Buried-6 (39 page)

‘How did it go with the brother and his wife?’

It took no more than the sigh and the traffic noise, a second or two of the pause before she began to answer, for Thorne to realise that he’d asked cleverer questions.

TWENTY-ONE

A makeshift stage had been set up in his old man’s front room.

Sitting on the solitary chair, Thorne could hear the voices from behind the hastily rigged-up curtain, as his father and his father’s friend Victor got themselves ready. Thorne glanced over at his mum’s old clock on the mantelpiece. He needed to get back to work and didn’t real y have time for this.

‘Are you going to be much longer?’

His father yel ed back from behind the curtain, ‘Keep your fucking wig on!’

Thorne froze as he saw the smoke curling underneath the thick, black material. He got up and ran for the curtain, but found himself unable to reach it. He clawed at fresh air and shouted to his father on the other side, screaming at him to get out.

‘Relax,’ his father said. ‘Sit down. We’l be ready in a minute.’

‘There’s smoke . . .’

‘No, there fucking isn’t.’

‘Stop swearing.’

‘I can’t fucking help it.’

The curtain rose and Thorne fel back in his chair as his father and Victor stepped forward through waist-high dry ice.

Jim Thorne grinned and winked. ‘Told you it wasn’t smoke, you big cock!’

The show itself wasn’t bad.

Victor walked across to a piano and started to play. Thorne’s father began to sing, but the cheesy rendition of ‘Memories’ fel apart when he forgot the words almost straight away, mugging furiously as he gave it up as a waste of time. Then they went into the patter . . .

‘Do you know they’ve spent more money on developing Viagra than they have on research into Alzheimer’s?’

‘That’s terrible,’ Victor said.

‘You’re tel ing me. I’m walking around with a permanent stiffy and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do with it!’

Then more of the same. Al the usual jokes, reeled off one after the other, with Victor playing straight man and cheerily feeding the set-ups to his old friend. Stuff from Thorne’s father about how Alzheimer’s wasn’t
all
bad: how at least he never had to watch repeats on TV, and how he could hide his own Easter eggs, and how he was always meeting new friends.

‘As long as you don’t forget your old ones,’ Victor said.

‘Of course not.’ Beat. Look. ‘Who are you again?’

Thorne enjoyed every minute of it, thril ed to see his father so happy. He forgot about the time and about the work he should be doing as those expressions of loss and confusion he had always dreaded seeing were transformed into something comical, as his father stared out at him in
mock
-bewilderment, his eyes bright.

Thorne laughed, and applauded another badly timed gag. The noise of his clapping faded on cue as his father turned to Victor and stage-whispered from the side of his mouth: ‘I’m kil ing ’em.’

‘You’re on fire, Jim.’

‘Too bloody true I am!’

Thorne whistled as the old man turned, revealing the elaborate and colourful flame design that had been embroidered on to the back of his jacket. He stamped his feet as Jim Thorne began to dance, as he moved his hips and rol ed his shoulders, so the flames appeared to be climbing slowly up his back.

‘Dad . . .’

His father turned to look at him. ‘Don’t panic, Son. It’s not what it looks like.’

But, suddenly, Thorne knew that the flames were real; that they were burning through his father’s polyester suit and eating away at the flesh beneath.

He could smel exactly how real it was.

He reached across to slam down the large red button by the side of his chair and a bel began to ring; deafeningly loud, but fading, just as his applause had done, each time his father said something.

‘That is
so
rude.’

‘What is?’ Victor asked.

‘Fancy not turning off your mobile phone during a show!’

Thorne’s hands were over his ears. He couldn’t hear himself screaming at his father to shut up and get out, or begging Victor for help.

‘Bloody funny-sounding ice-cream van,’ Jim Thorne said.

‘It’s a fire alarm, you stupid old bastard.’

‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’

‘We need to leave now. It’s a fire alarm.’

His father’s smile was visible in flashes through the crown of flames. The mischief in his voice was clearly audible above the spatter, and the crackle of burning hair.

‘Is it, Tom? Are you sure?’

Thorne lifted his head and reached for the phone, wiped away the string of drool that hung between his cheek and the desktop.

‘Were you
asleep?
’

‘No . . .’

‘You’re such a shit liar,’ Hendricks said. He recognised something in Thorne’s tone, or in the silence. ‘Same dream?’

Thorne sat up straight, then rose slowly to his feet. ‘More or less,’ he said. He groaned, rol ing his head around. His back was complaining and he felt as if someone had been standing on his neck.

‘I wish
I
had time to take naps,’ Hendricks said.

‘It’s been a very long day.’

‘For you and me both, mate.’

‘Yeah, sorry. I almost forgot you were there this morning.’

‘Trust me, I’d rather not have been. There’s times I wish I’d never gone into medicine. When I think I should have listened to my parents and studied hard to be a bal erina, like they wanted.’

Spoken in Hendricks’ flat, Mancunian accent, such comments rarely failed to improve Thorne’s mood. The dream was already fading, though the
smell
was stil strong enough . . .

‘No surprises on the PM?’

‘None at al in terms of cause of death. I found a large tumour in Kathleen Bristow’s stomach, though. I’ve no idea if she even knew about it.’

The woman was dead, so there was no real reason for Thorne to find this as depressing as he did.

‘What time d’you think you might be getting away?’ Hendricks asked.

Thorne looked at his watch. It was nearly half past seven. He’d slept for around half an hour, but it had been light outside when he’d closed his eyes and now it was starting to get dark. He’d check with Brigstocke, but bearing in mind he’d racked up back-to-back eighteen-hour shifts, he didn’t think there’d be much objection to him heading off. ‘I’ve got to shoot up to Arkley, but that shouldn’t take too long. Home by nine-thirty, ten o’clock, I would have thought.’

‘Fancy a late one in the Prince? Couple of games of pool?’

Thorne stil didn’t know if he’d be seeing Porter later, but he reckoned Hendricks wouldn’t mind being stood up if it came to it. ‘Yeah, why not? I won’t sleep much anyway . . .’

‘As long as you don’t use the bad back as an excuse when I thrash you. Fiver a frame?’

The door opened, and Yvonne Kitson marched across to her desk with a face that said she was an inch from chucking it al in. She dropped her bag, switched on the light, then walked over and leaned against the wal . She looked like she wanted to talk; like she wanted Thorne to know about it.

‘I’d better go, Phil. I’l cal when I’m nearly home.’

‘Right. See you later.’

‘Everything OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m great,’ Hendricks said.

As a liar, he was no better than Thorne.

‘You’re getting far too worked up about this whole case, because you think you fucked it up last time,’ Thorne said as he replaced the receiver.

‘Wrong,’ Kitson said.

‘Which bit?’

‘I
know
I fucked it up last time.’

Kitson was wired; pacing the smal office as though she couldn’t decide whether she’d prefer a shoulder to cry on or a face to punch.

‘You’l get the other two,’ Thorne said. ‘You
will
. If Farrel won’t cough, you’l just have to do it the hard way, that’s al .’

She stopped, looked hard at him, as though he hadn’t heard a word. ‘I real y
want
these two, Tom. I know Farrel kil ed him, but the others just stood there and watched him do it. The DPS are tel ing me they can stick al three of the fuckers in the dock for murder. It might get knocked down to GBH in court, but we can have a bloody good try.’

‘So bring in Farrel ’s mates, Nelson and Herbert, like you told him you would. It’s probably them anyway.’

‘I’ve had another idea,’ Kitson said.

‘If it’s early retirement, I might join you.’

‘I fancy stopping the clock, bailing Farrel to return tomorrow. We could get some surveil ance organised and see if he gets in touch with anybody. He just might contact the other two to let them know he hasn’t said anything.’

Thorne thought it sounded like a reasonable enough idea and told her so. Then he repeated himself, as he wasn’t sure she’d believed him the first time. ‘You’ve done a good job on this, Yvonne.’

‘I went round to see Amin Latif’s parents,’ she said, ‘to tel them about Farrel .’

‘I bet that felt good.’

‘I didn’t tel them how we found him.’ Shame and resignation passed across her face in quick succession. ‘That we should have found him six months ago. I know it’l come out and we’l have to deal with it then, but sitting there with Mrs Latif in her living room, I didn’t want to spoil that moment. For them, I mean. Real y, for
them
.’

Thorne just nodded, and straightened one or two things on his desk.

‘I’d better go and talk to Brigstocke about setting up the surveil ance.’ She started towards the door. ‘Getting the bail paperwork together . . .’

After Kitson had gone, Thorne watched as rain fel through the darkness. He was grateful for a minute or two alone; for the chance to let what was left of his father’s performance rol around in his head for a while.

Don’t panic, Son. It’s not what it looks like.

Smoke that wasn’t smoke, and a fire alarm that was real y a telephone.

Don’t jump to conclusions.

He walked to the doorway of his office, from where he could see Kitson talking to Karim and Stone in the Major Incident Room. As he watched, an idea sparked and flared, took hold as quickly as flames on polyester.

His father’s face was smothered in red and gold as Thorne stepped out into the corridor.

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say how she died, sir.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit ridiculous?’ Lardner asked. ‘You cal to tel me a woman’s been murdered, but then I have to sit here wondering if she was shot, stabbed or drowned in the bath.’

‘It’s probably a
bit
ridiculous, yeah,’ Hol and said. ‘But that is the procedure, so . . .’

‘She was a nice enough woman, as far as I can remember. Fond of sticking her nose in a bit, but I suppose that went with her job. Like journalists drinking . . . or coppers and probation officers being cynical.’

Hol and sipped his tea and grunted.

‘Right, wel , not a lot else to say, I suppose.’

‘We were just concerned that you should know about Mrs Bristow’s death.’

‘Should
I
be?’

‘Sorry?’

‘
Concerned
. Are we being targeted, do you think?’ Lardner barked a humourless laugh. ‘Perhaps Grant Freestone’s come back out of hiding and is going to slaughter us al one by one.’

‘I don’t think you need to be concerned about
that
. . .’

With lunch having been just as piss-poor as Kitson had promised it would be, Wilson had scuttled away to dinner as soon as he was informed that Farrel was being bailed, having agreed to meet his client back at the station the fol owing day.

Kitson stood with Farrel in front of the platform as the custody skipper took him through the release procedure. The sergeant was a wily old sod, and he’d looked sideways at Kitson when she’d presented herself and Farrel , being wel aware that she’d been ready to charge the boy a few hours earlier. He knew she was up to something, but knew enough to keep it to himself.

After first checking the next day’s ‘Bailed to Return’ schedule, Farrel was informed that bail had been authorised conditional upon his return at four o’clock the next afternoon. That he was being released into the custody of his parents.

Farrel seemed to have recovered himself, to have put what happened in the interview room behind him. He just nodded each time he was asked if he understood what was being said to him. Then he asked again when they were going to return his three-figure Nikes.

‘You should shut your mouth before we change our minds,’ the custody sergeant said.

Farrel signed for the return of the property that
was
handed back to him. He made a great deal of slipping on his designer watch and checking there was nothing missing from his wal et. Then he signed to confirm that he’d been shown his custody record and that it was complete and accurate. He signed the release form and the declaration that he ful y intended to return at the specified time.

‘I presume you’l be keeping an eye on me,’ Farrel said.

Kitson said nothing, just glanced up from her paperwork.

‘You must think I’m stupid.’

‘I know you’re not,’ Kitson said.

‘You know
nothing
about me.’ Farrel turned his face from hers, concentrated on finishing the procedure.

‘These copies are for you to keep.’

Farrel took a sheaf of papers from the custody sergeant.

‘Shal we phone your mum and dad? Get them to come and fetch you?’

Farrel looked away and shook his head, snorted like it was a ridiculous idea.

‘Right, I’l cal you a cab. Be a couple of minutes. If you haven’t got enough cash, they can take it from your parents at the other end. Wil that be a problem?’

‘I think they’l manage . . .’

As the sergeant picked up the phone, Kitson thanked him for his help. He nodded, a look on his face like he hoped she knew what she was doing. Kitson escorted Farrel out of the custody suite, and led him through the station towards the main entrance.

She briefed the officer on the front desk before she left Farrel to wait for his taxi. She swiped her pass and yanked open the door to go back in. Then she turned back to Farrel .

‘You’re sure there isn’t anything you’d like to tel me before you leave?’