Hunted. Paul Finch

boots, which had smeared him with oil or paint. But no, now he could feel the weight of it and the multiple pinprick sensation where it had apparently gripped him. He still didn’t realise what the thing actually was, not even when he held it close to his face – but then Deggsy had only ever seen scorpions on the telly, so perhaps this was unsurprising. Mind you, even on the telly he’d never seen a scorpion with as pale and shiny a shell as this one had – it glinted like polished leather in the flickering streetlights. It was at least eight inches from nose to tail, that tail now curled to strike, and had a pair of pincers the size of crab claws that were extended upwards in the classic defensive pattern.

      It couldn’t be real, he told himself distantly.

      Was it a toy? It had to be a toy.

      But then it stung him.

      At first it shocked rather than hurt; as though a red-hot drawing pin had been driven full-length into his flesh, and into the bone underneath. But that minor pain quickly expanded, filling his suddenly frozen arm with a white fire, which in itself intensified – until Deggsy was screaming hysterically. By the time he’d knocked the eight-legged horror back into the footwell, he was writhing and thrashing in his seat, frothing at the mouth as he struggled to release his suddenly restrictive belt. At first, Dazzer thought his mate was play-acting, though he shouted warnings when Deggsy’s convulsions threatened to interfere with his driving.

      And then something alighted on Dazzer’s shoulder.

      Despite the wild swerving of the car, it had descended slowly, patiently – on a single silken thread – and when he turned his head to look at it, it tensed, clamping him like a hand. In the flickering hallucinogenic light, he caught brief glimpses of vivid, tiger-stripe colours and clustered demonic eyes peering at him from point-blank range.

      The bite it planted on his neck was like a punch from a fist.

      Dazzer’s foot jammed the accelerator to the floor as his entire body went into spasms. The actual wound quickly turned numb, but searing pain shot through the rest of him in repeated lightning strokes.

      Neither lad noticed as the car mounted an embankment, engine yowling, smoke and tattered grass pouring from its tyres. It smashed through the wooden palings at the top, and then crashed down through shrubs and undergrowth, turning over and over in the process, and landing upside down in a deep-cut country lane.

      For quite a few seconds there was almost no sound: the odd groan of twisted metal, steam hissing in spirals from numerous rents in mangled bodywork.

      The two concussed shapes inside, while still breathing, were barely alive in any conventional sense: torn, bloodied and battered, locked in contorted paralysis. They were still aware of their surroundings, but unable to resist as various miniature forms, having ridden out the collision in niches and crevices, now re-emerged to scurry over their warm, tortured flesh. Deggsy’s jaw was fixed rigid; he could voice no complaint – neither as a mumble nor a scream – when the pale-shelled scorpion reacquainted itself with him, creeping slowly up his body on its jointed stick-legs and finally settling on his face, where, with great deliberation it seemed, it snared his nose and his left ear in its pincers, arched its tail again – and embedded its stinger deep into his goggling eyeball.

       Chapter 2

      Heck raced out of the kebab shop with a half-eaten doner in one hand and a carton of Coke in the other. There was a blaring of horns as Dave Jowitt swung his distinctive maroon Astra out of the far carriageway, pulled a U-turn right through the middle of the bustling evening traffic, and ground to a halt at the kerb. Heck crammed another handful of lamb and bread into his mouth, took a last slurp of Coke, and tossed his rubbish into a nearby bin before leaping into the Astra’s front passenger seat.

      ‘Grinton putting an arrest team together?’ he asked.

      ‘As we speak,’ Jowitt said, shoving a load of documentation into Heck’s grasp and hitting the gas. More horns tooted despite the spinning blue beacon on the Astra’s roof. ‘We’re hooking up with them at St Ann’s Central.’

      Heck nodded, leafing through the official Nottinghamshire Police paperwork. The text he’d just received from Jowitt had consisted of thirteen words, but they’d been the most important thirteen words anyone had communicated to him for quite some time:

       Hucknall murder a fit for Lady Killer

       Chief suspect – Jimmy Hood

       Whereabouts KNOWN

      Heck, or Detective Sergeant Mark Heckenburg, as was his official title in the National Crime Group, felt a tremor of excitement as he flipped the light on and perused the documents. Even now, after seventeen years of investigations, it seemed incredible that a case that had defied all analysis, dragging on doggedly through eight months of mind-numbing frustration, could suddenly have blown itself wide open.

      ‘Who’s Jimmy Hood?’ he asked.

      ‘A nightmare on two legs,’ Jowitt replied.

      Heck had only known Jowitt for the duration of this enquiry, but they’d made a good connection on first meeting and had maintained it ever since. A local lad by birth, Dave Jowitt was a slick, clean-cut, improbably handsome black guy. At thirty, he was a tad young for DI, but what he might have lacked in experience he more than made up for with his quick wit and sharp eye. After the stress of the last few months of intense investigation, even Jowitt had started to fray around the edges, but tonight he was back on form, collar unbuttoned and tie loose, careering through the chaotic traffic with skill and speed.

      ‘He lived in Hucknall when he was a kid,’ Jowitt added. ‘But he spent a lot of his time back then locked up.’

      ‘Not just then either,’ Heck said. ‘According to this, he’s only been out of Roundhall for the last six months.’

      ‘Yeah, and what does that tell us?’

      Heck didn’t need to reply. Roundhall was a low-security prison in the West Midlands. According to these antecedents, Jimmy Hood, now aged in his mid-thirties, had served a year and a half there before being released on licence. However, he’d originally been held at Durham after drawing fourteen years for burglary and rape. As if the details of his original crimes weren’t enough of a match for the case they were currently working, his most recent period spent outside prison put him neatly in the frame for the activities of the so-called ‘Lady Killer’.

      ‘He’s a bruiser now and he was a bruiser then,’ Jowitt said. ‘Six foot three by the time he was seventeen, and burly with it. Scared the crap out of everyone who knew him. Got arrested once for chucking a kitten into a cement mixer. In another incident, he led some other juveniles in an attack on a building site after the builders had given them grief for pinching tools – both builders got bricked unconscious. One needed his face reconstructing. Hood got sent down for that one.’

      Heck noted from the paperwork that Hood, of whom the mugshot portrayed shaggy black hair fringing a broad, bearded face with a badly broken nose – a disturbingly similar visage to the e-fit they’d released a few days ago – had led this particular street gang, which had involved itself in serious crime in Hucknall, from the age of twelve. However, he’d only commenced sexually offending, usually during the course of burglary, when he was in his late teens.

      ‘So he comes out of jail and immediately picks up where he left off?’ Heck said.

      ‘Except that this time he murders them,’ Jowitt replied.

      Heck didn’t find that much of a leap. Certain types of violent offender had no intention of rehabilitating. They were so set on their life’s work that they regarded prison time – even a prolonged stretch – as a hazard of their chosen vocation. He’d known plenty who’d gone away for a lengthy sentence, and had used it to get fit, mug up on all the latest criminal techniques, and gradually accumulate a head of steam that would erupt with devastating force once they