The Burning Girl

by Mark Billingham

  Chamberlain took his arm. ‘Now that I would have paid good money to see.’

  ‘You’d have felt very ripped off…’

  Thorne had actually enjoyed himself. He’d done his turn, shown off and clowned around, blissfully unaware that the real people on which the characters were based did somewhat worse than pick a pocket or two.

  ‘Can you remember any of the songs?’ Chamberlain asked. She began to hum ‘Consider Yourself’, but Thorne didn’t join in.

  ‘I remember I had a battered top hat that you could squash, and then it would pop up again. I remember my nan waving at me on the first night when I walked on. I remember spending the whole time trying to cop off with a girl from the sixth form who was playing Nancy.’

  They turned into the entrance to the tube station. Walked down the stairs towards the turnstiles.

  ‘Right,’ Chamberlain said. ‘So you were in helpless thrall to your knob even then…’

  Back at the flat, Thorne sat at the kitchen table waiting for the kettle to boil. He called his father but the line was permanently engaged…

  He was still getting used to having the place to himself again. Hendricks had moved back into his flat the week before, and, if he was being honest, Thorne missed having him around. It was good to have some peace and quiet, though, and he certainly didn’t miss the discarded trainers dotted about the place or the disparaging comments about his record collection.

  After five minutes he rang the operator, asked them to check his father’s line. His dad’s phone had been left off the hook.

  It was nice to have some privacy back too. Although Hendricks had shown no such inhibitions, Thorne had felt somewhat uncomfortable about being less than fully clothed in front of his friend. He knew he was being stupid, or worse, but the journey from bathroom to bedroom had occasionally been a little awkward.

  Thorne carried his tea through to the living room. He put some music on and, while he was up, took a well-thumbed encyclopedia of London from the shelves.

  The Rookery of St Giles had been demolished in 1847.

  He drank tea and listened to Laura Cantrell, and to the hum of distant traffic between the tracks. He sat and read…

  While various King Georges had come and gone, while science and revolution were changing the world beyond recognition, the deprivation and crime in the worst areas of the capital had reached incredible levels. The poor and the sick had robbed and murdered one another, and sold their children to buy gin, while the law had more or less left them to get on with it.

  Two centuries on, the drugs were different. The gun had replaced the cudgel and the cut-throat razor. The Rookeries were called housing estates.

  Thorne remembered what Chamberlain had said when the siren had stopped screaming.

  ‘Reassuring’ was definitely not the word…

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘So, come on,’ Rooker said. ‘What level of protection do I get?’

  He looked from Thorne to Holland and back again, searching their faces for some hint. The two detectives looked at each other, milking the moment.

  To say that the SO7 case–specifically the part involving the testimony of Gordon Rooker–had been thrown into confusion would be an understatement. The concept of witness protection did, after all, become a little pointless when the individual from whom you were providing protection had been carved up by an ex-wife. As Thorne had explained to Rooker before, there were different levels of protection, each appropriate to the perceived threat. Rooker had clearly grasped the concept, and, with the prison jungle drums going mental, had been on the phone before Ryan’s death had so much as made it into the papers. He’d ranted and raved and demanded to know where he stood. It had been explained to him through appropriate channels that, in the immediate aftermath of Billy Ryan’s murder, his peace of mind was pretty low on everybody’s list of priorities.

  Now, face to face with Thorne for the first time since Ryan’s death, Rooker was still looking for an answer. ‘Well? What level do I get?’

  Thorne sniffed, nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think maybe a more basic method of disguise, as opposed to a completely new identity, and perhaps some means of raising the alarm should you feel threatened.’

  ‘Come again?’

  Holland smirked. ‘A wig and a whistle.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off and behave yourselves…’

  On a practical level, no one had so much as decided where Rooker should even go. He was still on the protected witness wing in Salisbury, which did seem pretty stupid. He could be transferred back to the VP wing at Park Royal or even, it had been suggested, back into the general prison population elsewhere, now that he was obviously in no danger from Billy Ryan. This idea had thrown Rooker into such a furious panic that the solicitor who’d passed on the information had briefly feared for his physical safety. In the end, unable to make a quick decision, they’d decided to leave him where he was. It was where he wanted to be, but Rooker still seemed far from content…

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Holland said. ‘I thought you’d be delighted that Billy Ryan was six feet under.’

  Rooker sucked his teeth. ‘Ten feet would be better. Yeah, if I had one, I’d’ve raised a glass to Alison Kelly for sticking a knife in the cunt, course I would. Shame it wasn’t a paintbrush…’

  ‘So, why are we here?’ Thorne asked. ‘Frankly, we’ve got better things to do.’

  ‘How d’you know I’m not still a target?’

  Thorne pretended to rack his brains. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because Billy Ryan’s pushing up daisies in St Pancras Cemetery…’

  ‘What about Stephen?’

  ‘What about him?’ Holland said.

  ‘Nobody knows what he’s likely to do.’

  Thorne glanced at Holland. He had to admit that Rooker had a point. Since his father’s murder, a great deal of time had been spent fruitlessly speculating as to exactly how Stephen Ryan was going to react.

  ‘He might decide to play the big man,’ Rooker said. ‘Come after me because of his father.’

  Holland picked at a fingernail. ‘Can’t see it, Gordon. I know Steve’s not the sharpest tool in the box, but even he knows you didn’t top his old man.’

  Rooker’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know perfectly fucking well what I mean.’

  Holland’s mood changed in an instant. ‘Watch your mouth.’

  ‘Sorry. Look, I just think that now might be a good time to tie up a few loose ends, you know? And I think they’ll use someone a bit more reliable than Alun Fisher next time.’

  ‘I really don’t think so,’ Thorne said. ‘We aren’t the only ones with better things to do. Stephen Ryan’s got quite enough to worry about at the moment…’

  The man on the motorbike pulled over to the pavement and waited. He sat letting the traffic move past him, revving the bike for no good reason. Letting his breathing grow shallower.

  It was a hot day and he’d have been sweating under his gear anyway, but in those places where the leather met flesh, the two skins slid across each other on a sheen of perspiration.

  He raised the dark visor just a little and took a few gulps of air that was anything but fresh. He swallowed petrol fumes and hot tar. He could taste the flavoured grease from the seemingly endless parade of fast-food outlets on this stretch of the Seven Sisters Road.

  The bike, which had been his only since that morning, had cut easily through the traffic, and he was well ahead of schedule. He thought about parking up and grabbing a Coke but knew that he’d be taking a stupid risk. He had a bottle of water in the box on the back, along with a few other bits and pieces. There’d be somewhere better to stop up ahead. Maybe he could take a stroll around Finsbury Park, kill some time before delivering the message.

  This was a big job, his biggest yet. He’d told his wife to pack for a spring break. All the swimming things and plenty of high-factor sun cream for the kids. He’d told her that it was a surprise, knowing that she’d be thrilled to bits with the amazing place
he’d booked for them all in the Maldives. Four weeks, fully catered, would make a big hole in what he was getting for the job, but there’d still be a decent amount left for other things. They’d been talking about shelling out to send their eldest private. The secondary schools in his part of Islington were a disgrace, and going private was a damn sight cheaper than upping sticks and moving. They’d have enough to cover three or four years at least, and still have some left over to tart up the house a bit. A conservatory maybe, or a loft conversion. He knew a few builders, people who’d give him a good price and still do a top-notch job.

  Doing a good job without charging silly money. It was simple really. He thought that he could build a decent reputation for himself by doing the same thing. He knew there were others, a few foreigners especially, who asked for more, but he believed that pitching yourself somewhere in the middle was the best policy long term.

  He flicked on his indicator, edged the bike’s front wheel towards the road.

  Not the cheapest, but one of the best: that was what he wanted people to think. All anyone really wanted was to believe they were getting value for money, wasn’t it? Everyone loved a bargain.

  A lorry’s horn blared as it rumbled by him. He pulled out into the stream of traffic, accelerated, and overtook it within seconds.

  Rooker was standing. Maybe he thought it gave him some authority. ‘We had an agreement,’ he said.

  Thorne leaned back in his chair. He knew exactly how much authority he had. ‘I’m a police officer, and, unless I’m much mistaken, you’re a convicted felon. This is a prison, not a gentleman’s club, and the only part of you I’d ever consider shaking is your neck. Are we clear?’

  Rooker ground his teeth.

  ‘Any agreement you might have thought you had is worth precisely less than fuck all,’ Holland said.

  Thorne shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

  Rooker sloped across the room, dragged back his chair and sank on to it. He pushed a palm back and forth across white stubble, the loose skin beneath his chin shaking gently. ‘There’s stuff I know,’ he said. ‘Stuff about plenty of people. I told some of it to DCI Tughan’s boys, but there’s other bits and pieces. There’s a few things I kept back.’

  ‘Why was that, then?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Because I wasn’t sure you lot were being completely straight with me…’

  Holland laughed. ‘Straight with you?’

  ‘I was right as well, wasn’t I?’ Rooker smiled thinly. His tongue flicked the spit away from his gold tooth.

  Thorne could well believe that Rooker hadn’t told them everything. He could equally well believe that Tughan had kept a few pieces of information back from the team himself. Thorne didn’t really give a toss on either score.

  ‘Whatever you may, or may not, have told SO7, the deal was based on you helping to put Billy Ryan away…’

  Holland took over. ‘Now that he’s been put away for good, you’re not a great deal of use.’

  ‘I want to talk to Tughan.’

  ‘You can talk to whoever you like,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m sick of listening to you…’ He reached behind for the leather jacket that was draped across the back of the chair.

  Rooker slid a hand forward, slapped a palm down on the scarred metal tabletop. It was a gesture of frustration as much as anger. ‘I need to get out. I was supposed to get out.’

  ‘You’ll be out soon enough,’ Holland said.

  Rooker spoke as if his mouth were filled with something sour, with something burned. ‘No. Not soon enough.’

  ‘Unfortunate turn of phrase, Holland.’ Thorne pulled on his jacket.

  ‘Without your say-so I’ll never get through the DLP next week. Those evil bastards’ll make sure I die inside.’

  ‘You’ll get out eventually,’ Holland said. ‘Think how much more enjoyable it’ll be. Things are always better when you’ve looked forward to them for a while.’

  Thorne tried to catch Rooker’s eye. The irises, green against off-white, darted around like cornered rats. ‘Especially now you don’t have to worry about Billy Ryan paying someone to put a bullet in your spine.’

  ‘Well you certainly won’t be worrying about it,’ Rooker said.

  Holland stood, tucked in his chair. ‘I reckon you’ve probably still got time to do something useful,’ he said. ‘Why not squeeze in a quick degree? Come out with a few letters after your name…?’

  Rooker muttered curses.

  Thorne watched as he snatched the lid from his tobacco tin, dug into it. ‘Why are you so very keen to get out, Rooker? Got a little something stashed away?’

  Rooker spat back the answer without so much as raising his head. ‘I told you before.’

  ‘Right. Some desperately moving crap about fresh air and wanting to watch your grandson play football.’

  ‘Fuck you, Thorne.’

  ‘You never know, Gordon. If the pair of you avoid injury, you might be out in time to watch him score the winning goal in the FA Cup Final. Although, with him playing for West Ham…’

  The motorcyclist idled the bike, steady against the kerb, waiting out the final minute.

  Trying to focus. Deciding to go half a minute early, to take into account the probable wait for a gap in the late afternoon traffic. Trying to clear his head. Trivial thoughts intruding, sullying the pure white horizon of his mind in the final few moments. They’d need to set aside enough for school uniforms. They weren’t cheap when you needed to buy four or five of everything. Did the all-inclusive package in the Maldives include booze? He’d need to check. That could make a big difference…

  He let one car pass, two cars, a pushbike, before accelerating away hard from the kerb and swinging the machine across both lanes in a wide U-turn. He pulled up outside a dry cleaner’s, two doors along from the address he would be visiting. Then, within fifteen seconds, the moves he’d gone over in his mind a hundred times or more in the last few hours.

  He flicked the bike on to its stand, left the engine running.

  He walked quickly to the box on the back. It had been left unlocked.

  He reached inside, withdrew his hand as soon as it had closed around the rubberised grip of the gun, and turned away from the street.

  The arm swung loose at his side as he walked, quickly but not too quickly from kerb to shopfront. Without breaking stride, he turned right into the open doorway of the minicab office.

  He was two large paces towards the counter before the man behind it looked up and by then the gun was being levelled at him. A man in an armchair in the corner lowered his newspaper and executed a near-perfect double-take before crying out. Hassan Zarif cried out too as a bullet passed through him. The spray of blood that fell across the calendar behind him was somewhat overdramatic in comparison with the gentle hiss from the weapon that had caused it.

  The motorcyclist fired again and Zarif fell back, dropping behind the wooden counter. The gun bucked in his hand, but only slightly. No more than it might recoil had it brushed the surface of something hot to test the temperature.

  As he strode forward, his target having disappeared from sight, the door to the right of the counter burst open, and the motorcyclist turned just as the gun in Tan Zarif’s hand began to do its work. The bullet smashed through the plastic of the darkened visor. By the time the first passer-by had spilled his shopping, and others–who knew very well that a car was not backfiring close by–were starting to run, the man in the leathers had dropped, with very little noise, on to the grubby linoleum.

  For a few seconds inside the tiny office, there was only the ringing report of the unsilenced gunshot. The high-pitched hum of it rose above the deep rumble of a bus, passing by outside on its way towards Turnpike Lane.

  Tan Zarif shouted to the man in the armchair, who jumped up and ran past him through the doorway that led to the rear of the office. Zarif stepped smartly across to the body. And it was a body, that much was obvious: the ragged hole in the visor and the blood that poured along the cushioned
neck of the helmet and down, made it clear that the man on the floor would not be getting up again.

  It didn’t seem to matter…

  The man who had been sitting in the armchair, the man who was now behind the counter bending over the bloodied figure of Hassan Zarif, clapped his hairy hands across his ears as Hassan’s younger brother emptied his gun into a dead man’s chest.

  The first part of the drive back had been pleasant enough. They’d moved through the Wiltshire and Hampshire countryside quickly, but with enough time to enjoy the scenery, to laugh at the signs to Barton Stacey and Nether Wallop. Once they’d joined the M3, however, things had quickly become frustrating. It was one of those journeys where drivers had decided to sit there, beetling along at seventy or below in all three lanes. As usual, Thorne sat in the outside lane, grumbling a good deal and damning those ahead of him for the selfish morons they were. He never for a moment entertained the possibility that he might be one of them.

  A couple of weeks into spring, and summer weather seemed to have come early. The BMW’s fans were chucking out all the cold air they could, but even in shirtsleeves it was stifling inside the car.

  Holland took a long swig from a bottle of water. ‘Still pleased you bought this?’

  Thorne was singing quietly to himself. He reached across, turned down the volume of the first Highwaymen album. ‘Say again?’

  ‘The car.’ Holland fanned himself theatrically. ‘Still think it was a good move?’

  Thorne shrugged, as if the fact that they were all but melted to the leather seats was unimportant. ‘When they made these, cars didn’t have air conditioning. It’s the price you pay for a classic.’

  ‘I’m surprised they had the wheel when this thing was made…’

  ‘Good one, Dave.’

  ‘And what you pay to keep this on the road for a year would buy you a car with A/C.’

  Thorne drew close to the back of a Transit van and flashed his lights. He slammed his palm against the wheel and eased his foot off the accelerator when the signal was ignored.