Hunted. Paul Finch

…’

      ‘Something wrong?’ Royton asked him.

      ‘No sir, it’s fine,’ Heck said. ‘Only no one told me.’

      ‘Perhaps you should have asked?’ DC Honeyford said. ‘Just a thought.’

      This is going to be great, Heck told himself.

      ‘As long as we have an interest in this too, it seemed an obvious thing to put you two together,’ Royton added. ‘Create a two-man taskforce. You wouldn’t want to do it all on your own, would you?’

      ‘Well … as I say, sir, I’m only really here to see if this case fulfils the criteria for an SCU enquiry.’

      ‘So you’re not actually here to investigate the crash,’ DC Honeyford said. It was an observation rather than a question.

      ‘I was under the impression that had already been done.’

      ‘Oh, this is superb.’ She sat back as if her worst suspicions were confirmed. ‘You’re gonna be a load of help.’

      ‘I’ll do my best.’ Heck fished the evidence sack from his pocket and tossed it onto her desk. ‘Perhaps, while I’m getting my stuff from the car, you can log this in for DNA analysis?’

      She peered down at it with distaste. ‘That’s a tooth.’

      ‘Yep. Found it at the crash site.’

      She glanced up. ‘What were you doing there?’

      ‘Nothing too strenuous.’ Heck backed towards the door. ‘Just my job.’

       Chapter 7

      It soon became evident to Heck that, while there were no obvious serial elements attached to the two attempts on Harold Lansing’s life (if that was what they were), there was something vaguely weird about both. The fatal crash could conceivably have been an accident, though it was difficult to see how a man like Lansing, who had suffered no previous mishap on the roads and had no driving convictions, could have pulled out at such a dangerous spot without consulting the safety mirror first.

      The previous incident was even more puzzling.

      Lansing had owned a small fishing beat on a quiet stretch of the River Mole between Brockham and Sidlow; the rather unfortunately named Deadman’s Reach. He was in the habit of spending several hours here each weekend, coarse fishing for barbel, bream, and chub. Not a particularly dangerous pastime, one might have thought, except that on the afternoon of Saturday 21 June a large(ish) model aeroplane, which Lansing only caught a fleeting glimpse of but later described as ‘World War One style, and bluey-yellow’, nosedived him from a considerable height. Lansing, who at the time was in his usual spot, standing with rod in hand on a small stone quay on the west bank, tried to dodge away, lost his footing, and fell into the river, which was running swift and deep. Some eighty yards further down, he was swept over a weir. Had it not been for another angler, who spotted him struggling under the surface and by pure good fortune happened to be a strong swimmer, Lansing would have died there and then.

      But a model plane as a murder weapon?

      Heck had never heard of such a thing.

      Apparently a local flying club, the Doversgreen Aviators, had been using a meadow just behind Deadman’s Reach at the time. All the club members who’d been present that day had been interviewed since, and all had insisted that the stringent safety regulations built into their sport had been strictly observed. None would admit to having lost control of their model aircraft, or even to having owned any model matching the description given. Lansing, though he’d half drowned and had been kept in hospital for quite a few days afterwards, had later told the police that he’d thought the plane, which had struck his arm as he’d tried to evade it, leaving a massive bruise, had then gone spinning out of control and landed in the water alongside him. The riverbank had later been searched but no such model was recovered.

      Like the incident at Rosewood Grange, this whole thing read like an ultra-freakish accident, but two such events in two weeks – happening to the same person?

      Heck pondered these unsatisfying facts later that afternoon as he parked his Peugeot in a car park to the rear of the Ploughman’s Rest, booked himself in, and took a single heavy travel bag up to the room he’d been allocated, which was small, cosy, and neatly furnished, its lattice-paned, ivy-fringed window overlooking the green.

      When he came back downstairs, he spotted Gail Honeyford in the snug. A smart suit jacket was draped over the back of her chair and a glass of what looked like iced lemonade sat on the table alongside her, but again she was tapping away on her laptop. He hadn’t seen much of her after they’d been introduced that afternoon. Vacating the office for the pub was not unusual in CID circles when there was someone new in the team who needed ‘breaking in’, but it wasn’t often the case that you fled to the pub to try and get some work done. Had she felt she was more likely to make progress with whatever she was doing if she didn’t have to keep updating the new guy?

      Heck wandered towards her, hands tucked into his jeans pockets. She watched him from the corner of her eye, but her facial language remained neutral.

      ‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.

      ‘Suppose it’s a free country.’

      ‘Was when I last checked.’ She glanced at him fleetingly, unamused by the quip. He pulled up a chair. ‘That was supposed to be a joke, by the way.’

      ‘Hilarious.’ She got on with her work.

      ‘We’ve really started on the wrong foot, haven’t we? Can I get you a drink maybe?’

      ‘No thanks.’

      ‘DC Honeyford … you ever heard the phrase “work with me”? I’m trying to be friendly here.’

      ‘Yeah, I appreciate that, and look …’ She sat back, her expression softening – which suited her. On closer inspection, she was peaches-and-cream pretty with fetching hazel eyes. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve come over a little brusque. But you aren’t going to be around here very long, so I don’t see the point in us developing a relationship. Professional or otherwise.’

      ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we supposed to be forming a taskforce?’

      ‘That was the boss’s idea, not mine. I’ve already got this case covered.’

      ‘Okay, fine. In the meantime, you sure you don’t want that drink?’

      ‘I’m sure. Thanks.’

      Heck strolled to the bar, where the landlord, a jovial, beefy-cheeked local man with a frenzy of ginger hair was happy to serve him a pint of Best. When Heck sat down again, DC Honeyford clucked with barely disguised annoyance.

      ‘Problem with the laptop?’ he asked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Good; perhaps we can get on then. What’s the hypothesis?’

      She glanced up. ‘Pardon?’

      ‘You’ve obviously done a lot of work on this, and I respect that massively. So what’s your main theory?’

      ‘If you must know, this is a murder – and it’s almost certainly connected to Lansing’s business affairs.’

      ‘You’re sure Lansing was the target, and not Dean Torbert?’

      She glanced at him again, as if he was some kind of buffoon. ‘If it wasn’t Lansing, that model aeroplane attack was a hell of a coincidence.’

      ‘Coincidences sometimes happen.’

      ‘Torbert was a first-year university student. He hadn’t lived long enough to upset anyone that badly.’

      ‘How