Bloodline-9 (10 page)

The man he guessed was Martin Macken.

Twenty feet from the car, Thorne took Hendricks to one side and told him to get back inside the flat and delay the removal of the bodies. As Hendricks walked quickly across the road, Thorne introduced himself to Martin Macken and said how sorry he was.

Macken could not possibly have heard over the terrible noise he was making and, after trying again, Thorne could do no more than stand by and wait for him to draw breath or drop dead with the effort. The man was fifty or so and had clearly looked after himself, but now he was coming apart in front of Thorne’s eyes. Hair that would normal y have been kept neatly swept back was flying back and forth across his face as he raged and the tendons were rigid in his neck. His lips were thin and white, spittle-flecked. His eyes darted, wild and bloodshot, as he strained towards the house opposite and howled for his children.

‘Please, Mr Macken . . .’

Suddenly, he seemed distracted by movement at the front door and stopped struggling. Thorne gave the nod and moved forward, while the officers, each of whom had been staring at his own shoes while using the minimum of force to restrain the man, stepped back.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Thorne, Mr Macken.’

Red-faced and breathing heavily, Macken pointed at the figure moving to the front door of the house where his children had lived. ‘Who’s that?’

Thorne swal owed as he watched Hendricks disappear inside. That’s the man who’l be cutting up your children in the morning. ‘It’s just one of the team, sir. Everyone’s doing al that they can.’

Macken’s gaze moved to the first-floor windows, a moan rising from the back of his throat. The men in uniform tensed, as though he might try to rush across the road at any moment.

When it became clear that he would not, the liaison officer, a Scottish DS named Adam Strang, moved up to Thorne’s shoulder.

‘I tried to tel him to stay where he was,’ Strang said, ‘That we wouldn’t need him until tomorrow, but he wasn’t having any of it. He just marched out of the house and went and sat in the back of the car. I had to go back in and switch the lights off . . .’

Thorne nodded his understanding and took another step closer to Macken. ‘Why don’t you get back in the car, sir?’

Without taking his eyes from the window, Macken shook his head.

‘Don’t you think you’d be better off at home?’

‘I want to see my kids.’ The man’s voice was low and hoarse, wel -educated.

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible just yet.’ Thorne put a hand on his arm. ‘Why not let us take you back to . . .’ He looked around.

‘Kingston,’ Strang said.

‘Someone can stay with you and . . . your wife, is it?’ From the corner of his eye, Thorne saw Strang shaking his head, but it was too late.

Macken snapped his head round and stared hard at Thorne. His mouth fel open as though a dreadful image had suddenly been recal ed and there was something desperate in his eyes; a plea, a prayer. ‘Not after Liz,’ he said. ‘Not after what happened to Elizabeth.’

Thorne looked at Strang.

‘Mr Macken’s wife, I think, sir.’ Strang lowered his voice. ‘He’s been banging on about this al the way from Kingston.’

‘Jesus, no. Jesus, Jesus . . .’

‘Is your wife al right, Mr Macken?’

‘Partner, not wife. We never saw the need to get married.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Liz was kil ed,’ Macken said, simple and sad. ‘Fifteen years ago. Murdered, like her children.’

Thorne had felt it begin as soon as he’d asked the question and seen the look on Macken’s face. The tingle, feathering the skin at the nape of his neck, starting to spread before Macken had even finished speaking.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Hol and mutter, ‘Bloody hel -fire. ’

The fact that they had never married explained why ‘Macken’ had not registered with Thorne earlier in the day; the children’s surname taken from their father and not shared with their dead mother. Now, he remembered the seven names on the list of Raymond Garvey’s victims: ‘Elizabeth O’Connor’ had been third from the top.

Thorne spoke her kil er’s name quietly, and could only watch as Martin Macken’s face col apsed in on itself and he fel back, moaning, against the side of the car. ‘Jesus . . . Jesus . . .

Jesus . . .’

Thorne was already reaching for his phone and walking away fast, aware of Strang cal ing after him, asking what he should do about Mr Macken. Scrol ing through the phone’s contact list, he marched past Hol and, told him he’d better get in touch with his girlfriend to let her know he was going to be home very late.

Then Hol and was shouting after him as wel .

It was easy enough getting through to the Incident Room in Leicester, but it took some cajoling, then a minute or two’s concentrated shouting and swearing, to get Paul Brewer’s home number.

‘In a hurry to arrange that drink?’ Brewer asked.

‘I’m coming up to Leicester tonight,’ Thorne said. ‘And I want to talk to Catherine Burke’s boyfriend. I need you to sort that out for me.’

‘Sort it out?’

‘Make sure he knows I’m coming. Make sure he stays in, and waits up.’

‘Christ, is this about Catherine’s mother?’ It sounded as though Brewer were suppressing a yawn. ‘I told you, I already spoke to him about that.’

‘I know you did, Paul,’ Thorne said. ‘The problem is, he lied.’

NINE

There was a FOR SALE sign outside the two-bedroom flat that Jamie Paice had, until three weeks before, shared with Catherine Burke. Thorne was staring at it as the door was opened and a young man in jeans and a Leicester City shirt began ranting about how late it was, and how he couldn’t see what was so important. How he was real y sick of answering questions when he’d only just buried his girlfriend.

Thorne introduced himself and Hol and. Said, ‘Coffee would be nice.’

They fol owed Paice upstairs, and while he went straight on into a smal kitchen, Thorne and Hol and turned into a living room dominated by a black leather sofa and matching armchairs. A blonde woman in her twenties sat cradling a bottle of beer in front of a large plasma television. After a brief staring contest, she reluctantly turned off the TV and introduced herself as Dawn Turner.

‘I’m just a friend,’ she said, without being asked. ‘I was a friend of Catherine.’

Thorne nodded. She was wearing a cap-sleeved T-shirt that did her no favours, with a transparent bra-strap visible on each shoulder. It was sweltering in the room. Thorne and Hol and took off their jackets and sat down on the sofa.

‘It’s been real y hard for Jamie,’ Turner said. She put her bottle down by the side of her chair. ‘Last few weeks.’

‘I’l bet,’ Thorne said.

They had made good time getting out of London and even with Thorne keeping the BMW at a wel -behaved seventy-five al the way, they had hit the outskirts of Leicester within an hour and a half of leaving Hol oway. It was pushing ten o’clock by the time Jamie Paice sauntered into the living room with two mugs of coffee and fresh beers for himself and his ‘friend’.

He dropped into the armchair he took a good, long look at his watch.

‘I’m doing you a favour here, to be honest,’ Paice said. ‘So this better be important. Doesn’t look like you’re here to tel me you’ve found the fucker who kil ed Cath.’

Thorne smiled, as though he simply hadn’t heard him. ‘Sel ing the place, Jamie?’

Paice looked across at Turner and shook his head in disbelief. ‘That what you came al this way to ask me? You want to make an offer?’

‘Just interested. I saw the sign.’

‘We were planning to sel anyway. Me and Cath had looked at a few places already when she was kil ed.’

‘The police thought
that
might have had something to do with what happened,’ Turner said. ‘They reckoned whoever kil ed her might have come round pretending to look at the flat. I think they checked with the estate agents and that.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Thorne said.

Hol and shuffled to the edge of the sofa and looked at Paice. He nodded towards Turner. ‘Did you ask your friend round when you knew we were coming?’ he asked.

‘Why would I do that?’

‘A bit of moral support.’

Paice said nothing, took a swig from his bottle.

‘So, she was here anyway?’

‘Brewer said there was something you wanted to talk to me about.’ Paice leaned back in his chair and spread his arms. ‘Can we get on with it?’

‘You were shopping in town when Catherine was kil ed,’ Hol and said.

‘Christ, are we going through this again?’

‘Looking for a computer game you wanted, that’s what you said. But you didn’t buy anything in the end.’

‘It’s not what I
said
. It’s what happened.’

‘This is stupid,’ Turner said. ‘The police checked al that an’ al . Went to the shops Jamie went into.’

‘We could always check again,’ Thorne said.

‘Do what you bloody like,’ Paice said. ‘Maybe I should be talking to a solicitor, check out how much I can sue you bastards for.’

‘A solicitor might be a good idea,’ Hol and said.

‘What?’ Paice suddenly looked furious and began rocking slowly in the chair, his knuckles whitening around the neck of his beer bottle.

‘It’s al right, Jamie.’ Looking daggers at Hol and as she went, Turner moved across and sat down on the arm of Paice’s chair. She laid a hand on his shoulder and told him that he needed to calm down; that getting worked up wouldn’t do any good, or bring Catherine back.

‘She’s tel ing the truth,’ Hol and said. ‘And it’s about time you did.’

Thorne had been happy to sit there and let Hol and get stuck into Jamie Paice. They knew very wel that his alibi checked out, and they had not driven a hundred miles because they thought he’d kil ed Catherine Burke or anyone else. But for some reason he had lied to Paul Brewer, they felt sure about that, and in these situations it always paid to put the subject firmly on the back foot.

Hol and had made a good job of it, and not for the first time. Thorne had told him once, a year or so back, how impressed he had been. Hol and had laughed, then told Thorne that when it came to making people feel uncomfortable, he’d learned from the master. ‘I don’t mean watching you in interview rooms or anything,’ Hol and had said, enjoying himself. ‘Just, you know, how you are with people . . .
all the time
.’

‘You were asked how Catherine’s mother had died,’ Thorne said. He waited until Paice was looking at him. ‘And you talked a lot of rubbish.’

‘When Brewer rang and asked, you mean?’ Paice seemed genuinely confused. Turner was squeezing his shoulder, trying to say something, but he wouldn’t let her speak. ‘I told him. I don’t understand.’

‘You said Catherine’s mother died of cancer.’

‘Right, same as her dad. He died a few years ago, stomach cancer I think, and her mum died when Cath was a kid. I’m not sure what sort—’

‘Why are you lying?’

‘I’m
not
. She died of cancer.’

‘No,’ Thorne said. ‘She didn’t.’ He was as certain as he could be that Catherine Burke’s mother had been murdered fifteen years before, just as the mothers of Emily Walker and Alex and Greg Macken had been. There was nobody named Burke on the list of victims that was folded in Thorne’s pocket, but nor was there a Macken or a Walker. There were any number of reasons why the surnames of parent and child might not match, but the link between the four most recent murder victims could no longer be in any doubt.

‘This is mental,’ Paice said. He shifted forward, trying to get up, but was pressed gently back into his chair.

‘It’s true, Jamie,’ Turner said. ‘Cath’s mum was murdered by a man named Raymond Garvey.’

Paice looked up at her, and as soon as he had placed the name, he began shaking his head. ‘You’re kidding? He kil ed loads, didn’t he?’

‘Seven,’ Turner said. She looked at Thorne, received a smal nod of confirmation. ‘Cath’s mum was the third or fourth, I think.’

Paice took a long pul on his bottle, held the beer in his mouth for a few seconds before swal owing. ‘So, why didn’t she tel me? Why was there this made-up cancer story?’

‘She just got sick of it,’ Turner said. ‘People wanting to know what it was
like
. I mean, what did they
think
it was like?’ She was talking to Hol and and Thorne as much as to Paice now, tearing pieces of the label from her beer bottle, bal ing them up in her palm. ‘She used to get pestered by people writing books about it and making TV documentaries. There was even one bloke she used to go out with who she reckoned . . . got off on it. Sickos, you know? So, a few years ago she just decided she’d had enough. Changed her name, moved to a different side of the city and never talked about it to anyone. I’d known Cath since we were at school, but I was the only one she stil spoke to who knew what had happened when she was a kid. Apart from me, nobody had a clue. Nobody at work. Not Jamie.’

Thorne looked at Paice. ‘How long had the two of you been together?’

Paice looked shel -shocked. ‘A year and a half.’ He moved the bottle towards his mouth, stared at it. ‘Christ . . .’