The Killing Club (12 page)

They lifted him roughly to his feet.

‘I’m DS Fowler from the Serious Offenders Control and Retrieval unit,’ the girl said, ‘and I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.’ She gave him the full caution. ‘Any questions?’

‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘What do you do for an encore?’

One of her male colleagues punched him in the side. Heck winced but managed to stay upright. Though he was still barefoot, dressed only in shorts and a sweat-damp t-shirt, they frogmarched him into the corridor, where personal items and bits of furniture were already being tossed out from the other rooms. By the continuing roar of destruction, they were leaving no stone unturned. Someone Heck recognised stood in the midst of it, apparently supervising. He was a short, paunchy man, with podgy, hog-like features scrunched under his helmet, though his general proportions – which were globular in shape – seemed equally uncomfortable squashed into his black coveralls. His name was Derek O’Dowd, and he was an officious little twerp formerly of the Met’s Accident Investigation department. It was no surprise that he’d wound up in SOCAR. More unexpected, perhaps, were the inspector’s pips on his shoulders.

‘Just remember, guv,’ Heck said to him, ‘… anything you break, you buy.’

O’Dowd swung around, his mouth fixed in its usual O of outrage when someone had disputed with him. Immediately, he began shouting. ‘Have you ever –
ever in your fucking life!
– tried showing respect for rank, Heckenburg!’

‘You ever tried ringing a doorbell? What did you think I was going to do, flush myself down the toilet?’

‘
Good Christ!
’ O’Dowd bellowed. ‘Get this fucking sociopath out of my sight! If he opens his trap one more time, one of you stick your fist in it!’

DS Fowler and the guy called Nick, who apparently was another sergeant, a DS Gribbins – hustled Heck to the top of the stairs, and walked him down between them, though Gribbins cringed as he rotated his wrist and flexed his fingers.

‘Looks like you’ve got full movement,’ Heck said. ‘Not broken, at least.’

‘Don’t push me, Heckenburg,’ Gribbins snarled.

They arrived outside, where the presence of several police vehicles, including a couple of divisional units, and numerous other armoured SOCAR personnel, ensured that, despite the early hour and milky light of dawn, curtains would be twitching up and down Cherrybrook Drive, a typical nosy Fulham street.

‘I’m just saying it’ll be okay,’ Heck added.

Even though they were out in full public view, Gribbins spun around, snatching Heck by the collar of his t-shirt. Briefly they were nose to nose. Gribbins’s thick brown moustache made him resemble some TV cop from the 1970s. But he was currently flushed with anger and streaming sweat.

‘It may have escaped your notice,
pal
! … but we’re not taking this as lightly as you seem to be.’

‘I kind of got that,’ Heck replied. ‘But just out of interest … maybe as a common courtesy to my fellow-police status, who am I supposed to have murdered?’

‘No one important,’ Fowler said, stepping between them. ‘Just a DI in the Met.’

Heck’s mouth dropped open. ‘What …?’

‘Laycock.’

‘You mean Jim Laycock?’

‘Why … how many Laycocks are there on your personal hate list?’

‘You …’ Heck was only fleetingly lost for words. ‘You better
had
take me in.’

‘Oh … had we?’

‘Right now.’ Shaking free of their grip, he turned and headed to the prisoner transport parked at the kerb, climbing straight into the back of it.

There was no cage inside this one, so when Fowler climbed in as well, looking a little bemused, she sat on the facing bench and pointed a warning finger at him. ‘Don’t even think about trying something. I’m a karate fifth dan.’

‘Suppose that makes me feel a bit safer,’ Heck replied.

‘And that smart mouth is going to make things even tougher on you.’

The engine started, the vehicle lurching away.

‘I’m totally serious.’ Heck glanced up at her. ‘The only thing is, I’m not sure a
bit
safer is gonna be enough.’

Chapter 10

‘I’m guessing interrogation’s a skill you guys haven’t mastered yet?’ Heck said. ‘Because in the last five minutes, your questions have revealed to me that Jim Laycock was abducted last night from a pub in Kilburn at roughly eleven p.m. … that he died sometime between twelve and one, and that his body was found this morning in an abandoned vehicle in Hornsey. All stuff which, if you’d kept it quiet, you could have used to trip me up.’

‘And in return you’ve told us nothing,’ DS Fowler said. ‘Which hardly looks good from your point of view, does it?’

‘I’ve told you nothing you want to hear,’ Heck replied. ‘But it happens to be the truth … which is sometimes pretty boring, I’ll admit.’

He was clad in a paper custody suit, and slumped in an interview room at Hammersmith police station. On the other side of the table sat SOCAR detectives Gribbins and Fowler, first names Nick and Steph. Though now in civvies, the former of these appeared no less a thug, his brutish looks topped by a curly brown mop. His corduroy jacket and open-necked plaid shirt somehow accentuated his big, powerful frame. Also out of battle-dress, the latter had a rather cool ‘Mrs Peel’ kind of aura. Her slim-fit pinstripes hugged her athletic form, but she wore her jet-black hair gathered in a severe bun. Detective Inspector O’Dowd was nowhere to be seen, though he was probably watching through the two-way mirror on the wall. Maybe Frank Tasker was through there as well, though Heck hadn’t seen the SOCAR boss in the custody suite when he’d first been brought in.

‘I got home last night just after eleven,’ he explained again. ‘Having first bought a Chinese takeaway from the shop on Larkhill Lane, Fulham. You can ask the lady who owns it. She was the one who served me. Now you do the maths … Fulham to Kilburn in less than half an hour?’

‘It’s not impossible so late in the day,’ Gribbins said.

‘Maybe not, but if I was going to pull that abduction off, I’d have to have known beforehand that Laycock would be in that particular pub at that particular time. Even then I’d be cutting it close.’

‘You could have observed him on other nights. Laycock had turned into a pisshead. He pub-crawled all the time.’

‘And do pissheads stick to rigorous schedules when they pub-crawl?’ Heck wondered.

Gribbins had no answer for this; in any case, he was still cradling his injured right wrist, which had badly discoloured.

‘Why don’t we talk about this ongoing feud that existed between you and DI Laycock?’ Fowler said.

‘Hardly ongoing,’ Heck replied. ‘I hadn’t spoken to the guy in a year and a half.’

‘And yet yesterday, while talking to Commander Tasker, you said quite specifically that it wasn’t a holiday you had in mind for Jim Laycock. True or false?’

‘I said something like that, yeah. But take anything out of context and it can look suspicious.’

‘You really had it in for Laycock, didn’t you?’ Fowler argued. ‘You blamed him several times for the near-collapse of your first enquiry into the Nice Guys Club.’

‘He did his best to scuttle that enquiry – for no obvious reason. As such, I developed a strong suspicion that he was trying to protect a vested interest.’

‘That Laycock was himself a Nice Guys’ client?’

‘Not just that … that he was acting as their informant too.’

‘Even though there was no evidence to that effect?’

‘There was circumstantial evidence. At least by the end.’

‘There was
no
evidence, DS Heckenburg,’ she said. ‘None at all. Thanks to some persistent lobbying by you, Laycock was investigated after the first Nice Guys enquiry and exonerated of having any involvement with them. What he was found to be at fault for was his generally poor decision-making. He was subsequently demoted in rank.’

‘And that wasn’t enough for you, was it?’ Gribbins said.

Heck smiled. ‘You make it sound so bloody unreasonable of me. I’ve just told you, I flat-out suspected Laycock of being the Nice Guys’ mole.’

‘Yeah, but you couldn’t
prove
it, could you?’

‘Well … obviously not.’

‘So why not just admit this drove you round the bend?’ Fowler said. ‘That you’ve had a bee in your bonnet about Jim Laycock ever since?’

Heck shrugged. ‘If having a bee in your bonnet is the same as suspecting someone of criminality, then yes, I guess that’s probably true.’

‘And when Mike Silver escaped from Gull Rock, it became a
burning
issue for you, didn’t it?’ Gribbins said. ‘Because that might mean Laycock was about to get spirited away overseas, at which point he’d be out of your reach for good.’

‘As I implied to your guv’nor yesterday,’ Heck said, ‘I’d started having doubts they were planning a safe haven for Laycock.’

‘But a minute ago you were trying to tell us Laycock was the Nice Guys’ best mate.’

‘I don’t think the Nice Guys actually have mates,’ Heck replied. ‘At the end of the day, he was a former customer who was briefly useful to them. But they’re a tight crew. Ex-comrades-in-arms. They weren’t going to trust an outsider indefinitely – not when he knew as much as Laycock did.’

‘So why wait two years to move against him?’

‘Clearly something’s changed.’

‘Such as?’ Gribbins said.

‘How do I know? I’m sitting here answering your dumb questions rather than going after them. Listen fellas …’ Heck leaned forward. ‘Any investigating officers worth their salt, which I’m sure you two are despite all appearances to the contrary, should already have recognised there’s at least a possibility the Nice Guys killed Jim Laycock because they’re tying up loose ends before disappearing back into whichever banana republic is currently hosting them. They’d also recognise the possibility Laycock may not be the last.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Fowler said.

‘You’ve done some homework on this,’ Heck answered. ‘You must know I suspected that Laycock held details of all Nice Guys’ clients in the UK. If this new team have now got hold of those details – which is just possible, don’t you think – they’ll likely have found there are quite a lot of loose ends.’

Fowler regarded him warily. ‘Specify what you mean by “loose ends”.’

‘Former clients, former contacts, anyone they confided in or did business with … anyone in a position to give evidence against them should we move in and make arrests.’

‘You’re saying the Nice Guys are just going to kill them all?’

Heck smiled at her incredulity. ‘DS Fowler … murder is their game. It’s what they excel at. If they’ve opted to clean house here in the UK – which seems highly feasible now they’ve got their boss back – if they’ve opted to close down the whole British operation, they won’t hesitate to wipe out anyone who might endanger that. They won’t hesitate for a second. We saw that up at Brancaster.’

Gribbins looked amused. ‘Let’s get this straight. You’re saying that we need to release you quickly … because there are going to be lots more murders. Is that really the best you’ve got?’

‘It’s bloody better than you’ve got, Gribbins! I express concern for a suspect’s safety, and
that
puts me in the frame? Seriously?’

There was a sudden disturbance in a room nearby – it sounded like muffled shouting. The two-way mirror shuddered as a door was banged open and closed. A split-second later, the door to the interview room flew open and Gemma strode in, raincoat swirling around her.

‘I think that seems an appropriate place to end this charade,’ she said.

‘For the benefit of the tape,’ Gribbins said in a casual tone, ‘Detective Superintendent Piper has just entered the interview.’

‘For the benefit of the tape,’ Gemma countered, ‘Detective Superintendent Piper is terminating the interview.’ She crossed the room and jabbed her finger down like a bayonet, knocking the tape machine off.

‘Ma’am!’ Fowler jumped to her feet, but not before Gemma had rounded on the two SOCAR officers.

‘Are you two actually for real, or did Frank Tasker find a pair of cardboard cut-outs with movable parts!’ They regarded her with open mouths. ‘Who’s the arresting officer?’

‘That would be me, ma’am,’ Fowler said, pink-cheeked. ‘But you need to understand, this was a clean pinch …’

‘I want Sergeant Heckenburg’s underclothes returned to him forthwith! Apparently that’s all he was wearing when you brought him in here, which is strictly against the rules, so I could have both your backsides for that if I wanted to. I also want some clean, warm clothing provided for him – right now. And I want every trace of this arrest erased from the databanks.’

‘Ma’am …’ Gribbins stuttered, ‘you … can’t do that!’

Gemma spun to face him. ‘What’s that phrase we all love and cherish so much in the police service? Oh yes … “we’re the cops, we can do anything we want”.
See to it, Gribbins!
Now!
’

Abashed, and still gripping his injured wrist, Gribbins stumbled from the room.

Fowler stood her ground. ‘Ma’am, I protest in the strongest possible terms. This is a serious breach of procedure … you need to speak to Commander Tasker about this.’

‘Oh don’t you worry, Sergeant Fowler … I will.’ Gemma stalked back towards the door. ‘And tell Derek O’Dowd … when he finally stops hiding in the toilets, because that’s apparently the direction he ran in when I parked out back, I want any damage caused to Sergeant Heckenburg’s premises and property paid for promptly and without quibble, out of his own pocket. Do you get that, Fowler? Out of O’Dowd’s
own
pocket! If I don’t see proof of that within the week – proof, as in receipts from contractors, retailers and so forth, I’ll be speaking to the tax office about that sideline of his doing up and selling on old Traffic cars, which he thinks no one knows about.’

And she swept out of the room, no doubt to consult again with the Hammersmith custody suite team, a good set of lads who most likely were the ones responsible for tipping her off that Heck had been brought in.

Fowler could only stand there, stunned.

Heck rose to his feet. ‘Guess now you know why I didn’t ask for my Federation rep. Or a solicitor.’