He’d followed the big van past Southall Park, along the Broadway and down along the route of the canal between the school and the retail park. He’d slowed and turned in when he’d seen the van do the same. Watched the girl walk up to the window and realised that the driver had known exactly what he was looking for.
And what he wanted for his money…
Brooks had got what he needed. Invisible behind a row of recycling bins, he put the phone away. Disgusted with the man leaning back against the dirty, wet wall. Disgusted with himself for being excited.
He watched as the man pushed; the tom’s ponytail swinging as her head moved back and forth. Remembering the feeling – Christ… trying to remember it, years ago – when Angie had done the same thing to him.
Closed his eyes, but could remember only that he would never touch her again. Feel her again.
He took one more good look at the man’s face. Then he lowered his head, and waited for them to finish.
They lay in the dark afterwards, Thorne pressed up against her, sucking in mouthfuls of hair. The breath coming back. They’d finished with Louise on top, and when he’d told her he was coming, she’d pushed herself down in an effort to hold him inside her. He’d rolled from beneath her in the nick of time and she’d groaned and dropped on to her side.
‘I thought it wasn’t safe,’ he said finally.
‘No.’
‘So, why…?’
She grabbed his hand, pulled his arm tighter around her waist.
‘Do you want to get pregnant?’
‘No. Just at that moment, you know? I wanted you to stay inside me.’
A cat – Thorne couldn’t be sure that it was Elvis – was yowling in the garden. The old lady who lived upstairs had some TV quiz show on stupidly loud.
‘I should probably wear something next time.’
‘What, like a fireman’s helmet and wellies?’
‘A condom.’
She snorted. ‘Yes, I know. It just makes me laugh to hear you say it. That you find some things hard to say. You’re weird.’
‘I’m weird?’
They both laughed and rolled over together. Thorne brought his knees up as Louise curled against him. Her breath was on his back and he could feel her eyelashes against his shoulder when she blinked.
He listened to the applause from the television upstairs. And when it had been switched off, he lay there thinking: I don’t know this woman at all.
Remember that time I missed Robbie’s birthday party? The last one before I went inside, the one in the burger place. I know you will, because we had a steaming row about it. You telling me that Robbie was in tears and me shouting all the more because I felt like such an arsehole about it. I’d been doing some stupid favour for Wayne. Poxy driving job down on the coast. Waiting around, wondering what I was involved in and thinking about Robbie running around with his mates and trying his new football shirt on.
It was a favour I owed the bloke, that was the thing.
Thing about it is, I know sometimes people have taken the piss, made me look like a right mug, whatever, but I’ve always tried to be as good as my word, to be reliable. You say you’ll do something, you do it. You understand that, don’t you, Ange?
Same as this business with Nicklin. Liking someone, not liking them’s got fuck all to do with it. When someone does you a favour, you owe them and, whatever else, I’ve always settled my debts. Simple as that.
From what Nicklin told me inside, I reckon this bloke Thorne is pretty much the same. The sort who follows things through, you know? He’ll feel as if he owes something to these fuckers, to their nearest and dearest at any rate. That’s exactly what Nicklin wants, if you ask me. Thorne won’t leave it alone, he’ll get right deep into it. Once he’s made a promise he’ll keep it, or at least he’ll try to keep it, and I’ve always respected that.
I’ve not learned much. I know, fuck all probably.
Except how important it is to know you’re doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
Funny fucking pair, the two of us. Me and this copper. Sitting here, filling up these pages, trying to work things out in this poky shithole, I can’t help wondering what he thinks about what I’m doing. I don’t really care, but all the same, it’s on my mind.
Which one of us is going to end up looking like a mug.
Maybe both of us…
SIXTEEN
The sun was just coming up, and Thorne scraped a thin crust of frost from his windscreen with the edge of a CD case. The trees on his road – he had no idea what sort they were – were completely bare, and all had been severely cut back for the winter. Looking along the pavement, there was an almost perfect line of them. Bleached and stumpy in the half-light.
The message had woken him half an hour before. The tone he’d set up on the prepay handset.
He’d stood there in his dressing-gown, the cat pushing at his shins, and watched the clip. If he hadn’t recognised the man, he might have thought he’d been sent some random snippet of amateur porno. But dark and fuzzy as the image was, there was no mistaking the face; the punter being serviced by a woman who was almost certainly a hooker and was definitely not the man’s wife.
Not Mrs Bin-bag.
Thorne had stared at his other phone, at the mobile that was being monitored, and waited anxiously to see if the message would be sent to that handset too. He had given it a couple of minutes: felt colder and more uncertain with every few seconds that passed.
Louise had staggered through, pulling on a robe and asking who his message had been from.
‘Some fucking upgrade offer…’
‘What?’
‘Do I want an upgrade?’
She mumbled something, still half asleep, then turned and walked back into the bedroom.
Brigstocke had sounded only barely more awake when he’d answered the phone. ‘Fucking hell, Tom…’
‘How much surveillance have we got on Martin Cowans?’
‘What? Er… there’s an officer at his home address.’
‘What about the clubhouse?’
‘Can’t we do this later?’
Thorne had heard a woman’s voice; a muffled question as a hand was placed over the mouthpiece; children shouting somewhere. The Brigstockes had three kids to get ready for school every morning. ‘Russell?’
‘Yeah, there’s someone at the clubhouse. And I think S &O have got people on the place as well.’
‘How many?’
‘Fucked if I know. Nobody’s breaking into there though, are they? You said it was like Fort Knox.’
‘We thought we’d got Skinner’s place covered, remember?’
Brigstocke was wide awake now, and irritated. ‘We’ll talk about this at work, OK? I’ve got a meeting at nine…’
Thorne tossed the CD case back into the boot and climbed into the car. He had already started the engine, giving the BMW’s ancient heating system a chance to take the chill off, but the steering wheel was still freezing to the touch and he couldn’t be arsed to go back inside for his gloves. He looked at his watch; it was a good time to be driving. All being well he’d get in before seven-thirty.
Pulling the car round into a three-point turn, his eye was caught by movement above him, and he glanced at the tree opposite; at a fat, wet pigeon, perched awkwardly, halfway up. Its movements – the umbrella-shakes of its feathers – made it seem as if it were shivering.
Cold and pissed off; naked as the tree.
He didn’t quite have the place to himself, but for half an hour or so he was able to sit in relative peace and quiet. To eat toast and drink tea, and worry about the health and safety of a drug dealing, heavily tattooed gangster. To reflect on a course of action that meant he was the only one who knew Martin Cowans was in immediate danger.
To wonder if it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
It was a tough chart to top…
From his window, he watched officer after officer coming throu
gh the Peel Centre gates. Some he knew well; some he didn’t know from Adam; others he’d no more than smiled at when they’d passed on the stairs or in the canteen. Somewhere, there was a police officer who, in league with a friend or colleague, had killed a gang leader and sent an innocent man to prison for it. And who, six years later, according to Marcus Brooks, had battered his partner in crime to death rather than risk seeing their criminal history exposed.
Thorne wanted to find that man. Wanted him every bit as much as he wanted Marcus Brooks.
‘Bright and early, Tom,’ Karim said, marching straight across to the kettle. He held up the teabags, asking if Thorne was ready for another.
Thorne nodded. ‘Plenty of fucking worms to catch.’
He wasn’t the only one making an early start. Richard Rawlings was on the phone before Thorne had finished his second mug of tea.
‘Any news?’
‘The PM confirms that the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head, and puts the time of death somewhere between three and five on Saturday afternoon.’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
‘I’m not sure what else I can tell you,’ Thorne said.
‘Any news about Brooks? Any progress…?’
Nobody had spoken officially to Rawlings about Marcus Brooks, but Thorne was not surprised that he knew the name of their prime suspect. He could have found out through any number of sources: jungle drums; friends or friends of friends on the squad. Or even Skinner himself, who had probably told him all about the video clip he’d been shown, and what it meant.
And there was another possibility: a simple explanation for Rawlings knowing all about Marcus Brooks; for knowing more about the case than anybody else.
‘Is there anything you can tell us?’ Thorne said.
There was a pause. ‘Such as?’
‘Such as why Marcus Brooks, or anyone else, would want to smash your friend’s head in with a hammer.’
‘No fucking idea.’
‘That’s your first “fucking” of the conversation. I’m pleased you’re making an effort.’
Thorne was surprised to hear Rawlings laughing. ‘Well, I like to start off slowly, build up during the day, you know?’
Afterwards, Thorne failed to return several messages: one from Keith Bannard, the DCI from S &O: another from a CPS clerk, wanting to talk about a bloodstained training shoe that had ‘gone walkabout’ from an evidence locker; and a rambling message from his Auntie Eileen, who never got round to saying why she was calling. Thorne guessed she wanted to have the ‘What are you doing at Christmas?’ conversation.
He heard someone outside the door telling Kitson how good she’d been on TV the previous night. When she came in, Thorne added his own congratulations.
‘Anything?’
‘A few people ringing in to say they saw someone dropping something into the litter bin that could have been a knife, but I don’t think that gets us very far. The woman hasn’t called back.’
‘There’s time yet.’
Kitson was something of a closet football fan and they talked about the previous night’s European results. Arsenal were now at the bottom of their group having lost at home to Hamburg. Thorne hadn’t had a chance to talk to Hendricks yet, who he knew would be devastated.
‘Did you see the highlights?’ Kitson asked.
‘Better things to do,’ Thorne said.
He walked around to Colindale station; waited for Brigstocke to emerge from his meeting with the borough commander.
‘Sorry I called so early.’
‘Why the sudden urgency?’ Brigstocke asked.
‘No urgency. I just thought we should cover our arses.’
‘Like I said on the phone, I think they’re covered.’
‘It’s understandable that we’re focusing on the Skinner killing,’ Thorne said. ‘But there’s no reason to presume that Brooks has finished with the Black Dogs.’
‘We’re not presuming anything.’
‘That he shouldn’t want to hit them again.’
‘No, you’re right.’
‘You said there are people on the home address and the clubhouse?’
They walked into the station’s reception area, and out. Began to walk back across to Becke House. The sky was a grey wash, but here and there were glimpses of sun, like streaks of milky flesh seen through thin and frayed material.
Brigstocke smiled as he buttoned his overcoat. ‘It’s good to know you’re taking the welfare of the city’s biker gangs so seriously.’
‘I understand some of them do a lot of work for charity,’ Thorne said.
They crossed the road in front of a Met minivan which had just turned out of the main gates. The driver leaned on his horn and, recognising him as someone he knew, Thorne gave him a friendly finger.
Brigstocke was taller, with a longer stride, but had to jog a step or two to match Thorne’s pace. ‘Slow down, for fuck’s sake.’
‘I’m too bloody cold to dawdle,’ Thorne lied.
They showed their passes at the Driving School entrance as it was closer, and walked towards Becke House, which rose, less than majestically, brown and grey on the other side of the parade square. They passed the gym, and Brigstocke put a hand on Thorne’s arm. ‘Listen, I wanted to say sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘For being a twat.’
‘Which particular time?’
Brigstocke looked at the floor as they walked. ‘You know there’s been something going on.’
‘The Dark Side, you mean?’
‘Right. I don’t want to go into it, OK?’
Thorne had raised it three days before with Nunn. As they’d driven hell for leather towards Skinner’s house, Thorne had asked the DPS man what he knew about an investigation into his own team; about the Regulation Nines that appeared to be flying about in Russell Brigstocke’s Incident Room. Nunn had been as forthcoming as usual. He said that it was an Internal Investigation Command matter, that his was a separate department, that he couldn’t comment in any case. Seeing no point in another ‘couldn’t’ meaning ‘don’t want to’ conversation, Thorne had let it drop.
But he still wanted to know; now more than ever.
‘I told you before,’ Thorne said. ‘If you want to talk about it…’
‘Cheers.’
‘We can go and get hammered somewhere. Sit and slag the fuckers off.’
Brigstocke nodded. ‘It’s tempting, but I just wanted to explain why I’ve been walking around with a face like a smacked arse, that’s all.’
‘I couldn’t tell the difference,’ Thorne said.
They walked into Becke House and straight into a waiting lift. They rode up in silence, each staring ahead at his own reflection in the steel doors. Stepping out on the third floor, Thorne made straight for the Incident Room, watching Brigstocke head the other way along the corridor and close his office door.
He loitered for a minute, then went to find Holland. ‘How busy are you?’
‘Up to my tits in phone-company correspondence and CCTV requisition orders,’ Holland said. ‘Have you got a better offer?’
Ten minutes later they were arguing about which CD to listen to as Thorne drove towards Southall.
SEVENTEEN
A quick glance at the Police National Computer had revealed not only a couple of fines for shoplifting and a suspended sentence for possession of a Class A drug, but the rather more surprising fact that Martin Cowans’ ‘old lady’ was actually a nice posh girl called Philippa. That she’d been brought up in Guildford and privately educated.
‘How the fuck should I know where he is?’
Standing on the doorstep of Martin Cowans’ semi, Thorne couldn’t help but admire the degree to which the young woman doing the shouting had reinvented herself. There was no hint of anything remotely genteel; not the slightest trace of a ‘Pimm’s and ponies’ accent.
‘And why would I tell you? Even if I did fucking know?’
Tho
rne wondered if her parents had ever met their prospective son-in-law. He imagined two jaws dropping and the hasty redrafting of wills.
‘Have you called him on his mobile?’ Holland asked.
Bin-bag’s girlfriend almost smiled, but caught herself in time. She took the cigarette from her mouth and flicked it past Holland’s shoulder on to the path. ‘Call him your-fucking-selves,’ she said. She tightened the dressing-gown across her black T-shirt. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
‘Thanks for your help, Pippa,’ Thorne said.
Her eyes widened, furious for just a second before she slammed the door.
Holland left a beat, cleared his throat. ‘Have we got his mobile number?’
Thorne shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen it listed anywhere. He didn’t give us a business card, did he?’
‘Maybe your mate at S &O’s got it.’
Thorne owed Keith Bannard a call anyway. He fished out the number as they were walking back towards the patrol car parked opposite the house. He got Bannard’s voicemail and left a message.
Coming off the back of twelve hours in the front seat of a Ford Focus, the uniformed officer on surveillance had been a tad surly when Thorne and Holland had first arrived. He seemed cheerier now, having obviously enjoyed watching them get Cowans’ front door slammed in their faces.
‘Silly bitch,’ he said. ‘Probably just pissed off because he didn’t come home all night.’
Thorne felt a bubble of panic rise and burst in his stomach. ‘When did you last see him?’
‘He’d already gone out by the time I came on last night. He stays out quite a lot, mind you. Crashes round at other bikers’ places, one of the lads was saying.’
Holland looked at Thorne. ‘We’ve got people watching all the known addresses for Black Dogs members. Shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.’
The officer in the car grinned, tossed his newspaper into the back seat. ‘I reckon he’s got a couple of other women on the go, an’ all.’
‘Jammy sod,’ Holland said.
Thinking about the video clip he’d seen a few hours earlier, Thorne wondered how many of those women Martin Cowans had to pay for.
Death Message Page 17