wearily. ‘This await my whole family. Bratva hold them hostage in their home. They have country estate on Varangerfjord. You know this place?’

‘I come from Lancashire,’ Heck replied. ‘How would I know somewhere called Varangerfjord.’

‘Less than hundred mile from Russian border.’ Hellstrom shook his head. ‘Easy for them.’

Heck glanced from one to the other, the truth slowly and painfully dawning. ‘So, are you clowns telling me the hit on the Ace of Diamonds was revenge for Nayka?’

Tarasov’s grin lapsed into a self-satisfied smile. ‘We watch your people for long time. Not just you, my friend. All of this SCU team.’

Heck was incredulous. ‘You were watching SCU?’

‘We watch carefully killers of my nephew.’

‘But I was the only SCU officer at the scene when he died!’

Tarasov pondered this. ‘Your SCU … how you call it, lead investigation, no? You, Heckenburg …’ he shrugged. ‘You are man under orders.’ He thumped his barrel chest. ‘I too. Man under orders. We cannot always strike when we wish. Or when iron is hot.’

‘Let me guess,’ Heck said. ‘Nayka was over here as part of some deal you guys were cooking up with one of our home-grown syndicates. If memory serves, you wanted a gateway into Britain to bulk-traffic fentanyl being produced in Chinese labs. Nayka was under orders to clear some ground for you, but it went pear-shaped. I’m guessing the deal was still on, though? Or something similar. Which meant your gaffers didn’t want to stir things up, and so put the brakes on any official payback for Nayka’s death?’

Whether the Russian understood all or any of this was unclear, but he nodded and smiled.

‘But you …’ Heck said slowly. ‘You couldn’t wait, could you?’

Tarasov shrugged. ‘You not have this thing in your country? Family honour?’

‘That depends how honourable the family. But I get the point. You couldn’t put it on hold for ever, so you kept out of it yourself …’ He indicated Hellstrom. ‘And used these fucking creeps instead.’

‘It was perfect time,’ Tarasov admitted. ‘We watch your SCU break this ridiculous Black Chapel, this brotherhood of degenerates. So, now …’ he, too, glanced at Hellstrom, ‘these men have good reason to come for you.’

‘We had no reason for anything,’ Hellstrom retorted, ‘except …’

‘Except that they’d already crossed the border and grabbed your family,’ Heck replied.

The old rocker hung his head. ‘We know what happen if we refuse.’

‘They made you and your son their fall-guys,’ Heck said. ‘Who were you calling an idiot, again? You stupid, hairy-arsed shithead. You’ve agitated all your adult life against the Bible, but it didn’t take long for your own sins to find you out, did it! Jesus!’

‘You fuck!’ Hellstrom banged his phone on the table. ‘What alternative? This! For my mother, my father … my sister!’

‘And even then, they fail.’ Tarasov sighed

‘Heck glanced at him. ‘You mean because they missed me? The only one who really mattered?’

The Russian made a noncommittal gesture.

‘And poor old Torvald was a sign of things to come if they failed a second time?’ Heck glanced at Hellstrom, who even discarding his injuries, looked a haggard, broken man. ‘Which is why you had Snake Fletcher lure me up here?’

‘Useful idiot,’ Hellstrom confirmed.

‘He actually believes you’re into this Odinist crap.’

‘Better no one else know truth, huh?’ Tarasov laughed. ‘That way, they stay alive.’

‘Well …’ Heck shrugged. ‘I suppose I should be flattered that you’ve come over here to do the last bit, yourself, Mr Tarasov.’

The Russian stood up. ‘I like you, cop.’ He clapped Heck’s shoulder. ‘You and me, we will make big show in morning, yes?’ He laughed, his voice booming. ‘Big, big show!’

32

Heck wasn’t sure how long they’d allowed him to sleep. Perhaps one hour, perhaps two. He should have realised, he later told himself, that this likely wasn’t for his benefit, but so that his captors could also get some rest. They’d been waiting up all night for his arrival. He’d still been surprised, though, when they’d cut his cable-ties and ushered him to a cold room off the kitchen, primarily because its shelves were well-stocked with food and other supplies. Even though the door was closed and locked behind him, at least it meant that he could eat, which he did, opening a tin of corned beef and wolfing it down, gnawing on a piece of cheese, slugging some milk and bottled water. Afterwards, he’d curled up in a corner, and though it was cold in there, the whitewashed brick walls running with condensation, when he’d compressed himself almost into a ball, physical exhaustion had plunged him into a blackout sleep from which he’d only wakened when they’d banged the door unceremoniously open again and called his name.

It was Rudi Tarasov, the kid in the wolf hat. He stepped backward, grinning, as Heck came out. He still wore the clothes that he’d been in the night before, including the hat. In addition, he carried the Dragunov. One of the other henchmen stood behind him, an AK-47 across his chest. Behind him, the vast old kitchen, which was everything one would expect in a great baronial house, was lit dimly by shafts of early morning sunlight. Karl Hellstrom was in the process of mopping a bowl with a chunk of crusty bread. He still looked weary and bedraggled. Clots of blood hung sticky in his matted locks.

He pushed the bowl aside and stood up from the table. ‘You eat? You will need it.’

‘Weird thing,’ Heck replied, as his captors pushed him down a passage, on the left of which side-windows looked out into a kitchen courtyard. ‘Feeding a man up before his execution. Mind you, that’s what they do in the States. So why not here?’

‘Execution?’ Hellstrom snorted, limping alongside him. ‘You get nothing so easy.’

‘Sorry. Not having carried out any cold-blooded massacres recently, my definition of “easy” probably differs from yours by some margin.’

Hellstrom shook his head. ‘You make joke of everything.’

‘You did a job for them, you little shit. What are you looking so frightened about?’

‘This job was nothing I want.’

‘Nevertheless, you did it. You and your fucking son.’

Hellstrom’s gaze flickered to the ceiling. His face, though torn and bruised, was drawn with worry as well as pain. But he said nothing else, and they passed through an arched doorway into a conservatory filled with gym equipment. Beyond its tall windows, the rising sun shot silver streaks across a rugged, frosty landscape.

‘I bet they’ve not even released your family, have they?’ Heck said.

Hellstrom still didn’t reply. They passed through another stone arch and were frogmarched past a blue and green-tiled exercise pool lying about forty metres by twenty.

‘This is what you get when you lie down with dogs,’ Heck said. ‘You ran a shitbag outfit back in the day. For no reason other than notoriety and cash. It paid you well at the time, but there was always likely to be a price-tag.’

Hellstrom glanced daggers at him. ‘You think Christians cool? They never do evil?’

‘I’m not debating it with you, Ivar the Dickless. The toxic message you spent your life promoting finally brought a real devil to your door. How’s that working out for you?’

Hellstrom spat something in Norwegian, doubtless a curse or insult, and then they were moving down a marble-floored access passage and stepping out onto an open terrace overlooking a downward-sweeping glen.

The sharp cold gripped Heck straight away, though – perhaps predictably – it had less effect on Hellstrom, he being a Viking at least in name, while Vasily Tarasov was positively revelling in it. The big Russian wore only a dressing gown and flipflops as he sat at an outdoor table, making a breakfast of boiled eggs, toast and orange juice, apparently engrossed in a Russian language news site on the tablet propped in front of him. Several yards away, Alexei Tarasov stood beside a wheeled clothing rack, on which a set of pressed and laundered combat fatigues hung from a single hanger. Heck glanced further afield. As the winter sunlight flooded the landscape, a pristine picture was emerging. At the foot of the glen, the blue waters of a loch sparkled. Beyond that, thickly wooded slopes rose steeply upward, eventually giving way to high, dark rocks still cloaked in morning mist. Somewhat closer, three bright red quadbikes were lined up at the foot of the steps leading down from the terrace.

‘Good morning,’ Tarasov said.

‘You’re an early riser,’ Heck replied.

The Russian sat back. ‘On some days, da.’

Heck sniffed the air. ‘Looks like today’ll be a smasher. Chilly, but not a cloud to be seen.’

‘Good for hunting, I think.’

‘You sure that’s a smart idea? I mean, you’re a visitor here. A stranger. The rules in Scotland are likely to be different from those back home.’

Tarasov smiled as he stood up. ‘On special days, my friend,’ and he patted Heck’s cheek, ‘we make our own rules.’ He moved back to the French window, which stood open, and shouted some instructions in Russian.

Heck turned to Hellstrom. ‘This what happened to Torvald?’

Hellstrom, though officially one of Heck’s captors, was so subdued he could barely speak. ‘Tarasov like to hunt. Is his thing.’

The big Russian turned to face them, pointing at the towering massifs beyond the loch. ‘From here to mountain range is three miles. You see?’

Heck nodded. ‘I do.’

‘On other side of mountains, we find Atlantic Ocean.’

‘Wrong time of year for a dip, sadly,’ Heck said. ‘Wrong coastline too. Bit rocky.’

‘Indeed.’ Tarasov nodded as if this was actually a serious observation. ‘But you will like it if you get there, I think.’

‘If I get there. Okay.’

Tarasov pointed again. The distant mist was clearing, and central to their vision, at about midpoint in the range of crags, stood a barren but very visible double-spired peak. ‘You see two-headed mountain?’

‘I see it,’ Heck confirmed.

‘You get past that. Over it or round to other side, and you find … a headland?’ He glanced at Heck. ‘This is correct word?’

‘I believe so. Your English is very good, Mr Tarasov. Care to hear my Russian?’

‘Sad for you, we have no time for foolish acting. On top of headland is …’ He paused as though again trying to recollect. ‘On top of this is Lighthouse of St Ninian.’

Heck nodded. ‘A lighthouse, okay.’

Tarasov grinned again. ‘You take all this in stride. This is good. So … you make it to this lighthouse, my friend, and you are … how you say, home free.’

‘I see. Three miles … and in the process I have to go over a mountain?’

The Russian clapped his back. ‘You understand. Is good. And you have one-hour start.’

‘Mr Tarasov …’ Heck tried to sound reasonable. ‘Even with an hour start, at no stage will I be out of range of these Dragunov rifles. On top of which …’ he indicated the quadbikes, ‘you guys are riding while I’m walking? It’s hardly fair’.

‘Hah!’ Tarasov patted his cheek again. ‘I never do fair.’

‘That’s a shocker.’

‘But I will say rifles are for …’ The Russian mused, again seeking the correct word. ‘Protection. Just for that, yes?’

Heck glanced from the Russian to his sons. ‘These guys won’t be in the hunt?’

‘They will not shoot. Unless …’ Again, he struggled to phrase it.

‘Unless I get on top?’

This time, Tarasov only half-smiled. ‘Maybe.’

‘So, it’s just you and me … and you have reinforcements if you need them?’

‘Da. You have it. But do not worry. Never before do I need these reinforcements.’

Before Heck could pose a further question, another two of Tarasov’s three extra henchmen came out onto the terrace. One of them removed the breakfast things from the table, while the other laid down a large, flattish leather case shaped roughly like a diamond.

‘You will like this,’ Tarasov said, unzipping it down one side and lifting the lid. Inside, tucked cosily into pads of green velvet, lay a hi-tech compound crossbow.

It was a beautiful and compact piece of work, the limbs, stock, foregrip and trigger guard fashioned from lightweight carbon fibre but with a camouflage finish, the arrow track, stirrup and sight bridge made from some kind of alloy. By the looks of it, it had been oiled and polished, and now lay gleaming in the morning sun.

Tarasov lifted it out with pride, before taking a secondary item from the case – a telescopic sight, which strongly resembled a rifle scope – and slotted it into place on the bridge. Kicking off a flipflop, he lowered the weapon to the floor and – inserting his bare foot through the stirrup – drew back the bowstring with relative ease thanks to its cam wheels, until the latch snicked closed. His henchman placed another item on the table: a leather cylinder with a belt-strap attachment. Tarasov hefted the bow, while unscrewing the lid from the cylinder and taking out one of perhaps twenty-five arrows. Not that it was an arrow in the true sense. It was perhaps half the length of the sort of arrow you’d use with a target bow, eight or nine inches at the most, what an experienced bow-hunter might refer to as a ‘quarrel’. Aside from that, it wasn’t completely dissimilar: it was feathered at its base and made from smooth, lightweight metal, and yet the final two inches of its shaft and its bodkin-shaped head and wicked point were of transparent glass.

Tarasov held the projectile for Heck’s closer inspection.

‘You see quarrel? I have it special made. Have all of them made. To my own orders, yes? It contain hydrochloric acid, yes? Super high concentrate. Body is aluminium, but there is plastic tube inside to stop acid from eating metal. You understand this?’

Heck nodded but said nothing.

Tarasov lowered the crossbow again, inserting the quarrel into the flight groove and clicking it in place under the retention spring.

‘I’m guessing the glass is only supposed to break when the quarrel strikes its target?’ Heck commented.

‘Da!’ Tarasov seemed pleased to have successfully explained. ‘Even Englishman can see when something is simple. But allow demonstration.’ Without warning, he spun round, the crossbow levelled in one hand, and triggered it.

The quarrel flashed across the terrace in a blur, thudding dead-centre into the chest of Karl Hellstrom, where it stood quivering.

At first, the Viking remained on his feet. He seemed startled rather than hurt. Then his eyes rolled to Heck as the colour drained visibly from his beaten face, and finally to Tarasov, whom he regarded with disbelief rather than rage. Even as he stood there, the area around the shaft began to bubble and pop, the fabric of his vest and the skin and muscle beneath dissolving into reddish froth. The stench hit Heck as Hellstrom fell full-length backward onto the tilework, writhing and gagging rather than screaming, mucus bursting from his mouth as his whole central chest area collapsed inward like melting wax, the quarrel sinking further into a foaming red-green crater from which black fumes coiled in greasy ropes.

It was several seconds before Heck could speak, and when he did, it was in a tight, half-choked voice. ‘Tough call on Eric. That wasn’t just his dad, you know. That was his nurse.’

Tarasov gave another hearty laugh as he handed the crossbow to his henchman. Again, he patted Heck’s cheek. From somewhere overhead, only half-muffled by the heavy Highland stone from which Brollachan House was constructed, came the sudden wailing of a man suffering such pain that even the depths of his coma didn’t spare him.

‘Eric?’ The Russian shook his shaggy satyr head. ‘He need no nurse. No more. Now …’ and he adopted a business-like air, ‘you are ready for this?’

Overhead, the screaming stopped. Heck gazed on at the higher windows.

‘You are ready?’ the Russian asked again.

‘You know …’ Heck turned to face him. ‘All my career I’ve met blokes like you. Nobodies turned into demons by the weapons they carry. In the US, two-bit losers who’ve fucked up every part of their lives still get to make their mark in eternity by taking M16s into shopping malls. In London, pathetic gangster wannabes terrorise whole neighbourhoods because they’ve got bigger knives than everyone else.’

The Russian said nothing. But smiled and nodded.

‘We’ve got overpaid twats touring game reserves in Africa, clocking up scorecards of rhinos, lions and giraffes because they had machine guns rather than spears. And then there are the real shitheads. Like you.’

‘Fuck!’ Rudi Tarasov shouted, advancing with his Dragunov shouldered, proving once again that he understood more English than Heck might have expected.

‘I understand you want to get even with me, Tarasov.’ Heck indicated the crossbow. ‘But this Robin Hood shit means nothing. Because now I’m wondering if you fancy doing it up close and personal? What do you reckon?’ He clenched his right fist. ‘Fancy slugging it out instead? You know, man to man?’

At first, Tarasov seemed startled, as if this was some new kind of concept. ‘You?’ he eventually said. ‘Fight me?’

‘If that’s so ridiculous, why don’t we just do it?’ Heck replied. ‘Let’s see who’s on their feet in two minutes’ time. Just the two of us. No weapons. Winner takes all.’

‘Winner take all?’ The Russian mused on what he clearly hadn’t initially considered a serious challenge. His gaze flickered at least once towards the formerly robust body of Karl Hellstrom, which had been pounded senseless the previous night.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ Heck said. ‘He was unlucky. I’m sure you could beat the jack-shit out of me. Guy of your size. With your experience.’

Tarasov regarded him long and hard. Confused, it seemed. But then, suddenly, his face broke and he roared with thunderous laughter. His men joined in.

Heck lowered his fists. ‘This is funny?’

‘You have this thing, yes?’ Tarasov bellowed. ‘Chiv … chivalrous?’ He threw his hands up. ‘Knights of old.’ He waggled those hands, showman style. ‘You say “Robin Hood shit”. I say Richard Lionheart shit.’ He shook his head. ‘English shit … King Arthur … knights of fucking round table.’ Gradually, his mirth subsided. ‘Today, net.’ He waggled a hand again. ‘None of this romance shit is real.’

‘Hey, Englishman!’ Rudi Tarasov shouted.

Heck glanced round. The wolf-hatted lunatic now squatted behind Hellstrom’s hollowed-out corpse, holding it upright from the waist like some mangled ventriloquist’s puppet.

‘This shit real!’ he laughed, spitting on the dead Norwegian’s face.

‘We do this now, Heckenburg?’ Tarasov asked again. ‘No time like present, huh?’

Heck stared again at the gutted corpse. ‘Yeah, let’s do it. While things are fresh in my mind.’

‘Good, good.’ The Russian wrapped an arm round him, squeezing his left shoulder in a hand that surely could have crushed a wild boar’s skull. ‘You … fight me? Fuck you, English. I laugh. You make worthy prey.’

He then stepped away and stripped his gown off. He was naked underneath, a brawny, muscular, sun-browned figure, limbs taut and toned, his waist slim and belly flat, his broad chest and big shoulders matted with thick red hair. Again, he was covered in runic Russian tattoos, including one hugely impressive jet-black image across his midriff, which appeared to depict the head of a stag. Ostensibly of course, Tarasov had denuded himself because he intended to don his hunting gear. But also, Heck knew that it was to cow his opponent. To display his raw strength and power, to exhibit his primitive alpha-maleness in the most basic way imaginable

‘Wow, Vasily!’ Heck said. ‘So, who keeps your wife happy?’

Tarasov’s head whipped round. For the first time, there was a hint of anger in his face.

Rudi shouted again, this time in fury, and rammed the thumbhole stock of his Dragunov into Heck’s back, knocking him forward against the table, where he had to lean for a second or two, gasping at the pain. However, there was no follow-up blow, the father, presumably not wanting to spoil his own day’s sport, shouting at his wolf-hatted son, who backed off, scowling.

‘Hey, no offence meant,’ Heck grunted, still agonised. ‘I was probably a bit hasty. It’s a chilly morning after all. Happens to the best of us.’

Tarasov pulled on his camouflage trousers. ‘You make this more fun by minute, my friend. So now you get start of half-hour.’

Gingerly, Heck straightened. ‘Me and my big mouth, eh? Meanwhile, you and your little …’ The Russian looked at him again, Heck hurriedly raising his hands. ‘Joke … just a joke.’

The irony was that Heck’s predicament, and Vasily Tarasov in particular, were anything but a joke. The Russian climbed lithely into his hunting kit: his waterproof thermals with the khaki design, his hoodie jacket and boots, finally pulling on a harness to which all kinds of extras were attached, including a huge, heavy-bladed knife, and the cylindrical quiver, which he hooked at his hip. He looked more than capable of scouring any landscape you could name, tirelessly and efficiently sniffing out its deadliest denizen and taking it down with a single shot from his compound crossbow. And of course, if that didn’t work, he didn’t just have his mobile sniper squadron backup, both of whom had now taken their saddles, the quadbikes roaring and growling as the riders revved them around in wild circles, he had the other three bastards with their AK-47s, all of whom waited obediently on the terrace.

‘Just out of interest,’ Heck wondered, ‘are those Kalashnikovs the same weapons the Hellstroms used at the Ace of Diamonds?’

‘Net,’ Tarasov replied, adjusting his harness slightly. ‘We have many like this. We supply Hellstrom, of course. But those weapons now in lake. Where you will be, too. With Hellstrom and son.’ He glanced towards the loch. ‘They tell me it is six hundred feet to bottom. This number is possible?’

‘Probably,’ Heck replied. ‘Up here.’

‘A good place of rest for you. And for these Norwegian metal motherfuckers. While their castle burns on shore.’

Heck now noticed that the last of the three henchmen to emerge from inside the house had brought out two large petrol canisters.

‘Total erasure from the map, eh?’ he said. ‘That the fate of all your enemies?’

The Russian smiled, liking the sound of that. ‘Da … I think so.’

‘With no sign left at all of your victory?’

‘You forget your hair.’ And Tarasov laughed, his men joining him.

‘My hair, of course.’

‘Now …’ Tarasov pulled on a pair of khaki gauntlets, which looked snug and well-worn. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘I am.’

‘Then go.’ The Russian pointed down the glen towards the distant loch and mountains. ‘Your clock is ticking.’

‘One thing first, Mr Tarasov.’ Heck tried to look thoughtful. ‘Do you know that when I first joined the British police force, it was in Manchester?’

The Russian shrugged, feigning fascination. Again, his crew chuckled.

‘In the first instance, I was assigned to the F Division,’ Heck said. ‘That’s a place called Salford. You know this place, Mr Tarasov?’

‘Net. Is good?’

More laughter from his byki.

‘Sort of. We had this thing, you see.’ Heck lowered his voice as he spoke, beckoning the Russian closer. Amused, Tarasov leaned down to share the secret. ‘We called it the “Salford Caution”.’

And he slammed his left knee into the bastard’s groin.

Tarasov hit the floor on all fours, hunched in agony, clutching himself. His crew were slow to react because he didn’t cry out, simply gave a protracted, strangled groan. Only as Heck backed quickly away, palms raised, did the trio with the AKs realise what had happened. They jolted forward, unslinging the Kalashnikovs from their shoulders. The red-haired clowns on the quadbikes came hurtling back towards the terrace at reckless speed.

‘Okay, okay …’ Heck shouted.

A succession of clicks sounded as the Kalashnikovs were cocked.

‘NET! NET!’ Tarasov belly-roared, glancing up. ‘Net! On moy, chtoby ubit!’

‘See,’ Heck said. ‘Your boss still wants to play.’

Rudi and Alexei had now abandoned their machines and run up the steps to the terrace, but already their father was rising back to his full, impressive height. Rudi looked to have a particularly twitchy finger. He halted alongside his parent, but his Dragunov was levelled and primed, the eyes bugging from his odd, pale face. Only Tarasov’s hand, pushing its barrel downward, prevented shots being fired.

‘Sorry about that, Vasily,’ Heck said. ‘But you must admit, someone had to even the odds a little.’

The mob boss regarded him with the kind of red-faced disbelief that Heck suspected he rarely experienced. Here was a man completely in charge of his world. Here was a man who exerted life and death control over near enough everyone. Here was a man who was rarely spoken down to, let alone walloped in the gonads. The way Heck had figured it, after coming all this way and making such detailed preps for his very personal revenge, Tarasov would have been unlikely to give it all up for a quick, unsatisfying kill. Or even for a slow kill (Heck had hoped). He liked to hunt, as the late Karl Hellstrom had said. That was ‘his thing’.

And yes, it was undeniably true that someone had also needed to tip the scales back a little into Heck’s favour. Even so, the look of suppressed animalistic rage on the giant Russian’s face was scary enough to make him wonder if this had been an unwise move.

‘Is good,’ Tarasov eventually said, his hot, hard breath whistling through his clenched teeth. Despite the assault on his privates, he stepped aside nimbly. ‘Is good. You go.’ He indicated the sloping grassland, from which most of the surface frost had now dissipated. ‘Now you have quarter-hour.’

Heck trudged past them to the top of the terrace steps. Their respective gazes burned into his back like so many cherry-red dots from laser-powered rifle-sights.

Quarter of an hour.

That plan had worked out well.

He descended the steps slowly, breathing deeply. And when he got to the bottom, ran.

33

Whether Gwen Straker would get the go-ahead to reconstitute the Serial Crimes Unit didn’t depend entirely on the events up in Scotland, but if whatever was to happen up there transpired to be problematic, it wouldn’t help.

As she strode impatiently between the deserted offices occupying the Command Floor at Staples Corner, the entire level now filled with the dirty, milky light of dawn, she wondered at her motivation for seeking to rebirth the once-legendary squad. Officially she was still part of the Metropolitan Police, which meant that she wasn’t even a National Crime Group officer. A transfer would not be difficult to arrange, and it wasn’t as if the Met’s Cold Case Unit, of which she was still head, wouldn’t be able to cope without her. They’d managed admirably over the last few months. But she was now fifty-six, with lengthy service, thirty-three years to be precise, already under her belt. These days, the average female police officer retired at sixty with a full pension and enough juice usually left in the tank to do something less demanding with her life. Did she really want to be jump-starting a new, even more challenging chapter in her career at this late stage?

Reconstituting SCU, who had a remit to cover all the police force areas of England and Wales, and whose speciality was the investigation of series of crimes committed by serial violent offenders, mainly murderers and rapists, would mean headhunting adequate numbers of detectives with the relevant experience and then persuading them to leave whichever job they currently inhabited, which they were no doubt very good at and comfortable in, to come to a drab office block like this and undertake enquiries that would lead them back and forth across the country. There were even question-marks about whether the few survivors of the old SCU would want to stay on. The handful who’d not been killed at the Ace of Diamonds but had been critically injured would almost certainly be looking for generous medical retirement packages. DS Eric Fisher, who hadn’t been there because of prior commitments, was close to retirement anyway, while DCs Gary Quinnell and Gail Honeyford were likely to be facing disciplinary charges unless she – Gwen Straker, because no one else was going to do it – could call in an awful lot of favours on their behalf. The mountain of complexity that faced her here would be daunting to just about anyone, let alone a long-serving officer whose husband and children were confidently expecting that she’d shortly be winding things down.

On top of all that, the prospect of commanding an outfit like SCU would be no small task in itself. By the nature of their role, they undertook only the most harrowing investigations, pursuing the most dangerous and elusive criminals. As senior supervisor here, it wouldn’t be the case that she’d have to micro-manage every single enquiry to which the unit became attached, but there’d be plenty where she’d be the automatic choice for SIO, and even when it was merely the case that she’d be allocating staff to other forces, it would be expected of her that she’d keep close tabs on them all, providing back-up and consultation where required, to have her fingers in multiple pies at any one time, so to speak.

The extra hours this would require cast a shadow all of their own. Then there’d be the stress of taking centre-stage daily in the sorts of cases the press never let alone, the sort that panicked the public and the politicians and inflicted new and constant levels of emotional pain caused by nonstop interaction with the bereaved, the wounded, the raped.

Gemma Piper had once described it as life in a goldfish bowl wherein the water was filthy and stagnant, and yet outside, a dozen predatory cats watched and licked their lips.

But again, as Gwen strolled aimlessly back and forth around the Command Floor, half-drunk coffee in hand, waiting for a phone-call – any call would do, as she’d left so many messages over the last few hours – her eyes roved from one empty desk to the next, many still decked with the accoutrements of family life, from toys given by children to photographs of loved ones to thankyou cards from the relatives of victims whose murderers had been brought to justice, and she knew that it would be letting down the memory of every last person who had once sat there if she didn’t at least try to regenerate this place.

For all the Serial Crimes Unit’s elite status, there were many among the wider brass who’d be grateful to see it closed as that would save a chunk of money, which in this current era of mammoth police cost-cutting, would be the perfect solution. But the partial success of Operation Sledgehammer had pinned the unit back on the map, and Gwen had already made subtle noises about how bad the headlines would look if a whole load of cops died on duty and their exhaustive work was then repaid with the disbandment of their team. She didn’t think it would take too much more to bring SCU back into action, but you never could tell.

That was partly why Joe Wullerton was currently engaged in a breakfast meeting with the Crime Committee of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. He was also there to update them on the Ace of Diamonds investigation, which was why he had Mike Garrickson with him.

Of the various calls she’d placed in the last few hours, Wullerton and Garrickson had been the only two where she’d managed to get through. Neither had been able to talk much as they’d been on their way to the Yard, but both had been ambivalent in their own way about the possible Russian connection. Wullerton had cited the lack of either direct or circumstantial evidence, while at the same time admitting that it was an ugly and worrying prospect. Garrickson had been less impressed, even grumpy. He was already working on the basis that the late Armenian oligarch, Milena Misanyan’s people were behind the shootings, so it didn’t make a lot of difference in his mind.

‘Either way, they’ll have fucked off, now, won’t they,’ he’d said. ‘You’re not going to hang about in Britain after topping twenty-six police personnel no matter how well-connected you are back east.’

‘If Heck’s their prime target, they won’t have gone anywhere,’ she’d argued.

‘So get onto Police Scotland.’

‘I’ve already done that, Mike!’

‘Great. Maybe you can copy me in on their response.’ He’d then paused, perhaps remembering that Gwen Straker was a higher rank. ‘Look, I’m sorry, ma’am … I’m not trying to be unhelpful. But we’re under the cosh here. The big chiefs want to see results, and there’s not too much I can show them yet.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she’d replied tersely. ‘Maybe Police Scotland will get you out of it.’

That had been over an hour ago and she’d heard nothing back. Not that she was expecting anything from Garrickson or Wullerton yet; they’d still be in with the Crime Committee. She was more interested in hearing from DCI Stenberg in Oslo or Sophie Cotillard at Interpol.

At which point the silence in the building was shattered by the ringing of a phone.

Gwen went hurriedly back to Gemma’s office, to see her own mobile vibrating on the desktop. She picked it up eagerly, but when she saw the caller’s number, an icy finger ran down her spine.

‘Detective Chief Superintendent Straker,’ she said, answering tensely.

It was the voice of someone she didn’t know. But the message that voice imparted sent such a shockwave through her that it almost knocked her from her feet, that tears literally sprang from her eyes.

34

As Heck hammered his way down the glen, a couple of things struck him straight away.

Firstly, this initial part of the chase was all going to be downhill, which meant that he could go for it full pelt and would still expend relatively little energy and, given that he now had a curtailed head start, that was important. Secondly, as the frost had mostly vanished from the grass, he was able to see crisscrossing sets of tyre tracks in front of him, which meant that Tarasov and his sons had already been this way once on their quadbikes, presumably making a recce … and so at no stage, unless he consciously diverted from that path, would he be on ground that his enemy hadn’t already scouted. To counter this, he’d need to make an unexpected move, something they wouldn’t have considered. However, for the next few minutes, it was all he could do just to keep his feet. The soil was firm rather than slushy, but even though the frost had melted, the turf was wet and slippery, and Heck had trainers on rather than boots with solid grips, so he slid and skidded continually.

Ahead of him, the coastal mountain range seemed misty and distant, but before then, the topography leading to it on the left was broader and flatter, eventually ascending to the towering crags through a series of gently wooded foothills. The quadbike tyre marks veered more and more in that direction, perhaps inevitably given that to the right there was only the loch, which – now that Heck was closer – looked much larger, the trees along its edges thinly spread, affording no realistic hiding places.

The loch it would be, he decided.

It was a risk for certain; the only way he’d make ground would be to head north along its east shore, meaning that he’d be going in completely the wrong direction, but they already had him for speed, so at least he’d be denying them the advantage of familiar terrain. The slope steepened slightly, and though he’d been moving at a fast jog before, now he accelerated, running as hard as he could, increasingly tense as the quadbike tracks swung further away to his left. They’d be watching him through their scopes, and if they considered this switch of direction an inconvenience, they might set off straight away or even try to bring him down with their Dragunovs.

But nothing happened. There was no crack of rifle fire from behind, not even a warning shot to kick up a chunk of turf on his right and shepherd him back onto the correct route.

Had they explored the loch shores, too, or was Tarasov just supremely confident that he could run this latest prey down in any circumstance? The big Russian wasn’t unused to wild countryside, of course, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t already hold all the aces. Heck was reminded that this had never been intended to be a fair contest. This was his execution, protracted for his captors’ personal enjoyment.

The thought spurred him to greater, harder efforts as he scrambled down over progressively rockier, more rutted ground, now heading openly for the loch, which loomed in his vision; a vast body of motionless water, so flat and calm that the matchstick trees on its far side and the upward-swerve of the land as it rose into those coastal massifs were reflected with mirrorlike perfection.

All very scenic, but steadily more tiring, even for someone as fit as he was, especially when he got down to the shoreline.

Here he veered right, running northwest, but was now on level footing again, which put him under greater strain. On top of that, the ground rose and fell. There were boulders and tufts of leafless vegetation, while the roots of the trees along the waterline were exposed and twisted and had to be vaulted or evaded.

He glanced back. He could no longer see Brollachan House. That was a good thing. Once out of sight, if an opportunity came to hide, he could take it and they wouldn’t know. But how long would this opportunity last? Surely his quarter-hour start was now up?

Right on cue, he heard the distant rumble of quadbikes surging to life.

The hunt was on.

He was now breathing hard and dripping with sweat, and yet felt as if he’d put no distance between himself and his pursuers. He gazed across the loch. From here, it seemed an almost impossible distance to the far side. Not that he’d been seriously contemplating swimming. The conditions weren’t quite cold enough for the surface to freeze, but those waters would still be frigid enough to knock the life out of anyone.

He gazed ahead, straining his eyes as the waterline ran on and on and on. He didn’t even know which loch this was, so he certainly had no clue how large it might be. Was it smaller than average? Would he come to the end of it soon? And even if he did, what would he do then? It would all be uphill at some point, as he’d have no choice but to challenge that mountain range? At which point, movement caught his attention. He glanced left and was stunned to see a red blip speeding along the far shore in a northerly direction. It was one of the quadbikes racing to get ahead of him, to cut him off.

Perhaps that was an obvious move for them to have made, but it also showed how quickly they’d got down here. Heck glanced behind, seeing only empty wooded hillside behind him, but the other two had to be very close indeed.

He ran on like a madman, swerving round trees, straddling clumps of desiccated thistle, before coming to an obstacle that might just buy him a little extra time.

The land had split, a deep gully now running down to the loch from some point high up on his right. A burn, so tainted with peat it looked more like tea, churned along the bottom, foaming creamily as it entered the loch. It likely wasn’t deep and was no more than five or six feet across, so Heck could wade to the other side quite easily, but for the quadbikes it’d be a different story.

‘Gotta love luring your enemy onto unfamiliar ground,’ Heck told himself as he scrambled down, plunging to his knees in the icy flow and plodding across.

He didn’t waste any time climbing back out. The duo behind him had missile weapons, after all. He glanced back as he stumbled on, just as the two remaining quadbikes came zigzagging into view, their riders laughing. One of them was Vasily Tarasov himself, the other his son, Alexei, the one who didn’t favour the wolf-hat. They carried their weapons on their backs while they rode, which again, Heck realised, might buy him a little time.

He charged on, descending the ground towards the loch’s edge, where it was more level. Behind him, he heard the laughter turn to cursing. He risked looking again even though ploughing on at full speed. Father and son sat astride their machines but had halted on the other side of the burn. Just before they passed out of sight among the trees, he saw them manoeuvre round and power their way uphill, following the course of the miniature ravine, presumably seeking a narrower point, at which they could jump. They’d find one for sure, but for the moment it was an unexpected lifeline.

Heck decelerated to a fast jog. He couldn’t risk exhausting himself too early. Though his heart was already throbbing, his lungs aching, he had plenty in the tank yet, but it wouldn’t last forever. In front of him the waterline looped into minor bays and then out around shingle-covered headlands. Occasionally he cut inland through thicker stands of pine trees; other times he tottered and fell as he blundered along beaches that were little more than treacherous mudbanks. However, another sound now came to his ears. A low but monotonous rumble of thunder.

When he rounded the next headland, he saw the cause of it.

The northern end of the loch was in sight. In some ways it extended his current advantage, in that it didn’t just end in another grassy, pebbly shore, but was a chaos of fallen boulders, clearly an ancient rockslide, which now rose tier on tier until it reached the midpoint of a sheer cliff-face. What was more, water cascaded through it forcefully from a rumbling cataract, which tumbled over the clifftop perhaps three hundred feet overhead. If Heck could get even a short distance up there, the quadbikes would be totally nullified.

Enthused, he ran on, glancing left. The loch’s far bank also rose up sheer, a vast apron of scree and broken stones standing nearly vertical. This meant that the one with the wolf ears, Rudi Tarasov, who had dashed ahead, would have been steered away from the waterline and now was likely riding on much higher ground, hopefully further and further away from the loch, though of course this didn’t mean that he couldn’t still get close enough to bring Heck into rifle range.

With this in mind, Heck stopped and gazed up, shielding his eyes, but saw no sign of the wolf-hatted youngster. In which case, so far so good.

He ran down a brae, vaulting more roots and thickets of gorse. The waterfall soon towered in front of him, its thunder filling his ears, though he could also hear the distant but approaching roar of the quadbikes as they dodged through the trees behind him. They’d made it over the burn and were back in the chase.

He pelted along the stretch of stony beach arcing around the loch’s northwest shoulder, the ground beyond that canting sharply upward. Here, he changed his running style, leaning forward, pumping his arms. He couldn’t afford his pace to slacken, because once his pursuers were out of the trees, the crossbow would sing again. This made him risk another backward glance. Still there was no visible sign of them, but their engines were deafening. And then he was amid the rockslide, clambering uphill, which, though he immediately felt safer, proved trickier than he’d expected, even for a man on foot. The curved and rugged surfaces were constantly side-splashed by the cataract above and thus slick with ice. He tripped and slid, barking his shins and knees. Looking back repeatedly, he was still unable to get a visual on the quadbikes, though it couldn’t be long before they emerged and at present he was in clear view and easy range.

He climbed urgently. Overhead, there was a dizzying effect as the cliff leaned out. Vast lengths of icicle dangled down from it, the sight of which reminded Heck how cold the day was, though at present his heart was pumping, his sweat pouring, adrenaline flooding his system. No doubt this was exhausting work, but his ‘fight or flight’ mechanism was in full operation, so he kept going, encouraged by the height he’d gained: he was already fifty or sixty feet above the loch. And then reality crashed in as something like a metallic wasp zipped past his ear and exploded on the boulder in front with such force that its feathered tailfin bounced back and struck him in the face.

Heck stared agog as a fist-sized divot of rock liquified before his eyes.

For a couple of seconds, he hung there, wondering how long before he felt it himself, the acid specks burning a hundred inroads into his flesh.

But that didn’t happen. By a miracle, it hadn’t splashed him.

Frantic, he climbed on and inserted himself into the first cranny he found, which was a narrow cleft between two particularly sizeable boulders. He was almost up to the waterfall now, so close that its icy spume sprayed down over him, the noise of it all-consuming. Fleetingly, that scarcely mattered. At least, he was hidden from them. Though even then, he knew that he couldn’t just wait here. Warily, he knelt up to have a peek. He didn’t want to poke his head up too far, but still had sufficient vantage to see most of what lay below. The quadbikes stood abandoned by the waterside. Thanks to the rumble from the deluge, he hadn’t heard their engines switch off. So, how long since the two Russians had dismounted? Truth was, he’d lost track of time in the last few minutes, but if nothing else, this meant they were now on foot, climbing after him.

Irritation stabbed through him. He hadn’t really expected them to give up the chase easily, but he’d hoped that the thought of having to surrender their main advantage might have persuaded them to cut their losses.

He turned and glanced along the avenue between the boulders. It ran some distance, ascending all the way, its muddy floor frozen solid. He scrambled up it on all fours, until he reached a crossroads from which another channel ascended more steeply. He took this next, increasingly saturated from the waterfall’s spray. His passage ended, and tentatively, he raised himself up again, looking below but seeing no sign of Tarasov or his son. He peered uphill. A narrow crevice ascended just to his right, this one running between the rockslide and the cliff-face. It was crammed with smaller boulders, but they formed a natural stairway, meaning Heck wouldn’t even need to crawl. He ran nimbly up them. Directly ahead of him now, some thirty feet above, the route connected with the lip of a natural shelf jutting from the cliff-face, forming a ledge, which then ran behind the great translucent curtain of water sheeting down from far overheard.

Ears ringing with its cacophony, he proceeded up. Soaked, the bitter cold was biting him viciously, but his visible progress goaded him to ever-greater efforts.

He glanced back one last time before clambering onto the shelf.

About fifty feet below, there was a glimmer of khaki as either Tarasov or Alexei negotiated the tumbled stones, attempting to ascend at pace, and in so doing, failing to scan the ground above in order to pinpoint their enemy.

Taking advantage of this, Heck climbed out into full view, levering himself up onto the ledge, where he rose to his feet, turned and moved quickly sideways, sliding along it until he’d concealed himself behind the cataract. He’d seen this on movies, of course, but had never imagined it would be possible in reality.

Suddenly, there was less noise, less fury. He was in a twilit place, which wasn’t even wet anymore. The tufts of vegetation dangling brown and withered from the rockface were bone-dry. Of course, it was impossible to see out through the torrent, his vision of the loch and its shoreline blurred to nothingness. But that didn’t worry him. If he couldn’t see out, they couldn’t see in. He sank to his haunches, shoulders heaving as he fought to control his breathing. He also shivered, his lack of motion inviting the cold to embrace him, but it was vital to rest a little. A second passed before he stood up and leaned forward, reaching out his cupped left hand to collect some of the water and drink it. Up till now he’d barely noticed how thirsty he was, and so found it invigorating, but the air chill was fast becoming more than a distraction, Heck’s joints stiffening, his limbs feeling bloodless and heavy.

He shuffled back a way and glanced down that final stretch of path that had brought him here. There was no sign yet that either of the two Russians had found their way onto it. He backed away, thinking to wait another minute or so, just to regain his energy. At which point, a missile pierced the cataract. Another crossbow quarrel, its velocity reduced only slightly by the curtain of water. It had to be a lucky shot, because they couldn’t see him, but it flew straight at him, only the fact it had come from far below and was travelling steeply upward ensuring that it passed over his head and hit the rock wall.

Heck slithered away along the ledge as the drizzling, disintegrating stone trickled down. His footway became greasy with half-frozen moss, and then narrowed until it was no more than seven or so inches. He had to turn sideways and move with his back to the cliff wall. The ledge turned a corner, but so did the waterfall, meaning that he was still hemmed in, though about ten yards further on he saw daylight where the cataract gave out. The ledge widened again and he was able to move more freely.

But only a few feet from there, very abruptly, the ledge ended.

Somewhere back in the distance of time, a section of it had simply split from the cliff-face and collapsed. The descent now facing him was precipitous but not vertical; there was a slight angle to it, and he could possibly slide down on his heels and backside, though it would be a swift journey as there were no roots or protrusions that he could use as brakes. But the real problem lay at the bottom, where, approximately forty feet below him, what looked like a near-circular pocket had been scooped out of the cliffside. It was a good fifty yards in diameter, enclosed by towering faces of rock on all sides, except for that looking towards the loch, where it was open. The cataract poured down into the pocket, turning it into a boiling cauldron, a whirling plunge pool, which naturally overflowed through the great gap, falling in another powerful torrent down to the loch. It was anyone’s guess what kind of undertow this might create in the pool itself. Could Heck swim to the other side without being dragged over the edge?

He gazed down for several long seconds before venturing back along the ledge and cautiously turning the corner underneath the fall.

There was no visible sign of his pursuers, but he could hear them. An angry Russian voice echoing along the cliffside was amplified in the enclosed atmosphere behind the water.

Heck sidled back around the corner, and returned to end of the ledge, where he peered down at the plunge pool. Forty feet was a long way, too far to risk jumping as there might be rocks just underneath its foaming brown surface. So, instead, he took the only other alternative: stepping out and allowing gravity to carry him down the incredibly steep slope, scrabbling with his gloved hands but finding no purchase, his heels barely slowing as they encountered only rain-smoothed rock.

At least it was quick. The plunge pool loomed up at him terrifyingly, and then he crashed into it, an explosive boom filling his ears, its icy grip almost squeezing the life out of him. A brackish taste filled his mouth; bubbles fizzed up his nose. When he broke the surface, choking and gasping, he was already struggling against a current that immediately lugged him towards the next drop. It helped that his feet located a jumble of moving rocks. The water was only about five feet deep, which made it a sensible decision not to have jumped. Not that the cauldron floor could just be walked across. It was uneven and loose, constantly shifting, while slopping waves hit his mouth and face repeatedly. Worse than any of this, he wasn’t sure where he was going from here.

Meanwhile, raging Russian voices sounded again, echoing. Heck glanced up at the ledge. He could even see the point where it emerged from under the waterfall. No one had yet appeared there, but it couldn’t be long. And then he saw something else. At first it was a glimpse from the corner of his eye, but when he looked hard, he realised that it might just – just – offer him some kind of salvation. On the far side of the plunge pool, just to the left, there was a fissure in the rock-face. It was narrow, but he was so positioned that he could see inside it, and it wasn’t so narrow that he couldn’t sidle into it. What was more, the fissure’s floor appeared to rise steeply upward, providing a possible avenue of escape.

He strove his way towards it, water buffeting him, the floor slithering away, leaving him kicking at emptiness, only for a heavy stone, the size of a rugby ball, to break the surface beside him. Heck flinched away from it, before looking behind, to where Tarasov and his son, Alexei, had still not appeared on the ledge. Bewildered, he gazed around and above at the plunge pool’s other sides, and there, perched on a high shoulder of snow-clad stone jutting outward maybe sixty feet overhead, Tarasov’s other son, Rudi, sat astride his quadbike, a crazy grin splitting his face beneath those ridiculous wolf ears.

Rudi held his Dragunov upright with one hand, contenting himself with lobbing another stone. It wasn’t as large as the previous one, more the size of a tennis ball, but from that height, it could still have cracked Heck’s skull. And it only missed by inches.

Rudi shouted something in Russian, evidently summoning the rest of his family, and even as the echoes died away, Heck heard renewed urgency in the voices filtering out from beneath the waterfall.

He battled on towards the fissure, which now that he was closer, he was certain could accommodate him if he turned sideways. It was little more than a fault in the ancient volcanic rock, a crack that had widened over millennia. Where it might lead to was anyone’s guess, assuming it led anywhere, but Heck had no option. As he drew closer, the rubble under his feet solidified and sloped upward. And suddenly it was easier and he was moving quickly.

Only at the last second did Rudi Tarasov appear to realise what was happening. Perhaps, from where he was perched, he hadn’t spotted the fissure. Now, he put the Dragunov to his shoulder, taking aim at Heck … but still not firing, further evidence that Vasily Tarasov wanted this prize for himself. Not that this necessarily bought Heck any more time. As he emerged from the pool, sodden and staggering, the young Russian lowered his rifle and shouted again. This time, Heck didn’t even look round, just crammed his body into the crevice. At first, it was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. The crevice ran on and on ahead of him, the narrowest possible defile, the sky overhead a jagged sliver, the walls to either side merciless in their ridges and notches and tufts of spiky, frozen vegetation. About four yards in, Heck came to a sideways standstill, unsure that he could go further.

He glanced back behind, only able to see a slice of plunge pool. Was there a route back that way? Could he make it into the water and scramble over the lip facing the loch and then down the next stage of the waterfall without being smashed and torn? It seemed improbable.

But then the decision was taken from him.

Fired from the opposite side of the pool, presumably the ledge, a crossbow quarrel winged its way through the entrance, and bounced along the fissure towards him, skittering from wall to wall. Heck threw himself back against the rock, turning his head sideways, but was only saved when the missile was snagged in a clump of frosty leafage and brought to a halt a half-inch short of his nose.

Snatching at the quarrel, which remained intact, he pushed himself determinedly on, shoving his body deeper and deeper along the passage, the dimensions of which closed steadily, crushing him front and back. It was his worst horror: being jammed fast in a rigid coffin of stone, and yet if he went back to the cauldron now, with Tarasov on the high ledge, he’d literally be a fish in a barrel.

As choices went, neither seemed great.

35

When Gail Honeyford and Jude Penhaligon arrived at the main entrance to the Brollachan House estate, it was later in the morning than they’d hoped for. They were still riding in the back of DCI MacDonald’s Range Rover, DS Amy Stewart in the front passenger seat. A couple of uniform Range Rovers had accompanied them from the Glenmartin Hotel, and there was another Police Scotland vehicle already there, a Ford Focus, which two patrol officers had climbed out of, both wearing gloves and heavy hi-viz coats over their uniforms.

The scenery was impossibly grand, of course, craggy, snow-clad mountains ranging off in every direction, their lower slopes and hills deeply forested and draped with skeins of white mist. The roads that MacDonald’s team had followed to get here had mostly been single-track, and all the way they’d barely seen another soul. But the constant looping and turning and rising and falling as they’d crossed the primal landscape had ensured that at no stage had they really been able to get their foot down.

The fleet of new arrivals pulled up one by one alongside the Focus, which sat in front of a towering pair of wrought-iron gates, a magnificent sculpted wolf visible atop each of the tall, rock-built gateposts. On the other side, the entrance road to the estate meandered off into yet more impenetrable pinewood. As DCI MacDonald had explained, Brollachan House itself was not visible from here.

‘Sergeant Cunningham?’ MacDonald said, addressing the female of the two officers who were already waiting.

She turned from the intercom system on the left-hand gatepost, which she’d been attempting to activate. ‘Morning, sir.’

‘Still no joy?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not. We’ve been here half an hour, and there’s no reply from the main house … nor from the lodge. No sign of any staff here thus far. Quiet as the grave.’

‘And no ARVs yet?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘No sign of air cover either, I see,’ Jude Penhaligon said, walking up.

Sergeant Cunningham, who was tall, thin and narrow-faced, eyed her suspiciously.

MacDonald made a quick round of introductions before getting urgently onto his radio. He clearly wasn’t keen to authorise further action without his armed reinforcements.

‘Surely one of these Range Rovers could pull those gates down?’ Gail muttered to Penhaligon. ‘They’ve all got towbars.’

The DI shrugged. ‘Let’s not pretend that we’d be over-enthusiastic to force entry to premises where armed opponents might be holding out if we didn’t have our Trojan units.’

‘But if it’s a matter of life or death?’ Gail said quietly.

‘Agreed, but we don’t know whether it is or isn’t.’

Gail walked away along the road, taut with irritation. Penhaligon followed.

‘According to MacDonald, this guy Pedersen was murdered only a few weeks ago,’ Gail said, still keeping her voice low.

‘Yes, in Northern Norway,’ Penhaligon replied. ‘Not here.’

‘Evidently it means the Russian mob are leaning on the Hellstroms. You’re surely not denying that possibility?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘In that case, they could be here now.’ Gail stopped and turned. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to work this out. Heck was the sole SCU officer present at that gunfight where the Tatarstans’ enforcer was killed. Heck then walked away from the Ace of Diamonds massacre unscathed. And yet now he uncovers evidence that leads him – mysteriously, incredibly conveniently – right into the heart of the Hellstroms’ kingdom.’

Penhaligon shrugged. ‘Even if that’s true, Heck abandoned that car nearly ten miles from here. You think he could have made it across country on foot … overnight, in this weather?’

‘If you don’t think that, you don’t know Heck.’

‘Look, Gail …’ The DI indicated Sergeant Cunningham, who again was seeking a response from the intercom on the gatepost. ‘No one’s even answering the doorbell. The chances are there’s no one here.’

Gail shook her head. ‘The Hellstroms … Varulv! A fucking pop group planned all this?’

‘Hardly a pop group.’

‘With a bit of pseudo devil-worship thrown in. On its own, that means nothing.’

‘It means they’ve got issues.’

‘Come on, Jude!’ Aware that she was almost shouting, Gail lowered her voice again. ‘This thing’s got Russian gangsters written all over it. Even if the Hellstroms did their bit, who else organises hits like the Ace of Diamonds? And we’re just sitting here … waiting for someone to answer the frigging door!’

They’d now travelled several yards along the road. Gail was wearing woollen gloves, but the cold was biting through them. She jammed them into her anorak pockets as she assessed the estate’s perimeter. At this point, it comprised a single rock wall standing to a height of only six feet.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Penhaligon said. ‘We have the power to make arrests in Scotland … but that’s not the deal. We promised our hosts we’re purely here as observers.’

‘We’ve come all this bloody way, to fail at a locked gate?’

‘We haven’t failed yet.’

‘Excuse me, guys?’ They turned to see Amy Stewart strolling towards them. ‘We have an ETA on the nearest firearms team. Fifteen minutes. As soon as it gets here, we’re going in.’

Penhaligon nodded her gratitude.’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ Gail said quietly. ‘Normally, that wouldn’t seem like a long time.’

*

The next few yards were appalling, Heck trying to worm his way along a crack between walls of unyielding granite, only a faint hint of brighter sunlight spearing down. When he reached a point where his ribs were compressed against his heart and his lungs, where he was literally being crushed alive, he had another serious doubt that this was even possible. Russian voices echoing behind goaded him to keep trying, even though he now couldn’t expand his chest-space sufficiently to draw a full breath – at which point, very unexpectedly, it opened out a little. Encouraged, he forced himself on, and it opened further. Not significantly, just sufficiently for him to continue along it and breathe unrestricted. A few more yards and it widened again, and then again. The next thing Heck knew, it was more like a ravine than a crevice, and he could turn face-on to scramble uphill. As he did, he glanced back, still able to see the plunge pool, but staying on the move. Now, it was all about putting distance between himself and his pursuers, because if the big Russian was also forced to traverse this tiny passage, a man of his brute size would have an even more difficult time.

Speaking of which …

Heck glanced backward again. His view of the plunge pool had finally narrowed, even though he’d still only journeyed fifty or so yards. And then it was blotted out entirely by the hulking, red-faced figure of Vasily Tarasov as he clambered up from the water, drenched, and thrust himself into the gap.

The Russian mob boss no longer resembled the cool customer he’d been during breakfast, but the odds were still heavily in his favour. Though it was a skinny corridor, there was a more or less straight line of vision between the two of them, and though he had a little more room in which to manoeuvre, there was still nowhere really for Heck to duck or dive. Tarasov, realising this, raised his crossbow in one hand, holding it sideways on because it wouldn’t fit at the horizontal, and took careful aim.

In return, Heck hefted the quarrel that he’d saved from earlier, and flung it.

It was a literal longshot, but it paid off, the missile twirling as it sailed along the crevice, gaining height as the floor fell away, but then arcing downward, striking the rocks sufficiently to shatter some ten yards in front of its target, and about twelve feet above his head, enough acid spattering outward for Heck to see the cascade of glimmering droplets.

The Russian’s roars of bestial rage rapidly turned to screeches of pain.

Even as Heck watched, the bastard dropped his weapon and shook his left arm frantically. Half a second later, his son, Alexei, appeared in the gap behind him. They jabbered to each other, the older man digging something from one of his pouches; it looked like a bottle of water. Hurriedly, he unscrewed it with his teeth and emptied it over his hand and arm, the sleeve and glove on which already looked ragged and blackened.

Heck continued up, following the widening and ascending passage. He gained another twenty yards before glancing back. Tarasov leaned against the crevice wall, swearing volubly while his son attended to his arm.

Heck ascended another twenty yards, and then looked back again. The Russian cradled his injured left arm in the crook of his right, wagging his head from side to side. Alexei Tarasov, however, peered up the passage after their quarry … and in a sudden fit of rage, lifted the Dragunov to his shoulder and pumped its trigger.

In that confined space, the double-detonation was ear-splitting.

But the shooter’s anger was his undoing, because though Heck had already dropped onto his face, he couldn’t have done it quickly enough to evade a sniper round had it been on target. The two slugs zipped over Heck’s body, striking the ground ahead of him, throwing up a cloud of dust and shattered stone. In immediate response, the older Russian’s roars rose in anger again, reverberating along the passage. Heck didn’t need to glance back to know that Vasily Tarasov was now venting his rage directly at his son.

‘Guess when you owe a guy for your balls, you feel you owe him personally,’ Heck said aloud as he scrambled on up.

Just ahead, the crevice turned at an angle. When he stepped around it, the relief that he was no longer in rifle range was counterbalanced by the sight of a dead-end. Though it was only a dead-end at first glance. Abruptly, the ascending route had become sheer, transforming itself into a vertical chimney, which raced upward to a point so far overhead that he couldn’t even see it. But, again, it was rugged, offering numerous hand and footholds.

Heck hadn’t done any serious rock-climbing since he was young, but now seemed like the perfect time to reawaken that adventurous schoolboy spirit.

36

At the front gates to the Brollachan House estate, the silence between the officers stretched out as they stood and listened. The distant report of two quickfire gunshots continued to resonate in the frigid air.

One by one, they exchanged glances.

‘That was a rifle,’ Amy Stewart ventured.

‘This is a shooting estate,’ one of the uniform officers reminded her.

Gail looked at Penhaligon. Both of them looked at DCI MacDonald. He seemed to be struck with indecision.

There was a crackle of radio static from inside his Range Rover. Distractedly, he reached through the open driver’s window and put the device to his ear. ‘MacDonald receiving, over.’

Gail couldn’t quite hear the message imparted to him, or the exchange that followed, but it was brief, and the DCI’s expression changed from uncertainty to sudden determination.

‘Tell them to keep hold of him,’ he said. ‘I don’t know … suspicion of committing an arrestable offence. Anything. They just need to hang onto him, over.’ He tossed the radio back into the car and looked at the others. ‘Your man Fletcher has appeared. One of our patrols picked him up about three miles from here by the side of the road. Half-dead from exhaustion. Apparently, Heckenburg is on the estate, he’s armed and he’s looking for trouble.’

‘Did he mention anything about a Russian connection?’ Gail asked.

‘Nothing of the sort, apparently.’

‘That’s good news at least,’ Penhaligon said.

MacDonald remained stern. ‘Good news or not, on the basis that life and property is at risk here, we’re going in. Amy and I will take point as we’re carrying. And someone chase those bloody shots! They ought to be here by now.’

A whirlwind of activity followed, one of the uniform Range Rovers hooking its tow-bar to the main gates, and with much revving, and grinding and skidding of tyres, putting them under such immense pressure that eventually, with explosions of stonework and splintering metal, they were torn from their hinges. Before driving through at the head of the cavalcade, MacDonald turned to Gail and Penhaligon, both of whom had climbed into his backseat.

‘You two should ride in one of the other cars,’ he said. ‘Stay at the rear.’

‘Sir, we’ve tracked this suspect all the way from London,’ Penhaligon replied. She tapped her Kevlar vest. ‘And we’re probably better protected now than we have been at any stage.’

He nodded, understanding that these circumstances were different from the norm. ‘As you wish. But I can’t be responsible for what happens from this point on. I have my own people to think about.’

‘I understand that, sir,’ Penhaligon replied. ‘I’m in charge of our part of the operation, so the decision and responsibility are mine.’

He swung back round and gunned the Range Rover forward over the fallen gate.

The three vehicles processed along the entry road, Sergeant Cunningham and her sidekick remaining at the entrance to detain any unauthorised persons attempting to leave.

‘Perhaps we should phone this in, ma’am?’ Gail said to Penhaligon.

Penhaligon held up her phone, which appeared to be dead. ‘Still no signal.’

‘Can put a message through on the radio, if you like?’ DS Stewart said.

‘Let’s see what we’re dealing with first,’ the DI replied.

Stewart nodded and faced front. The road wound on for several miles, weaving between bracken-clad hills and clumps of deep, shadowy pinewood. Every so often, the trees broke apart and there were glimpses of distant blue massifs. Here and there, extensive patches of snow lay pure and unbroken. The air was brittle, still.

‘If only we were seeing this place in happier times,’ Gail couldn’t help saying. ‘One guy seriously owns all this?’

‘It goes on for a way yet,’ MacDonald replied.

‘I assume this road leads to the main house?’ Penhaligon asked.

‘We must assume so,’ he said. ‘Though personally, I’ve never been on this estate before, and I don’t know anyone who has.’

‘Do you know anything at all about the owners themselves?’

‘Some kind of ex-heavy metal band, aren’t they? From Europe.’

‘They’re a bit more than that,’ Gail replied. ‘They got chased out of Norway for preaching hate against Christians and Jews. Someone even died because of them.’

‘What are we talking about?’ he asked. ‘Satanists?’

‘Odinists, whatever that actually means.’

‘We suspect they were the inspiration behind a series of ritual murders in eastern England,’ Penhaligon said.

‘And yet these are not the people we’re here looking for?’ MacDonald sounded puzzled.

‘Nothing was proved against them.’

‘But your man Heckenburg thinks he knows better?’

‘We’re guessing that’s his motivation.’

‘That clearly is his motivation,’ Gail corrected her. ‘But that’s only part of it. He also has these guys down for involvement in the Ace of Diamonds murders last September.’

The DCI nodded. ‘The crime he was accused of committing himself?’

‘He was never officially accused, sir,’ Gail said. ‘He was a person of interest. For a brief time.’

‘But we still need him arrested,’ Penhaligon cut in. ‘As he’s now a suspect in several other offences.’

‘Whole thing sounds like a dog’s breakfast to me,’ MacDonald said.

‘That wouldn’t be unusual where Heckenburg is concerned. But …’ Penhaligon paused.

MacDonald watched her through the rear-view mirror. ‘But …?’

‘But if he wasn’t involved in the Ace of Diamonds shootings, we’re obviously very keen to know who was. And I seriously recommend, sir, that you don’t discount the possibility there might be Russian criminals on the plot. If that information came direct from DCS Straker, it would pay to take it seriously.’

‘I’m taking this whole thing very seriously, DI Penhaligon,’ he replied. ‘Don’t you worry.’

Gail glanced sidelong at her. Penhaligon didn’t return the look, but this was the first time, as far as Gail was aware, that the IIB officer had publicly acknowledged that there was a greater priority here than rooting out yet another cop who might or might not be corrupt.

That was a big leap in the DI’s thinking, which couldn’t be underestimated.

Ahead of them, the pinewoods clustered closer to the road on either side. But some distance beyond those, they could now see open space, which, for the first time since they’d arrived here, appeared to have been manicured. It comprised extensive lawns and occasional beds of earth, which in summer would no doubt be filled with flowers. On the other side of all that, perhaps six hundred yards off, was the stone edifice of Brollachan House.

‘Not much sign of life,’ Amy Stewart commented as they drew closer, MacDonald decelerating slowly.

Gail leaned forward to peer over his shoulder. It was a gaunt, surprisingly Spartan structure. She saw rows of dark windows and a heavy front door, which even from this distance looked as if it would need a battering-ram to bring it down. Along its upper parapet there were battlements … from out of which there came a sudden flicker of light.

And a hail of bullets raked the Range Rover’s bonnet.

The lid sprang up, peppered with holes. MacDonald shouted and swore, the heavy vehicle slewing sideways before halting skew-whiff on the road, the other vehicles slamming on behind it, each one shunting the one in front. Instinctively, everyone went down, but from the continuous rat-a-tat-tat, the shooter had no intention of stopping. More violent impacts landed, the upright bonnet shot through again and again, holes punched in the windshield and the interior upholstery. No one needed to say it, but sitting here with their heads down was not going to save them. The occupants of all three cars spilled out to either side and scrambled for the nearest line of trees, throwing themselves flat in the bracken.

Gail glanced incredulously back at the line of stationary cars, each vehicle bouncing on its shocks as further streams of lead perforated them, imploding light clusters, blowing off chunks of bodywork. Amy Stewart, who had taken cover behind her DCI’s Range Rover rather than heading for the trees, squatted there, before sheer, helpless terror sent her scampering towards them and throwing herself full-length into the cover.

MacDonald turned where he crouched, eyes filled with accusation. ‘You never told me he was carrying automatic weaponry!’

‘That isn’t Heck!’ Gail retorted. ‘I’d stake my career on it.’

MacDonald gazed at her hard, before swivelling to face Penhaligon. ‘Do you concur with that?’

The DI hesitated, before nodding. ‘Yes … yes, I do.’

‘Yet this suspect was a “person of interest” in the mass murder of fellow police officers?’

Penhaligon shook her head. ‘Ever since he eluded our surveillance, Mark Heckenburg has shown a marked reluctance to use lethal force. It would be inconceivable for him to change that pattern now … when he’s pinned down and has nowhere else to go.’

‘Not to mention when we also have reliable info that the Russian Mafia might be involved,’ Gail added.

MacDonald considered this, before turning to his sergeant. ‘Left my damn PR in the car. Amy …?’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Stewart was still white-faced and shaken. ‘Same here.’

The DCI swore under his breath.

The shooting stopped abruptly, presumably because there were no longer any targets in sight, though, having no communications devices that would work, no one in the small group knew how any of the other officers had fared. This was a particular concern to MacDonald, whose brow furrowed as he gazed back towards the line of mangled vehicles.

‘Andy!’ he shouted.

‘Over here, sir,’ came a response from the far side.

‘How you all doing?’

‘Getting everyone together as we speak,’ the voice returned. ‘No casualties.’

The DCI sighed. ‘You got anything like a radio between you?’

‘We have sir. We’re on it now.’

MacDonald nodded and was about to call out again when the shooter resumed firing, clearly directed by the voices. Everyone fell face-first into the frozen mulch as a prolonged burst of heavy slugs slashed through the branches overhead.

‘I’ve got to get over there,’ the DCI said, scrambling towards the road on all-fours.

‘Why, for God’s sake?’ Stewart demanded.

‘I need to talk to the powers-that-be. We need more than just a couple of extra guns here.’ He halted a yard from the edge of the wood. The trees had thinned out, but he risked kneeling up and glancing towards the house. ‘Amy … put some fire on those battlements.’

‘We don’t know who’s there,’ she protested. ‘Suppose there are hostages?’

‘Into the air, then. Anything … just buy me a second or two.’

She seemed troubled even by this idea, but finally nodded, drew her Glock, cocked it and glanced back towards him. He was ready, left foot planted on the ground. He nodded tightly. She nodded back, made a count of three, and then rose onto her knees and opened fire at Brollachan house, though the shots were intentionally high and wide.

MacDonald went for it like the clappers, barrelling across the road, halting first behind his own vehicle, but barely stopping there in truth, before scurrying on to the other side and plunging into the undergrowth.

‘What about the rest of us?’ Gail asked.

‘What do you think?’ Stewart replied. ‘We wait.’

‘Bloody fantastic.’

37

Joe Wullerton was riding the lift down from the top floor at New Scotland Yard, checking his missed calls as he went. Even though it was early in the day, a significant number were already lined up. When he saw that several were from Gwen Straker, and that all had been placed since he’d spoken to her first thing that morning and listened to her Russian Mafia theory, he opted to call her back straight away.

‘Gwen … it’s me.’

‘Thanks for calling me back, sir.’ She was shouting, by the sounds of it so that he could hear her over a mechanical racket somewhere in her close proximity.

He strolled along the passage to his office, nodding at secretarial staff. ‘I’ve just got out of the meeting … what’s that bloody noise?’

‘Sorry, sir. I’m out and about.’

‘I thought you were waiting on a call from Interpol, among others?’

‘Something else has come up.’

‘Something else …?’ He entered his office, bemused by the excitement in her voice.

‘There’ve been developments since we last spoke. Big ones.’

‘Okay.’ He paused by his desk. ‘Tell me more.’

So she did. Everything she’d learned herself from that unexpected phone-call just before eight o’clock. Wullerton didn’t move as he listened, though his pulse increased dramatically and his thoughts were soon racing.

‘Have you spoken to anyone else about this yet?’ he asked.

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Good.’ He headed back into the corridor. ‘Some people are going to need to know, though. I’m going back upstairs right now. Gwen, how did you come by this intel?’

‘I was over at Staples Corner when I got the call. It was kosher, I assure you.’

‘Okay …’ The lift departed in front of him, so he diverted to the nearest staircase, heading up it three treads at a time. ‘I’ll talk to their nibs. Mike’s just set off back to Finchley, so can you give him a call? Appraise him of everything.’

‘Sir …’ she sounded hesitant, ‘do you need me to do that straight away?’

‘Gwen, I appreciate there’s a bit of strain between you two, but he is the official SIO, whereas your connection to this case is … somewhat peripheral.’

‘Look, sir … Mike’s a well-meaning guy, but he’s got the touch of a rhinoceros. In circumstances like these, I was thinking …’

‘You were thinking you’d rather do it.’

‘I’m probably one of the few people in the job at present who Mark Heckenburg actually trusts. I may be the only one, actually … no offence intended, sir.’

‘I see.’ He paused. ‘So, when you said you’re out and about, what you actually meant is that you’re already heading north?’ He now understood the intrusive, repetitive noise that he could hear in her background. ‘In a helicopter? Is that correct?’

‘That’s correct, sir. Sorry about this, but I used your name to commandeer one of the Eurocopters. We’ve just passed Watford and we’re moving at a rate of knots.’

Under ordinary circumstances, even the affable Joe Wullerton would be enraged that one of his subordinates had gone over his head like this, but these were hardly ordinary circumstances. Besides, Gwen would always be Gwen. She was as capable of acting out of self-interest as the next DCS, but she had a broader vision than most cops he knew, and if things worked out for her, they generally worked out for everyone.

‘You need to inform Police Scotland that you’re coming,’ he said tersely.

‘Already done that.’

‘So … really this was just a courtesy call, wasn’t it?’

‘Always like to keep you informed, sir.’

Wullerton walked down the central passage of the top floor. Various members of the NPCC’s Crime Committee were still hanging around, chatting, sipping tea, their uniforms looking almost impossibly pristine despite their having convened not long after dawn. They noted him immediately and the expression on his face, and their conversations ceased.

‘As I’m increasingly fond of telling you, Gwen,’ he said quietly, ‘let’s hope such conscientious behaviour on your part doesn’t end up being something we both live to regret.’

38

Heck didn’t get the jitters as he scrambled up the never-ending chimney. This was partly because he was enclosed from three sides, but also because it was a relatively easy climb and at no stage did any unbroken surfaces need to be negotiated. But mainly it was because the alternative was worse.

Only as the chimney opened out and he found himself scaling a very broad apron of rock did he become nervous. A glacial wind whipped at him; all of a sudden, he was acutely conscious of the gulf yawning at his rear. But it helped that the rockface now tilted forward, the gradient turning steadily shallower, until at last he reached up his left hand and grabbed a clump of stiff, snow-covered grass. He eased himself up the last few feet onto level ground, where he stood up, tugged the gloves from his belt and pulled them back on. When he glanced round, he was on an expansive plateau, which appeared to be part of the coastal range. This didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have more climbing to do. There were higher rock forms directly ahead of him, many encased in ice. But for the first time it seemed possible that, if he looked hard enough, he might find routes down to the other side.

Before he even tried that, he sidled to the cliff-edge and peered down over the loch. It was spread out majestically, a glimmering sheet of blue/grey steel hemmed from all sides by a harsh, hummocky landscape, much of it faded to brown though, in sharp contrast, occasional patches of Caledonian pinewood stood out a brilliant green. Brollachan House itself was clear to him, though it looked like a toy from this height and distance.

Along with something else.

Heck had to squint to be sure – he was probably somewhere between two miles and a mile and a half distant – but he had such an overarching viewpoint that he could clearly pick out different areas of the manor house’s grounds, and in remarkably close vicinity to it, situated in a kind of rectangular paddock separated from the main building by a single belt of trees, there was a small aeroplane.

Heck shielded his eyes, squinting harder.

He couldn’t see any detail from here, but he had no doubt that it would be a Cessna Skyhawk or a Beechcraft Musketeer, one of those diminutive, privately-owned aircraft that the super-rich use to get from A to B without having to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. Or in this case, which brought Russian gangsters into and out of the UK with minimal fuss.

As he stared down at it, what sounded like the faint rattle of gunfire drew his attention to the house. He thought he’d heard something similar while climbing the chimney, but had been so busy grunting and sweating that he hadn’t paid it any real heed. Did this mean that help had finally arrived? He gazed down at the house, but it was too distant for him to detect any movement. He could see part of the road as it led away across the estate, but very quickly this was enshrouded by pines, so he couldn’t work out if anything was happening there.

Then another sound reached his ears. This one very different and something of a surprise: the unmistakeable growl and whine of an engine under stress.

The really strange thing, though, was how close it was.

Heck’s gaze swept the plateau, but no one else was up here with him. He moved warily across to its eastern edge, where it gradually sloped downward. With feet turned sideways, he descended a little way, more and more of the downward slope becoming visible. On the left stood a snow-capped granite outcrop, which he braced himself against so that he could lean out and look downhill properly. Beyond the outcrop, the ground to the left fell away into another sheer drop. On the right, though, it continued down at what was roughly a fifty-degree angle. Again, this was cluttered with boulders and scree, but, rather incredibly, this wasn’t stopping Rudi Tarasov, the lunatic in the wolf hat, from working his way up the last stretch of it on his quadbike.

The twosome were no more than ten yards apart, and both as startled as each other.

Heck had the higher ground, of course, but Rudi was armed. He’d been carrying the Dragunov at his shoulder, and now swung it down with one hand, training it squarely on Heck’s chest. Heck stood rigid. It might be possible to back up a couple of steps and throw himself behind the outcrop, but not before a lethal round slammed clean through his torso.

With no real option, he raised his hands.

The Russian’s sweaty face broke into a manic grin. He stood in his saddle, but continued to throttle the machine uphill, even though the next couple of yards were much steeper and more slippery, the surface little more than exposed rock.

‘English!’ he shouted in mock-greeting. ‘You fly good to make it here. We see how good, huh?’ But now his upward advance was faltering, the quadbike slowing despite its wheels turning frenziedly. Suddenly, rubber was melting as they failed to gain traction.

Rudi’s mocking grin froze. He didn’t dare take his eyes off his target, but his machine was starting to slide backward. Panic ripped across his face as he tried to turn the handlebars, breaking his focus from Heck to glance behind. Which was all the chance Heck needed. He bounded downhill – it only took one stride – and snatched the rifle by its barrel, tearing the weapon free before throwing himself onto his back to prevent gravity dragging him down as well. The quadbike, no longer being driven, accelerated backward. Shouting inarticulately, Rudi threw himself off it and to his right, but landed on a patch of snow, which he now slid down himself, a human toboggan, before vanishing over the lip at the point where the slope dropped away. The quadbike diminished with astonishing speed as it raced down the mountainside, finally striking some obstruction and cartwheeling into the air, coming down heavily, cartwheeling again and again until it was out of sight.

Heck though, was more concerned about his human opponent. He slithered downslope on his side until he was as close to the precipice as he dared to get, digging the stock of the rifle into the snow to anchor himself.

Rudi Tarasov gazed plaintively up at him. Only his pink-tinged face was visible, and his stupid hat of course. And his left hand, with which he’d clung tightly to a tussock of frozen grass, though already this was sliding through his grip.

Heck leaned down until they were close, though not so close that there was a chance the Russian might grab hold of him.

‘You came here to murder people, didn’t you?’ Heck said. ‘I think you’ve done that a lot, am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong and make me believe you.’

The Russian merely whimpered.

Heck shook his head. ‘Sorry, friend. But this one’s between you and God.’

He manoeuvred himself backward, just as the clawed hand slipped loose and the astonished face vanished, the descending scream lingering on the icy air.

Heck worked his way back up on his belly, moving side to side like a snake. Once on the plateau, he shouldered the Dragunov and crossed back to the side he’d originally climbed. From this angle, it was difficult to see clear down the chimney, so he couldn’t establish whether or not Tarasov and his other son were halfway up it or had even clambered into it at all. But when he listened, he heard nothing: no grunting, no scrabbling. Satisfied with that, he turned back to Brollachan House and the aeroplane on the improvised airfield. He unslung the Dragunov, put it to his shoulder and peered down through its scope.

The plane, which, as he’d suspected, was a Cessna, sat neat in his crosshairs.

It was often said, mistakenly, that with a weapon like this and hi-tech sights, you couldn’t miss. Well, under normal circumstances, a target just under two miles away would be out of reach even for a Dragunov. Except that Heck would be shooting downhill, and if that didn’t make a difference, nothing would. Even then, to be a good marksman, it required natural skill and long hours on the range.

But it couldn’t hurt that this was a larger than usual target.

The first time Heck fired, the recoil caught him by surprise, and he missed. But the second time, he’d adjusted his posture and was dead-on, the plane visibly juddering. The next three shots also found their target, the first one puncturing the point where the right wing joined the fuselage, semi-detaching it, the second and third smashing into the cockpit, hopefully wreaking damage to the flight instrumentation. He didn’t really know what he was shooting at, of course. He knew nothing about the anatomy of small planes. In which case the next shot was the luckiest of all, hitting the fuel tank.

The Cessna exploded spectacularly, a ball of bright orange flame mushrooming upward with such fierce glory that Heck saw it even without the telescopic sights.

From somewhere on the slopes far below came a howl of anguish.

It could have meant anything: dead son discovered, escape route closed, or both. It didn’t matter.

‘What’s up, Vasily?’ Heck called down. ‘Finally found yourself in a real fight?’

39

‘What in the name of God?’ Amy Stewart breathed, turning and peering through the foliage towards the house.

They couldn’t see much of it from here, just its austere outline. But then, above the trees, on the far side of the building, a cloud of flame and oily black smoke erupted skyward.

‘What the hell?’ Stewart said again.

‘Something really bad is happening here,’ Gail declared. ‘And we’re hiding in the woods.’

Stewart glanced at her, agitated. She looked back across the road and the line of wrecked vehicles to wherever MacDonald and the other cops were also under cover. But there was no sign of movement, and of course, there was no easy way to converse with them. Appearing to reach a momentous decision, she drew her Glock again.

‘You two stay here.’ She rose into a crouch and scampered away in a direction which initially seemed to be right of the main house, though presumably it was intended to bring her around to the other side of it in a wide circle.

Neither Gail nor Penhaligon said anything. They simply locked stares, before jumping to their feet and, keeping equally low, running after her. Fifty or so yards on, deep in the pinewood, Stewart glanced over her shoulder, spotted them and stopped.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘We’re police officers too, DS Stewart,’ Penhaligon retorted. ‘You seriously think we’re going to lie low while you take all the risks on your own?’

‘You’re not armed.’

‘Neither are you compared to what’s in that house.’

Again, Stewart seemed unsure what to do next, which was hardly surprising given these unprecedented circumstances.

‘That wasn’t a bunch of fireworks blowing up,’ Penhaligon said. ‘We don’t know what we’re going to find. There could be multiple casualties. Three of us are surely better than one.’

The DS finally nodded and continued her circumlocutory route through the woods, the other two following.

*

As Heck hobbled south, Tarasov’s bellows of anger echoed over the high cliffs. Though the fugitive cop was now heading along the top of the coastal ridge, it was trickier going than he’d expected, the ground continually slanting away to his left, sometimes dropping vertically, meaning that he could proceed only by ledge, which narrow footing was often shod with ice. Corries would open in front of him without warning, vast abysses into which he only just avoided plummeting. Occasionally, clots of low-hanging cloud blotted his vision. Whenever he was engulfed in one of these, he was plunged into an ever-deeper freeze, the sweat chilling all over him. Once or twice, when the topography allowed, he spotted the twin peaks ahead of him, the distant double-landmark that Tarasov had said he should aim for, though quite clearly the Russians had never intended that he should get this far, so why would they have bothered telling him the truth in the first place?

Heck told himself not to think about that, just to keep going, because at least this gave him something to aim for. At which point, the snow-covered shelf he was plodding along proved to be nothing more than snow, the whole thing collapsing, dropping him down through the middle of it in a cascade of heavy white powder. Fortuitously, the slope below was also buried in frozen white fluff, which made a pillow for his fall, though he then had to fight his way out of it. When he was back on scree again, it was loose and rolled away beneath him, threatening to fling him downhill amid a rockslide of his own making.

Despite striving as hard as he could to plough through these tortures, he stopped every so often to look back. He’d already ascertained that the Dragunov’s magazine was spent, but he put the rifle to his shoulder anyway, to use its scope. And it was by these means that he pinpointed his duo of foes again. They were several hundred yards behind, also negotiating the steep snowfield, huge carpets of it breaking loose and sliding away as they advanced. At least that was the case with Vasily Tarasov. When Heck spied Alexei, he appeared to be standing perfectly still.

His Dragunov flashed.

Heck didn’t react in time, of course. No one could have. But on this occasion, he wasn’t the target. His weapon was, the high-powered bullet striking it mid-barrel and exploding it in half even as he held onto it. The shock and concussion threw Heck backward, the useless gun tumbling away from him in two splintered parts.

A wild, triumphant laugh rolled across the slopes.

Heck would have admired their persistence if it hadn’t terrified him. As he stumbled on, it seemed ludicrous that he’d ever imagined they might be dissuaded from this hunt by the prospect of climbing up to a waterfall. Whenever he glanced back now, he no longer needed a rangefinder to know that they were gaining. Both were bedraggled shadows of the men they’d been, their faces purple with effort, the older Tarasov’s left forearm and hand bound messily with dirty bandaging improvised from strips of their own clothes. But they were coming on apace, seeming to relish the hardship.

Heck sucked in bigger lungfuls of oxygen to hasten his flight. But greater encouragement came when two additional Dragunov shots were fired. Not at him, just to one side, very close, deliberately intended to shower him with dust and razor-edged debris. Wiping the grime from his face, along with the blood from several minor cuts, Heck struggled on, and as he did, saw a flat-topped section of horizontal rock further up. Thinking it another natural shelf, he clambered towards it. There was a rocky overhang above it, forming a roof so low that he had to duck as he passed beneath – and it was fortunate that he did, because a quarrel chose this moment to whistle past, missing by inches.

He looked back. They were closer still, though Alexei had shouldered his rifle again, while his father had stopped, his right leg bent, braced on the slope as he jammed his left foot into the crossbow’s stirrup in order to reload.

Heck pushed on, emerging from underneath the overhang and there finding another prospective avenue winding upward through heaps of boulders. It promised a steep but rapid ascent to higher ground, veering steadily away from the overhang, meaning that for a time at least, he’d be out of range.

Sobbing for breath, he dragged himself up, and briefly, was distracted by an oddity sitting on top of the overhang: what looked like a mass of broken, blackened twigs woven into an immense dirty basket. An abandoned eyrie, he realised. It occurred to him that there might be sheep bones in there, something he could use as a weapon. Though, just as quickly, he dismissed the idea.

A sheep bone?

Who the fuck was he supposed to be, Samson?

He continued up on all fours, sweat pumping from his brow.

‘Hey, cop!’ a voice thundered. Heck was close to the top now, perhaps a couple of yards short of flatter footing. But the voice had been so astonishingly, unexpectedly close, that he stopped and glanced back, and saw that Tarasov and his son had also emerged from beneath the overhang. They were only forty yards beneath him, the big Russian already gazing at Heck along his flight groove.

‘Da!’ Tarasov shouted almost joyously. ‘This is indeed a real fight. But now it is over.’

And then something dived on him, a lithe, feathery form with a huge spread of golden wings, screeching shrilly as it did.

The eyrie had not been abandoned after all.

Heck watched, startled, as the eagle swooped over the big Russian’s head, turned a sharp corner and swept immediately back, forcing him to duck a second time, before lofting gracefully away. Enraged beyond reason, Tarasov switched his aim from Heck to the bird and loosed. The magnificent shape quivered as the quarrel struck it, before attempting to soar away and then, midway through its ascent, flipping upside down and commencing a crazy, twisting plummet, a trail of feathers floating behind it.

Heck didn’t speak as he cast round for anything he might find, quickly selecting a lump of stone that was roughly the size of a footstool. His back sang in agony as he hefted it. He almost overbalanced when he got it to chest-height.

‘Bastards!’ he shouted down the slope. ‘Try this for death from above!’

He heaved the rock down at them. He never expected that it would hit them; he’d never have had the strength to lob it so far. But as it turned out, gravity did most of the work, the hefty object precipitating downward, travelling a good thirty feet before striking and dislodging more heavy stones, kickstarting a mini-landslide, which rumbled downhill towards the startled twosome. They couldn’t get out of the way in time, and though none of the falling stones were large enough to do them serious damage, they were both swept off their feet and went rolling and tumbling with the debris, travelling a good fifty or sixty yards downslope before bringing themselves to a halt.

Reinvigorated, Heck continued uphill, and within a few minutes a freezing crosswind indicated that he was back on top of the ridge. Perhaps half a mile south of him it rose up into a colossal summit, which he was almost certain was the northern spire of the double-peak. That didn’t matter, though, because when he crossed the ridge to its western side, he found himself looking down another vast slope onto the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Briefly, the sheer immensity of the seascape took his breath away, as did the sight of what looked distinctly like storm-clouds, a long way out, but approaching fast. If he’d been an hour later, he might have died up here with or without the mad Russians at his back.

But he wasn’t. Far below, meanwhile, a tiny red and white-striped stalk stood upright on a jutting headland. The St Ninian lighthouse.

40

The three women emerged from the belt of trees too stunned to initially comment. The stench of burning fuel had become all-encompassing some distance back, but when they came out onto an elongated stretch of open grassland, they wafted at smoke and coughed, and stood agog at the sight of extensive charred ground and scattered fragments of blazing wreckage. What appeared to be the main fuselage of a small aircraft, now a broken, fiery cylinder with clouds of black filth pumping out of it, lay in a central position. A burning wheel lay close by. When Gail glanced up, a section of flame-blackened wing hung above their heads among the singed and smouldering branches of the nearest pine tree.

Every police officer was trained in how to respond to an air crash, but so few ever experienced one that the rules and procedures weren’t in the forefront of their minds. As such, the trio staggered forward, aghast and bewildered, struggling in the intense heat and suffocating atmosphere. Amy Stewart lowered her Glock … which, in truth, was the only mistake they’d made so far, because a moment later, as the choking fog swirling from the fuselage eddied, they glimpsed a figure standing on the other side of it.

A figure in khaki.

A figure wielding some kind of firearm.

He opened up in a strobe-like blaze.

It was pure luck that he couldn’t see them well. His furious volley was wayward, spreading out in all directions. But while Gail was able to throw herself down and slide beneath a curved and smoking slice of aeroplane bodywork, and Penhaligon scarpered for the trees, two thudding impacts struck Amy Stewart’s body, and she hit the grass like a rag doll.

Their assailant only ceased firing after several seconds, and even then, while Gail lay curled beneath the hot, blistered metal, she heard the snick-snack as he removed one magazine and replaced it with another. The breath caught in her chest as his footfalls approached. Surely, he’d just flip the piece of fuselage away with his toe and drill her where she lay. But he didn’t, and with sweat beading her forehead, she watched through the narrow gap as a pair of heavy military boots clumped past her towards the prone shape of Amy Stewart.

As more and more of the guy came into view, Gail found herself focussing on his weapon, which hung down by his side. Its curved magazine revealed that it was a Kalashnikov battle-rifle, one of the world’s ultimate man-killers. The bastard chuckled and raised it to his belly as he stood over the fallen cop. Gail could now see the whole of him. He wore jeans and a khaki top, almost like a combat smock, tightened at the waist by a belt from which a heavy knife hung in a sheath. His hood was pulled back on a squarish, closely shaven head.

He chuckled again, and Gail felt a new thrill of horror when she saw the Scottish policewoman move slightly and heard her moan, with terror as well as pain.

Which was why he was now pointing his weapon down at her.

Working on pure law-enforcement instinct, Gail threw the piece of fuselage off, leapt to her feet and ran at him as hard as she could. He heard her and turned, but not quickly enough to stop her grabbing his weapon and trying to yank it away from him. They swung round; for half a second it was a crazy scene, like a dog and its master fighting over a chew-toy. The gunman certainly thought it was funny. He laughed, before releasing the gun with his right hand, which he balled into a fist and launched into Gail’s face like a gloved hammer.

It made smashing contact.

Gail tottered away, dazed, blood flowing from her nostrils, before collapsing onto her back. He grinned down at her. He had an ugly, brutish face, nicked and scarred repeatedly by past confrontations. So typical of the kinds of sub-men she regularly encountered in this job. Though on this occasion he seemed to be taking particular and unusual relish in checking that his weapon was still cocked, before bringing it to his shoulder and taking careful aim at her.

During which process, he didn’t notice Jude Penhaligon coming from the other direction.

Perhaps Gail’s groggy gaze flickered towards her and gave it away? Who knew, but only at the last second did he sense something. He spun round but Penhaligon had already dived to the ground next to Amy Stewart, picked up her Glock and, clamping the pistol two-handed, fired three times. One shot after another hit the guy’s shaven head, blowing off its lid the way a spoon opens a hardboiled egg. Even then, he took a second to sag to his knees and fall face-first onto the blood-spattered grass.

A second of brief, mutual amazement passed. Then Gail, still woozy, swayed to her feet and stumbled forward. ‘Nice shooting,’ she mumbled, dropping to her knees alongside Stewart.

The Scottish officer was in a bad way. One Kalashnikov round had impacted in the middle of her vest and flattened out, failing to penetrate, though it was still likely to have broken the breastbone and ribs underneath. The other, however, which had struck just beneath her left shoulder-blade, had gone clean through.

‘Okay … I think,’ Stewart whispered, regarding Gail through glazed eyes.

‘You’re bloody not okay.’ Gail checked her pulse, which at least was strong, and noted that her breathing was regular. ‘I’m no medic, Amy. So, I’m not going to risk removing your vest. A dunce like me examining the wound would make no difference …’

Gail’s thoughts were racing, but mostly falling over each other, panic rising at the sight of the claret-coloured puddle expanding across the ground from under the casualty’s back.

What were they supposed to do? They had no first-aid kit, no communication with MacDonald and his team. And for all they knew, there might be another shooter in the house, which stood only a hundred yards behind them, beyond a dry-stone wall and a thin screen of trees. Belatedly, Gail tore off her own anorak. ‘Ma’am … you got anything we can use to pad this wound? I …’

Her glance fell upon Penhaligon, who was kneeling a few feet away, Glock in hand, her eyes fixed unswervingly on the body of the downed shooter.

‘Ma’am!’ Gail said.

Penhaligon shook her head. When she looked at Gail, she wore a haunted expression. ‘He … he was going to kill you … I’m sure he was going to kill you.’

‘He was going to kill us all.’ Gail maintained a level tone. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘But who is he?’

‘I don’t know, but he isn’t going to kill anyone else, is he.’

‘I had no choice.’

The DI’s usual collected persona had evaporated. Her complexion had turned milk-white; she visibly shuddered. Of course, even long-serving internal affairs officers rarely encountered this level of violent resistance. For them, it was mainly a paper exercise. Gail, on the other hand, though she’d been with SCU less than a year, was already well-versed in it.

‘That’s right,’ Gail said, ‘you had no choice. Now, I could use some help.’

‘I’m sorry.’ With a strenuous effort, Penhaligon pulled herself together and shuffled over on her knees. She pulled off her anorak, along with the belt from her jeans. Folding the anorak into a narrow strip, she said: ‘We can wrap this front and back as a temporary dressing. Use yours as a blanket.’

Gail complied, cinching the belt around Stewart’s shoulder to fasten the waterproof bandage in place, and then laid her own coat over the casualty to try and keep her warm. Stewart winced even though they moved her as little as they could. Gail knelt back, wondering what else they could do – when another burst of automatic fire flickered from somewhere at the rear of the house, and the grass erupted next to them as a line of heavy slugs ripped into it.

Instantly, it was about self-preservation again, the two uninjured cops impulsively haring away from each other, though Gail had the presence of mind to scoop up the rifle first. There was some benefit to be gained for Amy Stewart, as whoever this shooter was, – and he too appeared to be armed with a Kalashnikov – his line of fire followed the running figures rather than fixing on the casualty. From Gail’s perspective, there was no possibility of hiding under a burned section of fuselage this time. She zigzagged towards the edge of the paddock. More divots kicked up around her before she was able to shield herself behind a pine tree. Here, she stood rigid, flattened against the bark as rapid-fire rounds tore the other side of the trunk to pulp.

She wiped blood across her face, and glanced back towards the wreckage of the plane, from which most of the smoke had now cleared. Amy Stewart lay where she’d fallen, her upper body covered by the anorak. Now, there was no movement from her, though whether that was to create the impression she was already dead, or because she’d been hit again, was uncertain. Thirty yards beyond her, Jude Penhaligon had also found a tree. She still had her Glock of course, and now leaned out slightly, gazing along its barrel in the direction of the house. Immediately, there was another burst of automatic fire.

It chopped a vertical line up the side of the DI’s tree, only missing her because she’d jerked back. On this occasion, though, Gail had seen where the shooting had come from.

She peered hard through the belt of woodland between here and the house, and while she couldn’t see much of the building, she could clearly visualise the drystone wall bisecting that part of its grounds. More stroboscopic flame spat over the top of it, indicating the shooter’s exact position.

Gail pressed her sweat-soaked back into the trunk as she assessed the Kalashnikov in her hands. Even as an Authorised Firearms Officer, she’d rarely handled a weapon like this. Not even on the range. But then the Kalashnikov, or the AK-47 as it was more accurately known, was an infamously light and easy weapon to use. It also packed an incredible wallop.

Hefting it the way she’d seen them do in the movies, she leaned to the left of the trunk, pointed it in roughly the right direction and hooked the trigger. The gun bucked wildly, the slugs going everywhere, but her own training now kicked in. She braced herself better, took a firmer grip and fired again, smoke and dust spurting from the upper section of wall where she’d seen the shooter take cover. Immediately, he switched his angle of attack back to her, thunder roaring as dozens of slugs tore into her tree, shearing off huge chunks.

Penhaligon took her own cue, leaning out again with the Glock and squeezing off four quick rounds. With ear-piercing ricochets, each one struck the upper section of wall. Several of the heavy stones, already weakened, were dislodged and fell.

Gail shot a second burst, concentrating on the same spot. Her blood now sang, her heart hammered. She opened fire a third time, and a fourth, numerous more of her own rounds smashing home, the parapet of the wall exploding in clouds of splinters.

And then he was away.

Both women saw him at the same time. Another heavy-built figure in khaki, sprinting across the open ground towards the house, but keeping as low as he could.

Gail fired again, this time raising the weapon high so that its line of discharge was above the wall. Several of Brollachan House’s ground-floor windows shattered, but her aim when it came to a moving target was poor. The gunman made it to the mansion’s nearest corner, and then was out of sight.

‘Okay, Jude?’ Gail yelled.

‘I’m fine,’ the DI replied, running back out across the grass, falling to her knees alongside Amy Stewart, checking the pulse at her throat.

Gail was tempted to dash over there too, but a new fear now nagged at her.

‘I’m going after him,’ she said, emerging from behind her bullet-riddled tree. ‘If he gets inside and appears at one of those upper windows, we’ll have no chance.’

She half-expected another shooter to open up on her as she advanced. The marksman who’d shot at MacDonald’s team from the roof might still be there, just waiting for a clear shot. But if so, no one else fired even as she reached the damaged wall.

Penhaligon came panting up from behind. ‘Amy’s okay,’ she said. ‘I mean … she’s not okay, but she’s going to make it. She’s fully compos and I’ve tightened that dressing. We have to get a first-aid bag to her ASAP, though.’

Gail nodded. ‘There may be one in the house.’

‘Here.’ The DI handed her a couple more magazines for the Kalashnikov. ‘Found these in the bastard’s pockets.’

‘You went through his pockets?’

Penhaligon was still pale around the gills. There was a small trickle of blood at the side of her mouth, which most likely came from biting her own lip. ‘Don’t try and make me feel ghoulish, Gail. I’m worried enough about this as it is.’

‘Don’t be.’ Gail climbed through the shattered section of wall. ‘I think we’ve found the Ace of Diamonds shooters. In which case, they’ll give you a medal.’

They scrambled over to Brollachan House. This whole side of it was cross-stitched with bullet holes, especially where the windows had imploded. They paused, breathing heavily.

‘You’ve noticed the hardware’s all Russian?’ Gail said quietly.

‘AK-47s are for sale all over the world, but yes I have,’ Penhaligon replied. ‘And yes, I do think it’s relevant.’

They ran on to the first corner, where they halted, backs to the stonework as they peeked around. There was no movement, but they still hesitated because this next aspect of the building was different from everything they’d seen so far. A kind of annexe had been constructed here, including an open-air marble terrace with Doric-type pillars and steps leading down onto a vast acreage of open pasture, which rolled away into a hazy distance, where the glitter of a loch was just about visible, and beyond that, the outline of craggy massifs reared into the mist.

‘Club Med in a mountain stronghold,’ Gail said.

‘Bond villains eat your hearts out,’ Penhaligon replied.

They waited a second or two, Gail fiddling with the Kalashnikov until she’d found a way to detach its magazine and slot a fresh one into its place.

When they advanced again, they did so in single file, staying close to the building, Gail at the front as she was carrying the greater firepower. They ducked low when they reached the terrace, though one glance through its balustrade showed that no one was out there. At least, no one alive. They stopped dead at the top of its steps, gazing at the corpse a few feet away.

A dead man lying discarded among the sort of outdoor breakfast furniture you’d find on a cruise ship was shocking enough, but then there was his condition. Someone appeared to have burned a cavity in his chest, the diameter of which came to at least twelve inches.

Penhaligon breathed out slowly. ‘What in the name of Christ is going on here?’

‘Nothing in His name, I don’t think, ma’am.’

‘Do we have the first clue who this is?’

Gail shook her head but took in the body’s chaotic spread of dyed-black hair. ‘One of Heck’s metalheads maybe. Clearly, someone didn’t like his music.’

The DI turned pale. ‘You don’t think Heck …?’

‘Unless he’s got a ray-gun from somewhere, I sincerely doubt it. More likely it’s our Russian friends.’ Gail levelled the Kalashnikov as she pushed on through an open French window into a short, empty passage. ‘Clear!’

Penhaligon went in behind her, Glock at the ready. They passed through a side door into a swimming pool area. Again, the sumptuousness of it stopped them in their tracks.

They moved on, passing along another couple of corridors and through a kitchen, clearing each area first, before finally entering the main hall, which was also deserted but hugely impressive.

‘This is more like the Highland castle I grew up imagining,’ Gail said.

Penhaligon didn’t respond. As they moved into the centre of the room, she walked backward, her Glock trained on the upper balcony. Gail halted alongside a grand mahogany dining table that was large enough to seat sixteen or more. A basket-hilted broadsword lay on top of it. There was nothing particularly suspicious about that, she realised. Except that it surely ought to be hanging on one of the walls with all the other antique weapons.

The silence in there was eerie, strained.

At which point a muffled clatter rang across the room, and the pair of them dived for cover behind whichever piece of furniture was nearest.

Neither was sure whereabouts it had come from, apart from somewhere to their right. Gail peeked up over the tabletop and saw Penhaligon shielding behind the sofa, but still training her pistol on the balcony. Their eyes met and the DI shrugged, unsure what the noise had signified. Then they heard another sound, this time the deep reverberation of an engine rumbling to life.

Immediately, Gail put two and two together.

That first sound had been an internal garage door banging open.

The growl of the engine changed timbre as whatever vehicle it was, was put in motion.

She got up and ran headlong down a passage that seemed to lead towards the house’s front door. When she arrived there, the door was closed and bound with many bolts and chains, but there was a narrow window perhaps five yards to the right, covered by a curtain. Gail yanked the material back, just in time to see a green Jeep Cherokee, a huge beast of a vehicle, come swinging round the left side of the house and swerve onto the estate’s main drive. As it did, the barrels of two Kalashnikovs, one protruding through the driver’s window, one through the front passenger window, poured fire into the two sets of woods where MacDonald’s team were concealed.

‘Shit!’ Gail watched aghast as furious volleys scythed the winter undergrowth.

Shit, shit, shit … they wouldn’t stand a hope.

But no, this wasn’t going to stand.

She beat the windowpane with the stock of her own rifle, the third blow sending it shattering outward, and then took aim herself.

The Cherokee was already forty yards from the house, but it had been forced to slow down because the approach road was blocked by the ambushed police vehicles. So, even as the driver and his passenger continued to spray bullets into the encircling woods, Gail also began to shoot, though in her case she aimed at the Cherokee’s back wheels.

Realising that it was under attack from behind, the Jeep’s driver got his foot down, the vehicle accelerating towards MacDonald’s bullet-riddled Range Rover, veering left in an attempt to flank it. But now Gail’s rounds hit home, a line of puncture holes skittering horizontally across its rear bumper, both its back tyres exploding into ribbons of rubber. And as it hit the icy grass in front of the woods, all traction was lost, along with the nearside rear-wheel, which bounced maniacally away, the Jeep sagging down on that side before flipping over onto its roof.

Gail ceased firing, face wet with sweat.

Had she killed the bastards? Only a small part of her hoped that she hadn’t, and even that was because, as the only copper here with serious firepower, she was the one who’d have to go out and confront them. She sidled to the front door. It was a monstrous thing, made from hammered oak, heavily barred as she’d already seen. However, the key sat in the lock, and the bolts could be undone.

One by one, Gail unfastened them, only for Penhaligon to hurry up behind her.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ the DI demanded.

‘They’re trying to blast their way out. MacDonald’s the only armed officer out there and he might as well have a pea-shooter.’

‘Gail, for God’s sake …’

But now the door swung open – on the sound of more cacophonous gunfire.

Gail swore, swinging the door back until it was almost closed. Beyond the narrow gap, she could see that both gunmen had climbed from the upside-down Cherokee, unharmed except for bloodied faces. Like the one on the improvised airfield, they were typical rent-a-thugs, again both wearing khaki combats and carrying multiple weapons. They blazed into the trees on either side of the road as they processed on foot along the line of damaged police cars. When they reached the last one, they broke off firing to clamber inside it.

‘No!’ Gail shouted. She opened the front door and dashed out.

‘Gail!’ Penhaligon grabbed her from behind. ‘You’re not going up there and that’s an order.’

‘Ma’am!’ Gail turned a pleading expression to her. ‘These bastards were involved in the deaths of my friends. Almost everyone I worked with.’

‘Gail …’ Penhaligon shook her head. ‘We don’t know for sure …’

‘We do know. It was Heck who led us here, and I trust him. Anyway, how many gangs of well-armed cop-killers does Britain actually have?’

There was no more time to debate it. Penhaligon released her. And hefted her Glock.

They sprinted out together, running side by side towards the shattered convoy, hoping against hope that the two fugitives would now be too busy escaping to spot them.

Initially that seemed likely. The gunmen were in the farthest of the Range Rovers, but they were having trouble turning the engine on. Whichever driver had abandoned this one, he or she had had the foresight to take the key with them. And modern vehicles couldn’t be started simply by twisting wires together. Not that this was really what Gail wanted. The last thing she was looking for was a face-to-face shootout. She’d hoped to catch them in the middle of a three-point turn, so that she could wing their vehicle again, damaging it badly, ensuring that they wouldn’t get far before Police Scotland reinforcements caught up with them.

She slowed from a run to a walk as they approached the front of the convoy, indicating to Penhaligon that they should each take a different side. The DI nodded and they split up, still advancing cautiously, keeping as close to the wrecked cavalcade as they could.

And then a new blaze of fire was directed at them.

The gunman who’d climbed into the passenger seat had climbed out again and was shooting over the roofs of the other vehicles. Penhaligon, who was on the same side, went to ground first, rolling underneath the nearest car. Gail, meanwhile, more by instinct then design, returned fire. And rather to her surprise, instead of staying to shoot it out, he turned and fled along the road in the direction of the estate’s front gates, though that would be quite a distance. Gail lurched away from the vehicle she’d been sheltering against, Kalashnikov at her shoulder, peering along its barrel.

You aren’t trained for this, a voice told her. You won’t hit him. You’ve been lucky so far …

But he was away from the convoy now and she had a clear shot.

‘Stay where you are!’ she bellowed. ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’

He halted and spun round, immediately raising his own rifle.

‘Oh, Jesus …’ Fresh sweat broke on Gail’s brow.

A single shot rang out. She stiffened; this guy was a professional killer and could not have missed her. But she felt no pain, and then watched disbelievingly as he released his weapon. Twisted. And slumped down onto his face.

Some twenty yards further along the road, she sighted bulky figures in thick black body-armour and helmets, advancing with MP5s cocked and aimed. Not too far behind them, an armed response vehicle was parked sideways across the road, blocking any escape.

The breath heaved from Gail’s lungs as she lowered her weapon. She went dizzy, her legs weak. But then a harsh Russian voice brought her back to reality.

The last of the three gunmen had also now climbed from the Range Rover. He was only about twenty yards from her, and he had a Kalashnikov, too.

She gazed into the hole at the end of its muzzle, numbed.

Only for another voice to cut across the pair of them.

‘Drop that weapon or you’re dead!’

It was Penhaligon, approaching along the line of cars on the other side, Glock pointed. The last gunman glanced from one to the other, unsure which target to cut down first.

‘Drop that thing or I’ll shoot you, I swear!’ the DI shrieked.

‘And if she doesn’t, you little bastard,’ came the voice of Alan MacDonald, marching from the trees, his own Glock levelled, ‘I can promise you that I will.’

The Russian’s anger ebbed as he glanced from one to the other. Perhaps he knew that he could still outgun them, even when Gail raised her Kalashnikov so that barrels were trained on him from every direction. But of course, the SFOs were also approaching. They were now only forty yards off, and these guys did know what they were doing.

‘Drop your fucking weapon!’ one of them called in the most commanding Glaswegian voice Gail had ever heard. ‘Do it now! Or we drop you!’

The Russian’s posture relaxed. He lowered the Kalashnikov until it hung by his side. Then released it. As it fell to the ground, MacDonald advanced behind his pistol. ‘On your knees! On your fucking knees! Now!’

The Russian did as instructed. And slowly put his hands behind his head.

41

The journey down the seaward side of the mountain range, while not as exhausting as the journey up it on the other side, was agonising in different ways.

Heck was bone-weary by now, his multiple bumps, bruises and cuts as raw as he’d ever known. The cold was also a problem, his clothing stiff with ice, his breath rasping painfully in a chest filled with phlegm. At least it was a straightforward descent. Once clear of the snowline, he found the slopes steep but mostly scree, which was easy enough to negotiate so long as you slammed your heels in deep. He was even able to go quickly, his ears popping as the pressure changed. But he continually looked up and behind, fearful that another quarrel might come winging its way towards him, or even that Tarasov might be too fatigued to keep going and thus had given permission for Alexei to bring their prey down with the Dragunov. However, whenever Heck looked, he saw nothing, just a vast upward trajectory of solid rock and rolling stones.

Meanwhile, as the sea rose to meet him, it grew steadily noisier. While it had looked tranquil from the mountain tops, halfway down it was more like a winter tempest, the waves hitting the jagged shoreline in tumults of spray. But at least he wasn’t going to have to swim, because he also saw a strip of land below him. Admittedly, it comprised heaps of shingle and black volcanic boulders rather than soft sand, but it was a beach of sorts, and once he got onto it, he could make his way south towards the lighthouse.

The tall, red and white-striped structure loomed much larger now. He also saw that it didn’t occupy a headland so much as a rocky islet, sitting a couple of hundred yards from shore, though connected by some kind of flimsy bridge. That bridge was already a worry, as it would make him a sitting target. In addition, his reasons for heading to the lighthouse now seemed vague. As he finally descended onto the flat and turned south, his legs all but rubberised, it occurred to Heck that they weren’t going to call the hunt off simply because he’d reached his destination. Even if Tarasov had ever intended to, which seemed unlikely, the death of Rudi would have cancelled that out. So why aim for it? And if he got there, wouldn’t he simply be trapped? The lighthouse wasn’t manned anymore, so there’d be no way he could get inside to pick up a radio and call for help.

It struck him that if he got onto the islet, he could maybe dismantle the bridge, cut himself off. Would that stop them? Highly likely, given that it would mean there’d suddenly be a barrier of exploding, foaming waves between them. The tide would go out at some point, of course, but how long realistically could Tarasov and his son hang around?

But despite the hope this wild idea briefly stirred in him, Heck knew before he got there that this bridge would not be something you’d find in an Indiana Jones film; most likely its anchor-points would be cemented into the rocks. What was he going to do then, produce a pneumatic drill? Thoughts like these might have overwhelmed him with despair, might have brought him to a tottering standstill, had a quarrel not whistled past him with only centimetres to spare, shattering on the shingle some six or seven yards in front of him.

Heck didn’t look back, just galloped on blindly.

Ahead, the lighthouse tower filled his vision. He was travelling at less than half his normal pace, but alongside the main structure he spotted something that acted as a spur. The approaching islet was not solely occupied by the signal tower, but also by several other smaller buildings clustered round it. Outbuildings probably, sheds, storage units and the like. But suppose there was a rubber boat in there, or something similar? He glanced again at the nearby breakers and the monumental stacks of storm-cloud heading inland. A getaway by sea didn’t seem even vaguely possible, not in a dinghy, but there might be something he could use.

He risked another backward glance – and it was a risk, because if he tripped now, it could be fatal – and glimpsed enough of the beach behind him to spot the two Russians a couple of hundred yards to his rear, but again coming on at pace, weapons held aslant at chest-height.

He reached the end of the beach, the lighthouse tower standing tall overhead. Simply to get up to the bridge, he would need to ascend a flight of steep stone steps cut through a great buttress of rock. He went up as fast as he could, two or three treads at a time, dripping stone standing rugged at either shoulder. There were dozens of steps, hundreds even. His head was spinning, his chest pounding, his hot sweat flying. When he reached the top, the narrow passage brought him literally onto the bridge itself. Under normal circumstances he’d be wary of even attempting to cross this thing. Its footway was made from sturdy wooden slats set in an articulated steel frame, but only chains served for handrails; every ten yards, these hand-chains were anchored to the footway’s frame by additional vertical chains. But it would swing and sway under his weight. Thanks to the wind, it was already doing exactly that.

Heck glanced behind. He had clear vantage all the way down the steps to the beach. The Russians weren’t here yet, but he could hear their voices even over the crashing surf, and they sounded excited.

They were closing on their prey; they could scent his blood, and it thrilled them.

He started across. Some eighty feet below, the sea rumbled like molten lava as it cascaded over black spears of rock. So elemental was its fury that he wasn’t halfway over before he’d been drenched in spume even at this height. Despite this, he tried to hurry, striding three slats at a time, but clutching for dear life to the chains. As he’d feared, the entire structure swayed alarmingly. When he was halfway across and at its lowest point, he swung like a pendulum. It was the most vulnerable he’d ever felt in his life, not just because the bridge threatened to flip over, but because he constantly expected the needle-punch of an acid-filled dart to strike him in the back.

He looked backward again and again. The entrance to the bridge remained empty, but he knew they’d emerge from the stone stairway shortly. And the third time he looked, there they were, the larger, burlier form of Vasily Tarasov bent forward, one foot in the stirrup as he drew his crossbow’s string and latched it into place.

Heck could neither swear nor pray, he was so short of breath. He staggered another few yards, the footway steepening as the bridge ascended to its far end, at which moment, by pure instinct, he hunkered down. Swift as a bullet, a quarrel flitted over him.

A roar of frustration sounded from behind as Heck got up and blundered on. He didn’t bother looking backward this time. That roar had been different from those previously. Tempered by a lighter tone, a better humour. This was because they had him. Even if they didn’t knock him off the bridge, on the islet there was nowhere else for him to run.

The last twenty yards were the worst.

The footway was much steeper on this side as it rose to another passage hewn through the living rock, this one far higher up. Heck had to lug himself upward by hand, his feet continually slipping. He squatted a second time, again by instinct, though on this occasion no missiles flew by. He glanced back. They weren’t taking aim at him because they were now on the bridge themselves, Tarasov’s crossbow suspended on his back, Alexei’s Dragunov hung by its strap over his shoulder. But they were crossing the chasm quickly and surefootedly, the hardy outdoorsmen at last catching up to their elusive prey.

It goaded Heck to even greater efforts, and when he finally reached the end of the bridge, lungs bursting in a way he’d never known since his days as a schoolboy sports star, he halted to examine the points where the chain handrails were fastened to the rock. But as he’d feared, they were embedded in concrete.

He glanced round again. His opponents were about halfway over, the pair of them red-faced as the difficulty of the crossing finally affected them. Heck ran up the next set of steps. There were only twenty or so before he emerged on top of the islet, a huge, flat, grassy platform, clearly not natural but windswept and oval-shaped, the lighthouse tower standing maybe a hundred yards away at its farthest end.

No light currently shone from this. It was midday, of course, though the storm’s darkness fast approaching from the Atlantic might change that very soon. Heck weaved his way through a dozen solar panels standing in a phalanx, and then found himself between outbuildings. There were several of these scattered with no particular rhyme or reason. The first couple were more like steel containers than actual buildings, their heavy doors solidly locked. One of these was fitted with what looked like electronic security, and was most likely the battery house, from where power was pumped into the signal tower, but beyond this there were several that looked more like ramshackle suburban garages, built from wood and corrugated metal. The original outhouses, he imagined, probably here since this station was first installed. When he saw one with its door standing ajar, he made an immediate beeline for it.

The door was so old and stiff that it creaked when he forced it all the way open. A stench of damp and sea-salt embraced him. The only light inside intruded via a side window so covered in greenish grime that it was almost opaque and through a single panelled skylight in the slanted ceiling. It showed that there was almost nothing in there: a couple of stacks of worm-eaten furniture, presumably from the time when keepers had lived on this station, and a rusty hook on his right, from which a set of oilskins hung almost to the floor.

As quietly as he could, because he was sure they’d be coming up the steps by now, Heck closed the door. There was a corroded bolt at the top, which he had to strike several times with the heel of his left palm before it grated home.

He backed away, breathing hard. Before stopping rigid.

Despite the filth coating the window, he spied movement beyond it. They really had been right behind him. He edged to one side, and watched as a lone figure advanced into view. No doubt the hunters had split up so that they could cover more ground, but this one, by his height and stature, and by the Dragunov rifle levelled in front of him, was Alexei. Heck held his breath as the figure veered towards this particular building, vanished from view and then kicked at the door a couple of times.

The bolt held.

Heck waited, breathless. If he’d been chasing a suspect, a door like that wouldn’t have stopped him coming in. But then the little bastard probably felt that he had other buildings to check before he started smashing things.

At which point a new thought occurred to Heck.

Possibly because the slight rest had enabled him to regain his breath and he was thinking more clearly. Again, he scanned the Spartan interior.

There was nowhere to hide in here. Except one place. Just one.

*

Alexei moved slowly away from the outhouse, finger tight on the Dragunov trigger. He’d gone ten yards when he heard something behind him: the splintering crack of aged woodwork.

He glanced round. Nothing was visible through the dirt-filmed window, though he knew what he’d heard. Laughing, he hurried back there and kicked the bolted door as hard as he could. It still resisted, fastened somewhere near the top. Alexei levelled his Dragunov and fired five rapid, deafening rounds, blowing away the entire upper quarter of the door. What remained of it crashed open to his shoulder and he charged through. The first thing he saw was a near-empty interior. The second was the fallen pile of furniture and the rickety old chair sitting underneath the skylight, which had been forced wide open.

With a yodel of delight, Alexei turned to rush back outside. Almost too quickly to see the figure emerge from under the oilskins next to the door and stick a leg in front of him.

The next thing the youngster knew, he’d fallen heavily to the turf, his rifle bouncing away.

*

As Heck came outside, he didn’t consider that the young gunman’s father might be somewhere close, and even now could be taking aim with his crossbow. He couldn’t afford to. Instead of worrying about that, he kicked Alexei in the face as he attempted to get back to his feet. The youngster rode out the blow, trying to get up again. But Heck kicked him in the face a second time, and then a third time, and then a fourth. Alexei was now groggy, drooling blood. When Heck kicked his face again, a fifth time, it was with all the force he could muster. The young killer slumped to the ground, eyes rolled white, his jaw hanging crushed and lopsided.

Heck stepped away from him and scooped up the Dragunov.

This was a formidable weapon, but if memory served, its ammunition box carried a maximum of ten rounds, which was roughly the number Alexei had already fired. Heck detached the clip, and his worst fears were confirmed. He glanced at the unconscious form. The kid probably had spares if there was time to search him. But then, in the corner of Heck’s eye, only thirty-odd yards away, Vasily Tarasov ambled into view around an outbuilding, crossbow levelled and loaded.

Immediately, Heck snapped the clip back on and raised the rifle, squinting through its scope, in which his target was perfectly framed. It was a pisser for sure. All he would have had to do was pull the bleeding trigger.

Initially, Tarasov responded with dull surprise, his gaze flicking back and forth between Heck and the fallen shape of his son. Heck sidled away to the left, just in case Alexei wasn’t as unconscious as he appeared to be, but also fascinated that for the first time in his career he was in a Mexican stand-off and yet was carrying an unloaded weapon.

The two of them still only stood about thirty yards apart, on an open central area of the platform, the signal tower itself another thirty yards to Heck’s rear. Even so, it could have been a Wild West street; with the harsh gusting wind, it almost felt like that.

A grin split the Russian’s face. He gave a deep, bellicose laugh. ‘You and me, huh? Like you say. This chivalrous enough? English shit!’

‘You know I can’t miss with this thing, Vasily,’ Heck retorted. ‘And believe it or not, I don’t want to kill you.’

‘You not extend this courtesy to Rudi.’

‘No … I just didn’t save him. There’s a difference.’

‘You not save him?’

‘I wasn’t putting my own life on the line just so that he could carry on wearing a silly hat whenever he fancied slaughtering someone. Now, you lay that weapon down, and you won’t be going home to Mother Russia in the next box to his.’

Tarasov nodded. ‘Funny guy to end.’

‘No one’s laughing, Vasily.’

‘No … but you bluff.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Idiot Englishman. You think I not know you wish me dead? So, why not do it, huh? You have … what is it you say? You have drop on me.’

‘Put the bow down, Vasily, and we all walk away from here.’

The Russian cracked another big grin. ‘I count … like you. Only one who didn’t: Alexei, for which he pay price. As is right. No man should bring empty weapon to gunfight.’

His crossbow was only at chest-height. He wasn’t taking aim. But he triggered it all the same. Before Heck knew it, the next quarrel was speeding towards him. He dived to the grass and rolled, saving himself by inches, and then jumped back up to one knee, fixing the big Russian in his crosshairs.

‘Don’t make me do it, Tarasov!’ he shouted.

Almost casually, Tarasov reloaded his bow. ‘You think me fool?’

Heck squeezed the trigger, just to be sure. The Dragunov clicked harmlessly.

He threw the useless thing away, jumped to his feet and retreated. Tarasov still didn’t shoot, but followed him slowly, crossbow at the ready, enjoying the final stalk, but at the same time edging towards his motionless son just to see how badly hurt he was.

Heck realised that this was his only hope. At some point very soon, for half a second, maybe less, Tarasov’s attention would break away from him. That was when he’d need to bolt. In whichever direction he could, though none of them promised much. Tarasov was between Heck and the steps back to the bridge, while every other alternative led to a hundred-foot drop down to coastal rocks and thrashing waves. Even then, it seemed as if Heck had overestimated his opponent’s concern for his offspring. The glance Tarasov finally cast down at the boy was infinitesimal. Heck had only half turned to run before they were facing each other again. The Russian gave a bestial bellow, and brought the crossbow decisively to his shoulder. This time Heck did run, attempting to zigzag. Chesty guffaws rolled after him. When he glanced back, Tarasov was still aiming, but now advancing at a walk. He seemed genuinely amused.

Heck straightened up, closing on the sole structure in his path, the lighthouse tower. As with some of the outbuildings, its heavy steel door looked to be firmly closed. There were two notices pasted on it: DANGER and PRIVATE PROPERTY. He turned to look back – and the quarrel missed his head by less than an inch, smashing on the section of lighthouse door just above the lock.

Heck gazed, stunned, at the rapidly appearing hole as the sheet steel dissolved like butter, so fascinated that he stumbled over his own feet, falling against the whitewashed bricks of the door-jamb. Belatedly, he glanced back. Tarasov was still coming, but slowly, because he was reloading again. Heck levered himself upright, to see that, with a piece of the steel door now melted away, the locking mechanism beneath had not just been exposed, it was visibly corroding, the door dislodging from its frame as a result.

He jammed his left hand underneath the steel, yanked it, and the door swung wide open. Inside, it was musty and dusty, so gloomy that at first, he could barely distinguish its circular dimensions. As everything swam into view, he spied a bright red fire-extinguisher hooked to the wall at the foot of a blue-painted steel stairway, which spiralled upward. He glanced overhead, almost dizzied by the arrow-straight ‘borehole’ ascending into dimness.

‘English shit!’ came a voice from just outside. Tarasov sounded angry again.

Heck unhooked the extinguisher, and started up the stair, his footfalls clonging on the echoey metal. As he went, he almost barked with laughter.

Where exactly was he running to?

Where was he going to hide inside a lighthouse?

42

Durable though he liked to think he was, fitter though he’d been since his days as a juvenile athlete, Heck was now so sapped of energy that he couldn’t ascend the spiral stair at any kind of speed. Instead, he swayed and limped his way up, constantly looking behind, increasingly surprised that his enemy wasn’t directly at his rear. At every other turn of the staircase, there was a narrow, salt-encrusted window looking out to sea. He stopped by the second one and glanced back down the borehole, listening. To his bewilderment, there was still no indication that another pair of feet were even coming up. He leaned over the barrier and hefted the fire-extinguisher, waiting, sweat dripping from his brow. Then a shadow filled the pale section of concrete floor at the bottom. And Tarasov appeared, gazing upward.

Heck dropped the fire-extinguisher.

The big Russian, who was older than his quarry by a decade, if not more, stepped nimbly aside, the red steel cylinder clattering on the concrete with such force that it split open, its foamy contents spurting everywhere. Bellowing with laughter again, the Russian commenced his own ascent.

Heck continued to watch, not wishing to give him too much time, but trying to see whether the crossbow was loaded. That weapon was the main thing he was running from, and surely Tarasov must be low on quarrels by now. Not that it was something Heck was prepared to chance. For as long as he lived, he’d never forget the smoking crater in Karl Hellstrom’s chest, flesh and bone alike turned to gurgling soup.

Unfortunately, all he could see as Tarasov climbed the spiral was his gloved right hand on the railing, which told him nothing. Heck continued up himself, his joints screaming. At a rough estimation, this tower was sixty or seventy feet tall, so he now had to be well past halfway. From each window, he glimpsed the endless waves. He didn’t know what he’d find at the top, though he’d half-planned that if there was a hatch with a trapdoor in it, he could maybe just stand on it, or find some piece of furniture to reposition there. There’d be weather-tracking equipment up there, too, most likely on the roof, and that might include cameras. If he could use one of these to reveal his presence on top of the lighthouse, someone somewhere would surely send out an alert.

But as he came around the last turn, he was dismayed to see that there was no trapdoor, the stairway ascending straight into the lighthouse bell, what had once been referred to as the ‘lantern gallery’.

He leaned over, painfully, hot, ragged breaths hauling themselves in and out of his chest, and took in what he could through fatigue-dulled eyes. He’d never been atop a lighthouse before, but the interior was much as he’d seen on films and television. On a central podium, inside a fixed cylindrical glass case, six mullioned Fresnel lenses rotated slowly around the bulb cluster. But aside from that there was nothing else except electric cables snaking across the floorboards. The windows gave incredible, long-range vantage over the rolling, white-capped ocean. There was a glazed door, too, though, and an exterior catwalk, because these windows would need to be kept clean of seagull dirt.

Heck prayed that the door wouldn’t be locked, because if it was, with the glass in these lofty structures storm-proofed, he’d be going no further.

But the door wasn’t locked.

He tottered out onto the catwalk, the wind swirling around him, filled with icy pellets. White seabirds lofted overhead, shrieking, distressed by the oncoming storm. Leaning on the metal handrail, Heck peered down. On this side of the lighthouse, the drop was sheer. Not just down the signal tower itself, but down the cliff below it: a two-hundred-foot plummet onto the needle-tips of skerries protruding through mountainous surf.

He glanced to his left, where an aluminium ladder was bracketed to the outside of the lantern gallery. Determinedly blocking out any sense of vertigo, tensed against the stiffening sleet, he climbed it, immediately seeing that a spire rose from the tip of the lighthouse roof, a central pole serving as a kind of antenna, for at the top it bristled with instrumentation: fans, cameras and other monitors checking visibility, wind speed, wind direction and the like. But the pole ascended for a good eight feet before any of these devices could even be touched. Heck’s heart sank. He hung there on the ladder, unable to believe that he’d come this far for nothing.

‘English!’ came a familiar raucous voice from inside.

Heck leaned down and glanced through the nearest window. Seeing Tarasov rising into view, crossbow first, its string drawn, another quarrel on the arrow-track, he dragged himself up the last few rungs, and then was on top of the curved roof, which – coated in a sticky, tar-like substance though it was – threatened to dislodge him easily if he wasn’t careful. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, he clambered up it on his back, crablike. Reaching the apex, he grabbed the base of the antenna to secure himself. He could no longer see the catwalk, of course, but then, whoever was on the catwalk could no longer see him.

‘English?’ the Russian said again, though now it was a question.

Clearly, he had stepped outside, but sounded puzzled, even vaguely concerned, almost as if he thought Heck might have gone over the safety barrier. But then: ‘Ah! So you climb to top of world to escape me, huh? You flatter me with your fear.’

And yet there were no clanking footfalls on the ladder, and Heck knew why. If the guy was coming up there, he would need both hands, which would mean that he’d need to sling the crossbow over his back again and wouldn’t instantly be able to shoot. His advantage would be halved, if not more than that. Heck was above him, after all. If Heck chose to jump down on him at that moment, he’d have no advantage at all.

Another stand-off followed. Though how long could this one last?

There surely had to be a time-limit? Except that, on reflection, maybe not. The Russian’s escape route no longer existed, and now he was looking to avenge his son as well as his nephew. Perhaps family honour had become the priority. Even so, he was going to have to make his move at some point.

And just then, he did.

To Heck’s surprise, he heard the Russian go back indoors. There was a protracted and confusing silence. And then a thundering detonation, a hole the size of a spread hand punched through the roof from below. It was a couple of feet left of where Heck lay, but the shock of it hit him like a mailed fist. Tarasov hadn’t just come up here with his crossbow; he’d been late ascending the tower because he’d been busy collecting his son’s Dragunov and presumably a spare magazine.

With another concussive boom, another hole was blown in the roof, this time to Heck’s right. The Russian was taking random pot-shots, but there wasn’t a lot of space up there. He would shortly hit his target if for no other reason than pure luck. Heck shifted slightly, the curved roof beneath him creaking, and immediately knew that he’d given himself away. Catapulting his body forward, he evaded death by a hair’s breadth, the metal erupting twice as two further shots punched through it. And then he was falling, tumbling over the edge of the roof, dropping through mid-air … and landing crouched on the catwalk.

He jumped up and turned. The Russian grinned broadly through the window. He only needed to point the Dragunov, and it was over.

But he didn’t.

Tossing the rifle aside, he unslung his preferred weapon, the crossbow, and strode outside. Suddenly, there was only a couple of yards between them.

‘Be honoured, friend,’ Tarasov said, shouting over the wind. ‘This was best hunt of all.’

He put the bow to his shoulder – and was engulfed in a blinding glare as the light-sensor inside the bell kicked in, and the lighthouse came alive. He shouted, triggering his weapon clumsily, its missile soaring off into the murk.

Heck ran at him.

It was all he could do. The only thing.

He was met by a furious punch, which connected with his jaw and sent him reeling. But the punch was delivered by Tarasov’s left hand, still burned and bound in rags, and the Russian yowled in agony. Heck bounced back from the railing and aimed a karate blow at the side of his neck. It struck clean, but that was some neck: thick as a branch and corded like steel. And Tarasov, though he tottered, didn’t go down. They tussled together, the powerful light roving over them repeatedly as they exchanged wild, brutal blows. When Tarasov swung the crossbow round, using it like a club, it crashed into Heck’s ribs on the left side. Shards of pain went through Heck’s body, but he was able to clamp the weapon with his left arm and lurch backward, dragging it from the Russian’s one-handed grasp, and in the same movement, turning and tossing it into the void.

Briefly, the fight broke off, Tarasov glaring down with disbelieving horror.

‘What’s a tiger without its teeth, eh?’ Heck scoffed. ‘Even a Russian one?’

Tarasov twirled back, his face a livid, mottled red, his eyes as large and soulless as coins. ‘You pay for this … English shit!’

He threw his right gauntlet off and drew the knife from his hip. Heck didn’t eye it for long, though still noted that it was the biggest, most vicious-looking blade he’d ever seen.

‘You care more about that bloody bow than your dead son?’ he panted.

‘I have two sons.’

‘Jesus. You remind me of my dad.’

As the light flashed by them again, the Russian lurched forward, swinging the blade like a machete. All Heck could do was back away, following the catwalk around. In almost no time, they’d made a complete circuit, the Russian growing ever angrier, Heck continually dodging backward. He needed another opening, another half-chance. He thought it had come when the blade clashed with the safety barrier’s handrail, only for it to cleave clean through.

Tarasov changed tack, wielding his knife point-forward, thrusting and feinting. It was more dangerous, and yet at the same time, unconsciously, he tried to grab hold of Heck with his left hand, which of course was the injured one. Heck lashed out, swatting the damaged paw aside – Tarasov’s face twisted in pain – and launched a flying kick, which caught him just above the left knee. There was an audible snick as cartilage or maybe bone cracked.

Again, the Russian howled, this time stumbling backward. Heck hit the steel-plated footway but sprang back up. The Russian came at him, hobbling, making it easier for Heck to evade another knife-thrust and bang a left hook into the side of his head, before smacking him under the chin with an uppercut. They were close, however, almost chest-to-chest, and Tarasov enveloped his opponent in a gigantic bearhug. Heck was shocked by the force exerted, by the constriction of his heart and lungs, the wind suddenly squeezing out of him. He knew the knife was there, too. He could feel its point pricking the flesh just below his right ear, but whether Tarasov would have the leverage to plunge it home was another matter. Not that Heck could take the chance. He drove his head forward again and again, ramming it into the Russian’s face, tupping the bridge of his nose till it broke, then clamping the bastard’s bottom lip with his teeth, yanking his head side to side, literally tearing the flesh away.

Tarasov screamed. He released Heck and shoved him, then staggered backward, one hand fast on his mouth as blood spurted from a grisly wound that would scar him for life.

‘Son of bitch cop!’ he spat.

But unlike other brutes Heck had faced, pain didn’t modify Tarasov’s rage. He came back at bull-like pace. Heck met him with his shoulder, driving it low and hard into his sternum, expecting to wind him. But Tarasov was massively built, and wrapped his left arm around Heck’s head, swinging him bodily and flinging him at the lighthouse window, slashing at him as he did. The knife ripped only through clothing, but Heck’s skull struck the shatterproof glass so hard that the entire pane spider-webbed with cracks.

He sank to his knees, blood soaking through his hair, head drooped. The Russian kicked at his face to keep him groggy, then drew his knife back for a guillotine-like blow, only for Heck to snap a hand out and grab him by the gonads, balling his grip into a crushing claw. Tarasov shrieked, snatching instinctively at Heck’s arm with his left hand, but there was no power there and Heck batted it away again. Tarasov struck down with the knife, but Heck blocked it with such force that the weapon clattered away along the catwalk.

The Russian dragged himself free and backed off, roaring, spittle flying, blood gobbets hanging in his beard, before swinging a roundhouse. Heck ducked it, and caught him with a right and a left in the ribs. Tarasov staggered backward again. He threw another ham-fist, catching Heck a glancing impact. But now it was Heck who could scent victory. He went in low, boxer-style, hacking more blows into Tarasov’s belly and ribs, evading another wild swipe, and landing a stinger on his chin, and then a karate jab in his throat.

Incredibly to Heck, the Russian was still on his feet. The man was a machine, a real-life bear. But the left-handed punch he threw in retaliation hurt him more than Heck, and when Heck swung a full-leg kick into his groin again, and smashed him with another uppercut as he doubled, he staggered back hard against the railing, which of course had been chopped clean through. Metal squealed, the Russian’s whole immense form upending as the severed steel gave way, and then he was falling, only snatching out his uninjured hand at the death, catching the safety barrier’s lower bar with stretched fingers.

For several breathless seconds, Heck stood gazing down, while Tarasov swung there, the sea seething far below, the rocks yearning for his blood and bone. But unlike his son, this Russian wasn’t for letting go. Despite his gruesome injuries, his fist remained clenched.

Heck nodded, before limping along the catwalk to the knife. He picked it up, brought it back and knelt alongside the tight-locked hand. The face staring up from below remained defiant. Slit-eyed and puffy, its beard a mop of gore, its lower lip hanging in shreds, but still it bared its teeth and swore in Russian.

Heck placed the flat of the blade on the row of taut knuckles. ‘You destroyed everyone I knew … everyone I loved.’

‘This is our way!’ Tarasov retorted, though his voice was so strained it was barely legible.

‘It was our way once,’ Heck said. ‘But at least we have the grace to be embarrassed about that. Sometimes.’ He turned the blade round, so that it rested on its serrated edge. ‘Now, I can either chop or saw. It’s your call. Either way, your destiny lies below. The only question is how quickly you want to get there.’

‘English …’ The Russian spat blood at him. ‘English … shit!’

‘You certainly talk the talk, Vasily.’ Heck gripped the barrier with his left hand so that he could apply his full weight to the blade. ‘Time to see you fall the fall.’

‘Heckenburg!’ came a tinny voice from somewhere down to his left.

Thinking he was hearing things, Heck glanced down.

At the south end of the rocky shoreline rimming the lighthouse islet, there was a small stone quay that he hadn’t previously noticed. Waves were breaking over it, but to his incredulity, a boat was riding the swell, and from out of it, men had already come ashore. Armed men wearing helmets and black, armoured coveralls, now running in single file up a stepped path that ascended somewhere on the lighthouse’s south side.

The boat was clearly a Police Scotland coastal patrol. And it was a senior Police Scotland officer who was calling Heck from the dock through a loudhailer.

‘Put the knife down!’ the voice carried up.

Heck wondered if there was a conspiracy against him. How come these guys hadn’t been here ten minutes ago, when he was facing both a Dragunov and a crossbow loaded with acid-laden quarrels?

‘Put the knife down!’ the voice shouted again. ‘It’s over! Put it down!’

Heck turned back to the Russian, who was in such a state of pain that he hadn’t yet noticed there was a third party at hand. His eyes had turned red with ruptured blood vessels.

‘Have to be the quick way,’ Heck said. He lifted the knife, to bring it down hard.

‘Don’t do it, Heckenburg!’ a different Scottish voice shouted, this one from much closer.

Heck glanced round again. It seemed that some of the assault team’s lead officers had already reached the lighthouse bell, one of them now leaning out through the doorway, pointing a Glock at him. There were others in there, too, their MP5s trained through the glass. Almost as one, they looked horrified, the revolving glare highlighting his ragged, filthy clothes, the fresh blood slathering his straggled hair, the dry blood caking his battered face.

‘You really going to shoot me?’ Heck shouted at them. ‘Do you know how many coppers this bastard’s had killed?’

‘We know, sarge. But put the knife down. Don’t be like him.’

‘Twenty-six here! God knows how many in his own country!’

‘Don’t do it, pal! Drop the knife!’

Heck looked down at the Russian, who to his credit still hung there, though the defiance in his face had gone; his complexion was curdled milk, his features scrunched like rubber.

‘Mark!’ came a different voice through a different hailer. ‘Mark Heckenburg!’

Heck looked to his front and was stunned to see a helicopter hovering some thirty yards away. It was a Eurocopter, though this one bore Metropolitan Police insignia. He was even more perplexed when he realised that the new person calling to him was DCS Gwen Straker. She wore police-issue waterproofs, but her hair was wild, loose and soaked as she leaned dangerously from a slide-hatch.

‘Mark, listen to me …’

Heck could have sworn aloud, furious at her, but more so at himself for not even hearing the rotor blades as it approached. He swept the air with his hand. ‘Go home, ma’am!’

‘Put the knife down! Walk away from this a police officer, not a murderer.’

‘Pardon my French, ma’am, but take a fucking hike! This has nothing to do with you!’

‘Mark … Gemma doesn’t want you to do this.’

He glanced up again. Despite everything, he was stupefied by her audacity. ‘And who told you that? God?’

‘Gemma told me.’

A second passed before he lowered the blade. Thicker sleet blasted over him as he rose bewilderedly to his feet.

‘I know you won’t believe this, Mark. But early this morning, I had a phone call from St Thomas’s Hospital. They rang to tell me that Gemma had just woken from her coma.’

Heck’s throat went dry. His heart thudded with impossible force.

‘She’s fully aware, Mark. She’s even able to talk.’

His gaze telescoped, locking on the whirling bird, on the petite figure of Gwen as she regarded him over the top of her hailer. As the sleet turned to snow, his vision blurred.

‘That’s a damn lie!’ he struggled to shout. ‘You just want to save this piece of shit!’

‘Mark, this is Gwen Straker speaking. Would I lie to you?’

His breath hitched in his throat. This was Gwen. Not Jude Penhaligon, not Mike Garrickson, not any of those overpaid, overdressed, over-posturing ponces who filled the higher echelons of the modern-day police and still believed they were coppers.

This was Gwen. His idol in the job, his ‘substitute mother’ as they’d used to say.

Even so, he shook his head. ‘Gemma’s as good as dead. A vegetable.’

‘She’s also a fighter. And miracles sometimes happen.’

‘And so does bullshit!’ he shouted. ‘She’ll never wake up. The only reason they didn’t switch life-support off is because her mother refused to sign the papers.’

‘Look Mark, if you don’t believe me … let Gemma tell you. I recorded this phone message on the way up here.’

Another voice now sounded over the loudspeaker. It was weak, wispy, faltering at every turn. But Heck heard it out incredulously, for several seconds thinking he was going to faint.

‘Mark … this is Gemma. You’re to stand down. Do you hear me? You’re to stand down right now. That’s an … order.’

Shuddering, tearful, he shook his head. ‘How … how is this possible. Gwen, how is …’

‘You can ask her yourself. So long as you don’t do anything first that means I have to send you to prison.’

At his feet, the Russian gave a final, protracted croak.

Heck glanced down.

Tarasov’s eyes clenched shut … and his fingers slipped from the bar.

Heck caught him by the wrist.

EPILOGUE

When Gwen Straker entered the holding cell at Oban Police Station, Heck was waiting alone, seated on the bed. He was still grizzled, his hair still a stringy mop, but he’d showered and now wore a Police Scotland tracksuit. His multiple facial cuts had either been stitched or plastered.

She was still shaken. This was the first time she’d seen him up close in weeks and he’d lost an astonishing amount of weight. In addition, his complexion was corpse-white.

‘Gemma’s awake?’ he said, with no preamble. ‘For real?’

His eyes were narrow with suspicion, but there was hope there, too, a desperate, yearning hope. She stepped forward, showing him her phone on which a snippet of video was playing. The moving image wasn’t very distinct, but it appeared to portray a female figure wearing a sleeveless hospital gown propped at an angle in an adjustable bed, various tubes and other lines connecting her arms to a bank of monitors on one side and complex items of medical equipment on the other. It was impossible to see the patient’s face as a nurse in ICU scrubs stood in the way while adjusting a drip-feed, but whoever the invalid was, she was visibly moving, responding to the nurse’s words with words of her own.

‘This footage was taken with Gemma’s permission not fifty minutes ago,’ Gwen said. ‘I know you weren’t allowed to visit her, Mark, but you need to trust me that this is Gemma’s bed in the ICU ward at St Thomas’s, and this is Gemma herself.’

His eyes glazed. ‘We were categorically told that …’

‘Diagnoses change, depending on the success of treatment regimes.’

He looked away, swallowing hard. ‘She’ll be in a bad way.’

‘Yes. It’ll be a long road to recovery. But it’ll help her enormously to know that the person she cares for more than anyone else in the world didn’t do anything so stupid as to drop a suspect to his death in front of half of the Police Service of Scotland.’

Heck nodded and swallowed again. Despite his best efforts, a couple of tears leaked out. ‘I’d like to see her, if that’s possible.’

‘First, I’ve got to get you out of here. Which won’t be easy, though I’ll give it my best shot. We all will.’

He nodded again, saying nothing.

She backed to the door. ‘You know, Mark … this has to end.’ He glanced up; her tone was calm but her expression firm. The disapproving mother who’d brook no further cheek. ‘This reckless, stop-at-nothing approach to hunting criminals. You shouldn’t need me to tell you that. No one’s indestructible.’

He nodded again, and she left, closing the door behind her.

‘Well,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘We’ll see.’

Thanks again to all those fans and readers who had faith that the Heck series would continue. Your constant letters of support were a huge encouragement. Thanks also to the following, as publication of this novel would not have been possible without their sterling assistance.

Steve J Shaw and WHITEspace

Iain Cash and Cash Productions

Mark Lloyd

Stacey Vernon

John Churnside

Helen Gray

Joey Wiswell

John Dudley

Nicola Reynolds

Tara Haywood

Kate Burke

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Finch studied History at Goldsmiths, London, before becoming a cop in the northwest of England. He then let his passion for writing allow him to follow a career in journalism. Now a full-time writer, he first cut his literary teeth penning episodes of the British TV crime drama, THE BILL, and has written extensively in the field of children's animation. However, he is probably best known for his work in crime thrillers.

His first three novels in the Detective Sergeant Heckenburg series all attained ‘best-seller’ status, while his first Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn novel became an official Sunday Times top 10 bestseller in this first month of publication.

Connect to the Author online

X (Twitter): x.com/paulfinchauthor

Facebook:@paulfinchauthor

Blog: www.paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com

If you’ve enjoyed ROGUE, why not try other novels by the same author. Available on Amazon and in other bookstores:

DS Heckenburg series

Stalkers

Sacrifice

The Killing Club

Dead Man Walking

Hunted

Ashes to Ashes

Kiss of Death

DC Clayburn series

Strangers

Shadows

Stolen

Stand Alones

One Eye Open

Never Seen Again