Death Message

THIRTY

He’d enjoyed more relaxing Sunday mornings.

Up before anyone else, Thorne had watched TV for a while, then decided he might as well head over to Holland’s place to pick up his car. He took a paper with him for the Tube ride across to Elephant and Castle. Flicked through it, hoping that gossip or goals or suicide bombs might take his mind off the mess he was in.

The professional frying pan and the domestic fire.

While he had been charging around gay clubs, there had been a double shooting in Tottenham. The estate on which two young black men had died had long been considered a no-go area, and, reading the story, Thorne decided that these latest events were hardly likely to turn it into a tourist hot-spot.

The train from Pimlico had been almost empty, but he’d changed on to a packed Northern Line train at Stockwell, and he could barely read the paper without elbowing his neighbour in the ribs.

He looked at the front-page story again.

A brutal event, and simple; drugs-related almost certainly. Reading, he realised just how much he yearned for something bog-standard, where there were no difficult choices to make. He wanted this one done with. There were cases, just a few, that had marked him, inside and out, but he couldn’t remember one that had left him feeling so out of control.

He had no idea where it – where he – was heading.

Looking up from the paper, he caught the man opposite staring; watched his eyes flick quickly up to the adverts above his head, then drop to the paperback on his knees.

On Tube trains, everyone was looking at someone else. It didn’t matter where you were sitting, on which side. You would never be able to see what was coming.

Holland’s girlfriend, Sophie, didn’t quite throw Thorne’s car keys at him when she opened the door, but she looked as though she’d have liked to. Thorne said hello, then sorry, and stepped inside. It was the warmest greeting he was likely to receive that day.

‘I was just going to nip to the shops,’ Sophie said when she and Thorne walked into the living room. ‘Do you want anything?’

Holland glanced up from the sofa. He looked as though he’d had about as much sleep as Thorne had managed. He shook his head; he and Thorne both well aware that Sophie would just be killing time until she was sure that Thorne had left. A while back, Thorne had contemplated calling her, maybe coming round one day when Holland wasn’t there, to try to sort out whatever was between them. But he’d done nothing, and now things were pretty much set in stone.

‘You could pick up some kidney beans if you want. I might do us a chilli later on,’ Holland said.

When she’d gone, Holland made tea.

‘Thanks for last night,’ Thorne said.

‘I should think so, too. That car’s a nightmare to drive.’

‘I didn’t mean the car.’

Holland looked at him through the steam from his tea. ‘What happened?’

Thorne filled him in: everything from when he’d left him in the rain with the BMW, up to, but not including, the point when he had got back to Louise’s flat and faced the music. Holland smirked, reminded Thorne of the moment when he’d taken control of the microphone in Beware and started shouting. ‘I reckon you’re a natural,’ he said. ‘Just need to get you a baseball cap or something…’

Thorne laughed, feeling like he hadn’t done so for a while.

‘You could still go to Brigstocke,’ Holland said.

‘No…’

‘I’ve been thinking about it.’ Thorne was already shaking his head, but Holland ploughed on. ‘You could set up another divert, from the prepay phone you’re using to talk to Brooks, back to your original mobile. Dump the prepay, and nobody need ever know about the calls. Your word against Brooks’, if it ever comes to it.’

‘Not going to happen.’

‘So just come clean. The guvnor’s a mate of yours, isn’t he?’

‘He’s in enough shit of his own already. Whatever it is, if he comes out of it, he’ll be trying to keep his nose as clean as possible.’ Thorne could see that Holland was trying to think of another way out. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dave.’

Holland’s daughter Chloe wandered in from the next room with a fist full of coloured pens. She looked like a little version of Sophie. Thorne had bought birthday presents for the first couple of years, but had missed the last one, a few months before.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘This is Tom,’ Holland said. ‘He’s been here before.’

Chloe had already moved on. She sat down on the floor and pulled a colouring book from a low table. Thorne and Holland drank their tea and watched her work, her lips pursed in concentration. Thorne asked her what she was drawing.

‘Sky,’ she said.

Nice and simple.

‘Still thinking about leaving London?’ Thorne asked.

Holland raised his arms, inviting Thorne to look around. ‘We’ll have to go somewhere,’ he said.

The first-floor flat had always been cramped, but with toys scattered about the floor and a pushchair in the hall, Thorne could see how badly Holland and his family needed more space. Still, he wondered if the move might be a step towards Holland getting out of the Job altogether. He knew that his girlfriend was encouraging him to look at other options.

‘I think Sophie fancies going back to work,’ Holland said. He shrugged. ‘Nothing’s really been decided at the moment.’

Thorne couldn’t remember what it was that Sophie had done before she’d had Chloe. He didn’t bother to ask. ‘Be good if you didn’t go too far,’ he said.

Chloe brought the colouring book across to show her father. Thorne enjoyed the way Holland’s hand drifted to his daughter’s head, how the little girl’s arm slid easily around his neck as they looked at the picture together.

He felt envious.

‘Now I’m going to draw a shark,’ she said. ‘And me killing it.’ She scrawled for another few minutes, then dragged a small plastic chair across to the television and sat with the remote on her knees.

When Holland got up to fetch the keys to the BMW, he said: ‘What did Brooks sound like when you spoke to him?’

Thorne remembered the tiredness in the man’s voice, but knew that wasn’t what Holland was asking. ‘Like he didn’t care.’

‘About getting caught?’

‘About anything.’

‘That’s bad news.’

‘For someone,’ Thorne said.

Louise had still not got out of bed by the time Thorne got back, and they’d exchanged no more than a handful of words when she’d finally emerged just before eleven. Had the sofa been OK for his back? Fine. Did he fancy a cooked breakfast? That sounded great, if it wasn’t too much trouble. She’d taken tea back to the bedroom, come out dressed fifteen minutes later, and announced that she was going to the shop to get a few things.

‘I could have picked some stuff up when I went over to Dave’s,’ Thorne said, as she was heading out.

Louise closed the door. He didn’t know whether she’d heard him.

When Hendricks came out of the spare room a little later, he was wearing Thorne’s old dressing-gown and muttering about how good the bacon smelled. Thorne was relieved to see that he looked a little sheepish. Hendricks picked up one of the tabloid magazines, seeming content to hide behind it for a while, but instead he carried it through to the kitchen when Louise called him.

Thorne could hear them talking in whispers as he sat trying, and failing, to read the report of Spurs’ goalless draw at Manchester City. After ten minutes, he shouted through, asking Louise if she needed any help.

‘We’re fine,’ she said.

Bacon, sausage, eggs and beans; toast and fresh coffee. Sunlight washing the table and something innocuous on the radio in the kitchen. Thorne finished first and sat watching Louise and Hendricks eat; listened to them making small talk.

Try as he might, he couldn’t hold his tongue for very long. ‘Obviously, you both think you’ve got some right to be pissed off with me.’

They looked up as if they’d only just noticed he was there. ‘What do you think?’ Louise asked.

Thorne had lain awake most of the night, pondering how near he’d come to losing his closest friend. Had realised that he might have lost him anyway; that he might lose a good deal more. ‘I think we were lucky last night,’ he said. ‘I think we should be… thankful.’

‘I am,’ Louise said. ‘There’s a few other things I’m not so sure about.’ She met his stare, flicked her eyes to Hendricks and back again. ‘I’m guessing you’d rather talk about that later.’

Thorne shook his head, pushed his knife and fork closer together. ‘None of this is exactly straightforward, you know. This case.’

‘Never is with you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You can never take the easy road, can you? Everything has to be a fucking struggle. Like nothing’s worth doing unless it hurts. If you want to suffer, that’s fine, just don’t drag the rest of us down with you.’

Thorne pointed at Hendricks. ‘Christ, if it wasn’t for me…’

Hendricks looked at him, up for it. ‘What?’

‘If it wasn’t for you playing silly buggers, they might have caught this fucker by now,’ Louise said. ‘Last night would never have happened. How easy would that have been to live with?’ She stabbed at something in front of her, the fork squealing against the plate. ‘Would that have hurt enough for you?’

‘You think it was my fault?’ Hendricks asked.

‘I never said that,’ Thorne said.

‘You think I should have remembered?’

‘I was surprised, that’s all…’

‘It was a body I saw six years ago, OK? A PM I assisted on. Have you got any idea how many bodies I work on every week? If I ever did know the name, then I’d certainly forgotten it and I never knew the name of the bloke who was accused of killing him.’ Hendricks was getting worked up and Louise reached over to put a hand on his arm. ‘As it happens, when you’re elbows deep in somebody’s guts, it helps most of the time if you don’t think of them as a person, all right? If you forget that they’re called John or Anne or whatever. It makes it that much easier when you’re scrubbing them from under your nails afterwards and they’re wheeling the next one in…’

Thorne held up his hands. ‘Phil…’

‘Can you remember them all?’ Hendricks had tears in his eyes, and pushed at them, furious. ‘Every single body, and the name of every fucker responsible for them?’

Thorne thought about what Louise had said. Forgetting those things would have meant taking the easy road. He picked up his plate and carried it out to the kitchen.

Later, with Hendricks crashed out in front of the television, Thorne and Louise talked in the bedroom. There were no more histrionics. Louise’s tone was measured, reasonable. Thorne found it harder to deal with than the shouting.

‘You really think Phil’s got nothing to worry about?’

‘He’ll worry no matter what,’ Thorne said. ‘But Brooks told me he was moving on.’

‘Nice that you trust him so much.’

‘I never said that.’

‘OK, then. Let’s just say more than you trusted me.’ She smiled sarcastically at Thorne’s reaction; counted off on her fingers. ‘You thought it was for the best, you didn’t want to get me involved and you were trying to protect me. I thought I’d get those out of the way early, save you the trouble.’

‘All those things are true.’

‘Course they are.’

‘It’s not like I actually lied.’

Louise slapped the edge of the bed in mock frustration. ‘Fuck, I knew there was one I’d forgotten.’

Thorne felt cornered, because he was. He knew he had nowhere to hide. ‘I wanted to go to Brigstocke yesterday,’ he said. ‘You talked me out of it.’

‘When I saved your job, you mean? Yeah, that was very selfish of me.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Say whatever you like.’

‘“Sorry”? “Thank you”? What?’

Louise turned away and sat on the edge of the bed. She took a jar of hand-cream from the bedside table, began to rub it in. Thorne leaned back against the wall. He could hear the television from next door; classical music from the flat upstairs. He thought about how much he’d been looking forward to a day off.

‘Brooks say who he’d be moving on to?’

Thorne seized on the question greedily. Oh fuck, yes, he thought, let’s talk like coppers. ‘Whoever helped Paul Skinner set him up, I suppose. “Squire”.’

‘That’s what it’s all been about for you, hasn’t it? Trying to get the other one.’

The professional conversation hadn’t lasted very long. ‘He’s not your average bent copper,’ Thorne said. Reaching for the right words, he tried to explain that there had been no grand plan, as such, that there never was with him. Just a series of stupid decisions. But he could see from the look on her face that she knew she’d nailed him.

‘And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you?’ she asked. ‘Or what I did last night make me?’

‘We haven’t murdered anyone.’

‘What if Cowans had been killed later than he was? Or if we hadn’t got to Phil in time? Do you think any of your stupid decisions might have been just a little bit responsible?’

Thorne knew they would have been.

Louise put away the hand-cream and stood up. She was still rubbing her hands. ‘You need to learn from this. I mean it, Tom. About how you do things. About me…’

As Louise moved past him to the door, Thorne thought about reaching out, pulling her to him. At that moment, though, he couldn’t read her at all. ‘Is Phil going to hang around here?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Brendan’s coming round to pick him up. Phil called him earlier.’

‘Wouldn’t he rather stay with you?’

‘Not if you’re here, no.’

‘Sunday morning? I wished I’d studied that hard,’ Kitson said. Harika Kemal had said she had got a lot of reading to do; that she didn’t have time to talk. ‘I promise it won’t take very long…’

‘I’ve told you everything.’

‘I know, and I also know how hard it was.’

‘I don’t think you do.’

Kitson could hear voices in the background. She wondered if it was the pair she’d seen with Harika that day outside the university. ‘It’s a simple enough question, really. We think Hakan may have gone to Bristol.’ She waited for a reaction; didn’t get one. ‘I wondered if you had any idea why?’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Yes it is.’

Kitson was getting impatient. If Kemal had been in Bristol, he might have already moved on. He may well have realised that the parking ticket he’d received might give away his location. ‘I’m starting to wonder if you want us to find your brother at all.’

‘I called you, didn’t I?’

‘And maybe you’re wishing you hadn’t. Have you been speaking to your family?’

The answer was quick and earnest. ‘No.’

‘Well, one of us might have to.’ Kitson paused; waited to see if Harika’s sniffs were the prelude to tears. ‘We’re going to catch up with your brother sooner or later, you know. Your parents will have to find out. So, why prolong the agony?’

‘That will only be the start of it,’ Harika said.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help that.’ Kitson could hear music in the background now. She took her voice up a notch. ‘Look, I’m not going to pretend that Deniz was whiter than white and I’m bloody sure you knew that as well as anybody. But he had a family too, and I have to think about them. You should be thinking about them.’

She was starting to wonder if Harika Kemal was still there when the girl said quietly, ‘Cousin.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve got a cousin who lives in Bristol.’

He was halfway back to Kentish Town when the clock on the dashboard moved round to two o’clock; cutting through King’s Cross to escape the hell of Sunday traffic in Camden. He parked up as soon as he had the chance and made the call.

‘You must have influential friends in here,’ Nicklin said.

‘Not really. Just a lot of people who like you about as much as I do.’

‘Well, be quick, will you? I don’t want to miss the EastEnders omnibus.’

‘This won’t take long.’

Nicklin knew, of course, that it was unorthodox for inmates to receive private phone calls, even from police officers. Thorne had spent fifteen minutes earlier in the day on the phone to Long Lartin, crawling as far up the arse of the police liaison officer as he could manage. Eventually, the man had agreed to find a nice quiet office and bring the prisoner down at a prearranged time.

‘Sorry about your friend,’ Nicklin said.

Thorne had already decided not to tell Nicklin that his scheme had come to nothing; that Hendricks was alive and well. He’d find out eventually. For now, even though Brooks had agreed to leave Hendricks alone, Thorne thought it best to take no chances, to let Nicklin think he was raging and grief-stricken. Nicklin was every bit as stubborn, as persistent, as Thorne himself.

The rage was certainly genuine enough. ‘You will be,’ he said.

Thorne had been struck immediately by how different the attack on Hendricks had been from the others Brooks had perpetrated. He knew that the information had been passed on to him, and had quickly recognised the fingerprints all over it. Knowing something of Stuart Nicklin’s past, he guessed who had done the planning; imagined that Nicklin had used contacts from a previous life to find the boy who had picked up Hendricks in the club.

‘You wouldn’t be calling if you had a single piece of evidence.’ Nicklin’s tone was that of a man who felt himself to be bullet-proof whatever happened, certainly as far as the law was concerned. Two life sentences were much the same as one, after all. ‘Still, whatever you think is best. I’d quite enjoy another few weeks in court.’

‘There are better ways,’ Thorne said. ‘Cheaper ways.’ He could hear the smile.

‘Your friend will have gone out with a bang at any rate.’

‘How would you like to go out?’

‘This the “long arm of the law” routine, is it?’

‘If you like.’

‘So, what’s at the end of it, then?’ Nicklin asked. ‘An iron bar? A sharpened spoon?’

‘I warned you. When we were sitting in the Seg Unit.’

‘Careful what you say, Tom. You should know that all my phone calls are routinely monitored. This is probably being recorded.’

‘I’m getting used to it,’ Thorne said. ‘I really don’t give a fuck.’

THIRTY-ONE

It might well have been a good film; Thorne had no idea. After nearly two hours he couldn’t even have told anyone what it was about. George Clooney, some stolen money, a decent sex scene halfway through with that fit woman who used to be in CSI.

He guessed that Louise wouldn’t have been able to do much better. The pair of them sitting and thinking about other things; getting on with it, like everything was going to be fine. Trying to put the previous twenty-four hours behind them, when time together felt like something they were wading through.

‘I thought it was pretty good,’ Louise said, as they pushed through the doors on to Camden Parkway. They’d chosen an early showing. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock.

Thorne shrugged. ‘I couldn’t really follow it.’

They decided to walk back to Thorne’s place in Kentish Town. It was a cold, clear evening, and they were both bundled up in scarves and heavy coats.

As the High Street turned into Chalk Farm Road, they just avoided colliding with a group of women coming out of a restaurant. Thorne moved to step around, but one of the women reached for his arm.

‘Tom…’

Thorne stared at his ex-wife.

Jan had called when his father had died, but they hadn’t seen each other in eight or nine years. It wasn’t that she’d changed that much – less than he had, almost certainly – but that he simply hadn’t expected to see her here. It didn’t make sense.

He said her name as he reached for Louise’s hand.

‘I was just having a meal with a couple of mates,’ Jan said. She looked around to the two other women, who were walking slowly away towards Camden Tube station. She turned back, reddened as she saw Thorne staring at her belly; the bump clearly visible, even through an overcoat. ‘I was going to call you, matter of fact…’

She’d changed rather more than Thorne had first thought.

Thorne was aware that he was nodding like an idiot, so stopped and tried to smile. ‘Right. Bloody hell.’

‘Don’t know what the hell I’m doing, to be honest. My time of life.’

It took Thorne a second or two to work out how old she was. Forty. No, forty-one. He was nodding again. ‘Is it…?’

She tucked a pale pashmina into the collar of her coat. ‘Patrick’s.’ She faked a laugh, as though Thorne had been joking. ‘Of course it is.’

‘Great.’ The teacher she’d buggered off with.

‘He’s at home, getting stuck into essays.’

Thorne wondered why she’d felt the need to explain where her boyfriend was. If he was still her boyfriend; maybe she’d married him. He pictured a scrawny, ginger-ish article; pigeon-chested with curly hair and bum-fluff. Remembered him flying out of bed like a scalded cat when Thorne had caught the pair of them at it one afternoon.

For the third or fourth time, Jan’s eyes flicked across to Louise; the glance as fleeting as the smile that went with it.

‘Sorry, this is Louise,’ Thorne said. ‘Jan…’

Louise leaned in to shake hands. ‘So, when’s it due?’

‘Six weeks.’ She took a step forward. ‘Can’t bloody wait. Look at the size of me already. I’ll be waddling around right through Christmas.’

‘Better then than summer though, I suppose.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Be a nice way to start the new year,’ Louise said.

The three of them took a few steps towards the kerb as another group came out of the restaurant.

Jan turned back to Thorne. ‘So, you well?’

‘Yeah, I’m good.’

‘Still in the same place?’

‘We were just… heading back.’ Thorne looked at Louise, who nodded to confirm the simple fact.

Jan looked past them to her friends, who had now stopped a hundred yards away and were looking at something in a shop window.

‘You said you were going to call,’ Thorne said. He nodded towards Jan’s stomach. ‘Was that to tell me, you know…?’

‘Well… just to catch up, really. So, this has been good, actually.’

‘OK.’

Just as the pause was becoming horribly awkward, Louise leaned against Thorne and said, ‘I’m cold.’ She smiled at Jan. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to be standing around.’

Then it was just a few noises of goodbye, and Jan saying once again how good it had been that they’d run into each other. How weird, and what a small world it was. She kissed Thorne on the cheek, did the same to Louise and walked away to join her friends.

Thorne and Louise carried on up Chalk Farm Road and cut beneath the railway line towards Kentish Town. They walked quickly, not saying a great deal, with such conversation as there was initiated by Louise. She told Thorne that his ex-wife hadn’t looked the way she’d imagined. That Jan looked well and had seemed friendly enough. Thorne did little but grunt his agreement; tried to think of something to say about the movie.

Having switched her phone to silent in the cinema, Louise checked it for messages. She listened, then called Hendricks. As she and Thorne walked, a few feet apart, she told Hendricks that the movie had been decent enough, asked him what he’d been doing. She laughed at something and said she’d call him again in the morning.

‘He’s doing OK,’ was all she said as she put the phone away.

When they reached Thorne’s street, Louise announced that she was going to carry on up to the Tube station and head home. She said that she was tired and had an early start the next day.

‘That makes two of us,’ Thorne said.

‘OK, then.’

‘No, I meant so you might as well stay.’

She hoisted her bag a little higher on her shoulder, looked at Thorne as though she wanted to say something. She stepped up to kiss him, in much the same way as Jan had done.

Said: ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’

For the third or fourth time, a car slowed, then blared its horn when the driver saw that the man waiting at the side of the road had no intention of using the zebra crossing.

Brooks didn’t even look up.

He’d thought about bringing some flowers, but knew they wouldn’t have lasted long. That was something else that had changed since he’d been inside: bouquets and teddies tied to lamp posts and benches, right, left and centre. He’d seen several of them walking about the last few weeks. He wondered if anyone had left tributes to Tucker or Hodson. A nice wreath in the shape of a motorbike by the side of the canal for Martin Cowans.

It occurred to him that he didn’t know what time it had happened. As Angie and Robbie were together, they were probably walking back from school. Heading to the sweet-shop on the way home, maybe. It would still have been light then. Nice and easy for the driver to see them both; and for them to see that the car wasn’t going to stop.

He wondered if there’d been any skid marks on the road. Bloodstains to scrub off the crossing. ‘Joy-riders’, that copper had said, when they’d come to give him the news. He remembered the male one with the dirty collar breathing heavily, saying, ‘We were able to get a paint sample.’

He hadn’t seen their bodies.

At the time he’d felt relieved; uncertain he’d have been able to cope with seeing them like that. Now, standing in the cold, a few feet from where it had happened, he wished he’d had the chance. He would have closed his eyes and kissed them. Said something.

A woman arrived next to him and stood waiting. Told him they reckoned there might be snow on the way. When a car stopped she ambled across, turning to look back at him when she reached the other side of the road.

The funeral hadn’t given him the chance to say goodbye, not really. He’d stood sweating in a borrowed suit, avoiding people’s eyes and moving away whenever the whispering had started. Sitting in one of the cars with cousins and uncles; relatives Angie had had no time for. The priest had said, ‘May you have an abundant life’ when he’d stepped dutifully up to kiss the icon in front of their coffins. Placed a manicured hand on each ornate casket and said, ‘May their memory be eternal.’

A few minutes later, he’d watched the coffins disappear, like props in some dark magic trick, still unable to believe that Angie and Robbie could possibly be in there.

Angie’s parents had refused to speak to him the whole time.

Another car sounded its horn, and this time Brooks reacted. He stepped quickly out on to the crossing, then stopped; turned and stared at the driver like a mad person. He watched the woman raise a hand, saw her check to see that her door was locked.

Brooks walked the rest of the way across, and kept going without looking back. There was nothing for him there.

Nothing of them.

He turned into the side street where the Mondeo was parked. Thought about the quickest way to go. With any luck he’d be able to get another picture tonight, maybe a video.

Then he could put Tom Thorne out of his misery.

… And tell Robbie that he’s going to have to prove it! I want to see that he’s just as good as he tells me he is when he visits. We’ll get straight over the park as soon as I’m back and I’ll put him through his paces. Both feet, tell him. I want to see him shooting with both feet. He’ll have to, if he’s ever going to get that trial at West Ham he’s always on about. And I’ll start taking him to see a few games as well, tell him that.

Christ, I can’t wait…

When I say ‘as soon as I’m back’, obviously there’s one or two other things I’d like to do first, if you get my drift! Actually, between bed and home cooking, I can’t see Rob dragging me out of the house for at least a week.

Fifteen fucking days, angel, that’s all. Thirteen probably, by the time this gets to you. That’s nothing. It’s less than the average holiday, but the stupid thing is it’s going to feel like ten times as long. It’s the hardest part, the end of it, everyone knows that. When a lot of blokes inside start to go mental…

Talking of holidays, though, we should get away, soon as we can. Where d’you fancy? Somewhere hot with a fuck-off big pool. Why don’t you look into it, and see what’s around? Only thing is, I’m not sure when Rob’s on holiday from school.

I don’t care where we go to be honest, so you decide. It’s all going to feel like a holiday from now on…

Thorne laid the photocopied sheet down on the table. The letter that had never been sent; that had been written the day before Marcus Brooks had received the death message.

He walked across to the computer. The game was running, but he’d sat out half an hour earlier. He’d logged on when he had arrived back at the flat, hoping that a few hands might take his mind off things a little, but it would have taken a damn sight more than poker. He watched for five minutes, then sat down again.

Unusually, Johnny Cash wasn’t helping: ‘I See a Darkness’ torn from him; that ragged voice imploring his friend to pull the smiles inside and save him from death.

Thorne reached across to rub a finger under the cat’s chin and thought about the look on his friend’s face when Hendricks had walked away from him outside the club the night before. Louise’s face, too, pale and tight, across the breakfast table.

Christ, and seeing Jan…

Would she really have called him to tell him about the baby? It must at least have crossed her mind that he deserved to know. Or maybe just that he would think he deserved it. Now he did know, he felt all sorts of emotions, and he felt bad because pleasure wasn’t among them.

He looked back at the letter on the table. He imagined Marcus Brooks walking back to his cell, having been told about his girlfriend and son; putting the envelope away in a drawer. It must have felt like he’d been hit by that car. He probably wished he had been.

It wasn’t as though Thorne usually had any problem with hate, and it should have been easy to hate Marcus Brooks for what he’d been about to do to Hendricks. But pity came easier.

The same went for himself, this time of night, with a can of beer in his hand and Cash on the stereo.

So much easier to feel got-at and ganged-up-on than ashamed.

He moved quickly when the doorbell went, Elvis half a second behind him, jumping down and tearing under the TV, like she thought there was nothing good coming.

Louise walked in without a word, without looking at Thorne, and stopped in the middle of the living room.

Thorne closed the door and followed. ‘What?’

She dropped her bag and started to take off her coat.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘I had a question,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand. Did you get all the way home?’

‘You squeezed my hand.’ Now she looked at him. ‘When you were talking to Jan. When we were standing around on the pavement.’

‘Did I?’

Louise nodded, tossed her coat on to the sofa.

‘OK…’ Thorne just stood, no idea where this might be going.

‘Did you think I might be upset?’ she said. ‘Because it was your ex-wife; because I might feel embarrassed, or awkward, or whatever?’ She took a breath. Tried to smile, or tried not to, Thorne couldn’t tell. ‘Or because she was pregnant?’

Thorne stepped across and turned down the stereo. He was flustered; felt instinctively that a lot depended on his answer. He pushed fingers through his hair, laced them together on top of his head. ‘I don’t know. I just… squeezed your hand.’

When Louise finally looked up at him, the smile was there. Shaky and uncertain of itself. Pushed out of shape by the tremble in her bottom lip.

‘It was nice,’ she said.

Afterwards, Thorne went to the bathroom to flush away the condom, and brought back some toilet paper so that Louise could wipe herself.

‘That was nice,’ he said.

They talked for a while about Brooks and the letters. Louise said she was always amazed that more people who had lost loved ones violently didn’t wreak violence in return; those who had lost children especially. Said she couldn’t imagine…

Thorne told her about his trip to Holland’s place. That Holland was thinking about getting out of the city. ‘Maybe even the Job,’ he said.

‘You ever thought about it?’ Louise asked. It was something they’d joked about before; that every copper joked about. She stopped him before he could come back with a flippant remark. ‘Really, I mean.’

‘I’ve wished that there was something else I could do,’ Thorne said. ‘Anything else.’

‘We all hate what we do from time to time.’

‘It’s what we can’t do.’

Louise raised her head, eased herself on to her belly and looked down at him. ‘Was it one case?’

There were a few; names and cases that prompted something more than a wink or a war story. That pressed ice against his skin still, and fluttered in the gut. A list of dangerous men and women; and of dead ones. He guessed that Marcus Brooks would take his place on one list or another.

Names, cases.

But it was none of them…

‘Twenty-odd years ago,’ Thorne said. ‘I was a baby copper working out of Brixton nick. We got called out to a council flat in Thornton Heath, one of those crappy sixties blocks on three or four levels; an old guy, in his mid-seventies. He’d come back one afternoon and found a couple of kids turning the place over. They were never going to find anything worth having, so they were just making a mess of the place, and when this old man turned up, they started taking it out on him.’

‘Did you find them?’

Thorne shook his head slowly; frowning with concentration, trying to remember. ‘There were dogs on his wallpaper… brown on green. And he had a collection of cards out of packets of tea. Hundreds of the things, with old footballers and cricketers on them. Tom Finney and W.G. Grace. Me and this other copper were picking them off the carpet while we waited for the ambulance.’ He pulled up his legs, arranged the duvet around the two of them. ‘They smashed his face up pretty badly, broke his arm and two or three ribs. Could have been worse, I suppose, but he was in hospital for a couple of weeks.’

He turned his eyes to Louise’s. She was waiting; knowing there had to be more.

‘Anyway, we got called back, a month after the break-in. I remember seeing that the address was the same and presuming the poor old sod had been done again, you know? As it was, his neighbours had phoned, and when we got there we had to pull him down off the balcony. He was just stood up there, terrified. Trying to summon up the courage to jump.

‘We got him down and made him a cup of tea, what have you, but he was all over the place. He hadn’t been able to sleep since the attack, wasn’t eating properly. The place stank. There was dog-shit all over the kitchen floor…

‘He was like a different bloke, Lou. Skinny and scared to death, and without a clue how he was supposed to carry on. What the point was in carrying on. He just stood there in his front room, clutching this old box with his cards in them, and he was ranting at me. Trying to shout, but his voice was… cracked, you know?’

Thorne summoned half a smile. By now his own voice was no more than a whisper. ‘Wanted me to know that when he was younger he’d have sorted the little bastards out, no problem. “No fucking problem,” he said. He’d have defended himself, done what he had to, protected his home. Now he couldn’t do anything. Told me he was pathetic, because he wasn’t even man enough to top himself. On and on about how useless he was, how he wished they’d killed him. And all the time he was talking, he was smacking his walking stick against a tatty old armchair. Dust flying up each time he did it. Standing there, whacking this stick against the chair and crying like a baby.’

‘What happened to him?’ Louise asked.

‘He was put into a care home afterwards, as far as I know.’ He let out a long, slow breath. ‘Wouldn’t have thought he’d have lasted too long.’

Louise inched closer. Pushed her head against Thorne’s shoulder.

‘I can’t even remember his fucking name,’ Thorne said.

THIRTY-TWO

‘Anything come up on Saturday I should know about?’ Brigstocke asked.

‘Not that I can think of,’ Thorne said.

‘Good.’

‘Just the Kemal stuff, really.’

‘Nice to come back to some good news,’ Brigstocke said.

Hakan Kemal had been arrested at his cousin’s house in the St Paul’s area of Bristol in the early hours of the morning and driven back to London overnight. While Thorne and Brigstocke were busy catching up, Yvonne Kitson was having first crack at her prime suspect in an interview room at Colindale station.

‘And how was your day off?’

The questions weren’t getting any easier. ‘Typical bloody Sunday,’ Thorne said.

He couldn’t recall a Monday morning when he’d been so pleased to get back to work, and even the grey sky that bore down on the city did little to dampen his enthusiasm. It was good to see Brigstocke back, too. It wasn’t clear if his problems had disappeared completely, but if they were still around, he seemed to be rising above them.

The DCI was clumsily multitasking: breaking off from the conversation to sign memos; scribbling on assorted bits of paper; then firing off more questions and comments while he tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing. ‘Be even better if we got a break on the Brooks inquiry. Tell you the truth, that was the one I was expecting the result on.’

‘I still think you’ll get it.’

‘I sincerely bloody hope so. I’m just grateful he seems to have gone quiet for the time being. Maybe you’ve done something to upset him.’

Thorne swallowed hard. ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot more than those messages to go on, though.’

Brigstocke scribbled again, sucked his teeth. ‘Nothing we took out of that flat is helping very much. Not helping us find him, at any rate. We’ve got plenty to put him away with if the time comes, but bugger all that’s telling us where he is.’

‘If we do put him away, where d’you think he’ll end up?’ Thorne wandered across to the small window. Brigstocke had a view only marginally less depressing than his own. ‘He’s got to have a decent case for diminished responsibility.’

‘It’s not going to be clear cut. He planned everything over a period of months, you know? It wasn’t like he just lost it suddenly.’

‘What happened to his family, though. When it happened…’

‘He killed a copper, don’t forget that.’

‘Oh, I’m not.’

‘Never goes down well with a jury.’

‘Skinner wasn’t exactly one of our brightest and best.’

‘Yes, well. The powers-that-be might be keen to play down that aspect of things ever so slightly.’

‘Jesus…’

They talked for a few more minutes about other cases. The trial of the man accused of caving in his wife’s head with a Smirnoff bottle was well under way, and his defence team were pushing for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The prosecution argued that such grounds were not constituted merely by discovering your wife was shagging her best friend’s husband seven ways from Sunday.

Apparently, the smart money – Karim was running a book, and usually managed to turn a profit – was on the bloke getting away with murder and going down for the lesser charge.

Makes sense, Thorne thought. He guessed that Marcus Brooks would not get quite such an easy ride when the time came.

Nobody liked a slag, did they? Or a cop-killer.

As Thorne was about to leave, Brigstocke said, ‘How did you enjoy the stint as DCI?’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Thorne said. ‘The power gives me a stiffy, and I’d like a bigger office. It’s just the responsibility and having to make decisions I’m not so keen on.’

‘Since when have you worried about making decisions?’

‘OK then, having to make good ones.’

‘You’re right about the responsibility, though…’

Thorne hovered in the doorway, sensing there was more to come.

‘I should have told you what was going on with the DPS,’ Brigstocke said.

‘No problem. And you don’t have to tell me now.’

‘It’s fine, it’s sorted, more or less.’ Brigstocke took off his glasses and pushed his paperwork away from him. ‘Basically, another officer had one too many in The Oak a few months back and made “inappropriate remarks” to a female member of staff.’

Thorne nodded. He didn’t need to be told who they were talking about.

‘I was there when these remarks were made, sitting at the same table. I’d probably had one too many myself, if I’m honest, but the fact remains that because I didn’t say anything to this other officer at the time, because I was negligent, I’m equally responsible, apparently.’

‘But now they’ve decided to drop it?’

‘Thank fuck. Stays on my record, though.’

‘What about Andy Stone?’

Brigstocke smiled. ‘We don’t know yet.’

Thorne leaned back against the door jamb, marvelling at the different ways people found to waste time and money. Such incidents raised profound questions about where the energy and resources of the capital’s police service should be focused, and Thorne knew he should be seriously questioning an ethos which pilloried good men like Russell Brigstocke for no good reason.

In the meantime, though, there were more important questions to be asked. ‘Come on then, spill the beans,’ he said. ‘What exactly did Stone say?’

It wasn’t that Hakan Kemal was saying nothing; but he might just as well have been.

Kitson had seen plenty of suspects struck dumb on the advice of a solicitor, but less so since the law had changed. These days, interviewees were advised that, later on, judge and jury could draw adverse influence from their silence during questioning. Could presume that they had something to hide. That tended to loosen people’s tongues a little, but Hakan Kemal was anything but chatty.

‘We will have your fingerprint results back by tomorrow,’ Kitson said. ‘And we both know they’re going to match the prints we took off the knife.’

‘Let’s wait and see.’

Kemal was perhaps ten years older than his sister. A small man, with thinning dark hair and glasses. The voice was high-pitched, with just the trace of a Turkish accent.

Kitson looked across at the young black woman sitting next to Kemal. Gina Bridges, the duty solicitor, wore a beautifully tailored grey jacket and trousers and was perfectly made-up. She made Kitson feel like a badly dressed bag of shit.

‘You should tell your client that he isn’t going anywhere,’ Kitson said. ‘He can sit there being monosyllabic for twenty-four hours if he wants. Then I’ll happily get an extension and we can start all over again.’

Bridges smiled. Her teeth were perfect as well. ‘Until these prints of yours come back, presuming they’re of any use to you, I really don’t see that you have enough to hold him. Mr Kemal is cooperating fully, as far as I’m concerned.’

Kitson turned back to Kemal. ‘I don’t think you thought this murder through, Hakan. I think you panicked, which is why you dumped the knife in a litter bin. Nobody’s got you pegged as a master criminal, OK? Maybe you and Deniz had some kind of argument which got out of hand. Maybe he said something you didn’t like. You probably didn’t mean to kill him.’ She tried to make eye contact. ‘Is that what happened?’

Kemal was staring at a point somewhere to the left of her. He shook his head.

‘If you didn’t kill Deniz Sedat, why did you run? Why close up the shop and try to hide in Bristol?’

‘There is no evidence that Mr Kemal was hiding from anybody,’ the solicitor said. ‘He informed me that he was staying with his cousin.’

Kitson took a deep breath, glanced up at the camera in the corner of the interview room. At the digital clock that told her she’d been banging her head against a wall for nearly forty minutes. ‘Did you know Deniz Sedat?’

Kemal wiped his mouth, nodded.

‘For the benefit of the recording, please.’

‘Yes. I knew him.’

‘And did you see him on Saturday, November the sixth?’

He dropped his eyes to the tabletop. The grunt sounded positive.

‘Did you see Deniz Sedat at the Black Horse public house in Finsbury Park on the evening of November the sixth?’

‘I saw him.’

Kitson tried to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘What happened, Hakan?’

Kemal placed his hands against his head; pressing as though he were trying to push through the skull. After half a minute he looked up, and directly at Kitson for the first time.

She repeated the question, although Kemal’s gaze was making her bristle with discomfort. She’d felt sized-up plenty of times, and stared right back at men whose darker thoughts were all but dripping down their faces, but she couldn’t remember feeling quite so… disapproved of.

Kemal refused to say another word.

Later, having terminated the interview, Kitson blew off a little steam with the custody sergeant, then wandered across to the small waiting area, where Gina Bridges was sitting, a bundle of papers balanced on her knees.

Off duty, the woman was friendly enough for Kitson to forgive her appearance. They chatted for a few minutes about schedules and kids, and Kitson moaned about interviewing people who were determined to say as little as possible.

The solicitor laughed, and even though she was looking at things from the other side of the fence, she was happy to admit that Hakan Kemal was a particularly difficult customer. She told Kitson that she’d barely been able to get two words out of him herself.

‘Hi, it’s me again. Just ringing to see how you’re doing. Give us a call when you get this.’

For the third time that day, Thorne left a message on Hendricks’ answering machine. For the third time, Hendricks’ mobile had rung and the machine had cut in when the call had been dropped. Thorne thought about ringing Louise. He knew she would have spoken to Phil by now. In the end he decided he wasn’t going to chase him.

He was getting more than slightly annoyed at Hendricks’ attitude to what had happened. What right did he have to be so angry; so self-righteous? Thorne thought that it had more than a little to do with the fact that his friend – if he was still his friend? – had been caught with his pants down.

Stupid fucker.

It could have been an awful lot worse…

Outside Thorne’s office window, the sky was brooding as much as he was. It was dense and darkening; there was rain coming.

He thought about what Brigstocke had told him. It was ridiculous, no question, but it also made him angry that the DPS could go after someone for something like that while Skinner and his partner had got away with so much worse for so long. Not for the first time, he wondered just how many like ‘Jennings’ and ‘Squire’ there were out there.

When Yvonne Kitson came in carrying coffees for both of them, Thorne guessed that she probably wanted something.

‘How’s it going with Kemal?’ he asked.

‘I was going to talk to you about that.’

Thorne was relieved that his powers of detection hadn’t completely deserted him. ‘Not got a result then?’

She talked him through the session at Colindale. ‘It’s not like he’s denying anything, you know? I just don’t think he wants to talk to me.’

‘Have you tried bribing him with coffee?’

‘I think he has a problem with women.’

‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘Shut up.’ She pressed her chin against the lip of her mug. ‘I don’t know if he’s that way all the time, or if he just doesn’t want to talk to a woman about this. Either way…’

‘You want me to have a go.’

‘We could have a crack together,’ Kitson said. ‘After lunch, if you’ve got half an hour.’

Thorne held up his coffee. ‘A biscuit would have done the trick.’

‘All gone, mate. Have you not seen how much weight Karim is putting on?’

Thorne was more than happy to get involved in something where he would be sure of his ground. Where there was a chance of making some progress. He told Kitson he’d think about it, and walked down to the toilets, where he found himself standing next to Andy Stone at the urinal.

‘This is where the big knobs hang out,’ Stone said.

Thorne said nothing. He’d heard it before anyway. When he’d finished, he zipped up and turned away towards the sinks. ‘Keeping out of trouble, Andy?’

‘Trying my best.’ A little of the confidence had given way to caution.

Thorne banged at the soap dispenser to no avail. Stuck his hands under the tap. ‘Good lad.’

‘What about you?’

‘Oh, you know what it’s like. Some of us need to watch what we’re doing a bit more than others.’

Stone laughed and nodded.

‘And some of us need to watch what we’re saying.’ Thorne let the water run until it was red hot. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

In the mirror, Thorne watched as Stone zipped himself up and walked out without a word. He wondered if he always left without bothering to wash his hands. Guessed he just wasn’t feeling quite as talkative as he did when beer and tasty barmaids were involved.

When he felt the phone buzz in his pocket, Thorne moved quickly across to the hand-dryer. There was precious little power and the air was cold. He wiped his hands on the back of his trousers and reached into his jacket.

The message from Marcus Brooks he’d known was coming.

Thorne leaned against the sink and played the video clip. He watched as a man walked a small, black dog along a dimly lit street; tossed a cigarette butt into the gutter; waited while the dog sniffed around the base of a tree.

Thorne recognised the man straight away. He’d had bigger shocks.

The police officer who had once called himself ‘Squire’ would not be getting away with anything for very much longer.

THIRTY-THREE

Thorne sat in a quiet corner of the canteen with a phone pressed to his ear. The meal in front of him was hardly making his mouth water, but the conversation was one he was certainly looking forward to. One he’d been anticipating since his conversation with Sharon Lilley a week and a half before. That was when things had begun to get difficult; when the case had started to smell as bad as his chicken curry.

It was time to wash the stink off.

‘I got sent another message,’ he said, when the call was answered. ‘What kind of dog is that you’ve got?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Marcus Brooks knows where you are.’

Thorne had expected a pause, but he’d hoped it might be longer.

‘That’s nice for him.’

‘Actually, I wasn’t sure you’d be around to answer the phone. I mean, he didn’t waste much time with Paul Skinner, did he? With “Jennings”.’

‘Who’s Jennings?’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t bother.’

There was silence for a few seconds. Thorne could hear a door being closed. ‘Well, it’s good of you to call, but some of us are working, so…’

‘Every time we talked, you were just trying to find out what I knew, where the case was going.’

‘Doing my job, that’s all.’

‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier.’

‘You were hardly being honest yourself though, were you, Tom? I knew you were up to something.’

A sergeant who Thorne had worked with for a few months walked past the table. They exchanged smiles. ‘Why “Squire”? Did you pick it at random? What’s the first name, just out of interest? Seeing as we’re mates and everything.’

‘Is there a point to any of this?’

‘I thought I should let you know, that’s all,’ Thorne said. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, right?’

‘I’ll consider myself warned, then.’

‘You should consider yourself in very deep shit, one way or the other.’

Now there was a longer pause. ‘So, why is it you calling me, then? Why don’t I see the heavy mob kicking my door in?’

‘You should hope that’s who it is when it happens.’

‘Not flying solo on this one, are you?’

‘I’m giving you a chance.’

A laugh. ‘Go on…’

‘Strikes me you might want to think about getting yourself some protection. Taking a walk – no, running – to the nearest station; and maybe, while you’re there, telling them exactly why you need protecting. What you’ve done to deserve the undivided attention of Marcus Brooks.’

‘Or…?’

‘Or somebody else is going to tell them.’

The man on the other end of the phone sucked in his breath fast. It was meant to sound sarcastic; an indication that he wasn’t remotely threatened. But Thorne could hear that he was rattled.

‘Why the fuck should I do anything at all?’

‘Well, why don’t we start with the fact that this conversation is being recorded?’

Thorne hung up, and laid his old mobile phone down on the table. He picked up a fork, then put it down again when it began to rattle against his plate. Pushed the tray away.

He’d pop into The Oak on his way to meet Kitson at Colindale; pick up a cheese and tomato roll.

Maybe get a stiff drink to go with it.

Kitson had explained to Hakan Kemal and Gina Bridges that another officer would be sitting in on the interview. She made the introductions informally, then again for the tape. She asked Kemal if he was feeling OK; if there was anything that he needed before they started. He just shrugged.

‘He’s fine,’ Bridges said. ‘But until such time as you have any hard evidence, we really are doing you a favour here.’

‘We appreciate that,’ Kitson said. ‘Mr Kemal wouldn’t be here at all had his name not been passed on to us by someone intimately acquainted with this offence.’

Kemal looked up.

‘How well did you know Deniz Sedat?’ Thorne asked. Kemal stared back, weighing him up. Thorne had no problem with that. He had the man’s attention at any rate. ‘Perhaps you did business with him?’

‘No,’ Kemal said quickly.

‘But you knew him.’

Kemal looked away again. He was chewing at the inside of his mouth.

‘This is not about drugs, or money-laundering,’ Thorne said. ‘The way things stand, we’re not particularly interested in your business affairs.’

Another good, long look from Kemal. He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Yes, I knew who Deniz Sedat was,’ he said. ‘And where his money came from.’

A glance from Kitson. It looked as though she’d been right: Kemal appeared to be happier talking to a man. ‘So, you weren’t friendly with him?’

‘He thought he was my friend.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘He took me to clubs and casinos. Flashing his money around.’

‘This was after he started going out with your sister?’

‘Made out like we were family, just because he was seeing her.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

Kemal’s expression was answer enough.

‘So, I presume you weren’t very happy when he started going out with Harika.’

Opposite him, Kemal sat back in his chair, his lips whitening. Thorne wondered if he was turning on the silent act again.

‘It’s understandable,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ve got a younger sister myself. Claire’s a year or two older than Harika, and no man’s good enough for her. Doesn’t matter who he is, what he does… I don’t think I’m ever going to like it.’ Thorne was aware of Gina Bridges sighing; scribbling something. ‘I do know that if she ever got involved with someone like Sedat, I’d be on him like shit on a blanket.’ He saw the tension ease a little around Kemal’s mouth. ‘She hates it that I get so worked up, but I can’t help it. Our father’s not around any more, so…’

Thorne stared ahead, trying to avoid catching Kitson’s eye. She knew very well he had no siblings.

‘Sedat was not so unpopular with our parents,’ Kemal said. ‘He was Turkish, which is important to them, and he had money. They wanted Harika to settle down and give them grandchildren. They didn’t like her college friends very much.’

‘So, it was down to you to keep an eye on her.’

Kemal nodded slowly. ‘I kept an eye out, yes. Nothing more than that.’

‘OK.’ Thorne turned to Kitson. The look he got back said keep going, but it was obvious that Kemal disapproving of his sister’s boyfriend wasn’t shaping up to be much of a motive for knifing him to death. It was clear from Gina Bridges’ expression that she was thinking the same thing.

‘Did you know Sedat was going to be at the Black Horse that night?’

‘They went there most Saturdays. Sedat and Harika, and some of Sedat’s friends.’

‘And did you go because you knew Sedat would be there?’

‘I wanted to speak to him.’

‘You normally carry a knife when you’re going to have a chat with someone?’ Kemal looked away. ‘We’ve got your fingerprints on the murder weapon, Hakan.’

Gina Bridges shot forward in her chair. ‘You’ve got somebody’s fingerprints, Inspector.’

Thorne’s eyes hadn’t left Kemal’s. ‘You know whose prints they are, don’t you, Hakan?’

Kemal shook his head. Not a denial. A plea.

‘What happened in the pub, Hakan? Did Sedat not like whatever it was you had to say to him? Did he threaten you? We know what his sort are like, and I’m sure you didn’t mean things to go as far as they did.’

‘It was Harika.’ Kemal leaned across the table. He was breathing heavily. ‘It was Harika.’

Thorne felt the prepay buzzing in his pocket again. A call this time; he recognised the pattern of the vibrations.

He knew who it was going to be.

He lowered his head and whispered to Kitson, told her that he needed to take the call. He apologised quickly to Bridges, and stood up, reaching into his jacket as he pushed back his chair.

Kitson was terminating the interview as he pulled the door closed behind him. From the faces around the table, Thorne could see that Hakan Kemal was the only person in the room not pissed off with him.

It was chaotic in the custody suite: officers queued up, ready to grab a vacant interview room; lunchtime trays were still being ferried to and from the cells; at the platform, two young women screamed at the custody skipper, while the uniformed constable booking them in did his best to calm things down.

The phone was still ringing and Thorne did not want to miss the call. He hit ANSWER while he was negotiating his way through the scrum. Said his name and stepped into the cage – the reinforced entry through which prisoners were brought from the backyard. He’d wanted to take the call outside, but it was tipping down, so he pressed himself into a corner of the cage.

‘Thorne…?’

The word was stretched and hoarse; the tiredness in the voice even more evident than it had been the last time. Thorne covered his free ear with his right hand. ‘I’m here. I got your message.’ He turned in a little towards the metal wall. ‘I saw “Squire”.’

‘Looks like he hasn’t got a care in the world, doesn’t he?’

He’s got plenty to think about now, Thorne thought.

‘Walking his fucking dog…’

‘Listen… I know him,’ Thorne said. He waited for a reaction. Watched the rain bouncing off the cars and vans in the backyard.

‘Probably not as well as you thought, though, right? He’s very good at pretending to be something he’s not.’

A WPC jogged around the corner and stepped into the cage. She stood next to Thorne, swearing and shaking off the rain. Thorne grunted a yes into the phone while he waited for her to move inside.

‘So, what did you do?’ Brooks asked. The simplest question sounded dragged out; desperate. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘I gave him a choice.’

‘That all?’

‘So far.’

‘You hoping he’s going to turn himself in?’

It told him that the man in the video clip was still alive, but Thorne had no easy answer to the question. He knew he wanted to see ‘Squire’ pay for what he’d done, but that was as far as it went. How he paid was a different matter. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do.’

Brooks released a fractured breath, a short groan. ‘I wish I knew what your game was,’ he said.

‘That makes two of us.’

‘You could always just arrest him.’

‘I’ve got no evidence.’

‘It’s there. You know it is.’

‘You going to give me time to find it?’

The pause before Brooks spoke again made it clear that he was eager to get on with the job. That ‘Squire’ didn’t have too long to make his decision. ‘So, what’s the plan then?’

‘There really isn’t one,’ Thorne said.

‘You’re watching him, I suppose. Waiting for me to come bowling along like an idiot, so you can nick the two of us at the same time.’

Thorne’s ambivalence turned to irritation in a second, and he seized on it hungrily. Staring out at the shitty weather and listening to a murderer telling him what he could be doing. What he knew very well he should be doing. ‘Why the fuck did you send me this stuff? Any of it? You’re not stupid, you know it’s going to get you caught sooner or later. Sending the messages wasn’t just about doing Stuart Nicklin a favour, was it?’

Thorne had to strain to hear the answer. The rain was getting heavier, and Brooks sounded as though he was drifting away. ‘I wouldn’t piss Nicklin out,’ he said. ‘The simple fact is, once this is done, I don’t care what happens. I get caught, I don’t get caught, it’s all the same. Prison isn’t going to make the future any worse for me, so it’s all just a fucking gamble.’ There was another long pause before he spoke again; low and expressionless, like interference from another line. A voice coming through the wall. ‘I’m happy just to wait and see what happens.’

Thorne heard the click and three sharp tones; listened to dead air for a few seconds. He wasn’t exactly happy to wait and see, but he knew he didn’t really have a lot of choice.

Kemal was still talking, but he wasn’t saying very much.

He may have taken advice from his solicitor, of course, or perhaps it was just the fact that the interview had been interrupted. Either way, five minutes back into it, Thorne could see that the impetus had gone, and he knew it was down to him to get it back.

‘You know how we found you, don’t you, Hakan?’

‘The parking ticket.’

‘No, I mean, how we knew that you were the man we should be looking for in the first place?’

Kemal waited.

‘Harika told us.’ He nodded, smiled. ‘Your sister told us that you had killed Deniz Sedat.’

Next to him, Thorne was aware of Kitson stiffening. He knew that she was not wholly comfortable with this approach, that she’d given Harika Kemal certain assurances. But Thorne felt they had to do whatever was necessary.

They’d spoken briefly before Kemal had been led back into the interview room. When Kitson had urged him to tread carefully, Thorne had reminded her that she’d asked for his help. He told her that Kemal was bound to find out that they’d talked to Harika sooner or later and that getting the truth out of him was surely the most important thing.

Kitson hadn’t argued. She had seen that Thorne was fired up. She’d looked at him, said, ‘Who the fuck was that on the phone?’

It was warm in the interview room. In the silences, Thorne could hear the sound of water rushing through the hot-water pipes; a counterpoint to the rain clattering on to the flat roof above them. He wondered if the other three were sweating as much as he was.

He stared at Hakan Kemal. ‘Does that upset you? Your sister coming to us, telling us that you were the man responsible?’

Kemal crossed his arms. He leaned back in his chair and glanced at Gina Bridges as though he’d only just noticed she was there.

‘Come on, that must really hurt. That must really piss you off. Christ, I know how I’d feel if it was my sister. Especially as you were the one who was keeping an eye on her. It seems to me that you were the only one looking out for her. That’s about right, isn’t it? You were the one member of the family who genuinely had her best interests at heart.’

A small nod. Thorne could see that Kemal’s fists were clenched beneath his arms; pressed against his ribs.

‘Do you think Harika betrayed you?’ Thorne saw the reaction; glimpsed a tender spot to dig away at. ‘Do you think she’s taken Sedat’s side against you, against your family?’

Kemal began to rock slightly. He opened and closed his mouth.

‘Do you think she’s disloyal?’

‘Yes…’

‘Do you think she’s let you down?’

‘She is ungrateful.’

The word had been all but growled out. Thorne took a beat. ‘Why do you-?’

‘I did it for her.’ Kemal was shouting; his fists out in front of him on the table. ‘It was because of what he did to her.’

‘You killed Deniz Sedat? That’s what you’re telling us?’ Kemal nodded. ‘For the tape…’

‘I killed him.’ Quieter again.

Kitson exchanged a glance with Gina Bridges. The solicitor gave a small shrug, as if to say, ‘Well done.’ Kitson leaned forward. ‘Was Sedat abusive towards your sister, Hakan? Are you saying he raped her?’

Kemal looked awkward, kept his eyes on Thorne. ‘He did things to her… sexually. Unnatural things.’

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Thorne said.

‘Sodomy.’ Kemal grimaced, lowered his voice. ‘He sodomised my sister. Sedat was an animal.’

Thorne looked at Kitson. So this was why Hakan Kemal was uncomfortable talking to a woman. He turned back to Kemal. ‘I can understand that you were upset, but what Sedat and your sister did is not illegal…’

‘What he did to her.’

‘Whatever. It’s not a reason to kill someone.’

‘He was grinning while he told me about it,’ Kemal said. ‘Standing at the bar in this nightclub, with all his friends gathered around him. Bragging about what he’d done. Leaning in close, stinking of aftershave, and telling me how he bent my sister over and took her. How it hurt her at first, but how she liked it and begged him to do it again. Laughing while he told me, enjoying himself…’

‘This isn’t about your sister at all,’ Kitson said. The blood was rising to her face as she spoke. ‘This is about you.’

‘No…’

‘You didn’t kill Sedat because of what he did to your sister. You killed him because he told you about it. Because he disrespected you.’

Kemal waved his hand, trying to shut her up. ‘No, no. He disrespected both of us.’

‘You’re the animal,’ Kitson said.

Then it all came pouring out. How Kemal had gone to the Black Horse that night, intent on confronting Deniz Sedat, with a carving knife taped inside his coat. He told them that he’d been planning to kill him in front of his sister, but that he’d taken the chance when Sedat had come out into the car-park alone at the end of the evening.

By now, Thorne and Kitson were convinced that Harika had seen it happen anyway. That she’d come into the car park a little earlier than she’d first claimed and seen her brother leaving the scene; perhaps even witnessed the murder itself.

‘I moved in close and looked at him,’ Kemal said. ‘When the knife was all the way in. I made sure he could see how much I was enjoying myself.’

There was plenty of time to get the rest of the details later, and Kitson was on the point of winding things up when Kemal leaned across and began to confer with his solicitor.

Gina Bridges listened, then grimaced, as though she were only asking the question because she was obliged to do so, and already knew the answer. ‘Mr Kemal says that he would like to make a deal.’

‘I’m very happy for him,’ Kitson said.

‘He says he has information.’

Thorne smiled politely. ‘Tell him to save it up; use it to entertain his cellmate.’

‘I know things,’ Kemal said. ‘Drug deals, places where money gets lost, all sorts. I hear these things from Sedat, from his friends, different people.’

‘Not our department,’ Kitson said. ‘Write it all down and we’ll pass it on.’ She verbally terminated the interview and switched off the tape.

Bridges gathered her papers together. Thorne stood up.

‘What about a murder? That’s your department, yes?’

Kitson rolled her eyes at Thorne. ‘You’ve got thirty seconds.’

‘A young woman and her son, killed in June. They were run over in Bethnal Green, but it was not an accident.’

Thorne sat down again. He could feel something prickle at the back of his neck. ‘Whatever you think you know, Hakan, your timing’s bloody awful.’

‘I know who killed them…’

Kitson winked at Bridges. ‘Unfortunately for your client, that’s one we’ve more or less put to bed.’

‘I cannot tell you the names of the men in the car,’ Kemal said. ‘But I know who gave the order.’

‘I told you,’ Thorne said, ‘you’re too late. Not only do we know who the man is; he’s dead himself.’

Kitson pushed back her chair.

‘No, no.’ Kemal was waving his hands again. ‘He is certainly not dead. Not the man who organised the murder.’

Thorne looked at Kitson. So, maybe Martin Cowans hadn’t given the order. But if not him, then it had to have been Tucker or Hodson. Kitson shrugged.

‘Go on then,’ Thorne said. ‘What’s his name?’

When Kemal spoke, Thorne felt as though the breath had been punched out of him; as though the air had been sucked out of the room.

He tried to swallow. Couldn’t.

Aware of Kitson’s eyes on him, of everyone’s eyes on him, Thorne slowly asked Hakan Kemal to say the name again.

Kemal could see that something was happening. He hesitated, then said, ‘Zarif…’

THIRTY-FOUR

The speed camera got him doing fifty-five on the Camberwell Road. He swore and slammed his hands against the wheel; like his mood wasn’t bad enough already. He put his foot down again to make it through a set of lights, and left it there. He’d keep an eye out for any more cameras, but he certainly wasn’t worried about being pulled over. He could easily sort out any jumped-up fucker on traffic duty; was right up for a ruck, if it came down to it.

He turned left at the Green towards Peckham and New Cross.

He always got himself out of the shit; that was what he did. Whenever things had got sticky – and they had, plenty of times – he was the one who sorted it. And until a couple of weeks before, until Marcus Brooks turned up, things had been looking pretty good.

The cash from Martin Cowans and others like him; the pubs he drank in for free; the nods and the favours, and the saunas he could drop into for a late-night freebie at the end of a shitty day.

He always sorted it.

He had made the arrangements all those years before, when Tipper had got greedy and needed dealing with; and he had renegotiated an even more lucrative deal with Cowans afterwards. He had been the one to go into Tipper’s place and do the necessary. And he had been the one who had found Marcus Brooks. Lined him up nicely. After that, it was only fair that he’d taken a little more than half of whatever had come their way, and Skinner had known better than to argue.

Skinner could usually be talked into most things…

Jesus… as fast as he was going up the Peckham Road, there was still some boy-racer up his arse. He slammed on the anchors, two, three times for no good reason, until the tosser backed off. Then he floored it again.

Of course, Skinner had been shitting himself after Thorne had been round. Demanding to know what they were going to do; talking rubbish about leaving the country. Cashing in and fucking off.

He gripped the wheel even tighter, thought about the choice Thorne had given him earlier, when he’d called. The option he’d been offered. It wasn’t hard to work out what Skinner would have wanted to do, had he still been around.

A week before, there’d been no way of knowing what Skinner might have done; how silly he was likely to get. In the end, there’d only been one sensible option, and it had been easy enough to go in and sort. He’d known very well it would be another body chalked up to Brooks. That he was only saving him the trouble.

Cowans had been calling even before Skinner had started to panic. Him and the rest of those freaks begging for his help, running around like girls while their mates were dropping like flies.

Did he know what was happening?

Did he know why?

They paid him enough, so couldn’t he do something about it?

Yeah, well, once he’d found out who was knocking off the bikers, it was fairly obvious why, but he couldn’t do a fat lot, except tell them to keep their hairy fucking heads down.

It didn’t do them much good, obviously, and it was almost funny, considering how the Black Dogs never had anything to do with Brooks’ girlfriend getting done in the first place. That was certainly funny. Cowans getting irate, screaming about how it wasn’t fair; how when he found out who had done it, he was going to fucking kill them.

Brooks coming after himself and Skinner though, that was something he hadn’t considered.

He could do without the headache, no question, but he’d get it sorted. He wasn’t too worried about Brooks; he’d stitched up the toe-rag once already and this time he’d be waiting for him.

Thorne would be even easier to deal with.

He knew that the cocky fucker didn’t have anything concrete on him, and he also had a strong suspicion that he wasn’t exactly squeaky clean himself. That would be the way to go at him: he could dig up plenty of shit when he had to and he knew exactly how to make it stick.

Then he would offer Tom Thorne a few fucking options of his own.

He swung the car right towards Peckham Rye, then turned into a side street and eventually found a parking space fifty yards from his front door. He’d leave a note on the windscreen of the car outside his house; make sure the owner knew better than to park there again.

The other car turned into the road as he was stepping out. He’d just slammed his door when he saw the lights; was pressing himself back against the door to let the car past when he saw the headlights flick on to main beam and swing fast towards him.

He tried to move but couldn’t; knew that he didn’t have time.

The car’s engine screamed only a little louder than he did, for those few seconds before he was hit. The bumper squealed against the bodywork as it took his legs; spun him up and over the bonnet, into the glass, which smashed him into blackness.

Then, final moments in the air; fierce and crowded.

The dull crack of the screen shattering, and his own bones. The car speeding away.

His ex-wife and the two children he never saw.

His dog…

‘It’s me. Just calling to see how things were going really. Ring me when you get in, and we can see which one of us has had a shittier day.’

‘Hello, love, hope you’re well. Just wondered if you were any the wiser about Christmas…’

‘If you want to call me later on, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter if it’s late, OK?’

Messages on Thorne’s machine when he got home: Louise; Auntie Eileen; Yvonne Kitson.

Thorne hadn’t responded to any of them. He didn’t want to have any of those conversations; knew he wouldn’t be capable. There was only one person he was eager to speak to.

He could barely remember leaving work, the journey home, or walking through the front door and scattering food into a bowl for the cat. He drifted from room to room like someone waking up. He turned the TV on and turned it off again. He stood and stared at bits of the flat as if he’d never seen them before. The way the ceiling met the wall in one corner. The angle of a door striking him as odd and unfamiliar.

He walked around the flat and thought about Arkan Zarif.

Two and a half years before, Thorne had been working on a series of gangland killings; an inquiry which had then widened to include a search for the man who had set fire to a young girl in a playground in 1984.

It had been a case that had cost many more lives by the time it was over, and although a degree of justice had been meted out, the man responsible for most of those deaths had escaped it.

Had perhaps meted out a little of his own.

The Zarif family owned restaurants and minicab companies, but their main income came from elsewhere: extortion; human trafficking; the importation and distribution of heroin. The business was fronted by Memet, Tan and Hassan Zarif, but the decisions were all taken by their father: ‘Baba’ Arkan Zarif.

Zarif had seen many of those nearest to him die or go to prison, had seen his business suffer through the actions of Thorne and others. But he had taken care to protect himself and had continued to run his unassuming family restaurant: choosing the meat, carefully preparing the diced lamb and the delicately spiced milk puddings. He had remained untouchable.

And life, business, had carried on as normal…

Thorne had gone to see him just once, when the inquiry had all but run its course. He had tried to make it clear that he was not a man who liked leaving loose ends around. He had fronted the old man out, made empty threats and talked about honour.

Later, he had taken steps that led to a man Zarif had agreed to protect being murdered. Then, a month after that, Thorne’s father had died in a fire at his home.

Thorne had gone through that conversation with Arkan Zarif many times since. Recalled every smile, every shift of those powerful shoulders.

‘I take my business very seriously,’ Zarif had said.

Thorne had failed to protect his father, even though he’d known the old man could not look after himself properly. So he had lived with the terrible knowledge that his father’s death had been his fault, whether the fire had been accidental or not.

Just the mention of Zarif’s name in the interview room had been enough. His mouth had gone dry in a second, and he could taste the sick rising up into his throat. Not knowing what had happened to his father had been bad enough, but whenever Thorne had fantasised about discovering the truth, he had never been able to decide what it was he hoped to find.

Now, he walked around his furniture and waited for whatever was coming. If Kemal was right, Arkan Zarif had destroyed another family; had indirectly wreaked the havoc of grief among many more people. Thorne felt he might finally have been gifted a chance to tie up at least one loose end.

But it was closer to dread than excitement.

Brooks called just before ten o’clock.

‘It’s finished,’ he said.

Thorne knew at once what Brooks meant. The officer he had spoken to earlier that day had made the wrong decision. Or at least had not made the right one quickly enough. Thorne felt no more than if he’d just been told it was going to rain the next day. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t finished.’

‘I’m tired. I don’t care.’

‘You need to listen,’ Thorne said. ‘You still believe me when I tell you that nobody is listening to these calls, don’t you? That there’s no trace.’

Brooks finally sighed, as though it hurt to push out the breath. ‘I believe you.’

‘Good.’ Thorne sat down. ‘Because this might take a while…’

THIRTY-FIVE

Thorne could have made the journey to Green Lanes in his sleep. He’d sat in his car and watched Zarif’s restaurant enough times to be familiar with the routine; to know what times people tended to come and go. He knew where to park so that his car would not be seen, and how to get round to the alleyway that ran along the back of all the businesses in the small parade of shops near Manor House Tube station.

It was just after eleven o’clock.

The service entrance to Zarif’s restaurant was no more than a small yard off the dimly lit alleyway. Thorne knew which one it was. He could see the grey plastic wheelie-bins from the end of the alley. He had stood in the same spot several times and watched the old man, or occasionally his wife or daughter, bringing out the leftovers at the end of the night, dumping bottles in the recycling buckets, as the ovens cooled down inside, and the last customers were ushered out of the front door.

Thorne knew that this usually happened before eleven-thirty, or a little later on a Saturday. Within the next half-hour, most of the clearing up would have been done. Zarif’s wife and daughter would be on their way back to the grand and gated family home in Woodford, leaving the boss to sit quietly alone, as he did every night, with a glass of wine or a strong Turkish coffee.

Contented and complacent. Thinking about the day’s takings from the restaurant. From his other, more profitable businesses.

From the end of the alleyway, Thorne watched a skinny cat creep along the top of one of the gates. The animal probably knew just as well as he did when the bins got filled. It had just begun to clean itself when a car alarm started to scream on the main road, and it jumped down and out of sight.

A minute or so later, Thorne saw another figure emerge from a pool of shadow, a few feet from where the cat had been. He knew that the man could see him; that the street-lamp behind cast enough light to make his small wave visible.

The man raised a hand in return, then disappeared as quickly as the cat had done. Thorne stood for another minute, then walked back round to his car to wait.

Forty-five minutes later, he was listening to drops of water falling on to the roof of the BMW from the trees above as he continued to stare across the road.

Watching as customers left, then the single waitress. Figures still moving around inside.

The restaurant was set back on a wide pavement, between an estate agent’s and the minicab office. This was another of the family’s firms, run by Arkan’s eldest son, but Thorne knew all three sons’ habits as well as he did their father’s. If Memet or his two younger brothers were in there, Thorne knew that they would be ensconced in the back room by now, deep into a high-stakes card game with associates.

He was fairly sure he could get into the restaurant unseen. If all went well, there would be no reason for anyone other than the two people who mattered to know he’d been there.

At around a quarter to twelve, Thorne watched as a dark Mercedes pulled up. Five minutes later, Sema Zarif and her mother, a woman Thorne had never met, hurried out of the restaurant and were driven away. He watched, and remembered what Louise had said: wondering why more of those who had lost loved ones to violence were not driven to it themselves. He could not recall exactly how many times he’d sat where he was now and come close to it himself. To running across the road, and in, and at Arkan Zarif. Taking whatever came to hand: a bottle; a glass; one of those knives of which Zarif was so proud.

‘I choose all the meat,’ he had told Thorne once.

Thorne remembered the smile. The shift of those shoulders.

He waited another ten minutes to be sure, then got out of the car.

The area wasn’t one he fancied moving into, so Thorne didn’t bother checking out any properties as he moved past the estate agent’s; walking quickly, keeping close to the window.

When he reached the restaurant and looked inside, he was alarmed to see that Arkan Zarif was staring straight at him, as though he’d been waiting for Thorne to appear. After a second or two, he realised that it was just a trick of the light. Saw that Zarif was actually staring off into space.

Thorne let his breath settle; put his face to the glass and knocked.

Zarif stood up and moved towards the window, curious. Thorne saw the eyes narrow; then, after five or ten seconds, watched them widen as recognition washed across the old man’s face.

Thorne felt anger flare in his chest at not being recognised immediately.

Zarif moved to the door and unlocked it. He was smiling when he beckoned Thorne inside, looking at his watch. ‘You must be very hungry,’ he said.

It wasn’t a big place: half a dozen tables, now with chairs tucked in close, and a couple of booths. The assortment of lanterns that dangled from the polished pine ceiling – glass, metal and ceramic – had all been turned out, and the only light came from a lamp behind the small bar, or drifted up from the bottom of the stairs that curled down to the kitchen in the far corner.

Zarif walked slowly back to one of those booths, where he had a bottle waiting and a drink on the go. He squeezed in behind the table and slid across the brown vinyl seat. There was low-level music coming from speakers above the bar: a woman singing, pipes and tablas. A zither, maybe…

Thorne sat opposite. He spread his legs, so that his feet would not come into contact with Zarif’s beneath the table.

‘No food,’ Zarif said. ‘We’re closed for the night.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

He’d put on a little weight since Thorne had last seen him, but still seemed bulky rather than fat. He was round-shouldered and had stooped as he’d walked. He wore a white shirt, stretched across his gut and tucked into grey trousers. The sleeves were rolled up, black and grey hairs sprouting above the neck of a white vest where the buttons were open.

There was more grey in the hair, too, but it was still full, and oiled back above heavy brows. The jowls were stub-bled in white; the thick moustache going the same way. But the eyes were every bit as bright and green as Thorne remembered. He put a hand on the bottle. ‘Raki,’ he said. ‘Lion’s milk. You want some?’

Thorne dug into his pocket. ‘Not for nothing, I don’t.’ He took out his wallet. Pulled out a five-pound note.

Zarif fetched a glass from the bar and poured the drink. ‘The till is closed. It will have to be for nothing.’

Thorne shrugged but left his money on the table, folded inside a stainless-steel cruet set.

Zarif touched his glass to Thorne’s. Said, ‘Serefé.’

Thorne said nothing, but he remembered the toast. Remembered that it meant ‘To our honour’. The drink was clear and tasted like cough medicine, though it didn’t much matter.

‘You keep popping up at the end of my inquiries,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s like not knowing where a stink is coming from, then suddenly finding the dead thing behind a cupboard.’

Zarif brought the glass to his lips; sipped it fast, like it was espresso. ‘Is this police business, or personal?’

‘It’s a murder case.’

‘Last time I thought it was both, because you were like a dog tearing at something. You remember when we sat in here and talked about names?’ He raised a hand, wrote in the air with a thick finger. ‘Thorne. Something spiky and difficult to get rid of.’ The accent was thick and Zarif searched for the odd word. But Thorne knew very well that he played up a difficulty with the language when it suited him.

‘You told me what your name meant, too,’ Thorne said. ‘Arkan, which means “noble blood”, but also means “arse”.’ Zarif cocked his head. ‘That was back when you were putting on the harmless old grandad act. Before I got to know you better.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You’re a very good businessman, no question. I can see why you’ve done so well for yourself.’

Zarif spread his arms and looked around.

‘I don’t mean this,’ Thorne snapped. ‘Don’t take me for a cunt.’

‘I will try hard not to.’

‘It’s all about spotting new business opportunities, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Working out how to exploit them.’

‘A business must expand.’ To anyone sitting on an adjacent table, it would have looked as if the older man were enjoying the company and the conversation. ‘There is no point otherwise.’

‘The Black Dogs were a perfect opportunity.’

‘Dogs? Now, I am lost.’

‘Relatively new to the drugs game… medium-sized. Easy pickings for a firm like yours.’

Zarif said nothing, but Thorne wasn’t expecting him to.

Not just yet.

‘Even better if you can keep your hands clean,’ Thorne said. ‘Farm out the dirty work.’

‘What exactly do you think I’m going to say?’

Once Zarif’s name had been mentioned, the picture had quickly become clearer; and more horrific. In other circumstances, Thorne might have doubted the conclusion he had come to, but he knew better than most what Arkan Zarif was capable of.

Fully fledged gang wars, such as the one Zarif had been engaged in when he and Thorne had first met, were risky enterprises. Any financial advantage gained was often outweighed by unwanted attention from the authorities; by blood feuds that could linger for years afterwards.

So much better if someone else could wage them for you.

Marcus Brooks had been set up six years before by ‘Jennings’ and ‘Squire’, and now he was being used again. All Zarif had had to do was give him a motive. A nice, simple one. Once he had arranged to have Angela Georgiou and her son killed, it had been straightforward to get word into Long Lartin, hinting at who had been responsible. Then he had been able to sit back and watch while Brooks sorted out the Black Dogs for him. Created the space for Zarif and his family to step into.

He had wound up Brooks and let him go.

‘How did you find Brooks?’ Thorne asked.

Even as Zarif was staring blankly back at him, Thorne figured out that it had probably been through an associate in prison; perhaps the same one Zarif had later used to make sure Brooks knew, or thought he knew, who had killed his girlfriend and son. Another possibility was that Zarif had someone working within the Black Dogs themselves. This was less likely, but the thought prompted another.

‘Christ, you must have been delighted when Brooks started knocking off the coppers for you as well. Getting rid of any “friends” the bikers might have had in the police. A real bonus that, I would have thought.’

Zarif poured himself another drink, three or four fingers. ‘Forgive me if I have trouble following all this. Perhaps you should tell me what it is you think I have done.’

‘I know what you’ve done.’

‘Good for you.’ Zarif gently patted his fingers on the tabletop in mock applause. ‘The fact remains that you have come here alone and you have shown me no identification. So, whatever you know, or you think you know, I doubt that I am going to be arrested any time soon.’

It was the second time that day that someone had said as much to Thorne. These fuckers seemed to know instinctively when they were really in trouble and when they weren’t. Thorne felt a certain grim satisfaction at the thought that the police officer who had told him to ‘bring it on’ a few hours before was now a lot less cocky than he had been.

He thought that Zarif, too, despite the confident tone, was looking just a little more strained. Or maybe he was just getting drunker. Jumpier.

‘I wanted to give you the chance to tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Your last chance…’

‘Tell you that you’re dreaming? Tell you to fuck off?’

‘About Brooks. About his wife and child,’ Thorne said. ‘A car that didn’t stop.’ A bottle. A glass. One of Zarif’s own knives. ‘Anything else you think I might like to know…’

The woman’s voice from the speakers above the bar was becoming cheerier, the music a touch more upbeat. ‘Now, it’s time for you to go,’ Zarif said.

Thorne slid along the seat, said, ‘I need a piss.’

He took his time walking to the stairs, and when he looked back, Zarif was staring the other way, towards the window. Beneath the table, his foot was tapping in time to the tablas.

Thorne went quickly down the stairs, took a few seconds to get his bearings and pushed open the warped, unvarnished door to the tiny toilet cubicle. He smelled damp and disinfectant; something rank, too, and rising, that was coming from himself.

He leaned back against the door and breathed in the stink.

No, it isn’t. It isn’t finished.

He reached forward and flushed the toilet. Then, while the cistern was still noisily refilling, he stepped out into the narrow corridor. There were boxes stacked against the breeze-block walls and, through a semi-open doorway, he could see the huge gas burners in the kitchen and an L-shape of well-scrubbed steel surfaces.

He took half a dozen steps down to the far end; to a grey, metal door. Gently drew back the bolts, top and bottom.

Tested the handle.

Then Thorne turned and walked back towards the stairs, stopping just for a few seconds on the way to run his hands under the cold tap.

THIRTY-SIX

Though Zarif was still sitting in the booth, still looking in the same direction he had been, Thorne couldn’t help wondering if he’d moved. Had he had time to get up while Thorne was downstairs? Maybe use the phone to let someone know Thorne was there?

‘When was the last time Health and Safety had a look at your toilets?’ Thorne said, stepping back up.

Zarif turned, nodding his appreciation at what they both knew to be a joke. With the family’s money and connections, H &S inspections were hardly anything to worry about. Thorne wondered if ‘Baba’ Arkan Zarif worried about much at all.

Baba, which simply meant ‘father’ in Turkish. In an organised-crime context, though, it had an altogether more sinister meaning.

Zarif watched as Thorne walked back to the table, then past it, on his way to the door. He pushed himself out of the booth to follow; to show Thorne out and lock the door behind him. ‘I’m sorry I could not be more hospitable,’ he said.

‘I’ll live.’

‘I hope you think your visit was worth it.’

Thorne stopped at the door, locked it himself, and turned back into the restaurant. ‘Remains to be seen… ’

Zarif froze, then turned quickly at the noise of footsteps on the stairs. His gut wobbled as he was pulled in two directions at once. As he saw the man appear above the white balustrade, and performed a near-perfect double take; a low noise in his throat.

‘Someone else wanted a chat,’ Thorne said.

‘This is not… right,’ Zarif said. ‘You are very fucking crazy.’ He was genuinely searching for the words this time; speaking slowly, trying to order his thoughts.

Talking to Thorne, but staring at Marcus Brooks.

It struck Thorne that, like himself, Zarif would never have seen Brooks in the flesh; may not even have had any idea what the man whose life he had turned upside down looked like. But it was clear from the old man’s face that he knew exactly who his visitor was.

Brooks’ dark hair was longer than it had been in the most recent E-fit, and he had the makings of a decent beard. But his face was even thinner. He had a large spot, or a sore of some kind, on the edge of his top lip, and above dark semicircles the eyes seemed filmed over and far away.

He wore jeans and a faded sweatshirt under a brown puffa jacket. His training shoes were muddy, and he swung a plastic bag from one hand.

Nothing had been planned – not past this point at any rate – and it may just have been that Brooks was following Thorne’s lead, but they began to move towards Zarif at much the same moment. Zarif backed towards the booth at which he’d been sitting; stopped at the edge of the table.

He looked at Thorne. ‘You know I have friends close by. My sons…’

‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t you have some sort of panic button? You never struck me as the type to scream for help, but you could give it a go.’

Thorne thought that Zarif looked scared; unnerved, certainly. But there was no mistaking the anger. The olive skin of the old man’s face darkened further with blood. He pushed back his shoulders.

‘You are trespassing.’

‘You invited me in,’ Thorne said. ‘I seem to remember being offered a drink.’

Zarif turned to look at the man he had most certainly not invited.

‘The door was open,’ Brooks said.

‘Seriously fucking crazy.’ Zarif shook his head, swallowed hard. ‘Maybe I just go to the phone and call the police.’ He pointed at Thorne. ‘Talk to someone who will deal with you.’

Brooks took another step forward. ‘Tell me about Angie,’ he said.

Zarif said nothing. His eyes on the bag; on the weight of it. Thorne knew that even if Zarif did not know what Brooks looked like, he must have known exactly what he’d been doing, and how. Up until this moment, Zarif had probably relished every detail.

‘He just wants to know,’ Thorne said.

‘I want the names of the men you sent,’ Brooks said. ‘Whoever was driving the car.’

‘It’s a peace-of-mind thing,’ Thorne said.

‘Did you know Angie would have my son with her?’

‘Or was that another bonus?’

‘Was it planned?’

Zarif was stock-still, but his eyes flicked rapidly between the two of them.

‘I should imagine so,’ Thorne said. ‘Families have never really been off-limits with you, have they, Baba?’

‘Did you plan to kill them both?’

Zarif shook his head.

Thorne leaned back against the bar. ‘No, “don’t know”? Or no, “won’t tell”?’

‘Fuck you,’ Zarif said, equally casual.

Brooks hefted the bag into his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter either way.’

‘And fuck you, too…’

Thorne pushed himself away from the bar and walked behind it. ‘If that’s as much as you’ve got to say for yourself, there’s no point hanging around, is there?’ He looked across at Brooks. The exhaustion was scored in lines across his face; but now Thorne could see hunger there, too. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then…’

‘Sounds good,’ Brooks said.

Thorne scanned the shelves above him, searching for the CD player. Once he’d found it, he turned up the volume. The woman was laying it on thick; the drummer working overtime.

‘Where are you going?’ Zarif asked.

Thorne didn’t answer, enjoying the fear he’d heard in the question. He nodded his head in time to the music as he walked back around the bar, and away past Zarif, towards the stairs.

‘You have to stop now, and think how foolish you are being.’

Trying to look unconcerned, while his heart smashed against his chest…

‘You are too smart to do this.’

Ignoring the noise as he stepped down: the shouting and the swearing; the sounds of a man losing control. Focusing instead on the voice of the woman; the notes of her song rising to a perfectly pitched scream of joy, or agony, as he walked quickly down the stairs, and out through the grey, metal door.

He took his time walking along the alleyway to the street; then back on to the main drag. It wasn’t far short of one in the morning, but there was still plenty of traffic on Green Lanes. Drivers heading north towards Turnpike Lane and beyond, or south towards the City.

Thorne watched the cars, cabs and lorries go past, and wondered how many of their occupants felt part of anything; were really connected to others around them. There were communities in London, tightly knit and isolated pockets, where it was possible to feel as though the people next door gave a shit. But it was also a city in which a copy of the Evening Standard could shield you from almost anything.

Where death – violent death, certainly – had become part of the city’s fabric, like the extortionate house prices and the impossibility of parking.

Where life expectancy in boroughs like Islington, Camden and Haringey could be as much as ten years less in some parts than it was in others.

Where people like Arkan Zarif could make plans and grow fat.

Thorne walked slowly past the front of the estate agent’s and stopped for a second time outside the window of the restaurant. He could see the bottle and the glass on the table, hear the music from inside. The place looked empty now. He presumed that Brooks had either moved Zarif into the room at the back or taken him downstairs. He wondered if he had been thinking about the noise.

‘Sounds good,’ he’d said before Thorne had walked out. He’d looked as though he’d meant it.

Thorne turned from the window, feeling empty, and OK about it. He had decided the first time round that where Zarif and others like him were concerned, his moral compass would have to be… adjusted. He had a line, of course, same as everyone else, and there were people who had forced him into stepping over it more than once.

Psychopaths, sadists, users of children.

But Arkan Zarif had fucked with Thorne’s view of the world; with his grasp of what was just and decent. Had redefined it…

A squad car raced past on blues-and-twos. Thorne blinked and saw Louise’s face; flushed as it might be after love-making, or in temper.

He heard her voice, and his own.

And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you? Or what I did last night make me?

We haven’t murdered anyone.

The image dissolved, drifted, and he walked on, happy enough. When it came to Arkan Zarif, getting the right result was the only thing that mattered.

Waiting, Thorne looked at his watch many times. It was seventeen minutes from when he’d left the restaurant, to the moment when his phone rang.

His old mobile phone.

He took it from his pocket but didn’t answer. Let it go to voicemail.

Marcus Brooks, calling the number he’d been given. Saying what Thorne had told him to say.

Thorne listened to the message, knowing that he was not the only one that would be doing so, then walked back behind the parade of shops and down towards the service entrance.

He met Brooks at the end of the alleyway.

‘What did he say?’ Thorne asked.

The light from the streetlamp made Brooks look even more jaundiced. ‘He said “please”. Not for too long, though.’ He carefully handed Thorne his prepay mobile. The one Thorne had left behind on the counter when he had turned up the volume on the CD player. The one which Brooks had then picked up.

Thorne looked at the screen. The phone’s voice recorder function was still running, as it had been for the last twenty-odd minutes.

‘The names of the men who ran Angela and Robbie over are on there,’ Brooks said. He looked down at his training shoes for a second. ‘And the men who set fire to your father’s house.’

A lurch in the stomach like a spasm of indigestion. Rage and relief cancelling each other out. Nothing more, for now.

‘I made sure he knows we’ve got it,’ Brooks said. ‘He’s not going to be telling anyone we were there.’

Thorne nodded. ‘We should get going.’

Brooks swung the plastic bag as they walked back on to Green Lanes and across to where Thorne had left the BMW. Brooks climbed into the back. Thorne pressed a hand into the small of his back to help him inside, then stood, leaning against the car. Stared at the phone for a few seconds before he slipped it into his pocket.

‘Thank you’ seemed inappropriate. The stuff about being under arrest would come later.

He took the car across the main road and pulled it round; drove at walking pace past the window of the restaurant. Arkan Zarif was shuffling slowly, painfully, towards the glass on his backside. It looked as though something had been stuffed into his mouth. Napkins, Thorne guessed.

‘You don’t know how much I wanted to kill him,’ Brooks said.

Thorne flicked his eyes to the rear-view, then back to the figure that was beginning to howl and bang on the restaurant’s window.

He knew very well.

It had not been easy to convince Brooks, or himself, but eventually it had been agreed that they should do whatever it took to get the necessary information, but no more. That Zarif would suffer far more behind bars. That they were being anything but merciful.

‘You’ve no… fucking idea,’ Brooks mumbled.

Thorne eased the car from the kerb and pointed it north, letting the thoughts settle in his mind as he picked up speed. Most of the story was already straight, and would be simple enough to tell. He would put the rest of it together on the way back to Colindale.

Marcus Brooks was asleep on the back seat by the time the car reached the first set of lights.