‘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 dialling 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 where 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.
‘Stuart 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 Stuart.’ 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 signalled 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 Stuart 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 deathmask 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 t
o 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 head, 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 manoeuvring 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.
Dinner and some TV, and then the radio later, after Caroline had gone up to bed. He was thinking about it already, but later, alone, he’d decide on the final wording. The wording of this first part at any rate. It wasn’t going to happen immediately, of course. He’d need to make it irresistible and that would take time. The time frame was still a little vague. He only had a provisional date in mind for the big event itself, but he would start tonight.
Sending out the invite.
‘We’ll see the fucking prison in a minute, Palmer. It’s less than half a mile.’ Thorne was trying not to shout. ‘Once I pull up to the barrier, that’s it. You can forget anything else you might want to say to me, ever. If I don’t hear something from you in the next few minutes, I stop listening. Do you understand?’
Thorne wasn’t sure he understood himself. He wasn’t certain what he was threatening Palmer with. All he knew was that Palmer had seemed keen to tell him something. He always had. He suddenly wondered if all this time it had simply been the confession about exposing himself to Karen McMahon. That was certainly something about which he’d been obsessed. Thorne’s hands were clammy on the wheel. Had he seen salvation or inspiration in what was nothing more than a teenager’s guilt about getting his cock out?
No, there had to be something else. Something that could point Thorne towards Nicklin.
‘What is it, Palmer?’
Palmer, bouncing his handcuffed wrists on his knees, those annoying little nods . . .
‘For Christ’s sake, you walked into a police station with a gun. You walked in bleeding. I saw how desperate you were, how fucked up. You said you were sick of it, you said you would do anything to help. You said you wanted to stop him.’
‘I do.’
Thorne almost jumped. Palmer’s first words since the railway embankment.
‘So tell me, then. What is it? What was it you were talking about in the prison the other day?’
As Thorne asked the question, the car turned a corner and Belmarsh came into view, the lights of the perimeter fence just a thousand yards away, dancing as the light dimmed.
‘Here we go, Palmer, home sweet home.’ Palmer made a noise, something like a growl. ‘Not very nice is it? Why not go back in feeling like you’ve done something useful. You can’t make up for the women you killed, but you can help me try and stop any more dying . . .’
Palmer shaking his head, wrestling with something. Thorne no longer trying not to shout.
‘Come on!’
They slowed down, stopping at the point opposite the main drive, the T-junction where they had to wait before crossing the main carriageway. Headlights sped towards them from their left, a gap in the traffic may
be half a minute away. The Vectra pulled out to come up alongside them.
‘I fucking mean it. I’m walking away . . .’
The driver of the Vectra looked across at Thorne, waiting for the confirmation that everything was hunky-dory, looking for the signal that they could go.
‘Give me something on Nicklin. I know there’s something you aren’t saying . . .’
Just a couple more cars.
Thorne glanced to his right. ‘How much more guilty do you want to feel? How much more fucking guilty?’
Thorne waved. The Vectra nosed forward, waiting for the gap.
Palmer’s body tensing, reaching for something.
‘Tell me about Stuart. Tell me what you’re thinking. Please . . .’
The Vectra sounded its horn, the detective nearest Thorne’s window raised an arm.
‘Come on!’ Thorne shouted, as the car alongside him roared away to the right. Thorne watched it go, slammed his hands on the dashboard, took his foot from the brake. ‘Too late . . .’
The voice from the back of the car: ‘I think he might be a police officer.’
Thorne’s left foot slipped from the clutch. The car stalled and lurched forward. He rocked back in his seat, and was about to turn round when his head was pushed violently forward.
Thorne was still conscious as his face bounced off the worn vinyl of the steering wheel, but not for very long.
Might be seconds . . . might be minutes . . . how long?
Thorne looked at the clock on the dash, waited for his vision to clear.
Minutes. Just a few . . .
He turned round slowly. He felt like cement had been poured in through both his ears. Palmer was gone. The back door was open.
Where . . . ? What was it he said . . . ?
Thorne looked around wildly, each eye movement like a punch as he scanned the area, desperate to see Palmer lurching away into the distance. Headlights from the cars that continued to rush past lit the darkening stain down his shirt, the string of scarlet snot that dripped from the steering wheel.
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