Paul Finch - Stalkers

‘The rest of the gang being who exactly?’

‘Tommy’s younger brother, Brian, who was already a registered sex offender when he was a juvenile. Spent his adulthood in and out of institutions. Probably where he hooked up with Shane Klim. Birds of a feather, and all that. Heck’s suspicions were right about those two. Looks like they were only brought into the firm when it relocated to the UK. Klim broke out of Rotherwood to hook up with them permanently.’

‘If you can’t get quality at least get loyalty, eh?’ a voice said from the doorway.

They were astonished to see Heck standing there. He wore only trousers and slippers, and was bare-chested under his jacket, which was draped over his shoulders. His entire right arm was encased in plaster and fixed at a right angle, with a sling to hold it in position and a steel bar bracing it across the joint. He was pasty-white in colour, but black and blue with bruising. Much of his hair had been shaved off to accommodate the tram-lines of stitching in his scalp.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Gemma said.

He hobbled in. ‘I discharged myself early.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

Palliser dragged a seat forward and Heck lowered himself into it.

‘Lauren Wraxford, who saved my arse countless times last week, is dead,’ he said. ‘The very least I owe her is not to waste time lying on my back while her murderer refuses to cooperate.’

‘You think I’m going to let you speak to him?’ Gemma said.

‘You could do worse. I hear he’s defying all analysis?’

Palliser sighed. ‘We still haven’t got a clue who he actually is. Not only is he saying nothing … we’ve gone back through military records for the last twenty years, and there’s no trace of any British serviceman, commissioned officer or otherwise, name of Michael Silver. CrimInt’s got nothing either, nor SOCA, nor SIS. Likewise, there are no comparisons in prints or DNA. We’ve circulated his mugshot throughout agencies abroad, but no hits so far.’

‘We should check the security consultants Goldstein amp; Hoff use when they send their execs overseas,’ Heck said.

‘Already have done,’ Palliser replied. ‘And it’s no dice. They’re all clean. Seems like Ian Blenkinsop made extra arrangements once he got to the Gulf.’

‘What about paperwork?’

‘We’ve found no personal documentation.’

‘Come on, Des … the bastard had access to different vehicles, different properties!’

‘All in the names of his men. Same goes for the boat hire.’

‘At least tell me Interpol and Europol are looking into the foreign angle.’

‘As much as they can, but there isn’t much to go on.’

‘How much do they need? Blenkinsop mentioned American colleagues, French, Russian …’

‘But he made no statement to that effect, and now he’s dead.’

‘Shit!’ Heck swore. ‘Silver knows ! He didn’t just hint at it, he fucking boasted — said there were other Nice Guys operating overseas. Damn it, we should make him talk!’

‘And then you’d be just like him,’ Gemma said primly. ‘A sadistic criminal, a torturer, a psychopath. Look Heck, the main thing is he’s going down. If absolutely everything else fails, at least he’s bang to rights for the murder of Lauren Wraxford — we got her blood from under his fingernails and from his clothes. His dabs are all over the murder weapon.’

‘On the subject of Lauren, has anyone been to visit her mother?’ Heck asked.

Gemma nodded. ‘I did.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, subdued. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘So did she, I think. She sent you this letter.’ Gemma handed him a sealed envelope. ‘She wanted to express her gratitude personally.’

‘Her gratitude ?’

‘For finding out what happened to Genene. And for providing Lauren with a friend when she needed one.’

Heck took the envelope almost gingerly. He didn’t think he could face opening it now. ‘Never been thanked before for getting someone killed.’

‘You didn’t strike the blow, Heck,’ Palliser said.

‘Why do I feel like this then … survivor guilt?’

Palliser was about to respond when a detective constable beckoned him through the glass partition. He excused himself and slipped out, leaving the other two alone.

‘I’m still waiting for my apology, by the way,’ Gemma said, folding her arms. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’

‘I know,’ Heck replied. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘Heck … I don’t actually mind that you broke almost every law you joined the police to uphold while pursuing these people. But what I do mind — what I absolutely revile — is that you lied to me.’

‘I didn’t lie to you.’

‘You promised to keep me in the loop, and you cut me out at the first opportunity.’

‘I only left you out when I learned they had someone on the inside.’

‘You could at least have told me that much.’

‘Would you have believed me?’

‘You want the truth, I’m not sure I believe you now.’

‘Really?’ He laughed. ‘You mean we coppers are too good to become clients of the Nice Guys? How else did they get to McCulkin, our confidential informant?’

‘Look, if this guy Eric Ezekial had been shadowing your investigation, he might have seen you setting up meetings with McCulkin about other things.’

‘All respect, ma’am, he still must have been getting inside info. Once the Nice Guys learned I was looking hard at Klim — courtesy of their insider — they sent Deke to sit on O’Hoorigan. Obviously they had O’Hoorigan fingered as a weak link. Klim had told him all about this outfit while they were in Rotherwood together, and they couldn’t trust him not to tell us if he ever got lifted for something. Deke was shadowing O’Hoorigan rather than me, but when I turned up in Salford he had to act quickly. O’Hoorigan had to go and so did I.’

‘Well, as both Deke and O’Hoorigan are dead, we can hardly prove that.’

‘And what about Dana, how did they find out about her unless some bent bastard in our department told them?’

‘Heck, are you seriously saying that one of our lot can afford to lay out seventy-five grand every time he wants a sex-service?’

In a low, wary voice, he replied: ‘Someone at the very top could.’

At first she was baffled as to who he could mean. And then it clicked. ‘Oh no … no, no, no, Heck. No, we’re not even going there .’

‘Someone who did everything in his power to close this enquiry down.’

‘Don’t you say it!’

‘Someone who was once in the military himself. Perhaps that’s how he got to know them in the first place?’

‘Heck, I’m warning you …’

‘They used his exact terminology when referring to me!’

‘I’m not listening to this …’

But Heck was now in full flow. ‘Ma’am, you told me that Commander Laycock found out I was still investigating when that detective super from Manchester contacted him the morning after those GMP officers got hurt at the Salford hospital … but that it was a full day before Laycock came to see you about it. Why a full day? So he could pass on everything new to the Nice Guys first? So he could tell them who Lauren was — I don’t see how else Deke could have known she was Genene Wraxford’s sister. How about so that Deke could get to us before you did? … that was the same day we got lured out to Blacksand Tower, remember.’

Gemma regarded him incredulously, as if for a moment his crazy assertions were making a kind of sense to her. Then Palliser came back in, and the spell was broken. ‘Forget it!’ She waved the whole notion away. ‘I’m not listening to any of that .’