The Killing Club (2 page)

Heck turned from the video monitor, and ambled across the ‘Operation Bulldog’ Incident Room to the display boards bearing images of the crime scenes. There were three in total, and each one was located in a different corner of Hendon, Sunderland’s old dockland.

The first, where Selleck had died, was inside a derelict garage; the second, the site of Dean’s death, on a canal bank; and the third – the death-scene of Nathan Crabtree himself – under a railway arch. From the close-up glossies, it ought to have been easy to distinguish the victims as white males in their mid-to-late twenties, but it wasn’t. So much blood had streamed down the faces and upper bodies from the multiple contusions to their crania, and had virtually exploded from the yawning, crimson chasms where their throats had once been, that no facial features were visible. Even distinguishing marks like tattoos, scars and piercings had been obliterated – at least until such time as the medical examiners had been able to move the bodies and wash them down.

The murders had happened over a three-week period the previous August, and though they’d raised a few eyebrows among the police, that had been more through surprise than dismay – because Crabtree and his crew had been well-known scumbags. Members of a semi-organised group called the National Socialist Elite, they were basically skinheads without the haircuts, but also football hooligans and small-time drug dealers. They’d spent most of the last few years menacing local householders, drinking, brawling and alternately bullying or trying to indoctrinate younger residents with their unique brand of hard-line British ‘patriotism’. They’d been against Muslims, queers, lefties and – taking a break from the political stuff, just to win some brownie points with the common man – nonces. They were believed to be responsible for the brutal beating of an OAP in his own home after the rumour had got around that he was listed on the Sex Offenders’ Register. The rumour had later turned out to be incorrect, but either way, the case against them was unproved.

‘No, he was a paedo, for sure … and the lads knew it,’ Crabtree was reported to have said, after the revelation the victim was innocent. ‘Someone needed to sort him.’

The problem was, someone had now sorted the lads.

And in spectacular fashion.

The first victim had simply been dragged into a garage, and there beaten unconscious before having his throat cut with a sharp, heavy blade. At the time it could have been anything from a mugging gone wrong to a personal score. But then the other two had been nabbed over the following two weeks, and it became apparent that something more sinister was going on. The second victim, after being hammered with a blunt instrument, had been bound to a fence on the side of a canal, and had his throat cut with the same blade as before. In Nathan Crabtree’s case, the perpetrators had gone even further. Though his body had been found under a railway bridge, it had first been bound upright to a brick pillar with barbed wire, before his throat was slashed.

Heck appraised this scene the longest.

The wire was a nasty touch. Not just a sadistic measure designed to inflict maximum pain and distress, but indicative of enjoyment on the part of the killer. Whoever the perpetrator was – Heck wasn’t convinced they were dealing with more than one, but then he wasn’t in charge here – he’d displayed an aggressive loathing of his three targets, particularly Crabtree. Okay, that put Greg Matthews back into the picture – he’d clashed online with these right-wing apes more times than Heck could count, but there was still nothing in his past to suggest he was capable of such violence.

And then there was that damned barbed wire.

Heck couldn’t help thinking the use of such material was trying to spark a dim and distant memory – but it was proving elusive.

‘You’re not convinced we’ve got the right people, are you?’ someone said.

Heck turned. Detective Sergeant Barry Grant stood to his left, wearing his usual sardonic smile. Often, when Heck was posted out to Counties in his capacity as SCU consultant – or rather, a specialist investigator from the Serial Crimes Unit – he encountered a degree of resistance, though not in the case of DS Grant, the taskforce’s File Preparation Officer, and a chap who had so far proved very amenable.

Grant was a shortish, older guy but rather dapper, given to matching blazers and ties, buttoned collars and pressed slacks. He had a well-groomed mop of chalk-grey hair and horn-rimmed glasses, the net effect of which was to make him look a little old to be a serving copper – not an inaccurate impression, as he was well into his fifties. But as Heck had already discovered, Grant was here for his brain, not his brawn.

Heck shrugged. ‘I’m not saying there wasn’t enough for us to pull Matthews in … but whoever carved these ignoramuses up was seriously
driven
. I mean, they were on a mission … which they planned and executed to the letter.’

They assessed the gruesome imagery together. Alongside Grant, Heck looked even taller than his six feet. He had a lean but solid build, rugged ‘lived-in’ features and unruly dark hair, which never seemed neat even when he combed it. As usual, his suit already appeared worn and crumpled, even though it was clean on that day.

‘I hear you think we should be looking for a single suspect?’ Grant said. ‘Rather than a group like Matthews and his people.’

Heck pursed his lips. He’d made the comment a couple of times during the post-arrest debrief, but had thought no one was listening.

‘I know it doesn’t look likely on the face of it,’ he said. ‘But here’s my thinking. Crabtree and his gang lived and breathed urban violence, and they were usually team-handed. There’s at least five or six of them still at large. They’re also connected with various football factories, which means they can call an army into the field if they need one. On top of that, they have local credentials. They know every alley and subway. The whole East End of Sunderland is their turf.’

‘All of which makes it less likely that one bod could do this on his own,’ Grant said.

‘Not if he knows the ground too,’ Heck argued. ‘In all three cases, the vics were skilfully entrapped. Witnesses say Crabtree chased someone half a mile before he was killed – in other words he was lured. Course, they didn’t say who by. They didn’t get a proper look.’

‘They never do, do they.’

‘And apparently he was led a merry dance … all over the housing estates.’

A different display board featured a large, very detailed street map of the Hendon district. Trails of red felt pen, constructed from the fleeting glimpses witnesses had admitted to, indicated the zigzagging routes taken by the three victims, each one of whom – for reasons not yet known – had suddenly taken off in pursuit of someone in the midst of their everyday activities, the subsequent footrace leading each man directly to the spot where he was murdered. All three had been on their own at the time, which suggested they’d been observed beforehand, and stalked like prey.

‘We’re talking careful preplanning here and good local knowledge,’ Heck said. ‘Greg Matthews and his mates aren’t urban guerrillas … they’re student gobshites. On top of that, none of them are Sunderland natives.’

‘I’m not sold on Matthews either,’ Grant said, ‘but another crew could easily be responsible. I don’t see why it needs to be one man.’

‘Call it a hunch, but I keep thinking … Rambo.’

‘Rambo?’

‘First of all, we’ve canvassed all the main gangs on the east side of town. None of them are a fit. Secondly, none of your team’s grasses are talking, which more or less rules out the rest of the local underworld. That knocks it back into the political court – Matthews and his like. Except that no … they may
say
they’re fighting a war, they may dress like commandos, but whatever else they are, they aren’t
that
. Not for real.’ Heck rubbed his chin. ‘We’re looking for someone below the radar. Someone who knows every nook and cranny, but who’s a loner, a misfit …’

‘Could it be you’ve forgotten we’re in the Northeast?’ Grant chuckled. ‘A violent misfit? Won’t be a piece of piss singling him out.’

Heck pondered the question in the station canteen.

It was lunchtime so the place was crowded: uniforms and plain clothes, as well as traffic wardens and civvie admin staff. Heck had only been up here in the Northeast five weeks thus far, and aside from Grant, hadn’t made friends with anyone locally, so he sat alone in a corner, sipping tea and hoping the DSU in charge of the enquiry would eventually bail the suspect downstairs. It didn’t help that there were no alternative faces in the frame, but even if there had been Heck hadn’t made enough of a mark on the enquiry yet to expect his opinion to carry any weight. His SCU status, while politely acknowledged, didn’t cut much ice on its own – which in some ways he understood. The Serial Crimes Unit might be good at what they did, but they were based in London, which as far as many northern coppers were concerned was a different world. It didn’t matter that SCU had a remit to cover all the police force areas of England and Wales, and subsequently could send out ‘consultant officers’, like Heck, who had experience of investigating various types of serial cases in numerous different environments – there were still plenty of local lads who’d view it as interference rather than assistance.

‘Mind my whips and fucking stottie!’ a voice boomed in his ear.

A chair grated as it was pulled back from the table alongside Heck.

‘Oh … sorry,’ the uniform responsible said, noticing he’d nudged Heck’s arm and slopped his tea – though he didn’t particularly look sorry.

Heck nodded, implying it didn’t matter.

The uniform in question was one of a group of three, all loaded down with trays of food. The other two were younger, somewhere in their mid-to-late twenties, but this one was older, paunchier and of a vaguely brutish aspect: sloped forehead, flat nose, a wide mouth filled with yellowing, misaligned teeth. When he took off his hi-viz waterproof and hung it over the back of his chair, he was barrel-shaped, with flabby, hairy arms protruding from his stab-vest; when he removed his hat, he revealed a balding cranium with a thin, greasy comb-over. He ignored Heck further, exchanging more quips with his mates as they too sat down to eat.

Uniform refreshment breaks wouldn’t normally coincide with lunchtime, which on Division was reserved for the nine-till-five crowd, so this presumably meant the noisy trio had been seconded off-relief for some reason, most likely to assist with Operation Bulldog. Heck relapsed into thought, though at shoulder-to-shoulder proximity it was difficult for their gabbled conversation not to intrude on him, despite the strength of their accents. Heck was a northerner himself. He’d initially served in Manchester before transferring to the Metropolitan Police in London. Even though he’d now been based in the capital for the last decade and a half, there were many ways in which the north still felt more familiar than the south, though the north was hardly small – and Sunderland was a long way from Manchester.

The PC who’d nudged his arm was still holding the floor. Heck could just about work out what he was saying. ‘Aye t’was. Weirdest lad I’ve ever seen, this one.’

‘Ernie Cooper, you say?’ a younger colleague with a straight blond fringe replied.

‘Aye. Bit of an oddball.’

‘You were H2H off Wear Street?’ asked the other colleague, who was Asian.

‘Aye.’

‘Bet you didn’t get much change there?’

‘Wouldn’t think you’d find Ernie Cooper there,’ the older PC added. ‘Two-up-two-down. Bit of a shithole outside. Aren’t they fucking all, but that’s by the by. He answers the door – suit, tie, cardy. Like he’s ready to go to church or something.’

‘I know what you’re gonna say,’ the blond said. ‘It’s inside his house, isn’t it?’

‘Aye.’

‘Was in there last year. Reporting damage to his windows. Bairns chucking stones.’

‘Thought he was off to work, or something,’ the older PC explained, ‘so I says “Caught you at a bad time?” He says, “no, come in.” What a fucking place.’

‘Shrine to World War Two, isn’t it?’ the blond agreed.

Heck’s ears pricked up.

‘Everywhere,’ the older PC said. ‘Never seen as much wartime stuff. And it’s neat as a new pin, you know. It’s orderly. Like it matters to him.’

The blond mused. ‘Bit of an obsessive, I think. His dad, Bert, was a commando or something. Got decorated for bravery.’

It was a simple association of ideas, but Heck had been brooding on his own comments from earlier and the thought processes behind them – ‘
they may dress like commandos, but whatever else they are, they aren’t
that
.’

‘And then there’s that bloody big knife on his living-room wall,’ the older PC added. ‘Enough to scare the crap out of you.’

Heck turned on his chair. ‘Say that again?’

At first the three PCs didn’t realise he was talking to them. When they did, they gazed at him blankly.

‘Sorry … DS Heckenburg. I’m on Bulldog too.’

‘Aye?’ the older PC said, none the wiser.

‘I’ve been attached from the Serial Crimes Unit in London.’

‘Oh aye?’ This was Blondie. He sounded less than impressed.

‘It’s what you were saying about this bloke … Something Cooper?’

‘Ernie Cooper.’

‘His father was a veteran, yeah?’ Heck asked.

‘Was, aye,’ Blondie said. ‘Been dead five years.’

‘How old is the younger Cooper?’

The older PC, who wasn’t bothering to conceal how irked he felt that his meal had been interrupted, shrugged. ‘Late fifties … more.’

‘You know him?’

‘Not well.’

‘Has he got form?’

The older PC frowned. ‘Bit. From way back.’

‘Violence?’

‘Nothing serious.’

‘But now you say he’s got a big knife?’

‘Aye, but it’s not what you think. It’s a wartime memento … something his dad brought home. A kukri knife, you know. Antique now.’

Heck’s thoughts raced. The kukri knife – or khukuri, to be accurate – was that sharp, heavy, expertly curved weapon still used by Gurkha battalions in the British Army. It was infamously well designed to deliver a fatal stab wound, but was also known as a powerful chopping tool. And what was it one of the medical officers who’d examined the three murder victims had recently said? Something like: ‘The lacerations are deep – they’ve gone clean through the muscles of the oesophagus in a single incision. We’re talking a finely honed, but very heavy blade …’