Sacrifice (36 page)

Heck made no reply. He noticed that most other conversations nearby seemed to have ceased. The Cheshire officers watched with interest.

‘
DS Heckenburg from Foxtrot Zulu?
’ the radio chirped.

‘Receiving, go ahead.’

‘
Tango or Yankee
–
zero
–
Golf
–
Charlie. There are eight hundred and forty-three possibles, over
.’

Shawna groaned. Quinnell bared his teeth.

‘Can we refine the search?’ Heck replied. ‘Narrow it down to Jaguar cars, over.’

They waited patiently, aware that everyone at the crime scene was waiting with them.

‘DS Heckenburg from Foxtrot Zulu?
’

‘Go ahead.’

‘
There are thirty-eight Jaguars on the list, over
.’

Heck’s heart was thumping. ‘How many of those would be smoke-grey, over?’

The response to this was immediate. ‘
One strike on a grey Jaguar XF
.’ Heck clenched his right fist. ‘
Index
…
Bravo-Yankee-six-zero-Lima-Golf-Charlie. Owner
…
Leo Enwright, fifty-four years old, known not wanted. Last known address: St Bardolph’s Academy, Riphall, Staffordshire, over
.’

‘A school?’ Quinnell said, nonplussed.

Shawna stared at Heck in a daze. ‘You said it could be an academic. Jesus H, Heck …
we’ve got him
!’

‘Wait!’ Heck held up a hand. ‘Let’s not rush into anything.’

‘But it all fits …’

‘It looks like it fits,’ he said. ‘Before we make a move, let’s find out everything we can about Leo Enwright.’

Gemma was halfway up the M6 when a call came through on her mobile.

Spotting that it was from Shawna McCluskey, she didn’t know whether to be hopeful or worried. The May Day murder had sent shockwaves through the country like nothing that had gone before it. That was one of the reasons she’d cut herself loose from the trial at the Old Bailey as soon as possible, and was now racing north.

She answered the call hands-free. ‘Shawna?’

‘Ma’am, whereabouts are you?’

‘Just come off the toll road. Why?’

‘You passed Stafford services yet, ma’am?’

‘Not yet. Why?’

‘Can you pull off there and meet a few of us?’

‘What are you doing at Stafford services, Shawna?’

‘Tell you as soon as you get here, ma’am …’

‘Wait, Shawna. Have we … caught some kind of break?’

‘I shouldn’t say this, ma’am, for fear of putting the mockers on it, but … yes.’

As requested, Gemma pulled off the motorway at Stafford services and found Heck waiting by the station’s entrance doors. Wearing a suit and tie, and having had a shave, he looked unusually dapper. He even had the nerve to affect frustration when he saw that she was dressed in her usual driving attire of tracksuit and trainers.

‘Got a change of clothes with you, ma’am?’ he asked.

‘Why? What’s going on?’

‘Something smart and sexy, that’ll make you look like the cool professional you are?’

‘On the basis that I always have a grab-bag in the boot, because I never know when I might be called to the big house to explain why my team has fouled up, yeah … I have.’

He nodded, pleased, beckoning her inside the building. It was late morning and crammed with the usual throng of motorway travellers, but he led her through into the coffee lounge, where several of the team were seated around a table in the corner.

Shawna handed Gemma a coffee as she sat down.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Would someone like to explain why you’re all absent from your posts when we’ve just had another homicide?’

‘That’s being taken care of, ma’am,’ Heck replied. ‘We’ve got lots of new bodies in from Cheshire. Experienced detectives, plus uniforms to do the crappy work. DCI Garrickson is back in charge at the MIR.’

Gemma looked bewildered. ‘I thought Garrickson had a broken arm?’

‘He does,’ Heck said. ‘But he came in this morning voluntarily. He can’t leave the office obviously, but he’s directing operations.’

‘Come the hour, come the man,’ Gemma remarked, still not sounding like she believed it.

‘All lines of enquiry on yesterday’s maypole murder are being followed as we speak,’ Heck said. ‘But none are as good as this one.’ He pushed a print-out across the table towards her. It was a colour photograph, downloaded from a website. ‘Meet Leo Enwright.
Doctor
Leo Enwright, no less.’

The man in the photo was aged in his early fifties, with plump, jowly cheeks and curly, grey ‘wirewool’ hair, which extended down into lush sideburns. The eyes behind his small, circular-lensed spectacles were bright green. He wore a corduroy jacket, a checked shirt and flower-patterned tie, and a sly, catlike smile.

‘Who is he?’ Gemma asked.

‘First let me tell you how we got to him,’ Heck said, and he explained about the partial VRM found in Gracie Allen’s boot, and the smoke-grey Jaguar it probably belonged to, which was almost certainly the same Jaguar that took the blonde girl to the pub in Longsight – the same girl who removed the hair from Cameron Boyd’s scalp.

‘Enwright’s a middle-aged widower,’ Heck added. ‘He teaches at St Bardolph’s Academy, a private school near the village of Riphall, about ten miles from here. His doctorate is in anthropology, but as a teacher his specialist subjects are history, philosophy, English and drama. He’s published several papers on – wait for this – folklore.’

Gemma regarded him carefully. ‘So far so good.’

‘It gets better. Enwright’s got form. He had a difficult upbringing. As a child he was abandoned by his hippie parents and taken into care. That’s the kind of trauma that some individuals never recover from. Not long afterwards, he came to the attention of the police – he was arrested several times for petty acts of theft and vandalism. At school and at the local church.’

‘Violence?’ Gemma asked.

‘Some,’ Shawna said. ‘He also got arrested for cruelty to animals. I don’t need to tell you, ma’am … this is like the blueprint for a serial killer.’

‘And there’s something else,’ Heck added. ‘This guy is a teacher, so he has a ready-made bunch of acolytes who can assist him.’

For the first time Gemma looked shocked. ‘You’re not thinking pupils?’

‘It’s a boarding school. Okay, it’s mainly for the well-heeled, but there are always outcasts – kids who are lonely, alienated. Those are the sort that go looking for mentors, and who better than the most charismatic teacher in school, because that’s apparently what Enwright is.’ Heck could tell that she still wasn’t convinced; he leaned forward into her personal space. ‘Ma’am … when Mike Garrickson first took the piss out of this theory, he mentioned Charles Manson. Well, actually that’s not a bad analogy. It only took Manson two years to turn a bunch of clean-cut college kids into mass murderers. If Leo Enwright is our man, he’s had six.’

‘There’s other stuff too,’ Shawna said. ‘One of the kids there is the son of DCI Eddie Stapleton in GMP. Which might explain how they had information about those Longsight criminals. Another one, name of Anthony Worthington, is a native of Bolton in Greater Manchester. For the last two summers, he’s worked part-time as a cleaner and general dogsbody … at Horwich Zoo.’

Gemma remained calm, but her fingers had knotted together. Heck knew what she was thinking – that when things looked too good to be true, that was usually because they were. ‘Why …?’ she said. ‘Why would Enwright start killing now? In middle-age?’

‘His wife died seven years ago. In a road accident. That could have altered his psyche in some way.’

‘Heck, you realise this is all circumstantial?’

‘Yes I do. Which is why, this afternoon, my wife and I are calling at the school to have a look around.’

‘Your wife?’

‘Either you or Shawna, ma’am … depending on which of you fancies the job. We’re going as prospective parents. I’ve already made the appointment. It’s okay … I spoke to Joe Wullerton this morning. We’re fully authorised.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something? A week and a half ago you intruded on a television interview. You might be recognised.’

Heck smiled. ‘I’m counting on it.’

‘So, who are we?’ Gemma asked as she freshened her make-up.

‘Mark and Gemma Heckenburg,’ Heck said as he steered her BMW up the five-mile drive to St Bardolph’s Academy. ‘We’re a professional couple from London. I’m an investment banker, very successful. I travel a lot, which means I haven’t got much time for family life. You’re in recruitment. You specialise in international banking.’

‘Also successfully, I hope?’ she said.

‘You’ll soon be opening an office in Dubai, so you must be pretty good at it. Our son, Thomas, is a gifted youngster who’s just turned eleven,’ Heck said. ‘We’re here to see if St Bardolph’s is right for him.’

‘Still think it’d be easier if I’d just got a warrant,’ she replied, putting her make-up away and wiggling her bottom to get comfortable in her smart, tight skirt.

He shrugged. ‘Up to you, but would you really want that? Raid a school during term-time? Turn it upside down? What if we’re wrong? We’ll have caused maximum disturbance to the school. Maximum distress to the kids. The brass’ll come down on us like an avalanche. My way, we get a chance to suss the place out at close-quarters. If it turns out to be nothing, well … no one’s been hurt. And if we’re still suspicious, we can get a warrant afterwards. On top of that, the whole point in
me
doing this is to smoke them out. If they recognise me and run … it’s as good as a confession.’

Gemma didn’t argue. They’d had this conversation already, and he’d persuaded her.

They met no other cars as they followed the lengthy approach road. It was early May, but the sun shone from a pearl-blue vault, shimmering on the verdant Staffordshire countryside. The extensive grounds were a riot of blossoms and new leaves. The school, when they eventually reached it, was a collection of old stone buildings, very elegant and covered in layers of ivy, surrounded by expansive lawns.

‘You’re telling me a bunch of psychotic killers live in a place like this?’ Gemma said when they parked on the gravel lot in front of the main building.

Heck was similarly fascinated. The place had an aura of the ancient and venerable; a quick assessment online had revealed its Elizabethan ancestry, and that among its various original features, it boasted ‘green man’ carvings, shadow clocks and even priest’s holes – yet somehow such arcana seemed to match the extraordinary nature of these crimes. He spied a Latin motto inscribed on the lintel over the main entrance door:

Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius

Heck thought it meant something like: ‘The Lord knows His own’. There was no particular reason why it should have chilled him, but it did.

When they climbed from the car, a woman came fussing out of the entrance to meet them. She was middle-aged, short and stocky, with a mass of orange hair which just had to be dyed. She wore sensible shoes, a tweed jacket and skirt, and a fluttering black cape. Her glasses hung over her voluminous bust on a lengthy chain.

‘Wanda Clayley,’ she said, beaming, offering a well-manicured hand. ‘Deputy Head. You must be Mr and Mrs Heckenburg?’

Heck shook hands with Mrs Clayley. ‘That’s right … how nice to meet you.’

‘Dr Harding, the Head, would have greeted you himself, but he has an important meeting today at the education authority.’

‘Not a problem,’ Heck replied, secretly pleased.

‘So?’ Mrs Clayley’s beam never faltered. ‘You’re thinking of bringing your son, Thomas, to us?’

‘Assuming everything’s satisfactory,’ Heck said.

‘Of course.’ Mrs Clayley peeked around. ‘He isn’t with you then?

‘Half-term’s finished, so he’s back at school.’

‘And whereabouts would that be?’

‘St Lucien’s, Bromley.’

‘I must say … you’re sending him a long way to come to middle school.’

‘Not just
any
middle school, Mrs Clayley,’ Gemma said.

‘No, of course …’ Mrs Clayley laughed as she led them inside. ‘What I mean is … what attracted you to Staffordshire?’

‘Well, St Bardolph’s consistently boasts some of the best exam results in the country,’ Heck replied, doing his best not to sound as though he’d memorised the school prospectus. ‘Your list of famous former students is extensive, and you seem to place an awful lot of people at Oxbridge.’

‘We do pride ourselves on that, I must admit,’ Mrs Clayley agreed.

It was perhaps understandable that she’d covertly questioned them. At fifteen grand a term, she wouldn’t want any time-wasters darkening St Bardolph’s doors.

The entrance hall reminded them of a set from one of those old Ealing comedies obsessed with class and tradition. It had a black and white tiled parquet floor, and was airy and spacious; its walls and the overarching ceiling were clad with neatly-fitted wooden panels. More Latin inscriptions were chiselled along the cornices, painted in gold. School photographs hung on every pillar, while trophy cabinets were filled with engraved cups and shields. The air was pungent with the scent of polish. On one side there was a large glass-covered board, on which photo portraits of the school staff were displayed. Heck recognised the same image of Dr Enwright that he’d lifted from the school website. Mrs Clayley explained who each and every person was, listing their credentials in detail.

‘Dr Enwright?’ Heck said. ‘That name sounds familiar.’

‘It will do if you’ve been looking us up,’ Mrs Clayley replied. ‘Leo Enwright is our pride and joy. He’s Head of History, but he’s not just an excellent teacher, he’s hugely active outside of school hours … he gives tirelessly, and never asks anything in return. To start with he has an official pastoral care role here, but he also runs the School History Society, which may not sound like much but it’s an organisation we’re very proud of at St Bardolph’s. The number of activities it pursues is breathtaking. It’s all non-syllabus stuff, of course, but it keeps our boarders very busy. Dr Enwright was the man behind it from the beginning, and he still runs it – almost single-handed.’