Stalkers

Chapter 48

Detective Superintendent Piper and Detective Inspector Palliser were in morose mood as they watched the television in Palliser’s office. On the screen, a Devon amp; Cornwall Police launch was backing into a rain-swept dock in Plymouth harbour. Visible on board, three prone shapes lay side by side on the deck, covered by tarpaulins. Underwater Recovery officers, still in their wetsuits and oxygen tanks, stood alongside them.

‘So how many does that make?’ Gemma asked.

Palliser checked his notes. ‘Six bodies recovered from Plymouth Sound. Three from the mouth of the Wash. Searches are also commencing off Holy Island in the northeast, off Blackpool and Anglesey.’

‘All areas where these maniacs chartered offshore craft?’

Palliser nodded solemnly.

Beyond the glazed partition, the entire rest of the squad, who’d all been called back from their various assignments, scrambled madly between telephones and computer terminals. There was a hubbub of noise; paperwork was being flung everywhere.

‘Any IDs yet?’ Gemma asked.

‘None yet, but I don’t think we’ll need to look any further than that.’

He nodded out into the main office, at the far end of which a large placard had been set up. The array of mugshots on it, and the accompanying sheaves of notes, had all been removed from the makeshift incident room in Heck’s flat.

‘What about the suspects?’

He consulted his notes again. ‘Sonny Kilmor and Tommy Hobbs. Both formerly of the British Army. Exemplary records, bizarrely. Both saw a lot of action, and were decorated many times for bravery. Much involvement with special ops. Believed to have gone freelance about the same time as each other — 2007-ish. Tommy Hobbs actually owned fifty-eight, Rentoul Street. Seems like the rest of the gang used it as a base or a safehouse whenever they were up in the Midlands …’

‘The rest of the gang being who exactly?’

‘Tommy’s younger brother, Brian, who was already a registered sex offender when he was a juvenile. Spent his adulthood in and out of institutions. Probably where he hooked up with Shane Klim. Birds of a feather, and all that. Heck’s suspicions were right about those two. Looks like they were only brought into the firm when it relocated to the UK. Klim broke out of Rotherwood to hook up with them permanently.’

‘If you can’t get quality at least get loyalty, eh?’ a voice said from the doorway.

They were astonished to see Heck standing there. He wore only trousers and slippers, and was bare-chested under his jacket, which was draped over his shoulders. His entire right arm was encased in plaster and fixed at a right angle, with a sling to hold it in position and a steel bar bracing it across the joint. He was pasty-white in colour, but black and blue with bruising. Much of his hair had been shaved off to accommodate the tram-lines of stitching in his scalp.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Gemma said.

He hobbled in. ‘I discharged myself early.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

Palliser dragged a seat forward and Heck lowered himself into it.

‘Lauren Wraxford, who saved my arse countless times last week, is dead,’ he said. ‘The very least I owe her is not to waste time lying on my back while her murderer refuses to cooperate.’

‘You think I’m going to let you speak to him?’ Gemma said.

‘You could do worse. I hear he’s defying all analysis?’

Palliser sighed. ‘We still haven’t got a clue who he actually is. Not only is he saying nothing … we’ve gone back through military records for the last twenty years, and there’s no trace of any British serviceman, commissioned officer or otherwise, name of Michael Silver. CrimInt’s got nothing either, nor SOCA, nor SIS. Likewise, there are no comparisons in prints or DNA. We’ve circulated his mugshot throughout agencies abroad, but no hits so far.’

‘We should check the security consultants Goldstein amp; Hoff use when they send their execs overseas,’ Heck said.

‘Already have done,’ Palliser replied. ‘And it’s no dice. They’re all clean. Seems like Ian Blenkinsop made extra arrangements once he got to the Gulf.’

‘What about paperwork?’

‘We’ve found no personal documentation.’

‘Come on, Des … the bastard had access to different vehicles, different properties!’

‘All in the names of his men. Same goes for the boat hire.’

‘At least tell me Interpol and Europol are looking into the foreign angle.’

‘As much as they can, but there isn’t much to go on.’

‘How much do they need? Blenkinsop mentioned American colleagues, French, Russian …’

‘But he made no statement to that effect, and now he’s dead.’

‘Shit!’ Heck swore. ‘Silver knows! He didn’t just hint at it, he fucking boasted — said there were other Nice Guys operating overseas. Damn it, we should make him talk!’

‘And then you’d be just like him,’ Gemma said primly. ‘A sadistic criminal, a torturer, a psychopath. Look Heck, the main thing is he’s going down. If absolutely everything else fails, at least he’s bang to rights for the murder of Lauren Wraxford — we got her blood from under his fingernails and from his clothes. His dabs are all over the murder weapon.’

‘On the subject of Lauren, has anyone been to visit her mother?’ Heck asked.

Gemma nodded. ‘I did.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, subdued. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘So did she, I think. She sent you this letter.’ Gemma handed him a sealed envelope. ‘She wanted to express her gratitude personally.’

‘Her gratitude?’

‘For finding out what happened to Genene. And for providing Lauren with a friend when she needed one.’

Heck took the envelope almost gingerly. He didn’t think he could face opening it now. ‘Never been thanked before for getting someone killed.’

‘You didn’t strike the blow, Heck,’ Palliser said.

‘Why do I feel like this then … survivor guilt?’

Palliser was about to respond when a detective constable beckoned him through the glass partition. He excused himself and slipped out, leaving the other two alone.

‘I’m still waiting for my apology, by the way,’ Gemma said, folding her arms. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’

‘I know,’ Heck replied. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘Heck … I don’t actually mind that you broke almost every law you joined the police to uphold while pursuing these people. But what I do mind — what I absolutely revile — is that you lied to me.’

‘I didn’t lie to you.’

‘You promised to keep me in the loop, and you cut me out at the first opportunity.’

‘I only left you out when I learned they had someone on the inside.’

‘You could at least have told me that much.’

‘Would you have believed me?’

‘You want the truth, I’m not sure I believe you now.’

‘Really?’ He laughed. ‘You mean we coppers are too good to become clients of the Nice Guys? How else did they get to McCulkin, our confidential informant?’

‘Look, if this guy Eric Ezekial had been shadowing your investigation, he might have seen you setting up meetings with McCulkin about other things.’

‘All respect, ma’am, he still must have been getting inside info. Once the Nice Guys learned I was looking hard at Klim — courtesy of their insider — they sent Deke to sit on O’Hoorigan. Obviously they had O’Hoorigan fingered as a weak link. Klim had told him all about this outfit while they were in Rotherwood together, and they couldn’t trust him not to tell us if he ever got lifted for something. Deke was shadowing O’Hoorigan rather than me, but when I turned up in Salford he had to act quickly. O’Hoorigan had to go and so did I.’

‘Well, as both Deke and O’Hoorigan are dead, we can hardly prove that.’

‘And what about Dana, how did they find out about her unless some bent bastard in our department told them?’

‘Heck, are you seriously saying that one of our lot can afford to lay out seventy-five grand every time he wants a sex-service?’

In a low, wary voice, he replied: ‘Someone at the very top could.’

At first she was baffled as to who he could mean. And then it clicked. ‘Oh no … no, no, no, Heck. No, we’re not even going there.’

‘Someone who did everything in his power to close this enquiry down.’

‘Don’t you say it!’

‘Someone who was once in the military himself. Perhaps that’s how he got to know them in the first place?’

‘Heck, I’m warning you …’

‘They used his exact terminology when referring to me!’

‘I’m not listening to this …’

But Heck was now in full flow. ‘Ma’am, you told me that Commander Laycock found out I was still investigating when that detective super from Manchester contacted him the morning after those GMP officers got hurt at the Salford hospital … but that it was a full day before Laycock came to see you about it. Why a full day? So he could pass on everything new to the Nice Guys first? So he could tell them who Lauren was — I don’t see how else Deke could have known she was Genene Wraxford’s sister. How about so that Deke could get to us before you did? … that was the same day we got lured out to Blacksand Tower, remember.’

Gemma regarded him incredulously, as if for a moment his crazy assertions were making a kind of sense to her. Then Palliser came back in, and the spell was broken. ‘Forget it!’ She waved the whole notion away. ‘I’m not listening to any of that.’

Heck shrugged. ‘You don’t have to listen to me. Whoever their insider was, his details will be in that filing cabinet in Eric Ezekial’s attic.’

Gemma glanced uncomfortably at Palliser.

Heck noticed this. ‘What?’

‘You haven’t heard about that then?’ Palliser said.

‘Obviously not.’

‘Well …’ Palliser cleared his throat. ‘Owing to the … shall we say confused issue of what exactly happened to Mr Ezekial …’

‘I fully explained that,’ Heck said.

‘Yes well, it wasn’t as easy explaining it to a magistrate. However, we finally managed it, and the search-warrant for Ezekial’s premises was issued this morning.’

‘And?’

‘The filing cabinet in the attic is empty.’

Heck rose slowly to his feet. ‘You are joking?’

‘Sit down, Heck,’ Gemma said, ‘before you fall down.’

‘What do you mean it’s empty?’

‘All these files you described, with the names and coded reference numbers. They’ve gone.’

Heck slumped back into his chair. ‘That proves there’s some bastard on the inside.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Gemma argued. ‘If there are any more of these Nice Guys knocking around …’

‘Why would they take the risk of going there?’ Heck said. ‘They’re going to prison for life, whatever happens. The only people those files would have implicated are the dozens and dozens of men who used their services. If we wanted to know who their grass was inside this department, his details would’ve been right there. So naturally he’s got there ahead of us, and pinched them.’

Palliser’s doleful expression suggested that he didn’t disagree.

Gemma pondered. ‘Wasn’t there a security camera inside the house?’

‘Yes,’ Palliser said, ‘but Ezekial’s hard drive has also been removed. If the camera was still recording at the time of the burglary, it was uploading onto nothing.’

‘So let’s get this straight,’ Heck put in. ‘Just so we’re absolutely clear on the matter. You’re telling me that the details of maybe a hundred men guilty of rape and murder, currently living in Britain — have disappeared? Right from under our noses?’

Palliser made a helpless gesture.

Heck banged his one good hand down on the desk, though it wasn’t quite that good, and he grimaced in pain.

‘Chill out, Heck,’ Gemma said. ‘This is still a major result.’

‘You know something, you’re right.’ Heck got to his feet and lurched towards the door. ‘I should have kept you fully informed … all the way, about every single thing. Then you could have pulled me off the job the first time you got nervous, and we’d have got nowhere near the Nice Guys. So at least now we wouldn’t know what we’d lost.’

‘Heck, wait a minute!’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, ma’am, but I’m on sick leave until next year.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘You’ve seen my doctor’s note? I’m not skiving, I’m not malingering — I am completely unfit for duty.’

‘So?’

‘So, if you want to talk to me, book your appointment for next January.’

‘Heck, don’t you dare …’

But he’d already left the department and was now out in the corridor, which was where he met Commander Laycock. The commander, looking cool and preened as ever, was clearly surprised to see him.

‘Afternoon, Sir,’ Heck said.

Laycock eyed him up and down. ‘Looks like there wasn’t a beating you didn’t take.’

‘All in a day’s work.’

‘And how’s your sister?’

‘She’s recovering. It’s mainly shock. Could’ve been a lot worse than it was. She wasn’t physically harmed.’

‘That’s a relief.’ Laycock sounded sincere. ‘Look Heck, I’m sorry you ended up going it alone on this.’

‘Shit happens.’

‘You heard that we’ve lost all the evidence from the assassin’s house?’

‘Yeah, well don’t worry. I’ll find something else.’

‘I think you’ve done enough for the time being. You can leave the rest to us.’

‘If only I could, Sir. The problem is there are a lot of men scattered around the UK who are probably thinking that, thanks to the secret dirtball we coppers currently have hiding in our midst, they’re home and dry. Well … they aren’t. And he isn’t either. And I already have strong suspicions about who he is. All I need to do now is prove it.’

‘Well done anyway,’ Laycock said with a bland smile, offering his hand.

Heck took it, and held on to it just a fraction of a second longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘You can trust me on that, Sir,’ he said intently. ‘As long as I’m in this job, someone else in this job is going to need to be looking over his shoulder. Every minute of every day, for the rest of his life.’

Laycock nodded, smiled again and walked away.

He didn’t look back.