‘Maybe he went to the supermarket. Maybe he went for a walk.’ Porter was starting to sound tetchy, as her suggestions grew more desperate. ‘It’s a nice enough morning.’
Thorne watched a young woman on the pavement opposite, struggling with a pushchair and a wayward toddler. He remembered Jane Freestone pointing towards her children’s bedroom, shouting: ‘Go and fucking-well ask them…’
‘Did you see another child?’ Thorne asked. He turned and looked at Porter, the idea taking hold, starting to jump in him. ‘When you checked the bedrooms, did you see her other kid?’
Porter hesitated, as though a little unnerved by the intensity in Thorne’s eyes. ‘I just presumed she’d taken both of them into the living room with her. I never really looked when I came back in.’
Thorne started the car, pointed towards the glove compartment. ‘There’s an A-Z in there,’ he said. ‘Find the nearest park.’
He sat towards the end of the bench against which the boy’s small, blue and white bike was leaning; so people would know he was looking after it. So they would know he was there with a child.
The boy jumped down from the roundabout while it was still spinning and ran for three or four steps before he stopped and waved across at him. He waved back, then stuck up a thumb. The boy grinned and ran towards a large wooden tree-house, with a rope bridge and a slide. He shouted across at the boy to be careful, but the boy showed no sign of having heard.
‘I think you’re wasting your time.’ A woman who was leaning against the fence was smiling at him. She dropped her cigarette, stepped on it. ‘Not scared of anything at that age, are they?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re not.’
‘It’s nice, I suppose. That they’re fearless, I mean. It’s natural, isn’t it?’ She laughed, reaching into her handbag for another cigarette. ‘But it does mean you can’t take your eyes off the little buggers. Not my two, anyway.’
He smiled back, picked up the newspaper he’d brought with him and stared at the front page until the woman turned round again.
It was as nice a day as he could remember for a while; perfect for getting out and about. The playground was always popular, even when the weather wasn’t so good, but this morning it was particularly crowded.
There were plenty of boys and girls for his nephew to play with.
Which was good for all sorts of reasons, not least because it meant that he’d been able to slip into the trees for ten minutes and smoke a little joint. He’d get into town later, buy himself something stronger for the weekend, but a bit of dope was a good start. Helped him enjoy the morning, enjoy the view, without getting too stupid about things.
‘Excuse me…’
He always kept a decent eye on what was happening, on stuff going on around him, and he’d seen the couple coming from a long way away. Hand in hand, honeymoon-period twats, smug and full of themselves. They’d stopped a few feet from his bench, and he could see the camera in the man’s hand. He could tell that they were embarrassed to ask.
‘Do you want me to take a picture of the two of you?’
‘Would you?’ the woman asked.
He stood up and the man handed over one of those cheap, disposable cameras, same as they sold in his local newsagent’s. He put it to his eye and the couple posed, arms around each other with the playground behind.
‘Cheers.’ The man in the leather jacket stepped towards him.
He held out the camera, but the man grabbed his wrist instead, squeezed it hard, and took hold of his shirt at the shoulder, while the short woman with the dark hair opened up the warrant card and told him he was under arrest for the murder of Sarah Hanley.
After a minute or two of swearing and struggling, he nodded towards the playground and asked what they were going to do about his nephew. The woman told him that he needn’t worry. That the boy would be taken back to his mother.
As the handcuffs were ratcheted around Grant Freestone’s wrists, he glanced across at the woman by the fence. The cigarette drooped from her fat lips, and he couldn’t help noticing that she’d happily taken her eyes off both her little buggers.
THIRTEEN
They were getting used to this sort of meeting by now: ad hoc gatherings to take stock, to regroup, and jointly fight the temptation to panic or run around screaming for a while. To discuss the latest development in a case where surprises were being thrown up faster than dodgy kebabs.
The kidnap case with no ransom demand, two dead kidnappers, and a convicted paedophile arrested for a murder committed years before.
‘Anything we haven’t managed to get in yet?’ Brigstocke asked. ‘Freestone’s still using, by all accounts, so we’ve got drugs covered. All we need now is a bit of prostitution, some gun-running maybe.’
Porter laughed.
‘I’m serious. A bomb factory and one or two stolen library books and we’ve got the complete fucking set.’
Just after midday, and four of them were making a good job of filling Brigstocke’s office at Becke House: Brigstocke himself, Hignett, Porter and Thorne. The sun was struggling to find its way through a layer of thin cloud and the streaky patina of grime on the window. Thorne hadn’t bothered to take off his jacket. Nobody in the room was sitting down.
‘We should just step back and hand Freestone over,’ Hignett said. ‘Call in this Hoolihan, enjoy our pat on the back and get on with trying to find Luke Mullen.’
‘Maybe Freestone can help us find him,’ Thorne said.
Brigstocke stared at Thorne for a few seconds, as if looking for a hint before asking the inevitable question. ‘Hadn’t you more or less dismissed Freestone as a suspect?’
‘More or less.’ He was being more or less honest.
‘But he’s the closest thing we’ve got,’ Porter said.
Whatever the various moods in the room – prickly, confused, determined – nobody could argue with Porter’s assessment. Philip Quinn had finally been tracked down in Newcastle, and the assortment of crimes for which he’d been subsequently nicked had given him a cast-iron, if costly, alibi for the night Conrad Allen and his girlfriend had been murdered. With Quinn out of the frame, the only name on the list belonged to the man that Thorne and Porter had arrested in Boston Manor Park; the man now sitting in a cell five minutes up the road at Colindale station.
‘Where did we get Freestone’s name from anyway?’ Hignett looked and sounded as if everything were starting to get away from him a little. Like it was all so much easier when people were snatched for cash. When an ear or two might be sliced off to bump up the price a bit, and everyone knew where they stood. He pointed towards Thorne. ‘From some friend of yours, wasn’t it?’
‘An ex-DCI, now working on cold cases for AMRU.’ Watching Hignett nod, as though this were significant, Thorne felt as though he had just been accused of something. Of chasing wild geese and landing the team with the horrible inconvenience of an arrest. ‘She remembered Freestone making threats against Tony Mullen when she worked with him, and thought he might be worth pursuing. It seemed a reasonable avenue of enquiry, while you were busy looking at… other possibilities.’
The idea that Luke Mullen had committed manslaughter – that he had run amok with a knife and then vanished – thankfully seemed to have all but gone away. Thorne hoped that it had been as a result of certain officers coming to their senses, but couldn’t help wondering if certain ex-officers had brought a degree of pressure to bear.
Hignett looked at his feet and rubbed his fingertip across the desktop, as though checking for dust. ‘So, Freestone’s name wasn’t on the original list provided by Tony Mullen?’
‘No…’ Thorne let the word hang and make its point. Then threw a ‘sir’ in on the end for good measure.
‘It still seemed like as strong a possibility as any,’ Porter said.
‘You thought initially that he should be considered a suspect?’
‘Considered, yes,’ Thorne said. ‘We began talking to one or two of those who�
�d been on the MAPPA panel that monitored Freestone when he was released from prison in 2001.’
‘And as far as I understand it from your notes, those conversations persuaded you that he wasn’t our kidnapper.’
‘To a degree.’
‘But you carried on talking to people, chasing it…’
‘It was just a question of being thorough, sir,’ Porter said. ‘And, to be frank, we didn’t have a fat lot else to chase.’
Thorne was grateful for Porter’s help. He was hedging his bets, and sounding like it, and he didn’t know how much longer he could fight shy of telling them why he really thought Grant Freestone was worth looking at. He’d spoken about it off the record to Brigstocke, but he couldn’t be certain who else might have Tony Mullen’s ear.
Brigstocke asked his question as if on cue: ‘Do we tell Tony Mullen that we’ve got Freestone in custody?’
‘No,’ Thorne said immediately.
Hignett asked why not, and while Thorne bit back the urge to say, ‘Because I don’t trust the fucker’, he came up with something more reasonable: ‘We should think carefully before telling Luke’s parents that we’ve made an arrest.’ He looked at Hignett and tried to summon an expression that was close to deferential. ‘I mean, I don’t know how you usually do it…’
‘There’s no set procedure.’
‘Obviously, I’m thinking more about Mrs Mullen,’ Thorne said. ‘We’d be raising hopes, false ones, probably. Causing a fair amount of upset.’
It was clear from Brigstocke’s face that he couldn’t help but admire Thorne’s invention. His cheek. ‘I understand that, but I think Mr Mullen might be fairly upset himself if he finds out.’
Thorne was in no doubt that he would, sooner or later. ‘We’ll have to live with it.’
‘Hopefully Freestone won’t be here that long,’ Porter said.
Hignett had been shaking his head for a while, waiting for a chance to jump in. ‘We’ve got nothing whatsoever to tie Freestone to this kidnap, and it’s the kidnap we should be focusing on. Luke Mullen is still missing. We don’t have time to piss about, so why are we even discussing this? Let’s just hand him over to Graham Hoolihan, and find a real suspect-’
‘Hoolihan fucked this up,’ Thorne said. ‘The Hanley case was not routinely reviewed. Christ knows when anyone from his team last spoke to Freestone’s sister, or when they were planning to. Yes, we got lucky, but at the end of the day we’ve done him a favour, and he’s the one who’s going to be buying big drinks when we eventually hand Freestone over for the Hanley murder. Which, by the way, I also have serious doubts about-’
Hignett held up a hand to cut Thorne off, used it to point at Brigstocke and then himself. ‘When you eventually hand Freestone over, we, Detective Inspector, not you, are going to get it in the neck from Hoolihan’s boss for not doing so straight away.’ He turned away from Thorne, spoke directly to his fellow DCI. ‘I think this is a waste of time, Russell: talking to Freestone; even talking about talking to Freestone…’
‘Why can’t we have just one crack at him?’ Thorne asked.
‘Because you haven’t got a single good reason to do so.’ Hignett looked as though it were his last word on the subject. He stepped towards the door, which, after a perfunctory knock, opened as he reached for the handle.
Holland had saved Thorne’s life a couple of years earlier, storming into Thorne’s bedroom with an empty wine bottle as his only weapon. It was the night Thorne had received the scar across his chin, and one or two more that weren’t as visible.
Holland’s timing now was almost as perfect as it had been then. ‘Looks like I’ve missed all the excitement,’ he said.
‘If you mean Freestone,’ Hignett said, ‘there’s nothing to get excited about.’
Holland caught Thorne’s eye as he moved further into the room. A silent exchange assuring Holland that he would be brought up to speed later.’
‘How did it go with Warren?’ Thorne asked.
‘Strange bloke: ex-junkie himself, turned to God. But I think we got something.’ Holland had everyone’s attention. ‘He was concerned about client confidentiality, so he never actually said as much, but I had a very strong feeling that he knew Amanda Tickell. That she’d been a client at some point.’
‘Which connects her to Grant Freestone,’ Porter said.
Thorne had been fired up by the morning’s result, but had felt the energy pissing out of him ever since he’d walked back into Becke House. Now he could feel a buzz beginning to lick at his nerve endings, the ticking in his blood starting to build. ‘They might have been clients of Warren’s at the same time,’ he said. ‘If they did know each other, we’ve got a direct link between Freestone and the Mullen kidnap.’ He looked at Hignett. Then, to Brigstocke: ‘Sir?’
Hignett could do nothing but blink, like he’d just walked into something.
‘Sounds like our single good reason,’ Brigstocke said.
Having wrapped up the meeting, he asked Thorne to stay behind, announced that he needed a word about a death by dangerous driving case for which Thorne had done the pre-trial paperwork.
‘Tony Mullen is already upset,’ Brigstocke said, as soon as they were alone.
‘He knows about Freestone?’
‘Upset with you.’
‘Ah…’
‘What the fuck happened at his place last night?’ Brigstocke moved behind his desk, sat down like he didn’t plan on getting up again for some time.
‘Trevor Jesmond been by to say hello, has he?’
‘He called.’
‘I bet he’s sorry he asked for me now.’
‘Mullen says you were harassing him and his wife.’
‘Talk to Porter,’ Thorne said. ‘She was there. To be honest, it was Mullen and his missus who were doing all the shouting.’
‘He says you caused the trouble.’
‘He’s full of it.’
‘I’m just telling you.’
Thorne turned towards the door. It always amazed him that a good feeling could disappear so fast you could barely remember having had it. ‘Thanks, I’ll consider myself told.’
Brigstocke hadn’t finished. ‘You shouldn’t be making an enemy out of Barry Hignett, either.’
‘Are you about to tell me that I’ve got enough enemies as it is?’
‘No. It would be stupid, that’s all. Hignett’s not a bad copper and he’s not a twat. He’s just one of those strange fuckers who takes a position, you know? Who sticks to his guns, because he doesn’t want to look indecisive. He’s the opposite of that character on The Fast Show, the one who agrees with anything anybody tells him and keeps changing his mind.’
‘Right.’ Thorne knew who Brigstocke meant. The show had been one of his father’s favourites. The old man had been fond of shouting out the catchphrases at inappropriate moments.
‘It’s good to have people like Hignett around,’ Brigstocke continued. ‘Sometimes he’s going to be taking a good position and then you want him on your side. Chances are he’ll be right just as often as you are.’
‘More, I should think,’ Thorne said. He reached for the door. ‘Almost certainly…’
You’d drive if it was pissing down, maybe, but by the time you’d negotiated assorted security barriers and wrestled with the limited car-parking space at either end, it was just as quick to walk between the Peel Centre and Colindale station. Thorne and Holland had made the journey often enough for their steps to be automatic. They crossed Aerodrome Road where they always did, walked at their regular pace, with Holland keeping to the left of Thorne, as usual.
They quickly completed the short conversation they’d begun wordlessly in Brigstocke’s office half an hour earlier. Thorne told Holland what Hignett’s objections had been and thanked him for his timely interruption. Holland said he was only too pleased to help, that it was another one up for the Murder Squad team, not that anyone was keeping score.
They never talked about the earlier incident, th
e one with the empty wine bottle, quite so easily.
‘God told this bloke to get off the coke then, did he?’
‘Apparently,’ Holland said. ‘Says a prayer instead of doing a line.’
‘Knackering your knees certainly beats losing your septum.’
Holland lengthened his stride to avoid a spatter of dogshit. ‘If Warren did know Tickell, should we be looking at him, too?’
‘Can’t see any point,’ Thorne said. ‘Why on earth would he want to kidnap Luke Mullen? Unless God told him to do it, of course.’
Though there was no option but to walk all the way around, Colindale station was clearly visible – its three storeys broken up into units of brown and white – across the quarter-mile of bleak scrub that separated it from the Peel Centre. The station had been designed along the lines of an airfield observation tower, standing as it did on the site of the old Hendon aerodrome, and next door to the RAF museum. Signs along the edge of the land proclaimed it to be ‘dangerous’. Thorne guessed that this was to do with the state of some of the disused buildings, but liked to imagine that it was something more sinister. He pictured London’s criminal fraternity throwing a hell of a party when it was announced that one of the city’s largest police facilities had been sited on top of a toxic-waste dump…
‘What about those two women on the MAPPA panel?’ Holland said. ‘Kathleen Bristow and Margaret Stringer. Do you need me to talk to them as well?’
‘Only if you’ve really got sod-all else to do. Now we’ve got Freestone, we can get it from the horse’s mouth. Whatever the hell there is to get.’
‘Fair enough, but Porter told me you were banging on about being tidy.’
‘Did she? What else did she say?’
‘Nothing. It just came up, that’s all…’
Further along, sight of the station was cut off by newly erected fencing. A sign on the gate announced the imminent building of ‘luxury studios and apartments’. Having seen similar developments spring up in recent years, Thorne wasn’t putting money on the view from his office window being significantly improved.
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