The Killing Club

Copyright

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Paul Finch 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock

Cover design © Andrew Smith 2014

Paul Finch asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007551255

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007551262

Version: 2017-10-26

Dedication

For my children, Eleanor and Harry, with whom I shared many a chilling tale when they were tots, but whose enthusiasm is as strong now as it ever was

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Gull Rock was just about the last place on Earth.

Situated on a bleak headland south of that vast tidal inlet called ‘the Wash’, it was far removed from any kind of civilisation, and battered constantly by furious elements. Even on England’s east coast, no place was lonelier, drearier, nor more intimidating in terms of its sheer isolation. Though ultimately this was a good thing, for Gull Rock Prison (aka HM Prison Brancaster) held the very worst of the worst. And this was no exaggeration, even by the standards of ‘Category A’. None of Gull Rock’s inmates was serving less than ten years, and they included in their number some of the most depraved murderers, most violent robbers and most relentless rapists in Britain, not to mention gangsters, terrorists and urban street-hoodlums for whom the word ‘deranged’ could have been invented.

When Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper drove onto its visitor car park that dull morning, her aquamarine Mercedes E-class was the only vehicle there, but this was no surprise. Visits to inmates at Gull Rock were strictly limited.

She climbed out and regarded the distant concrete edifice. It was early September, but this was an exposed location; a stiff breeze gusted in across the North Sea, driving uncountable whitecaps ahead of it, lofting hundreds of raucous seabirds skyward, and ruffling her tangle of ash-blonde hair. She buttoned up her raincoat and adjusted the bundle of plastic-wrapped folders under her arm.

Another vehicle now rumbled off the approach road, and pulled into a parking bay alongside her: a white Toyota GT.

She ignored it, staring at the outline of the prison. In keeping with its ‘special security’ status, it was noticeably lacking in windows. The grey walls of its various residential blocks were faceless and sheer, any connecting passages between them running underground. A towering outer wall, topped with barbed wire, encircled these soulless inner structures, the only gate in it a massive slab of reinforced steel, while outside it lay concentric rings of electrified fencing.

The occupant of the Toyota climbed out. His tall, athletic form was fitted snugly into a tailored Armani suit. A head of close-cropped white curls revealed his advancing years – he was close on fifty – but he had a lean, bronzed visage on which his semi-permanent frown was at once both dangerous and attractive. He was Commander Frank Tasker of Scotland Yard, and he too had a heap of paperwork with him, zipped into plastic folders.

‘I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, Gemma,’ Tasker said, pulling on his waterproof. ‘But we’ve got to start making headway on this soon.’

Gemma nodded. ‘I understand that, sir. But everything’s on schedule.’

‘I wish I was as sure about that as you. We’ve interviewed him six times now. Is he going to crack, or isn’t he?’

‘Guys like Peter Rochester don’t crack, sir,’ she replied. ‘It’s a case of wearing them down, slowly but surely.’

‘The time factor …’

‘Has been taken into consideration. I promise you, sir … we’re getting there.’

Tasker sniffed. ‘I don’t know who he thinks he’s being loyal to. I mean, they didn’t give a shit about him … why should he give a shit about them?’

‘Probably a military thing,’ she said. ‘Rochester reached the rank of Adjudant-Chef. You don’t manage that in the Foreign Legion if you’re a non-French national … not without really impressing people. Plus they say he commanded total loyalty from his men. And that continued when he was a merc. You don’t carry that off either unless you give a bit back.’

‘You’re saying Rochester’s lot like each other?’

‘Yes, but that’s only one of several differences between them and the run-of-the-mill mobs we usually have to deal with.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not going to argue with that. You’ve done most of the homework on this case. The original question stands, though … how long?’

‘Couple more sessions. I think we’re almost there.’

‘And you’ve borne in mind what I told you about DS Heckenburg?’

She half-smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘We don’t want him anywhere near this, Gemma.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘He’s a loose cannon at the best of times, but he could really screw this up for us.’

‘It’s alright, sir.’

‘I’m surprised he hasn’t at least been asking questions.’

‘Well … he has.’

Tasker looked distracted by that. ‘And?’

‘I’m his guv’nor. When I tell him it’s off-limits, he accepts it.’

‘Does he know how many times you’ve interviewed Rochester?’

‘He’s been too busy recently. I’ve made sure of it.’

Tasker assessed their surroundings as he pondered this. Continents of storm clouds approached over the sea, drawing palls of misty gloom beneath them. Plumes of colourless sand blew up around the car park’s edges. The hard net fencing droned in the wind. In the midst of it all, the prison stood stark and silent, an eternal rock on this windswept point, nothing beyond it but rolling, breaking waves.

‘Hellhole, that place,’ Tasker said with a shudder. ‘I mean, it’s clean enough … even sterile. But you really feel you’ve reached the end of the line when you’re in there. Particularly that Special Supervision Unit. Talk about a box inside a box.’

He glanced uneasily over his shoulder.

‘Something wrong, sir?’ Gemma asked.

‘Call me paranoid, but I keep expecting Heckenburg to show up.’

‘I’ve told you, Heck’s busy.’

‘How busy?’

‘Up-to-his-eyebrows busy,’ she said. ‘In one of the nastiest cases I’ve seen for quite some time. Don’t worry … we’ve got Mad Mike Silver and whatever’s left of the Nice Guys Club all to ourselves.’

Chapter 2

In a strange way, Greg Matthews looked the way his name seemed to imply he should. Detective Sergeant Mark Heckenburg, or ‘Heck’, as his colleagues knew him, couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something forceful and energetic about that name – Greg Matthews. As if this was a guy who didn’t waste time dilly-dallying. There was also something ‘Middle England’ about it, something educated, something well-heeled. And these were definitely the combined impressions Heck had of the man himself, as he watched the video-feed from the interview room at Gillbridge Avenue police station in Sunderland.

Matthews was somewhere in his early thirties, stockily built, with ashen features and wiry, copper-coloured hair. When first arrested he’d been clad in designer ‘urban combat’ gear: a padded green flak-jacket and a grey hoodie, stonewashed jeans and bovver boots, as they’d once been known. All of that had now been taken away from him, of course, as he was clad for custody in clean white paper, though he’d been allowed to retain his round-lensed ‘John Lennon’ spectacles, as apparently he was blind as a mole without them.

None of this had dampened the prisoner’s passion.

Three hours into his interview, he was still as full of his own foul-mouthed righteousness as he had been on first getting his collar felt. ‘It’s not my problem if someone thinks they’ve had it up to here with these neo-Nazi pigs!’ he said in a cultured accent, far removed from the distinctive Mackem normally found in these parts. ‘The only thing that actually doesn’t surprise me about this is that another bunch of Nazi pigs, i.e. you people, are in a mad rush to find out who’s responsible.’

‘The question stands, Mr Matthews,’ Detective Inspector Jane Higginson replied. She was a smooth, very cool customer. Her dark hair was cut short but neatly styled; her accent was much more local than Matthews’s, betraying solid blue-collar origins. ‘Why aren’t you able to tell us what you were doing on the night of August 15?’

‘Because it was five fucking weeks ago! And unlike you and your little wind-up clockwork toy friends, I don’t have to keep a careful account of everything I get up to in an officious little pocket-book. Not that I think you do, by the way. We could look through your notes now, and I doubt we’ll find any reference to harassment of ethnic or sexual minorities, intimidation of protest groups, illegal searches of private premises, brutality against ordinary working-class people, or general, casual misuse of authority in any of the other ways you no doubt indulge in on a daily basis …’

Matthews was articulate, Heck had to concede that, which was probably par for the course. He was leader of a self-styled ‘action group’ loosely affiliated to various militant student societies. He and his cronies were political firebrands, anarchists by their own admission … but did that make them killers?

‘What about August 15?’ Higginson persisted. ‘Let me jog your memory … it was a Saturday. That must help a bit.’

‘I do lots of different things on Saturdays.’

‘You don’t keep a record or diary? An industrious man like you.’

That was a sensible question, Heck thought. He’d been present when Matthews was arrested that morning inside his so-called HQ, which was basically a bike shed, though it had been packed with leaflets and pamphlets, and its walls were covered with posters and action-planners. Two state-of-the-art computers had also been seized. Matthews didn’t just talk the talk.

‘The only reason you can be refusing to cooperate on this, Mr Matthews, is because you’ve got something to hide,’ the Detective Constable acting as Higginson’s bagman said.

‘Or because you’re so deluded that you’re more concerned about your street-cred than your personal liberty,’ Higginson suggested.

Matthews bared his teeth. ‘You really are a prissy, smarty-pants bitch, aren’t you?’

‘Moderate your language and tone, Mr Matthews,’ the DC warned him.

‘Or what? You’ll beat me up?’ Matthews laughed. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t already. Go on. There’s nothing to stop you. I think you’ll find I can take it.’

That depressed Heck, at least with regard to any chance these arrests might lead to a conviction. The guy didn’t even realise the films and tapes made of interviews in custody were carefully audited; they couldn’t just disappear. Along with Matthews’s refusal to ask for legal advice, not to mention the ‘no result’ search they’d placed on him and his group with Special Branch, it all combined to suggest they were dealing with a pretender rather than an actual player.

‘If only beating was where you lot drew the line,’ the DC said. ‘When did you decide you were actually going to murder Nathan Crabtree?’

‘This is such bollocks.’

‘Before or after the twentieth time you threatened to kill him online?’ Higginson asked.

Matthews feigned amusement. ‘If that’s the best you’ve got, I pity you.’

Online, Matthews had regularly visited a number of rough and ready social-networking sites, usually hosted overseas, which catered for extremist ideologies. Their stock-in-trade were bitter, rancour-filled exchanges between anonymous individuals with ridiculous monikers. In normal times, any political forum would have been a strange place for an uncouth bunch like Nathan Crabtree and the other two victims, John Selleck and Simon Dean – quasi-political boot-boys with scarcely an educated brain-cell between them – to finish up, but from what Heck could see, the internet was increasingly allowing crazy activists to find an audible voice.

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.