‘I’m saying you’re not the sort of police officer I necessarily want working under me.’
‘I’d never have guessed.’ At last Heck allowed himself to show some emotion. ‘From the very first day of that missing women enquiry, I didn’t get one word of support from you, Sir. Not one.’
‘I wasn’t convinced by the evidence.’
‘What would you know about evidence? You’re not a copper, you’re a politician.’
Laycock’s lips tightened again. Consummate actor though he was, Heck always managed to bring out the beast in him. ‘You’re lucky no one else is present to hear this, sergeant.’
‘If anyone else was present, I wouldn’t be saying it.’
‘I can still break you, Heckenburg.’
‘Yeah, you’re apparently an expert.’ Heck knew he was going too far now, but suddenly all the frustration and annoyance of the last few months was pouring out. ‘They tell me that when you were a uniformed inspector at Ladbroke Grove, after refusing to spare anyone to clear the yobs away from the war memorial, where they’d been drinking all day, you personally supervised the arrest and conviction of an old lady who’d hit one of them with her brolly.’
‘If you’ve got a job to come back to in December, I’ll be extraordinarily surprised.’
‘It’s a pity you can’t divert some of that belligerence into standing up to the Home Office and demanding more money for our major enquiries,’ Heck retorted. ‘Or how about standing up to the CPS when they say we can’t proceed with a prosecution because there’s only a small chance of success?’
‘You really think you’re fireproof just because you used to shag your super?’
That comment caught Heck on the hop. He’d thought that only Des Palliser was aware he’d once had a romance with Gemma Piper; it was ancient history after all, when they were both young, newly made detectives.
Laycock chuckled again. ‘Oh yes. You’d be amazed at some of the things I know. You see, that’s the difference between you and me, Heckenburg. You’re just a foot-soldier, a grunt. And I’m a five-star general. I’m running the whole show. It’s my job to know everything. But by all means, if you really fancy it, try and take me on. I’d relish the contest, though it wouldn’t last for long.’
Realising that he was on dodgier ground than he’d first thought, Heck said nothing. He grabbed his jacket from a chair and pulled it on.
‘All my service I’ve been meeting coppers like you,’ Laycock added, leaning so close that Heck could smell his sweat. ‘Surly, resentful, jealous of those who’ve earned promotion, embittered that they have to take orders from people they consider themselves superior to. Determined that anyone who doesn’t operate at their mediocre level is to be sneered at. Well I’m not going to stand for it in NCG anymore. We’re an elite outfit. There’ll be no dissent in these ranks. And if you think you’re going to be the exception to that rule because you’re protected, you – and your protectress, I might add – could both be in for a big shock. Now get out of my sight.’
As Heck left, he realised that he should have gone earlier, before he’d let his mouth run away with him. It was just that, with three months of leave looming, he might not have got another chance to have a pop at the person most responsible for wrecking his case.
Not that some of the things said in retaliation hadn’t stung him. To start with, his attitude to Laycock had nothing to do with Gemma Piper providing him cover. In truth, he’d never even considered her that way – until now. The real reason was that he’d always found his supreme boss so aggravating that open criticism of him was unavoidable. It wasn’t even a personality clash; the wound went much deeper than that. To Heck, Laycock was a poster-child for the modern-day senior policeman; young, good looking, university-educated as well as being an ex-military man – and more than capable of kissing all the right buttocks. In short, he embodied everything that was turning British law-enforcement into a career opportunity rather than a vocation.
Not that going lip-to-lip with your commanding officer like Heck had just done, was well-advised. Okay, there’d been no witnesses, so there’d be no one to corroborate accusations at a disciplinary hearing. But he had no doubt that Laycock could and would fix it for him somehow, if he got the chance. There were times when Heck would say that he didn’t care about stuff like that; that as far as he was concerned an idiot was an idiot, and he would always use that exact terminology because he couldn’t abide being disingenuous. But there were other times when he regretted this impulsive nature. It wasn’t as if he was innately rebellious or insolent. Fair enough, he resented having seventeen years in and still only holding the rank of sergeant, but he accepted his place in the pyramid of power. But there was something about Laycock and the number-crunching suits he represented that really stuck in Heck’s craw.
Of course, whatever the reason for it, today’s confrontation – and it was only one of several he’d had with Laycock, but it had been more explosive than most – might have more serious repercussions than usual. Until now Heck had always relied on his reputation for being a highly productive officer who’d sent way more than his fair share of slags and skags to prison, to guarantee his job security. In addition to that, aside from his differences with Laycock, he had a relatively clean shirt. So it wouldn’t be easy ousting him. And it would be even harder to oust Gemma. She was probably the NCG’s most prized asset: not only was she a woman, which was always a bonus these days, but she’d blazed her way through the male-dominated world of CID with skill, guile, determination and, above all, results, and had earned her high position because she deserved it rather than because of positive discrimination. On top of all that, she was eye-candy, so it looked particularly good when she was accepting her commendations on TV. But Laycock would still try to stick the knife in, possibly using the missing women enquiry, and how much cash had drained into it for so little return, as the main springboard of his assault.
Which, when Heck thought about it, made the plan he was now hatching for the next three months – extremely risky though it was – all the more important.
Louise looked herself over in the mirror.
She’d had the shower as instructed, and had done the best she could with her hair and make-up, though it had hardly been a labour of love. The clothes she’d finally selected would never have been her normal choice, but there hadn’t been much option. She’d put on dark stockings, a short, black, pleated skirt, a red silk blouse with ruffles at the front, and a smart black jacket. The trashy red and black shoes had come last, though in truth the whole thing was trashy, not to mention demeaning; it was the ‘office look’ perhaps, though a male fantasy version of it rather than the real thing. She hadn’t been able to find a single item of underwear that didn’t come straight from the advertising section of Penthouse, and after some searching had eventually opted for a matching set of black lace bra and knickers, though the knickers were so sheer that they might as well not have been there.
Not that this troubled her now. Briefly, as she stood rigid in front of the cold glass, wearing skimpy drawers seemed the very least of her problems.
She kept envisioning her house, her garden, Alan’s tousled head and grinning face when he woke her up each morning with a cup of tea, the spare bedroom they’d tentatively begun to think of as a nursery, which she’d filled in her imagination with soft, pink and white furniture, with cuddly toys, with animal mobiles turning on strings, with Disney wallpaper – but no, no, NO!
It didn’t pay to dwell on those things. She had to focus on the positives. She’d been a prisoner all this time, but they hadn’t yet brutalised her; in fact they’d fed her, watered her, allowed her to wash. In some ways that was sinister, but