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.
‘We just going blundering in, locking this guy up?’ Quinnell asked, increasingly sharing Heck’s reservations. Gemma had spent considerable time teaching her SCU protégés caution. There was something to be said for that, but by the same token, Garrickson’s reply that they’d wasted too much time already watching suspects and not apprehending them also rang true. They needed to start making ground.
They hung on a moment, spying out the land. Still there was nobody around.
‘Heck, you’re coming with me to the front door,’ Garrickson said. ‘Gary … round to the rear. Don’t let anyone see you.’
Quinnell nodded and withdrew along the ginnel.
Heck and Garrickson waited. The street was no longer bare of life. A figure appeared at the far end, walking slowly towards them. They stepped back a couple of paces. It was an old woman in a shabby mac and slippers, her lank grey hair in rollers. She let herself into one of the houses. Its door closed with an echoing thump.
Still they waited.
‘Why don’t you say something if you think I’m going about this the wrong way?’ Garrickson said.
Heck shrugged. ‘This is your show, sir. You’re the one who’ll live or die by it. But for what it’s worth, I think we should be making arrests too.’
Garrickson focused on the house again. ‘It’s a good lead. You must admit that.’
‘Best we’ve had so far … which is what worries me. This bloke Tubbs tells someone he’s going to start committing a series of crimes he invented in a work of fiction? And then he actually does? I thought we’d be dealing with someone a bit smarter.’
‘Well, if nothing else it meets your stipulation. What was it you said … that he’d either be a scholar or a writer?’
Heck had to agree with that. Garrickson’s phone rang. It was Quinnell, letting them know he was in place at the rear.
‘Okay.’ Garrickson zipped his anorak up. ‘Let’s do it.’
As they walked across the street towards the house, Heck glanced again at the upstairs window. He could have sworn the curtain had just twitched.
‘We’ll talk to him at first,’ Garrickson said. ‘But if he doesn’t want to play ball, we go at him hard. Whatever the bastard says, he’s coming with us.’
As soon as they knocked on the front door, they heard the clump of heavy feet on an internal flight of stairs. The door banged inward to the length of its security chain, and a brutish visage peered out. He was a couple of inches taller than either of the two cops, with a bloated, bearded face and staring, bloodshot eyes. A huge beer belly pushed against his knitted sweater, and yet he couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight.
‘Yeah?’ he said suspiciously.
‘Daniel Tubbs?’ Garrickson asked.
‘Who wants to know?’ Now that he’d had a few seconds to look them over properly, and not liking what he saw, the householder’s tone was shifting from suspicion towards naked aggression. His hairy cheeks slowly reddened.
Garrickson displayed his warrant card, only for the door to slam in his face with such force that dust spurted down from the bricks over the lintel. Even Heck was caught on the hop, but fortuitously the door didn’t catch; it bounced back from its latch and when Garrickson put his shoulder to it, the chain tore from its mooring.
They found themselves in a dim entry hall, minus wallpaper, with only cruddy lino on its floor; it led all the way through the house to the rear, where it seemed likely the back door would now be open and Tubbs in the process of vacating the premises.
But he wasn’t.
He was waiting for them about ten feet away.
What was more, a huge Doberman Pinscher stood in front of him, ears pricked, sabre-like fangs bared as it snarled and drooled.
‘Kill ’em, Toby!’ Tubbs commanded.
‘We’re police officers!’ Garrickson tried to shout. But the dog was already upon them, slashing and tearing. Before Heck could dodge backward, it sank its teeth through his trousers into his left thigh.
‘Christ almighty!’ He slammed both fists down on top of its long, narrow skull, initially to no effect – its jaws remained locked into his flesh.
Garrickson kicked and punched at it as well. ‘Call your dog off, you lunatic … I told you, we’re cops!’
‘Never mind me …’ Heck gasped, ‘get the bastard!’
Garrickson fought his way past the brute. A few yards away, Dan Tubbs waited for him, grinning through his tangled beard.
‘You’re in more trouble than you ever imagined, pal!’ Garrickson shouted.
‘So are you.’ Tubbs produced a baseball bat from behind his back, and howling like a madman, swung it down over his head. Garrickson could do nothing but raise his left arm. The impact was sickening. Heck felt certain the splintering crunch of bone could have been heard out back by Gary Quinnell, who, by the sounds of crashing and banging at the rear of the house, was already trying to force his way inside.
‘Gary, get a move on!’ Heck bellowed. ‘Shit!’
The Doberman had loosened its jaws, only to slam them closed around his left knee, applying crushing force. He tried to hop backwards, but without success; blood was already streaming through the many rents in his trouser-leg. Garrickson had crumpled down to his knees, left forearm hanging at a grisly angle. Tubbs, eyes bugged like discoloured marbles in a face hued purple, stood over him triumphantly. Heck had no choice – he went for the dog’s eyes, both forefingers at the same time. Squealing, the Doberman shied backwards. Heck followed it, swinging his foot into its throat; knocking it down in a senseless heap.
‘BASTARD!’ Tubbs screamed, launching himself forward, bat in hand. But Garrickson was still in the way and managed to wrap his one good arm around Tubbs’s legs. The giant fell full-length onto the linoleum floor. Garrickson shrieked as his shattered limb twisted in the process.
Heck rushed at Tubbs as he tried to get back to his feet, grappling with him, but was still hoisted upward and thrown sideways onto a radiator. From the back of the house the frenzied banging continued, until the rear door burst inwards, frosted glass flying, as Quinnell finally forced his way through. Tubbs, who now had Heck against the wall by the scruff of the neck and was about to brain him with the bat, was distracted by this – Heck rammed his good leg down, grinding the heel on his assailant’s toes. Tubbs danced backward. He still aimed a blow with the bat, but Heck was able to duck, and a chunk of plaster was gouged from the wall.
At last Quinnell joined the fight. He was more Tubbs’s size, only fitter. They wrestled savagely, Quinnell soon getting the better of it and landing a sufficiently meaty punch on Tubbs’s jaw to knock him dazed to his knees, where Heck was able to cuff his wrists behind his back.
‘You stupid psycho pillock!’ Heck panted into his ear. ‘You may not even be the bloke we came here looking for … but you’ll be inside till you’re sixty for this.’