Scaredy cat Thorne 2

by Mark Billingham

  McEvoy put her hand on the phone, picked it up the instant it began to ring.

  'Derek.'

  She laughed at whatever it was Lickwood said, placed a hand across the mouthpiece and stared at Dave Holland until he left.

  ' There's something else I want to tell you.'

  On TV, half a dozen dull, unattractive people sat about in a house, each trying to avoid being voted out. Thorne bit unenthusiastically into a sandwich and prayed for something interesting to happen. Like a meteor striking the house, or maybe a knife fight. He thought it was ironic that this was called fly-on-the-wall television. The morons that enjoyed it would have got as much entertainment out of capturing a real bluebottle in a jam jar; watching it smack into the glass over and over again.

  The sound was turned down. Folsom Prison Blues provided the soundtrack.

  Thorne was almost certain that there would be nothing jaunty about Belmarsh Prison Blues. No boom-chicka-boom two-beat. Just feedback. A tuneless dirge screamed over the monotonous thumping of boots on stairs and heads against walls. Martin Palmer had walked into the visiting area a few hours earlier looking like it was a song he'd been hearing a lot in the last week.

  Thorne had said nothing. He'd put the plastic bag down on the table, slid it across. Palmer had leaned forward and stared at the wrapper, much as Hendricks and the others had done earlier. Palmer had seen what it was straight away. He'd recognised it.

  'Nicklin killed Karen, Martin. He killed her and buried her in a ditch, then told everyone she'd been abducted.' Thorne had only glanced away for a second but when he'd looked back, Palmer's face had been wet. 'Come on, did you never even consider it?'

  Palmer had reached forward and put his hand over the plastic bag. Obscured it.

  'Karen was his first,' Thorne had said. 'At least, I think so. There isn't much of her left to test, so we'll never know for sure, but I'd guess he assaulted her as well. Some kind of sexual activity before he killed her...'

  Palmer had looked away, poking two fingers behind his glasses to wipe his eyes. 'How did he do it?'

  'He strangled her. Wrapped a rope around her neck.. Smart, who you loved.'

  'I don't believe he did anything to her like that. Anything sexual, I mean.'

  Thorne had scoffed. 'You're right, I'm only guessing. We'll just stick with murder and dumping the body in a shallow grave, shall we?

  Did you ever ask yourself how many more he might have killed, Martin? How many more Karen's there might be?'

  Palmer had turned back to him suddenly. 'I want to see where she was.'

  'You know where she was. At the embankment. I told you, we found the body in a drainage ditch...'

  'I want to see exactly. I'd like to see exactly where he put Karen.'

  Thorne had heard similar requests before from friends and relatives of victims. Show me where he died. Take me to the spot they killed her. Where did the accident happen? Location was important to people. Somewhere to leave a marker, to visit. Increasingly, thanks to Diana and the emergence of a shrine culture, a place for complete strangers to leave bunches of flowers or teddy bears.

  Palmer was not a victim though. Palmer was on remand, charged with murder.

  'Sorry, no. What's the point, anyway? They've taken the body away, she's not there any more. There's nothing there any more...' Thorne said this, but didn't know for sure. The body would probably have been removed by now, but he didn't know what else might be happening at the site.

  'I don't care. I want to see.'

  'Forget it.' Thorne stood up, took a few steps in no particular direction.

  'Before, you were helping us locate the body, fair enough, but this is pointless. Even if I was in favour of it, which I'm not, I couldn't get it authorised.'

  'Please.'

  'Shut up.' With Palmer, it always seemed to go the same way. He made Thorne feel something that was almost like sympathy, whatever it was turning quickly to something that was definitely anger. 'Why the fuck should I try to... ?'

  Palmer shoved back his chair and stood up fast. Through the window at the far end of the room, Thorne could see one of the prison officers moving to check that everything was all right. He had been about to signal that there was no problem when Palmer had said what Thorne had been desperate to hear since those first few days after he'd handed himself in.

  'There's something else I want to tell you . . .'

  Now, in his flat, the phone was ringing.

  Thorne got up, turned off the television and stereo en route and fetched the phone from the table by the front door. Stepping sideways to avoid the unfinished sandwich on a plate on the floor, he dropped backwards over the arm of the chair leaving his legs dangling, and hit the button.

  It was his dad. They hadn't spoken for a week or so.

  'Tom...'

  'How's it going?'

  'Fine, you know.'

  'Gags tonight, or quizzes?'

  'Tom, it's Dad.'

  'I know.' Thorne laughed. 'You all right?' His dad breathed heavily down the phone at him. 'Listen, you never told me how it went down the Legion.'

  'What?'

  'The trick you were going to pull. You called me and asked me about the worst killers.'

  There was a pause. 'I didn't...'

  'That smallpox thing. It was a joke to play on your mates. Remember? It was a couple of weeks ago, I think.'

  'No. Sorry. No idea what you're on about. Smallpox?'

  'Come on, yes you do. You asked me for the names of the worst killers .....

  'What, you mean diseases?'

  'Yeah, that was the point, I think. Forget it. Wasn't one of your best anyway.'

  'Is this a windup?'

  Thorne laughed again, pulled a face. 'Well if it is, it's not me that's doing it...'

  'Just piss off, all right...'

  'Dad... ?' Thorne swung his legs over the arm of the chair, sat up straight.

  'Who the hell d'you think you're talking to? Talking to me like that...'

  Thorne was suddenly concerned, but tried his very best not to sound it. 'Look, calm down, Dad. It doesn't matter OK. OK?'

  There was silence then, save for the laboured breathing. Ten, fifteen seconds...

  'Dad, I--'

  'Go to hell, you little fucker!'

  An explosion of rage, then the dialing tone.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Karen McMahon's parents hadn't been informed about the finding of a body, at least, not officially. That wouldn't be done until tests had been completed, but being asked to provide material for a DNA comparison must have given them a fair idea. A call out of the blue fifteen years down the line, and suddenly they would be thinking about finally laying their daughter to rest.

  Karen McMahon's parents would not yet have visited the site of this, her first grave. When they did, they wouldn't have a great deal of trouble finding it.

  Over forty-eight hours now since they'd found the bones, the bin bags and the carpet. The equipment, the paraphernalia, was already long gone. Now it was just a muddy hole, its location marked by footprints, a few scraps of crime-scene tape, and the small pile of rocks which Nicklin had used to keep the animals away which now stood like some parody of a headstone.

  They'd probably come down with Vic Perks, the parents, when they came . . .

  Perks had been very clear about wanting to visit. He'd sounded grateful when Thorne had told him - grateful and devastated.

  'Would it have been quick, do you think?' Palmer had been staring down into the drainage ditch for several minutes, saying nothing. The sudden question took Thorne a little by surprise.

  'To bury her?'

  'To kill her.'

  Thorne pictured the rotten black rope hanging loose around the bones of the neck where once it had bitten tight against the flesh. He remembered Carol Garner's post-mortem report. 'Not quick enough,'

  he said.

  Palmer stepped back from the ditch and turned away. He looked up towards the top of the embankment whe
re the back-up officers sat in their car - the Vectra parked up next to Thorne's Mondeo. It was raining gently. Both cars were splattered with mud. At the foot of the slope, Holland, in a yellow waterproof jacket, wandered up and down, glancing across occasionally at Thorne and Palmer, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

  'Smart lied to me,' Palmer said.

  Thorne had heard stranger things said, but he couldn't remember when. 'Did he?' he said, thinking: he did a lot more than fucking lie to you...

  'Something happened the day Karen went missing.' He cleared his throat, corrected himself. 'The day she was killed. When the three of us were together down here.' He began to move, each step taking an age, as though he were walking in slow motion. Thorne moved after him, taking two steps to each one of Palmer's. They'd cut the grass and the earth felt spongy beneath his feet. He was aware of Holland away to his right at the edge of his vision, the bright jacket vivid against the dark bank behind him.

  'It was a trick,' Palmer said. 'I don't know for sure whether they were both in on it. It doesn't matter now anyway. I thought Karen ... wanted me, and I felt excited. She wanted me, you see. Not Smart.' His voice was a little higher than usual, as if the memory were forcing it closer to the way it had sounded fifteen years before. He shrugged.

  'Like I say, it was a joke. I was being made a fool of, but I didn't know that then. I was excited, more than I'd ever been, more than I have ever been. What happened wasn't intentional. I'd tell you if it were, you could hardly think any worse of me, but it genuinely was not.' He took a breath. 'I exposed myself to her.'

  Palmer had stopped moving and turned to look at Thorne as he arrived at his shoulder. 'I'm well aware of how ... insignificant this sounds now. Then, at that moment, I would have taken my life in a heartbeat if I'd had the means. If I'd had the courage. When I turned round I saw the joke, I could see that they had probably been conspiring, but the look on Karen's face was horrible. She was disgusted. Not comic disgust, real horror, like she was reminded of something...

  'I've wondered since if perhaps she was being abused, if the sight of me brought something back.' He nodded to himself. 'Useless to speculate now, I know...

  'Whatever, I ran from that place, from this place, terrified that I had done something to Karen that day. Later, after she had disappeared, Stuart did his best to confirm it.'

  Thorne looked down. He saw that Palmer's fists were clenched.

  They bobbed in front of his groin, forced forwards by his elbows, pressed tightly together by the handcuffs.

  'He told you that it was your fault she got into the car, didn't he?'

  Palmer nodded. 'Like I'd disturbed her so much she needed to get away. He told me he would keep it secret. He told me he was protecting me. He reminded me of it, that day when he walked into the restaurant. Hinted at things.., made threats.'

  'He was using you to protect himself.'

  'Yes I know that now,' Palmer said, irritation creeping momentarily into his voice. He lowered his head for a second, raised it. The irritation had gone. 'I'm sorry.'

  Thorne said nothing.

  'Over the years I gave it all a slightly spooky twist. I thought about it all the time, and it got hammered into this bizarre shape in my head. I convinced myself that what I'd done to Karen had somehow contaminated her. Like I'd put the smell of it on her. The victim smell. Something ... powerful. The perversion of it lingering around her, attracting that man in the car, drawing him to her...'

  Thorne waited a few seconds, making sure the story was finished.

  'What else did you want to tell me about Nicklin, Martin?'

  Palmer's eyes slowly closed. His head drooped. As Thorne watched, he half expected to see Palmer's bulk begin to sink into the soggy ground, pushed into it by the force of the invisible weight that was pressing down on him.

  'What else were you going to tell me?'

  Thorne turned and signaled to Holland, shaking his head. It was getting dark anyway. They might as well try and beat the rush hour. Martin Palmer wasn't saying anything else for the time being. Two cars driving nose to tail from north-west London in a long diagonal down to the south-east. In the dirty blue Mondeo, three men, lost for the majority of the journey in their own thoughts. Looking for solutions. Nursing desperate ideas.

  Martin Palmer. Remembering lies, considering the nature of betrayal, praying in advance for forgiveness. Dave Holland. Weighing up his options and finding each of them in their own way unpleasant, sickening. Beyond him. Tom Thorne. Running out of time and ideas. Wondering if this was to be one of the ones he'd be doomed to remember. Would Smart Nicklin's be a face he'd never see and so never be able to forget?

  For each of them the answers would come sooner than they could have guessed.

  'I want this sorted before we get back to Belmarsh, Martin.' Thorne spoke casually, as if resuming a conversation. They were passing through Maida Vale, down towards Paddington. Twenty minutes without a word and he'd had about enough.

  'I took you to see Karen's grave. Believe me, I went to a great deal of trouble...' Brigstocke's face had been a picture. Thorne couldn't begin to imagine the rictus that must have distorted Jesmond's death mask features when the request was passed on.

  'You led me to believe there was something else you wanted to say. That's what I told people. Something about Nicklin.'

  Palmer sat handcuffed to Holland, unmoving.

  'I want to hear it, Martin. It felt like an agreement to me.'

  'Quid pro quo, Doctor Lecter,' Holland whispered.

  'Right,' Thorne said. Fuck knows what it meant, but he'd seen the film. He turned and threw Palmer a look. Well?

  If Palmer knew what it meant, it didn't appear to make a great deal of difference.

  Five minutes later, just past Victoria Station, Thorne yanked the wheel sharply to the left and put his foot down. Behind them, the Vectra flashed its lights.

  'Sir,' Holland said, 'Vauxhall Bridge, Camberwell, Peckham, New Cross. That was the agreed route...'

  Thorne raised a hand, acknowledging the Vectra. He raised his voice a little to answer Holland. 'Lambeth Bridge, Elephant & Castle. That's the new route. I've changed it.'

  'The Elephant?'

  'Dropping you off home, Dave.'

  Holland leaned forward looking concerned. Palmer did likewise and not just because of the handcuffs. 'I appreciate the gesture, but in terms of the amount of shit we're all likely to be in, this really isn't one of your better ideas. Sir.'

  'Probably not, but there's no need for anybody to know about it, is there?'

  'No, but I still think...'

  'Look, we're virtually driving past your place anyway. Besides, I think Martin's come over a little shy.'

  Holland looked at Palmer, looked behind to the back-up car. One of the detectives raised both his palms. What the fuck are we doing?

  They drove on through Victoria, across the river and past the huge twin guns outside the Imperial War Museum. Ten minutes later they were cruising slowly up Holland's road.

  'Get the handcuffs off, Dave. Unless Sophie wants an extra body for dinner. Second on the left isn't it... ?'

  Thorne watched, amused, as Holland slammed the door and walked back to the Vectra. The two detectives were out of the car before he got there. A couple of minutes of shrugging and headshaking later, they were back inside, waiting.

  Holland came round to Thorne's window, leaned down. 'Are you sure, sir?'

  'Go inside, Holland.' He nodded towards the back seat. 'Look at him. I don't think he's going to be giving me a great deal of trouble. We're just going to be chatting.., hopefully.'

  Holland stepped aside as the Mondeo pulled away and sped off towards the Old Kent Road.

  Inside, Thorne was playing cabbie. 'Look at this traffic, not even four o'clock and it's mental. I bet it's already snarled, up round Deptford. You've got about fifteen minutes I reckon, twenty, tops.'

  Thorne checked the rearview mirror. Palmer was staring at the back of his hea
d, breathing hard. Was what he had to say so difficult to spit out?

  'A quarter of an hour until we get back to the prison, Palmer. That's all. Now fucking speak up...'

  Nearly going-home time.

  The place was starting to empty but he was staying behind. He had one or two things to catch up on. Above all, he wanted to sit alone for a while and enjoy his cleverness.

  He never thought about what he did as being particularly clever. What he did with his knives and his hands and his friends. It was something he needed to do, it felt more instinctive than anything else. Yes, of course there was planning, more when he was maneuvering Palmer, but none of it was really difficult. It was straightforward stuff, mostly. Surviving was easy. It was making it interesting that was the tricky bit. This was clever though, no question. He wondered whether it had been lodged in his subconscious for a while, waiting to pop out, fully formed. It was so perfect. She was so perfect. She fitted the plan and the plan fitted her, so snugly that he wondered if perhaps it was her, the idea of her, the things she made him think, that had been responsible for it in the first place.

  He had finally selected his guest and really, there could never have been any other.

  He could not be certain of course, not yet, that she would come, or if she did, that she would do precisely as she was invited to do. Whatever happened, he was protected. That was the brilliance of the scheme. As things stood, he was quietly confident. He knew he had made a wise choice.

  A wise choice. Like ordering an expensive bottle of wine in some up-its-own-arse restaurant. A wise choice if I may say so, sir... It quickly became apparent to him that he was not going to get any work done. He could concentrate on nothing but the enterprise ahead. How was he going to kill her? Where? Jesus, so much excitement ahead, so many brilliant bits of it all left to work out...

  No wonder he couldn't be bothered with paperwork. That had always been his way though: scan the horizon, find the source of the new adventure and then forget everything else. Throw yourself into it, take others with you if they had the bottle to come, wring each last ounce of life out of it, every drop of juice... He'd pick up a nice bottle of something on the way home, Caroline would like that. She'd forgiven him for Monday night, suggested that maybe he was working too hard, getting stressed out. He'd .agreed, said that yes, perhaps he had taken on a bit much, laughed to himself about that when he was alone.