‘Guv?’ Willis interrupted. ‘I want to go in as part of the team.’
Carter nodded. ‘Robbo – correction, we’ll give this phone to a patrol car to bring in to you and we’ll coordinate the search of Hannover Estate ourselves. Pick officers who know this area where you can; we’ll wait at the entrance to Parade Street.’
Hannover Estate was an amalgamation of postwar red-brick council housing and newer high-rise concrete towers. The two had been botched together with social housing based on small streets and balconies, gardens and civic pride. The reality had been the opposite. Families who didn’t care for the community had been dumped there and the place became a breeding ground for gangs. There had been no more building since the early 1990s. The estate was slowly being left to decay from the inside out, as the council stopped maintaining it in the hope that it would slowly empty of residents when their lives became intolerable.
They waited in the car with a map of the estate up on Carter’s iPad and worked out how they were going to cover the whole of it.
‘It will take several days to make sure we catch the people at work,’ said Carter as he moved the map on the screen. Willis jotted down the names of the various areas.
‘We will split the estate into five sections and you and I will take the one here, nearest to the crime scene. This is also the roughest end, where the gangs are causing the most trouble. We’ll try and catch them by surprise. Where is Balik supposed to be living?’
‘In one of the four-storey blocks, Drydon House, apparently – that’s the one beside the tower block.’
‘Okay, we’ll go straight there when the rest of the team arrive; we all start at exactly the same time, so that we have a chance of seeing who we flush out.’
As they sat waiting at the end of Parade Street, they saw Sandford coming out of 22. He was stretching out his long back as he went across to his van, then took something out from the rear.
‘People never die where it’s easy to get at them, do they, Eb?’
‘No, they’re never so obliging, are they? They must be getting ready to move her soon.’
They stared down the street in silence as they watched Sandford go back inside the building.
‘This street reminds me of where I grew up,’ said Carter. ‘It was here in the East End in Shadwell before it was upmarket. None of your swanky restaurants and private clubs then. Good honest people that took care of one another. People lived alongside one another. My nan lived in a tower block – she and the other residents took it in turns to wash the stairs.’
Willis was watching the council estate – it seemed peaceful. It was school time. Monday midday. A few mums were chatting and pre-school kids were running around the green bits between the buildings. Dogs were coming out to defecate. She looked back at Parade Street and at Carter, who was still being nostalgic. A police van drew up behind them and uniformed officers got out.
‘Okay – we’ll brief the team and get on with it.’ Twenty minutes later the five teams of two were ready to move into the estate. Two of the teams got back into the van and were taken to start at the other end of the large estate.
‘Keep in constant touch with each other. Anything you think should be followed up then call Detective Willis or myself and we’ll pursue it. We have armed officers ready to assist should we need them but I want to keep this friendly. This is an exercise to find out if anyone saw anything last evening and to locate Balik.’
Willis and Carter made their way past the garage block where Willis had encountered Mason and his dog, Sandy. They headed towards the flats to the right of the tower block, where Carter had thought he’d seen someone run. They walked past the flats at ground level, with their small back yards where kids were playing. The place had the feel of a ghost town. Litter blew past their feet. In the kiddies’ park was one of the children on a squeaky sea-saw, whilst his mother leant on it with one hand and talked on her phone with the other. She watched the officers approaching and her eyes went up to the block of flats behind her. Willis looked up and heard a dog barking.
No one wanted to talk to them. They got a call from Team 3, the two officers who had taken the middle section of the estate.
‘Sir? Found someone willing to say something about the gangs. Mahmet Balik stays with his grandfather on the sixteenth floor of the tower block at your end. They didn’t know what number it was but they said his flat looks over the kiddies’ playground.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
The entrance door to the tower block was propped open. The entry phone had been dismantled.
‘Don’t touch the banisters,’ said Willis. ‘Sometimes they Sellotape used syringes underneath.’ Carter retracted his hand quickly.
‘I forgot you spent time with your mum in one of these estates.’
‘Not such a bad place when you know the rules,’ said Willis. ‘Not a place I can get sentimental about though.’
Carter turned back, walked towards the lift and pressed the button.
‘Miracle, it works,’ he said and recoiled as the door opened and the smell of urine hit them. It had crystallized on the floor. He stepped inside, followed by Willis.
‘Better than walking up to the sixteenth,’ he added. ‘But only just.’
They got out to the sound of a baby crying somewhere along the corridor. There was the smell of breakfast lingering in the hallway.
‘Got to be this way if it overlooks the playground,’ said Carter as he walked along the landing and took a right. They stood and listened. Only two of the five flats had any noise coming from them. The first one appeared unoccupied.
They knocked on the second and waited. A dog barked on the other side of the door.
‘Hello, Mr Balik?’
There was the sound of a chain being latched across. An old man swore at the dog.
‘Yes, what do you want?’
‘Can we have a word?’
They stood back from the door as it opened and the dog forced its head through the gap to snarl at them. It had the body of a punchbag and the head of a gargoyle.
The old man poked his head round the door too.
‘Mr Balik?’ repeated Carter.
‘Yes?’
‘We are police officers.’ He showed his warrant card. ‘Is Mahmet around?’
‘Who?’ The old man tried to get around the dog as he held on to the collar.
‘Your grandson.’
‘No.’ He started to close the door. Carter put a hand on it to keep it open. The dog went berserk.
‘Is that your dog?’ he asked.
‘No; I’m just looking after it.’
‘He’s not very friendly, is he?’ said Carter. ‘Whose is it? Are you allowed to keep a dog here?’
‘I’m only looking after it for someone – it will be gone soon.’
‘Who are you looking after it for?’
‘What?’ He looked like he didn’t want to say.
‘Is it Mahmet?’
‘He’s coming to get it in a couple of days,’ said the grandfather.
‘If we need to come in, Mr Balik, we need that dog under control and I don’t believe it is.’
‘Yes. It’s a good dog. It just doesn’t like strangers.’
‘Tell Mahmet we need to speak to him, Mr Balik. Tell him we will come back with a dog handler and we will have this dog destroyed if it’s found to be a dangerous type, which I’m pretty sure is the case. Are you listening, Mr Balik?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ He was struggling to keep the dog back as he closed the door.