The uniforms went round to guard the back and stop anyone trying to exit.
Mitch knocked on the door and they waited for a response. When none came, he banged again, more loudly.
Rachel saw movement out of the side of her eye, a woman next door peering out of the window, probably alerted by the police cars parked outside, blocking Keane’s driveway and his car.
Sudden commotion from the back sent them both racing around the side of the house to the rear. Stanley Keane had apparently opened the back door, seen the welcome party and bolted back inside with the uniforms trying unsuccessfully to gain entry.
Rachel rolled her eyes at Mitch and at that very moment realized the front of the property was now unprotected. Shit!
She ran back round, vaulting over the little garden wall and scouring the street. There he was. Running. Perhaps two hundred yards ahead, just before the road bent to the right, an impression of bulk, dark clothing. Rachel gave chase, willing herself on, the houses passing in a blur, her footsteps loud on the paving stones, breath coming fast. He was soon out of sight. Reaching the T-junction, breathless and sweaty, she looked right and left, alert to any movement, but there was nothing save for the two or three cars travelling along it. She listened, tried to discern anything beyond the thud of her heart and the swoosh of blood in her ears. There was no sign of the man. Fuck!
Back at the house, her windpipe tight from the run and the sweat now cold on her back, she found Mitch and the two others had forced an entry. Harder these days when everything was made from PVC and double glazing.
‘Check down here,’ Mitch said to the uniforms, ‘we’ll take upstairs.’
The stairs led up to a short landing, where the door straight ahead was most likely the bathroom. Rachel waited to one side while Mitch swung it open. Empty. Two steps took them up on to the main landing with three doors, back, middle and front. All closed. Mitch gestured to Rachel that he’d take the front ones. Keane lived alone as far as their intel went, an assumption that was reinforced when Mitch gave her the thumbs-up from his end of the corridor.
Rachel opened the door of the back bedroom on to a small space that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. The single bed was rumpled, the ashtray on the floor at its side half full. Clothes, men’s clothes, were draped over the chair by the window to her right. An old-fashioned wooden wardrobe on the wall opposite was the only other furniture. Rachel walked round the bed to reach it. She was almost there when she heard the rustle of movement behind her, felt the change in the air as a man darted out from behind the bedroom door and ran.