Bloodline-9 (20 page)

‘Bright futures’, that’s what it said in the paper. The newsagent kept stabbing at the Sun or the Mirror or whatever it was and shaking his head at how sad it was. How unfair. Al that’s been taken away from them, he said.

Stolen.

Like years spent in prison for something that wasn’t your fault. Like a normal life. Like the right to walk around without being spat at or beaten up and not spending twenty hours a day trying to deal with the headaches, going quietly mental in your cel .

In the end I just nodded and took my cigarettes and walked out of there. Thinking that he had no bloody idea what ‘fair’ was. Thinking about my part in other people’s futures, bright or otherwise.

Thinking al sorts of lives can be stolen.

EIGHTEEN

Thorne had arranged to meet Carol Chamberlain at the Starbucks near Oxford Circus, having taken care to specify which of the umpteen branches in the area he meant. Thanks to the Northern Line, he was fifteen minutes late, and as Chamberlain had already finished her coffee by the time he arrived, they decided to walk. It was a bright, dry Saturday morning and Oxford Street was teeming. Four days into October and many people were obviously keen to get their Christmas shopping done nice and early. The shops were already tinsel ed-up and piled high with tat, the predictable music spil ing out of the doorways.

Slade, Wizzard, the Pogues. Cliff bloody Richard.

‘It’s utterly ridiculous,’ Chamberlain said.

‘Don’t get me started,’ Thorne said.

Thorne had first met Carol Chamberlain four years previously, when her intervention in an inquiry that had been going backwards had provided the much-needed breakthrough. She had been out of the Force five years by then but working for the Area Major Review Unit, a new team that was utilising the invaluable know-how and experience of retired officers to take a fresh look at cold cases. The Crinkly Squad, many had cal ed it, Thorne included, until he’d met Chamberlain. Decked out with a blue rinse and furry slippers and pul ing a tartan shopping trol ey through the streets of Worthing, where she lived, she might have looked harmless, but he had seen her work. He had seen her extract information from a man half her age in a way that had sickened him. Sickened him almost as much as the fact that he had watched and said nothing, because even as he had smel ed the man’s flesh burning, he had known it needed to be done.

They had not spoken about the incident since.

Much had changed for both of them since a case that had taken its tol on each in different ways and had ultimately cost Thorne’s father his life. They did not speak about that, either.

Though it was always there, a shadow between them, they just got on with taking the piss, same as any other two coppers, despite the differences in age and experience.

Negotiating the crowds, Thorne talked her through the inquiry; the link between two series of murders fifteen years apart. She remembered the Garvey case very wel , she told him, having worked for a number of years with the SIO. She had been close enough to have watched a few of the early interviews.

‘He never said why he did it, did he?’ Chamberlain said. ‘Like Shipman. Never gave any reason for it. They’re always the worst.’

‘Maybe there wasn’t a reason. Maybe he just liked it.’

‘There’s usual y something, though, isn’t there? With most of them. The voice of God tel ing them to do it. A message from the devil in a Britney Spears song. Something.’

‘Wel , this one’s certainly got a motive,’ Thorne said. ‘Or thinks he has. He wants us to know
exactly
why he’s doing it.’

‘OK, forget what I said. They’re the worst.’

They carried on towards Tottenham Court Road, crossing Oxford Street at Chamberlain’s insistence so they could walk in the sunshine. He told her about the search for the three missing sons of Raymond Garvey’s original victims, and about the phone cal from Pavesh Kambar.

Thorne had done some checking and discovered that Nicholas Maier had written a book about the Garvey case that was published a year before Garvey’s death. He had picked up a copy of
Battered - The Raymond Garvey Killings
from his local Waterstone’s in Camden before catching the Tube. On first glance, it looked much the same as the ones he had bought online. The same pictures, the same semi-salacious blurb on the back of the jacket. He fished the book from his bag and showed it to Chamberlain.

‘When are you seeing him?’ she asked.

‘Monday,’ Thorne said. ‘He emailed me back from his “lecture tour” in America. He gets back tomorrow.’

Chamberlain pul ed a face.

‘I know. They teach this stuff in universities over there. Serial Kil ers 101, whatever. Said something in his email about it paying for his next holiday. Also said he’d be happy to meet me.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

Thorne laughed, knowing very wel what she meant. He was always suspicious of anyone who seemed overly pleased to see a police officer. It wasn’t his job to be popular.

‘I mean, I
know
you,’ Chamberlain said, ‘and even I’m not happy to see you.’

They crossed back over the road and cut down into Soho Square. Though it wasn’t exactly warm, there were plenty of people gathered on benches or sprawled on the grass with books. They squeezed on to a bench next to a cycle courier who was finishing a sandwich. He got up and left before he’d swal owed the last mouthful.

‘So, what do you need?’ Chamberlain asked.

‘We need to know where this bloke comes from. It’s looking very much like he’s Garvey’s son, so let’s start with trying to find out who his mother is. It doesn’t sound like she was in contact with Garvey.’

Chamberlain was stil holding the book. She lifted it up. ‘Why don’t you ask your new best friend?’

Thorne took it back. ‘I’ve skimmed through and there’s nothing about any son in there. I think Anthony Garvey made contact with him after his father had died.’

‘You think he wants Maier to write another book? Go into al this brain tumour stuff?’

‘I’l find out on Monday,’ Thorne said. ‘Meanwhile, you can start digging around, see what you can come up with. Al the descriptions put him at thirty-ish, so he was born fifteen years or so before Garvey started kil ing. You up for it?’

Chamberlain nodded. ‘Wel , this or the gardening? It’s a tough choice.’

‘AMRU not keeping you busy, then?’

‘They couldn’t afford me
and
the hypnotherapist.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The brass thought it would be a nice idea to try some regression therapy on a few witnesses, see what they could remember.’

‘Right. “I think I used to be Marie Antoinette”, al that.’

‘They reckon this bloke got some witness to come up with a number plate she’d forgotten. I don’t know . . .’

‘Jesus.’ Thorne never ceased to be amazed at what people could waste resources on in an effort to make a splash. ‘Things are rough when you get bumped off a case for Paul McKenna.’

Chamberlain smiled. For a while they sat in silence, watched the comings and goings. A skinny, rat-faced teenager was moving among the groups on the grass, asking for money, meeting each refusal with a glare. A chancer. He looked at Thorne, but showed no inclination to try his luck.

‘Someone who’s
definitely
not happy to see you,’ Chamberlain said.

She asked about the hunt for Andrew Dowd, Simon Walsh and Graham Fowler, and why they had not turned to the media for help. Thorne told her what Brigstocke had said about the emphasis being on catching their man, and Kitson’s theory that they were using Debbie Mitchel as bait.

‘Nothing surprises me,’ Chamberlain said. ‘It’s al about the result, right?’

‘They’l get one they real y don’t like if they’re not careful,’ Thorne said. He explained that they were doing their best to trace the missing men through conventional channels - credit cards, mobile-phone records, good old-fashioned donkey-work - and getting nowhere. ‘Dowd’s away trying to find himself, if his wife is to be believed. The other two are off the radar altogether. Homeless, maybe; drifting for sure. Al of them have got . . . problems.’

‘Sounds like they’ve al got one very big problem.’

Thorne nodded, watched the rat-faced kid arguing with a community support officer who was trying to move him on. ‘It’s not real y a shock, though, is it? That they’re al screwed up in one way or another.’

‘We al carry our pasts with us,’ Chamberlain said.

‘Yeah, wel , maybe that hypnotherapist’s on to something.’

‘Carry them around like bits of crap in our pockets.’ She sat very stil , patted the handbag on her lap. ‘We know that better than most, don’t we?’

Thorne didn’t look at her. The skinny teenager was wandering away now, shouting and waving his arms. The CPSO laughed, said something to one of the people lying on the grass.

‘How’s Jack?’ Thorne asked.

‘We had a cancer scare,’ Chamberlain said. ‘Looks like we’re OK, though.’ She glanced across at Thorne and spoke again, seeing that he was struggling for the right thing to say.

‘What about Louise? You know, I’m not convinced you haven’t been making her up.’

Chamberlain and Louise had never met. Thorne himself had not seen Chamberlain in over a year, although he made a point of trying to cal her as often as he could. He felt oddly guilty.

‘She’s busy,’ Thorne said. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Two coppers together. Always a big mistake.’

It suddenly struck Thorne that he had no idea what Chamberlain’s husband did; or used to do, before he retired. There was no way to ask without making it obvious. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said.

They sat for another minute or two and then, with a nod to each other, got up and moved through the square, walking out towards Greek Street and into the heart of Soho.

‘I’l send over al the stuff later,’ Thorne said. ‘And a copy of the original Garvey file.’

‘A nice bit of bedtime reading.’

‘What is it normal y, then, Catherine Cookson?’

She flashed Thorne a sarcastic grin, then slowed to stare through the window of an arty-looking jewel er’s. She leaned in close, trying to make out the prices on the labels, then turned to Thorne and said, ‘Thanks for this, by the way.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘I know you could have found someone closer to home.’

‘I couldn’t think of anyone better.’

‘I presume you mean that the nice way,’ she said.

‘Do you want me to walk you back?’

‘Don’t be daft.’

Chamberlain was staying at a smal hotel in Bloomsbury at which the Met maintained a constant block-booking of half a dozen rooms. It was used for visiting officers from other forces, relatives of victims who had nowhere else to stay, and occasional y a high-ranking officer who, for one reason or another, did not fancy going home.

‘Be nice staying in a hotel for a while,’ Chamberlain said.

‘Make the most of it,’ Thorne said. He felt himself redden slightly, remembering the last night he had spent in a hotel; the misunderstanding at the bar.

‘I’l get some sleep at least,’ Chamberlain said.

‘You never know, you might pul .’

‘Jack’s snoring’s been driving me batty.’

‘With a bit of luck there might be some Ovaltine in the mini-bar.’

‘Shut up.’

It was ‘winner stays on’ at the pool table in the upstairs room of the Grafton Arms, and it took the best part of an hour before Thorne and Hendricks got a game against each other. The table was being dominated by an oikish type in a rugby shirt, who beat both of them easily before losing to Hendricks by knocking in the black halfway through the frame. Hendricks beat the rugby player’s mate, then showed no mercy to a teenage Goth, who stared admiringly at the pathologist’s piercings and looked as though she didn’t know one end of a pool cue from the other.

‘You’re ruthless,’ Thorne said, as Hendricks fed in the coins.

‘I think she fancied me,’ Hendricks said. ‘It clearly put her off her game.’

‘Pool’s not the only thing she knows sod al about, then.’

‘Fiver on this, fair enough?’

Thorne fetched a couple more pints of Guinness from downstairs while Hendricks racked the bal s. The bar was rammed, even for a Saturday night, but it was only two minutes’ walk from Thorne’s flat and the familiarity was comforting. The Oak was a Job watering-hole, and, as such, would never be somewhere he could completely relax. It wasn’t as though anybody in the Grafton knew his name, and there were no wry philosophical types propping up the bar, but Thorne enjoyed the nod from the barman and his step towards the Guinness tap without having to be told.

‘I’m in the wrong job,’ Hendricks said, bending down to break. ‘A bloody lecture tour?’

Thorne had told him about the email from Nicholas Maier. ‘You teach, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, and what I make in a month wouldn’t pay for a weekend in Weston-Super-Mare.’

‘You do it for the love.’

Hendricks had knocked in a spot. He moved around the table, chalking his cue. ‘Maybe I should write this one up as an academic study: “Man kil s children of his father’s victims, the pathological implications then and now”, that kind of thing. I could get something like that published anywhere, I reckon. America,
definitely
.’

‘Go for it,’ Thorne said. He knew Hendricks didn’t mean it. He looked down at his friend’s heavily tattooed forearm as Hendricks lined up a shot and remembered it pressed across the throat of that insensitive CSI. ‘If you need someone to carry your bags on the lecture tour, you know . . .’

It was Thorne’s turn at the table. Hendricks took a drink, smiled across the room at the Goth girl, who was sitting in the corner with two friends. ‘The bloke’s book any good?’

Thorne had spent the afternoon reading
Battered
, with one ear on the radio’s footbal coverage. ‘Nothing that isn’t in any of the others, as far as I can make out. Nobody interviewed that hasn’t said their piece plenty of times before. Usual pictures: Garvey and his bloody rabbits. That’s what most of these books do, just rehash old material. Money for jam.’

‘Not going to trouble the Booker Prize judges, then?’