Buried-6 (16 page)

Memory came in beats and shocking flashes.

Explosions of clarity, like that moment in the horror film when the power goes out and the stupid girl lights a match and sees the face of the slasher: the door as he ran at it, and his heart like a hammer; the klaxon of his breath; a woman’s face at the window of a house moving quickly past him.

And the warm, wet memory of so much blood.

EIGHT

Thorne stood in his dressing-gown, drinking tea and staring out at the garden as it grew lighter. His eye had been caught by a beer can he’d forgotten to bring in from the other night; then he’d seen the movement at the end of the garden and stayed to watch.

The fox was worrying at something, digging at it in the corner behind one of Thorne’s recently purchased pots. Thorne wondered whether it might be a squirrel or a baby bird, then decided it was more likely to be an old burger carton or a discarded piece of KFC. Without turning round he cal ed softly for Elvis, and relaxed a little when he felt the wetness of the cat’s rheumy eye against his ankle.

Motionless, he stood with both hands wrapped around his mug, and tried not to think about what Russel Brigstocke might say, what he would be unable to
resist
saying, when Thorne saw him in an hour or so’s time. He tried to think about the boy and not the bodies, but he was unable to separate the two. They’d have results on the knife and the blood by now, and perhaps the bizarre idea that some had begun to whisper the night before at the crime scene would have solidified into a genuine theory. Thorne was more comfortable with a very different notion, but his own idea was equal y strange. And equal y hard to explain.

A car alarm began to scream somewhere at the front of the house and Thorne watched the fox look up and freeze. He saw drops run along the animal’s flank, the fur darkened and plastered to its bones by the drizzle. After a few seconds it turned back, unconcerned, to its meal.

Typical Londoner, Thorne thought.

He took a sip of tea, but it was almost cold, so he rinsed out the mug and wandered through to the bedroom to get dressed.

He ran into Brigstocke near the door of Central 3000, standing behind him in a short queue for the drinks machine. The chat was asinine enough: how it made the crappy old kettle at Becke House look a bit shit; how Spurs stil needed someone who could put the bal in the net. Then, when Brigstocke had got his drink, he turned and leaned against the machine, spoke as Thorne stepped forward to stab at the buttons.

‘Wel , you’ve got those bodies you wanted.’

There it was . . .

Thorne could say nothing, could
do
nothing but acknowledge the point with a look he hoped did not come across as sheepish.

They walked slowly towards the far side of the room, where two very pissed-off civilian staff were laying out many more chairs than Thorne had seen last time, when the team had gathered to watch the videotape of Luke Mul en.

‘How’s this going to work?’ Thorne asked.

‘I think that’s what we’re al here to try and work out.’

‘Why here, though? Why not Becke House?’

‘We tossed a coin.’ Brigstocke blew across the top of his coffee. ‘I lost.’

Thorne laughed, then realised he was the only one. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

‘The Kidnap Unit gets home advantage, and I get to make the speech.’

‘Wel , it’s nice to see that this is al being handled so professional y.’

‘That’s the point,’ Brigstocke said. ‘None of us has handled anything quite like this before.’

‘We’ve had FSS working their arses off overnight, and none of the blood found at the crime scene belongs to Luke Mul en. But we do know he was there. His fingerprints were al over the smal er of the two bedrooms, which is where he appears to have been held, and where we’re ninety-nine per cent certain the videotape was shot. Luke Mul en’s fingerprints have also been found on the knife which was used to kil Conrad Al en and his girlfriend, who, from the statement given by the car dealer in Wood Green, and from identification found on the premises, we believe to be one Amanda Tickel . Miss Tickel ’s mother is due at the mortuary any time now to identify the body formal y.’

Brigstocke moved a pace or two to the left and right of centre as he spoke, his voice rather than his body language holding the attention of the fifty-odd men and women in front of him. Though the thick specs and the quiffy hair often lent the DCI a vaguely comic aspect, he could recite the phone book and no one listening would shuffle their feet. Toss of a coin or no, he commanded the attention far better than his opposite number at SO7. Thorne guessed this was why Barry Hignett was doing the listening, standing off to one side and trying to look like he endorsed everything that was being said.

Brigstocke gestured towards a black-clad figure in the front row. ‘Doctor Hendricks is going to say a quick word about how the murders appear to have been carried out.’

Phil Hendricks stood up while Brigstocke stepped further across to stand next to Barry Hignett. Now there was movement, and a murmur or two, and a good deal of coughing as the changeover took place. Thorne took the opportunity to stretch his legs out, groaned quietly as the pain moved up and down in a wave from thigh to ankle. He was sitting in the same row as Hol and, Kitson and Stone, while Porter, Parsons and the rest of the Kidnap crew were a couple of rows in front. Thorne read nothing into it beyond the usual demarcation of territory, the polite, run-of-the-mil ‘fuck you’.

It was not quite seven o’clock in the morning, and, bar a nutcase or two, the rest of the huge room was empty beneath its coloured flags.

‘“Appear” is the right word,’ Hendricks said. ‘The postmortems aren’t due to be carried out until later on this morning, so this is based on a cursory examination of the bodies, their positions at the crime scene, the blood spatter, the depth of the wounds and so on.’

Hendricks looked straight at Thorne, but no one could have guessed they were friends. Thorne had seen the professional side of his friend kick in on cue too many times to be surprised by it, but he stil admired Hendricks’ ability – especial y given the hour – to turn it on like a tap. He was clear and concise, a real bonus when dealing with the average copper, and though he always looked the same, he even managed to soften those flat, Mancunian vowels when the situation demanded it.

‘I’m guessing that although Al en may not have died first,’ Hendricks said, ‘he was the first to be attacked. He was taken by surprise, his kil er probably coming at him from behind and reaching round to slash his throat.’ Hendricks raised his arms to demonstrate, his right hand slicing through the air viciously. ‘He might have taken a good few minutes to bleed to death, but from the moment he was attacked, he was out of the game. He’d’ve gone down and stayed there.’

‘How tal would the attacker have been?’ Hignett asked.

‘I can’t be exact . . .’

‘Be
in
exact.’

‘From the angle at which the blade passed through the windpipe, I’d say he’d be about the same size as Al en. Around six feet.’

Hignett looked towards his team.

‘Luke is five feet ten,’ Porter said.

Hendricks glanced towards Brigstocke, got the nod to carry on. ‘The woman died from a very different series of stab wounds,’ he said. ‘There are defence cuts on her arms and a far more haphazard pattern to the half a dozen or more wounds around her neck and chest. I’d say she was overpowered. I think she saw what happened to Al en, put up a fight and was just not strong enough.’ He looked to where Hignett was standing, anticipating the next question. ‘She wasn’t a weakling; not for your average junkie, at any rate. There was decent muscle definition . . .’

‘Luke Mul en does a lot of sport at school,’ Hignett said. ‘I think we can assume he would be strong enough to overpower a woman, knife or no knife.’

Thorne had heard enough. ‘Can we?’ He clenched his jaw, but stil felt the blood come to his face as heads turned towards him. ‘Everyone does sport at that school, but it doesn’t mean the kid was particularly sporty . . . or strong. He’d had an argument with his father the morning he was snatched because he
hadn’t
got into the rugby team.’

‘We’re just outlining possibilities,’ Hignett said. ‘If this were an explanation of events that we could possibly eliminate, we would.’ He pointed at Hendricks, who seemed unsure whether he should sit down again. ‘None of these are answers I want to hear, trust me.’

‘Fair enough.’ Thorne was trying hard to sound conciliatory. ‘It just sounds like minds are being made up.’

Hignett nodded, but there was a nasty edge creeping into his voice. ‘This unit’s never had a case like this. We’ve had plenty of kidnaps turn into murders.
Plenty
. But in every case, the hostage has been the victim. It’s not usual y the kidnappers that wind up dead, so I hope you’l forgive us at this stage for considering al the options.’

‘But you’re
not
considering al the options—’

‘You’re the one who seems to have a closed mind on this one. You certainly don’t appear to care too much about the evidence.’

Thorne could feel the eyes on him. Brigstocke’s and Porter’s. ‘Yes, I do care. I’m not denying the fingerprints and al the rest of it, but I’m also wondering why the door to the flat was locked. Why Luke Mul en should suddenly decide to kil his kidnappers, then run off into the night, taking great care to lock the door behind him.’

‘We’re looking at that.’

‘But most of al , I’m wondering where he is. Why he hasn’t got in touch with us or with his family.’

An SO7 man, two rows ahead, piped up. ‘Perhaps because he’s just kil ed two people and he’s scared to come forward.’

Porter cleared her throat. ‘Or because he
can’t
come forward.’

Thorne felt sure that Hignett was the type who would have known exactly how to handle things were he speaking to his own team. As it was, he seemed a little unsure about how to deal with such an unfamiliar situation and looked to Brigstocke, as if they might smooth out the rough edges between them.

Thorne took it as a hopeful sign.

Brigstocke stepped forward again, ushering Phil Hendricks back to his seat as he did so, and making sure Thorne was given a good, hard look before he opened his mouth.

Before he tried to move things forward. ‘Like DCI Hignett said, this is a strange one for al of us. So it’s going to be a case of suck it and see, and I’m sure we’l make mistakes. As to the direction we move in, we’l react to the evidence, same as we always do. With that in mind, we wil have to look at the possibility that, for whatever reason, Luke Mul en kil ed his kidnappers. But we’l look just as hard at a scenario involving a third party, as yet unknown, who murdered Al en and Tickel , took Luke and is now holding him at another location.’ He looked over at the SO7 man, who seemed to approve and was keen to press on.

‘Right, practicalities,’ Hignett said. He addressed his own officers. ‘Good news for those of you who live a bit further north, shitty for the rest of us, but we’l be working mainly out of Becke House, up at the Peel Centre.’ That got contrasting reactions, from the two sides of the room. Hignett held up his hands. ‘It makes sense, I’m afraid. They’re geared up for a major murder enquiry and, for what it’s worth, Colindale’s a damn sight closer to the Mul en house. Some of you wil stil be working from here, but I want to avoid a stupid amount of toing and froing. You can spend half a day getting across town and we haven’t got the time.’ He turned to the area of the room in which Thorne was sitting; sarcastic but conceding a possibility at least. ‘
Luke Mullen
may not have the time.’

‘We need to get this going,’ Brigstocke said. ‘That means we share information and pool resources, and I see no good reason why it shouldn’t work out. We can afford to move in a couple of different directions if we choose, because ultimately they’re bound to converge.’

Now it was Brigstocke’s turn to direct a comment, but Thorne saw it coming and looked down before the DCI had the chance to catch his eye. He stared at his shoes through the rest of it.

‘Because we’re al agreed on one thing,’ Brigstocke said: ‘if we can find whoever kil ed those two up in that flat, one way or another we’l find Luke Mul en.’

‘Wel that was fun,’ Kitson said. Thorne and several others from the Murder Squad contingent had drifted towards the exit. Despite the somewhat fraught nature of the previous half hour, Thorne was in good spirits. He was pleased to see the likes of Kitson and Karim, happy that they would be working together again, albeit on an operation that no one had real y thought through properly.

Thorne and Kitson lingered near the lifts.

‘Define “fun”,’ Thorne said.

‘OK. Relative to trapping your tits in a mangle.’ Kitson smirked, but the lightness didn’t remain on her face for long. Thorne thought she looked tired, and even further out of sorts than when he’d run into her at Becke House a few days earlier.

‘How’s this new lead on the Latif murder shaping up?’ He asked.

‘Early days . . .’

It seemed to Thorne as though she was searching his face for signs that he was convinced, but seeing none.

‘I fucked up,’ she said.

‘How?’

She took a few steps away from the lifts, and Thorne fol owed her. ‘Ever since Hol and came to me with this, I’d been thinking how strange it was that Farrel hadn’t been looked at before. The E-fit that Amin Latif’s friend came up with at the time isn’t exactly a portrait – the hair’s different for a kick-off – but it’s very bloody close, you know? As close as I’ve ever seen. You look at this kid, Tom, and if you’ve got a good picture of that E-fit in your head, there’s no question it’s him.’

‘Right.’ Thorne had seen the picture, of course, but he hadn’t been near to the case. It was one of those that the team had picked up while he was stil working on the rough-sleeper murders.

‘So I kept asking myself, “If it’s so bloody obvious, why did no one cal up and suggest we should be interested in Adrian Farrel ?” That picture was in the
Standard
, it went out on
Crimewatch
. . .’