Scaredy cat

TWENTY-SIX

Thorne arrived at work feeling hollow, certain that little would happen during the day that could fill the empty space. The sleep following his conversation with Martin Palmer had been surprisingly deep – a welcome side effect of the painkillers. This time, the animal had worked longer and harder at the space beneath the door. Digging down, forcing its snout into the gap. This time, behind the door, Karen McMahon had not been there to take Charlie Garner's hand.

The day ahead would, Thorne knew, be almost surreal considering the state of the case.

The hunt for Palmer was going nowhere.

The hunt for Nicklin was going backwards.

Thorne and the team would probably spend the day celebrating… A bottle or two and a backslap or three to put the lid on last night's result at the hotel. A session of whistling in the dark that would only be interrupted – right after lunch, according to his Regulation 7 notice by Thorne's initial meeting with officers from the DPS. A day when nothing was going to happen. A day when everything was going to be settled…

Tom Thorne was not the only one arriving at work, and in the head of the man who used to be Smart Nicklin, a clock was ticking. Thorne's assessment of how the day would pan out was pretty much bang on. The only thing he hadn't foreseen was quite how early the party was going to start. The word had gone out: a bit of a drink at lunchtime to toast a job well done. Morale, however, was not exactly through the roof anywhere in Serious Crime. Not among Team 3, not among team that had taken over the hotel killings, nowhere. A couple of pints in the pub at lunch-time would certainly be welcomed, but there was always going to be a need to push the boat out a little further than that. The first bottle of scotch had appeared before the morning cups of tea and coffee were finished.

Thorne and Brigstocke watched from their office as paper cups were filled and the stories that had filtered back about the events the previous night were exaggerated and passed around.

'It's a bit early isn't it?' Thorne asked.

Brigstocke raised his eyebrows theatrically. 'Bugger me, are you feeling all right, Tom? Maybe that smack in the face did more damage than we realised.'

Thorne said nothing. Looking out, he noticed that Holland was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't joining in the celebrations. Brigstocke shrugged. 'I think we need this to tell you the truth. As long as it stays controlled, it's no problem. As long as nobody's too shit-faced when Jesmond pops over to bask in his bit of reflected glory…'

The volume of noise from the incident room dropped. It was clear which bit of the hotel story was being repeated.

'I spoke to McEvoy first thing this morning,' Brigstocke said.

'How did she sound?'

'Half-asleep. Embarrassed about what happened. Said she was fine to come in, but I've told her to leave it until the end of the week. What do you think?'

Thorne nodded; that sounded about right. 'She's got some personal stuff to sort out.'

'With Holland?'

Thorne wasn't surprised that Brigstocke had noticed something he always had a good handle on the relationships between the members of his team. 'Holland says not,' Thorne said.

'It's not the end of the world. Shift one of them across to Belgravia or the West End…'

'Make it McEvoy.'

'Problems?'

'No, not really.' Not really. Nothing beyond a loyalty to Dave Holland, and a slight unease about Sarah McEvoy. Nothing he could even name, beyond a vague suspicion he had no intention of voicing.

'Anyway,' Brigstocke said, 'if Holland says not…'

'Right.'

'Hello… your best mate's here.'

Thorne watched as Steve Norman strolled into the incident room, a slim leather bag slung across one shoulder. He greeted the officers like old friends and held up a hand to gently turn down the offer of a drink.

'What's he doing here? Doesn't he have his own office?'

'I think he's one of those that likes to feel part of the team, you know?'

'Oh fuck…'

Norman was on his way towards the office. There was nowhere to hide.

'Hi, guys. Just stopped in to say well done for last night. More work for me… but that's the nature of the beast, I suppose. Right… I'll no doubt see you for a quick one at lunch-time, but I'd better be off. On the move a lot today, loads to do…'

He patted his shoulder bag as he turned to leave. Thorne realised that it contained a laptop computer. Norman was clearly one of those that liked to remind others just how important he was. Just how very busy. He probably used it a lot on the train.

'Tosser,' Thorne muttered as Norman closed the door behind him.

'I think DCI Lickwood said he might stick his head in later on, just to say hello and have one on our team's tab.' Brigstocke grinned at Thorne's expression. 'Thought you'd be pleased.'

'So no chance of trying to catch any murderers today, then?'

'Come on, Tom. People will be coming and going all day, and we had a good result last night. It's the first one for a while.'

Thorne didn't need reminding.

'Business as usual, of course,' Brigstocke said. 'But with a good feeling round the place for a change. A positive atmosphere. Don't you remember what it was like, last day of term?'

Thorne knew what Brigstocke meant, but it still felt wrong somehow. He walked out of the door, grumbling.

'I'll fetch the party hats…'

Then the desk got him.

Thorne swore loudly and kicked at the offending corner – the ball of screwed-up paper he'd taped to it long gone. As he rubbed his thigh, he decided that while the rest of the place was celebrating the end of term, he was going to do something useful. He shouted to no-one in particular:

'Right, get me a fucking saw…'

A couple of regulars sat up at the bar, nursing grudges and pints, moaning to the landlord and throwing dirty looks over their shoulders, but the place belonged to Serious Crime. There were a hundred or more officers and civilian staff crammed in to the back bar. Though it was officially just a lunch-time thing, Thorne was pretty sure, based on the morning, that there wasn't going to be a fat lot of work done in the afternoon.

'Fancy a drink, big boy?'

Thorne actually started slightly. Despite the noise and the crush, he'd actually drifted away for a moment, thinking about the generations either side of himself. Young boy and old men…

'Only you've been stood here with that half for twenty minutes,'

Hendricks said. 'Wishing you were somewhere else.'

'That obvious, is it?'

'I was going to say you've got a face like a smacked arse, but, looking at it, kicked arse would be a bit more accurate.'

Thorne raised his glass, took a sip and then gestured with it, pointing at nothing in particular. 'This is fucking nonsense though, isn't it?'

Hendricks shook his head, leaned on the bar. 'Don't agree, mate. We all need to let our hair down, this lot more than most. You as much as anybody…'

'A copper with a pint pot in his hand is not my idea of a good time. Christ, it's rough enough working with them.'

'Not been flattened in the rush for a matey chinwag then?'

Thorne finally smiled. 'Most of them stay away…'

'Are you having another one?' Thorne shook his head. Hendricks turned to the bar and raised his hand to attract the attention of a barmaid.

Most of them. Steve Norman had marched straight up and bent Thorne's ear for ten long minutes. Keen to impress upon him just how hard he was working. Delighted that after the depressing weeks on Nicklin and Palmer, he finally had some positive material to work with – the McMahon discovery and the hotel murders. He'd drunk two tomato juices before rushing away, as he told Thorne excitedly, to prepare a press release detailing the brilliant operation that had resulted in the arrest of Jason Alderton.

Hendricks was back at Thorne's elbow with a pint of Guinness and a disgruntled expression. 'We've got to pay for these now. How much did Brigstocke put behind the bar?'

'Two hundred and fifty. It lasted about fifteen minutes.'

The two of them said nothing for a minute or two. They stood and watched as police officers of all ranks and ages enjoyed a momentary triumph. Battered bomber jackets and fleeces with bottles of lager. Shirts with grimy collars and Christmas ties, spilling pints of bitter. Sharp suits on spritzers. Women who were harder than they looked and men who were a damn sight younger. Old stagers from the squads, a squeak away from their pensions, and West End wannabes with Audis on double yellows and dialogue from a Guy Ritchie movie. A couple of hours to pretend, to forget. Then back to it. The Met was hemorrhaging. It was losing officers at the rate of five a day. Thorne was surprised it wasn't ten times that number. He was amazed he was too stubborn, or stupid, or scared, to be one of them.

'It'll all still be there tomorrow, Tom,' Hendricks said. 'A couple of hours on the piss isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. Have a drink, catch the fucker another day…'

Thorne smiled and finished his drink, thinking: Tomorrow is another day nearer the next body. A couple of hours might make all the difference in the world.

Lunch-time was excruciating. Talking to people, and eating and smiling. Looking like he was interested in their pointless drivel. It was so hard today, when such excitement was so close. He managed it every other day of course, but that was just routine. And didn't everyone dissemble to some degree or other? Saying you're not bothered about getting the stupid job when you'd happily kill for it. Saying that you just want to be friends when actually you're already fucking somebody else. Wearing a mask. Pretending to care. On the days he killed, though, it was always like this to some extent. He remembered the tedious meeting at work on the day he'd killed the Chinese girl; the expression of concentration stuck on to his face when all he could think about was what she might look like, how it was going to feel. He could still feel Caroline's mouth against his freshly shaved cheek as she kissed him goodbye on the morning he'd paid his visit to Ken Bowles. He'd smiled and kissed her back, they'd talked about what they might have for dinner later, and all the time he could feel the wonderful weight of the bat in his bag… This one was going to be even better. This time, he was having trouble keeping himself from grabbing people and shouting into their faces. Telling them exactly what he was planning to do, how brilliantly he'd arranged everything, how superb it was going to feel. The buzz was already building. He could almost feel the mask beginning to slip. Somebody spoke to him. He said something back. He stuck something tasteless into his mouth, glanced at his watch. He needed a little time on his own. Just half an hour or so, for a coffee and a bar of chocolate. To gather himself before the adventure started.

Thorne looked up to see Holland pushing through the tables towards him. He could see by his face that Holland was having about as good a time as he was. The fact that he'd been stuck in a corner with Derek Lickwood couldn't have helped.

'Thanks for that,' Holland said, squeezing in between Thorne and Hendricks.

'Privilege of rank, Holland. I get to inform the next of kin, you have to talk to DCI Lickwood. Did he do that thing of looking over your head while he's talking to you?'

Holland smiled and shook his head. 'He's such a wanker. Kept having little digs about Palmer escaping. Asked if you'd ever worked for Group 4.'

Hendricks snorted into his Guinness. Thorne turned to him. 'Shut it.'

'He's off,' Holland said. Thorne looked across in time to see Lickwood at the door on the far side of the room. Just before stepping through it on to the street, he turned and cocked his head towards Thorne. It was a hard expression to read, but Thorne would have put good money on smug.

'I've got a good idea why he was here, though,' Holland said. 'He seemed very disappointed that DS McEvoy wasn't around. A bit confused…'

Hendricks enjoyed this sort of intrigue hugely. 'What? Lickwood has the hots for McEvoy?'

'Oh yeah, fancies the pants off her.'

'What did you tell him?' Thorne asked.

'I just sort of ducked it really, made out like I didn't know where she was myself. He was pissed off about it, though, definitely.'

Hendricks downed the rest of his Guinness. 'She's a popular girl is McEvoy.'

'That's true,' Thorne said. 'Problem is, I'm not sure she likes herself very much.'

If Thorne had had a problem reading the expression on Lickwood's face, the one on Dave Holland's at that moment was well beyond his reach. He stared at it for a second or two and then turned away, his heart sinking at the screech of feedback from across the room. Some idiot had got hold of a microphone.

'It's Jesmond,' Hendricks announced.

Thorne knew a cue to leave when he heard one. 'Come on, Holland. Let's get the hell out of here.'

'Where are we going?'

'Happily, I have a pressing engagement in Colindale with the Directorate of Professional Standards. You can hold my hand.'

As the first distorted platitudes rang across the bar, Thorne and Holland pushed their way towards the exit. Thorne wondered whether the beer on his breath might count against him at his meeting. Behind him, Holland was remembering how cold it had been at half past three that morning. Sitting naked on the edge of his bed. Whispering into his mobile with Sophie stirring next to him, disturbed by the phone, but not fully awake yet.

McEvoy's voice had been strained, garbled.., raised just enough to reach him over the noise in wherever the hell she was calling from; as heartbreaking a mixture of helplessness and arrogance as he could ever have imagined.

'I'm fine. OK? I just wanted to tell you that. I really am absolutely fine.'