A Wanted Man [A PC Heckenburg Short Story]. Paul Finch

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.