Death Message (21 page)

'Nothing's changed.'

'Try telling that to Mrs Skinner.'

'Things don't just stop, that's all I'm saying.'

'"T"s to cross and "i"s to dot, right?'

'Little things like whether Mrs Skinner gets her husband's police pension if it turns out there would have been sufficient evidence to press charges against him.'

Thorne almost laughed for the first time in a day or more. 'Is that what this is all about?'

'I'm just making a point. This has got to run its course.'

'Look, I know you lot love all this cloak-and-dagger shit,' Thorne said. 'But the fact that Skinner may not have been completely kosher has probably got quite a lot to do with why he's dead. Why several people are dead. So it's not like we can keep this a secret. I've already spoken to my DCI about it. It's part of our case.'

Nunn looked up at the information board; thinking about it. 'As long as you really try to keep out of our way,' he said.

They didn't have to wait long for a southbound train, and Thorne was grateful. Standing on the platform was conducive to nothing more than small talk and he was fresh out of it. The train was more or less empty: they had a carriage to themselves. It was surprisingly hot once the doors had shut and they were moving, and Nunn stood to take off his coat; folded it across his knees.

'Is that really true?' Thorne asked. 'That nothing's changed?' He was desperate to know exactly what Nunn had meant. Was the status of the investigation still active for such prosaic reasons as Nunn had suggested, or was there something else going on? Were they actively pursuing a second officer?

'Nothing substantial,' Nunn said.

'Well, thanks for sorting that one out for me.' Thorne wondered if DPS recruits did courses in remaining amicably non-committal. If they shared classroom space with politicians and certain women he'd been involved with. 'Good result, or bad?' he asked.

'What?'

'Skinner being murdered.'

'Hang on a minute...'

'I'm serious. We both know Skinner was as bent as a nine-bob note, even though nobody's come out and said it, so what do the powers-that-be make of his getting knocked off? Are they happy enough to be rid of a corrupt officer without having to go to the trouble of actually doing it themselves? Saves embarrassment, I would have thought.'

'Nobody's
embarrassed.'

'And what about you? You've lost the chance to nick him. Don't you feel a bit... robbed?'

'More than a bit,' Nunn said, enjoying how much his answer took Thorne aback. 'That's a shock, right? Don't you think that getting shot of a seriously corrupt officer is every bit as rewarding as catching a killer, or a gang of armed robbers, or nicking a drug dealer? I've done all those things, and I can promise you that it is. Every bit.'

Thorne could only shrug, but he wasn't sure he believed Nunn. At least, he wasn't certain
he
would feel the same way; would get the same satisfaction from nabbing a bent copper as he would from catching a murderer.

Until he remembered they could be one and the same thing.

There wasn't too much conversation from then on. People joined the train at Brent Cross and Golders Green, and it was full by the time they pulled away from Hampstead. Thorne and Nunn had been raising their voices to be heard above the noise of the train, but with passengers sitting around and standing above them, lurching as the train rocked and juddered, neither man was very keen to talk any more.

'This is me,' Thorne said as the train approached Camden.

Nunn had been sitting on the flap of Thorne's jacket, shifted slightly to let him stand up. 'You know where I am if anything else comes up.'

'Right. Same here, for what it's worth.'

Nunn looked at his watch. 'I don't suppose you fancy a quick drink?'

The invitation seemed genuine enough and it took Thorne completely by surprise. He looked at his own watch while he thought about what to say, but Nunn's expression as he'd asked the question had revealed a thumbnail snap of the man that he hadn't expected to see. That was sad, for all manner of reasons.

Copper. Lives alone. Doesn't mix too well with others...

'Sounds like a great idea,' Thorne said. 'But my girlfriend's cooking me dinner...'

The Bengal Lancer's home delivery was as reliable as always, and the two of them made short work of rogan gosht and chicken tikka, with mutter paneer and a sag bhaji, pilau rice and nan bread. Thorne fetched two more bottles of Kingfisher from the fridge, then carried the plates out to the kitchen.

He shouted through to the living room: 'I meant to say, about my mobile...'

Louise called back, asked him to say it again. His words had been lost in noise from the TV as she flicked through the channels.

Thorne came to the doorway and Louise turned down the volume. 'Just about my mobile,' he said. 'It's nothing important, but you need to call me on the prepay phone from now on.'

'I thought you had your old Nokia back.'

'I do, but that line is being...
monitored
. You know, in case Brooks sends another message, in case he decides to call, whatever. So best if you use the prepay. You've got the number, right?'

She told him that she had. He said he could go to prison for what he'd just told her. She promised to visit.

'You think he might, then? Get in touch again?'

'God knows.'

'I presume they've set up a trace on it, right? Silly fucker rings, you've got him. Simple as that.'

'Yeah, be nice,' Thorne said. He drifted back into the kitchen and Louise turned the sound back up on the TV. He finished loading the dishwasher then leaned back against the draining board. From where he was standing he could see her in the living room. She had found some cable channel showing eighties music videos and began humming along with an old Depeche Mode track.

Thorne glanced over at his leather jacket, hung across the back of a kitchen chair. His Nokia was in one of the inside pockets; the prepay phone was in the other. He'd programmed distinctive ringtones into each, so there would be no confusion.

He polished off his beer and started an argument with himself.

He'd been straight with Louise about the phone being monitored when she didn't strictly need to know, hadn't he? So, maybe that excused his not telling her about the message he'd sent to Marcus Brooks. Or went some way towards excusing it, at least. Wasn't she better off not knowing about it? Not being involved? Not getting dragged through the steaming trail of shit he was busy creating?

He knew she wouldn't buy that for a minute.

It came from the same well-worn bag of tricks as, 'I didn't tell you I was sleeping with someone else because I knew you'd be upset, and I didn't want to hurt you'. Thorne knew, deep down, that it had more to do with cowardice than it did with compassion. That the lie by omission was usually worse in the long run than the terrible truth.

He still wasn't going to tell her, though. Not if he could avoid it...

When Thorne went back into the living room, they made themselves comfortable. They sat together on the floor in front of the sofa; broke up the last of the poppadoms and watched Yvonne Kitson do her turn on
Crimewatch.

In a five-minute round-up slot at the end of the programme, Kitson fronted an appeal for more information about the murder of Deniz Sedat. Wearing a well-chosen, charcoal business suit, she said that the incident had 'shocked a community' and urged anyone with information to get in touch. Assured them that calls would be treated in confidence. She finished with a special plea to the young woman who had called once already; who had seemed eager to tell them something and whom they were extremely keen to talk to again.

'Knowing that
lovely
part of north London as I do,' Louise said afterwards, 'I think it would take more than some gangster getting knifed to shock anybody.'

Thorne smiled. 'We can't let anyone know that though, can we?'

With millions lavished each year on improving the city's image, it wasn't clever to highlight those places where policing came close to warfare. The Olympic Games were only a few years away and already there were jokes. About how well Great Britain would do in the shooting this time round, and the marathon runners straying into parts of Hackney and Tottenham and never being seen again.

Louise began searching through the channels again. 'She came across well, I thought. Kitson,' she said.

Thorne shrugged, like he hadn't really thought about it.

Louise and Yvonne had got on well enough when they'd met; for the few weeks when they'd been working together. But Thorne had sensed a problem developing since, had heard it in Louise's tone just then, when she was seemingly being complimentary. He'd suggested to her, once, that she might be jealous, and she'd bitten his head off, told him not to flatter himself. He hadn't been sure what she'd meant. Was he flattering himself to think that Kitson would be interested? Or that Louise would give a shit? He certainly wasn't going to push his luck by asking.

'Is there anything else on?' Louise asked. Thorne leaned over and snatched
Time Out
from the low table in the window. 'Anything worth staying out of bed for?'

Thorne flicked through to the TV pages. There were Champions League highlights on ITV after the news. They were showing The Usual Suspects, which he never missed, on Channel Four. There was late-night poker on at least three different cable stations.

'Absolutely fuck all,' he said.

There was very little light. Barely enough to see faces thirty feet away, and he couldn't move too much for fear of making a noise. This was hardly going to be winning any Oscars.

He only had fifteen seconds to play with anyway. But he did what he could to make the clip more interesting: started on the canal and moved across until he had the bloke in the middle of the picture; until he had both of them. 'Developing the shot', that's what it was called.

He lowered the phone, looked at the woman on her knees. His big hands on the top of her head. The grunting and the sucking noises.

There was plenty to develop to...

Him and Angie hadn't been big on the cinema before; just once or twice probably, before Robbie'd come along. But he'd seen a lot of films over the years inside, got quite a taste for them. Once a week on the big screen and DVDs from the prison library. Nothing like this, of course, they wouldn't allow that, but there'd been the occasional flash of tit to get excited about now and again. Plenty of prison movies, obviously; they were fond of showing those to wind everybody up.
Stir Crazy
,
Escape from Alcatraz
, he'd seen all of them more than once.
The Shawshank Redemption
when the screws really wanted to take the piss...

He tried to shift his leg an inch or two, could hear something moving in the long grass behind him. It was uncomfortable, crouching in the shadows to keep out of sight, but it wasn't like he'd planned it this way. He'd had no idea where the fucker was going when he'd started following him. What he'd got planned for the evening.

He'd followed the big van past Southall Park, along the Broadway and down along the route of the canal between the school and the retail park. He'd slowed and turned in when he'd seen the van do the same. Watched the girl walk up to the window and realised that the driver had known exactly what he was looking for.

And what he wanted for his money...

Brooks had got what he needed. Invisible behind a row of recycling bins, he put the phone away. Disgusted with the man leaning back against the dirty, wet wall. Disgusted with himself for being excited.

He watched as the man pushed; the tom's ponytail swinging as her head moved back and forth. Remembering the feeling - Christ...
trying
to remember it, years ago - when Angie had done the same thing to him.

Closed his eyes, but could remember only that he would never touch her again. Feel her again.

He took one more good look at the man's face. Then he lowered his head, and waited for them to finish.

They lay in the dark afterwards, Thorne pressed up against her, sucking in mouthfuls of hair. The breath coming back. They'd finished with Louise on top, and when he'd told her he was coming, she'd pushed herself down in an effort to hold him inside her. He'd rolled from beneath her in the nick of time and she'd groaned and dropped on to her side.

'I thought it wasn't safe,' he said finally.

'No.'

'So, why...?'

She grabbed his hand, pulled his arm tighter around her waist.

'Do you
want
to get pregnant?'

'No. Just at that moment, you know? I wanted you to stay inside me.'

A cat - Thorne couldn't be sure that it was Elvis - was yowling in the garden. The old lady who lived upstairs had some TV quiz show on stupidly loud.

'I should probably wear something next time.'

'What, like a fireman's helmet and wellies?'

'A condom.'

She snorted. 'Yes, I
know
. It just makes me laugh to hear you say it. That you find some things hard to say. You're weird.'

'
I'm weird?'

They both laughed and rolled over together. Thorne brought his knees up as Louise curled against him. Her breath was on his back and he could feel her eyelashes against his shoulder when she blinked.

He listened to the applause from the television upstairs. And when it had been switched off, he lay there thinking: I don't know this woman at all.

Remember that time I missed Robbie's birthday party? The last one before I went inside, the one in the burger place. I know you will, because we had a steaming row about it. You telling me that Robbie was in tears and me shouting all the more because I felt like such an arsehole about it. I'd been doing some stupid favour for Wayne. Poxy driving job down on the coast. Waiting around, wondering what I was involved in and thinking about Robbie running around with his mates and trying his new football shirt on.