Death Message (38 page)

'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.'

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.