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evidence.’
    ‘Celebrating its capture hardly seemed appropriate, given that two men had died.’
    ‘I know that.’
    She sat back. ‘It won’t surprise you to learn that Max Humphreys has distanced himself – by some margin – from the comments Bob Hunter made on the hospital steps.’
    ‘No, that doesn’t surprise me.’
    Detective Chief Superintendent Max Humphreys of the Thames Valley Police, nominal SIO in the M1 Maniac enquiry, had struck Heck from the outset as an uninspiring leader; too old and tired, too disorganised, and alarmingly prone to avoiding responsibility. For all that, Bob Hunter’s triumphalist attitude in front of the press had been very ill-advised, given the errors that would later emerge.
    ‘Now in actual fact,’ Gemma said, ‘I’m not too concerned that
you
were involved in that extremely injudicious press conference. I know you were acting under Hunter’s orders, and I’ve already had it verbatim from DCs Quinnell and McCluskey that you were against the idea. But I’m very concerned at the way this investigation ended overall. What should have been a feather in our cap has brought ridicule on us. The press are ripping us a new one.’
    Heck snorted. ‘To be fair, ma’am, the press did their own bit to turn the M1 Maniac into a monster.
They
created the name,
they
caused the anti-gay panic. In fact, the whole thing’s ended too quickly for them. They wanted more and more – a show-trial, exemplary sentences, maybe a protracted appeals process. And now they can’t have it, and they’re looking for scapegoats …’
    ‘Have you finished?’ she asked, eyebrows arched. ‘Because anyone would think
you
believe the investigation was handled well!’
    He shook his head. ‘Ma’am, Chief Superintendent Humphreys …’
    ‘I’m well aware of Max Humphreys’ shortcomings. He’ll be getting exactly the same bollocking up at Thames Valley that you lot are getting now. But Max Humphreys is a carrot cruncher, whereas
we’re
supposed to be experts. We were advising him, leading the enquiry, and by the looks of it, missing stuff that was right under our noses.’
    Heck nodded, unable to disagree. ‘That’s why I spent three days going back through the files. I’d never known any case before where we just weren’t getting anywhere.’
    ‘And it was good initiative. So congratulations. And I mean that, Heck.’ She sighed, the annoyance finally sapped out of her. ‘If you hadn’t done what you did, God alone knows how this thing would have ended. But … and I appreciate it may not seem very important after how close you came to getting killed, this is not the way the brass want the Serial Crimes Unit portrayed. Like some redneck posse charging around. Especially not after the investigation was botched. Needless to say, the Savage family is pushing for a public enquiry. The coroner exonerated us of any wrongdoing, the case is officially closed and it’s in no one’s interest to rake over it again, so I’m sure we’ll be spared
that
… thank God. But at the end of the day it’s about professionalism. We need to keep the mayhem to a minimum.’
    ‘Has anyone told the criminals that?’
    She arched an eyebrow again. ‘Are you trying to be clever?’
    ‘No, ma’am … but, it’s not an irrelevant point.’
    ‘One way or another, the criminals will go down. My concern is that SCU may go down with them.’
    ‘How so? We stopped the M1 killers …’
    ‘We also stopped the Nice Guys Club, and look at the bad publicity that caused.’
    ‘That was Laycock.’
    ‘And he paid the price,’ she said. ‘Which should be a salutary lesson to all of us.’
    Heck pursed his lips, nodding. There was no question that she was right on that score. The Nice Guys enquiry, in which he had played an integral role, had led to several deaths on both sides of the law, and an embarrassing internal investigation, which eventually saw National Crime Group Commander Jim Laycock demoted in rank