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But it had been a momentous incident for all kinds of reasons, not least because it had seen Gemma commence her meteoric rise through the police ranks. Up until then she’d been a no-nonsense, hard-working detective constable; one among hundreds, no more likely a high-flier than so many others. But that night, she’d really made her name.
Of course, there’d been other after-effects too; a less savoury kind of fallout.
The case seemed such a long time ago now, ten years. But there was no point in pretending it hadn’t happened. And in this place, it seemed she had nothing but time with which to mull over it, no matter how reluctant she might be …
The Stranger taskforce occupied an entire floor at Newton Abbot police station. The MIR was its central hub, though there were numerous smaller side-offices connected to this. One of these was allocated exclusively to the decoy units, who completed each shift by typing up and logging all their observations from the night before, even the most seemingly insignificant of which they would then send to the Document Reader, who would assess them in detail before attaching them to a Policy File that now had more entries than the unabridged Gideon’s Bible.
Given the events of the previous shift, there were no decoy units on duty today. In fact the only person present in the small side-office was Gemma, scrubbed of her ‘war-paint’ – as DSU Anderson had referred to it – and dressed sensibly in a sweater and jeans. Oddly, she felt more shaken now than she had done when she’d first come off Dartmoor; she was tired and slightly nauseous, but she had a report to complete nonetheless, and it was already a couple of hours late.
The door stood open, admitting the usual chaos of raised voices and trilling phones in the MIR, though this morning, perhaps understandably, there was a more jovial atmosphere than previously. In fact, part of the delay on Gemma’s paperwork was down to a succession of well-wishers from the rest of the squad breezing in to see her, first to check she was okay, then to congratulate her, and then to mug her for all the juicy details. So it was a bit unexpected when someone bothered to knock.
She glanced up and was surprised to see Heck standing there. It wasn’t yet ten in the morning, but by the looks of it, he’d come straight off nights and then driven all the way from London. His jacket was crumpled, his tie hanging loose.
‘Any chance I can come in?’ he asked.
She smiled and sat back. ‘Sure.’
He crossed the room for the customary affectionate peck. Her mouth was bruised and swollen, so she offered him her cheek. Reluctantly, he indulged her on that, then dragged one of the other office chairs to her desk and slumped down into it.
‘So … what are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I happened to be passing?’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Seriously … what do you think I’m doing here?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘As you can clearly tell.’
‘You seen a dentist?’
‘Yep. At the hospital last night. Front two teeth got knocked loose, but they’ll soon firm up. They may be a teensy bit crooked, but I’m reliably informed some guys find that sexy.’
‘Okay. And aside from that?’
‘I told you I’m fine. In fact, I’m bouncing.’ Sensing that he didn’t think she looked to be bouncing, she added: ‘I got him … didn’t I?’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Damn sure.’
‘No body,’ he reminded her.
‘No body yet.’
‘No blood.’
‘It was pouring rain by this morning.’
‘What if he was wearing body-armour?’
‘I have a gut feeling he wasn’t.’
‘No disrespect, Gem, but it’s his gut feeling that counts. If there’s a bullet in it, the job’s a good ’un. If there isn’t, because it’s stuck in a Kevlar vest, this whole thing could kick off again.’
She shrugged. ‘If that’s the case, we’ll find out soon enough.’
‘You should have gone for a head-shot.’
‘Hey, I’m really sorry! But it was dark and it all happened in the blink of an eye!’
‘Whoa, whoa …’ He raised his hands. ‘Just winding you up.’
She sniffed as she resumed typing. A second passed while Heck stood up and strode to a noticeboard on the left. It had been pasted with crime scene glossies, the three first-string murders along the top; the ten second-string murders along the bottom.
‘Do you really need these in here?’ he asked.
‘They’re a reminder, apparently.’
‘You girls needed reminding?’
‘Of what could happen to us if we got this thing wrong.’
‘Or of what very nearly happened to you anyway.’
She eyed him warily. ‘You know, Mark … many other-halves would have driven all the way down here to the West Country to offer their congratulations.’
‘That’s one of the reasons I came here … the main reason, in fact. But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared and shaken when I heard what nearly occurred.’
‘Not as scared as me.’ She went back to her keyboard.
‘You realise I was only informed about it this morning?’ he said. ‘When it was all over?’
‘Of course. You aren’t part of the enquiry.’
‘Gemma, we’ve spoken on the phone nearly every day since you came down here. Would it have hurt to tell me you’ve spent the last couple of weeks on decoy duty?’
‘You’d only have worried. What would be the point?’
Heck turned away, hands jammed into his pockets. Frustrated, he reassessed the display. Devon and Cornwall photographic had captured the victims from just about every angle, in unstinting detail and deluxe colour. The first string was somewhat less graphic. A variety of household items had been used: pliers, scissors, tin-openers, hammers. But in most cases death had resulted quickly, without prolonged sexual torture. However, in the second string – the slayings of the young couples – it was a different story. Okay, the men had all been despatched with speed, usually by having their skulls battered, but the women, who were beaten half-senseless first (or if they were lucky, until they were completely unconscious), had been stripped of their clothes and underwear and laid out as though on a dissection slab. The usual wholesale slashing and stabbing had followed, no part of their bodies left unravaged, though extra attention had always been paid to the abdomen and genital area. Even then, towards the end of the series, progressively more recognisable bloodlust was visible, the maniac attacking each new victim with ever greater savagery, to the point, in the final couple of cases, where full evisceration had resulted. Even with the eye of an experienced and detached investigator, it was difficult not to flinch back from these glossy, brightly coloured images of young women spread-eagled and sliced open.
Whatever part of the process had actually killed them, the madman had always completed each task with his usual coup de grâce: a brutal blow to either eye, delivered with a specially sharpened screwdriver, and with such force that it penetrated through to the brain. In fact, the two cavernous holes in the slashed, bloody face of Sarah Bunting, the last female victim before the Stranger had attacked Gemma, revealed that he’d plunged his steel four or five times through either socket.
‘God knows what he’d have done to you if you hadn’t got that shot off,’ Heck muttered, his stomach churning.
‘Well I did, didn’t I?’ Gemma replied primly, still typing. ‘So there’s nothing to be upset about.’
‘How’s Maxwell?’
‘Single fracture to the skull …’
‘Small change for letting himself get zapped the moment the bastard showed up.’
‘But there are no complications …’
‘He’d have another one by now if your pic was being added to this gallery.’
She glanced up hard. ‘So he’s going to be alright … I’m sure that’s the answer you were actually looking for.’ She sat back and folded her arms. ‘Let’s cut to the chase, Mark … what’re you really doing here? You don’t think I should have volunteered to be a decoy, do you?’
‘It’s not just that …’
‘Oh, it’s not just that?’
‘Look … I don’t like the way, every time one of these sex maniacs cuts loose, we respond by finding every female detective we’ve got, sticking her in a short skirt and sussies, and sending her out on the streets to see if she can pull him.’
‘I wasn’t wearing sussies. You’d be so lucky.’
‘This isn’t a joke, Gemma!’
‘What … you’re telling me that?’
‘There must have been a dozen other ways you and the rest of the girls could have been more useful in this enquiry.’
‘And do you really believe that, Mark? Or is it actually the case that you mean there were a dozen other ways I could have been more useful?’
He shrugged, awkward. ‘Obviously you mean more to me than the others …’
‘Thirteen victims, Mark. And no main lines of enquiry. And on top of that, a decreasing cooling-off period between each attack. It was needs must.’
In truth, Heck couldn’t dispute that.
‘You didn’t want me to take this Devon and Cornwall attachment in the first place, did you?’ she said. ‘Even before there was any talk of us using decoys.’
‘Because the moment I heard D&C were checking with other forces for female officers who were authorised and experienced with firearms, I knew the long-term plan was to put them out there as bait …’
‘No, you didn’t. You thought it might. But even that was enough to give you the willies.’
‘Am I not supposed to be concerned about you?’ he said. ‘I mean, throw your mind back nine months – when I cornered that nutter who’d been chucking acid in people’s faces. I chased him across the railway bridge at Mile End, remember, even though he’d threatened me with a butcher’s knife as well as the usual jar of concentrated sulphuric. I managed to nab him. And what happened when I got back to the nick? You slapped me across the bloody face!’
‘You saw him and recognised him. We could have picked him up afterwards, team-handed. In perfect safety. He’d have been bang to rights.’
‘He could have gone to ground, he could have stayed on the streets for days. Besides, I was confronted by him in the course of an investigation. A split-second decision, and I had to chase …’
‘Everything okay in here?’ the squat, bull-like shape of DS Harry Jenks wondered from the open doorway.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Heck snapped.
Jenks glared at him, unconvinced.
‘Seriously, Harry,’ Gemma said. ‘Everything’s okay.’
‘Hmmm.’ Unconvinced and clearly unwilling, Jenks withdrew.
‘The point is, Gemma,’ Heck said, ‘you didn’t get this decoy gig thrust on you, you weren’t railroaded into it. You volunteered after careful consideration. You consciously put yourself in extreme danger.’
Gemma heard this out in a growing fury, but by the same token she could tell that Heck was upset; he was pale-cheeked, almost breathless. She’d come close to getting hurt many times in the job; it happened regularly to all of them, but he’d never responded this way before – and now she had an inkling why.
‘Of course I volunteered,’ she said slowly. ‘Would you have expected the married women on the team to step forward? The women with families?’
‘Isn’t that what we were planning?’ he said.
Stoically, she resumed typing.
‘Gemma, seriously … is it so wrong of me not to want my wife-to-be volunteering for this kind of duty again?’
She shook her head. ‘You can’t lay those kinds of stipulations on me, Mark.’
‘I’m not saying I don’t want to be married to a hotshot lady detective. Of course, I do. You’re a force of nature, Gemma. That’s what I love about you. But I don’t want the mother of my kids sitting in anymore cars at midnight, or standing on street corners, providing a honey-trap for homicidal maniacs …’
‘That is so unfair!’ she said, hot-faced. ‘We face risks on a daily basis, but you more than most …’
‘Look, I’m …’
‘Please don’t say it, Mark … that you’re the man and I’m the woman. Or, let’s put it into the correct parlance, you’re the bloke and I’m the bird. I suppose it sounds slightly better that way.’
‘I’m … not saying you can’t make arrests,’ Heck said patiently. ‘Or that you can’t run down violent offenders. I just don’t like what happened last night.’
‘It happens once in a blue moon, and you know it. But you want me inside, don’t you – in a nice warm office, checking process cards all day. Maybe working Area somewhere, showing kids across the road, holding hands with little old ladies.’
‘That isn’t true, Gemma … but we can’t both be buried in this job to the point where our lives and health are on the line. That’s hardly a basis for starting a family.’
‘Good job we’ve got no immediate plans, then, isn’t it?’ When Gemma hit the keyboard this time, it had an air of finality. She didn’t shift her eyes from the screen.
A second passed, then Heck walked to the door. ‘Well done on last night’s takedown,’ he said. ‘An extremely fearless piece of work. You’ve got guts of steel, love.’
‘Careful, Mark … you almost sounded as if you meant that well.’
He turned in the doorway. ‘Look, Gem … there’s a refs room down the corridor. Let’s go and have a coffee.’
‘No.’
‘Just so we can have a quick …’
‘No. I’ve too much work to do. And I’m sure you have too … soon as you get back to Bethnal Green and get on with it.’
That hadn’t been the end of them, Gemma reflected, as she and Hazel trudged on. But it had been the beginning of the end. She’d pondered it long and hard ever since, wondering if she could have handled it differently. Sure, Heck had done his usual thing, come crashing in feet first, leaving wreckage all around, but, though he could have been a lot more considerate given what she’d just been through, his concerns had only been those any genuinely caring partner would have felt. It had continued to enrage her until long after she’d been promoted and thus was raised beyond the reach of such sordid escapades as decoy work, but maybe she ought to have been more touched by his attitude at the time than she actually was.
He’d certainly been right about one thing. If both of them were to run a daily gauntlet of risk, that was hardly the ideal start-point from which to raise a family. But she knew Heck intimately well – better than anyone else in the job – and she was all too aware he’d never be the one to step back from the more menacing demands of his work. His was a positive, pathological need to remain on the front line. He’d turned down an offer of promotion once because he wanted to stay on the streets rather than ‘spend his days administrating’. It was unhealthy, with Heck. It went beyond courage or a sense of duty, into self-destructive obsession. The acid-attacker had been a good case in point. Only someone with no concern for his own safety would have tackled the suspect in that situation – on a narrow footbridge over a railway line, the only angle of approach from directly in front, the madman armed to the teeth with his ‘instruments of vengeance’, as he’d told the press in his rambling, spidery letters. Yet Heck had gone at him full-on, at a hundred miles an hour. And by some miracle had emerged unscathed, with collar in hand.
