Eve Bloom clearly knew every inch of this space the size of two football pitches; where to find every wholesaler and specialist; where to get the pots, the bulbs, the sundries; the location of any plant, flower or tree among tens of thousands of others. Thorne watched as she ordered, as she haggled and as she connected with stallholders and market staff.
'All right, Evie darlin'…'
'How are you, sweetheart…?'
'Here she is! Where you been hiding yourself, love…?'
Despite her earlier stab at grumpiness, Thorne could see that she really enjoyed this part of the job. The smile was instant, the banter good natured and flirtatious. If her customers liked her half as much as those she was buying from, her shop was probably doing pretty well. For all this, it was clear that she drove a hard bargain and would take nothing unless the price was right. The wholesalers shook their heads as they tapped at their computer keyboards or scribbled in their pink order books. 'I'm cutting my throat selling at this price…' Within half an hour she was done and there was no shortage of porters volunteering to load up her boxes and take them out to where her small white van was parked.
Once business was out of the way, she took Thorne on one last circuit of the market. She showed him a bewildering selection of different flowers – the ones she liked or hated, the sweetest smelling and the oddest looking. She pointed out the red and yellow gerberas, lined up neatly in rows and stacked in small square boxes like fruit. The pink peonies, the orange protea like pin cushions, and the phallic anthuriums, their heads like something Dennis Bethell might photograph. Thorne saw enough Jersey carnations to fill every buttonhole at a century's worth of society weddings and enough lilies for a thousand good funerals. He looked at daisies and delphiniums, the stuff of cheap and cheerful bouquets for desperate men to buy from petrol station forecourts in the early hours. Then there were gangling, blue and orange birds of paradise at five pounds a stem and fruiting lemon trees in vast pots, both surely destined for the dining tables and bespoke conservatories of Hampstead and Highgate.
Thorne nodded, asked the occasional question, looked keen. When she asked, he told her he was enjoying himself. In truth, though he was impressed by her knowledge and touched to a degree by her enthusiasm, he was dreaming of bacon sandwiches…
Half an hour later, and Thorne's fantasy had become greasy reality. Eve had kept him company, working her way through sausage, egg and chips like a long-distance lorry driver. It may or may not have been her breakfast of choice, but the card was not the sort of place that offered much in the way of a healthy alternative.
'How often do you do this?' Thorne asked.
'Harden my arteries or get up horribly early?'
'The market…'
'Just one day a week, thank God. Some people do it two or three times a week, but I'm much too fond of my bed.'
Thorne swallowed another mouthful of tea. In the two and something hours he'd been up, he'd already drunk more tea than he'd normally consume in a week. He could feel it, sloshing about in his belly like dirty water at the bottom of a tank.
'So what you bought this morning's going to last you the week, then?
'Well, if it does, the business is in big trouble. The rest of the stock I need comes over from Holland. This mad Dutchman drives a big van over on a Friday, goes round every small florist in East London. It's more expensive than coming down here but I get a lie-in, so sod it…'
She reached into a small leather rucksack, pulled out a packet of Silk Cut. She offered it to Thorne. 'Want one?'
'No, I don't, thanks.' This wasn't strictly true. Fifteen and more years he'd been off the fags, and he still wanted one… She lit up, took a long drag. Drew the smoke down deep and let it out slowly with a low hum of contentment. 'It's your birthday a week today, isn't it?'
'You've got a good memory,' he said. He puffed out his cheeks.
'Mine's getting worse the older I get.' He pulled a mock-sulky face.
'Thanks for reminding me about that, by the way…'
A spark flared briefly inside his head then fizzled and died. There was something he was trying to remember, something he knew was important to the case. It was something he'd read. Or maybe something he hadn't read.
He brought his eyes back to Eve and saw that she was speaking. Saying something he couldn't hear. 'Sorry, what…?'
She leaned across the table. 'Be a nice birthday present to yourself if you solved your case, wouldn't it?'
Thorne nodded slowly, smiled. 'Well, I had promised myself some She flicked ash from her cigarette, rubbed the tip around the edge of the ashtray. 'You don't like talking about your job, do you?'
He looked at her for a few seconds before answering. 'There's things I can't talk about, especially with you being involved. The stuff I can talk about just isn't very exciting…'
'And you think I'd be as bored as you were when I showed you round the market…?'
'I wasn't bored.'
'Do the criminals you interview lie as badly as you do?'
Thorne laughed. 'I wish.'
She stubbed out her cigarette, leaned back in her chair and looked at him. 'I'm interested. In what you do.'
He remembered the way he'd felt talking to her in the tea-room. How it had seemed like a long time since he'd spoken to a woman like that. It was a hell of a lot longer since he'd talked about the job.
'Murder cases go cold very quickly…'
'So you need to catch the killer straightaway?'
Thorne nodded. 'If you're going to get a result it tends to happen in the first few days. It's been a fortnight already…'
'You never know…'
'I do, unfortunately.'
She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. 'I need to go and get rid of some of that tea…'
While she was in the toilet, Thorne stared out of the steamy window. The cafe was in a side street between Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane. From where he was sitting, Thorne could see the rush-hour traffic moving slowly across Vauxhall Bridge. Cars carrying their occupants north towards Victoria and Piccadilly, or south to Camberwell and Clapham. Towards shops and offices and warehouses where they would moan and joke about another bloody Monday and then not spend it failing to catch a killer.
It was a close call, but Thorne would not have swapped places with them.
Eve rejoined him. Above them, a train rumbled by on its way into Waterloo. She had to raise her voice. 'I forgot to ask,' she said, 'how's the plant?'
'Sorry?'
'The aloe vera plant…'
Thorne blinked, remembering the vision that had greeted him on stumbling bleary-eyed into the living room at five o'clock that morning. Elvis, squatting awkwardly atop the small metal bucket. Keeping his belly low to avoid the spikes. Looking Thorne straight in the eye as he pissed happily into the white pebbles…
'It's doing fine,' Thorne said.
Thorne's phone rang.
'Where are you?' Brigstocke said. 'We've got Gribbin…'
'I'm on my way in…'
'When I say "got him" I just mean we know where he is, all right?
We've got to go and get him. Holland's waiting on your doorstep…'
'Tell him I'll be back home in half an hour…'
'Where the hell are you?'
Thorne looked across at Eve who smiled and shrugged. 'I've been jogging…'
*****
What does a child-sex offender look like?
Thorne knew this to be a pointless question. Pointless because, truthfully, it was unanswerable. It was also extremely dangerous.
And yet, people had been taught to believe that they knew the answer. That they should stick their hands up and shout it out. It was always an answer that came too late though, wasn't it? After the damage had been done and the children had been hurt. After the man had been caught and that first, fuzzy photo had appeared on the front of the newspapers. Then, it was as though everything that people already knew had been confirmed. Of course! It was
so bloody obvious, wasn't it? That was what one of those men looked like. Knew it all along…
If it was so obvious, if the evil that these men did was written clearly across their faces for all to see, then why did they live next door and go undetected? If you could see it in the bastards' eyes, then why did they pass by unnoticed on the streets? Why did they teach your kids? Why were you married to one?
Because, as Thorne knew all too well, you couldn't see it, no matter how much you wished that you could or how hard you looked. Nobody looked like a child-sex offender. Everybody did. Thorne looked like on. And Russell Brigstocke. And Yvonne Kitson…
What Ray Gribbin did not look like was the popular perception of a child-sex offender. He was not your typical, tabloid, kiddie-fiddler. He did not have bad skin or lank, greasy hair. He did not wear thick glasses, carry a bag of boiled sweets or wear a dirty anorak. As well as the misshapen nose that Douglas Remfry had claimed responsibility for, Gribbin had a shaved head, cold eyes and a smile that said 'fuck right off'. He was a child-sex offender who looked like an armed robber. Whatever the hell an armed robber looked like…. Thorne put the photo together with the other paperwork he had been studying, and handed the lot across to where Stone and Holland were sitting in the back seat. Stone looked at the photo. 'Christ, he's not what I expected,' he said.
Thorne said nothing, stared out of the passenger window. Brigstocke flashed the lights and put his foot down. The car in front of them pulled across to let the unmarked Volvo pass. 'I know what you mean,' he said. 'Looks like the sort who might bear a grudge, though, doesn't he?'
Thorne couldn't argue with that. He watched, slightly dizzy, as the fields of rape and wheat that bordered the M4 flew past at ninety miles an hour. He made himself belch; the reading had made him feel a little sick…
Brigstocke spoke up to get everybody's attention. 'Right, you should all have had a chance to look at the notes by the time we get there…'
Thorne wound down his window an inch. Brigstocke glanced across at him, carried on. 'This is a bit of a kick-bollock scramble but we didn't have a lot of choice. We're doing this in a hurry but let's all make sure we do it right, shall we?' There were grunts from the two in the back. Thorne turned to look at him. 'Gribbin's got a history of violence and if Remfry's story is to be believed, that's the only time Gribbin's come off worse. He's been picked up with knives on him before, so we're taking no chances…'
Stone leaned forward, an arm on each headrest, and his face pushed between the seats. 'How many going in?…
'Probably be the four of us, plus a couple of the local boys…'
Stone nodded, carried on speed-reading the notes.
'Watch out for the woman as well,' Brigstocke said. 'Sandra Cook's got plenty of form. Drug abuse, theft, prostitution. She did three months in Holloway for taking half a DC's face off with her nails…'
Holland shuffled forward. If Brigstocke had so much as touched the brakes, Holland would have smashed into the back of his head.
'Patricia Cook's the woman who called up about Gribbin, right?'
Stone glanced at him. 'Sandra's sister…'
Thorne took a gulp of cold air and shut his window.
'So, why does she grass up her sister's boyfriend?' Holland asked. Brigstocke tried to catch Holland's eye in the mirror. 'That's the other reason we're not fucking around this morning,' he said. 'Nonattendance is not Gribbin's only violation of his parole conditions.'
'Shit.. ' Stone had seen it. He held the notes out for Holland to take.
Thorne turned his head, looked at Holland. 'There's three people in the house, Dave. Gribbin, Cook and Cook's eleven-year-old daughter…'
Thorne swiveled round again, pulled his seat belt taut. Beneath it, he could feel his heart start to thump that little bit faster and louder. Around the nape of his neck he could sense the smallest tingle beginning to build. He caught his breath as an insect hit the windscreen in a mess of blood and wings.
It was a horseshoe-shaped cul-de-sac on a modern housing estate, and the property they were interested in was at the far end… Thorne looked at the houses as the van slowly made its way past them up the drive. Taking in the detail, the attempts to personalise and gentrify. The bright, differently coloured front doors; the hanging and The Thistles. Most of the houses and garages were empty, the occupants having left for work hours earlier, but still the occasional curtain twitched. This was probably as exciting as it would ever get. It was one of those funny towns on the outskirts of the city that couldn't quite make its mind up if it was urban or rural. Twenty-odd miles to the west of central London, it lay uncomfortably between the M25 and the Chilterns. For its population of commuters, the proximity to rolling hills and quaintly named villages probably made the daily slog up the motorway worthwhile, but it was a different story for their teenage children. No amount of fresh air could make the place any less boring. Antique shops would not prevent them pissing it up the wall on a Friday night and cutting up rough in the centre of town…
Thorne saw a woman staring down at him from an upstairs window. He read the alarm on her face and watched her back away quickly, almost certainly heading for the phone. It was understandable. Those who peeped from behind curtains on one side of the drive saw a blue Transit van. Those like her, in houses on the other side, could see the four men in jackets, jeans and trainers, who crept slowly alongside it, moving at the same speed, the van's progress masking theirs. When the van began a long, slow sweep around the curve of the horseshoe, the police officers behind it moved in a similar arc. As it slowed right down, they did the same, and when it stopped and the engine was switched off, the four men gathered into a tight huddle and waited.
Five hundred yards away, at the other end of the drive, two police vans had sealed off the entrance. Traffic police kept the vehicles moving as drivers slowed down to gawk. Half a dozen uniformed officers in shirtsleeves moved curious pedestrians along. Behind the Transit, Thorne listened. He could hear the distant squawk of a two-way. The drone of traffic from the other side of the field behind the estate. Somewhere nearby there was a radio playing. He tuned the sounds out and tried to concentrate on what Brigstocke was saying…
'Are we clear?' Brigstocke asked. He looked hard at Thorne, Holland and Stone. Thorne knew he was looking for focus. Nods all round. This was probably going to be straightforward enough, but it only took a second for something run of the mill to go very tits up.
'Right…'
A beat, then Brigstocke hammered with his fist on the side of the van and two more officers jumped immediately from the front. The van doors still swinging, they began sprinting towards the house, the biggest one lugging a heavy, metal door-ram.
Thorne and the others came around from the far side of the van, running. Brigstocke and Stone went immediately left towards the gate at the side; making for the back of the house. Thorne and Holland veered away from them, following in the wake of the two from the front of the van…
Grunts, and short breaths, and the pounding of rubber soles tarmac and pavement and grass, and still the sound of the radio coming from somewhere…
Thorne came up next to the officers at the front door. He crouched down, ready to spring forward, and nodded. A couple of deep breaths. The big officer gritted his teeth and swung the battering-ram.
'Police…!'
Thorne could hear shouting from inside the house and from around the back. The door hadn't given. He began kicking at the lock, then moved quickly as the ram was swung into the door again. This time it crashed open and, leading with his forearm, Thorne rushed in.
'Police! Everybody in the property show themselves now…'
From behind him, Thorne heard the clang of the battering-ram as it was dropped on to the doorstep. From somewhere-up ahead he could hear a thump and, upstairs, a woman screaming… A wore, an, Thorne thought. Not a child… 'Anybody here, show yourself!'
He saw a long hallway ahead of him. Two, three doors off to his right…
&nbs
p; 'In there!'
He glanced left at the big officer coming past him, at the bulk of his wide back moving beneath his car coat as he charged up the stairs two at a time.
At the other end of the hall was a kitchen, and through it he could see Brigstocke and Stone outside the back door. Holland pushed past him, ran to open it.
The doors clattered open, smashed in ahead of him. In the first room, nothing… He stepped back out into the hall, turned to see Brigstocke and Stone running towards him.
From the second room, a shout…
'Here…'
Thorne shoved his way past the officer in the doorway and burst into the room. It was small – a sofa, an armchair, a widescreen TV still on. At the other end was an archway leading off right to another room, a dining room, Thorne guessed.
Gribbin stood next to the armchair, his hands above his head. His face showed nothing. His eyes moved from Thorne's to the doorway through which Sandra Cook was being propelled by one of the local CID boys. She pushed her way past Brigstocke and Stone, all but dragged Holland out of the way.
'What the fuck do you want?' she shouted.
Thorne ignored her, turned to look at Gribbin. 'Raymond Gribbin, I'm arresting you in connection with breach of parole conditions, which…'
He stopped and looked towards the archway in the right-hand corner as a figure stepped cautiously through it. One by one the heads of the other seven people crowded into the small room turned, until everyone was looking at the girl.
'Is everything going to be OK, Ray? I'm scared…'
Gribbin took his hands from above his head, opening his arms as he stepped towards her. 'It's all right, sweetheart…'. It all happened in a few seconds. It was a testament to Andy Stone's speed and strength that he was able to do so much before being dragged away by Thorne, Holland and a screaming Sandra Cook.
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