Grantleigh Figgis . . .
One officer in particular had been even more fired up than Thorne when the attempted murder had fallen into their laps, but that was hardly a surprise, as Gordon Boyle had more reason to be grateful for it than anyone else. A nice, easy one, a good result. A welcome distraction – for him and for anyone else paying attention – from the case he’d botched.
It had been a day and a half since Thorne had met with DCI Andy Frankham, and he hadn’t heard a word. He should probably have listened to Paula Kimmel. He should almost certainly have given a bit more thought to Frankham’s rather more ominous predictions about his future.
Did he really care what other coppers thought of him?
Yeah, of course he did, but in the short term, Thorne reckoned he could live with the occasional spot of piss in his tea, because somewhere down the line he might end up a hero. Anything could happen. One day he might talk a suicidal nun off a roof, or take a bullet for someone, so it would probably all even out in the long run.
He blinked, remembering something Catrin Coyne had said to him, that first time he’d been round to her flat. Barely able to stand, to breathe, the pain tattooed across her face.
I don’t want there to be a long run.
Thorne moved his plate aside and stood up. He turned off the television and walked quickly towards the stairs, because going to bed seemed like the best idea he’d had in a fortnight. Because there were plenty of people he did care about, even if, right now, he didn’t happen to be one of them. Because there were those worth ten of him, who clung on to the fucked-up world with broken fingernails, even when there didn’t seem a fat lot worth holding on for. Because his wife was better off with the lecturer, because Steffi Graf had won her match and he hoped it wasn’t an omen, and because he could put a hundred Damien Hunters away and it wouldn’t mean a thing.
SIXTY-SEVEN
The majority of what would turn out to be the most significant day in the Kieron Coyne investigation had been taken up with routine follow-up procedures on the attempted murder that had come in the day before. Thorne had spent his morning chasing down witnesses who had now sobered up, and most of the afternoon in a tedious back-and-forth with a lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service, as charges were formally prepared. Then, just before going-home time, uniform in Willesden rang through with a report of a burned-out car, and Thorne temporarily forgot all about Damien Hunter, even if the poor bastard whose face he’d so brutally rearranged would never have that luxury.
‘Lost count of the stitches,’ Kimmel said, as they climbed into Thorne’s car. ‘That’s what I heard.’
Thorne zig-zagged north-west to avoid the main roads. They drove past Pentonville prison, then tried and failed to dodge the rush-hour traffic between Belsize Park and Primrose Hill. Kimmel winced as they sped past a lorry on the inside, then braced herself against the dashboard as they jumped a light on Kilburn High Road. She said, ‘It’s probably just kids. This car.’
‘Probably,’ Thorne said.
Fifteen minutes later, they drove slowly on to a patch of waste ground between the back of the bus garage and the northern-most edge of Willesden Cemetery. Two uniformed officers waved them across, as though the hastily rigged-up police tape, the stink, and the blackened shell of the Ford Fiesta weren’t enough to tell them they were in the right place.
‘Keen,’ Kimmel said, waving back. ‘I remember that.’
While Kimmel listened patiently as the officers explained how they’d discovered the abandoned vehicle, and exactly what they’d been doing prior to discovering it, Thorne took a closer look.
Remembering what Hendricks had said.
Sounds like you need a bit of luck.
Trying not to get excited.
On the plus side, the number plates had been removed front and back, which would make sense if someone didn’t want the car traced quickly, and there was enough paintwork still undamaged to make it clear that, before being torched, the Fiesta had once been the colour they were looking for. What was inside the car bothered Thorne, though. Whoever had set fire to it had been equally keen to destroy the interior, but certain features remained identifiable enough.
A beaded car-seat cover.
A baby-seat in the back.
Kimmel wandered over, while one of the uniformed officers took a call on his radio. She clocked the absence of number plates. ‘We can still get the chassis number,’ she said. ‘Work from there.’ She saw the look on Thorne’s face. ‘Somewhere to start.’
‘It’s a family car,’ Thorne said.
‘So?’
‘So, what? Dad just borrows the family’s runaround when he wants to abduct a child?’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t seem . . .’
‘It’s a very efficient way of destroying evidence, though.’ Kimmel was still looking around the car. ‘Which is why we should get forensics over anyway, just in case it didn’t destroy everything.’
‘Why now, though? Why hold on to the car for a couple of weeks and then try to get rid of it?’ It was the first question Thorne had asked himself when the call had come through. The fact that there wasn’t any answer that made sense should have been enough to prevent him from tearing across town like an idiot. Clutching at straws.
He watched as the two uniformed officers ambled across.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ one of them said.
Thorne waited.
‘Well, the good news is that we know whose car this is. And the bad news . . . well I say bad news, because I know why you’re looking for cars like this . . . is that it belongs to a nice woman who lives in Dollis Hill.’
Thorne turned away and began walking back towards his car. The other officer continued talking to Kimmel. ‘She got home from work fifteen minutes ago to find it had been nicked from off her drive. Just called it in, apparently.’
Kimmel thanked both the officers and followed Thorne.
The officer with the radio shouted after her. ‘Kids, I reckon.’
Thorne had already started the Mondeo by the time Kimmel got in. She asked him if he’d drop her back at the station to collect her own car. Thorne said that he would, then remembered a promise he’d made to himself.
He said, ‘Do you mind if we take a different route back? Stop off somewhere on the way?’
SIXTY-EIGHT
Thorne followed Cat into her living room and asked if this was a good time. Cat shrugged, said that it was as good a time as any, and looked at Paula Kimmel. Thorne introduced them.
‘I talked to you on the phone,’ Kimmel said.
‘Yeah, I remember,’ Cat said. ‘You said you’d let me know if there was any news.’
‘Right,’ Kimmel said.
‘That why you’re here?’
Kimmel looked at Thorne.
‘I just wanted to stop by and see how you were doing.’ Thorne looked around, well aware how awkward he must look, standing there like a spare prick with his hands in his pockets, how ridiculous he sounded. The room was a little too warm, and a good deal messier than the last time he’d been here. A duvet was scrunched up at one end of the sofa. There were newspapers and magazines piled up in front of the TV and clothes strewn across the back of the chair by the door. ‘Haven’t spoken to you in a while.’
Cat said, ‘Right,’ and the three of them stood and stared at the floor, the wall, the window.
‘I would have called.’ Kimmel smiled. ‘Like I said I would. If there’d been any news.’
‘Which there obviously hasn’t,’ Cat said.
‘Actually, we thought we might have found the car. It’s where we’ve just come from.’
Cat looked at her, expressionless; waiting, as if she knew what was coming, but needed to hear it anyway.
Kimmel shook her head. ‘Not the one.’
‘So, you want some tea or something?’ Cat took a step towards the kitchen. ‘Got a few beers in the fridge if you fancy one.’
‘Tea’s fine for me,’ Ki
mmel said. ‘Driving.’
‘So am I,’ Thorne said, ‘but one beer’s not going to hurt.’
‘Tea’s good.’
Cat nodded.
‘No worries, I’ll get them.’ Thorne stepped in front of her. ‘Two beers and a tea for the lightweight, yeah?’ He turned and walked into the kitchen before Cat could argue, happy to leave her and Kimmel to it. Happy to let Kimmel take the lead, dishing out the sympathy while she waited for the tea to go with it. Not because she was a woman, but simply because Thorne guessed that she’d be better at it than he was. With the possible exception of a certain DI, he couldn’t think of anyone else in the team who wouldn’t be better at it.
He took two beers from the fridge and leaned against the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil. He could hear the two women talking in the living room; not the words, just the gentle rise and fall of their voices, until the low shush and grumble of the kettle finally drowned them out.
Thorne had delivered the death message a few times. He’d knocked on doors, removed his cap and broken the worst news in the world. He’d looked away respectfully as those on the receiving end – the parents and children, husbands and wives – had fallen apart in front of him, but it was still easier than this.
This . . . nothing. This worse than nothing.
Chit-chat and fake smiles and Christmas cracker comfort, while you watched someone bleed and bleed. Watched them drown, slowly, gasping at each desperate mouthful of hope you were there to provide. Watched them struggle, and sink, because that was your job and because, at the end of the day, it was all you could do. While some shameful, nameless part of you wanted nothing more than for it to be over; for their suffering and yours to stop, whatever that cost, because no amount of training – no victim-relations lectures or seminars or words of wisdom from those with a few more miles on the clock than you – could ever prepare you for it.
However shiny your buttons were.
However spotless those white gloves.
You would never be ready.
Thorne picked up his beer. He wandered out into the hall and took the few steps along to Kieron’s bedroom. There were Power Rangers stickers on the door, a picture of Frank Lampard, a peeling keep out sign.
Thorne nudged the door open.
The bed was made, the drawers were closed and the carpet looked as though it had been recently vacuumed. The only thing that seemed out of place was a tattered cardboard folder on the floor next to the bed, a few sheets of paper protruding from beneath the flap.
Thorne stepped inside and picked up the folder.
He sat down on the bed and took out a sheaf of the contents.
‘So, your mate making her own tea then, or what?’
Thorne looked up to see Cat standing in the doorway. ‘Sorry. I was just . . .’
Cat nodded at the folder. ‘Those are all Kieron’s pictures from school.’
Thorne opened his beer. ‘They’re good.’ He pulled a few more of the paintings and drawings from the torn folder. Cat sat on the bed next to him and Thorne listened while she pointed and commented.
‘He’s always loved art,’ she said.
‘I can’t even draw a stick-man,’ Thorne said. ‘Never could.’
She reached for one and held it up. ‘Good, isn’t it?’
Thorne leaned forward to look and nodded his agreement, though, in truth, he couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be a picture of. A lion, or a bear . . . a weird dog, maybe. He took out the next one – a sheet of paper that, unlike the rest of them, had been folded several times.
He unfolded it and stared down at the drawing.
Cat must have seen his face change. ‘You OK?’
The drawing was unlike the others Thorne had seen so far. Felt-tip and crayon, with much more detail and heavier colouring-in. It looked as though a lot of time had been spent on it.
A man wearing a cap. A boy standing next to him in a tartan anorak. A bright red car and the letters in black underneath.
D A D D Y
‘What?’ Cat said.
Thorne handed the picture to her. ‘When did Kieron do this one?’
Cat stared down at the picture, shaking her head. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘Where did you get these?’
‘Simon brought them over. When we met for lunch. But . . .’
Thorne’s mind was racing. He needed to go back and check Simon Jenner’s less than cast-iron alibi. But if the teacher was the man Kieron had drawn, why would Jenner deliver the picture to Cat?
‘I’ve never seen this picture before.’ Cat turned to look at him. ‘I’m not even sure it is one of Kieron’s.’ She shook her head again and pointed at the folder. ‘This definitely wasn’t in that folder when Simon gave it to me.’
Thorne’s hand moved quickly to the back of his neck and scratched at the tickle. ‘Who else has been here, Cat? Since you got these pictures.’
‘Angie was round,’ she said. ‘She’s been here a lot . . . oh, and Maria popped in a couple of days ago, because she said Josh was upset and was keen to come over. He wanted to play in Kieron’s room . . .’
Then, Thorne understood.
How many people did the average seven-year-old know?
Teachers, neighbours, family members.
Not his family members, though. Not Kieron’s . . .
Thorne stood up and reached to take the drawing from Cat. He looked at it again, then walked quickly back into the living room and asked Kimmel for her radio. The moment she’d taken it from her bag and handed it over, he went back out into the hall, passing Cat on the way, and closed the door behind him.
Fifteen seconds later, he was talking to an officer in the control room. He gave them the name and told them that he urgently required a current address. Any current addresses.
Thorne waited. He stared at himself in the cracked mirror next to the front door and wondered if he was about to throw a drowning mother a lifeline. Or if he was actually reaching to push her down into the wet dark and finally put an end to it.
A last gasp, either way.
When the information came through, he scribbled the details on the back of the drawing, tucked it into his pocket and walked back into the living room.
Kimmel and Cat were both on their feet.
‘We need to go,’ he said.
‘Where?’ Cat watched Kimmel move quickly to join Thorne at the door. ‘What’s happening?’
‘You need to sit tight for a bit,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s all. Is there anyone who can come over and keep you company?’
‘Don’t tell me.’ Cat was breathing heavily, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. ‘You’ll let me know when there’s any news.’
‘Of course,’ Thorne said.
Kimmel walked past him and he turned quickly to follow her out to the front door. This time, whether or not it was the news Catrin Coyne wanted, Thorne guessed that it would not be long in coming.
SIXTY-NINE
Thorne pointed the car north and, after a couple of minutes with the road atlas on her lap, Kimmel told him to head for the A10.
‘It’s about the shortest route I can see,’ she said. ‘It looks like it’s a bit further if we go round the A1, but then again, the roads might be better . . . three lanes on the Barnet by-pass.’
‘So, which way?’
‘It’s six of one, half a dozen—’
‘This’ll have to do,’ Thorne said, veering right, making his choice.
The address he’d been given was twenty-five miles or so away to the north-east of them, in Hertfordshire; an area that looked to be largely made up of woods and farmland, between the villages of Hertford Heath and Haileybury. No distance from London in the scheme of things, and not very far from his parents’ place in St Albans, but still not an area Thorne knew at all.
Kimmel was still looking at the atlas: tracing the route, using her fingers to measure the scale, calculating. ‘Forty minutes, maybe?’
Thorne
took the Mondeo hard past two cars before pulling back into the line of traffic. ‘Thirty,’ he said. Driving downhill, away from the Archway Road, he accelerated along the edge of Highgate Wood, looking left, for just a moment, beyond the fence into the dark tangle of trees, where all this had begun almost three weeks before.
‘Call it in.’
While Kimmel was on the radio, Thorne sped through Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace, flashing his lights and leaning on the horn in the absence of blues and twos, on through Edmonton and Enfield, towards the M25.
‘I’ve ordered up a couple of two-man cars,’ Kimmel said, when she signed off. ‘Told them to put an ambulance on standby. They’ll call up a forensic unit if and when.’
Thorne nodded and put his foot down harder. He knew that the back-up teams they’d requested would be coming from Hertfordshire Constabulary, but the basic comms set-up meant that, until all vehicles involved had arrived at the target location, he would have no direct contact with any of those units. No idea as to their up-to-the-minute progress or ETA. The Hertfordshire officers could only talk to their own control station, who would then contact the Met, who would, in turn, pass on any necessary intelligence to Thorne and Kimmel via the radio.
It was hardly ideal.
Thorne just wanted to get there.
‘Ashton was in front of us all the time,’ he said. ‘Christ . . .’
‘Not really.’ Kimmel turned, one hand holding tight to the handle above the passenger door. ‘There wasn’t any good reason to look at him, was there?’
‘Right in front of us.’
She shook her head. ‘He never came into it, mate . . . why would he? The missing boy’s mother’s . . . friend’s . . . ex-husband. No way. Not on the radar.’
Thorne stared ahead, bouncing his hand off the steering wheel as he swore quietly. At the driver of the car in front, at the man they were on their way to see, at himself.
‘We didn’t do anything wrong,’ Kimmel said.
‘Kieron would have known him . . . course he would, he was his best mate’s dad. Right from the kick-off, we should have paid more attention to the people Kieron knew. Barratt was saying that all along. Saying the boy knew him.’
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