Bloodline-9 (16 page)

Thorne walked on towards the buffet car in a far better mood.

Louise didn’t get home until an hour after Thorne.

‘You know what it’s like,’ she said. ‘You take a couple of days off and there’s shed-loads to catch up on.’ She told him she was enjoying getting stuck into things, having something else to think about. She was in a good mood.

Thorne suggested that she should put in for some overtime, as work was so obviously agreeing with her.

‘It’s about getting things in perspective,’ she said.

Louise made them spaghetti with bacon, onions and pesto and afterwards they sat in front of the TV for a while. She said, ‘I do want to talk about what happened, you know. I think we should.’

‘We
have
talked about it.’

‘No, we haven’t. Not how we feel about it.’ She smiled. ‘It’s been bloody deafening, tel you the truth.’

‘What?’

‘The sound of you walking on eggshel s.’

Thorne stared at the television.

‘How do
you
feel?’ Louise said.

‘I don’t know,’ Thorne said. ‘How you’d expect. Upset.’

‘You’ve not said anything.’

Thorne felt uncomfortably warm. ‘I don’t think I’ve had enough time to . . . process things.’

‘Fine. Good. That’s OK.’

They watched a little more television, then went to bed. They lay and cuddled, and when Louise fel asleep Thorne read for a while; a few more chapters from one of the true-crime books he’d bought online.

Raymond Garvey had supported Crystal Palace and kept pet rabbits as a boy. He had enjoyed tinkering with motorbikes and had battered his first victim to death with half a house-brick.

When Thorne had switched the light out, he turned on to his side, feeling Louise come with him, pressed soft into his back, and the guilt bubbling up in him like acid reflux.

FOURTEEN

H.M.P. Whitemoor

‘I can’t get over how hard they make it getting in here.’

‘It’s a damn sight harder getting out.’

‘They take everything off you, check your stuff. Al these doors you have to go through.’

‘So you don’t smuggle anything in.’

‘Like what?’

‘Cigarettes is the main thing. Drugs. People stil manage it, though.’

‘OK.’

‘Sorry for . . . staring. I can’t believe you’re real y here.’

‘Did you not believe me, when I said I was coming?’

‘It’s just so out of the blue, you know? I never expected . . . I never thought you’d find out.’

‘I wasn’t meant to. Nobody would have told me.’

‘So, how—?’

‘There were some old letters in the loft, some official stuff, at my auntie’s place. I asked her and she started to cry, so I knew it was true.’

‘And how did you feel when you found out?’

‘Pissed off. With
her
, I mean . . . with
Mum
, for not tel ing me.’

‘She never told me, either. About
you
.’

‘I know. I found the letter you wrote to my auntie. I know why you did what you did.’

‘Oh, Jesus . . .’

‘It’s
fine
, real y. I know how it made you feel, Christ—’

‘It’s not fine.’

‘I think I’d have done the same thing.’

‘I always presumed you’d hate my guts. That’s why I never tried to get in touch or anything.’

‘From when I was six or seven or whatever, she said you were dead. That my “father” was dead. Told me he was an engineer. How could she do that?’

‘I
was
an engineer, for British Telecom. Before . . .’

‘I’m not sorry she’s dead. You don’t have to worry.’

‘You look different to the photos you sent.’

‘God, they’re ancient. From when I was at school. I’l send you some more recent ones, if you want.’

‘You not at school any more?’

‘What’s the point?’

‘Long as it’s not got anything to do with me, with finding out who I was, I mean. If you’ve got exams, anything like that, you should probably finish them.’

‘You look different, too. I saw a few pictures on the internet, some old newspapers. There’s that one they use in al the books.’

‘Everybody piles on the weight in here. I don’t get as much exercise as other prisoners . . .
normal
prisoners.’

‘That’s real y unfair.’

‘They keep the special ones apart from the rest. Ex-coppers, nonces, al that sort.’

‘You’re not
that sort
.’

‘It’s fine, I’m used to it.’

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘It’s funny, she never told you about me, then she goes and gives you my middle name.’

‘No, she didn’t. She gave me a
stupid
name. I changed it as soon as I found those letters. Not legal y or anything, but I’l probably get round to that.’

‘Up to you.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’m Anthony from now on, whatever.’

‘It’s nice.’

‘Second name too: Anthony Garvey.’

‘That’s got a ring, definitely.’

‘
Tony
’s al right, I don’t mind that.’

‘Sounds good.
Younger
, like.’

‘So, you don’t mind if I visit again?’

‘Are you going already?’

‘No, don’t worry, there’s ages yet. I was just checking it would be OK.’

‘Better than OK.’

‘For me too.’

‘Yeah . . . Tony sounds real y good . . .’

FIFTEEN

Brigstocke was upbeat at the morning briefing, but then he did not have a great deal of choice. Progress - unspectacular yet tangible - was being made, but the DCI’s mood would have been much the same even if it were not. As senior investigating officer and team leader, he could never be seen banging his head against the wal , tel ing the troops that the investigation was going nowhere and that everything was turning to shit.

It was one of the reasons why Thorne had resisted the step up; why, despite Louise’s encouragement, he had not taken the chief inspector’s exams. The extra money would have been welcome, of course, and there was a much better parking space attached to the rank, but the putting on of a brave face, however much the circumstances might demand it, was not something he was good at.

‘You learn al that stuff,’ Louise had said.

But Thorne had not been persuaded. ‘I don’t want to learn it,’ he had said. And I’d most likely punch the first tosser to give me a funny handshake.’

After the briefing, Thorne walked back into the Incident Room with Hol and. He waited while Hol and made them both coffee and let his eyes drift across to the large whiteboard that dominated one wal . Below photographs of the four victims to date, the board was divided in half, with a thick, not-quite-straight line of black felt-tip running down the middle. On the left-hand side were listed the seven women murdered by Raymond Garvey; and opposite, their children. Red lines linked the mothers’ names with those of their sons and daughters.

Thorne looked at the list of names on the right-hand side of the board, their ages and the dates on which they had died, where relevant. A rol -cal of those already kil ed and those they had to presume would be targeted by the kil er:

Catherine Burke (23 yrs) 9 Sept. (Brother, Martin, killed in RTA)

Emily Walker (33 yrs) 24 Sept.

Gregory and Alexandra Macken (20 yrs/18 yrs) 27 Sept.

Andrew Dowd (31 yrs)

Deborah Mitchell (29 yrs)

Graham Fowler (30 yrs)

Simon Walsh (27 yrs)

Along the bottom of the board were three E-fits, based on the descriptions given by Emily Walker’s neighbour, the witness who had seen a man talking to Catherine Burke and the students who had watched Greg Macken get picked up in the Rocket Club. Under each was the name ‘Anthony Garvey’. Whether Thorne was right to doubt its authenticity or not, it was the only name they had to go on when it came to the identity of their prime suspect.

Hol and appeared at Thorne’s shoulder and handed him his coffee. Thorne stared into the plastic cup.

‘No milk in the fridge, so I had to use the powdered stuff.’

‘We’re going to have to start leaving notes on the cartons,’ Thorne said. ‘Like those students.’

Hol and nodded towards the whiteboard. Said, ‘What d’you reckon it is with Dowd and his wife, then?’

Andrew Dowd was the man Brigstocke had mentioned the day before; someone who, according to his wife, had set out to go walking in the Lake District a few days before and with whom she had had minimal contact since. She claimed not to know the place he had been headed, the names of any hotels or B&Bs he had been intending to stay in or even how long he had planned to be away. There had been predictable concern for Dowd’s safety, until officers had spoken to his wife, after which they decided it was only his marriage that was almost certainly dead. She had told them that Andrew had gone with very little notice, that he had taken his mobile phone but not his charger and that he had cal ed only once, the evening of the day he went, to let her know he had arrived safely. Using cel -site technology, the team had confirmed that the cal was made from Keswick, which was where local searches were now focused. A text message had been sent to Dowd’s phone asking him to contact the police urgently, but since that first cal either the handset had been switched off or the battery was dead.

‘They’ve obviously had some kind of enormous row,’ Thorne said. ‘She doesn’t want to admit he’s just walked out, so she’s making out like it’s no big deal, like he does this regularly.

Cuts himself off for a few days, so he can find himself, whatever.’

‘He wants to find himself a new wife,’ Hol and said. ‘The one he’s got sounds like a nightmare.’

‘No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.’ Thorne saw the sideways look from Hol and. ‘Charlie Rich. 1973.’

‘What about the other two?’ Hol and asked.

If either of the two men whose names were below Dowd’s on the list possessed mobile phones, then they were pay-as-you-go, as there was no trace of any contracts. No trace of anything.

Simon Walsh had lived at seven addresses in the previous eighteen months, signing on at half a dozen different benefit offices before dropping out of the system. His only existing relative, an aunt, claimed not to have heard from him in ten years; and a friend who had last seen him six months previously said he thought Walsh might have become addicted to antidepressants. Without being told why they were looking for him, the friend added, somewhat ironical y, that he was always expecting to hear that Simon had been found dead somewhere.

According to Graham Fowler’s estranged wife, he had been sleeping rough somewhere in south-east London for at least two years, after an increasingly severe alcohol problem had cost him first his job, then his family. There was nobody of that name registered at any of the established day centres or night shelters.

‘Wel , I can’t see us finding either of them through credit-card receipts,’ Thorne said. A few years before, he had spent a period undercover, living on the streets of the West End in an effort to find the man who was kil ing rough sleepers. He had met plenty like Simon Walsh and Graham Fowler, men who had slipped through the cracks by accident or design. ‘They both sound like people who don’t particularly want to be found.’

‘That might be what saves their lives,’ Hol and said. ‘I mean, if
we
can’t find them . . .’

Thorne looked at the remaining name, which had been circled again and again in red felt-tip, as if in exasperation. ‘Not that finding them is the end of the problem.’

The one person on the list of potential victims that they had been able to track down was proving to be something of a handful. Despite repeated conversations and visits from family liaison officers, Debbie Mitchel was refusing to so much as consider the possibility of entering protective custody.

‘Wel , she’s not al there, is she?’ Hol and said.

‘She’s got problems.’

‘And there’s this business with her kid.’

Debbie Mitchel was the single mother of a child with severe learning difficulties. She had been arrested on three occasions for soliciting and on several more for possession of Class A drugs.

‘It’s weird, this drug thing,’ Hol and said.

‘What thing?’

‘Catherine Burke did a few; now Debbie Mitchel . I should think there’s every chance with Walsh and Fowler, too.’

‘Not weird real y,’ Thorne said. ‘Not when you think about what they’ve al got in common. You ask me, the weirdos are the ones who aren’t drug addicts or alcoholics.’

The office moved al around them, while they drank their coffees and stared at the board, as though the marker-pen lines and scribbles were symbols in some complex equation, the answer to which might suddenly present itself if they looked hard enough.

Three hours later, Thorne was standing in front of another board, looking at the list of lunchtime specials on the menu at the Royal Oak. Until recently, in what passed for the team’s local,

‘special’ might have applied to almost any food that was vaguely edible, but a new landlord had radical y improved standards. An ex-copper himself, he knew that even police officers demanded more than shit and chips at lunchtime. It was stil far from being a gastropub, but it had final y become something more than a last resort.

Thorne placed his order and took a Diet Coke and a bitter lemon back to a table by the fruit machine. He slid in next to Yvonne Kitson. They touched glasses and drank, their expressions making it clear that they would prefer a pint of strong lager and a cold white wine, respectively.

‘Later,’ Kitson said.

Thorne picked up a beer-mat and began methodical y tearing it into tiny pieces. ‘This case is breaking new ground,’ he said. ‘It’s a “who-didn’t-do-it”.’

Kitson smiled, happy to play along. ‘Go on then, who didn’t do it?’

‘Wel , since you ask . . . It wasn’t a primary school teacher in Doncaster, it wasn’t a photocopier repairman and keen amateur boxer from Wrexham, and it certainly wasn’t a seventy-eight-year-old ex-merchant seaman who’s retired with his wife to Portugal. It’s lovely weather there today, by the way, he told me so several times. He and his wife were planning to have lunch out by the pool.’