Sacrifice (42 page)

By the time Heck got to the estate’s west gate, local support units were on site in the shape of two Traffic Division Range Rovers. They’d already closed down the main road with cones and visi-flashers. Gary Quinnell’s Hyundai lay in the far lane, upside down. Its front offside had imploded. A sparkling trail of shattered glass and metal splinters lay across the blacktop.

Quinnell himself was seated on the kerb, a Traffic PC in a white hat and fluorescent slicker crouched alongside him, taking notes. Quinnell’s face, shirt and tie were stained with blood, which had dripped down from a nasty gash in his brow. When he saw Heck approaching, he shook his head. ‘Sorry … came out of nowhere. Fifty plus. Like a bloody tank. Crashed straight through me.’

‘They’ll do that to anyone who gets in their way,’ Heck said. ‘You alright?’

‘Bit shaken. Tried to stand up a minute ago, had a funny turn.’

‘An ambulance is on its way,’ the Traffic officer said.

‘Good,’ Heck replied. ‘Get him down to A&E. See he gets treated quickly, eh? Meanwhile, we need a fix on that wagon.’

‘Air Operations have been alerted,’ the Traffic officer said. ‘But it was heading west, and that’s where the M6 is … and there are lots of heavies on the motorway.’

‘
DS Fisher to DS Heckenburg?
’ Heck’s radio chirped.

‘Go ahead, Eric.’

‘
You need to get back here, Heck
.’

‘Correction. I need to find this missing HGV before something very bad happens to Claire Moody.’

‘
That’s why you want to get back here. Enwright left a lot of stuff behind
…
it’s the best lead we’ve got
.’

Heck pondered this for an agonised moment, before reaching a decision. ‘On my way.’

‘So what do we know?’ Heck said, ripping off his jacket as he entered Enwright’s office.

The motorised lawn-roller was still jammed in the shattered doorway to the storeroom. Enwright’s expansive desk stood in the corner where they had dragged it, but now the singed map that Heck had saved from the Pavilion fire was spread on top of it. Eric Fisher was present, his attention divided between the map and the computer, which he was plugged into via a pair of earphones. Paperwork was scrolling out, sheet by sheet, from a fax machine in the corner.

‘
I said, what we have got?!
’ Heck repeated loudly, when Fisher didn’t respond.

‘Oh … sorry, Heck.’ Fisher removed one of the earphones. ‘Bits and bobs. First, have a gander at that map.’

Heck did but could only distinguish the outlines of woods, fields and narrow lanes, which were probably little more than farm tracks. The marker-pen squiggles were unreadable.

‘I couldn’t work out where it’s supposed to be at first,’ Fisher said. ‘But I think I do now. Sale Green and Huddington are the giveaways.’ He indicated the two obscure hamlets in the map’s lower left and right corners. ‘It’s the open country between Worcester and Redditch. Doesn’t tell us what they’ve got in mind, of course.’

Heck shook his head. ‘Whatever it is, we’ve got to get down there. Worcester’s only forty miles from Riphall. They could be there already.’

‘It won’t be a piece of piss going at it blind. That map covers a big area.’

‘Okay, we’ll need foot troops. Let’s hope West Mercia can spare a few.’

‘Nothing else in the Pavilion?’ Fisher asked.

‘Most of it got burned. No time to look through the rest.’ Heck pointed at the fax. ‘What’s this?’

‘Enwright’s criminal record.’

‘Good …’ Heck snatched it, rolled it and crammed it under his jacket. He turned to the computer. ‘What are you ear-wigging?’

‘Going through his audio files.’

‘They aren’t encrypted?’

‘Nope.’

‘Didn’t think we’d get near him, did he?’

‘You ought to listen to some of this stuff.’

‘There’s no time …’

‘It’s important, Heck. At first I didn’t think they were relevant. It’s mostly academic … anthropological experiments, observations of social behaviour, that sort of stuff. But then I realised quite a few of them refer to these kids who’ve gone AWOL.’ He indicated the school records lying on a nearby shelf. ‘And it isn’t what you’d call flattering.’

Reluctantly, Heck waited while Fisher unplugged the earphones. He heard Enwright’s voice – smooth, unctuous, but talking idly to himself, as if giving voice to a stream of casual contemplation. The subject appeared to be Gareth Holker, St Bardolph’s Head Boy and rugby captain, two achievements which Enwright, though vaguely contemptuous of them, was, in a roundabout way, taking the credit for.

‘
They say you can’t polish a turd, can’t turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse
…
such clichés, such typical conceit of the chattering classes. How do men with nothing in their lives become super-powered Special Forces soldiers? How do tea-boys ascend the ladder and finish up running multinationals? Latent power lurks in all of us, and we don’t even know it. All one must do is unlock it. That boy could climb a cliff-face with a hundredweight of bricks on his back if conditioned properly. It’s the mind, not the body … the young mind in particular. So easy to meld, to bend
…’

Heck glanced at Fisher. ‘Is there more like this?’

Fisher moved the cursor slightly. ‘Lots.’

‘
The Hitler Youth were the perfect example. Give them a flag and they’re yours. Even if they don’t totally believe, one reaches the stage where it is more important to be accepted than to do the right thing
…’

‘He’s deranged,’ Heck said. ‘As if we didn’t already know that.’

Fisher hit the ‘off’ switch. ‘Makes it a bit more explainable perhaps.’

‘If no more understandable. There’s nothing in there about Worcester, nothing specific?’

‘Nothing specific. Just stuff concerning the kids … going back months, years.’

‘Can you edit the relevant bits together into a single MP3?’

Fisher raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘I’m an intelligence officer, not a hacker.’

‘You spend most of every day online.’

‘How soon will you need it?’

‘ASAP.’ Heck rubbed his brow. ‘In the meantime, I’ve no choice … I’ll have to lean on the prisoners.’

‘You won’t get much out of Latimer,’ Fisher said. ‘He’s been taken to hospital with a broken jaw.’

‘My heart bleeds.’

‘There may be trouble. His mum and dad are bigwigs in the film industry.’

‘Are they based over here?’

‘LA, as far as I know.’

‘While their son languishes at boarding school in rainy England? That explains plenty.’

‘Will Holker talk?’

Heck shook his head. ‘He’s hardcore. Enwright had
him
the longest. How about Worthington? Still on the premises?’

Fisher nodded at the office door – just as Charlie Finnegan sauntered through it.

‘Worthington?’ Heck said.

‘Yep.’ Finnegan checked his notes. ‘Comes from Bolton … almost certainly our zoo insider. No previous. Apparently been a model pupil …’

‘Is he still here?’

‘Sitting in a patrol car outside.’

‘Get him out again.’ Heck dragged his jacket on. ‘He’s coming for a ride with us.’

‘What … where?’

‘We’re going to Worcester. We’ll talk to him on the way.’

‘Eh?’ Finnegan looked startled. ‘Hang on, sarge, we … we can’t do that.’

‘He’s still your prisoner, isn’t he?’

‘Officially, yeah.’

‘Fine. If anyone asks, you’re taking him to the nearest nick. Your superior – in more ways than one – has specifically instructed you.’

‘But he’s a minor …’

‘So find an appropriate adult.’

‘What about a legal rep …?’

‘What about getting him a pet too?’ Heck said. ‘And an Xbox to keep him occupied? What do you not understand, Charlie, about someone’s gonna die if we don’t get our arses in gear? Now jump fucking to it!’

‘Surprised the lorry wasn’t spotted on its way down here,’ Charlie Finnegan remarked, noting yet another Traffic patrol parked on a motorway bridge as they sped beneath it.

‘They’re clever,’ Heck muttered, distracted by Leo Enwright’s crumpled rap sheet, which he’d now read through a couple of times. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if they’d stopped and put new plates on it. That’d buy them enough time to make it forty miles.’

A passing signpost showed that they themselves were only fifteen miles from Worcester. The M5 was normally busy, but it was now edging towards mid-evening, so the rush-hour traffic was thinning out. Of course, the advantage of that was offset by the disadvantage of approaching dusk – like they didn’t have problems enough when the area shown on the map was so large. Not that Heck was overly worried by this at present.

He glanced again at the rap sheet on his knee. It was disturbing by any standards, not to say a little amazing. If such things happened now, the mental health services would have been activated as a matter of course, but the late 1960s and early 1970s had been a rough-and-ready era, during which time ‘care’ was rarely to the fore, and a clip round the ear had often been deemed sufficient response to unacceptable behaviour.

Finnegan was seated behind the steering wheel of Heck’s Volkswagen. Three other figures were crammed into the back seat. First, was the rangy young constable who’d unsuccessfully shoulder-charged Enwright’s storeroom door; his name was PC Mapling. In the middle, handcuffed to Mapling, sat Anthony Worthington, still in school uniform and wearing a petulant frown – a combination that made him look more like a kids’ TV brat than any sort of real criminal. Squashed against the nearside door was Wanda Clayley, the well-manicured Deputy Head, looking flustered and distraught. Her constant attempts to hold Worthington’s hand, which efforts he repeatedly rebuffed, seemed designed to provide comfort for herself as much as her errant pupil.

‘Does your school offer its pupils clay-pigeon shooting, Mrs Clayley?’ Heck asked, turning to face her.

At first she didn’t seem to hear. ‘Oh, erm, yes. We always have. It isn’t every child that excels at rugby or football …’

‘Or archery,’ Heck added.

Her cheek reddened even more. ‘St Bardolph’s is a boarding school, Sergeant Heckenburg. By necessity we need to offer as wide a range of non-curricular activities as possible. And as we’re in the heart of the countryside …’

‘Yeah, I hear that.’ He rubbed at the back of his neck, which was now aching in response to his whiplash from earlier. ‘Just do us a favour … make sure when you get back that your cache of shotguns is only one short, eh? I’m sure they cost someone a pretty penny.’ His gaze roved to Worthington. ‘And how are you doing, Anthony?’

Worthington yawned as if bored.

Heck showed him a small Dictaphone, which was now running on ‘record’. He placed it on the dashboard. ‘You realise you’re still under caution?’

Worthington gazed through the window.

‘Do you think your friends haven’t talked?’ Heck asked him. ‘We know everything. You’re an accomplice to nine torture-murders. Let me explain what that means … you’re not going to walk free for a long, long time.’

Worthington gave another false yawn.

‘Nice bit of bravado, son, but I know for a fact that you were worried about getting caught … otherwise why did you run away from me?’

Worthington glanced sideways, finally deigning to acknowledge that Mrs Clayley was present. ‘Are they allowed to do this?’ he asked.

Mrs Clayley seemed nonplussed by the entire experience, but inclined her head, indicating that she thought (or maybe
hoped
) the police were in the right.

‘This is what’s called an “urgent interview”, Anthony,’ Heck explained. ‘It’s covered under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and it permits any arrested person to be interviewed before being removed to a police station if such interview may prevent physical harm befalling somebody else. Now thanks to your mouthy pal, Gareth, I have more than a sneaking suspicion that if we were to waste time booking you in at the local nick and then waiting for your solicitor to bother showing up, Claire Moody’s life would be forfeit. Am I wrong?’

Again, Worthington affected disinterest.

‘Anthony,’ Mrs Clayley hissed at him. ‘Talk to the officer. Tell him what he wants to know. Show him this is a big mistake, and then we can all go home.’

Worthington shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the dunces he was dealing with.

‘Okay Anthony,’ Heck said, ‘if you don’t want to talk about Claire Moody, tell us why we’re going down to Worcester.’ The lad didn’t respond to that either, but Heck noted that his shoulders had tensed slightly. ‘Come on, Anthony … you’re part of the school History Club, and it’s a famous old city. Surely you’ve heard of it?’

‘Well of course he’s heard of it,’ Mrs Clayley interrupted, gazing at the pupil, perplexed. ‘Dr Enwright took them all down there on a field-trip several months ago – to the battlefield. I was the one who approved it.’

‘To the battlefield, eh?’ Heck said, not knowing anything about a battlefield near Worcester, though Holker’s words about ‘treason’ were now echoing in his memory.

‘The battle of Worcester was fought in 1651,’ Mrs Clayley added conveniently. ‘It was the last battle of the English Civil War. I presumed they were planning to base one of their History Club productions around it.’

‘Oh, they were planning something,’ Heck agreed. ‘But
you’d
never have got to see it, Mrs Clayley.’ His eyes burned into the prisoner. ‘You might as well talk to me, Anthony. We wouldn’t be on our way down to Worcester right now if we didn’t already know this stuff. You getting arrested isn’t going to buy your pals any more time than they’ve already got. But you should be glad, because if they succeed in this, that’s a tenth murder you’ll be implicated in.’

Worthington curled his lip as if amused, but it wasn’t as convincing as before.

‘Look son, you’re not daft. You know you’re a drip. Even in juvenile prison, you’re going to be white meat. And in a couple of years’ time you’ll be in with the big boys, and that’s an entirely new level of viciousness you’ll be exposed to …’

‘Sergeant Heckenburg!’ Mrs Clayley said. ‘I really don’t see …’