Hunted - Paul Finch

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each of its eyes had once been, a black X had been etched, first gouged with a blade, and then filled in with black pen. Its mouth was a thin red line, with red trickles added to either side to create a vampire effect. Either the original paint job had run, or someone else had been handy with a different-coloured pen. For all his revulsion, Heck turned it several times in his hands, but could find nothing out of the ordinary. It was no more than a lump of sculpted, slightly mouldy plaster. He placed it back on the shelf and stepped back. Bewildered.

      And then the disfigured gnome leaped at him.

      Literally launched itself from its perch, and descended to the concrete floor. Its head broke off with the impact, rolling towards Heck’s feet, where it came to a rest, gazing up at him with those unblinking, crossed-out eyes.

      Heck was at first too stunned to react. He gazed back down at it, then at the rack – just as another object, a plant pot, also made a suicidal leap, exploding into a thousand fragments. A second pot followed from the other end of the shelf, and then another. Heck backed away involuntarily, hair prickling again, the sweat chilling on his neck and chest. A fifth object hurtled down; another gnome – this one landed upright and didn’t shatter, but stood rocking back and forth as if the moment it regained its balance it would come toddling towards him. A sixth object went, and a seventh – more plant pots, all exploding on impact. Heck’s hair was now standing on end, but then he spotted the culprit – the sleek brown form and whipping tail of a rat as it scuttled back and forth in the recess at the rear.

      Heck sagged with absurd relief; he had to lean forward to get his breath.

      When he looked again, the rat had fully emerged. It bounded to the floor and bolted away beneath the shelving on the left.

      ‘You get a move on, lad,’ Heck said under his breath, thanking God that none of the local officers he was shortly to be ‘advising’ had been around to witness that little pantomime. ‘There’s no wasting time in your game …’

      He walked back along the aisle to the greenhouse entrance, heading through the rhododendrons, bypassing the compost heap and the two wooden sheds, and lurching down the path between the thickets. Even on reaching the front of the house, it was several seconds before he felt his heart rate begin to slow. He took a couple of deep breaths in order to regain full composure. He hadn’t discovered the source of the metallic clattering, of course, but again – did that really matter? It wasn’t like he didn’t have any real work to do.

      He walked on down the drive and returned to the road, where he dug a fresh pair of latex gloves from the pockets of his doublet and snapped them into place. A fingertip search was just the thing to concentrate his mind.

      Inch by painful inch, sometimes on his knees, he worked his way along the verge on the side where the undergrowth had been torched, initially focusing on the glistening debris that had been swept into the gutter by passing vehicles but then scanning further afield as well. There was nothing instantly noticeable, which wasn’t entirely surprising as he didn’t really know what he was searching for, and was still a little distracted – he couldn’t help but keep throwing glances over his shoulder at the silent, locked-up house. He still felt as if he hadn’t been quite alone over there, but about ten minutes into his search something else caught his attention, something a lot more tangible: a tiny white object gleaming amid the charcoaled roughage.

      He poked at it with a pair of tweezers, attempting to tease it into view.

      It was a tooth – and by the looks of it human, a molar in fact. What was more it had recently been removed from its owner’s jaw, because though several of its roots had been snapped, a couple had been wrenched out in full, and tiny threads of reddish-brown tissue were still attached. He fed it into a small sterile evidence sack, which he then sealed. When he held it up to the sunlight, the tooth’s underside was crusted reddish-brown. More blood – which was explainable, because this was an adult-sized molar, and adult molars didn’t come out easily.

      Heck pocketed it, marked the spot of its discovery with an evidence flag, and continued his search, but nothing else of consequence emerged in the next hour, at the end of which he took some pegs and fluorescent tape from the boot of his car and cordoned off several areas. It irked him that this crime scene – and he already had a strong feeling that this was what the accident site was – had not been preserved for more detailed forensic examination. Of course that could still be arranged, though it might already be too late.

      Reigate Hall was an unusually attractive building for a police station, built from eroded Georgian brick with a lopsided roof of crabby, moss-covered slates. It looked more like a moot hall or village almshouse than a focal point of modern day law enforcement, and faced onto a pleasant open green, at one end of which stood an old parish church, and at the other a timbered, ivy-clad pub called the Ploughman’s Rest, which was where Heck’s room had been booked. The green was surrounded on its other sides by whitewashed terraced cottages, craft shops, and village stores.

      Detective Chief Inspector Will Royton appeared to suit this benign environment perfectly. He was a tall, well-built man in his late forties, with a bald pate and salt-and-pepper tufts behind his ears. He had an amiable air and a friendly face, and he greeted Heck in his office with a smile and a firm handshake.

      ‘You found us all right?’ he said, wasting no time in heading off down the adjacent corridor.

      Heck followed. ‘No problem, sir.’

      ‘Only I’m a bit puzzled …’ Royton glanced back as he walked. ‘I mean about why the Serial Crimes Unit wants to look at the Lansing incident. Wouldn’t have thought it’d be your cup of tea at all?’

      Heck shrugged. ‘There may be nothing in it for us, sir, but, I don’t know, something about it caught my guv’nor’s attention. I won’t be in your way for long.’

      At the end of the passage, a pair of glazed double doors gave through into the main CID office. Here, Royton paused to think. ‘You mean caught her attention on the basis that it may actually have been a double homicide?’

      ‘Too early to say, sir.’

      ‘On the basis that it may be part of a series of homicides?’

      ‘That would really be running before the horse to market.’

      ‘Nevertheless … you wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t a possibility.’

      ‘It’s a very remote possibility.’

      ‘A possibility is a possibility, Sergeant. For what it’s worth, if something that serious is occurring on our patch, I’m glad you’re on board. We can always use someone with expertise.’

      They pushed through into the detectives’ office, or DO as it was usually known, a modern, spacious area lined with desks, chairs, and computer terminals, but only occupied by one or two individuals at present, all of whom were beavering away at their desks. Royton led Heck to its farthest corner, where a large window half-covered by Venetian blinds gave out onto the village green. In front of this, two desks directly faced each other. A young woman was seated at the one on the right, tapping at a keyboard. She didn’t look up as they approached.

      ‘But I have to tell you,’ Royton added, ‘you’re not the only one who found this event suspicious. DS Heckenburg, meet DC Gail Honeyford.’

      The woman glanced round. She was even younger than Heck had first thought; in her mid-twenties at most, her lithe, youthful form accentuated by a tight blue skirt and blue silk blouse and scarf, her brunette tresses tied in a single ponytail. A pair of fashionable shades were perched above her fringe.

      ‘Erm … hello,’ Heck said, mildly confused.

      ‘That’s your desk.’ Royton indicated the empty workstation. ‘You’ve got a telephone line, computer link, everything you need. I thought this would be an appropriate place to put you, as you two will be working together.’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Gail’s already on the Lansing case,’ Royton explained.

      Heck

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