Buried-6 (30 page)

Kitson grinned. ‘Sounds like you’re not doing too badly yourself.’

‘When either of us gets five minutes, we should drink to something.’

‘Al being wel .’

‘Have you had a chat with Farrel yet?’

‘Just on my way,’ Kitson said. ‘Got him in the bin.’ She brandished a sheaf of papers; passed them across for Thorne to take a look at.

Thorne studied the disclosure paperwork: a series of documents to be handed to the suspect’s legal adviser; al at once, or strategical y drip-fed if it was deemed to be useful. By law, the papers had to include everything from completed custody records to copies of the ‘first description’ – in this case the statement given by Nabeel Khan at the murder scene and reproduced verbatim from the attending officer’s pocketbook. Thorne flicked through copies of the incriminating E-fit and Farrel ’s arrest log, then pointed to a sheet outlining the results of the video ID parade. ‘This should do you nicely,’ he said.

‘It wasn’t very easy for the witness.’ Kitson blinked away the memory of something, but managed to crank up the smile again. ‘Should put the wind up his smartarse solicitor, though.’

‘One of those, is it?’

‘You know the firm: Smartarse, Posh and Ful ovit.’

‘I know them too bloody wel . . .’

They moved on together, laughing, towards the interview rooms; through the door that separated the rest of the prison from the custody suite.

‘Suite’ was something of a misnomer, suggesting that the area was rather more comfortable and wel appointed than it was. In fact, this was where industrial grey carpet gave way to concrete floors, where panic strips ran along the wal s, and where an atmosphere of heightened awareness came close to one charged with aggression.

This was where the station became a prison.

A pair of custody sergeants, or ‘skippers’, sat on a raised platform at the centre, booking people in, working at computer screens and monitoring the CCTV images fed from cel s and corridors. The ‘cage’ was off to one side, through which prisoners were brought in from the backyard, and where, if necessary, UV light would show up any property-marked items that they might be carrying. Corridors in two directions led to the twenty-seven cel s which ringed the suite. Each was tiled from floor to high ceiling, with a metal toilet on one side and a blue plastic mattress along the back wal . A double doorway led through to an exercise yard, to which prisoners were taken if they needed air; or, more likely, nicotine.

Kitson slowed down outside the tiny kitchen, where the jailer on shift could make tea and coffee or prepare one of five different microwaveable meals for prisoners. She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve got DNA as wel , Tom.’

It took Thorne a couple of seconds. ‘
When
did you arrest him?’

‘I acquired a sample beforehand, got it to the lab yesterday afternoon.’

‘Right . . .’ He drew the word out, stil thinking.

‘It’s only a preliminary result, obviously. Ninety-something per cent match so far. It doesn’t eliminate him, which is what counts.’

‘Twenty-four hours is stil going some, though.’

Kitson reddened. ‘Somebody at FSS likes me. Owed me a favour.’

‘You flirted with him. I’m appal ed.’

‘With
her
. . .’

‘You’re fucking shameless,’ Thorne said. He flicked quickly through the disclosure papers again. ‘I can’t see it anywhere in here.’

‘Like I said, it’s just a prelim. We’ve got two more runs before it’s definitive.’

‘You can stil put it in here, though. Then you’l
really
put the shits up Farrel ’s brief.’ Thorne looked up, saw that the colour in Kitson’s face had deepened, and that it wasn’t through embarrassment. ‘When you say
acquired?
’

Kitson told him about the previous afternoon. She described her meeting with Adrian Farrel by the bus stop, the boy’s reaction to her questions, and the way she’d scraped his spit off the pavement. Thorne stared, astonished and ful of admiration. Then, much as he hated to be the one to do it, he pointed out that none of her forensic evidence would stand up anywhere.

‘I’ve got a witness,’ Kitson said, and she told Thorne about the woman in the tracksuit who’d seen Farrel spitting on the pavement. The woman who’d been kind enough to provide Kitson with a cotton bud and a plastic freezer bag when she’d needed them.

‘Even so—’

‘OK, look, I know I can’t use it, and I took a kosher sample as soon as we booked him in, but I just wanted to be sure. D’you understand?’

Thorne handed back the documents. ‘Probably right to leave the DNA stuff out then,’ he said. ‘For the time being.’

‘Yeah.’ She tapped a fingertip against the side of her head and grinned. ‘But it’s nice to
know
, isn’t it?’

‘Oh fuck, yes,’ Thorne said. ‘Every time.’

They walked round the corner to the interview room – the ‘bin’ – where Farrel was waiting. Thorne took a quick look through the smal window.

Kitson nodded across to another room on the far side. ‘You think you’ve got
your
man in there? For the kidnap, I mean.’

Thorne considered the question. ‘I’m real y not sure about anything,’ he said. ‘Right now, if you asked me what my name was, I’d only be able to give you a preliminary result.’

SIXTEEN

‘This room is different,’ Freestone said.

Thorne nodded, as though he were impressed. ‘Can’t fool you for a second, can we, Grant?’ He pointed to a red light on the far wal , informed Freestone that whenever it was lit the interview was being viewed remotely by other officers. ‘You’re very popular,’ he said. ‘Lots of people are keen to say hel o, but we don’t want to start cramming them into a smal room like this, do we?’

Donovan was obviously eager to make his presence felt early. He leaned towards his client. ‘And they don’t want me claiming that you were intimidated by a gang of hulking great coppers.’

‘Can’t fool you, either,’ Thorne said. He looked at Freestone for a second or two without speaking. ‘Not that you look as though you’d be easily intimidated.’

‘You can’t afford to be, can you?’ Freestone said.

Thorne understood perfectly wel . He knew that Freestone had spent a long time on the receiving end of far harsher intimidation than anything
he
could dish out. ‘You certainly can’t,’

he agreed.

Porter had been staring hard at Freestone across the table. ‘You don’t look too good,’ she said. Then, to Donovan: ‘Are you sure your client’s wel enough?’

Thorne glanced up at the camera through which he knew Hignett and Brigstocke were watching. He guessed they’d have approved of the question. Porter was right to al ow for any eventuality at this stage.

‘No, as it goes, he’s far from wel ,’ Donovan said.

Freestone began to nod quickly. ‘I just need a bit of something. I’l be fine.’

It was obvious to al concerned what Freestone needed. Thorne did not know how serious the habit was, whether he was doing coke, heroin or both, but at best it would have been seven or eight hours since he’d taken anything. If the turkey wasn’t yet cold, it was already tepid. ‘We’l be as quick as we can, then we’l get a doctor in to sort you out. It’s real y up to you how soon that’l be.’

‘This is the fourth interview with my client in as many hours,’ Donovan said. ‘And I stil haven’t seen much to justify a single one of them.’

‘You were obviously asleep when he threatened a child’s life.’

‘He threatened no such thing—’

‘When he confessed to holding a child against his wil , then. That do you?’

Freestone, who didn’t appear to be listening, pointed at the glowing red light. ‘People are watching this, correct?’

‘Correct,’ Thorne said.

‘Wel , we can’t meet in here, then. When Mul en comes in.’

‘I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.’

‘When’s he coming? Is he on his way yet?’

‘You have to talk to
us
first,’ Porter said.

Thorne was shaking his head. ‘There are no guarantees here.’ He leaned his head close to Porter’s. ‘We’re making no promises at al . We need to be agreed on that. Yes?’

Porter’s expression made it clear that she understood. She turned slowly from Thorne to Freestone. ‘We need assurances,’ she said.

Freestone nodded again, like it was a reasonable request. One that he’d be happy to meet.

‘We need to know about Luke.’

‘What about him?’

‘
Christ!
’ Thorne said. ‘Take a guess.’ He raised his hands in apology at the sharp look from Porter.

‘He’s fine,’ Freestone said.

‘What about al that stuff you came out with before?’ Porter’s voice was low, not much above a whisper. ‘You made it very clear that if we didn’t find him quickly . . .’

‘I was talking about a long time: months, whatever.’

‘Is he somewhere with plenty of air?’

‘What? I don’t—’

‘Does he have anything to eat? Is he tied up?’

‘He’s got food. I left him enough food.’

‘What kind of food?’

‘Burgers, that kind of thing. You know – stuff kids like.’

‘You know al about what kids like.’ Thorne leaned forward. ‘Don’t you, Grant?’

Freestone opened his mouth. Closed it again.

‘Hang on,’ Donovan said. ‘There’s never been any suggestion—’

Thorne pointed a finger and left it there. ‘He tied two kids up in a garage. That’s not a
suggestion
. How the hel do we know he hasn’t stuffed Luke Mul en in a cupboard with gardening twine round his neck?’

‘He’s fine, I swear.’ Freestone closed his eyes, rubbed the back of a hand across his forehead. ‘When’s Tony Mul en getting here? I need to see him.’

‘Why did you take him, Grant?’ Thorne waited until it was clear there was nothing coming back. ‘Why no ransom demand? Do you just not need the money? Or did you miss the last bit of the kidnapping correspondence course?’

Freestone sucked his teeth, thought about it. ‘I’l talk to Mul en,’ he said.

Nobody said anything for a few moments after that, but when Porter started to speak, Thorne raised a hand to cut her off. ‘How old is Luke Mul en?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know exactly.’ Freestone blinked. ‘Fifteen? Sixteen?’

‘Dark hair? Blond?’

‘It’s . . . dark.’

‘What was he wearing when you took him?’

Freestone was growing increasingly flustered with each question Thorne fired at him, looking at Donovan more than once, and increasingly to Porter. ‘School clothes . . .’

‘Can we stop asking quiz questions?’ Porter snapped. ‘We need to move forward here.’

Thorne’s smile was ugly. ‘It’s al stuff he could have got from that newspaper story, anyway. He had a paper with him in the park.’

‘We have to make sure Luke is safe and unharmed,’ Porter said. ‘That’s the priority here.’ She looked back at Freestone, making sure that he understood what was important as wel .

‘He’s safe. I haven’t laid a finger on him.’

‘Luke’s not the strongest of kids,’ Porter said. ‘We have to check.’

‘I’ve been looking after him.’

‘That’s good. That helps.’

‘You should real y get Mul en now.’

‘What about the asthma?’ she asked. ‘Has he had any attacks?’

Freestone shook his head, kept on shaking it.

‘Shortness of breath? It’s why I was asking about the air.’

‘No, he’s fine.’

‘The family are worried because they’re not sure if Luke had his inhaler with him, but it sounds like he wouldn’t have needed it, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Do you know if he has it? So I could at least tel them.’

Freestone closed his eyes again. Let the answer come to him. ‘I think he said something about it.’

‘Do you know what an inhaler looks like?’ Porter started to mime it, pushing down on the imaginary pump.

‘Of course I do. Jesus . . .’

‘This is important, Grant. We need to know. Has he got one with him?’

A nod, smal and fast, but frozen the second Thorne began to shout: ‘
Have you seen Luke Mullen’s inhaler?
’

‘Yes, I said so! I’ve seen the fucking thing.’ The intense agitation on Freestone’s face turned quickly to alarm when he saw Porter and Thorne relax. When the questions stopped. He turned to Donovan. ‘What’s going on?’

Donovan’s former career gave him rather more insight than someone in his position might otherwise have had. ‘I think you just gave them the wrong answer,’ he said. ‘Or the
right
one.’

Thorne looked at Porter, then up at the camera to share a smal moment of success with the two watching DCIs.

Then he leaned back. Job done.

After Freestone had been taken back to the cel s, they sat for a few seconds, relishing their newly acquired certainty. But each was aware that this feeling of having got something right would soon be replaced with a more familiar one. That of having nowhere else to go.

It was Thorne who broke the silence. ‘
Asthma?
That’s fucking genius.’

‘We both did a pretty good job,’ Porter said.

They congratulated each other for a few minutes more on how wel they’d played the nice-and-nasty routine. On how they’d let Freestone believe there was tension between them; that he was far better off answering Porter’s questions than Thorne’s. Making him think it was simple confirmation they wanted, rather than proof.

‘He was so ful of shit,’ Thorne said. ‘Al that just to get a bit of leverage. So we’d agree to Mul en coming in.’

Porter raised her eyebrows. ‘Now, there’s a major question in itself.’

‘Like we haven’t got enough of those already.’

‘Number one in the hit parade being: if
Freestone
hasn’t got Luke Mul en . . . ?’

And there it was. That familiar feeling . . .

Thorne’s first thought was that Brigstocke had come down to do his own bit of back-patting, but his face told a different story. As did the face of the man who appeared next to him in the doorway, then barged past into the interview room like he was a heartbeat away from cracking heads open.

‘Why wasn’t I told about Grant Freestone?’ Mul en asked. His question was absurd, considering that he obviously
had
been told: he was
there
, after al . After a second of incredulity from the others in the room, he condescended to correct himself: ‘Why wasn’t I told
officially?
’