Death Message

by Mark Billingham

  ‘It’s no more than a mile east of Acton, where the first message was sent from,’ Samir Karim said. ‘We know the Hodson message was sent straight away, from the hospital, but maybe these other two came from somewhere closer to home.’

  ‘Maybe…’

  ‘We need a few more calls, that’s all.’ Karim handed over the blown-up section of the A-Z, with the relevant cell-sites marked in red. As things stood, the area to which Marcus Brooks may or may not have a connection was no more than two dots on a map. It wasn’t a great deal to go on.

  Paper had been passing across Thorne’s desk since he had walked through the door: printouts, statements, diagrams; authorisation documents; memos and maps. Sheaf upon sheaf, building a comprehensive picture of where Marcus Brooks was not. Of what he had done in the few months before he’d started killing anyone. Details of the last known address: the house he’d shared with Angela Georgiou and their son Robert, now empty and locked up. An inventory from the company which had been storing all of the furniture for the last three months; the rental paid a year in advance, the bill settled in cash. Statements from Brooks’ parole officer and from local social services, verifying that he had reported each week as required; had been signing on, seeking work and claiming housing benefit until three months before, when he’d slipped off the system. From his parents, now living in Wales, confirming that telephone contact had stopped around the same time. Requisitions for the usual records and searches: credit and store cards, DVLA, voters’ register, National Insurance…

  ‘He’ll slip up,’ Thorne said.

  Karim’s nod was hopeful at best. ‘He’s been pretty clever so far, though, with all the phone business. I think he’s learned a fair amount about flying below the radar, you know?’

  Thorne was coming to the same conclusion. This was stuff that a career criminal like Brooks would have started picking up early in life, and prison was the best finishing school there was.

  He would have learned a lot from the likes of Stuart Nicklin.

  ‘He’s got to be living on something, though.’

  ‘Cash,’ Karim said.

  ‘Where’s he getting it from?’ Thorne rifled impatiently through piles of paper for Brooks’ bank and credit-card statements, none of which showed much in the way of funds.

  ‘Well, he might have had some stashed away, but let’s presume he hadn’t, that he needed to get some.’ Karim slid a plastic wallet containing a CD across the desk. Thorne looked at the printed label, took out the disk and pushed it into the computer’s drive as Karim continued: ‘We got some names from S &O. Pulled in a snout from one of the firms Brooks used to do some driving for in the mid-nineties.’ The image appeared on the screen: time-coded, black-and-white footage from the fixed camera in a typical interview room. Karim pointed to the man sitting at a table, opposite himself and Andy Stone. ‘This bloke’s been giving your new mate Bannard bits and pieces for years.’

  ‘Looks like a charmer,’ Thorne said. ‘Where’s this?’

  Karim jerked a thumb towards the window. ‘Colindale. Me and Andy had a chat with him first thing.’ He leaned over and moved the mouse, taking the footage forward until he reached the section of the interview he wanted. ‘Here we go…’

  Thorne turned up the volume. The interviewee, a skinny old sort with leathery chops and eyes like black beads, had plenty to say for himself. He spat his words out in a reedy voice laced with Glaswegian; leaned through the smoke that rose from a cigarette.

  ‘Plenty of people owe Brooks, you know? It’s not a secret that he could’ve made a deal when they did him for that murder. That he was offered a year or two off his sentence in return for a wee chat, and he told them where to stick it.’

  Stone had been unable to resist. ‘Unlike you, you mean?’

  The man had ignored the dig. ‘These are people he could easily have gone to for money when he came out. People who remembered that he kept his mouth shut when he didnae have to. They’d have been more than happy to help him out.’ The man took a deep drag on his cigarette, then looked up, well aware where the camera was, blowing out smoke through a smile. ‘They’ll be queuing up to do him a favour now. Considering some of the arseholes he’s getting rid of…’

  ‘I don’t think Brooks needs a bank,’ Karim said, stopping the playback.

  Brigstocke entered without knocking, and Karim quickly got the message that there were other things he could be doing.

  ‘Thanks, Sam,’ Thorne said, as the door closed.

  Brigstocke leaned against Kitson’s desk. ‘How’s it going?’

  Thorne straightened the papers on his desk. ‘Well, it looks like Brooks was as good as gold while he was setting all this up, then he just dropped out of sight. He’s not making it easy for us… well, other than helping us identify his victims, obviously. His potential victims. But you know, we’ll get there…’

  Brigstocke nodded. ‘Why “potential”, suddenly? Why do you think he’s started sending videos? Sending us pictures before he kills them?’

  ‘A psychiatrist would probably say he wants us to stop him.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I think he’s just fucking us around.’

  Brigstocke nodded, like he was thinking about it. ‘I was really just asking how you were, by the way.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When I asked how you were doing. It’s possible to talk about something other than the job for five minutes.’

  Thorne laughed. ‘Have you been talking to Louise?’

  Not getting it, Brigstocke smiled anyway, and Thorne could see that he was in a better mood than he had been since the DPS had come calling. But still, there was no invitation to reciprocate and ask how Brigstocke was doing. Or to enquire as to the nature of the Regulation Nine he had been served.

  Thorne had known Russell Brigstocke for years. Had met his wife and kids, had eaten at their house. It suddenly didn’t seem to count for very much.

  ‘Right.’ Brigstocke dragged round a chair. ‘This Skinner business. These allegations…’ Thorne waited. ‘I just think we need to be careful. Prison testimony can be iffy at the best of times.’

  ‘I know-’

  ‘Remember what sort of a headcase we’re dealing with here.’

  ‘I’m hardly likely to forget,’ Thorne said. ‘But everything Nicklin told me made sense. It may turn out to be nothing, but Marcus Brooks certainly thinks Skinner and somebody else set him up for murder six years ago. He’s sure enough to want them dead for it, so, even if he’s wrong, it’s got to be worth looking into.’

  Brigstocke took off his glasses, yanked out a corner of his shirt and rubbed at the lenses. ‘I know Paul Skinner, Tom.’

  Thorne blinked. He watched as Brigstocke tucked in his shirt and replaced his glasses, wondering what he meant.

  I know him well enough to be sure that he isn’t bent?

  I know him and right now it would be hugely embarrassing for me if he did turn out to be bent?

  I know him, so do me a favour and drop it…

  Thorne decided it was as good a time as any for grasping nettles. ‘Has this got anything to do with the DPS coming in to see you on Friday?’

  It might have been the fact that the lenses had just been cleaned, but Brigstocke’s eyes seemed to brighten behind them. He sat up straighter. His voice was low and dangerous. ‘Why the fuck should it?’

  ‘Russell…’

  ‘And why would you think for one minute that it would?’

  Thorne could do little but bluster and bluff and try to limit the damage. He said that it was a perfectly innocent question, that he’d been worried by Brigstocke’s mood, and there was really nothing more to it. That he was there if Brigstocke wanted to talk about anything, anything at all.

  ‘You should go whichever way you want on this,’ Brigstocke said eventually. ‘You’re the one getting these messages. You were drawn into this, and I suppose you’re giving the case a certain… impetus. As far as Skinner goes…’ H
e trailed off, his head dropping, fingers picking at what might have been a loose thread on his trouser leg.

  For a few minutes after that, they proved Brigstocke’s point and talked about something other than the case, the awkwardness dissipating slightly over the first few laughs. A story about a mutual ex-colleague; kids; a recent episode of The Bill. Thorne dug out the copy of The Job he’d stashed and they shared a joke at the expense of Holland and his table-tennis trophy.

  It finished on about the best terms Thorne could have hoped for. But when Brigstocke was leaving, Thorne stopped him at the door. ‘I’m still not sure what you’re telling me, Russell.’

  Brigstocke sounded resigned as much as anything else. ‘When has me telling you anything ever made the slightest bit of fucking difference?’

  Not wanting to spend too long thinking about it – worrying about friendship and favours and the sickly smell of burning bridges – Thorne didn’t wait more than a couple of minutes after Brigstocke had left before putting in the call to Albany Street police station.

  He put on his most efficient voice, and tried not to laugh as he asked to be put through to Human Resources. He chatted for a minute or two with the civilian administrative officer. He gave his name and warrant-card details, a fax number and email address, then asked for the Personal Information Management System record on Detective Inspector Paul Skinner. He paid a visit to the canteen while the admin officer accessed the PIMS file. The information he’d requested was spewing from the fax machine in the Incident Room before he’d finished his coffee.

  Thorne cast an eye across the pages.

  Three sheets detailing every posting held by Paul Skinner in nearly thirty years as a police officer: dates and locations; contributions to significant operations; courses attended and qualifications gained. When he had spoken to Thorne the previous morning, Skinner’s memory had not let him down: he had been a DS on the Flying Squad at the time of Marcus Brooks’ arrest for murder in 2000. He had worked on a variety of borough units prior to that, as well as with the AMIP East Murder Squad, and he had subsequently spent time on a stolen vehicle unit in addition to three years as part of a team attached to the Drugs Squad, concentrating on European trafficking.

  There were no suspensions and Skinner had never been the subject of any complaint. He had, by contrast, received two commendations, including one for bravery during the arrest of a notorious armed robbery firm.

  Thorne was interested to see that Skinner had twice passed what the DPS called ‘integrity tests’. These could range from the absurdly simple – a tempting quantity of cash or drugs left in an abandoned vehicle – to more complex set-ups involving dozens of officers over a period of months. Most of the time, unless the subject failed, they would never even know they’d been tested at all. Though the Anti-Corruption Group tried to be as inventive as possible, the received wisdom was that a bent copper clever enough to get away with it for a while could spot an integrity test a mile away.

  To his knowledge, Thorne had never been tested, and he couldn’t say with certainty that he’d pass when they finally got around to him. With a pint or two inside him, he’d tell anyone who gave a toss that they were testing for the wrong thing: it wasn’t about pocketing a few quid if it came your way; it was a question of lines, always had been. Where you drew yours, relative to where the fuckers you were after drew theirs. Whether those lines grew closer together as experience chipped away at you. And whether you stepped across it for the right reasons, with your eyes open, or drifted to the wrong side without even knowing it.

  He read through the report once more, his frustration growing with every page. Brooks had been set up by two officers, so in order for this information to be of any use, Thorne would need to cross-reference it with a PIMS report on somebody else. He was fairly certain that Skinner would have worked at some point with Richard Rawlings; and he knew he’d worked with Russell Brigstocke for that matter. But at this point, it was all useless information. Over such a long and varied career, Skinner would have worked closely with hundreds of officers and, even if Thorne did have likely names, he quickly realised that he would gain nothing definitive. The man with whom Skinner had set up Brooks needn’t have been a close colleague. He could just as easily have been someone who drank in the same pub. Someone Skinner had met at a party. Someone he had played table-tennis with…

  Thorne let out a long, slow breath.

  He had to presume that this unknown man, both men, were dangerous. They had framed Marcus Brooks for murder, but Skinner and his partner-in-crime may have done considerably worse than that.

  Somebody had killed Simon Tipper, after all.

  The longer Thorne stared at the information in front of him, the more pointless it became. He had no real idea where to attack it from; what else he would need to make the task easier. There were days when he felt ill equipped to deal with regular police work, but he couldn’t even begin to think like a DPS officer. He was not sure if he should feel frustrated or relieved.

  When Yvonne Kitson strolled in, Thorne pushed the PIMS report to one side.

  ‘Thought you were booked out,’ she said.

  ‘Couldn’t keep away.’

  A nod, like she knew what he meant. ‘My other half’s got his mates round to watch the rugby, and the kids are being little bastards at the moment. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘Louise is working. You know.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Thorne remembered the exchange with Brigstocke an hour or so before. With the exception of that conversation, and Thorne’s request for Paul Skinner’s records, Kitson knew as much about the Brooks investigation as he did. So he presumed she wasn’t asking about the case; that her enquiry was more personal.

  ‘It’s good,’ he said. He wondered if Louise was still pissed off with him. Still as pissed off with him. ‘It’s great…’

  Kitson seemed pleased.

  Thorne watched her sort through some papers on her desk and begin reading. ‘They still got you riding two horses with one arse?’

  She looked up, sour-faced suddenly. ‘This is the only chance I’ve had to even think about the Sedat murder in days.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think I should’ve stayed at home.’

  ‘Your mystery woman not called back?’

  ‘We’ve blagged five minutes on Tuesday night’s Crimewatch,’ Kitson said. ‘See what we can do to persuade her.’

  ‘You doing it yourself?’

  ‘They couldn’t get anyone else.’

  ‘Well, providing there’s no football on, and they’re not repeating Animal Hospital or Watercolour Challenge, I’ll be watching…’

  For an hour or so, they swapped Crimewatch stories, their own and other people’s. They moaned about the perpetually tanned presenter: the nauseating simper as he told viewers to ‘sleep tight’; the reminder that their chances of becoming a victim of violent crime were minuscule. Kitson said she’d like to drag the smug bugger round the Incident Room; maybe take him to a post-mortem and watch that take the colour off his face.

  Thorne thought a good hard slap would do the job just as well.

  The day dimmed quickly outside: Hendon a glinting patchwork beyond the glass, and headlights brightening on the cars that crept away from Brent Cross or north towards the M1. But Thorne could not summon up the energy to head home. To call Louise and continue the argument. By the end of the day, he and Kitson had decided to grab an early dinner, and they were tossing up between the Royal Oak and the nearest Chinese when Thorne got a call from the main security gate to say that he had a visitor.

  Brian could be an arsehole in the wrong mood, and he wouldn’t let Tony Blair in without seeing an ID, but he’d watched every kind of copper from cadet to commander pass under his barrier, and he could usually be relied on when it came to a thumbnail sketch.

  ‘He’s DPS,’ Brian said.

  ‘Oh, great. You sure?’

  ‘Twenty quid says he’s from the Dark S
ide.’

  Thorne knew better than to take the bet. ‘From Colindale, you reckon?’

  ‘Nah, he’s not local. His overcoat was too nice.’

  ‘You’re wasted on the gate, Brian.’

  ‘He says he’ll wait for you at reception…’

  ‘We’re popular suddenly,’ Kitson said, when Thorne hung up. ‘Maybe it’s the same lot who were in here the other day with the DCI.’

  Thorne told her that Brian hadn’t thought so. ‘He’s keen though, whoever he is. Five o’clock on a Sunday.’

  ‘Somebody else as job-pissed as we are. Or with nobody who wants to spend a Sunday with him.’

  Thorne said he’d be as quick as he could. He grabbed his coat and told Kitson to pick somewhere they could eat when he got back.

  He took the stairs, the smell of the new carpet assaulting him again, taking him back to that uncertain moment somewhere in his childhood.

  Adding to the apprehension.

  Talking to police officers, ordinary citizens would often be overcome with feelings of guilt, however innocuous the reason for the conversation. It was much the same for the police officers themselves when talking to those representing the Directorate of Professional Standards.

  Racking his brain, Thorne trudged towards the ground floor of Becke House. Wondering exactly what it was that he had done.

  THIRTEEN

  They walked in the dark, across the parade square, through the HGV testing area and slowly around the track that bordered the athletics arena.

  ‘This seemed a hell of a lot bigger when I was a cadet.’

  ‘When was that?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘I left here eighteen years ago.’

  It didn’t tell Thorne precisely how old Detective Sergeant Adrian Nunn was, but it reinforced his initial impression that he was somewhere in his late thirties.

  ‘You?’ Nunn asked.

  ‘A lot longer…’