Dead Man Walking by Paul Finch Page B

corpse?’
    ‘Didn’t find one.’
    ‘Well we can’t get any help up here to do a proper pattern-search until this weather clears.’
    They’d emerged onto the bank, back into the glare of the outboard’s spotlight. Tara Cook lay as before. Heck angled back towards her, and knelt. He didn’t want to disturb the scene more than he already had and would avoid making further contact if possible, but it had belatedly occurred to him to check for any lividity marks, maybe even signs of rigor mortis, as either of those could give a clearer indication how long the girl had been dead. He reached down towards her and suddenly the body twitched. Heck froze. For several helpless seconds he knelt rigid, as, without warning, the ‘corpse’ reached a violently shuddering hand towards his face, and drew five carmine finger-trails down his cheek. Still, neither he nor Mary-Ellen were able to respond.
    Tara Cook’s head now lolled onto her shoulder. Her puffy eyes were still swollen closed, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, she opened her mouth. A low moan surged out, along with globs of fresh blood, which spattered down the front of her filthy cagoule.
    ‘Good Christ!’ Mary-Ellen breathed.
    ‘Good Christ indeed!’ Heck said urgently.
‘She’s only bloody alive!’
    As they worked frantically on the girl, her moan rose in volume and intensity until it was a prolonged, keening screech, which rebounded from the cliffs overhead and all across the misted, semi-frozen lake.

Chapter 4
    ‘Gemma Piper,’ came the voice on the line. It was clipped, efficient. Time hadn’t softened that aspect of his ex-boss’s personality. Not that much ever did.
    Time, though. It had actually only been two and a half months since he and Gemma had had the mother of all fall-outs, yet in some ways, it seemed like a lifetime.
    ‘Ma’am,’ he said.
    ‘Heck?’ He couldn’t tell whether she was pleased to hear from him or not. The probability was she was more surprised. ‘Where are you calling from?’
    ‘Cragwood Keld nick, South Cumbria.’
    ‘Oh … right.’ Perhaps she’d fleetingly wondered if he was back down in London for some reason.
    ‘Currently buried in the muckiest November fog I’ve ever seen,’ Heck added. ‘The whole of the Lakes is in lockdown at present, ma’am. Nothing’s moving.’
    She’d sounded curious about his call, but her patience, as always, was wearing thin, especially now he’d got onto the weather. ‘What can I do for you, Heck?’
    ‘We’ve just had an attempted double homicide.’
    ‘I see. Local to your subdivision?’
    ‘Right on it.’
    ‘Good job they’ve got you there.’
    ‘Thing is, ma’am, I think this one may be of interest to you.’
    ‘You said two
attempted
homicides. Have you actually had any fatalities?’
    ‘Not sure.’
    ‘Doesn’t sound like an SCU job, Heck. Give it to South Cumbria Crime Command in the first instance. That’s what they’re there for …’
    ‘No … I think it may be of interest to
you
, as in you personally, rather than SCU.’
    ‘Okay …?’ Now she sounded cautious, not to say sceptical, but she knew Heck well enough to at least give him a hearing. ‘Go on …’
    ‘It was a blitz attack, seemingly without motive. Two girls hiking in the Langdale Pikes got themselves lost in the fog. The next thing they know, they’re being followed by someone who attacks them. The first one he beats down with a stone. The second one he shoots.’
    There was a lengthy pause. ‘This is news to me. When did it happen?’
    ‘Last night, around midnight.’
    ‘Nasty stuff, but I still don’t see …’
    ‘Two female hitchhikers alone on a dark night? Getting jumped by a single assailant, who takes one of them out ASAP with a lump of rock?’
    ‘That would be a common sense strategy for any random attacker attempting to overpower two people at the same time.’
    ‘I’m not sure this is a random attacker, ma’am. While he was stalking them through the fog,