Thorne tried to hold the smile in place and even managed to produce a chuckle of sorts as he turned away and looked towards the counter. When he’d caught the eye of the woman at the till he held up his coffee cup, signalling for another.
‘So, does “desperate” and “bleak” involve children?’
Thorne turned back round. ‘No. You?’
Her smile was huge and as contagious as smallpox. ‘One. Rachel. Sixteen and big trouble.’
Sixteen? Thorne raised his eyebrows. ‘Do women still get upset if you ask how old they are?’
She plonked an elbow on the table and leaned her chin on the palm of her hand, trying her best to look severe. ‘This one does.’
‘Sorry.’ Thorne tried his best to look contrite. ‘How much do you weigh?’
She laughed loudly. Not filthy, positively salacious. Thorne laughed too, and grinned at the waitress as his second cup of coffee arrived. It had barely touched the table when Coburn’s bleeper went off. She looked at it, stubbed out her cigarette and grabbed her bag from the floor. ‘I might not be a smackhead, but I do an awful lot of indigestion tablets.’
Thorne lifted his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I’ll walk you back.’
On the way towards Queen Square things became oddly formal again. Small-talk about Indian summers gave way to an awkward silence before they were half-way there. When they reached her office, Thorne hovered in the doorway. He felt like he should go, but she held up her hand to stop him as she made a quick call. The bleep had not been urgent.
‘So how is the investigation going?’
Thorne stepped into the office and closed the door. He had thought this was coming over lunch. His capacity to bullshit members of the public had once been endless, but he spent so much of his time exercising that particular skill on superior officers that he couldn’t be bothered trying it on with those who had no axe to grind.
‘It’s a . . . bleak prognosis.’
She smiled.
‘Every day there’s some stupid story in the paper about armed robbers tunnelling into the shop next door to the building society or burglars falling asleep in houses they’ve broken into, but the simple fact is that most people who break the law give serious thought to not getting done for it. With murderers, you’ve got a chance if it’s domestic, or when there’s sex involved.’
She leaned back in her chair and took a sip from a glass of water.
Thorne watched her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a speech.’
‘No, I’m interested, really.’
‘Any sort of sexual compulsion can make people sloppy. They take chances and eventually they slip up. I just can’t see this bloke slipping up. Whatever’s been driving him isn’t sexual.’
Her eyes were suddenly flat and cold. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Not physically. He’s perverse . . . but he’s—’
‘What he’s doing is grotesque.’
There was a matter-of-factness about the statement that Thorne had no argument with. What shook him was her use of the present tense. There were those who thought or hoped (and, by Christ, he hoped) that perhaps there’d be no need for new pictures on the wall. But he knew better. Whatever mission this man thought he was on, whatever it was he hoped to achieve, he was actually stalking women and killing them in their own homes. And he was enjoying himself. Thorne could feel himself start to redden.
‘There’s no conventional pattern to this. The ages of the victims seem unimportant to him, as long as they’re available. He just picks these women out and when he doesn’t get what he wants he just leaves them. Shiny and scrubbed and slumped in a chair or lying on a kitchen floor for their loved ones to stumble across. Nobody sees anything. Nobody knows anything.’
‘Except Alison.’
The awkward silence descended again, more stifling than the air trapped inside the tiny office. Thorne felt the retort of his outburst bouncing off the walls like a sluggish bullet. There was none of the usual irritation when his mobile phone rang. He grabbed for it gratefully.
DI Nick Tughan ran the Backhand office: an organiser and collator of information, another embracer of procedure. His smooth Dublin brogue could calm or persuade senior officers. Unlike Frank Keable, though, Tughan had the self-awareness of a tree-stump and little time for characters like Tom Thorne. The way the operation had been going up to now meant that it was very much his show and he ran it with an unflappable efficiency. He never lost his temper.
‘We’ve got a fairly major Midazolam theft. Two years ago, Leicester Royal Infirmary, five grams missing.’
Thorne reached across the desk for a piece of paper and a pen. Anne pushed a pad towards him. He began to scribble down the details. Maybe there had been a slip-up, after all.
‘Right, let’s send Holland up to Leicester, get all the details, and we’ll need a list of everyone on rotation from, say, ninety-seven onwards.’
‘Ninety-six onwards. Already sorted it. It’s been faxed through.’
Tughan was well ahead of him and thoroughly enjoying it. Thorne knew what he would have done next. ‘Obvious question then . . . any matches?’
‘A couple in the South-East and half a dozen in London. But there’s an interesting one. Works at the Royal London.’
Interesting was right. Anne Coburn had spotted it straight away. Working on the assumption that Alison had been attacked in her home, then why the Royal London? Why not the nearest hospital? Thorne took down the name, kept the compulsory, if distasteful, backslapping brief and hung up.
‘Sounded like good news.’ She didn’t apologise for eavesdropping.
Thorne was starting to like her more and more. He stood up and reached for his jacket. ‘Let’s hope so. Five grams of Midazolam. Is that a lot?’
‘That’s a hell of a lot. We’d use anywhere up to five milligrams to sedate an average-sized adult. That’s intravenously, of course.’
She stood up and moved round the desk to see him out. As she walked to the door she glanced at the scrap of paper, which Thorne had not yet picked up, and stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Oh, God!’ She reached for it just as Thorne did – he should never have let her see it, but a tussle would have been . . . unseemly. What harm could it do? He opened the door. ‘Is this man your . . . match, Detective Inspector?’ She moved back to her side of the desk and sat down heavily.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m sure you understand. I can’t really—’
‘I know him,’ she said. ‘I know him extremely well.’
Thorne hovered in the doorway. This was starting to get awkward. Procedure dictated that he leave straight away and send someone back to get a statement. He waited for her to continue.
‘Yes, he certainly worked in Leicester, but there’s no way he’d have anything to do with stealing drugs.’
‘Doctor—’
‘And he’s got something of a cast-iron alibi as far as Alison Willetts is concerned.’
Thorne shut the door. He was listening.
‘Jeremy Bishop was the anaesthetist on call at the Royal London A and E the night Alison was brought in. He treated her. Do you remember? I told you I knew him. He told me about the Midazolam.’
Thorne blinked slowly. Dead Susan. Dead Christine. Dead Madeleine.
‘Come on, Tommy, you must have something to go on?’
He opened his eyes. She was shaking her head. She’d seen the date on the piece of paper. ‘I’m sorry, Detective Inspector, but much as you dislike Detective Constable Holland . . .’
Thorne opened his mouth and closed it again.
‘. . . it’s a waste of time to send him to Leicester. The man you’re looking for is certainly clever, but there’s no guarantee he ever worked at Leicester Royal Infirmary.’
Thorne dropped his bag and
sat down again. ‘Why am I starting to feel like Dr Watson?’
‘August the first is rotation day. Normally it would be a reasonable assumption that in order to steal a large quantity of drugs from a hospital you’d have to work there. Yes, hospital staff are overstretched and occasionally inefficient, but as far as dangerous drugs are concerned there is a procedure in place.’
Thorne’s favourite word again.
‘But on rotation day, things can get a bit lax. I’ve worked in hospitals where you could walk out pushing a bed and carrying a kidney machine on August the first. I’m sorry, but whoever took these drugs could have come from anywhere.’
Susan. Christine. Madeleine. ‘Something, Tommy. A lead. Something . . .’
Thorne took out his phone to call Tughan back.
It was Helen Doyle’s first round of drinks, but already she was worrying about how much she’d spent. A few designer bottles and a couple of rum and Cokes and it was three times what she earned in an hour.
Sod it. It was Nita’s birthday and she didn’t do this very often.
She loaded the drinks on to a tray and looked across to where her mates were sitting at a corner table. She’d known three of them since school and the other two for almost that long. The pub wasn’t busy and the few people in there were probably pissed off with the noise they were making. On cue the gang began to laugh, Jo’s high-pitched cackle the loudest of all. Probably another one of Andrea’s filthy jokes . . .
Helen walked slowly back to the table, the other girls cheering when she put the tray down and diving on to their drinks as if they were the first of the night.
‘Didn’t you get any crisps?’
‘Forgot, sorry . . .’
‘Dizzy bitch.’
‘Tell her the joke . . .’
‘How much fucking ice has he put in here?’
Helen took a swig and looked at the label on the bottle. It didn’t actually say what was in it. She’d got through plenty already. Hooch, Metz, Breezers. She was never really sure what she was drinking, what the booze was, but she liked the colours and she felt fashionable with the slim, cold bottle in her hand. Sophisticated. Nita drained half of her rum and Coke. Jo emptied the remains of a pint of lager and belched loudly.
‘What do you drink those for? It’s like pop!’
Helen felt herself blush. ‘I like the taste.’
‘It’s not supposed to taste nice, that’s the point.’
Nita and Linzi laughed. Helen shrugged and took another swig. Andrea nudged her. ‘Like you know what!’
There was a groan. Jo stuck two fingers down her throat. Helen knew what they were talking about, but part of her wished they wouldn’t. Sex was pretty much all Andrea ever talked about.
‘Tell us how big his cock was again, Jo.’
The strippergram had been Andrea’s idea and Nita had seemed to like it. Helen thought he was really fit, all covered in oil, and he made her go very red, but the poem about Nita hadn’t been that good. She could tell that he’d been as embarrassed as her when Jo grabbed his crotch, and for a second he’d looked really upset. Then he’d smiled and grabbed his clothes from off the floor while everybody whistled and cheered. Helen had whistled and cheered too, but she wished she’d been a bit more pissed.
‘Big enough!’
‘More than a mouthful’s a waste.’
Helen leaned across to Linzi. ‘How’s work?’
She was probably closest to Linzi, but they hadn’t spoken properly all night.
‘Shit. I’m going to chuck it in . . . do some temping or something.’
‘Right.’
Helen loved her job. The money was poor, but the people were nice and even though she had to give her mum and dad a bit, it was still cheap living at home. She couldn’t see the sense in moving out, not until she met someone. What was the point in renting a grotty flat like Jo or Nita? Andrea still lived at home anyway. God knows where she was having all that sex she was always on about . . .
‘Let Me Entertain You’ came on the jukebox. It was one of her favourite songs. She nodded her head to the rhythm and sang the words quietly to herself. She remembered a fifth-form disco, and a boy with an earring and sad brown eyes and cider on his breath. When the chorus came, the rest of the girls joined in and Helen shut up.
The bell rang and the barman shouted something incomprehensible. Andrea and Jo were all for another round. Helen grinned but she knew she should be getting back. She would feel bad in the morning and her dad would be waiting up for her. She was starting to feel woozy and knew that she should have gone home and had her tea before she came out. She could have changed too. She felt frumpy and self-conscious in her black work skirt and sensible blouse. She’d grab a bag of chips on the way home. And a piece of fish for her dad.
Andrea stood up and announced that they’d all put in for one more. Helen cheered along with the rest of them, drained the bottle and reached into her purse for a couple of pound coins.
Thorne sat with his eyes shut listening to Johnny Cash. He rolled his head around on his neck, enjoying every crack of cartilage. Now the Man in Black with the dark, dangerous voice was insisting that he was going to break out of his rusty cage. Thorne opened his eyes and looked around at his neat, comfortable flat – not a cage, exactly, but he knew what Johnny was talking about.
The one-bedroom garden flat was undeniably small, but easily maintained and close enough to the busy Kentish Town Road to ensure that he never ran out of milk or tea. Or wine. The couple in the flat upstairs were quiet and never bothered him. He’d lived here less than six months after finally selling the house in Highbury, but he already knew every inch of the place. He’d furnished the entire flat during one wretched Sunday at IKEA, spent the next three weeks putting the stuff together and the succeeding four months wishing he hadn’t bothered.
He couldn’t say he’d been unhappy since Jan had left. Christ, they’d been divorced for three years and she’d been gone nearly five, but still, everything just felt . . . out of kilter. He’d thought that moving out of the house they’d shared and into this bright new flat would change things. He’d been optimistic. However close to him the objects around him were, he had no real . . . connection to any of them. It was functional. He could be out of his chair and in his bed in a matter of seconds but the bed was too new and, tragically, as yet unchristened.
He felt like a faceless businessman in a numberless hotel room.
Perhaps it would have been better if Jan had gone because of the job. He’d seen it often enough and it was the stuff of interminable TV cop shows – copper’s wife can’t stand playing second fiddle to the job, blah blah blah. Jan had never been an ordinary copper’s wife and she’d left for her own reasons. The only job involved in the whole messy business was the one she’d been on every Wednesday afternoon with the lecturer from her creative-writing course.
Until he’d caught them at it. In the middle of the day with the curtains drawn.
Candles by the bed, for Christ’s sake . . .
Jan said later that she never understood why Thorne hadn’t hit him. He never told her. Even as the scrawny bastard had leaped from the bed, his cock flapping, scrabbling for his glasses, Thorne knew that he wasn’t going to hurt him. As he let the pain wash over him, he knew that, reeling and raw as he was, he couldn’t bear to hear her scream, see the flash of hatred in her eyes, watch her rushing to comfort the little smartarse as he sat slumped against the wardrobe, moaning and trying to stop the blood.
A few weeks later he’d waited outside the college and followed him. Into shops. Chatting with students on the street. Home to a small flat in Islington with multi-coloured bicycles chained up outside and posters in the window. That had been enough for him. That simple knowing.
You’re mine if I ever decide to come and get you.
But after a while even that seemed shameful. He’d let it go. Now it was the stuff of late nights and red wine and singers with dark, dangerous voices.
Yes, he’d brought the job home – especially after Calvert, when things had slipped away from him for a time – but they’d got married far too young. That was all, really. Perhaps if they’d had kids . . .
Thorne scanned the TV pages of the Standard. Tuesday night and bugger all on. Even worse, Sky had shown the Spurs–Bradford game at eight o’clock. He’d forgotten all about it. At home against Bradford – should be three points in the bag. Teletext, the football fan’s best friend, gave him the bad news.
She was slumped, her back against his legs, buttocks pressing down on her heels and knuckles lying against the polished wooden floorboards. He stood behind her, both hands on the back of her neck, readying himself. He glanced around the room. Everything was in place. The equipment laid out within easy reach.
Her mouth fell open and a wet gurgling noise came out. He tightened his grip, ever so slightly, on her neck. There was really no point in trying to talk and, besides, he’d heard quite enough from her already.
An hour and a half earlier, he’d watched as the group of girls had begun to thin out. A couple had wandered off towards the tube and a couple more to the bus stop. One tottered off down the Holloway Road. Local, he guessed. Perhaps she’d like to join him for a drink.
He’d taken a left turn and driven the car round the block, emerging on to the main road twenty yards or so ahead of her. He’d waited at the junction until she was a few feet away then got out of the car.
‘Excuse me . . . sorry . . . but I seem to be horribly lost.’ Slurring the words ever so slightly. Just the right side of pissed. And so well-spoken.
‘Where are you trying to get to?’
Wary. Quite right too. But nothing to worry about here. Just a tipsy hooray lost on the wrong side of the Archway roundabout. Taking off his glasses, looking like he’s having trouble focusing . . .
‘Hampstead . . . sorry . . . had a bit too much . . . Shouldn’t be driving, tell you the truth.’
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