Dead Man Walking. Paul Finch

Chapter 6

      Though it was only a journey of twenty-five miles, it took the ambulance two hours to arrive at Cragwood Keld from Kendal. The last few miles saw it crawling along Great Langdale and uphill into Cragwood Vale at less than a snail’s pace. It was the worst fog any of the ambulance crew had seen, but you didn’t play Lewis Hamilton on these roads even in blazing sunshine. It would be similarly slow progress heading back to Kendal; despite having a seriously injured person on board, there would be no police escort to clear the way – Mary-Ellen’s Land Rover was still at Cragwood Ho, and though Heck intended to travel down to the hospital in his own car at the first opportunity, there were a couple of things he needed to do up here first. But at least Tara Cook would now have health professionals alongside her and could be drip-fed painkillers.

      Heck stood in the doorway of the nick and watched as the ambulance pulled slowly away, its tail-lights dwindling like fish-eyes sinking into ocean gloom. Only now, outside in the cold again, did it occur to him that he was still wearing damp, musty clothes. He turned to Mary-Ellen. She’d already got changed. Organised to a tee, there always seemed to be a second uniform pressed and ready in M-E’s wardrobe for occasions such as this.

      ‘I’m nipping to the Section House to get some dry togs,’ he said. ‘Can you knock on a few doors … get everyone over to the pub?’

      ‘Sure, but I thought you were going down to Kendal with the ambulance.’

      ‘I’ll follow the ambulance. I want to speak to everyone else first.’

      ‘No probs,’ she said, eagerly, still enjoying the unaccustomed action. ‘I’ll get up and at ’em.’ She strode off across the road.

      It had often struck Heck as odd that an all-action character like Mary-Ellen had consciously sought reassignment to Cragwood Keld. He didn’t buy into her glib explanation that the moment she heard Heck was being posted here, she wanted to hook up with him because she’d read about his antics in the police press. It was a complex deal, swapping forces; the paperwork alone was off-putting. Heck knew, having done it several times. Plus, he couldn’t imagine what kind of action she’d thought she was going to get up here. Then again perhaps, as she’d also once said, she just loved the great outdoors.

      ‘I should have been a park-ranger, me, sarge,’ Heck remembered her once sniggering. ‘Gimme a horse, some buckskins and a whole range of empty mountains, and you can shag me any time you want.’

      Promises, promises, he thought as he headed down a ginnel opposite the station which connected with the village green. So long as she got the villagers together, that would do for the time being. On the right, at the end of the ginnel, was ‘the Section House’, as they called it – a one-up/one-down built of whitewashed stone, which, as it had had no permanent occupant for years, had been refurbished and taken on a long-term rental by Cumbria Constabulary. As police digs went, the Section House was actually pretty good. Okay, it was a bit compact – split-level, with the lounge, diner and kitchen all crammed into a single space downstairs, while the ‘bedroom’ was actually a timber balcony, accessible only by a loft-type ladder. But it was double-glazed and centrally heated, and it had all the mod cons Heck could need.

      He scrambled ‘topside’, as he thought of it, stripped off, towelled down, and then pulled on jeans, trainers and a hooded blue sweatshirt. As a rule, Heck tended not to view himself in mirrors anymore than he needed to. He was only in his late thirties, so he was hardly old, but his face had taken more than its fair share of kicks and punches over the years, and these days looked … well, ‘lived-in’ would be a polite way to describe it. At least he still had a full head of black hair, even if it was its usual unruly mop. He dragged a comb through it, before grabbing his phone, his radio and his cuffs, locked up and crossed the leaf-strewn green to The Witch’s Kettle, in which several of the villagers were already waiting.

      Hazel and Lucy stood behind the bar, regarding him curiously. As Hazel was the only person offering bed and breakfast accommodation in the vicinity, Heck had rung her shortly after getting back to the nick with Tara, to check no visitors had arrived unexpectedly. The reply had come in the negative, but he hadn’t had time to elaborate further.

      ‘We got everyone?’ he asked, approaching the bar.

      ‘What do you mean?’ she said.

      ‘Where’s Mary-Ellen?’

      ‘Here,’ the PC said, coming in after him with another woman. This was Bella McCarthy, a former investment banker from the Home Counties who lived in the Lakes in early retirement with her husband, James. He was already present in the pub. She sat down alongside James at the foremost table, the pair of them in matching green wellies and waxed overcoats.

      ‘That’s everyone, sarge.’ Mary-Ellen sidled to the bar.

      ‘Good.’ Heck turned to face the crowd, who were also seated but watching him expectantly.

      There weren’t too many of them actually. As well as the McCarthys, Ted Haveloc had arrived, along with Burt and Mandy Fillingham and a pair of spinster sisters, Dulcie and Sally O’Grady.

      ‘Hello, everyone,’ Heck said. ‘Thanks for dropping what you were doing and getting over here so promptly. By the way, does anyone here not know who I am?’

      There was no reply. He was pretty sure he’d spoken to all of these people, for various reasons, over the past two and a half months. ‘Okay … I’ll get right to the point. I’m afraid there’s been an incident. A pretty vicious attack in fact, not too far from here. Two young girls were walking in the Pikes when they were assaulted. Just the other side of the tarn, in fact.’

      The crowd listened in stony silence. But already, worried frowns were appearing.

      ‘I’m not saying there’s a specific threat to this community,’ Heck added. ‘But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least warn you. We’ve no idea who the perpetrator is, but this was fairly serious violence. On top of that, we’ve got reason to believe he may be armed.’

      ‘You mean with a gun?’ Burt Fillingham said, looking uncharacteristically bewildered. He was a short, squat man in late middle-age, with thinning, straw-blond hair and a curious line in tank-tops, ties and tinted spectacles; he was normally a rather superior, disapproving character, who viewed himself as an authority figure. He certainly knew everybody else’s business, which sort of went with the postmaster territory, Heck supposed, at least in a rural enclave like this.

      ‘Yes,’ Heck said. ‘We don’t know what kind yet, or how much ammunition he’s got … or even how willing he is to use it. The thing is, this attack occurred sometime last night. On which subject, I don’t suppose anyone heard anything out of the ordinary?’

      ‘I heard what sounded like a gunshot?’ Sally O’Grady said in a querulous tone. Around fifty, she was the younger of the two sisters by about ten years, and by far the most nervous, but both were physically similar to each other; tall and thin, with short grey hair. ‘It was a long way off though, I thought.’

      ‘What time would that have been?’ Heck asked. ‘Early hours maybe? Four o’clock? Five?’

      ‘Oh no, much earlier than that. I’d say around midnight.’

      ‘Okay.’ Heck threw a discreet nod at Mary-Ellen, who nodded back, acknowledging that he wanted her to take a statement from Sally later.

      ‘You folks don’t need me to tell you how vast and empty the Lakes can be at this time of year,’ Heck said. ‘I mean, this guy … he could have legged it in any direction. He could be miles and miles away by now. He might even have left the county. We’ve no clue about his transport capability.’

      ‘If this attack was up in the Pikes in the middle of the night, he must be a robust sort.’ This came from Ted Haveloc, a rugged, sun-wizened character, whose tattoos, broken teeth and chaos of wiry grey hair indicated a life spent largely outdoors and made him look much older than his sixty-two years.

      ‘We