The Killing Club. Paul Finch

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       Chapter 3

      Time hadn’t made much impact on the Hendon district of east Sunderland.

      It mainly comprised rows of age-old terraced housing, scruffy high-rise apartment blocks and the odd derelict industrial unit. A notorious area in law and order terms even during its docklands heyday, now it was largely unemployed, which made things even worse. The street they pulled up in was typical; a single row of houses facing onto a low-lying stretch of overgrown spoil-land cordoned off by a rickety old fence. The house fronts were black with grime, many of their doors dented and battered. It boasted ten dwellings in total and was bookended by two corner shops, which, as far as Heck could see, contained nothing but rubbish.

      They parked Farthing’s Vauxhall Astra patrol car opposite number three, alongside the only gate in the fence. As soon as they climbed out, the September breeze took hold of them. There had been squalling rain that morning and the road was still damp, its gutters lined with puddles. Now the sun had emerged, but rags of grey, wind-tossed cloud were strewn across it, absorbing any warmth. There was no one else in sight. No curtains twitched either in the house directly facing them, or in those next to it. No lights were on.

      PC Farthing knocked on the front door and waited, while Heck stood behind him. There was no response. The interior lights remained off. Farthing knocked again. Still there was nothing; not a sound from inside.

      He glanced at Heck and shrugged. ‘Well … we tried.’

      Heck ignored that, crouching at the letter flap and pushing it open. ‘Mr Cooper!’ he shouted. ‘This is the police. Can you open up please?’

      Still there was no sound from inside. Heck tried again twice, to no avail, before straightening up.

      ‘Satisfied?’ Farthing asked.

      ‘Far from it. If you were under suspicion of murdering three gang members, and the police came round before you’d got a chance to do the rest of them, would you open the door voluntarily?’

      ‘You can’t be bloody serious … I only spoke to this fella as part of a house-to-house. To ask if he’d seen anything the day Crabtree got chased.’

      Heck dug under his jacket and produced a folded document, scanning quickly through it. ‘We’ll never know how much he saw until we check him out properly.’

      Farthing’s eyes bugged. ‘Is that … is that a warrant?’

      ‘No, it’s a beautician’s appointment. Course it’s a bloody warrant.’ Heck tested the front door with both hands, but found it unyielding. ‘This is pretty solid. Let’s try round the back.’ He set off along the pavement.

      ‘You’ve had a busy lunchtime, haven’t you?’ Farthing said, hurrying to follow.

      ‘Couldn’t have done it without you, Jerry. Told the beak about Cooper’s track record of political violence.’

      ‘Political?’

      ‘Picking on hippies and IRA supporters. Told him about that nasty knife you saw too. I’ll need a statement about that, of course.’

      ‘Jesus H … I told you that knife was an antique.’

      ‘A combat knife’s a combat knife, Jerry.’ They turned the corner at the end of the row, and entered a squalid backstreet. ‘Anyway, we’ve got the warrant now … and this is more like it.’

      The rear gate to number three was missing from its hinges, revealing a tiny paved yard. Unlike the surrounding environment, this area was cleared and well-swept. A clothes prop was leaning against the coal bunker, with a basket of pegs next to it.

      ‘I’m not sure about this,’ Farthing said as they entered. There was a rear ground-floor window to the house and a rear door. Both looked to be closed and locked. ‘I don’t like forcing entry, even with a search warrant.’

      In response, Heck rapped loudly on the rear door and shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Mr Cooper … we are police officers! This is really quite important! Could you open up please!’ They waited for half a minute. Heck tried again. A further wait brought no reply. Heck glanced at Farthing. ‘The occupier was definitely at home when you called this morning?’

      ‘Aye … he let me in, gave us a brew.’

      ‘Okay … well he’s pretty clearly absent now. Would you agree?’

      ‘Suppose so.’

      ‘Good.’ Heck put his shoulder to the rear door, and it crashed inward, its rusted lock flying off with the first impact. Inside, the house stood in sepulchral dimness.

      ‘Mr Cooper, it’s the police!’ Farthing called as they shuffled through a narrow scullery into a small, tidy kitchen. ‘We have a warrant to search these premises!’

      There was no reply, but Heck glanced around. ‘Place is immaculate,’ he observed.

      ‘He’s always a well-turned-out bloke.’

      ‘Bit like a soldier, eh?’

      In the hall, a shoe rack stood close to the door, on which Heck noted two pairs of muddy trainers. A raincoat was draped over the foot of the banister. Aside from these mundane items, this part of the house also looked neat. Its linoleum floor shone, as if mopped regularly. But the real surprise came when they moved sideways into the lounge, which in the past had been knocked through into the dining room to create one large living space, the walls of which had since been completely covered with sepia-toned news cuttings.

      Fascinated, Heck’s attention flitted from one headline to the next.

       Soviets launch winter offensive

       British triumph in desert battle

      As he’d heard in the station СКАЧАТЬ