A low rumble indicated the approach of a vehicle. Heck squatted lower. A soft-topped Volkswagen Sport roared past, leaves swirling in its wake. It was running smoothly, with no sign that it was suffering any kind of damage.
Heck relaxed again, ruminating for another fifteen minutes, reminding himself that patience and caution weren’t just virtues in this kind of work, they were essential. So much of the success enjoyed by professional criminals was down to the fear they created with their efficiency – the way they came and went like ghosts, the way they knew exactly who to victimise, exactly where to find such easy prey, exactly when to catch it at its most vulnerable. It bewildered and terrified the average man and woman; it was as though the felons possessed supernatural instincts. Yet in reality it owed to little more than thorough preparation and a bit of basic cunning, and in the case of distraction-thieves like this particular crew, a quick glance through the windows of a few parked cars. In some ways, that was impressive – you couldn’t fail to admire someone who was so good at what they did, even something as callous as this – but it didn’t make them the Cosa Nostra.
The radio crackled in his jacket pocket. ‘1416 to DS Heckenburg?’
‘Go ahead, M-E,’ he replied.
‘In position now, sarge.’
‘Stay sharp, over.’
‘Roger that.’
Another vehicle was approaching, this time minus the low, steady hum of a healthy engine. Instead, Heck heard a repeating metallic rattle – as if something was broken. He tensed as he lowered himself. Two seconds later, the BMW Coupe from The Three Ravens car park chugged past, its driver as yet unaware he had two slow-punctures on his nearside. Unaware now maybe, though not for long.
Heck tensed again, waiting. The thieves wouldn’t have dashed straight out of the pub in pursuit of the BMW’s occupants – that might have attracted attention – but they wouldn’t want to let them get too far ahead either. And right on cue, only half a minute later, the Hyundai itself came slowly in pursuit.
Heck dashed back to his Citroën, gunned it up the track to the main road and swung left. It was only a matter of distance now. With a single deflating tyre, it was possible an innocent motorist would keep driving, failing to notice, but with two, that was highly unlikely. Around the next bend, the road spooled out clearly for about two hundred yards, at the far end of which Heck saw the BMW wallowing to a halt beneath a twisted ash. The Hyundai prowling after it hadn’t reached that point yet, but was already decelerating.
Heck hit the brakes too, swinging his Citroën hard up onto the nearside verge so that it was out of sight. He jumped out, vaulted over the wall, and scrambled forward along undulating pasture, staying parallel to the road but keeping as low as he could.
This was the ideal spot for an ambush, he realised. Brown Howe was a lowering presence on the left, Pike of Blisco performing the same function on the right. Utter silence lay across the deserted, bracken-clad valley lying between them. The dull grey sky tinged everything with an air of wildness and desolation. No tents were visible, no hikers; there wasn’t even a shepherd or farm-worker in sight.
Heck advanced sixty yards or so, and moved back to the wall, where a belt of fir trees would screen him. The two cars were still visible, the Hyundai parked directly behind the BMW. Four people now stood by the vehicles’ nearside. A dumpy balding man and a thin white-haired woman, both in matching sweaters, had clearly been the occupants of the BMW. But Heck also saw the girl in the blonde wig, and the lean young man in the woolly cap, who even now was stripping off his cagoule, no doubt offering to change one of the BMW’s mangled tyres. Heck could imagine the advice he’d be giving them – mainly because the exact same spiel had been dealt to those others who’d suffered this fate in the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District.
‘A double blow-out’s a bit of a problem,’ the good samaritan would opine. ‘But if you use the spare to replace the front one, you should be able to get down to the nearest town, where a garage can fix the rear one for you.’
Wise advice, delivered in casual, friendly fashion – and all the while, the third member of the trio, the youth, who the victims wouldn’t even know was present, would be sliding unobtrusively out of the back of the Hyundai’s rear and crawling around to the target vehicle’s offside, from where he could open the passenger door and help himself to whatever jackets, coats, handbags and wallets had been dumped on the back seat. A classic distraction-theft, which even now – as Heck watched – had gone into play. The lad, still in his neutral grey clothing, snaked along the tarmac, passing the Hyundai on all fours.
Heck stayed in the field but ran forward at pace, climbing a low barbed-wire fence, and hissing into his radio. ‘Thieves on, M-E! Thieves on! Move it … fast!’
Mary-Ellen responded in the affirmative, but it was Heck who reached the scene of the crime first, zipping up his anorak as he jumped the wall and emerged on the roadside, coming around the twisted ash before anyone had even noticed.
‘Afternoon all,’ he said, strolling to the rear of the BMW, where the youth, still on hands and knees, but now with a purse, a wallet and an iPad laid on the road surface alongside him, could only gaze up, white-faced. ‘This is illegal, isn’t it?’
The elderly couple regarded Heck in bemusement, an expression that only changed when he scooped down, caught the lad under his armpit and hoisted him into view. At once the younger couple reacted; the girl backing away, wide-eyed, but the bloke turning and sprinting along the road.
He didn’t get far before Mary-Ellen’s Land Rover, blues and twos flickering, spun into view over the next rise, sliding to a side-on halt, blocking the carriageway. The thief fancied his chances when he saw the figure who emerged from it: a Cumbrian police uniform complete with hi-viz doublet, utility belt loaded with the usual appointments, cuffs, baton, PAVA spray and so forth, but with only a young woman inside it – probably younger than he was in fact, no more than twenty-three, and considerably shorter, no more than five foot five. Of course he didn’t know PC Mary-Ellen O’Rourke’s reputation for being a fitness fanatic and pocket battleship. When she crossed the road to intercept him, he tried to barge his way past, only to be taken around the legs with a flying rugby tackle, which brought him down heavily, slamming his face on the tarmac. He lay there groaning, his fake head-piece hanging off, exposing the fair hair underneath. Mary-Ellen knelt cheerfully on his back and applied the handcuffs.
‘Sorry folks,’ Heck said to the astonished elderly couple, as he marched past, driving the other two prisoners by the scruffs of their necks. ‘DS Heckenburg, Cumbrian Constabulary. We’ve been after this lot for a little while.’
‘We’ve not done nothing,’ the girl protested. ‘We were trying to help.’
‘Yeah, by lightening these good people’s load while they were on their holidays,’ Heck replied. ‘Well don’t worry, now you’re going on your holidays. At Her Majesty’s pleasure. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don’t mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence … in case you were wondering, you’re getting locked up for being a set of thieving little scrotes.’
It was mid-evening when the arresting officers finally returned from Windermere police station, where they’d taken their prisoners for interview and charge. While Mary-Ellen headed to Cragwood Keld nick to sign off and close up for the day, Heck made his first port of call The Witch’s Kettle, not least because on a cold, misty autumn night like this – the chill in the air had turned icy – the warm, ruddy light pouring from its windows was very alluring.