Sacrifice (32 page)

‘I don’t fucking care. You can’t threaten me like this. I know my rights.’

Heck smiled. ‘You don’t have any rights. You’re a dirty little parasite preying on people’s inadequacies. So regardless of whether this is an illegal search or not, the next one won’t be. And if there’s anything in this room that shouldn’t be you’re going to prison. Your choice.’

Dwyer was still breathing hard. ‘What … what do you want to know?’

‘Cameron Boyd.’

‘Oh, fuck …’

‘Don’t worry. He’s in the slammer and he’s likely to stay there for some time.’

‘He’s got mates.’

‘In a round-about way you’ll be saving Cameron’s arse, so he’ll probably be glad you’ve had a word.’

‘What’s he done this time?’

‘He gave some blonde bird a knee-trembler outside this pub last November.’

Dwyer looked perplexed, but nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember that.’

‘Okay … so tell me what happened.’

‘Well …’ Dwyer still seemed surprised that he wasn’t being asked about something more serious. ‘It was a bit weird, I suppose. She came in the pub and started offering it. She wasn’t charging, if that’s what you’re getting at … least, I don’t think she was.’

‘And she just picked Boyd out because she liked the look of him?’

‘She picked him out for
some
reason. No one likes the look of him.’

‘You obviously remember this well. Did you film it?’

‘I didn’t exactly film it. But we caught it on the outside security camera.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Dwyer eyed him warily, before digging through another drawer and extricating a pen-drive. ‘I copied what happened, and edited it, so I could put it on one of those compo things. You know … real security footage catches people at it?’

‘No. I didn’t know about that.’

‘It’s a niche interest.’ Dwyer inserted the drive into a computer port. ‘You can never see much. But even by those standards, this is crap quality.’

The image that came onscreen was black and white and pixellated constantly. Though it depicted two people against a brick wall, little else was clear. One of them might have been Boyd, while the other looked like a slim, blonde girl – though only the top of her head and part of her profile was visible. There was no facial detail.

‘Has she been in since?’ Heck asked.

‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

‘What about before?’

Dwyer shrugged. ‘Never seen her once. But I’ll tell you who might have. Mick the Muppet.’

Heck raised an eyebrow.

‘One of our regulars. He’s never out of here.’

Mick the Muppet was so regular a customer at The Moorside that he now had his own personalised seat. It was in a cubby-hole just to the left of the bar, and there was a wooden plaque over the top of it, bearing the legend:

Mick’s Corner

He was somewhere in his late eighties, brown-skinned and incredibly wizened, but as per his nickname, he was spookily reminiscent of the TV character, Waldorf. Thick white sideburns grew down either cheek, he had a huge jaw, and his eyes were large, lugubrious and located either side of a bulbous nose covered in excrescences. Somewhat incongruously, he was wearing a bush hat and an age-old camouflaged combat jacket.

‘I’m an ex-commando before you ask,’ he grunted, as he finished his pint of mild.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Heck said, pulling up a chair. ‘Mind if I sit?’

‘Free country. Thanks to people like me.’

‘I’m a police officer.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Can we have a chat?’

‘Throat’s a bit dry.’ Mick coughed. ‘Never much of a conversationalist when my throat’s dry.’

Heck turned to the bar, where Dwyer had appeared alongside the Polish barmaid and was watching nervously as he tucked his shirt flaps into a pair of jeans. ‘Another pint of mild over here, please,’ Heck shouted.

‘Thank you kindly,’ Mick said when the brimming glass was placed in front of him. ‘Come about that slip of a tart, have you? That blonde piece from last November?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘Weird set-up, that. Pretty young lass doing what she did. Been murdered ’as she?’

‘Not as far as we know.’

Mick looked vaguely surprised. ‘Wouldn’t have trusted that bugger who took her outside, I’ll tell you.’

‘Someone took her outside, did they?’ Heck asked.

Mick nodded as he supped. ‘Mean-looking young shithouse from down Longsight. Bad lot down there. Thieves and addicts. Turning this country into a craphole.’

‘Do you know who she is, Mick? Because we need to contact her.’

Mick finished his mild and laid the empty down, smacking his lips.

‘This is serious,’ Heck said paiently.

‘So’s my thirst, son, so’s my thirst.’ Heck signalled for another pint of mild. When it arrived, Mick gazed down at it soulfully. ‘I always think of pints of mild as being like buses.’

‘You mean there’s never one around when you need it?’

‘Correct. And when there is, they’ve usually come in twos …’

‘Bring him another,’ Heck called. ‘So … do you know who she is?’

‘Can’t help you with her name, son. She’s not going to say it out loud, is she? Probably be a falsie, even if she did … coming to places like this to get dicks up her twat.’

‘Would you recognise her again?’

‘I might. Seen her before.’

Heck regarded him carefully. ‘In this pub?’

Mick’s lips quivered as he pondered. ‘I visit so many pubs, you see. Can’t recollect.’ He nudged the glasses in front of him, even though one of them was still almost full.

‘You’ve recollected okay up to now.’

‘When you’re my age, the brain needs oiling regular.’

‘Pete!’ Heck called to the bar. ‘Another pint of mild please.’

‘She wasn’t in this pub as such,’ Mick said. ‘She was outside. Couple of weeks before that thing with the shithouse from Longsight. Saw her one lunchtime when I was coming in. She wasn’t dressed for shagging that time. Had an anorak on, I think. Only saw the top bit because she was in the passenger seat of this flash motor. Just parked up, it was … like they were looking the place over.’

‘Who was driving? The young fella who was with her the second time?’

‘Don’t think so.’ Mick ruminated, then smiled with satisfaction as his next pint was placed in front of him. ‘Older bloke, heavier. Couldn’t see him properly. I’m eighty-eight, you know. You’re doing well to get this much out of me.’

‘Would you recognise this bloke again?’

‘Think he had specs on – small ones, but I can’t be sure.’

‘What about the car? You said it was a flash job.’

Mick gazed down. The other empties had been removed. Only one pint glass remained, albeit a full one. ‘Looks lonely that, doesn’t it?’

‘Keep drinking like this and you’re genuinely not going to remember anything.’

‘You make it to my age, son, you can lecture me about the perils of drink.’

‘You know, Mick … your assistance here won’t go unnoticed. You could be helping us solve a very serious crime, but you keeping stringing me along like this and that could be construed a crime in itself.’

Mick grinned. ‘That’s something else when you get to my age, son …
like I care
.’

‘Another one please!’ Heck called to the bar.

‘I don’t know what kind it was,’ Mick said. ‘Smoke-grey. Dead posh. Want me to draw it for you?’

Heck stared at him blankly.

Mick shrugged. ‘Up to you, son, but it’s the best you’ll get. I once spent ten weeks at an observation post watching Jap troop movements up the Imphal road.’

Heck ambled to the bar. ‘I need paper and a pencil.’

‘This isn’t a school-room, you know,’ Dwyer said irritably.

‘Just do as I ask, eh. Cameron’ll thank you for it.’

‘What about them five pints of mild?’

‘Put them on
your
tab.’

‘Eh?’ Dwyer looked stunned.

‘We don’t get drink allowances in CID anymore. What decade you living in, Pete?’

As evidence, the drawing in Heck’s pocket was of limited value.

Mick the Muppet might once have been a dab hand at sketching Japanese tanks and artillery, but there had clearly been a significant deterioration in the last sixty-nine years. His crude picture, created entirely from memory, might – just conceivably
might
– be a Jaguar XF, but even if he’d produced the most vivid piece of art since Andy Warhol fulfilled his own fifteen minutes of fame, Mick the Muppet hadn’t named it as such. By his own admission, he had no idea what make or model the car was, and without a VRM, even those details would be too vague. For the time being though, Heck decided he’d hang on to it – mainly because he couldn’t bear thinking that the line of enquiry he’d been following for about three weeks had led precisely nowhere.

It was late afternoon when he got back to Manor Hill, but before he could even enter the building, he met Garrickson coming out, pulling an anorak over his suit. ‘Where’ve
you
been?’ the DCI asked.

‘Chasing Boyd’s DNA.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing so far.’

‘Never mind that.’ Garrickson strode across the car park, beckoning Heck to follow. ‘You’re coming with me to Preston.’

‘Preston?’

‘In your prolonged absence, there’s been plenty going on.’

‘Don’t tell me we’ve got another body?’

‘No, but we’re not out of the woods yet … it’s Beltane for another seven hours.’

‘We shouldn’t get too hung up on that,’ Heck said. ‘According to Eric’s list, there are eighteen possible dates in May.’

‘Not if we nip this thing in the bud.’

Gary Quinnell strolled out of the nick. He too was pulling on a waterproof.

‘What’s going on?’ Heck asked as the big Welshman fell into step alongside him.

‘We’ve got a new lead. A bloody good ’un.’

They piled into Garrickson’s Ford Kuga and drove out through the barricade of journalists and press-vans. While not exactly jovial, the DCI seemed to be in a slightly more amicable mood than usual.

‘You know Claire Moody’s resigned?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Heck replied.

‘She’s no fucking use anyway. We won’t miss her, but I still gave her a bollocking.’

Heck strongly wanted to say something, but managed to confine himself to safer topics. ‘What’s the new lead?’

‘Bit ironic actually.’ Garrickon shook his head as he drove. ‘The brass told us to keep our gobs shut, but if some fucker hadn’t blabbed to the press, we’d never have got a break like this.’

‘Don’t follow.’

‘Some bird called Tabby Touchstone. Apparently, she edits a horror magazine.’

‘Horror magazine?’

‘Yeah …’ Garrickson chuckled without humour. ‘These are the sort of dickheads we’re having to rely on to break this fucking case. Anyway, she contacted us this afternoon. Apparently about six years ago something a bit weird happened to her. Some horror writer sent her a story called
Blood Feast
. It concerns a bunch of deranged killers who celebrate ancient festivals with human sacrifices. Ring any bells?’

‘Who’s the writer?’ Heck asked.

‘Name’s Dan Tubbs. No, I’ve never heard of him either. But the main thing is this, this
Blood Feast
farrago … seems that some of the killings in it are a bit similar to the ones we’re investigating.’

‘What are we saying? This whole thing’s a rip-off of some cheapjack horror story?’

‘Funny, isn’t it? Given the amount of grey matter we’ve expounded on it. I’d piss myself laughing if I didn’t feel like crying. But get this … Tabby Touchstone rejected the story on the grounds that it was implausible. Like it couldn’t happen in real life.’

‘She was on the ball,’ Quinnell remarked.

‘In response, this bloke Tubbs turned nasty and sent her a threatening letter, in which he promised to show her otherwise.’

‘Tell me this guy Tubbs is the one we’re going to see now,’ Heck said.

‘Made a voter’s roll check half an hour ago … he still lives in the same address he wrote to her from all those years ago. Ribbleton in Preston, only thirty miles north of here, but less than half a mile from the wasteland where Barry Butterfield got turned into a pig-roast last Bonfire Night.’

‘We need that letter too,’ Heck said.

‘We’re getting it. Tabby Touchstone’s a bit on the meticulous side. Keeps records of everything. Brighton CID are taking a statement from her as we speak.’

They switched from the M62 to the M6, and entered Preston, Lancashire, about half an hour later. They drove through the inner suburb of Ribbleton, prowling one run-down neighbourhood after another, before parking up on the next street to Plumpton Brow, where the mysterious Dan Tubbs lived. Heck had expected that some of the team investigating the bonfire murder would have met them here, but apparently Garrickson hadn’t sent word ahead. ‘Everyone else is busy,’ he explained as they climbed from the Kuga.

Heck glanced around. The drizzle had stopped, but the desolate streets were still wet. It was cold and breezy; it felt more like autumn than high spring. ‘Okay … so why didn’t we bring extra bods from Manor Hill?’ he asked.

‘They’re busy too.’

This was almost certainly true. No one in Operation Festival was sitting around making paperclip chains, but though three of them ought to be enough to handle one prisoner, Gemma wouldn’t have believed in taking such a chance, and would have made other forces available as back-up. Garrickson ought to have felt the same way too, but for some reason had decided against it. Heck wondered if the DCI was on Gemma’s shit-list for leaving Claire to twist in the wind at the press conference, and was now trying to improve his position by casting himself as the guy who cracked the case. He’d brought Heck and Quinnell along as muscle, but he wouldn’t want too many extra hands because he wouldn’t want to share the credit. It didn’t seem the best reason to go in under-strength.

They followed a connecting ginnel, ankle-deep in trash. When they reached Plumpton Brow, they waited at the end of the alley, watching number thirty-six, Tubbs’s home address. It was about three houses away. Like all the others, it was in a poor state: sooty, scabrous brickwork, the front door scuffed and dented, but a thin curtain was drawn across the upstairs window, a light visible behind it.