The Killing Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

were covered by wooden hoardings, but the most central one had collapsed, exposing black emptiness.
    He stepped through this, ultra-warily.
    Total darkness enclosed him – but only for a second. Very rapidly, dimmer light sources became apparent, and his eyes attuned to an area that was like a small lobby, half-flooded with water, crammed with broken bricks and masonry. Anyone attempting to dash through here would likely have fractured an ankle. Instead, Heck tip-toed through it, balancing on planks and fallen joists. A secondary door led into a cavernous inner chamber, the entrance to which was only accessible at the end of sixty yards of cage-like corridor, lagging and bits of cable hanging down through its mesh ceiling.
    Again, Heck halted. Going further on his own was asking for trouble. Cooper had the khukuri knife – and he was clearly a dab hand at using it. With a single blow, he’d disabled a police car. Speaking of which – Heck gritted his teeth with fury at Jerry Farthing. Any bobby with his experience ought to have known that checking damage to a company vehicle was of less importance than apprehending a suspect. In fact, he would have known it. The reason Jerry had refused to join the chase was a lack of motivation. Whether that was down to fear or laziness, Heck wasn’t entirely sure, but the bastard was clearly past his best.
    Then, to his surprise, he heard the chugging of an engine outside.
    He scrambled back through the brick-strewn lobby, and felt a vague pang of guilt at the sight of Farthing’s Astra wallowing to an unsteady halt on the forecourt, its front nearside tyre hanging in ribbons. He walked quickly over there. ‘Have you put Comms in the picture? I wasn’t able to …’ His words petered out.
    Farthing, white-faced and sweating, climbed slowly from the driver’s side, while someone else climbed from the passenger side. The newcomer was slim but tall, about six-foot-three. He was in his late fifties, with lean, angular features and pale blue eyes. He had grey hair cut so short that it was really no more than a circular patch on top of his head, and a clipped grey moustache. He wore a fawn tracksuit, and a khaki belt, into the left-hand side of which the khukuri knife was tucked. This was a truly admirable object – its blade shone wickedly and there was a carved steel lion’s head at its pommel. But he also wielded a firearm: a Luger nine-millimetre, that most iconic weapon of the Third Reich, which he now trained squarely on Farthing’s head.
    They’d been fooled, Heck realised. He’d gone straight through that gate in the fence without considering that their quarry might be somewhere closer to home – hiding under the police car perhaps, or squatting around the back of it.
    ‘Please tell me you managed to get a call out first?’ Heck said to Farthing.
    But Farthing was too busy jabbering to his captor. ‘Mr Cooper … this is ridiculous. You’re not going to shoot us. I mean, come on, you can’t …’
    ‘Shut up,’ Cooper said, quietly but curtly.
    ‘Look, we were only here to ask you a couple of questions …’
    ‘I said shut up!’
    ‘Jesus, man … you can’t just fucking shoot us!’
    ‘Don’t do anything rash, Mr Cooper,’ Heck advised.
    ‘Rash implies unnecessary, pointless, futile.’ Cooper’s accent was noticeably Sunderland, but more refined than most. He waggled with his pistol, indicating that Farthing should walk over and stand alongside Heck, which he duly did. ‘I assure you, Sergeant Heckenburg … the action I take here today will be none of those things. Now empty your pockets, please. Every weapon you’re carrying, every communication device. I want them placed on the ground. When you’ve done that, put your hands up.’
    Heck stooped, laying down his radio, mobile phone and handcuffs. Cooper watched him intently and yet unemotionally. His pale blue eyes were like teddy bear buttons; it was quite the most unnatural colour Heck had ever