Sacrifice (33 page)

‘We just going blundering in, locking this guy up?’ Quinnell asked, increasingly sharing Heck’s reservations. Gemma had spent considerable time teaching her SCU protégés caution. There was something to be said for that, but by the same token, Garrickson’s reply that they’d wasted too much time already watching suspects and not apprehending them also rang true. They needed to start making ground.

They hung on a moment, spying out the land. Still there was nobody around.

‘Heck, you’re coming with me to the front door,’ Garrickson said. ‘Gary … round to the rear. Don’t let anyone see you.’

Quinnell nodded and withdrew along the ginnel.

Heck and Garrickson waited. The street was no longer bare of life. A figure appeared at the far end, walking slowly towards them. They stepped back a couple of paces. It was an old woman in a shabby mac and slippers, her lank grey hair in rollers. She let herself into one of the houses. Its door closed with an echoing
thump
.

Still they waited.

‘Why don’t you say something if you think I’m going about this the wrong way?’ Garrickson said.

Heck shrugged. ‘This is your show, sir. You’re the one who’ll live or die by it. But for what it’s worth, I think we should be making arrests too.’

Garrickson focused on the house again. ‘It’s a good lead. You must admit that.’

‘Best we’ve had so far … which is what worries me. This bloke Tubbs tells someone he’s going to start committing a series of crimes he invented in a work of fiction? And then he actually
does
? I thought we’d be dealing with someone a bit smarter.’

‘Well, if nothing else it meets your stipulation. What was it you said … that he’d either be a scholar or a writer?’

Heck had to agree with that. Garrickson’s phone rang. It was Quinnell, letting them know he was in place at the rear.

‘Okay.’ Garrickson zipped his anorak up. ‘Let’s do it.’

As they walked across the street towards the house, Heck glanced again at the upstairs window. He could have sworn the curtain had just twitched.

‘We’ll talk to him at first,’ Garrickson said. ‘But if he doesn’t want to play ball, we go at him hard. Whatever the bastard says, he’s coming with us.’

As soon as they knocked on the front door, they heard the clump of heavy feet on an internal flight of stairs. The door banged inward to the length of its security chain, and a brutish visage peered out. He was a couple of inches taller than either of the two cops, with a bloated, bearded face and staring, bloodshot eyes. A huge beer belly pushed against his knitted sweater, and yet he couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight.

‘Yeah?’ he said suspiciously.

‘Daniel Tubbs?’ Garrickson asked.

‘Who wants to know?’ Now that he’d had a few seconds to look them over properly, and not liking what he saw, the householder’s tone was shifting from suspicion towards naked aggression. His hairy cheeks slowly reddened.

Garrickson displayed his warrant card, only for the door to slam in his face with such force that dust spurted down from the bricks over the lintel. Even Heck was caught on the hop, but fortuitously the door didn’t catch; it bounced back from its latch and when Garrickson put his shoulder to it, the chain tore from its mooring.

They found themselves in a dim entry hall, minus wallpaper, with only cruddy lino on its floor; it led all the way through the house to the rear, where it seemed likely the back door would now be open and Tubbs in the process of vacating the premises.

But he wasn’t.

He was waiting for them about ten feet away.

What was more, a huge Doberman Pinscher stood in front of him, ears pricked, sabre-like fangs bared as it snarled and drooled.

‘Kill ’em, Toby!’ Tubbs commanded.

‘We’re police officers!’ Garrickson tried to shout. But the dog was already upon them, slashing and tearing. Before Heck could dodge backward, it sank its teeth through his trousers into his left thigh.

‘Christ almighty!’ He slammed both fists down on top of its long, narrow skull, initially to no effect – its jaws remained locked into his flesh.

Garrickson kicked and punched at it as well.
‘Call your dog off, you lunatic
…
I told you, we’re cops!
’

‘Never mind me …’ Heck gasped, ‘get the bastard!’

Garrickson fought his way past the brute. A few yards away, Dan Tubbs waited for him, grinning through his tangled beard.

‘You’re in more trouble than you ever imagined, pal!’ Garrickson shouted.

‘So are you.’ Tubbs produced a baseball bat from behind his back, and howling like a madman, swung it down over his head. Garrickson could do nothing but raise his left arm. The impact was sickening. Heck felt certain the splintering crunch of bone could have been heard out back by Gary Quinnell, who, by the sounds of crashing and banging at the rear of the house, was already trying to force his way inside.

‘Gary, get a move on!’ Heck bellowed. ‘
Shit!
’

The Doberman had loosened its jaws, only to slam them closed around his left knee, applying crushing force. He tried to hop backwards, but without success; blood was already streaming through the many rents in his trouser-leg. Garrickson had crumpled down to his knees, left forearm hanging at a grisly angle. Tubbs, eyes bugged like discoloured marbles in a face hued purple, stood over him triumphantly. Heck had no choice – he went for the dog’s eyes, both forefingers at the same time. Squealing, the Doberman shied backwards. Heck followed it, swinging his foot into its throat; knocking it down in a senseless heap.

‘
BASTARD!
’ Tubbs screamed, launching himself forward, bat in hand. But Garrickson was still in the way and managed to wrap his one good arm around Tubbs’s legs. The giant fell full-length onto the linoleum floor. Garrickson shrieked as his shattered limb twisted in the process.

Heck rushed at Tubbs as he tried to get back to his feet, grappling with him, but was still hoisted upward and thrown sideways onto a radiator. From the back of the house the frenzied banging continued, until the rear door burst inwards, frosted glass flying, as Quinnell finally forced his way through. Tubbs, who now had Heck against the wall by the scruff of the neck and was about to brain him with the bat, was distracted by this – Heck rammed his good leg down, grinding the heel on his assailant’s toes. Tubbs danced backward. He still aimed a blow with the bat, but Heck was able to duck, and a chunk of plaster was gouged from the wall.

At last Quinnell joined the fight. He was more Tubbs’s size, only fitter. They wrestled savagely, Quinnell soon getting the better of it and landing a sufficiently meaty punch on Tubbs’s jaw to knock him dazed to his knees, where Heck was able to cuff his wrists behind his back.

‘You stupid psycho pillock!’ Heck panted into his ear. ‘You may not even be the bloke we came here looking for … but you’ll be inside till you’re sixty for this.’

‘Look … I have rage issues,’ Tubbs protested.

‘You mean you’ve got a filthy temper?’ Quinnell said, one hand clamping his handcuffed wrist.

‘It’s a form of depression. I’m on prescription tranquillisers for it.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me much. You belong in the nuthouse, boyo. But you’ll be lucky if you get off as easy as that.’

They were standing on the pavement outside thirty-six, Plumpton Brow. A couple of local police units were also parked there, one of them a van for prisoner transport. Neighbours stood outside their front doors, muttering quietly.

Tubbs, watching mournfully as the ambulance containing Garrickson receded down the darkened street, seemed genuinely sorry for what he’d done. This was only part of the personality change he’d undergone during the last fifteen minutes. The anger had drained out of him like water from a sieve, and he’d become almost child-like in his demeanour. He seemed bewildered by the flashing blue lights reflecting on the front of his house.

Heck, whose wound had been cleaned by one of the paramedics, and whose trouser-leg was now held together by safety-pins, was standing a few yards away with a uniformed sergeant.

‘Hey, wait!’ Tubbs shouted as two PCs began hustling him away. ‘Wait …
please
!’

Heck raised his hand and they halted.

‘Look, I’ll … I’ll come clean, okay!’ Tubbs jabbered. ‘I’ll come clean!’

‘You understand that you’re still under caution?’ Heck told him.

‘Yeah, yeah … course. Look, it was about two months ago when I did it! I’ll cooperate. Tell you everything. I just want this over and done with.’

‘Did what?’ Heck asked him.

‘Used that credit card. Bought some stuff with it. I know it was a brain-dead thing to do, but I’m skint you see.’

Heck and Quinnell glanced at each other. ‘What credit card is this?’ Heck asked.

‘Les Atkinson’s,’ Tubbs said. ‘This bloke down the pub. Always pissed as a fart. It was easy doing it. He only noticed it had gone a few days later. Thought he’d bloody lost it. I felt bad about that … so I only used it once. I know I’m a dipstick, but it’s the only crime I’ve ever committed. I’ve been sitting here ever since, crapping myself, waiting for you lot to show up. That’s why I panicked.’

Heck felt as if he wanted to lie down. ‘What’s your
real
story, Dan? Who are you exactly and what do you get up to every day?’

‘I’m an author.’

‘That your full-time job?’

‘I used to be a porter for the Health Authority, but I got made redundant a few years ago. Thought it was a good thing at the time … thought I could concentrate on my writing. But I’ve had next to nothing published.’

‘What about
Blood Feast
?’ Quinnell asked.

Tubbs looked startled. ‘Eh?’

Heck took up the question. ‘Didn’t you write a story called
Blood Feast
?’

‘A novella … yeah. How’d you know about that?’

‘What did it involve?’

‘Erm …’ Tubbs still looked gobsmacked. ‘A pagan cult. They sacrificed their victims on special holidays. Have a look at it, yourself. I’ve got a load of spare copies upstairs.’

Heck and Quinnell went upstairs in the house, while Tubbs was kept down in the hall by the local uniforms. His shouted directions sent them into a back bedroom, which was empty of furnishings aside from a few shelves piled with splotchy, printed sheets. At one end of the middle shelf lay a neater stack of fifty or so booklets – at first glance little more than rag-mags, crudely stapled, but each bearing the same cover illustration: a severed head and two severed hands mounted on spikes. Over the top, the title read:

BLOOD FEAST

Heck flicked through, stopping several pages in to read.

‘Listen to this … Valentine’s Day. Two lovers are caught shagging in a car. Their hearts are cut out and pinned to a tree with an arrow.’

‘Not quite the same,’ Quinnell said.

‘Close though. How about this … Good Friday? A priest gets nailed to a cross made from pews in his own church. Two local toe-rags who were trying to pinch lead from the church roof get crucified alongside him.’

Quinnell regarded him with amazement. No words were needed.

Tubbs watched, baffled, as they came clumping down the narrow stair.

‘You said you’ve been sitting here, crapping yourself, Dan,’ Heck said, slapping one of the booklets against the prisoner’s chest. ‘You’ve bloody good reason to.’

‘Who are you, the fucking fiction police? It’s just a story. No one even wanted it. I only sent it to one editor, and she rejected it … said it was totally unrealistic.’

‘We know,’ Quinnell said. ‘But didn’t you then threaten to “show her otherwise”?’

‘Hang on … hang on a mo’!’ An expression of dull horror was dawning on Tubbs’s brutish face. ‘You’re not talking about these Desecrator murders?
Jesus H. Christ, you’ve got to be kidding!
’

‘Did you or did you not write a threatening letter to Tabby Touchstone?’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ Tubbs nodded frantically. ‘But it was bullshit. You’ve seen what I’m like. I lose my rag and do all sorts of stuff I don’t mean.’

Even though a heated denial was only to be expected, Heck couldn’t ignore a wearisome gut feeling that this wasn’t their man. A cursory look around the place revealed dishes so unwashed there were cultures growing on them, carpets impacted with the crumbs of decades, a mantelpiece in the living room chocka with pills. On top of that, Tubbs was a total buffoon – big enough and crazy enough to hammer someone senseless on the spur of the moment, but lacking the organisational skills to run his own life effectively, let alone arrange a series of clever, preplanned murders.

‘When the Desecrator crimes actually began,’ Heck said, ‘you never once thought “Hold on, there’s a connection here? Has someone taken my ideas on board?”’

Tubbs groaned aloud. ‘I told you … no one ever bought the story. I only sent it to one editor, and never again after she told me what a pile of fucking dogshit it was!’ Slowly, convulsively, he began struggling, and it took Quinnell and a couple of uniforms to restrain him again, though this time there was no kicking out, no shouting or screaming. He slumped in their grasp, breathing heavily. Tears, possibly born more of sorrow than rage, seeped onto his cheeks.

‘So Tabby Touchstone is the only other person who’s seen this story?’ Heck asked.

‘Yeah. She said it was so daft I didn’t dare send it anywhere else.’

‘And what did you mean when you told her you were going to prove otherwise?’

‘For Christ’s sake, I meant I was going to rewrite it, then publish it myself. Make a mint out of it without having to pay some useless middle-man. And as you saw upstairs, I never sold a fucking one. It’s cost me more than I’ve earned from it.’

‘You’re absolutely sure nobody else has ever seen this story?’

‘Not a single person wanted to buy it … oh!’ Tubbs’s expression rapidly changed. ‘Oh …
fuck
!’

‘What?’ Heck asked.

‘Six years ago … the British Horror Convention in Bristol. I took it down there. Oh shit, any fucker could have picked it up.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I couldn’t sell it, so I thought I’d give it away … you know, use it as a marketing gimmick to get me better known. So I left it on tables around the hotel. Only about twenty copies though.’