‘Done a runner, hasn’t he?’ one of them had said. ‘Started again somewhere else. Jammy bastard.’
‘They tell you anything?’ Tracey shook her head without waiting for an answer. ‘No, well they wouldn’t. Especially if he was shacked up with someone else. Stick together, that lot.’
When the dog got slowly to its feet and waddled out into the hallway, Thorne stood up and asked if he could use the toilet. Tracey Goode shrugged again.
For a minute or so after Thorne had gone, Tanner said nothing. She watched Aiden Goode’s wife finish her energy drink, waited until she’d finished shouting at the dog which had begun barking to be let out from the kitchen.
‘Why did you stay with him, Tracey? After what he did?’
The woman drew her legs beneath her again. ‘I’m not convinced he did anything.’
‘Not convinced?’
‘He’s never been like that with me. Never been rough.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Tanner said.
‘Well, it does to me. Yeah, so he was probably messing about with those girls… flirting or whatever. That doesn’t mean the little slags weren’t lying about all the rest of it.’
‘The jury believed them.’
Tracey shook her head. ‘Yeah, well, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, didn’t I?’
Tanner just stared.
‘I mean I wouldn’t take him back now. Not after he just walked out on me without a word. You don’t treat people like that, do you?’
When Thorne came back in, he didn’t bother sitting down.
‘That’s my razor in the bathroom,’ Tracey said. ‘For my legs.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I know exactly what you were doing up there… what you were looking for. I’m not stupid, you know.’
‘I was having a piss,’ Thorne said. ‘And I put the seat back down afterwards.’
She pointed at Tanner. ‘I was just telling her… I wouldn’t have Aiden back in this house even if he did show up again. Anyway, I’m done with blokes right now. I’ve got my dog for company, and I’ve got my Rabbit upstairs, if you know what I’m saying.’ A nod at Tanner. ‘She knows what I’m talking about.’
Tanner stood up. ‘I’m afraid not.’
Tracey turned to Thorne, conspiratorial. ‘Trust me, she’s a liar.’
‘How about giving me the benefit of the doubt?’ Tanner said.
FIFTY-ONE
They were walking towards the tube station when Tanner’s phone rang, and after a five-minute conversation, during which there was a good deal of sighing and some very choice language, she spent the rest of the journey filling Thorne in.
‘A fatal shooting in Tottenham, night before last,’ she said. ‘Some low-rent drug dealer named Kieran Sykes. Plenty of people heard the shot and they’ve got several witnesses who saw the shooter, who was dressed in bike leathers, get on his motorbike and ride away.’
‘Ah,’ Thorne said.
‘Sounds a lot like the people who had Adnan Jandali killed and fitted Evans up for it. Same hitman. Territory this time, the sound of it.’
‘And we’re only hearing about this now, why?’
‘Got picked up by a team in Edmonton and it’s taken them this long to figure out that we might be interested. For pity’s sake…’
‘They getting anywhere?’
‘What do you think? People heard the shot, someone called it in, but as soon as a copper knocks on the door they’ve got bugger all to say. So far, nobody’s even been willing to admit they knew what Sykes did for a living. Making out he was a choirboy or something.’
‘Yeah, no surprise,’ Thorne said. ‘Easier to pretend that stuff’s not happening on their doorstep, and they’re scared about what might come back to bite them if they say anything. Hard to blame anyone.’
Tanner grunted in agreement, but looked very much as though she needed someone to blame.
‘They get CCTV, ANPR?’
‘They caught the bike on camera a couple of times going north on the Seven Sisters Road, but it’s a stolen plate. No forensics at the scene. What they’ve got is bugger all.’
They walked on, past something that called itself a casino but was no more than a glorified gaming arcade. It seemed to be doing very good business. They passed a pawnbroker and the somewhat less glamorous façade of a Travelodge.
‘Glad to see it’s not just us then,’ Thorne said.
Tanner looked at him. ‘I can only work with what I’ve got, you know.’
‘I know. Us, I said.’
‘Well, nice to hear you’re still on board.’
‘All right, so I know you’ve done most of the work on this one, but to be fair there hasn’t been a fat lot to do.’
‘Yeah, well there might be after this.’ Tanner fished in her handbag for her Oyster. ‘Double murder inquiry, now.’
‘I’m like a coiled spring,’ Thorne said.
On the train from Walthamstow Central, heading towards King’s Cross, Thorne sat and watched the young woman opposite. She looked tearful, yet oddly determined as she typed something into her phone. Was she breaking up with someone or had she just been fired? Had her favourite boy band announced that they were splitting up or was she responding to news of a genuine tragedy? A few seats away a middle-aged man smiled at something on the screen of his phone. It might have been an amusing cat video or pictures of his first grandchild, or it might have been the news that his company had just completed an aggressive takeover and put several hundred people out of work.
It was hard to read people at the best of times.
‘I want surveillance on Tracey Goode,’ Thorne said, as the train pulled out of Finsbury Park. ‘Overt and covert. Let’s clock her movements for a day or two, then get some recording equipment set up in her house. God knows if we’ll find room to hide it, mind you.’
Next to him, Tanner lowered the copy of Metro she had picked up when they’d got on the train. Thorne was not convinced that she’d actually been reading it, guessing that she was still thinking about this latest drugs murder. The gang they were putting Andrew Evans up against that was proving even more ruthless than they had first thought.
‘Did you find something in her bathroom?’
‘Bedrooms are always better,’ Thorne said.
He was expecting a lecture about procedure, about flouting important regulations relating to illegal searches, but it never came. The stern look was still enough to make him uncomfortable.
‘Far side of the bed… there was a motor racing mag on the floor. F1 Monthly or something.’
‘So?’ Tanner turned to him. ‘Doesn’t mean there’s been a bloke around. Actually, Susan was really into Formula One, so I don’t see how one magazine proves anything.’
‘I don’t understand why anyone’s into it.’
‘Hardly grounds for an arrest, is it?’
‘I still don’t think she’s being upfront with us.’
Tanner went back to her paper. ‘OK. Well, it can’t hurt.’
‘We should get eyes on Aiden Goode’s so-called friends as well, see if we can push their buttons. And I think we should press for a mobile phone intercept on the formerly faithful wife.’
‘Right.’ Tanner rolled her eyes. ‘And I can guess which one of us is going to be spending hours filling in the forms.’
They both knew only too well that clearance for a phone intercept was subject to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and that, under RIPA, a warrant would have to be issued by the Home Secretary. It would not be straightforward and any evidence obtained via an intercept would be inadmissible in court, but Thorne felt it would be worth Tanner’s trouble. Besides which, he had better things to worry about.
Worse things.
Today was Friday.
Date night…
FIFTY-TWO
At the door, Call Me Rob stopped and said, ‘You’ve done amazingly well, Andy. The drug’s near enough out of your system completely.’ He shook Evans
’s hand then pointed to his head. ‘Now, it’s all about what’s in here.’
Every bit as irritated by the counsellor’s patronising tone as always, Evans smiled and nodded, feeling rather like he had as a child on his way out of the dentist’s surgery. A pat on the back and a nudge towards the room where his mother sat waiting with a copy of Puzzler. All that was missing was the oversized badge pinned to his jacket saying Brave Boy!.
‘You’ve done the hard work.’ The handshake had already been going on a little too long for comfort when Rob added his other hand into the mix; wrapped and squeezed. ‘Now, you just need to stay strong.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Evans said.
The hard work…
In retrospect, a few fillings seemed like a doddle by comparison.
Walking back towards his room, Evans passed one of the friendlier officers; the tall, skinny one, whose name was Barrett. Evans stopped to exchange a word or two and agreed to join him for the football being shown on Sky later on. They talked about the two new guests who had arrived a couple of days before; a pair of Asian lads Evans thought might be brothers. Evans had yet to exchange a word with either of them, but Barrett told him they were nice enough, considering.
Evans walked away, wondering what habits the newcomers were trying to kick and what sorts of crimes they might have committed. Major players or small fry, masterminds or idiots? He wondered what they guessed at when they asked themselves the same questions about him.
He decided that he probably looked exactly like what he was.
A man who appeared strong enough, but was actually too weak to hold on to anything that mattered; who had known the choices he made would hurt those closest to him, but had made them anyway. A waster, who had wrecked his own life more than once and was now doing the same to others.
A thug, who was good for nothing. Human flotsam.
Back in his room, Evans lay on a bed that was too soft and thought about what the counsellor had said. Call Me Rob might have talked to him like he was a simpleton, but in terms of where the problems lay, he’d been bang on.
It’s all about what’s in here…
So much stuff slopping about in his head, so hard to get things straight.
The drug was what had got him into this mess, the drug was the cause of everything, the drug was the devil. True enough, he no longer craved it as he once had, didn’t lie awake in pain any more.
And yet…
He could still remember that hit and that smoky release. Time like a dribble and then a rush. Not knowing where the floor was, or the ceiling, and not caring either way because nothing mattered any more.
So, how long until that stopped being a happy memory, until he stopped dreaming about it? How long before he really earned his big, stupid badge?
Brave Boy?
Messed-Up Boy! Arse-About-Face Boy…
How else could you explain the way he felt about Nicola Tanner?
She was the only reason he wasn’t rotting on remand somewhere, waiting to go on trial for murder. That’s what the people who had set him up were banking on; all the lovely evidence they’d so helpfully supplied being more than enough to put him away. They knew very well that nine out of ten coppers would simply not have bothered listening to his sob story, because they didn’t need to. Even if your average copper had believed him, they’d just have spent five seconds thinking about that open and shut case they’d been handed on a plate – the prints, the DNA, all that – then trotted off to the CPS like pigs in shit and settled for the result. Of course they would.
The pond-life who had set him up hadn’t banked on Nicola Tanner, though.
And yet…
He hated her… resented her at least, even though he knew it didn’t make sense, because she was also the reason he was here. The reason he wasn’t with Paula.
Friday night and he should have been at home with his wife. A takeaway, maybe, and settling down after they’d put Sean to bed. Talking and TV. He should have been lying beside her, listening to her breathe; sliding in close as she drifted off to sleep, then reaching across to cradle her belly, feeling for the kick.
His new son. His daughter…
Evans sat up, stared at the pale yellow wall for a while, then watched himself reach for one of the paperbacks piled on his bedside table. Second-hand thrillers that one of the cops had brought in after Evans had said he enjoyed them. He turned to the last page he’d been reading and tried to focus, but the words wouldn’t register in any way that made sense.
He needed to sleep, had asked for something that might help but had been told it wasn’t allowed.
He sat back and closed his eyes. A cop’s phone rang downstairs and he heard a door close somewhere as he lowered the book slowly into his lap and clutched at the duvet. He knew that in stories like the ones in his tattered paperbacks, the good guys usually came through in the end and the bastards got what they deserved. It was probably why he liked them. Only trouble, Andrew Evans couldn’t say which of those he was any more, wasn’t sure he’d ever known.
In truth, there wasn’t a lot he did know, stuck here in this five-star hospital that was really a prison; protected and prodded at for weeks or months or who knew how long. If he was going to end up in prison, if his wife and son were really safe. How long it would be before he stopped feeling like there was a cement block sitting on his chest. If he would get to see his baby born.
He knew that this was all they were, though. He was certain of that much, at least.
Happy endings and getting what you deserved.
Just stories.
FIFTY-THREE
‘What’s so important?’
Thorne laid the phone back on the arm of the sofa.
Both he and Helen were well used to fielding Job-related calls at unsociable hours; receiving messages of one sort or another, but rarely cause for celebration. Helen could clearly see that Thorne was more preoccupied by this possibility than he might normally be. Waiting for news, though his expression made it hard to tell if it was good or bad.
Thorne knew he had that kind of face.
He reminded her what was happening. The dates arranged for tonight through the Made In Heaven agency; in Northampton, Bournemouth and Hull. Three meetings that were being carefully monitored by dozens of plain-clothes officers across separate forces, at locations that had been scouted in advance. The man they were all looking out for, who would have known every bit as much about the men and women involved as the police did, and might well be doing some monitoring of his own.
Watching two people eat or chat; nervous and excited. Disgusted by it, waiting for his chance to act.
When Helen looked at him, Thorne immediately realised that he wasn’t reminding her of anything, that he hadn’t actually told her any of this before. They had both been working long hours, but that wasn’t unusual and he knew it was more than just a lack of opportunity. Unspoken, but obvious enough. The tension had been growing for a while; the sulks and the snapping he’d been moaning to Phil about. Something cracked that was threatening to fracture and left little room for conversation that went beyond the merely practical.
Arrangements for Alfie. Washing, shopping, bins.
‘So, go on then, what would you do?’ Thorne smiled, trying. ‘If I wasn’t around. Reckon you’d ever use one of these dating agencies?’
‘What, because that’s the only way I’d be able to find anyone else?’
‘No, course you would… you’d be beating them off with a shitty stick.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Just wondered if you’d ever do the online thing, that’s all.’
Helen inched away from him. She reached for the remote and muted the sound on the TV. ‘Seriously?’
‘A lot of people do.’
‘You planning on going anywhere?’
‘No, but… I might get hit by a bus.’ Thorne winced, inwardly. Helen’s partner Paul had been killed at a bus stop; mown down by a car, just before Alf
ie was born. He watched her blink and glance away. ‘Just saying.’
‘Well, let’s hope not.’
‘Or you might decide to kick me out.’
‘Much more likely.’
‘There we are then.’
‘It’s definitely a possibility.’
‘Make your sister happy.’ Before he could stop himself.
Helen’s face darkened as quickly as the mood, which, just for a minute or two, Thorne’s stupid turn of phrase aside, had seemed to be changing for the better. She moved further away, to the far end of the sofa. Said, ‘Why do we always end up talking about Jenny?’
‘We don’t,’ Thorne said.
‘Often enough.’
‘Yeah, all right, but only ever when things aren’t great… when she’s been pouring poison in your ear. Winding you up.’
Helen looked away. ‘Christ, this again.’
‘Because we need to get it sorted,’ Thorne said. ‘Look, I don’t know if she really has a problem with me, or if it’s all just about you and her and I’m getting caught in the middle.’ He waited; a necessary pause before stepping on to dangerous ground. ‘Is it about Polesford?’
Helen’s head whipped around.
‘What happened back then…’
The secrets about Helen’s abusive childhood, which had emerged during the case they’d both worked in her home town the year before, had been understandably painful for her to confront. She would be dealing with them for the rest of her life, Thorne understood that. He had not been privy to the difficult conversations that had followed between Helen and her younger sister, but knew that a relationship which had been tricky enough to begin with, had now been redefined by something far darker than sibling rivalry.
‘Maybe she feels guilty,’ Thorne said.
Helen shook her head.
‘She knows you were trying to protect her. So, now she’s —’
‘It’s not that.’ The muscles worked in her jaw as she rubbed at the arm of the sofa. ‘It’s complicated.’
The Killing Habit Page 26