Paul Finch - Ashes to Ashes - An unputdownable thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller

‘Yeah … so?’

‘So Gemma says there’s no point you coming back on Wandering Wolf until you’ve been discharged from the trial. That means there’s no point you coming back today either – so you can crack on with this lot. New referrals from Division. Yours plus Shawna’s.’

There was a muted snigger from the direction of Rawlins’s desk.

‘This is all?’ Heck said.

‘Hey, there’s a bigger pile on my desk if you want some of them .’ Fisher sloped off towards his own corner of the room without awaiting a response.

Heck slumped into his chair, glowering at the tower of documentation. One of the least enjoyable aspects of working in the Serial Crimes Unit was trawling through paperwork forwarded to it from other divisions. SCU had a remit to cover all the police force areas of England and Wales, and had recognised expertise with regard to serial violent offenders – mainly murderers. If they weren’t pursuing investigations they’d generated themselves or had been assigned to by the Director of the National Crime Group, SCU would provide operational, consultative and investigative support to other forces who might have uncovered evidence that they had a serial murderer or rapist on their patch. A national general order now ensured that details of all homicides or violent sexual attacks satisfying certain specified criteria (the ‘weird and wonderful’ as Heck tended to think of them) must be sent to the SCU office for assessment at the first opportunity.

Heck grabbed himself a tea before leafing through the top two folders on the pile.

At first glance either one might have heralded the arrival of a new kid on the serial killer block. A female torso had been found on a rubbish tip in Hull; it had been identified as belonging to a forty-year-old prostitute who had vanished two weeks earlier. OK, there was only one victim here (thus far), but immediately there were signs of excessive violence and bizarre post-mortem behaviour in the form of the dismemberment, while the aggrieved party had been a sex-worker – so that was three boxes ticked straight away. The second file described two homicides in the space of two weeks in Coventry. An elderly bag-lady had been found in a subway, her skull shattered by an estimated twenty blows from a hammer. Six days later, a homeless man was found brutally kicked and beaten in a backstreet some three miles away. He was alive when discovered, but died en route to hospital without ever regaining consciousness. That case carried the ultimate red flag in that already there was more than one victim.

Both these submissions required analysis, yet conclusions could never be jumped to.

Murder was rarely what it appeared to be at first glance.

It could be that the Hull prostitute had been a victim of domestic violence – apparently her common-law husband, from whom she was estranged but whom she’d fought with constantly while they were together, had dropped out of sight several months ago and his whereabouts were still unknown. Likewise, violent assaults on street-people were sadly common. The old Coventry woman had been a known heroin-user, but was not in possession of any drugs or drugs paraphernalia when her body was found, so the motive in her case might have been robbery. In contrast, the homeless male had a reputation for being an argumentative drunk, so he could have been beaten simply because he’d picked a fight with the wrong person.

Heck would need to wade through the directory-thick wads of affixed notes and photos sent down from the investigation teams up at Humberside and West Midlands before he could make a judgement. But before he had a chance even to start on this, his mobile rang.

The name on the screen was Penny Flint .

He walked out to the adjoining corridor before answering it.

‘Don’t take me off the register,’ she said.

‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘I can still be useful to you, Heck.’

‘Penny, you should be thinking about being useful to that kid of yours. Get your tail out of town before someone comes along and really damages it.’

‘You want Sagan?’ she said.

He moved to the window. ‘However did you guess?’

‘I’ve not lost track of him totally.’

Heck stiffened. ‘What’re you on about now?’

‘He’s left London.’

‘Penny, you’re in hiding. You’re not talking to anyone if you’ve got any sense. How can you possibly know this?’

‘I have my informers, just like you do.’

‘You’d better hope yours are more reliable.’

‘Do you want this intel or not?’

Heck gazed across the river of traffic flowing along the North Circular.

‘What do you propose, Pen?’

‘I give you info on Sagan’s new location, and in return you keep me on the register and never tell anyone that I’m the one who set Cowling and Bishop up.’

The mere thought of this stuck in Heck’s craw.

‘Penny … a police officer died.’

‘I told you, Heck, that wasn’t the plan. It was Sagan who was supposed to die.’

‘Tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what it’s worth.’

There was a lengthy silence at the other end, as she considered this. She knew Heck didn’t trust her any more. The question was: did she trust him?

‘He’s gone north.’

‘I need specifics.’

‘Not at the moment. Not till I get what I want.’

Heck pondered. Though he was loath to admit it, it kind of helped him out. A good lead was something he could take straight upstairs to Gemma. It might also help him clear his conscience about the info he was currently sitting on.

‘I’ll need to tell my gaffer what you’ve been up to,’ he replied.

‘No way. They’ll lock me up.’

‘Not necessarily. If your intel bears fruit, chances are they’ll make an executive decision to keep using you. And it’s not like you pulled the trigger on Cowling yourself. All we have to say is that you tipped off your various police handlers. It wasn’t your fault the OC guys decided not to tell anyone what they were doing.’

‘No deal, Heck. I know your gaffer. Piper, isn’t it? She’ll chuck the fucking book at me.’

‘Not if I can persuade her otherwise.’

‘Sorry, no deal.’

‘Listen, you stupid cow!’ He checked there was no one else in the passage behind him. ‘A copper died! And you’re asking me to sit on vital information. Not just now but maybe for the rest of my career. If you seriously think I’m carrying that burden, you can forget it.’

‘Heck –’

‘Shut up, Penny! This is how we play. I’m going up to the Incident Room in approximately one minute’s time. And I’m going to tell Superintendent Piper exactly what I know, namely that you contrived that clusterfuck. I’ll probably get suspended for not telling her sooner, but even that’s better than looking over my shoulder for the rest of my career on the off-chance you suddenly get tempted to spill the beans and drop me in it. The alternative is that I go up there with your red-hot tip and the mitigating circumstances I’ve just laid out. You don’t have to be a genius to work out which’ll be better for you.’

When Penny spoke again it was in a distinctly worried voice. ‘Even if they don’t lock me up, won’t they at least take me off the register?’

‘Not if you’re giving us good stuff. Why would they? It’d be shooting themselves in the foot.’

‘I don’t want to go into protective custody or anything like that.’

He laughed. ‘You’d be lucky. It’s not easy selling supergrasses to the top floor these days. Anyway, it depends what you know.’

‘Manchester,’ she said sullenly.

‘Manchester?’

‘Somewhere in the Manchester area. That’s where Sagan’s parked himself. It’s the usual thing. He’s gone there as muscle, and he’s getting well paid for his services.’