Sacrifice Read online

  ‘I didn’t have anything to celebrate last night.’

  ‘None of us did, if only we’d realised it. Des is a good guy. Look, don’t stand out there on ceremony, come in.’

  Claire entered, coat folded over her arm. ‘Des obviously has a lot of friends.’

  ‘Yeah, got a bit crazy in there, didn’t it? Your office up and running now?’

  ‘Hardly … I don’t know where anything is yet.’

  As far as Heck was aware, a room had been set aside for the new Media Management suite just along the main corridor, and though a carpentry team and then the techie guys had been in it during the last few days, he hadn’t got the impression it was anywhere near ready for use. But he remembered what Gemma had said about easing Claire in as quickly as possible.

  He stood up. ‘Erm … I can give you the tour, if you’d like.’

  ‘No please, it’s okay. Don’t let me interrupt you. I think your work’s a bit more important than mine.’

  In broad daylight, viewed through the eyes of sobriety, Claire was even more attractive than he’d first realised. She wasn’t just pretty, she was gracious, well-spoken, innately pleasant … almost genteel. He had a worrying feeling that what Bob Hunter had said might turn out to be true, and that Claire would prove to be too nice for this environment.

  ‘If nothing else, I can offer you a brew,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing you haven’t got your own tea-making stuff yet?’

  ‘I hadn’t even thought about it. Thanks, I’d love one.’

  He produced a key, unlocked a cupboard near his desk, and took a kettle out, along with a big bottle of water, two mugs, a jar of teabags, a cup of sugar and a sachet of powdered milk. ‘Here’s a tip. Keep this kind of gear secured, because round here it’ll walk … usually upstairs to Organised Crime.’

  ‘You can’t trust police officers, eh?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ He filled the kettle and plugged it in. ‘Don’t be scared of us, though; we don’t really bite. Speaking of which, the boss will be in soon. I suppose she’ll brief you on everything you need to know.’

  ‘She’s fire and brimstone, isn’t she?’

  ‘See … you know her already.’

  Claire glanced around again at the sprawling, open-plan office. Despite its size, the DO bore the usual police hallmarks of organised chaos. There might be nobody else in at present, but desks were strewn with documents, in-trays overloaded, paperwork and photographs hanging in disorderly wads, not just from noticeboards but from those few patches of wall that weren’t already covered with maps, timetables and flow-charts.

  ‘I was a bit unsure I was doing the right thing when I actually got the job,’ Claire said. ‘I mean, I’ve been in PR all my working life, but this is something totally new.’

  ‘It’ll probably amount to the same thing you had at the Department of Utilities.’

  She looked surprised. ‘You know I was at Utilities?’

  ‘Not to mention the Ministry for Cultural Affairs,’ he added. ‘Don’t worry … nothing stays quiet round here for long.’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘Just do what you did there. Fob the public off with any old crap.’

  She gazed at him, uncertain whether to take him seriously.

  ‘Do that and you’ll fit right in,’ he said mischievously.

  ‘You’re Detective Sergeant Heckenburg, aren’t you?’

  ‘Call me “Heck”. How many sugars, by the way?’

  ‘None please, just milk. If I remember, Superintendent Piper said I should only believe five per cent of anything you told me.’

  Heck handed her a steaming mug. ‘That was a bit mean of her. Ten per cent at least. While you’re still a newbie.’

  She looked thoughtful as she sipped. ‘Seriously, do we often get crimes where … well, where we have to be economical with the truth?’

  ‘Seriously? … I couldn’t comment. All I do is investigate them.’

  ‘Superintendent Piper seems to think you’re very good at that.’

  ‘Even though I’m a bare-faced liar?’

  ‘She thinks you’re too opinionated as well. And sometimes pig-headed, and that you try to do everything yourself because you think – wrongly – that you know better than anyone else in the whole police force.’

  ‘You two had a chat about me, eh?’ Heck feigned suspicion, but inwardly was pleased. He’d just revealed to Claire that he’d researched her, and she was now revealing that she’d researched him. Touché.

  ‘She also thinks that you enjoy much more leeway in the job than is good for you, or her,’ Claire added. ‘And that you don’t know how lucky you are to have her for a boss.’

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘Are you pulling my leg?’

  ‘She’s still glad you work for her though.’

  ‘That proves it. If you’re not pulling my leg, she was definitely pulling yours.’

  Claire chuckled. ‘So what’s on the agenda for today?’

  He indicated the documents and photos on his desk. ‘Well, for me … these.’

  Claire glanced down – and almost dropped her tea. ‘Oh my God!’ She promptly turned a milky shade of grey. ‘Are these … real crime scenes?’

  Heck eyed her curiously. ‘Well, we don’t deal in movie-stills.’

  The first of the two photos displayed a youngish man, possibly in his late twenties, stripped to his underpants and hanging by the hands from a tree branch. His limbs and torso were black and purple as though from a savage and sustained beating – but perhaps the most disturbing thing was his face, which had been painted with clown make-up: a white base, rouged cheeks, a red nose, black cream liner around his glazed, bloodshot eyes. The second picture showed a naked woman lying in a bath; she too had been brutalised, her body battered beyond belief, splintered bones protruding through the pulped, shredded flesh – and she too was wearing clown make-up, the lips green, the eyes and mouth thickly outlined in white, forming a ghoulish smile.

  Claire had physically backed away; it had been an involuntary motion, but there was more to it than a nervous flinch.

  ‘You alright?’ Heck asked.

  She nodded, her eyes riveted on the photographic horrors. ‘I will be, yeah. Sorry … that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a real murder.’

  ‘That’s something you’re going to have to get used to, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Yes, yes … I realise that, of course. Oh my God, these are awful …’

  Heck flipped the photos into a buff folder. ‘Probably a bit much for your first morning.’

  ‘Probably, but …’ She seemed to steel herself, planting her tea on the desk. ‘As you say, it’s something I’ve got to deal with. So, why don’t you tell me about it?’

  ‘This case, you mean?’

  She nodded.

  He regarded her warily. ‘If you’re sure?’

  She nodded again, determinedly.

  ‘Okay …’ He sat down and reopened the folder. ‘The murders of this man and woman occurred last month, about two weeks apart – in Gillingham and Maidstone respectively. The Murder Squad in Kent sent them along for our assessment as a matter of course.’ He glanced up at her. Claire was doing her damnedest to focus on the two images and at the same time maintain a cool, professional demeanour. ‘They obviously look similar,’ Heck said. ‘But my impression is that they aren’t connected.’

  ‘They aren’t?’

  ‘Given his own criminal record, I suspect the male was the victim of a gangland vendetta. The brutality is quite excessive, so it may have been a punishment.’

  ‘They were making an example, you mean?’

  ‘Correct. My gut feeling about the woman is that she died during a domestic incident. The perp is probably her husband.’

  Claire looked at him askance. ‘Are you serious?’

  Heck shrugged. ‘He reads about the first homicide in the papers, and he thinks it’s so wild and whacky that it can only be a matter of time before a lunatic capable of doing that
will strike again. So he decides here’s his chance to knock off his nagging missus and make it look like someone else. Of course, he doesn’t realise that the first killing is down to organised crime … which illustrates the advantage we gain from only telling the press as much as we have to.’

  ‘But how can you be sure this is domestic?’

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure. But my advice to the Murder Squad in Kent will be to look a bit closer to home first, and the other facts support this. This woman was murdered in her own bathtub early evening – to be specific between seven-thirty and eight-fifteen. The timing of that incident alone would make it unusual for a home-invasion by a stranger. In addition, the window of opportunity is too small. The husband, who found her, would have us believe that he’d driven off to the local golf club to pay his annual subs. He’d also have us believe that in this brief time, some headcase happened to walk up to an ordinary suburban home, ascertained that the female occupant was alone, forced entry, did the dirty deed, painted a clown face on her, and then vanished without anyone seeing or hearing a thing.’

  ‘It seems unlikely, but could that be what happened?’

  ‘We don’t close the door on any possibility – the perp may have scoped the house out beforehand and lain in wait. But the husband didn’t leave the premises as part of a regular routine. So that makes it improbable. On top of all that, the first victim was a male in his late twenties, the second a female in her early forties. There was no sexual assault in either case. Okay, it could be some complete madman who just gets off on drawing clown faces. But that’s not the sort of guy you’d expect to have kept his light under a bushel up till now.’

  ‘So … what happens next?’

  Heck sat back. ‘I send it to Gemma with my report. I don’t recommend that we get involved because I don’t see any need. Our main responsibility is to identify patterns, series and clusters that may indicate a repeat-offender, and then respond accordingly.’

  ‘What if Gemma disagrees with you on this?’

  ‘If she disagrees, some of us – almost certainly me, as I copped for the job in the first place – will be off to Kent, which would be great because that’d take me out of the office. But I can tell you now she won’t. Most likely she’ll just send our official observations.’

  Claire glanced further along the desk. There was another pile of similar folders awaiting his attention. Other desks in the room were equally weighed down. ‘Are all these files the same kind of thing?’

  ‘We get copied in on a lot of stuff,’ Heck said. ‘But most of it is what we call “slush”.’

  ‘Slush?’

  ‘Not relevant to our remit. Various types of crimes are automatically sent for our assessment. All stranger-murders of children, for example. All murders of prostitutes. All murders of runaways. All murders committed during burglary or rape. All murders involving exceptional violence, sadism or depravity. All murders where there are ritual or theatrical elements. All murders where there’s evidence of bizarre post-death behaviour – mutilation, dismemberment, necrophilia. All murders where the perpetrator has apparently tried to contact the police or press … left clues, cryptic messages, that kind of thing. All murders which may not satisfy any of these criteria but where there is reasonable suspicion that it’s part of a series. And basically any murder at all that we request to look at. No police force in England and Wales has the right to refuse us.’

  Claire glanced around the room again. In another corner, two more crime scene blow-ups were mounted on a noticeboard amid masses of scribbled notations. One was a close-up glossy of a middle-aged black woman. She looked to have been propped against a wall in a house or flat. Her grin stretched from ear to ear – literally, because someone had slashed her cheeks with a razor blade and had fixed a stick vertically in her mouth. The other had been taken in a bedroom, which looked like it had been wrecked by a hurricane. The bed occupied the centre of the image. A figure lay in it hidden by a sheet, though so much blood had soaked through this that a clear outline of the body was visible. On the wall above it, bloody handwriting proclaimed: ‘Hey Mum, he fucked me first!’

  ‘And this you call “slush”?’ Claire said, unable to conceal her revulsion.

  ‘It’s just a turn of phrase. Every one of these files represents a life lost. You can’t hide from that. But it’s an odd fact that by far the highest percentage of homicides committed in the industrialised West, however they may initially appear, are the work of family members or other so-called loved ones. Either that, or they’re one-off events committed by people who will probably never break the law again. The result of anger, greed, jealousy … course, we need to establish that before we send them back. Oh crap, your tea’s gone cold.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’ll make you another.’ He attended to it. ‘If there’s one thing I’m supposedly good at round here, it’s brewing up.’

  Claire pulled a chair and sat down. She hoped Heck didn’t notice that she needed to.

  ‘The upside to all this,’ he said, as he handed her a fresh mug, ‘is that there’s no better feeling than getting justice for these people.’

  ‘It’ll make a change,’ she said. ‘Doing a job that feels worthwhile.’

  He sat down too. ‘You must have done some useful stuff in your previous jobs.’

  ‘No, you were right before. Telling lies to cover ministerial incompetence, massaging figures to make inaccurate departmental forecasts look good, putting out endless spin to save someone their one-forty-K-a-year salary … that doesn’t always make you feel like a useful member of society.’

  ‘There you are then,’ Heck replied. ‘You’re in the right place with SCU. No one ever screws up here.’

  She caught his sidelong glance, and couldn’t help but chuckle. Heck smiled – and almost on cue Gemma appeared in the doorway, peeling off her raincoat. She made a good job of disguising her double-take at the sight of them cosied up together.

  ‘Morning,’ Claire said, standing.

  ‘Morning Claire. Heck.’

  Heck stood up too. ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘None of the other sleeping beauties checked in yet?’

  ‘I’m sure they’re on their way.’

  Gemma glanced at her watch. ‘They’ve got forty-five minutes. If no one’s shown by then, start making phone calls. And don’t shy from using harsh language.’ She moved back out into the main corridor, but then reappeared. ‘Heck, you haven’t seen Joe Wullerton this morning, have you?’

  ‘Not so far, ma’am.’

  ‘I’ve got a note to go up and see him.’

  ‘Can’t help you with that.’

  ‘Okay.’ She breezed away.

  Heck turned to Claire. ‘Forty-five minutes. Enough time for breakfast?’

  ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘There’s a smashing little deli round the corner. They do a nice egg sandwich.’

  Claire glanced again at the photo of the woman with the stick in her mouth. ‘I’m not sure I can eat, but … hey, the fresh air can’t hurt.’

  Gemma watched from the other end of the corridor as they headed off together.

  For a thirty-year-old, Claire Moody was already very experienced. Her references had been among the best Gemma had ever seen, and she’d interviewed excellently. The girl’s good looks and lively personality were another bonus – the bulk of the detectives in SCU were men, and if that would make them more deferential around her, all the better; at least until she’d found her feet. It was no surprise that Claire was being hit on of course, though it took Gemma aback a little to see Heck’s interest.

  Not that she could afford to worry about that now. She let herself into her office, dumping her coat and brolly and thinking again about Joe Wullerton.

  She hadn’t known him very long – he’d only been in his post about half a year, having replaced the disgraced Jim Laycock, and from the beginning had set his stall out to be an affable, approachable boss with an even temper and easy
manner. On first arrival, he’d voluntarily changed his official title, replacing the macho Metropolitan Police-style ‘Commander’ of the National Crime Group with the more neutral ‘Director’, which she fully approved of. But she wasn’t naïve enough to think it would be warm and fuzzy all the way. Wullerton had transferred in from the Hampshire Constabulary’s Critical Incident Cadre, which he’d run effectively for fifteen years, so he was clearly a sharp bloke who knew his job, and probably a toughie as well. And he would need to be for the new position he occupied: as well as the Serial Crimes Unit, NCG also comprised the Organised Crime Division and the Kidnap Squad, and that little lot would take some managing.

  She glanced again at the memo to go and see him. Rather than being emailed to her, it had been handed to her – in fact shoved into her grasp – the moment she’d entered the building.

  Somehow that seemed ominous.

  Chapter 10

  Kate wasn’t sure how long she’d lain in the darkness.

  It was difficult to work out how far she’d fallen when he’d dropped her down into this pitch-black hole – ten feet, twelve, maybe more. But the impact at the bottom, though slightly cushioned by what felt like straw, had knocked her unconscious for a time.

  Sick and dazed, Kate now lay balled up in a crumpled heap. The blanket had been ripped away as she’d descended, but wherever she now was, it smelled equally disgusting.

  That was when she realised that she wasn’t alone.

  Movement sounded somewhere to her left; she detected a dull, hoarse breathing.

  Kate jerked upright onto her knees.

  Her late father, who’d been a coal miner, had often used the phrase ‘it’s as black as the pit’, meaning there were no chinks of light at all. That was the situation now. Impenetrable blackness veiled Kate on all sides. Yet she knew there was somebody else there. She could hear them – shuffling about, and not too far away. She groped into the pocket of her Afghan, where mercifully her cigarette lighter was still in place. She held it in front of her as she struck it, as though to ward off a blow.

  The sudden flame, though weak and wavering, was initially like a burst of lightning in the pitch blackness. She had to shield her eyes, but when they finally adjusted, she didn’t know which to be more horrified by: the sight of the cell she’d been imprisoned in or the sight of her two cellmates.