A Wanted Man [A PC Heckenburg Short Story]

‘Yeah, and CID will get the prisoners.’

‘Never mind. Perhaps you’ll catch the Spider instead.’

‘Nah.’ Heck turned thoughtful again. ‘DI Channing reckons he’s well away. Waste of time even thinking about him.’

‘Give over,’ she said, ‘… you’d love to nail that bastard, wouldn’t you!’

‘Who wouldn’t? But … like I say,’ Heck shook his head with certainty, ‘he’s well gone.’

‘Just think … you nab the Spider and you can shove him up Don Crawford’s arse.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that?’

Heck shrugged and said nothing.

The so-called ‘Spider’ was a prolific housebreaker who’d been terrorising the whole of West Manchester for the last three years. The press had dubbed him with his bizarre nickname because of his apparent array of acrobatic skills. He often entered private residences via skylights or upstairs windows, usually having scaled the drainage pipes and wormed his way in through the narrowest of gaps. Having been chased in the past, he’d escaped over rooftops, leaping drops between structures and vaulting high garden walls. Even so, the nickname had caused annoyance in some quarters because it was felt it was over-sensational, thus diluting the seriousness of the felon’s crimes – though technically a burglar, he was primarily a sex offender, raping and beating the lone female occupants of the houses he targeted. To date he’d struck eighteen times, though his most recent offence had been a year last September, which suggested to Detective Inspector Channing’s thirty-man taskforce that he’d either been imprisoned for something else, had been injured or become ill, or maybe even had died.

Heck wasn’t completely convinced by that, but what did he know? He had long-term ambitions to join CID, but at present he was a mere uniform, so his opinions weren’t required. Most likely they were right anyway. They’d had all sorts of shrinks and crime analysts working on the case. Heck had read the progress bulletins with interest, and though their authors acknowledged there could be no certainty about this, they all affirmed that predators of this sort rarely stopped of their own volition. The Spider might be lying low, taking a voluntary break from his nocturnal hobby, but most likely something had happened to him.

‘Anyway, don’t let Crawford get you down,’ Shawna said with another yawn. ‘Everyone knows what a self-important prick he is, sitting up there in his central-heated palace, acting like he’s running the whole show. The most excitement he gets in the day is bollocking bobbies.’

‘I’ll get another bollocking later, when Murph nabs me,’ Heck said.

Murph, or Bill Murphy, was the section sergeant on their relief. A big, brutish-looking, raw-boned bloke, Murph belied his appearance with an inclination towards affability, but as a former sergeant in the Guards he could be a holy terror when he wanted to, and he too would have heard the public humiliation of one of his constables, and therefore, in his opinion, the public humiliation of his entire team.

‘Better get working then,’ Shawna said, primly fitting her hat back in place, tucking her ponytail out of sight. ‘Lock some scrotes up before morning and he’ll probably cut you a load of slack.’

She opened the passenger door, the stale air of the wasteland wafting in. Heck gazed downhill to the silent edifices of the flats. Their last few lights had been extinguished. The only movement out there was provided by dead leaves and scraps of fluttering litter driven by the breeze. It was difficult to see where the next arrest was going to come from tonight.

‘1415 from Five?’ came the crackly radio voice of PC Linzi Gornall.

‘Go ahead, Linz,’ he replied.

‘Heck … can you look at a domestic on Kersal Rise, over?’

He glanced at his watch. It was ten past three in the morning. A domestic at this hour was likely to be a doozy. ‘Affirmative. What’s the address, over?’

‘Number eighteen.’

‘Roger, received …’ And then Heck paused, radio in hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ Shawna asked, half way out but now stopping.

‘I know 18, Kersal Rise,’ he said. ‘A lady called Alice Henshaw lives there. But she’s seventy years old and a widow.’ He put his radio back to his lips. ‘1415 to Five … any details, over?’

‘Neighbour reported screaming and shouting about two minutes ago, over.’

Heck glanced at Shawna. ‘That’s no domestic, that’s a break … quick, close the door!’

She jumped back in alongside him, and he threw the van into gear, swinging it around in a gravel-spurting three-point-turn.

‘Kersal Rise is off my beat,’ Shawna said. ‘I show up there, I’ll get a bollocking too.’

‘Tell them I picked you up en route. This isn’t a domestic, Shawna … and I need a wingman!’

‘You don’t think …?’

‘The Spider?’ he said, as he spun around the next corner, pushing his speedo past forty. ‘Dunno … but Alice Henshaw lives alone, and every address he’s attacked so far had a single female occupant. Plus it’s after 3 a.m. … the Spider always attacks between three and four.’

‘3395 to Five!’ Shawna shouted into her radio.

‘Go ahead, Shawna.’

‘I’m en route to 18, Kersal Rise with 1415 … we’re currently on Kingsway Lane, heading towards Station Avenue. Listen, Linzi … Heck knows the occupant of that address. It’s a woman living alone. We don’t think this is a domestic … it may be a burglary in progress, over!’

‘Roger, received …’ A split-second passed, before Linzi and the other Comms operators began calling up support units.

Kersal Rise would normally be five minutes away, in daytime traffic maybe ten, but this was now four a.m. and Heck had his foot to the floor. They made it in less than two. The house in question stood on the outskirts of another drear council estate, but was of old-fashioned terraced stock. The Rise itself sloped steeply up to the main road, and backed onto a deep cutting through which ran the Manchester-to-Southport railway.

‘How’d you know this lady?’ Shawna asked.

‘She’s a part-time cashier at the arcade on the precinct,’ he replied as he drove. ‘Last year she’s putting some takings in her car … and some fucking idiot’s lying in wait. He pulls a knife on her, snatches the money bag. Pure good fortune I was patrolling nearby. Soon as he sees me, he shoves her in the car, gets in himself, tries to drive … but I cut him off at the end of the access road. He jumps out again, legs it on foot, still carrying the takings … caught up with him at the other side of the car park.’

‘I remember. Good pinch. So that was her?’

‘Yeah. The scrote was Terry Robinson. He got three years. Alice was unhurt and got the money back … she’s been making me brews ever since.’

They skidded to a halt at the foot of Kersal Rise, bursting out of their respective doors. All the houses stood in darkness except for number eighteen. It was tall and narrow, its red-brick frontage showing distortions and fissures due to colliery subsidence. A single dull light glinted through its downstairs window.

‘Round the back, Shawna!’ Heck said.

‘It’s a terraced row … even in the van it’ll take me a couple of mins!’

Heck didn’t even want to wait that long. As he ran up the front path, he heard a wailing and weeping inside – and recognised the voice as Alice Henshaw’s.

‘Alright … but get on the blower, tell ’em we need help now!’

Shawna hovered by the van, grabbing her radio and shouting instructions into it.

Heck didn’t bother knocking or ringing the bell, just hit the hardwood door with his shoulder, exploding it inward, chains and hinges flirting loose. ‘Police!’ he shouted.

The light emanated from a room at the rear of the house, which he knew to be the lounge. It was dim but sufficient to illuminate the neat, lavender-scented hall and the single fluffy slipper lying near the foot of the stairs. Heck could picture the whole thing. Alice waking as the intruder entered her bedroom through its window, and fleeing downstairs, but her poor arthritic joints gaining her no advantage. The bastard catching her somewhere around here, dragging her through into the lounge.

‘Alice!’ Heck bellowed, barging down the hall with baton in hand.

The weeping upgraded into a shrill, desperate sobbing.

When he entered the room, two immediate things struck him. Firstly, the householder herself, lying curled in a ball on the couch to his left; her nightie had been pulled up and her underwear was around her knees, but it was her face that was bloodied, at least as far as he could see, because she was cupping it with both hands. Secondly, the narrow French window looking out into the small back yard stood partly open, swinging on the November breeze.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Shawna said, crowding into the room behind him.