Dead Man Walking (41 page)

‘No, no …’ Mary-Ellen shook her head. ‘Mick McGurk’s a copper. A bona fide copper. He’s been in Cumbria Constabulary for years.’

‘Which means he knows the lie of the land.’ Heck’s mouth dried as the hideous idea grew on him. ‘He could have scoped out Cragwood Vale a dozen times. He might even have known about Hazel’s ammo …’

‘Yeah, but wait a mo … why would he do all this? Why would Mick McGurk have it in for DSU Piper?’

Heck didn’t reply. Initially he couldn’t.

With indecent speed, his certainty of a half-second ago was replaced by the inevitable flood of doubt. On the face of it, it was surely preposterous to think Mick McGurk could be the guy. For all these possibilities and odd coincidences, what Mary-Ellen said was true: he
was
a bona fide copper; before that he’d had a career in the military, and it must have been hassle-free, else he wouldn’t have been accepted into the police. What would he have to gain by all this?

But then, what would anyone have to gain by this?

That thorny question remained unanswered. And then there was the evidence – the wristband. In any normal circumstances, that clue alone would be sufficient for Heck to make an arrest. Which, if he was honest, was what they were going to have to do now. Or something along those lines. Perhaps they shouldn’t be too hasty – because if McGurk was the guy, injured or not, he could easily be packing concealed firearms.

‘We’re going to have to play this carefully, M-E,’ Heck said. ‘Very, very carefully.’

They bagged the wristband and set off back to the pub, circling the house and darting through Bella McCarthy’s front garden and along Baytree Court.

‘The more I think about this, the more I think it’s him,’ Mary-Ellen said.

Heck was still trying to weigh everything up.

‘Mind you,’ she added, ‘he was inside the nick when it exploded. Shouldn’t that rule him out?’

‘Not necessarily. From what Gemma said, McGurk led the way down there, he opened the door that lit the fuse … and then at the very last second he closed it again, providing himself with a shield.’

‘It could still have killed him, Heck.’

‘A risk he was prepared to take to put himself in the clear? And look how it all actually happened. Like you say, McGurk’s been part of Cumbria Police for years, and yet he needed an officer on a daytrip from London to show him where the cellar was? He must’ve visited a hundred mountain villages like this one.’

‘Yeah, but he said he didn’t want Gemma to go with him. He even got vexed.’

‘There are subtle forms of coercion, M-E. McGurk’s out there in the cold, shivering, while Gemma’s in a nice warm pub. I know Gemma. It wouldn’t have taken much more to prick her conscience, to make her go and offer help.’

‘So you think it’s McGurk … for sure?’

‘We have to suspect it’s him. We can’t just assume …’ Abruptly, Heck stopped talking; halted in his tracks. They were now on a level with the turn into Hetherby Close. Heck peered past it, towards the blast site.

‘What?’ Mary-Ellen asked.

‘What about the whistling we heard after the explosion? We were carrying McGurk down the road to the pub at the time.’

‘Shit … we did, you’re right!’

Heck headed urgently over there. Mary-Ellen followed. The heaped rubble was still smouldering as they sidled around it, picking through the gutted shell that once had been the station garage; most of its corrugated roof had caved in, owing to the weight of debris on top.

‘What exactly are we looking for?’ she asked.

‘That whistling sounded as if it was coming from around here,’ Heck said.

‘Yeah … so?’

‘So … maybe McGurk
is
our boy, but maybe he’s got an accomplice, someone who whistled at us out of the smog to try and cover for his mate.’

‘You said earlier you didn’t think it could be a hit-team …’

‘And I stand by that,’ Heck replied. ‘A team of professional assassins would have done for us all by now. But if you recall, I didn’t discount the possibility of a
couple
of guys, non-pros maybe.’

Though they kicked their way around what had once been the storage yard, it was little more now than a heap of burnt, twisted junk.

‘We’ll be lucky to find evidence anyone was hanging around here,’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘Who could the other fella be, anyway? Who’d join a serving copper on a mindless murder spree?’

Heck shook his head as he scanned the wreckage. ‘It’s only a theory. But an awful lot went on last night that needs explaining. Was Mick McGurk even up here in the Cradle when Bill Ramsdale and Bessie Longhorn got murdered? The first time I saw him yesterday was down at Westmorland General Hospital just before five p.m.’

‘Yeah, but we haven’t got times of death for Ramsdale and Longhorn yet.’

‘True, but if he only got up here for around seven, and then went on to pinch your boat, attack us up at Fellstead Grange and kill the occupants of the Ho as well … that’s an awful lot to cram into one evening.’

‘Suppose so. But I never thought there might be two of them.’

‘And then again … maybe there isn’t.’

Detecting a change of tone, Mary-Ellen glanced up, to find Heck pointing across the rear of the yard at the slatted wooden fence, which had now been flattened by shrapnel – except for a single concrete post. On top of that sat a small rectangular device about the size of a mobile phone, with a pad of key-controls at the front. Heck took it down and examined it.

‘What the hell …?’ Mary-Ellen said.

‘It’s a Dictaphone.’

‘A Dictaphone …?’

Heck thumbed at a plastic, funnel-like appendage in its top left corner. ‘A Dictaphone with a loudspeaker.’ He fiddled with the keys. There was a whirring sound as the tape inside rewound itself. Mary-Ellen switched her torch on again so he could access the keypad properly. He hit the ‘stop’ button, and then ‘play’.

The volume of the music surprised both of them, though the tune didn’t.

It was
Strangers in the Night
, melodiously whistled.

Heck ran his thumb down the side, found the volume control and decreased it. He looked at Mary-Ellen.

‘So it could just be McGurk after all?’ she said.

‘That possibility has never gone away. One thing’s for sure, whoever it is … he’s never actually been whistling to us. He’s been playing a tape.’

‘And McGurk set that up on the fence … when? Just before he and Gemma went down into the cellar?’

‘Why not?’ Heck said. ‘They were poking around here, looking for a door. She wouldn’t have been watching him all the time. I’ll need another evidence bag …’ Mary-Ellen handed one over. He slipped the device inside, sealed it, and zipped it away into another inside pocket. ‘With luck, this’ll be the one that’ll either clear PC Michael McGurk’s name, or send him to prison for the rest of his life.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he’s a copper, isn’t he? So he knows the ropes.’ They set off walking again, Heck leading the way. ‘He’ll almost certainly have worn gloves when he was handling the murder weapons. But the chances are damn good his dabs will be on this Dictaphone, and that’s all we’re going to need.’

‘In that case, why would he have left it out here, where any Tom, Dick or Harry could find it?’

Heck shrugged. ‘Perhaps he intended to reclaim it afterwards, but wasn’t able to. That would put McGurk even more firmly into the frame.’ They were now back on Truscott Drive, heading down towards the pub.

‘If it is McGurk, do you think he was the original Stranger?’ Mary-Ellen wondered.

‘If it is him, we’d have to consider that. How well do you know him?’

‘Not very. He’s been a bobby eight or nine years. Tarnished his record up in Carlisle, but not sufficiently to get himself sacked.’

‘I wonder if there was a window of opportunity between him leaving the military and joining the job.’

‘You mean to go and kill people on Dartmoor?’

‘Maybe in other places too. Depends where he was posted.’

‘Well, you said something about him perhaps committing murders before he even came to the West Country.’

‘That was never official, it was my own hypothesis.’

‘Heck, are we really about to arrest a serial killer?’ Mary-Ellen looked stunned by the prospect.

‘I don’t know. But let’s not get too excited, eh?’

‘If nothing else, it should be easy,’ she said. ‘I mean, at present he’s just lying there, too knackered and injured to move. All we’ve got to do is slip the cuffs on him.’

However, when they were readmitted to The Witch’s Kettle, Mick McGurk, all rough, rugged fourteen and a half stones of him, was sitting upright at the bar, a little pale in the cheek, but wide awake; in fact sipping a whisky and warm water. He nodded at them when they entered, and raised the glass high; as if toasting his own remarkably improved health.

‘I’m alright,’ McGurk said. He’d smeared the sooty grime away from his eyes, but still looked like a man who’d been steeped in oil. ‘Head’s banging a bit.’

He probed at the back of his skull, where a jagged laceration, perhaps nine inches long, meandered across his scalp, bright crimson amid his sweat-damp bristles. It would almost certainly require stitching, though for the moment it had been cleaned and smeared with Germolene, presumably by Hazel.

McGurk remained hunched on his bar stool. He was still clad in armour and bulky waterproofs. There was plenty space there for concealed weapons.

‘I take it you weren’t able to retrieve any of our vehicles?’ Burt Fillingham called from his chair. He’d adopted a weary, peevish look. His voice was strained by irritation.

‘All the vehicles in the village have been sabotaged, I’m afraid,’ Heck admitted. ‘And in the light of that, there’s a bit of a problem.’

Once again, pale-smudge faces were fixed on him from different corners of the darkened interior. Only in the toilet corridor, where Mary-Ellen was quietly conferring with Gemma, were other matters under discussion.

‘Without vehicles, there are no means to evacuate any of us from Cragwood Keld at the present time,’ Heck said. ‘Or even send anyone for help.’

‘We’re trapped here, then?’ Ted Haveloc said.

‘That’s about the strength of it.’

‘Oh my God!’ Sally O’Grady whimpered.

‘None of that,’ Dulcie chided her.

‘But isn’t help already on its way?’ Hazel asked quietly. ‘What about the police firearms team? Why have you suddenly stopped talking about
them
, Mark?’

‘Yeah?’ Mick McGurk also looked interested in hearing an answer to this. If he was responsible for massacring the firearms unit and his curiosity was just an act, it was convincing.

‘Well, Sergeant Heckenburg?’ Burt Fillingham asked. ‘What about it?’

‘Sorry … what about what?’

‘About the fact this madman’s trapped us here, about the fact he obviously wants to murder us all.’

‘That’s an assumption, not a fact.’

‘Have you found any evidence to indicate he doesn’t?’

‘There’s no evidence of anything, Mr Fillingham. But I understand why you’re all frightened. I’m going to have a chat with my colleagues, and we’ll make a decision about what to do next.’

‘Let’s hope it’s a more effective decision than the various others you’ve reached so far tonight,’ Fillingham said.

Heck ignored that and walked into the corridor by the toilets. Gemma and Mary-Ellen glanced around as he approached. Behind him, civilian voices rose as they began to dispute with each other. He heard McGurk making some comment about people needing to keep it together. Hazel joined in, saying the last thing they wanted was to fall out among themselves.

‘M-E put you in the picture about McGurk?’ Heck asked Gemma quietly.

Gemma nodded but didn’t look totally convinced. ‘This wristband may not be his.’

‘If it’s not him, the forensics will clear him.’

‘Heck, you theorised this perpetrator is here to get me. If so, how does that tie in with McGurk saving my life over at the police station? Saving it at considerable risk to his own. Once those matches struck, he did everything he could to get that cellar door closed. And even then he shielded me with his own body.’

‘You sure?’ Heck asked. ‘Or was it more the case he couldn’t help but shield you in that tiny corridor?’

‘Can he be in two places at once?’ Gemma asked. ‘While he was supposedly shooting at you two on that road near the firearms truck, he was also down here at the pub telling me we’d had a power cut.’

‘There’s a time discrepancy there,’ Heck said. ‘Only three shots were fired at us on that road, and we laid low for … I don’t know, forty minutes, maybe more. Easily long enough for him to get back to the village and tell you the lights had gone out.’

‘Ma’am,’ Mary Ellen said, ‘there were prolonged periods when Mick was in sole charge of the nick. That would have given him ample opportunity not just to pinch my boat and chase you guys up the fells, but to cause damage to phone lines, vehicles … not to mention murder potential witnesses.’

‘How did he get over to the far shore to pinch your boat, Mary-Ellen?’ Gemma wondered. ‘Did he
walk
around? It would have taken him hours.’

Mary-Ellen shook her head. ‘Two minutes from here, down at the village jetty, there are kayaks, canoes … and he’s an ex-Royal Marine. It wouldn’t have taken him very long to paddle over to the east shore.’

Gemma gazed at Heck searchingly. ‘Are you
really
sold on this?’

He shrugged, sighed. ‘Truth is I don’t know. I really don’t. There are lots of questions to answer … would McGurk have had time to kill all these people? Possibly not. Heggarty was with him at least part of that time. Was he even up here when the first of yesterday’s murders were committed? I don’t know that either, not yet. I considered earlier that he might have had an accomplice … I mean that would explain a lot, but even then it wouldn’t totally add up. There are all sorts of contradictory messages here. But the point is, ma’am, we can’t pretend we didn’t find that wristband on the quad-bike. In evidential terms, that’s pretty overwhelming. Mick McGurk has
got
to be involved in this somehow.’