Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

‘I believe he’s from Cornwall originally.’

Hen snapped her fingers. ‘Right on. That’s where he kicked the young soldier out of the tree and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Cornwall it was.’ She swung around to Gary. ‘Get through to Paddy Murphy now and tell him to pinpoint Cornwall.’

With that sorted, she set off at a sharp pace along the shore towards the searchers. Ignored, Jo thought she had better follow. Making a bid for freedom wasn’t a serious option. Besides, she wanted to find out all she could about this misguided police enquiry. Someone had to stand up for Jake’s rights, or he’d be crushed.

A cool east breeze had started to disturb the mirror surface of the water, giving the gulls the incentive to swoop and glide. The tide was receding fast. In another hour it would begin reclaiming the foreshore.

The team was spaced at wide intervals across the pebble beach and right up to the scrub above it. The theory was that because Jake had come ashore on the Church Norton side of the harbour he’d holed up there rather than hiking to the opposite side-which, anyway, was more populated. The dog-handlers led, with the main search squad behind and the armed officers bringing up the rear. Progress was brisk. This was a manhunt, not a fingertip search.

Hen caught up with them and spoke to one of the sergeants out of range of Jo’s hearing. She seemed to be suggesting a change of method. Some of those closest to the waterline were sent higher up the beach.

‘What’s going on?’ Jo asked Gary, who had caught up.

‘They think he could have buried himself under the pebbles, but the boss says there’s no point searching so close to the water because it’s wet underneath and the stones are too small anyway.’

She hoped against hope that Jake had gone right off the beach and was hiding in the reeds. Yet another part of her knew that the longer he stayed at liberty the more guilty he appeared. That prison experience had left him with a terror of being locked up again. You couldn’t argue with someone who has gone through such a trauma.

Her support for him hadn’t been shaken by anything Hen Mallin had said.

She crunched through the pebbles, trying to be positive.

Suddenly there was frenzied barking from one of the dogs below a bank of white shingle. The other German shepherd was immediately brought over and joined in the barking. The marksmen ran forward and made a half-circle around the area, crouching with weapons levelled.

From nowhere, it seemed, the helicopter homed in and hovered above.

A knot formed in Jo’s stomach.

The dogs were straining at the leash, alternately barking and whimpering, pawing at the stones. Everyone closed in.

Please, God, let it be a dead bird, Jo said to herself.

Hen directed operations, ordering the unarmed searchers to stand back. The weapons team, rigid and ready in their black kevlar body armour, were chilling to behold.

For what seemed minutes, but was probably not more than twenty seconds, nothing happened. The dogs were dragged away by their handlers to give the gunmen a clear line of fire. Trying to be heard above the sound of the rotors, Hen spoke through a loudhailer, apparently to a mound of stones.

‘Jake, this is DCI Mallin. It’s all over. You’re surrounded and we’re armed.’

Nothing.

Then one pebble shifted, teetered and toppled from the mound.

‘He’s in there,’ someone yelled.

More pebbles rolled off.

Everyone tensed.

The whole mound moved. A hand emerged from the stones and dragged some of them clear. Jake’s pale face appeared, blinking in the light.

‘You’re nicked,’ Hen said through the loudhailer. ‘Cuff him.’

Two of the armed squad threw themselves on the mound, totally covering Jake. They scrabbled among the pebbles to get a grip on both arms. They handcuffed him. Then they dragged him from his hiding place. He was in a blue guernsey and jeans.

He must have buried himself more than an hour ago. He’d obviously found this trough in the pebbles and sat in it and heaped more of them over his legs and body like the seaside game played by children. It was not a bad hiding place. If the dogs hadn’t been used he might not have been found.

The helicopter performed a kind of victory arc. The pilot waved and showed a thumb up. Gary waved back. Mission completed, the Eye in the Sky swung away towards Bognor.

‘Gary, love, the action is down here,’ Hen said. ‘Give him the caution and let’s all get back to somewhere warm.’

But instead of resigning to the inevitable, Jake took a couple of swift steps towards Hen, dragging his captors with him. He was irate and vocal. ‘Who brought the fucking helicopter here? Was that you? Do you have the slightest idea of the damage it must have done to the wildlife here? Why do you think this is called a reserve? It’s supposed to be a sanctuary for birds and animals and insects. I can’t begin to calculate the destruction and panic you’ve caused to defenceless creatures we spend years trying to protect.’

The words had come freely and with force, he was so incensed. The colour had returned to his face and for a moment his staring eyes shamed Hen and everyone. It was an extraordinary outburst-a revelation of Jake’s commitment. Even the gunmen were upstaged.

Hen didn’t respond. You can’t argue with someone who feels so passionately, and who is right. It had been a destructive act to call in the helicopter, one she would be willing to justify to her superiors, but not present company. He was still the main suspect, a likely murderer, but this had been his moment.

Gary, to his credit, was brave enough to step forward and mouth the words of the official caution. Jake didn’t listen, but the formality was observed.

The armed men led Jake away, still muttering and shaking his head. They passed close to where Jo was standing, but he didn’t appear to see her. Some tears rolled down her face. With her hands cuffed she couldn’t wipe them away.

‘Lucky he didn’t make a run for it,’ Gary said to her.

She couldn’t speak.

She wasn’t put in a cell at Chichester, as she expected. They sat her on a chair in a side room with filing cabinets where people kept coming in. They removed the handcuffs and gave her coffee. All the interest was concentrated on Jake now, she guessed. She hoped he would hold up.

After about an hour, Gary appeared with a pen and paper. ‘The boss wants you to make a statement about this morning and then you’re free to go.’

‘That’s all?’

‘She was talking tough on the beach. She’s like that.’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘I’ll help you put it down. It’s got to be a hundred per cent true because it’s evidence. This is the statement form. So we start with your full name.’

Hen was at Paddy Murphy’s desk in the incident room. ‘You got the message about Cornwall? The suspect comes originally from a place called Bugle, north of St Austell.’

‘I’m working on it,’ he said, pointing at the computer screen. ‘I had no idea Cornwall is such a dangerous place. Far more drownings than you find in these parts. So much coast, you see. And rough seas. People get taken by freak waves, strong currents, boating accidents. This can’t be done in twenty minutes, guv.’

‘I’m not suggesting it can.’

‘You’re looking over my shoulder.’

‘And the reason is that you could nail this guy for me by finding an earlier incident of drowning, one that got past as misadventure. It won’t be recent. He left Cornwall after his jail sentence, when he was nineteen, so you’re going back twenty years, Okay?’

‘That makes it tougher.’

‘But you rise to a challenge, don’t you?’ She raised her voice for everyone in the room. ‘Isn’t it well known that Paddy rises to a challenge?’