The Killing Club (32 page)

But there wasn’t.

He entered the room through two back-to-back doors, to find it spacious but horseshoe-shaped, an island of washbasins and mirrors down the middle, a condom machine fastened to the stanchion at one end, a chewing-gum machine at the other. The urinals stood on the left, the cubicles on the right. There was nobody in there, and nowhere else to go.

With a
thud
, someone pushed against the outer door. Heck darted around the island and ducked into the middle cubicle, closing it behind him and locking it. As an afterthought – and just as a second
thud
signalled that someone had barged the inner door open – he clambered onto the toilet. There he waited, helpless, barely seeing the obscene graffiti scrawled on the walls around him, hardly noticing the stench rising from the unflushed mess in the bowl between his feet.

Feet clipped loudly across the lavatories, halting somewhere else in the room. Heck wasn’t sure where, but he heard no water trickling, either from a running tap or a voiding bladder. Sweat seething on his brow, he eased out the Glock.

The flat wooden door in front of him was mesmerising in its blankness. As he tried to picture what was happening on the other side of it, he slowly extended his arm, staring down the pistol barrel. His thoughts whirled with nightmarish imagery: Austin Ledburn forced to swallow a gallon of petrol before he was set alight; Jim Laycock, his skull and bones shattered by the frenzied blows of a dozen claw-hammers; Mike Silver – choked and squealing as his own walking-stick was thrust down his gargling oesophagus. There were no further footsteps, but Heck was convinced his opponent had now focused on the only toilet cubicle that happened to be closed.

That wretched door – less than an inch of hardboard, and it was all that protected him. Some chance against a hail of bullets. His hair prickled as he heard a low, dragging sound – seemingly drawing closer. He imagined the shaven-headed man, gun in hand – a Tavor? a Chang Feng? a SIG-Sauer? – crawling forward on his knees to check under the panel.

Did Heck fire first? Drill the cubicle door from the inside, in the vague hope he’d catch his enemy off-guard? But what if it was some innocent person?

Sweat dripped from the end of his nose. He knew it was impossible that his hoarse breathing would go unheard. And then he heard humming. It was nothing he recognised – some distorted version of a modern ditty.

But
humming
?

The Nice Guy was
humming
?

That didn’t compute.

Heck let out a slow exhalation of breath.

The dragging sound seemed further away. The humming ceased as someone hawked phlegm and spat. It was impossible to imagine the person Heck thought it was being so … casual. Stealthily, he slipped the pistol under his coat, stepped down from the toilet and planted his ear against the door.

The humming resumed briefly, transforming into a low, tuneless singing.

Whoever that was, they thought they were here alone.

Suddenly, Heck had to get out of this upright coffin. He disengaged the lock. The door opened silently as he peeked around it.

It was something of a surprise, perhaps a worry, that he couldn’t see anyone at all – and he didn’t notice the singing/humming had stopped until he’d come out into the middle of the room.

He froze. What the devil … had he been tricked?

He made for the door, lurching around the pillar with the condom machine – only to find a man waiting on the other side. Heck whipped out his Glock, aiming it squarely at the man’s face.

The man, who was wearing dirty green overalls and aged somewhere in his late sixties, gazed back through big bottle-lensed glasses. He was leaning on a broad-bottomed broom and in the process of unwrapping the foil from a stick of gum. His mouth dropped open.

‘Sorry … mate,’ Heck stuttered. ‘Erm …’ He thrust the gun away and fished out his warrant card. ‘Police officer. Don’t worry … nothing to be alarmed about.’

He brushed past the gaping functionary, and shouldered his way out into the corridor. Cheeks burning, he hurried up the stairs to the ticket hall, straight to the outer doors and then down onto the station approach.

Full darkness had fallen, but the place was well-lit. Behind the wall directly facing the station, there were deep thickets of trees. Cars and taxis were coming and going, collecting or dropping off, and he could hear the distant sounds of the city. Thirty yards to his right, tucked half out of sight behind a corner, there was a bus stop. No one was waiting there, but a notice board was fixed to its post. He walked towards it, knowing he’d be met by a wall of information; place-names and bus route numbers which meant absolutely nothing to him.

The shaven-headed man stepped into his path.

Heck was midway between pavements when the burly figure appeared alongside the bus stop. His mouth was fixed in a feral smile, his eyes almost luminous as they locked with Heck’s.

Heck half-stumbled; his mouth dried. His hand itched to pull the Glock, but the shaven-headed guy already had his right hand in his jacket pocket. What if his sidearm was already primed and pointed? A vehicle screeched up at Heck’s back, its doors bursting open.

The shaven-headed man advanced, his smile a broad grin.

Heck still reached for his gun. He didn’t care that this was a public place. He wasn’t drinking a gallon of petrol, or being hung upside down and sliced …

‘Dadd-eee!’
the two children shrieked, as they charged past him – into the arms of the shaven-headed man, who crouched to hug them.

Heck was a hapless spectator as the man handed one of the children his briefcase – the little tot insisted on carrying it for him – and continued to hug them both as they all strolled forward together. Heck turned stiffly, watching as they passed and climbed into a chugging Mini Cooper, behind whose steering wheel an attractive, dark-haired woman was sitting, smiling. The Mini’s doors slammed closed and it circled around Heck, rumbling down the approach road in a swirl of exhaust.

Chapter 26

PC Jerry Farthing had long been aware that his small two-up-two-down in Southwick had never been much to look at: another anonymous unit in a decrepit redbrick terrace, with a tiny yard at the rear.

A low-rent district from way back, it wasn’t perhaps an ideal place for a policeman to be living. You might have expected him to be pestered to death by his neighbours, either looking for help or looking to cause trouble. But Farthing had managed to keep it quiet that he was a copper, primarily by having no interaction with those around him, and by never leaving or returning to the house in uniform. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to live, but at least the place hadn’t cost him much. His parents had owned this house originally, and by the time Farthing had come to inherit it, the mortgage was paid in full, so if nothing else it was cheap. But as he sat up late that night watching the footy in his darkened lounge, he was finally wondering if he should get out of here, maybe head for the suburbs. There were all sorts of romantic myths about the old working-class north. About how the houses might be ancient and rotten, but how their occupants were good-natured, generous and always looking out for each other. Well that might be true, though with the best will in the world, what use were good-natured neighbours against a man with a gun?

It was an easier thing to say than to fully comprehend, but Farthing’s day-to-day existence had been ruined by the incident with Ernest Cooper. Okay, it was unlikely he’d ever come up against a maniac like that again. But those pale blue eyes, that bland, emotionless exterior … they were burned indelibly into his thoughts. In his younger days, Farthing would have hated himself for the lack of innate courage this exposed, but he was long enough in the tooth now to know that bravery was for suckers. Over the last few years, he’d seen far too many fellow bobbies get severely hurt by going up against impossible odds.

That said, there was no pleasure to be found in
this
– sitting up at midnight, rigid as a fire-poker, just waiting for that suspicious sound outside: a cat hissing, a milk bottle rolling. Just thinking about it brought sweat to his brow, but no more so than the thought of returning to work – and that was equally a source of shame to Farthing, because there was a distant time when he’d been a damn good bobby.

At present, he didn’t know how long he could stay on the sick, ‘bad with his nerves’ as they’d say at the office, though the whispers would doubtless adopt a more ominous tone in due course, wondering if he wasn’t shaken as much as shattered. Perhaps they’d add that they’d seen this brewing for some time: wasn’t he always the last to respond to an emergency call these days? Wasn’t he the one who always wanted to swap his shifts to avoid working Friday and Saturday nights?

Farthing filched a tissue from his cardigan pocket and dabbed his brow, but it only seemed to make him sweat more profusely. The price of refusing to share, he supposed. He hadn’t even revealed the full extent to which he feared he’d lost his nerve to his Fed rep or his official stress counsellor. They’d only agree he was finished as well.

It wasn’t as if he could just resign. That would cost him his pension, and what else could he find at forty-five when he’d only ever been a copper? It would be another six or seven years before they’d consider granting him early retirement, while medical departures weren’t thrown around like confetti anymore – certainly not for stress. They wouldn’t even be able to slide him into an inside job, not when most of those roles were performed by civvies these days. Not, if he was honest, that he felt much like sitting at home all day. He’d just done a couple of weeks of that, and it was amazing how mind-numbing daytime TV could actually be.

Farthing glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was ten past midnight, but fleetingly the hour didn’t matter. The mere sight of the thing, an ornate wooden pillar-design timepiece, brought a fog of tears to his eyes. It had formerly belonged to his father, donated as a farewell present after forty years on the docks: Jack Farthing; an iron-hard roughneck with forearms like ham-shanks and a plethora of tattoos in an age when inked skin actually meant something, but with a loving heart too.

‘Dad,’ Farthing said under his breath.

Jack Farthing: a roaring giant reduced to a wheezing skeleton within five years of retirement.

Bastard cigarette companies.

How he’d fought, even then, to his last ounce of faltering strength.

And in the light of all that, how would he feel about his son’s current fight – or lack of it? Farthing regarded the clock as though mesmerised by the bitter-sweet memories it invoked. Even so, the sudden rapping at his back door brought him sharply to his feet. Perplexed, his focus tightened on the clock face.

Ten minutes past midnight.

And someone was at his door?

Not only that, they were at his
back door
?

Which meant they’d entered his back yard, meaning they must have climbed over the rear wall or gate.

Farthing turned. There was no light on in the kitchen, but the connecting door was open, which meant the shimmering glow of the TV would be visible. Whoever it was out back, they’d know someone was home.

The temptation was just to ignore it, to make them think he was out.

Unless that was what the caller wanted. Why else would someone knock at this hour? Had they been watching the house maybe, and owing to his hideaway existence of the last few days, was it their assumption he was off on holiday?

But even then, why knock on the
back door
?

Farthing uprooted himself from the patch of carpet next to his armchair. But he didn’t venture to the rear of the house; he went to the front, into the tiny hall at the foot of the stairs. Did he run from here? Just open the front door and bolt into the street, screaming for help? Good God, that really would be the end of his career as a copper. The reality was that he had to check this out himself. There was no point pretending an alternative was possible.

Hanging from the post at the bottom of the stair was his utility belt. Breathing hard, he took the CS spray out of its pouch, and his baton, snapping the latter open to its full two feet of flexible polycarbonate resin.

Slowly, Farthing ventured back into the lounge and edged to the kitchen door. Despite the glow from the TV, it was very dark in there; there was no light on the other side of the kitchen window – so if someone were looking in, they’d see him before he saw them. But wouldn’t that be a good thing, if it meant they ran? Just showing there was a householder present was usually enough to dissuade opportunist burglars.

With slow steps, he crossed the kitchen, which was strongly redolent of baked beans, macaroni cheese, tomato soup – anything from the stock of cans in the under-stair closet, which he’d warmed up whenever he’d got hungry during his recent hibernation here.

Eight years since Mum died, and you can’t even cook, you waste of space!

He knocked the bolt off, turned the key, and opened the back door.

There was nobody there.

The narrow yard was dank, black, empty.

Had they fled after all? Had they seen him coming?

Farthing stepped outside, both weapons clearly displayed. His eyes slowly adjusted, the faint yellow of sodium streetlights diffusing over the encircling rooftops, exposing his surroundings with incremental slowness: the wheelie bin on his left; the tall, brick outline of what had once been the outside loo.

‘You alone?’ a husky voice asked.

Farthing almost jumped out of his slippers, before spinning left, baton at his shoulder, CS canister extended as per the textbook.

‘Whoa, it’s me!’ Heck said, palms raised.

‘What … what the …?’ Farthing’s eyes bugged in utter disbelief.

It wasn’t just the shock of finding Heck in his yard in the middle of the night – though that was shock enough – it was how tired and bedraggled Heck looked. The normally relaxed SCU cop looked exhausted: his hair was a damp straggle, his face drawn, his shoulders drooped. He approached with a footsore limp.