Death Message

by Mark Billingham

  Five minutes before, in those few moments between stepping into the reception area at Becke House and shaking hands, Thorne’s assessment of his visitor had been much the same as his friend’s at the gate.

  Neither of them had lost their touch.

  The Anti-Corruption Group dealt only with the most serious crimes involving Met officers, and Nunn’s introduction of himself as one of their dread number meant that this was no simple disciplinary matter. He wasn’t there because some idiot had filed an iffy expenses claim. Someone had fucked up on a grand scale; shaking hands, Thorne could only pray that it wasn’t him.

  Whatever the reason for his visit, Nunn did seem to be smiling an awful lot.

  ‘I thought it would be best to wait down here.’ He’d walked towards the door; an invitation to follow him outside. ‘People tend to jump to conclusions. Start imagining all sorts.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be anything they haven’t imagined before,’ Thorne had said. Watching Nunn step outside, he’d seen that Brian had been right about the coat as well.

  ‘It’s all a lot different now though, right?’

  They were standing beneath one of the orange lamps on the edge of the running track. ‘I suppose,’ Thorne said. There was still a cadet school based at the Peel Centre, but there seemed to be fewer of them around these days, and the dormitories in which recruits had once slept were now the self same offices in Becke House from which Thorne and his team operated.

  However, as Nunn continued, Thorne understood that he was talking about more fundamental changes. It wasn’t about the abolition of height and vision requirements, or because the training period was shorter, and it wasn’t just a question of judgement being clouded by nostalgia. Anyone with half a brain cell could see that the quality of personnel coming into the force had fallen. Maybe there was a need to increase recruitment, to get bodies on the street faster. Whatever the reason, the perception among many serving officers was that, these days, any idiot could become a copper.

  ‘That’s pretty damning,’ Thorne said. ‘Especially coming from some of the people I’ve worked with over the years.’

  ‘It trickles down though, right? The drop in standards.’

  ‘Well, it’s hardly going to trickle up.’

  ‘CSOs,’ Nunn said. ‘Fucking Plastic Plod…’ Nunn muttered in measured, unaccented tones about Community Support Officers being no more than coppers who couldn’t cut it. About the commissioner’s policy of increasing their numbers in the capital being brought into horrifying perspective. ‘It’s an accident waiting to happen,’ he said.

  Thorne quickly marked Nunn down as the type who had plenty to say for himself. The sort who would write meticulously drafted letters to The Job and Metropolitan Life. Who ate, drank and slept the Police Service. Like Kitson had said: ‘Job-pissed’. Whatever Nunn wanted with him, Thorne decided this was probably bad news.

  They carried on walking. Nunn was a six-footer, several inches taller than Thorne, and well built. He had American teeth, and had made the best of thinning hair by cutting it brutally short, with what was left no more than dark stubble against the scalp. The coat, grey and elegantly tailored, reached almost to his ankles and moved around his legs with each long stride. He told Thorne that several of those with whom he’d once been a cadet were now working within the DPS; that it was a branch of the Met that many were keen to be a part of.

  Thorne knew the chat was merely a precursor to conversation of a trickier kind, and he was happy to cut to the chase. ‘Listen, I was about to go and get something to eat,’ he said.

  ‘Is that an invitation?’ Nunn asked.

  ‘What was it you wanted?’

  Nunn stopped. He stared over Thorne’s shoulder long enough for Thorne to turn around; to see whatever it was that Nunn found so interesting. On the far side of the track, a lone recruit was tearing down the straight. He slowed at the hundred-metre mark, then stopped. The breath drifted back from him, caught in the glow from the orange lamps, as he rested, his hands braced against his knees. Just watching made Thorne feel tired, and he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket.

  ‘What’s your interest in Paul Skinner?’

  Thorne turned back. ‘Bloody hell, that was quick work.’

  ‘We’ve got a flag on the PIMS system. Lets us know if anyone’s taking a look.’

  ‘Where are you based?’

  ‘Jubilee House, Putney.’

  ‘Well, that’s at least an hour away, even with no traffic, so you must have left the minute your “flag” came up.’

  ‘I finished my tea first.’

  ‘This must be important.’

  ‘Sundays are slow,’ Nunn said. ‘Not a lot else on.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘So, tell me about Skinner.’

  They looked at each other. The fact that Thorne was the senior officer meant nothing. When the DPS was involved, rank went out of the window. A DC could interview a commander as aggressively as he or she liked; and, unless they were supremely confident and well connected, a wise commander would answer all their questions.

  ‘I’m investigating a series of murders,’ Thorne said. ‘Skinner’s been targeted by my prime suspect.’

  ‘Your prime suspect’s name?’

  Another look; another pause. ‘Marcus Brooks. And if you’re that interested in Skinner, I’m guessing the name’s probably familiar to you.’

  Nunn’s face showed nothing. ‘So, you thought information in Skinner’s PIMS record would be helpful to your murder investigation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Not hugely, to be honest.’ Thorne carried on quickly, before Nunn had a chance to ask anything else. ‘Look, I’m guessing this is a one-way street. That I don’t get to ask why you’re interested in Skinner.’

  ‘You can ask, by all means.’

  ‘OK, then. Why?’

  Nunn showed a great many of his American teeth. ‘Paul Skinner is an officer that my team has been… monitoring for some time.’

  ‘As in months? Years?’

  More teeth. ‘Some time.’

  ‘In which case, you’re probably monitoring at least one other officer with whom Skinner’s involved, right?’ Nunn held up his hands; now they were straying into ‘need to know’ territory. Thorne pressed on. ‘This is information that would be helpful to my investigation. This other man is somebody my prime suspect will almost certainly be taking a pop at next.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Nunn said.

  ‘“Can’t” as in “not allowed” or “can’t” as in “don’t know”?’

  ‘“Can’t” as in “can’t”.’

  ‘So, you tell me sod all, and possibly endanger the life of another officer. Meantime, I carry on trying to catch a killer, with no help whatsoever from you, while your team maintains an “active interest” in my case. That about right?’

  ‘Close enough.’

  ‘Then you step in when it’s done and dusted and help yourself to the bits that’ll do you any good.’

  ‘Look, none of this is my decision. But everything’s done for a very good reason.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got competition, mate. I don’t suppose you know Keith Bannard, do you? A DCI in Serious and Organised…’

  Nunn was shaking his head before Thorne had finished speaking.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Thorne said. ‘Just someone else who’s “interested” in my case. Someone else who’s happy to sit back, while me and all the other mugs on the Murder Squad work our arses off. Tell you the truth, I’ve never worked on anything in which so many different people were so desperately interested. It must be the most fascinating case of my entire fucking career…’

  Thorne’s phone rang, and he turned away to answer it. The runner had come a little closer; was jogging slowly towards them. He grabbed at his feet, pulling them up towards the small of his back as he ran. Considering that his fellow-cadets were almost certainly making nuisances of themselve
s in The Oak, Thorne guessed he was either hugely keen or had made very few friends.

  It was Brigstocke calling: ‘We’re in big fucking trouble.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Skinner’s dead.’

  Thorne felt something jump against his ribs and instinctively stepped further away from Adrian Nunn. ‘What? How the fuck-?’

  ‘Right now, you know as much as I do.’

  Thorne started slightly when Nunn’s phone rang behind him; turned to see the DPS man walking away to take his own call.

  ‘I don’t understand. We had men on Skinner’s house.’

  ‘I know. Do you not think I fucking know?’

  ‘Who found the body?’

  Thorne could hear the anger, the tension in Brigstocke’s silence. In the background there were raised voices; none he recognised, the words indecipherable as they were shouted one over another. He listened to the fractured breathing that told him Brigstocke was on the move; heard him tell someone to wait.

  The runner jogged past a few feet away.

  ‘Russell?’

  ‘Just get over there, Tom.’

  Thorne hung up and turned. It was clear from the look on the face of the man marching towards him that they had been having much the same conversation.

  ‘We might as well take the one car,’ Nunn said.

  FOURTEEN

  It always amazed him. How death drew a crowd.

  Though it was obviously less of a novelty for him than it was for most people, Thorne still found the fascination strange. It wasn’t as though any of them were actually going to see anything. The men in the shiny suits like the ones off the telly weren’t suddenly going to come trotting out and carry the body across. They weren’t going to pull back the sheet and invite everyone to take a good look, maybe fire off a few quick snaps for friends and neighbours.

  And yet, there they were.

  While those in the adjacent streets of Stoke Newington laid out school uniforms, ironed shirts for the morning or just drank tea and grew miserable as Sunday fizzled out, a few lucky punters were outside, making their own entertainment. Thorne pushed his way through them: the cluster of gawpers fragmenting for just a moment; one or two exchanging snippets of whispered guesswork as they came back together; as a pissed-off uniform raised the tape for Thorne to duck under.

  ‘Shouldn’t this lot be indoors watching Antiques Road-show?’ the copper asked.

  Thorne pressed on towards the house, heard a child somewhere behind him asking if he was the man who’d come to chop up the dead body…

  There was as much of a gathering inside, and at the back of the house. Inside, it was as though there were at least two teams of SOCOs working the scene; investigators squeezing past one another in the narrow hallway that ran between the kitchen and the living room, where Paul Skinner’s body had been found. In the first few minutes Thorne spoke to three different photographers and video cameramen and, approaching the body, he half expected to see Phil Hendricks battling it out with rival pathologists for prime position.

  Hendricks looked up from his Dictaphone. ‘Head smashed in, I’d guess with a hammer, much the same as the first victim. Dead at least twenty-four hours. And you need to call your girlfriend.’

  ‘Still pissed off?’

  Leaning to one side, Hendricks pointed to what was left of Skinner’s head. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You crack me up,’ Thorne said, stony-faced.

  Hendricks grinned, pleased with himself. ‘OK, she’s probably happier than our friend with the hammer, but then she did eat a lot of ice-cream. I’m not an expert, obviously, but isn’t that supposed to be a major giveaway?’

  ‘I’ll ring later on, if I get a chance…’

  Thorne pushed on towards the back of the house, stepped through sliding patio doors on to a small paved area: a round table, umbrella and chairs; a rotary washing-line; a grime-covered barbecue on wheels.

  There was barely room to move.

  The patio was heaving with the overspill from the crime scene and more besides: ambulancemen and a mortuary crew, waiting until they were needed; a CSE or two catching their breath, or using it to smoke a crafty fag; a woman dispensing tea and coffee from catering-sized flasks.

  But the majority were in the Job.

  A few in uniform, but most wearing whatever they’d had on when the call had come through: Sunday best on one or two; jeans and puffa jackets; black tie on the poor bugger who had been dragged from a charity dinner. They stood around, muttering to one another in awkward groups of two and three. Like guests at an unconventional barbecue party.

  Thorne’s team were all there, obviously, and he saw several officers from others on the same unit. He also recognised DS Richard Rawlings, with a group he guessed were from Albany Street. Nunn had joined a couple of officers he seemed to know well. And there was no shortage of brass: Trevor Jesmond was one of two chief superintendents; making the rounds, doing his level best to smile when he caught the eye of the area commander.

  There were more coppers than Thorne had clapped eyes on at any crime scene he’d ever attended.

  Especially if you included the dead one.

  Eventually Thorne managed to grab Russell Brigstocke and guide him towards a corner of the patio. The light from a pair of carriage lamps attached to the back wall made the DCI’s face look even paler than it had been earlier in the day.

  ‘Skinner told you he didn’t want protection, didn’t he?’ Brigstocke said. ‘Was adamant about it, according to Holland.’

  ‘He wasn’t hugely keen, no,’ Thorne said. With so many experts around, he was not surprised that the process of covering arses had already begun.

  ‘Right. And actually, we got protection officers in position pretty quickly, all things considered.’

  ‘You don’t need to convince me, Russell.’

  ‘The wife’s screaming blue murder, saying we should have done more, but I think we did all we could.’

  A uniformed officer brought them both teas in Styrofoam cups.

  Skinner’s body had been discovered by the very men put outside his house, front and back, to protect him. Anne Skinner, alarmed at not being able to raise her husband on the phone, had called one of his mates at Albany Street. He’d got hold of someone at Homicide and, a few calls later, the protection officers were kicking in the front door.

  ‘Brooks must have got inside some time between your visit and the surveillance team being put in place late afternoon.’

  ‘Maybe he was watching the house,’ Thorne said.

  Brigstocke nodded towards the cordoned-off area around the back door. ‘Easy enough for him to get in,’ he said. ‘Broke a window and reached inside.’ He looked as though he wanted to spit out something bitter. ‘You’d have thought a fucking copper would have known better.’

  ‘Any prints?’

  ‘Plenty, apparently.’

  They drank their tea, and Brigstocke filled Thorne in on a few more unpleasant details. Looking around as they talked, Thorne caught Rawlings looking his way more than once; and Nunn drawing a colleague’s attention to him before turning back to mutter something.

  When Brigstocke was beckoned by the smallest of nods from Jesmond, he walked slowly back towards the house, like a man on his way into an oncologist’s office.

  A little later, Thorne caught up with Hendricks when the pathologist came out to get coffee.

  ‘Your man’s on a roll,’ Hendricks said. ‘That’s three bodies in a week. He’s paying for my holiday.’

  Thorne stared towards the back door and spoke as much to himself as to his friend: ‘They didn’t find the murder weapon.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He took it with him this time.’

  ‘So, he’s being careful.’

  ‘He’s left prints at every murder scene, left the weapon behind every time. It’s a bit bloody late to start being careful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Judging by how much force he used on that poor bas
tard’s head, he’s not exactly thinking rationally.’

  ‘He’s cool. That’s what you said.’

  Hendricks shrugged. ‘Maybe I should stick to what’s going on inside dead people.’

  Thorne let out a long, slow breath. Watched it drift up into the fug of blue-grey cigarette smoke that had formed above the patio. He noticed that several empty cups had been tossed into the narrow flower beds around its edge. Something else for the widow to complain about. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, eventually.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to know.’ Over Hendricks’ shoulder, Thorne saw Rawlings moving past people, making his way, grim-faced, in their direction. He glanced back at Hendricks. ‘This should be fun.’

  Hendricks saw what was coming and stepped away, suddenly fascinated by a hover-mower leaning against the fence.

  ‘Rawlings.’ Thorne had been prepared for some hostility as he proffered a hand, but saw that Skinner’s friend was fighting back tears as much as the urge to punch somebody.

  ‘I can’t decide,’ Rawlings said. ‘I don’t know whether I’d rather have ten minutes alone in an interview room with the cunt who did this or fifteen with the cunt who organised the fucking protection.’

  ‘It’s a tough one.’

  ‘It’s OK, I know it wasn’t your call.’ He turned and stared blackly towards the corner where Trevor Jesmond and the area commander were deep in conversation. ‘The fuckers with the pips tell the likes of us what to do, right?’

  Thorne said nothing.

  ‘Knew him ten fucking years. More. Only worked together for a couple of months, but we really hit it off, you know? Don’t know if it was the football or something else, but we clicked.’

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You and Paul working together.’

  ‘Flying Squad, late nineties. I was just moving on and he was getting his feet under the table. Like a fucking lifetime ago now…’

  Thorne nodded sympathetically; watched as Rawlings looked back towards the house again, as he muttered ‘cunts’ and gave the dampcourse a kick. He couldn’t help thinking that Rawlings swore too much and wondered if he might be one of those coppers who was equally excessive when it came to sentiment; to showing it at moments like this. The righteous anger at the death of a fallen comrade; a great mate, a good copper; ‘just let me get hold of the bastard’… all that cobblers.