The Burning Girl-4 (37 page)

"Sorry to interrupt.. ."

"She was right," Memet said. "You are a tosser." The accent made the word sound a good deal more serious than when the woman had said it.

"I just thought you might like to know that we found a couple more of your missing DVD players," Thorne said.

Memet smiled, but the effort was obvious. "Wel done."

"They're turning up al over the place. This lot were working in kitchens and cleaning cars. Maybe one day we'l find out exactly where they came from. What d'you reckon?"

"Good luck .. ."

"Where's Tan, by the way?"

Memet wiped water from his eyes, grunted a lack of understanding.

"Wel , Hassan's out there waiting his turn like a good boy, and I know how close the three of you are, so I was just wondering where the baby of the family had got to?"

"My brother's on holiday .. ."

"Oh, right." So, Tan was almost certainly the one who had put six bul ets into Donal Jackson. Thorne wasn't hugely surprised. "A sudden urge to get away, was it? You can get some very good last-minute deals if you shop around."

"He was upset after what happened. After the shooting."

"I'm sure it was very traumatic for al of you .. ."

Memet's face darkened suddenly. "Hassan was nearly kil ed. In the middle of the day, a man walks in with a gun."

"I know. Not very sporting, was it? Thank heavens for that mysterious second gunman. You sure it was a gunman, by the way? It couldn't have been Batman or Wonder Woman, could it?"

Memet said nothing. He moved his arm back and forth through the water. The banter was done with.

The plastic tiles squeaked beneath Thorne's shoes as he took a step towards the Jacuzzi. "So, here's the thing: I think Stephen Ryan's a shit bag and I'm not a great deal fonder of you.

In fact, if Ryan was sharing your bathwater right now, I'd be head of the queue to chuck a three-bar fire in .. ."

"Am I supposed to be upset?"

"You're supposed to listen. There's not going to be any retaliation for what happened in the minicab office, do you understand? It's over. You boys can al put your guns down now."

"You don't know what you're talking about.. ."

"I don't care what the "policy" is on this. I don't give a toss about efforts being concentrated elsewhere, about resources being redistributed or even about the fact that you fuckers are doing us al a favour by kil ing each other. I'm just tel ing you this: if any more bodies turn up, if Stephen Ryan's cousin's auntie's best mate's brother-in-law so much as twists his ankle, I'l start making a major nuisance of myself. Whatever the official position on this might be, I'm not going anywhere .. ."

There was amusement in Memet's voice, but also genuine confusion and curiosity. "Why are you taking al of this so ... personal y?"

Suddenly, Thorne felt helpless, like the tiny, impotent figure that he'd imagined his father to be. The words he wanted to say were vast and deafening. They were made to be roared or screamed. To be sucked up and spat like powerful poison. Instead, Thorne heard them departing from his mouth as little more than murmurs, half hearted and sul en. "Because you don't stop where other people do," he said. He looked at the floor as he spoke, sweat stinging his eyes. He stared at the strip of grubby mastic where the tiles met the base of the Jacuzzi.

"Because you don't have a line .. ."

There was a long moment of silence, of stil ness, before Memet heaved himself on to the edge of the bath. Water gathered in thick droplets on his round shoulders. It ran through the dark hair clinging to the fat on his chest and bel y.

"I wil talk to those with some influence in the community .. ."

"Don't start with that "pil ar of the community" bol ocks." Thorne wasn't murmuring now. "I heard enough of it at that hotel."

"My family has done al that was asked of us .. ."

"Does Mrs. Zarif know about these lunchtime hand-jobs, by the way?"

"You're starting to sound very desperate."

"Whatever it takes .. ."

Memet sat and dripped.

"Talk to me about what you do," Thorne said. "Here and now, come on. Tel me about the kil ing, and the buzz or whatever it is, that you get from control ing people's lives. It can't just be about the money .. ." He paused as Memet climbed to his feet and stared at him, a defiance in his stance, some strange chal enge in his nakedness. "There's nobody worth hiding from in here, is there?" Thorne said. The water was cooling, but the room seemed to be growing hotter by the second. "It's just the two of us. I'm not writing anything down, my memory's not what it was and I haven't got a tape recorder in my pocket, so it stays in this room. Every bit as discreet as everything else that goes on in here. Talk to me about it honestly. Just once ..

."

Slowly, Memet reached for the towel that was draped across the arm of the sofa and began to dry himself. "That day in my father's cafe," he said. "You told me to make a wish, remember?"

Thorne remembered the lamps hanging from the ceiling, the cigarette smoke dancing around them like a genie. He recal ed his parting shot as he'd walked out of the door. "So, did you make one?"

"I made one, but it didn't come true .. ."

Thorne beat Memet to the punchline. He smiled, but felt the sweat turn to ice at his neck as he spoke. "Because I'm stil here."

TWENTY-EIGHT

"I knew I should have got a toy or something."

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can exchange them."

"You'l be lucky. I've chucked the bloody receipt away .. ."

They spoke quietly, conscious of the baby asleep in a Moses basket beneath the window.

"We can just hang on to them, you never know .. ."

Thorne had known as soon as he'd clapped eyes on Hol and's baby that al the clothes he'd bought were far too smal . Hol and was holding up the tiny outfits, trying and failing to find something positive to say about them.

"What, are you going to have another baby?" Thorne asked.

"Wel .. ." Hol and laughed and sipped from a can of lager.

Thorne, furious with himself, eventual y did the same.

"Sophie's had to nip out and see a mate," Hol and said. "She'l be sorry she missed you. Said to say "hel o" .. ."

Thorne nodded, feeling himself redden slightly. He knew very wel that Hol and was lying, that his girlfriend would have done her level best to make herself scarce on learning that Thorne was coming round. For al he knew, she might have been hiding in the bedroom, waiting for him to leave.

They were sitting on the sofa in Hol and's living room. The clutter made the first-floor flat seem even smal er than it was. Thorne looked around, thinking that if the rest of the place was as cramped, then Sophie wouldn't have had the room to hide .. .

Hol and read his thoughts. "Sophie thinks we should find a bigger flat."

"What do you think?"

"She's right, we should. Whether we can afford to is a different matter.. ."

"Rack up that overtime, mate."

"Wel I was. God knows whether there'l be any on the cards now."

Though Thorne had brought the beer, he didn't feel much like drinking. He leaned over, put his can down by the side of the sofa. "Don't worry about it, Dave. The SO7 thing might have gone, but there'l be some nutter out there somewhere putting a bit of work our way soon."

Hol and nodded. "Good. I hope he's a real psycho. We could do with three bedrooms .. ."

The joke was funny only because of the dark truth that fuel ed it. Thorne knew al too wel that in a world of uncertainties, in a city of shocking contrasts and shifting ideas, some things were horribly reliable. House prices climbed or tumbled; Spurs had bad seasons or average ones; the mayor was a visionary or an idiot.

And the murder rate went up and up and up ... "What d'you reckon about the operation just getting cal ed off like that?" Hol and asked. "I know you and the DCI weren't exactly best mates, but stil .. ."

Thorne didn't fancy rehashing the conversation he'd had with Tughan the day before. Instead, he told Hol and how he'd spent the morning.

"I reckon they'd booked the entire massage parlour for themselves."

"Like when they close Harrods so some film star can go shopping," Hol and said. "Only with prostitutes .. ."

Thorne described the confrontations in the lounge and the V.I.P Suite, playing up the comedy in his exchanges with Hassan and Memet Zarif. He exaggerated the moments that had felt like smal victories and glossed over those that were a little more ambiguous.

He left out the fear altogether .. .

"Wil it do any good, d'you think?" Hol and said.

"Probably not." Thorne looked across at the baby. He watched for a few seconds, counted the breaths as her tiny back rose and fel . "But we can't let these fuckers just .. . swan about, you know? Most of the time, they'l run rings round us, I know that, but every so often we've got to give them a decent tap on the ankles, just to let them know we're stil there .. ."

Thorne lifted his eyes to the window, saw that it was rapidly darkening outside. "I thought it would do me some good," he said.

The baby began to stir, crying softly and kicking her pudgy legs in slow motion. Hol and moved quickly to her and squatted down next to the basket. Thorne watched as he pul ed the dummy from his daughter's mouth, gently pushed it back in, and repeated the action until she was peaceful again.

"I'm impressed," Thorne said.

Hol and returned to the sofa. He picked up his beer. "Can I ask you something?"

"As long as it doesn't involve nappies."

"There's a rumour going around .. ."

Thorne hadn't bothered taking his jacket off. It was warm in the flat, but he'd been unsure how long he would be staying. Suddenly, it felt as stifling as it had been standing next to that Jacuzzi a few hours earlier.

"Right.. ." Thorne said.

"Did you have a thing with Alison Kel y?"

A variety of images, hastily constructed denials and straightforward lies flashed through Thorne's head in the few seconds before he spoke.

Where had the rumour come from? It didn't real y matter. There was only a headache to be gained from worrying about it, or trying to work it out.. .

Thorne didn't want to deceive Dave Hol and. He didn't want to look him in the face and make shit up. In the end, though, he chose to tel the truth because he couldn't be arsed to lie, as much as anything else. "I slept with her, yes."

Hol and's expression rapidly changed from shock to amusement. Then it became something different, something ugly, and that was when Thorne decided to tel him everything else. He wouldn't stand for Hol and sitting there looking impressed.

When Thorne had finished the story, when the words had moved from the simple repetition of things said over a pub table to those that best described Bil y Ryan's body, bleeding on a kitchen floor, they sat and watched Chloe Hol and sleep for a minute or two.

Hol and drained his can, then squeezed it very slowly out of shape. "Are we just talking here? This is off duty, right?"

"If you mean "Can we forget about rank?" then yes."

"Right, that's what I mean .. ."

The sick feeling that came with thinking he shouldn't have said anything was, for Thorne, becoming horribly familiar. "Don't forget that it's only temporary, though, or that I can get pissed off very quickly, al right?" He was smiling as he spoke, but hoped that the seriousness beneath was clear enough. He knew that Hol and thought he was every bit as much of a fucking idiot as Carol Chamberlain had, but he didn't want to hear it again .. .

Hol and weighed it up and did what Thorne had repeatedly failed to do. He kept his mouth shut.

Thorne spent most of the drive back from the Elephant and Castle thinking about Alison Kel y. Bizarrely, it had not occurred to him until now, but he began to worry about whether she would say anything to anyone. He began to ask himself what might happen if she did .. .

If she were to mention to her solicitor the conversation with a certain detective inspector, they would certainly recommend that she go public with the information. After al , it could only strengthen a diminished-responsibility plea. Wasn't it reasonable to conclude that the balance of a person's mind might be disturbed after they'd just been told that their ex-husband had tried to have them burned to death when they were fourteen years old? That he'd been responsible for setting fire to her best friend? Wouldn't that make most people go ever so slightly round the twist?

Mutterings from the public gal ery and nodding heads among the jury .. .

Why on earth should the accused have believed such an outlandish tale?

Wel , Your Honour, she was told it by one of the police officers who was investigating her ex-husband. Told it, as a matter of fact, in that very police officer's bed .. .

Gasps al around the courtroom .. .

In reality, Thorne had no idea what would happen to him were the truth to get out. He certainly felt in his gut that there would be some form of action taken against him, that he should probably resign before that could happen. Another part of him was unsure exactly what rule he'd broken. Maybe there were guidelines in that manual he'd never bothered to read. He could hardly go to Russel Brigstocke and ask.

The more he thought about it, the simpler it became. Would she tel anyone? Would Alison Kel y, either alone or on the advice of others, sacrifice him in return for a lower sentence, or even a nice cushy number in a hospital?

He thought, as he drove across Waterloo Bridge, that she might wel .

Going around Russel Square, he decided that she probably wouldn't.

By the time Thorne pul ed up outside his flat, the only thing he knew for certain was that he would not blame her if she did.

Al thoughts of Alison Kel y flew from his mind as he approached his front door, then stopped dead with his keys in his hand. He stared at the scarred paintwork and pictured the face of Memet Zarif, the water running slowly through the heavy, dark brows. He stared at the gashes in the woodwork, at the ridges and clinging splinters picked out by the glow from the nearby streetlamp. He felt again the chil at his neck, and knew that Memet had made a decision. When wishes were not enough, action needed to be taken.