Good as Dead (15 page)

‘How long you been in?’

‘Two years and a bit.’ Daniels glanced up. ‘One more to go.’

Thorne knew better than to ask what the boy was in for. He guessed, with a sentence that long, that he’d done more than steal a car or get caught with a bit of blow. ‘So did you and Amin become friends quickly after he came in?’

‘I suppose.’

‘You looked after him.’

‘Just showed him the ropes, that’s all.’ Daniels’ face gave little away. He was very dark-skinned and, up close, Thorne could see the skin was pitted with acne scars. ‘He didn’t need looking after.’

‘No?’

‘He was no threat to anyone.’

‘What about the kid who attacked him?’

‘Yeah, that was strange,’ he said. ‘Usually in this place you hear whispers, you know? You hear when something’s likely to kick off or if someone’s after someone else. That just came out of nowhere.’

‘You hear any whispers about who might have done it?’

‘Maybe,’ Daniels said, after a few seconds. ‘One name, but as far as I know he wasn’t even someone Amin had ever spoken to and anyway he was out of here two days after it happened, so … ’

‘So no time for you to do anything about it.’

Daniels said nothing.

‘Any chance it was one of the imam’s boys?’

Daniels grunted. ‘They’re not happy when they get knocked back, that’s for sure. Like it’s an … affront or something, you know?’ He thought for a few seconds then shook his head. ‘Amin wasn’t interested in any of that stuff, but I don’t think they’d take it quite that personally.’

‘Why wasn’t he interested?’

‘Just wasn’t.’

‘In religion, you mean? Or in joining Shakir’s little gang?’

‘Neither,’ Daniels said. ‘Didn’t suit him, that’s all.’

‘Sounds like you knew him pretty well.’

Daniels looked up at him. His fingers crept around to grip the edge of the bunk. He said, ‘Yeah.’

‘How was he?’ Thorne asked. ‘When you went to see him in the hospital wing.’

‘How d’you think he was? Some toe-rag cut him up.’

‘Was he depressed though? Did he say anything that made you feel like he was thinking about killing himself?’

‘No chance,’ Daniels said. ‘He was upset, you know? But he was still himself at the end of the day. Joking about the scar he was going to have on his face. He was feeling good about how the appeal was shaping up and all that stuff.’

‘And the transfer to Long Minster.’

‘Yeah, that.’

‘Listen, I need to ask you if you took anything in,’ Thorne said. ‘When you went to see him. There’s no way he could have got all those tablets himself. You understand?’

‘No way.’ Daniels shook his head, kicked out with one foot. ‘I swear.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Just some books, that’s it.’

‘Anyone else visit him?’

‘Just staff, that’s all. The governor, Shakir, them lot.’ He looked up at Thorne with a twisted smile. ‘All the assorted God-botherers.’

‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ Thorne smiled back, guessing that for a majority of the patients such visits would be right up there in the popularity stakes with injections or enemas. He took the few small steps across to the adjacent wall, so that he was directly facing Daniels. ‘Did Amin tell you anything else had happened to him?’

‘Like what?’

‘They say he was raped.’

For fifteen seconds or more the only sound came from outside the cell. A series of shouts from further along the landing. A TV set blaring somewhere nearby. Daniels slowly shook his head and Thorne saw the fingers tighten still further around the metal frame of the bed.

‘You didn’t know, or …?’

Daniels looked at the floor.

‘I heard you got into a fight,’ Thorne said. ‘Over what happened to Amin.’ He looked at the empty space above a corner shelf where in other cells a television would have been, a PlayStation even. ‘Lost your TV, lost your nice room on the Gold wing.’

‘I’ll get it back.’

‘Tell me about the fight.’

‘Not a fight.’

‘You punched someone.’

‘That was the end of it.’

Looking again at the size of Antoine Daniels, Thorne could well imagine that it was. ‘What happened?’

‘Just some smartarse, saying stuff to wind me up. No big deal, OK?’ He stood up. ‘Listen, I’ve got a class, so—’

‘Stuff about Amin?’

Daniels moved to gather up some exercise books and a pencil case from the small desk. He looked sideways at Thorne and stared, as though he were willing him to leave. Thorne stayed where he was.

‘You and him were close, right?’

Daniels’ chest was heaving against his T-shirt. He tried to hold Thorne’s eyes, but could not.

He gave the smallest of nods and said, ‘Yeah.’

Just one word, whispered, but Thorne felt as though he were being pushed back hard against the whitewashed bricks. The breath pressed from him. One small affirmation that screamed a barrage of questions.

Yeah, like have you not been
listening
?

Like how good a detective are you anyway?

Yeah, like how long have you fucking got?

The cell door swung inwards, nudged a few inches then booted wide open by a gleaming white Nike. The same pair of young boys who had given Thorne such a hard time earlier stood grinning in the doorway. The gobbiest looked at Thorne and then at Daniels. ‘What’s happening, batty-boy? You like them a bit older these days?’

His mate laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

‘Why don’t you both fuck off?’ Thorne said.

Thorne’s words had little effect, but one hard stare from Daniels was enough to send the pair scurrying away, shouting and laughing at their comic genius. Oddly, the look – the dead eyes and the muscles working beneath the jaw – had seemed even more menacing than it otherwise might, with tears coursing freely down Antoine Daniels’ face.

NINETEEN

Holland and Kitson stood leaning against Kitson’s Mondeo eating their chips. They watched parents collecting their kids from a primary school opposite and Holland called his girlfriend to see what kind of a day their daughter had had at nursery. A boy in her class had taken to biting the other kids and he and Sophie were both a little concerned.

‘Everything OK with Chloe?’ Kitson asked, when Holland had hung up.

‘Still got all her fingers,’ Holland said.

The afternoon was starting to cool off a little as the sky clouded over and the first delicate spatters of drizzle were coming down.

‘Should we knock this on the head?’ Holland asked.

Kitson swallowed. ‘Maybe we should try Clarkson again. Or call the DCI, see if he’s got any bright ideas.’

‘Up to you,’ Holland said.

‘We’ve got to do
something
.’

Holland looked down at his chips. ‘These are pretty good actually.’ He stuffed a handful into his mouth. ‘Should have got something to drink though. Maybe a sausage or something.’

Kitson nodded ahead. ‘Let’s walk up towards Islington Green.’

‘It’s raining.’

‘It’s only ten minutes away.’

‘What is?’

‘The place where Amin Akhtar and his mate were attacked.’

‘And?’

Kitson began to walk. ‘And I don’t want my car to stink of chips.’

Helen leaned down towards the wrist that was handcuffed to the radiator and checked her watch. They had been there for the best part of eight hours already. By rights she should be stepping off the train about now, getting excited about seeing Alfie again and putting whatever darkness the day had thrown up out of her head until tomorrow.

Her stomach lurched.

He would need collecting from Janine’s in less than ten minutes.

Would Jenny take him home, she wondered. Or would she drop him round at their dad’s place then come back to Tulse Hill? Yes, that’s what she would do, Helen decided, what Helen would prefer her to do. Her sister always enjoyed being where the action was.

A typical car-crash watcher, if ever there was one.

Maybe that’s why she was so bloody fascinated with me and Paul, Helen thought. What we laughably called our ‘relationship’. Yes, there was always plenty of advice and offers of help, but her sister always seemed to … relish it somehow. The fact that Helen needed those things. It made Jenny’s own perfect life that much more perfect, never mind the fact that she was actually neurotic as hell, or that the tedious tosser she was married to thought life began and ended with fishing and fixing up old cars.

Helen took a deep breath.

God, I am such a bitch, she thought. Jenny will be in pieces, and she and her perfectly nice husband will love my son if I don’t make it out of this, and I am
such
a bitch …

She turned to Stephen Mitchell and said, ‘Tell me about your wife.’

Mitchell opened his eyes and looked a little panic-stricken, as though it might be a trick question. They had spoken a little since he had come back from the toilet and Helen was relieved that he seemed to have settled down. To have become resigned to what was happening.

‘What’s her name?’

Akhtar had gone out into the shop ten minutes before. Helen could not hear him moving about. He was spending longer and longer out there, leaving her and Mitchell alone in the storeroom, and Helen imagined him sitting quietly behind the till. Trying to keep calm and explain to himself, or to his dead son perhaps, why things had gone as far as they had.

Why there could be no turning back from them.

He was alone out there, she thought, because he could not bear to look at what he had done.

‘She’s called Denise,’ Mitchell said. ‘She works in the same bank as me, only she’s out front and I’m sitting upstairs.’ He smiled, more easily than she had seen him do before. ‘Tied to a computer, playing with other people’s money. Your money, maybe.’

‘No money to play with,’ Helen said.

‘She’s pretty … fiery.’ He nodded, thinking. ‘Doesn’t take any crap, you know?’

‘Sounds like we’d get on. I can’t wait to meet her.’

‘Yeah, she’s definitely got a temper on her. Probably because she cares about stuff, well more than me anyway. Politics, animals … the environment, all that. She has a right go at me sometimes, says I should get more worked up about things … but I just like a quiet life, I suppose.’

‘Nothing wrong with that.’

‘Right.’ He raised an arm. ‘And look what I get.’

They laughed, and Helen thought, I hope he hears that. Out there in the semi-dark, staring at his shutters and thinking that nobody has ever felt pain the way he’s feeling it. Or hate. She wondered if she should show Akhtar some of the pictures in her bag, read him some of the witness statements from people whose children had been through a damn sight worse than prison.

They did not go out and buy guns. They did not do … this.

‘We were supposed to be going out tonight,’ Mitchell said. ‘You know, presuming I didn’t mess up my interview. Nothing flashy, just a decent steak or something and a nice bottle of wine. Steak for me anyway, she’s a vegetarian.’

‘I tried that a few years ago,’ Helen said. ‘Couldn’t live without bacon sandwiches.’

Mitchell nodded. ‘She likes a glass of wine, Denise does. Neither of us knows a thing about wine, mind you. Only what we like to drink. She says all that “what wine goes with what” and sniffing it and stuff is just about trying to look clever. She said that to one of the managers at the bank once, when he was banging on about some Château something-or-other he’d had with his hundred-pound lunch.’ He smiled again, remembering. ‘No, she’s definitely not shy about telling people what she thinks.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Plus, she’s seriously gorgeous.’ He swallowed hard. ‘You know?’ He was suddenly having to work harder to keep that smile in place. ‘So … ’

‘How long have you been married?’ Helen asked.

‘Three years next month.’ His eyes widened. ‘I can’t believe it’s gone so fast.’

‘You got any kids?’

Mitchell shook his head. ‘We’ve been talking about it quite a lot lately though, trying to work out the best time and all that. I’d love it, you know? I mean we both would, but Denise wants to keep working for a little bit and she’s really brilliant at her job, so … ’

‘It’s not easy.’

‘
You
have though, right? I heard you and him talking about it … before.’

‘Yes, I’ve got a little boy.’ Now she was the one struggling to keep the smile from slipping. ‘And trust me, if anyone ever picked the wrong time to have a baby it was me. So don’t worry about it.’

‘OK.’

Helen reached across, took Mitchell’s left hand in her right and squeezed.

‘Denise is out there waiting for you,’ she said. ‘So let’s just do what we have to, all right, Stephen?’ She waited until he looked at her, squeezed his hand again. ‘Make sure we get out of here so you can have that steak. And those kids.’

From Upper Street they walked west, crossing Liverpool Road and cutting through side streets until they came to Barnard Park. It had been here, between the football pitch and the adventure playground, that Lee Slater, Scott Clarkson and Daniel Armstrong had attacked Amin Akhtar and his friend a year before.

‘What was he doing all the way up here anyway?’ Kitson asked.

It had become obvious fairly quickly that Amin Akhtar was lying about where he had been on the evening he was attacked. At first he had tried to claim that the pub quiz he was supposed to have taken part in near his home had finished early, but later said that he and his friend had gone to a party. Neither could provide an address, however, claiming that they’d just heard about the party through someone else and gone along to see what it was like. Both boys had strict parents, so the subterfuge had seemed reasonable enough, and not particularly relevant to the inquiry. The salient fact remained that they had ended up in Islington, fighting for their lives on snow-covered ground in Barnard Park. Exactly how they had come to be almost ten miles from home, on the other side of London at 11.30 at night, was really only a matter for them and their parents.

‘Didn’t you ever lie to your mum and dad?’ Holland asked.