Death Message (30 page)

Instead, he looked down and watched his shoes eat up the pavement. Hands in his pockets, humming any song that went with the rhythm of his footsteps. And he saw Angie's face, and Robbie's, as they must have been at the last minute; just before the car hit. Then he saw other faces, how they had been when they'd clapped eyes on the hammer. The plastic bag.

Tucker. Hodson. Cowans.

Their faces were as clear as anything now: frozen with their mouths open and eyes wide. But he hadn't known all of them by sight; not at first, anyway.

Skinner, who'd called himself Jennings the last time they'd met, had been all-too familiar, of course; just older from a distance, and dead by the time Marcus had got close. Killed by somebody else before he'd had the chance.

And some of the bikers had been there at his trial; screaming and swearing at him from the balcony, until the judge had had them chucked out. They'd looked near enough the same when he'd come out of prison and tracked them down.

Ray Tucker had
definitely
been in court six years before, and Ricky Hodson. Although he hadn't known their names back then. He wasn't certain about Martin Cowans - they'd all had long hair and leathers and shit... but it didn't matter either way. He'd been one of the gang - the leader, as far as he could work out - when Angie had been killed, and that was all that counted.

He had decided back in Long Lartin, when he and Nicklin were going over it, that everyone had to be treated the same. That they all had to share the responsibility equally. It would have been stupid to do it any other way; to say that the one who'd been driving the car had to die, or suffer before he died, while some of the others should just be crippled or whatever.

It was cleaner to blame them all.

He didn't know this latest one from Adam, but he'd played his part, same as everyone else who'd fucked his life up. First time or second. Second wouldn't have happened without the first, after all...

He didn't know him, but now he'd had his first good look. Waited in the cold at the address he'd been given until he'd got back from work. He'd taken out the phone and grabbed his few seconds of video while the bloke was getting out of his car.

Done his bit for Nicklin.

He'd do his own bit tomorrow night.

It was busy coming around the big island at the end of Waterloo Bridge; cars and people. He stopped for a few seconds and watched figures moving north and south, leaning into the wind, lining up and chatting at bus stops on either side of the road, like fuck all mattered. He thought about where they might have been; knew there were cinemas and theatres under the bridge. Then he began to move his feet again; speeding up, because he couldn't care less.

He walked around the back of Waterloo station and up past St Thomas's Hospital. He'd spent a couple of hours in casualty there one Saturday, years back, when some idiot had nutted him outside a club. He remembered Angie having a right go when she caught up with him. Shouting at him, saying he probably asked for it. Kissing his stitches later on...

Just a few minutes away now; he'd do it in a little over an hour. Right above the river until the last possible moment, then cutting back and across four lanes of the Albert Embankment. Not running, not worrying about the lights and horns. Making the traffic slow down for him.

Imagining Angie's face when she realised too late what was going to happen. And knowing she'd have been thinking about Robbie. That she would have done anything to save him.

Thinking about his boy; about what might have gone through Robbie's mind at the end.

Hoping he had been in there, somewhere.

Louise had fallen asleep on the sofa, halfway through a documentary neither of them had been particularly interested in. Thorne had plugged in the headphones to Louise's laptop and logged on; settled down to a few hands, playing as a glamorous blonde in a low-cut blouse. Fancying himself, in every sense.

An hour into it, he/she had been heads-up with PokerMom, a shifty-looking character in a cowboy hat. He had just raised sixty dollars when he saw the screen on his prepay come to life; watched the handset buzzing across the tabletop next to the computer. He had switched the phone to silent, so that any call or warning tone wouldn't wake Louise up.

He scrolled down and looked at Brooks' message.

Then he crept past Louise and took the phone with him into the bathroom, while, back at the virtual table, his bet was called and his kings and sixes lost out to three sevens.

were u at the flat?

It had been sent from another new number. Brooks was still using SIM cards once, then disposing of them. He could have no way of knowing that his messages were not being monitored; that Thorne was the only one seeing them and that no effort was being made to trace their source.

Thorne lowered the lid of the toilet seat. Sat down and typed into the reply screen.

Yes. Your letters are safe.

He waited. Watched as he was told that his message had been sent. And, more importantly, received.

His hands felt sticky, something between his fingers. His father's wedding ring, which Thorne wore on his right hand, would not move smoothly when he tried to spin it. He got up and used the sink while he waited to see if Marcus Brooks had anything else to say; was drying his hands when he got his answer:

doesn't matter

Thorne was trying to work out how to respond when another message arrived.

got another vid to send

When?

tomorrow

Thorne did not know what Brooks meant. Would he be sending the video the next day, or killing whoever was on it?

Alive or dead? Thorne waited.

tomorrow

He listened to water moving through the pipes. One of his old dressing-gowns was hanging on the back of the door, faded and pulled to pieces by the cat. He'd brought it over when Louise had treated him to a new one for his birthday. She had also taken a good deal of her stuff over to his place. His bathroom was starting to smell almost as nice as this one.

who killed skinner?

Thorne saw no reason to hesitate. Thinking it was ironic, as he typed, that he should be sharing his theory with the man everyone thought was guilty of the policeman's murder.

Has to be the other copper.

It took a minute for Brooks to come back.

not really surprised

Who is he?

Thorne had got nothing useful from his hour and a half in the pub with Richard Rawlings. The DS had given a good performance, or at least that's how it had seemed to Thorne. Maybe more so, thinking back...

'It's looking like Paul was into some nasty stuff.' Rawlings had looked close to devastated, putting away a pint in three visits to his glass. '
Seriously fucking nasty.'

'That what Nunn told you?'

'As good as.'

'And you knew nothing about it?'

'Maybe... I don't know. I had suspicions, now and again, but you keep them to yourself, don't you? We were mates, and I was probably kidding myself, but I never thought it was anything too heavy. Not in a million years. Fuck, you think you know people...'

The phone buzzed again in Thorne's hand.

squire

Thorne kicked at the side of the bath in frustration. His hand was clammy again; sticky against the plastic of the phone.

What's his real name?

i'll send u a message

So, Skinner had been Jennings. It was obvious that Brooks thought both men were equally guilty, but Thorne hoped one day it might matter to a court which of them had been responsible for what.

Did he kill Tipper?

one of them did

Thorne was typing too fast now, making mistakes, not bothering to go back and correct them.

Tell me who sow e can findhim

no point Then: i've already found him

Thorne's excitement was giving way to irritation, and anger at himself. The exchange with Brooks that he'd been hoping for, that he'd pinned so much on, was going nowhere. The other night he'd felt as though everything he and Louise had said to each other was loaded with meaning, but this was just words on a screen, and none of them were telling him anything he needed.

Contact was not the same thing as connection.

He typed: I meant it about the letters.

Thorne knew as soon as half a minute had come and gone that Brooks had nothing else to say. He imagined him on a dark street corner, cracking open the shell of a phone, tossing the tiny SIM into a drain.

He gave it another five minutes, then stood up and washed his hands again; drying them until they were sore, until he could spin the ring freely around his finger. He put the phone away and trudged into the living room to wake Louise.

Davey Tindall hopped off the night bus at Vauxhall Cross and started walking. Spitting feathers. A youngster stepped in front of him, some junkie with his hood up, and was told to fuck off before he'd even opened his mouth.

Tindall's employer had a business to run; had overheads and profit margins and whatnot. Tindall understood that. So it wasn't him he was pissed off with; it was that pair of shite-hawks with warrant cards.

A half-price minicab at the end of a night was one of the perks that Tindall's boss put his way. He'd rather have had another tenner in the pay packet come the end of the week, but the bloke who paid his wages had interests in a cab firm, so that was that. There'd been no lift home tonight, though. Forty-five minutes on a bus full of nutters and winos. He'd be lucky enough to hang on to his job, he reckoned...

The Filth never took that kind of thing into account, did they?

Someone in one of those bargain bookshops opposite the cinema, the ones with wank-mags in the basement, had spotted that the ticket office was closed for fifteen fucking minutes. Nosey cunt mentions it to someone, and word gets passed same as it always does. Next thing, one of the cousins is popping in with his smart suit on, swaggering about and wanting to know what's been happening.

'It was ten minutes, no more.'

'Yeah, ten minutes when our customers went somewhere else. Ten fucking minutes too long, Davey.'

He'd told the cocky little sod he'd had the shits: an iffy vindaloo the night before; had to shut up shop and get to a chemist's. The cousin fucks off, then an hour later the boss calls up, so he has to tell him the same story.

'I don't give a toss. Your dodgy guts have cost me money. Next time use a fucking bucket whatever, just don't stop taking the tickets.'

He'd laughed and said he was sorry. Thought he'd got away with it.

Then: 'How you getting home tonight, Davey?'

Tindall walked back along the Embankment, then crossed underneath the railway line and took out his key. He was starving; started thinking about cheese on toast when he got indoors. He'd normally have nipped across the road for a sandwich at dinnertime, but he'd been scared to leave the booth for so much as a few minutes after the boss had rung. There'd only been kebab shops open by the time he knocked off and that crap really did give him the runs.

He shouted a 'hello' when he walked through the door; made a fuss of his Jack Russell, who came skittering across the lino to meet him. He followed her back into the kitchen and slopped some food into a bowl. Then he turned the grill on and wandered upstairs to the spare room.

There was no answer when he knocked, so he stuck his head round the door.

'Sorry, son, I thought you were out.'

'Why d'you come in, then?'

Brooks had spoken without looking up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone in his hand, pressing buttons. His training shoes were scuffed and dirty. There were papers scattered about on the bed, and more phones. Plastic bags against the wall containing all his clothes, a dirty mug and plate on the carpet.

Tindall stepped in and picked up the empties. 'I'm making a bit of cheese on toast if you want some.'

Brooks said nothing for a few seconds, then looked up and stared, as if the Scotsman's voice had just reached him.

'Anyway, there'll be some downstairs if you fancy it, you know? And tea.'

Tindall looked away, glancing around the room as if checking that everything were to his guest's satisfaction, or that nothing had been damaged. The door caught as he started to pull it to; hissing against the pile of the carpet. 'Need to get an inch shaved off this fucking door,' he said.

Brooks was looking at his phone again, studying the screen.

'You need to get some sleep, son...'

Tindall closed the door without waiting for a reaction, and went back downstairs to his supper and his dog.

Thorne woke with his arm stretched across the cold side of the bed where Louise should have been. He walked naked and half asleep into the kitchen. Found Louise leaning back against the worktop in a dressing-gown, hands wrapped around her favourite mug.

'You all right?'

'I just wanted some tea,' she said.

Thorne peered at the digital clock on the front of the cooker. 'At half past four?'

'Why do you never tell me anything?'

That woke him up fast enough. Fuck, was there any way she could have found out about the contact with Marcus Brooks? He tried to hide his alarm beneath confusion and lack of sleep. He breathed hard and blinked slowly. 'Sorry... what? Is there some conversation I'm forgetting here?'

Louise shook her head. 'That's the point.'

It wasn't about Brooks. It was something more general; something she'd been saving up. He felt relieved, then irritated, then cold. His hand drifted down to cup his shrinking tackle as he turned to head for the bathroom to fetch the ratty dressing-gown.

'Night then,' she said.

His shoulders dropped, and he took a second. 'What don't I tell you?'