Cragwood Road was dangerous and difficult enough under a blanket of fog, but that was only the start of the journey from the Cradle down to Kendal. Heck knew the route well enough, but even to his experienced eye, it was astonishing how different everything now looked. To start with, he almost missed the turn at the bottom of Cragwood Road, and found himself shooting across the B5343, which could have been fatal if anyone else had been unwise enough to be out and driving at this remote end of Great Langdale.
The B5343, winding down through the dale, was itself a narrow route, in some parts single lane, so Heck could only edge forward at ten miles per hour or less. Even then, the occasional vehicle coming towards him would materialise through the gloom with only yards to spare, headlights reduced to dim angler-fish orbs. Needless to say, quite a few of these characters were driving too fast. There was much screeching of brakes and squealing of rubber. On one occasion, the other driver – a solid, mannish woman in a jumper, a green quilted doublet and a silk scarf – jumped out of her Toyota Land Cruiser and began to harangue Heck in an accent more Buckinghamshire than Cumbria. His reaction was swift, simple and to the point. He jumped out as well, displayed his warrant card, pointed at the verge and said: ‘Can you move your Chelsea tractor, ma’am. I’m responding to an emergency and you’re holding me up.’
‘Excuse me,’ she responded, looking only vaguely fazed by this. ‘But I’m perfectly within my rights to …’
‘And I’m within my rights to arrest you for obstructing an enquiry if you don’t do precisely what I say, right now!’
Inevitably there were further delays. When Heck finally got down to Skelwith Bridge and joined the A593, the fog was no less smothering but there was heavier traffic. At Clappersgate village, there’d been an accident. A clutch of vehicles now blocked the carriageway, a Vauxhall Astra having struck a Fiat 500 coming from the opposite direction, a Chevrolet flat-bed having tail-ended the Astra, and a Mini Cooper having shunted the Chevrolet. There was much shouting and arguing in progress, while splintered metal and other bits of debris were scattered across the blacktop. It was clear this wasn’t going to be resolved quickly. With no choice, Heck reported the accident – his radio was receiving signals again, albeit intermittently – then turned his Citroën around and headed south, this time taking the B5285 to Hawkshead and following the shore of Esthwaite Water, beyond which the road began looping like crazy and grew steadily narrower, leading ultimately through Far Sawrey to the Windermere car ferry.
Heck didn’t expect the ferry to be operational on a day like today, and had half a mind to continue south via the back roads until he reached Newby Bridge, though that would be very much the long way around. However, rather to his surprise, the ferry was in service. More to the point, in such foul weather the usual traffic jam awaiting it was absent. In fact, Heck’s Citroën was the only vehicle on board as the barge rumbled slowly across the flat grey sheet that was Windermere’s narrow neck.
Climbing from his car, Heck stood by the barrier and gazed out at nothing. His mobile began buzzing in his pocket – a rare event these days, given that he spent most of his time higher up in the fells where there was no reception. He fished the device out, and was surprised to see the name of the caller.
‘So I’m finally able to get through to you,’ Gemma said.
Heck was caught on the hop. ‘Erm … the signal’s unreliable up here, ma’am. At best.’
‘Good job I’m coming up in person then.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m coming up today. I’m on the two-thirty from Euston to Oxenholme.’
‘Oh … okay.’
‘I considered driving, but if the fog up there’s as bad as you say, it’ll be probably be traffic jams to infinity.’
He could hardly deny that. The Lake District boasted relatively few main roads, and they were bad at the best of times.
‘Can you pick me up at Oxenholme?’ she asked. ‘I’m due to get in just over two hours from now … around five-fifteen.’
‘Ma’am, are you really sure you want to …’
‘Heck, you’ve pricked my interest. Is that not what you wanted to hear?’
In truth, Heck wasn’t actually sure what it was he’d wanted. Or why he’d even called her. He and Gemma had once been lovers, long ago now, when they were junior detectives together in East London. At the time, their partnership had been firm, their relationship intense. But over the years things had got in the way, not least the Stranger enquiry. They’d remained reasonably close after the break-up – as work colleagues if nothing else – but on the whole tried to avoid each other, each coming to the Serial Crimes Unit at Scotland Yard by different routes, though by then Gemma was of much higher rank. Mutual respect had made a working relationship between them possible, but the near-decade they’d then spent in SCU together hadn’t all been hunkydory. By necessity, the higher Gemma rose in the job, the ever straighter bat she’d become, whereas Heck, whilst never consciously bucking the system, had always preferred a trickier approach. The last case they’d worked on together had seen them hunting a gang of professional rapists and kidnappers called the Nice Guys Club, whose sadistic rampage through the heart of Britain had been assisted by corruption and conspiracy at high levels. That incident was now two and a half months in the past, yet it was still raw to Heck. One of the most painful episodes in his police career – if not the most painful, mainly because at the end of it he and Gemma had rowed spectacularly. Things had been said that could never be unsaid. Afterwards they’d both decided it would never be possible for them to work together again. Hence, Heck’s new career in the low-crime paradise of the Lake District.
‘Heck? … Heck, I’m talking to you.’
‘Oh … sorry, ma’am.’
‘Can you pick me up at Oxenholme, or not?’
‘Ma’am … where are you going to stay when you get up here? It’s not going to be a one-night stopover.’
‘It’s a holiday area, isn’t it? I’m sure there’ll be rooms.’
‘I wasn’t exactly planning for this. I’ll have to okay it with the SIO … when someone’s appointed.’
‘Leave that to me.’ Gemma spoke with her usual airy confidence. ‘This isn’t just personal, Heck … from what you’ve told me, it actually does fall within SCU’s remit. Five-fifteen at Oxenholme. I’ve not had a “yes” or “no” out of you yet.’
Even then, it wasn’t as straightforward a question as it sounded. Heck had voluntarily left SCU so that he could be as far from Gemma as possible. His sense of betrayal after the Nice Guys enquiry hadn’t just hurt him, it had put him into a state of shock. Of course, these things always seemed a hundred times worse coming from someone you’d trusted and respected.
There was a keen silence on the line as she awaited his decision.
Heck couldn’t deny that he was going crazy up here. Mostly, it was less-than-divisional CID work he was engaged in. ACPO could chunner all they wanted about needing to install experienced detectives in isolated rural areas, but there were more sheep in the Langdales than humans. The last couple of days had been unusually busy, but they had been the exception, not the rule.
‘Yeah, I’ll be there,’ he said sourly.
She hung up.
From Bowness, which was busy – everything moving at a crawl – he ploughed straight on into the hills again via the B5284. This was yet another perilous road in thick fog, but at least it was free of other cars, not that the occasional sheep straying directly into his path made life any easier.
As a result, Heck reached Kendal just short of two hours after he’d set off.
When he entered the Westmorland General Hospital, he learned the ambulance had only arrived twenty minutes earlier, but this had been sufficient time for Tara Cook to be taken straight through to theatre. There was no chance Heck could interview her again until at least this time tomorrow. All he could do now was ensure the girl’s clothing and belongings were all bagged for forensic examination, and then wander frustratedly through to the empty ICU waiting area, where he got himself a watery coffee from the vending machine. As he did, two other figures ambled in; DI Don Mabelthorpe and DS Kealan Walker from Windermere CID. The former was a squat, tubby guy in his late forties, rather porcine in appearance; balding on top, which was why he normally wore a tweed hat, and yet blessed with thick red sideburns. The latter was much younger, somewhere in his late twenties, but studious-looking, with short black hair and steel-rimmed glasses.
‘Looks like we can’t speak to her ’til tomorrow,’ Heck said, handing over the evidence bags.
‘Yeah, I heard,’ Mabelthorpe replied, distracted as he examined them.
‘Tomorrow at the earliest,’ Walker corrected them both. ‘Which is probably a good thing. Both the girls’ parents are on the way up, but they’re driving, so they probably won’t arrive until much later this evening, if not the early hours tomorrow … the last thing they’ll want is to get here and find a bunch of hairy-arsed bobbies crawling all over their semi-comatose daughter.’
Heck nodded, unable to deny this logic.
‘Still no chance of getting the chopper up there, I’m afraid,’ Mabelthorpe said. ‘We’ll have a whole search party standing by late tomorrow morning. I’m putting a small taskforce together as well, to investigate the assault. You want in, Heck?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
‘I’m having some space cleared at Windermere to set up the Incident Room.’
‘You get the initial assessment report I emailed you, sir?’
‘Yeah.’ Mabelthorpe scratched behind his ear. ‘To be frank, I don’t know what to make of it. Especially those notations you added about the Stranger.’
‘It’s a long shot, I admit,’ Heck replied, ‘but if I hadn’t mentioned that, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly.’
‘Well, we’ve pulled the files on the Stranger.’ Mabelthorpe shrugged. ‘But it’s the same rule as ever … they’ll flip out on the top floor if we start talking serial killers.’
‘To be honest, there isn’t much evidence to suggest it’s him,’ Heck acknowledged. ‘But I think it’s something we ought to bear in mind.’
‘Much evidence?’ Walker said. ‘There’s no evidence at all. We don’t even know for sure there’s been a murder, so it’s a real feat of mental acrobatics to link this to an unresolved series from Devon ten years ago.’
‘DSU Gemma Piper didn’t think that,’ Heck responded. ‘I told her exactly what I told you, and she’s on her way up here as we speak.’
The two divisional detectives glanced at each other.
‘SCU are on their way already?’ Mabelthorpe visibly reddened in the cheek. ‘Before we’ve found the other AP? Before we’ve even ascertained there’s been a homicide?’
‘Not SCU, sir … Detective Superintendent Piper. She knows the Stranger case better than anyone.’
‘Heck,’ Walker said. ‘This is pretty damn spurious …’
‘I know, I know,’ Heck made a helpless gesture. ‘The links are tenuous. But the MO matches one of the Stranger’s earlier attacks, the victimology’s right, plus I keep thinking, Strangers in the Night.’
‘Yeah, well …’ Mabelthorpe pondered. ‘That does bear further consideration. When’s Piper due to arrive?’
Heck glanced at his watch. ‘Soon. I’m picking her up at Oxenholme.’
‘She’s not bringing a team with her?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘She’s coming on the train … on her own?’ Walker sounded surprised. ‘So is this in an official capacity, or not?’
‘That’s up to her,’ Heck replied.
‘Well it’s not going to hurt,’ Mabelthorpe said, ‘having an experienced homicider on the plot.’
‘One thing I’m a bit concerned about, sir,’ Heck said, ‘is the villagers in the Cradle. Both Cragwood Keld and Cragwood Ho are dangerously close to the crime scene, and at present, apart from a single unarmed policewoman, there’s no one there to protect them if this nutter comes back.’
‘We’ve thought about that,’ Mabelthorpe said. ‘Lads … in here if you please.’ A couple of uniformed officers, both wearing fluorescent anoraks, who’d been loitering out in the corridor, now sauntered in. ‘DS Heckenburg, you know PCs Mick McGurk and Dan Heggarty.’
Heck knew them vaguely. McGurk was a doughty, hard-bitten Scot from the Borders. A former Royal Marine, he was now in his mid-forties and prematurely grey, but still in good shape, with a strong build and stony, pockmarked features. When stripped to his shirt-sleeves, both his brawny arms displayed tattoos commemorating his role in Desert Storm. Even now he wore a rubber Help For Heroes band on his thick, powerful wrist. He’d formerly been a DS up in Carlisle, but some unspecified incident – which might or might not have had something to do with the brutalisation of prisoners – had seen him kicked down a rank and back into uniform. Heggarty was younger than McGurk, mid-twenties, and taller – about six foot three, with a lean, rangy physique, short black hair and a trim black moustache. Heck didn’t know Heggarty personally, but was aware he had a reputation for sticking religiously to procedure, which didn’t make him the most popular guy to have around.
At present, both men sported black body-armour under their hi-viz anoraks.
‘We can’t get anyone up onto the fells at present,’ Mabelthorpe said. ‘Even if we had a load of spare bodies available – which we don’t at this short notice – the conditions won’t allow it. Way too dangerous. Mountain Rescue were prepared to chance it on foot, but I’ve pulled them back too – with guns on the plot, we can’t authorise civvie involvement until we know exactly what we’re dealing with. However, I know you could use some help at Cragwood Keld, Heck, so for the time being you’ve got these two. They’re on an extended shift until midday tomorrow. Use ’em any way you see fit.’
‘Okay, good,’ Heck replied. ‘You lads got your own wheels, only I can’t take you back up to the Cradle straight away?’
‘No worries, sergeant,’ Heggarty replied. ‘We’ll take the patrol car.’
‘An officer from Kendal nick will be babysitting the casualty while she’s in Recovery,’ Mabelthorpe added. ‘Whoever it is, they’ll be briefed to keep their ear open for a dying declaration, though from what I hear, that’s not going to happen. And I’ve passed your request for firearms support up the chain of command too. You should have a unit with you by the end of today. They’ll want to check out the crime scene on the lakeside too, just to make sure there’s no unexploded ordnance lying around.’
‘All the better,’ Heck said. It had been worth the difficult journey down from the Cradle just to hear that. Suddenly it felt as if the odds had tipped a little way back in their favour.