Buried-6 (36 page)

It was the F-word that did it; that caused the colour to rise to Hoolihan’s face. Though he pointedly refused to respond to what had been said, it was clear that Thorne would no longer be getting any favours from anyone at Homicide South.

After losing what was only a half-arsed staring contest, Hoolihan turned back to Brigstocke and Hignett. ‘It’s not like I’l be taking Freestone very far,’ he said. ‘We’l get him up in front of a magistrate within a day or two, so he’l be on remand somewhere, if you need to speak to him after that.’

There was some shouting once Hoolihan had left, but not too much. Hignett once again showed restraint in his decision not to gloat or say, ‘I told you so.’

There were more important things to be discussed.

‘We got a preliminary PM report from Phil Hendricks,’ Brigstocke said. He picked up a piece of paper from his desk, and read: ‘Asphyxia due to suffocation, obviously . . . three broken ribs . . . a broken nose. That’s from where he’s put his weight on the pil ow, Phil reckons . . .’

A second or two of looking at feet, and wal s, and a sky that couldn’t make its mind up.

‘You stil think he was after something?’ Hignett asked.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Thorne said. ‘Porter’s going to have a good look through those filing cabinets later. I think she’l be at the mortuary for a while yet.’

‘Whatever it was, he obviously wanted it badly.’ Brigstocke took a last look at the PM report. ‘Or else he’s just rattled.’

‘Not
too
rattled, I hope,’ Hignett said.

Thorne knew what Hignett was saying, the dreadful possibility it would be stupid to ignore. He noted that, yet again, the point had been made without any mention of the boy’s name.

The Major Incident Room seemed just a little busier than it had the day before. Conversations were less likely to go round the houses. People moved from desk to desk, from phone to fax machine, with greater urgency. It was not even twelve hours since Kathleen Bristow’s body had been discovered, but Thorne knew that unless those doing the chasing were quick enough, murder cases could be away and out of sight long before that. He exchanged quick words with Andy Stone and a couple of the Kidnap boys, then spent a few unwelcome, but necessary, minutes talking admin with DS Samir Karim, who was also office manager. Thorne liked Karim, an overweight, gregarious Asian with a shock of prematurely greying hair and a thick London accent. But the smile that was normal y hard to shift was not much in evidence this morning.

‘Everything’s fucked up,’ he said.

Thorne nodded, without real y needing to know exactly what Karim was talking about.

Dave Hol and seemed as focused as anyone, but up close his eyes betrayed a man who hadn’t slept the night before.

‘Pissholes in the snow,’ he said, ‘I know, but stil slightly bigger pissholes than yours.’

Thorne looked down at Hol and’s computer screen: a page from the Borough of Bromley website displaying various contact telephone numbers and email addresses.

‘There’s an out-of-hours contact service,’ Hol and said, ‘which is fine if a water main bursts or you see someone fly-tipping, but not much use for anything else. I’ve spoken to a couple of people at home, but I’m not getting anywhere. As far as any records Kathleen Bristow might have kept, I think we’l have to wait until tomorrow morning, talk to someone at social services who’s got access to the files. Even then, I’m not sure it’l be a five-minute job.’

‘Get hold of the other people who were on the panel with her,’ Thorne said. ‘Roper and the rest of them . . .’

Hol and left the website and quickly accessed the Crime Reporting Information System. CRIS was updated constantly, with every detail of the case to that point logged and catalogued for the entire team. He entered the case number, searched the files, then cal ed up the names and contact details of those on Grant Freestone’s MAPPA panel:
Roper, Warren, Lardner, Stringer, Bristow
.

Hol and tapped a finger against the screen. ‘I never managed to track Stringer down first time round.’

‘See what you can do,’ Thorne said.

‘Right. It’l be interesting to see how they react to the news about Kathleen Bristow. Maybe one of them can confirm she had the records.’

‘Roper thought she probably did,’ Thorne said. ‘But that’s not why I was suggesting it.’ He looked at the list on Hol and’s screen, the cursor blinking beneath the final name. ‘While we’re stil not sure exactly why Kathleen Bristow was kil ed, it can’t hurt to make sure each of the other people on that panel is stil walking around.’

Thorne had been in the backyard when they’d eventual y brought out the prisoner. He’d been leaning against the van that was waiting to take Freestone south, talking about a recent Spurs–Crystal Palace game to one of the DCs sent to fetch him.

Hoolihan had walked past Thorne without a word and climbed into an unmarked BMW, ready to fol ow the van down to Lewisham.

Freestone himself had been considerably keener to chat.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

‘It’s time to answer for Sarah Hanley, Grant.’

‘I didn’t kil her.’

‘Keep tel ing them that,’ Thorne said.

‘You’re a fucking genius . . .’

Freestone was cuffed, an officer on each side marching him purposeful y towards the open doors at the back of the van.

Thorne ambled after them. ‘I’l give your best to Tony Mul en.’

‘You should get him down here,’ Freestone said.

‘Can’t see any point now,’ Thorne said. ‘He’s got nothing to do with the Hanley case.’

‘I saw him.’

‘
What?
’ Thorne picked up his pace. ‘
When
did you see him?’

But Freestone was already being bundled into the back of the van, and pushed on to a bench between his two escorts. He turned to look at Thorne, but there was no time to register the expression before the doors were slammed shut. The Crystal Palace fan shrugged an apology and walked round to the driver’s side.

Thorne took a step back as the van started up. Parked alongside it, Hoolihan raced the BMW’s engine; impatient probably, but perhaps also hoping to send a fatal dose of carbon monoxide Thorne’s way.

As he walked back in through the cage, Thorne saw Danny Donovan loitering near the custody skipper’s platform. A uniformed PC was leading a young woman by the arm. As Thorne approached, he watched Donovan engage the woman in conversation, then hand her something just before she was led towards the cel s.

‘Stil here, Danny?’

‘Can’t seem to tear myself away.’

‘Someone else going to be looking after Freestone now, then? One of those people with qualifications?’ Thorne held out a hand. Waited until Donovan handed over one of the business cards he was cradling in his fist. ‘Touting for business? You cheeky fucker.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem for you is that you’ve run into me. And that
this
’ – he held up the thin, cheaply produced card – ‘real y pisses me off.’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Away you go . . .’

Thorne was already moving towards the exit, arms wide, shepherding Donovan in the direction of the metal doorway.

‘You want to get out of this game sharpish, Thorne.’ Donovan stepped backwards into the cage, half turned as if to leave. ‘It’s sending you a bit mental.’

Thorne approached Donovan fast, backed him against the side of the cage. ‘You real y should fuck off now,’ he said. ‘And next time you’re in here, if I so much as see you helping yourself to a teabag, I’l nick you for theft.’

Donovan waited for Thorne to step back. ‘Things carry on as they have been, you’l probably be desperate for any sort of result by then.’

When the ex-copper moved to walk past him, Thorne reached out both arms and pushed him hard against the wal . Donovan slammed into the metal, which gave a little, then bounced back, dropping the handful of business cards as he reached out to retain his balance.

There was a shout from inside the custody suite and Thorne yel ed back that everything was fine. Donovan squatted and tried to pick up the cards, but Thorne was quicker.

Breathing heavily, he slapped away the other man’s hand, grabbed as many cards as he could, and threw them, fluttering out into the backyard.

A pair of uniformed beat officers appeared at the doorway on their way into the station. They watched for a few seconds, then stepped around the two men scrabbling around on the floor.

Thorne’s heart was stil beating faster than normal when Kitson found him in one of the CID offices on the first floor.

‘Did you not get my message?’ she asked.

Thorne gulped down his tea. It wasn’t quite twelve yet, and he was wondering if it was too early to get some lunch. ‘Sorry, it’s been a pig of a morning.’

‘I heard.’

‘Actual y, the murder scene was a doddle,’ Thorne said. ‘There wasn’t any blood spil ed until we got back here.’

Kitson’s shoes were new. She kicked them off when she sat down next to Thorne. Began to rub at tender heels and toes through her tights. ‘Listen, I’ve got Adrian Farrel ’s phone records.’

‘Any help?’

‘Not yet. But there are plenty of numbers to check out, so we might get lucky. There was something, though. Remember I said I’d look for any connection to Luke Mul en . . .?’

‘What have you got?’

‘There was nothing on Farrel ’s mobile, but when I checked the landline the Mul en number came up. More than once.’

Thorne’s heartbeat accelerated even more. ‘Why not the mobile? I thought these kids were never off their bloody phones, sending text messages or whatever.’

‘He’s got a pay-as-you-go, right? But he’s also got a phone in his bedroom. I reckon he was just trying to save money. He can use the landline from his room and make private cal s whenever he likes on Mum and Dad’s bil .’

‘When you say
more than once
. . .?’

‘Half a dozen cal s in the three weeks before Luke was taken. More before that.’

Thorne sat back, trying to take in what Kitson was saying. ‘When Dave talked to the kids at the school, Farrel told him he hardly knew Luke Mul en. He knew he’d gone missing, but that was about it, right?’

‘Right, but I don’t have to tel you that he’s a very good liar.’

‘Hang on. Are we sure this was
Adrian
Farrel making the cal s? Maybe Mrs Farrel and Luke Mul en’s mum both work on the PTA committee or something.’

Kitson shook her head. ‘I checked with his mother, and the parents hardly know each other. A few words over coffee at a school concert, nods at the school gates, no more than that.’

‘OK . . .’

Thorne’s mind, dul ed by fatigue and hunger, tossed around possibilities like a tumble dryer on its last legs. Could Luke Mul en’s kidnapping be connected with Farrel , or some of Farrel ’s friends? Was he taken because of something he knew about them? If that were the case, why was the video sent to Luke’s parents? And what the hel could any of it have to do with the murder of Kathleen Bristow?

‘These are not quick cal s either, Tom,’ Kitson said. ‘Ten, fifteen minutes.’

‘What does Farrel say?’

‘I haven’t gone at him with any of this yet. I wondered if you fancied coming into the bin with me and having a bash yourself.’

Thorne grunted a yes as ideas continued to tumble and tangle.

‘One more thing.’ Kitson said it as though it were an afterthought, an irrelevance. ‘When you’re talking to Farrel , if you could squeeze out the names of the other two who helped him kil Amin Latif, there’s half a shandy in it for you.’

They enjoyed the moment, and sat there, and took a minute. Rubbing at sore feet and cradling paper cups of tea, like any other pair of workers on a break. Catching their breaths.

Thorne sensed that it might be their last chance to do so for a while. There had been times, on previous cases, when it had felt as if he were on a col ision course with whoever he was trying to catch. As though the speed had increased until in the end it had just been a question of where the crash was going to happen.

This case felt different.

There was the same inevitability, like something rising from the guts into the mouth, the same sense that the end was coming. But it wasn’t a question of getting closer, or even of something gaining on
them
.

Thorne simply felt like they were running out of time.

He hadn’t meant to hurt the boy.

That didn’t excuse the fact that he had; that he’d known his words were like slaps, like punches. But he genuinely hadn’t wanted to. Everything was more complicated than that, of course;
and
more simple. It was someone else he wanted to hurt. Someone who would see how much a child they loved had suffered and would feel that pain a thousandfold.

That would make them see sense, wouldn’t it? Would make them look at things a little differently.

It had been such a straightforward idea, but from the moment he’d started to put it into pracice he’d felt it going away from him. Now he honestly didn’t know if things were going to work out as they’d been supposed to. It had al got out of control.
He
was out of control.

But at least he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t recognise what was happening. He was stil aware. He’d seen it too many times himself: car accidents on two legs who had ruined lives – their own and those of everyone around them; fuck-ups and hard-luck merchants whose tears were real enough, whose anguish could suck the air out of a room, but who couldn’t seem to grasp that it was not an excuse.

I didn’t mean to hurt anyone
. . .

He knew very wel that he’d done terrible things. That good intentions counted for nothing with blood on his hands and the noise from the cel ar. And that, although he had no idea
how
, it
would
end.

There were bel s ringing across the field.

He sat and thought about engineering some sort of resolution himself. If he just opened the door and stood back, things would sort themselves out quickly enough. The boy would run towards the sound of the bel s, towards a place where there was a phone, and it would al be over.