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,’