Lazy Bones (3 page)

18

'You could be anybody,' the woman said.

'Listen, if it makes you happier, I can cal you back. Better stil , let me give you a number to cal so you can check. Ask for DCI Russel Brigstocke. And I'l give you my mobile number...'

'Why do I need your mobile number if you're cal ing me back?' The conversation was starting to get faintly ridiculous. Thorne thought he could detect a note of amusement, perhaps even flirtation, creeping into this woman's voice. Pleasing as this was on an otherwise grim morning, he wasn't real y in the mood.

'Madam, the phone I'm speaking on, the phone you've cal ed, is located at a crime scene and I need to know why you're cal ing.'

He got the message across. The woman, though suddenly sounding a little panicky, did as she was asked.

'It was on my answering machine. I got here, I got into work this morning, and checked my messages. This one was the first. The man who cal ed left the name of the hotel and the room number for

delivery...' '

The man who cal ed. Was that the man on the bed, or...? i'

'What was the message?'

'He was placing an order. Bloody funny time to be doing it, though. That was why I was a bit.., cautious about cal ing. I thought it might be a joke, you know, kids messing about, but kids wouldn't give you

the right address, would they?'

'Did he leave a name?'

'No, which is one of the reasons I'm cal ing. And to get a credit card number. I don't do cash on delivery...'

'What do you mean, bloody funny time?'

'The message was left at ten past three this morning. I bought one of those flashy machines that tel s you the time, you know?'

Thorne pressed the mouthpiece to his chest, looked across at Hendricks. 'I know the time of death. A tenner says you don't get within half an hour either side...'

'Hel o?'

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Thorne put the phone back to his ear. 'Sorry, I was conferring with a col eague. Can I ask you to keep the tape from the machine, Miss... ?'

'Eve Bloom.'

'You said something about placing an order?'

'Oh sorry, didn't I say? I'm a florist. He was ordering some flowers.

That's why I was slightly freaked out, I suppose...'

'I don't understand. Freaked...?'

'Wel , to be ordering what he was ordering in the middle of the night...'

'What exactly did the message say?' 'Hang on a minute...' 'No, just . . .'

She'd already gone. After a few seconds, Thorne heard the click of the button being hit and the noise of the tape rewinding. There was a pause and then a bang as she put the receiver down next to the machine.

'It's coming up,' she shorted.

Then a hiss as the tape began to play.

There was no discernible accent, no real emotion of any sort, in the voice. To Thorne, it sounded as if someone was trying hard to sound characterless, but there was a hint of something like amusement in the voice somewhere. In the voice of the man Thorne had to assume was responsible for the bound and bloodied corpse not three feet away from him.

The message began simply enough.

'I'd like to order a wreath...'

20

3 DECEMBER, 1975

He inched the Maxi forward until the bumper was almost touching the garage door before yanking up the handbrake and turning off the ignition.

He reached across for his briefcase, climbed out of the car, and nudged the door shut with his backside.

Not six o'clock yet and already dark. Cold, as wel . He was going to have to start putting his vest on in the mornings.

As he walked towards the front door he began whistling it again, that bloody song he couldn't get out of his head. It was on the radio every minute of every day. What the hel was a

'silhouetto' anyway? Do the bloody fandango? The thing went on for hours as wel . Weren't pop songs supposed to be short? '

He shut the front door behind him and stood on the mat for a second, waiting for the smel of his dinner to hit him. He liked this moment every day, the one where he could pretend he was a character in one of those pro grammes on the TV. He stood and imagined that he was in the midwest of America somewhere and not stuck in a shitty little estuary suburb. He imagined that he was a rangy executive with a perfectly presented wife who would have a pot-roast in the oven and a cocktail waiting for him. Highbal s or something they cal ed them, didn't they?

It wasn't just his little joke, it was theirs. Their sil y ritual. He would shout out and she would shout back, then they would sit down and eat the frozen crispy pancakes or maybe one of those curries out of a packet with too many raisins in.

'Honey, t'm home...'

There was no reply. He couldn't smel anything.

He dropped his briefcase by the hal table and walked towards the lounge. She probably hadn't had time today. Wouldn't have finished work until 21

gone three and then she would have had shopping to do. There was only a

fortnight until Christmas and there was loads of stuff stil to get...

The look on her face stopped him dead.

She was sitting on the settee, wearing a powder-blue housecoat. Her legs

were curled underneath her. Her hair was wet.

"You al right, love?"

She said nothing. As he took a step towards her, his shoe got tangled in

something and he looked down and saw the dress.

'What's this doing...?"

He flicked it up and caught it, laughing, looking for a reaction. Then, letting the length of it drop from his fingers he saw the rip, waggled his fingers through the rent in the rayon.

"Christ, what have you done to this? Bloody hel , this was fifteen quid's worth..."

She looked up suddenly and stared at him as if he was mad. Trying not to make it obvious, he began looking around for an mpty bottle, making an effort to keep a smile on his face.

'Have you been to work tdday, love?"

She moaned softly.

'What about school? You did pick up... ?'

She nodded violently, her hair tumbling damp across her face. He heard the noise then from upstairs, the crash of a toy car or a pile of bricks coming from the loft they'd turned into a playroom.

He nodded, puffed out his cheeks, relieved.

'Listen, let's get you . . .'

He had to stop himself taking a step back as she stood up suddenly, her

eyes wide and wet, folding herself over slowly, as if she were taking a bow. He said her name then.

And his wife gathered up the hem of the powder-blue housecoat and raised it above her waist to show him the redness, the rawness and the darker blue of the bruising at the top of her legs...

22

TWO

Thorne lost his bet with Phil Hendricks.

He answered the phone barely four hours after they'd found We body and within a few seconds he was lobbing his half-eaten sandwi ,ca across the office, missing the bin by several feet. He chewed what was left in his mouth quickly, knowing that his appetite was about to disappear.

Hendricks was cal ing from Westminster mortuary. 'Pretty quick,' he said. He sounded extremely chipper. 'You've got to bloody admit...'

'Why do you always manage to do this when I'm eating lunch? Couldn't you have left it another hour?'

'Sod that, mate, there's money at stake. Right, you ready? I'm going for time of death at somewhere around quarter to three in the morning.'

Bol ocks: Thorne stared out of the window at a row of low, grey buildings on the other side of the M1. He didn't know ifthe window was dirty or if that was just Hendon. 'This had better be worth a tenner. Go on...'

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'Right, how d'you want it? Medical jargon, layman's terms, or pathology-made-easy for thick-as-shit coppers?'

'That's cost you half the tenner. Get on with it...'

'Hendricks spoke about death and its intimacies with considerably less passion than he demonstrated for Arsenal FC. Being a Mancunian who didn't support the dreaded Man United was far from being the only V-sign he stuck up at convention. There were the clothes in varying shades of black, the shaved head, the ludicrous number of earrings. There were the mysterious piercings, one for each new boyfriend...

He might have spoken dispassionately, almost matter-of-factly, but Thorne knew how much Phil Hendricks cared about the dead. How hard he listened to their bodies when they spoke to him. When they gave up their secrets.

'Asphyxia due to ligature strangulation,' Hendricks said. 'Plus, I think it happened on the floor. He had carpet burns on both knees. I think the kil er put the body on the bed afterwards. Posed it.' 'Right...'

'Unfortunately, I stil cn't tel for sure whether or not he was stran

gled before, after or during the sodomy.'

'So, you're not perfect, then?'

'I know one thing. Whoever did it has a big future in gay porn. Our kil er's hung like a donkey. He did quite a bit of damage up there...'

Thorne knew he'd been right to get rid of the sandwich. He'd lost count of the conversations like this he'd had with Hendricks over the years. His head was used to them, but his stomach stil found them tricky.

Thorne cal ed it the H-plan diet...

'What about secretions?'

'Sorry, mate, bugger al . Only thing up there that shouldn't have been was a trace of spermicidal lubricant from the condom he was wearing. He was careful, in every sense...'

Thorne sighed. 'Where's Hol and? He stil with you?'

'No chance, mate. He shot away first chance he had. Why did you

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send him down anyway? Actual y, I'm hurt you didn't want to watch me work.. "

These conversations, the ones that fol owed bodies, always ended on something light-hearted. Footbal , pisstakes, anything...

'DC Hol and hasn't seen you work nearly enough though, Phil,' Thorne said. 'It stil gives him the heebies. I'm doing him a favour, e w toughening him up...'

Hendricks laughed. 'Right...'

Right, Thorne thought. He knew very wel that when it came to slabs and scalpels you never toughened up. You just pretended you had...

Standing in the Incident Room, preparing to brief the team, Thorne felt, as he often did on these occasions, like a teacher who was feared but not particularly liked. The slightly psychotic PE teacher. These thirty or so people in front of him - detectives, uniformed officers, civilian and auxiliary staff- might just as wel have been children. There were as many different types as could be found sitting in any draughty school hal in London, even as Thorne was speaking.

There were those who appeared to be listening intently but would have to check with col eagues later to find out exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Some, on the other hand, would be over-keen, asking questions and nodding eagerly, with every intention of doing as little as possible when the time came. There were the bul ies and the picked-upon. The swots and the morons.

The Metropolitan Police Service. Service, note, with the emphasis on caring and efficiency. Thorne knew very wel that most of the people in the room, himself on some occasions included, were happier

back when they were a force.

One to be reckoned with.

It was four days since that first post-mortem conversation with Hendricks and if the pathologist had been quick, the team at Forensic Science Services had outdone him. Seventy-two hours for DNA

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results was real y going some, especial y when the crime scene was as much of a DNA nightmare as that hotel room had been. One notch up from a doss-house, it had yielded hair and skin samples from upwards of a dozen individuals, male and female. Then there were the cats and

dogs and at least two other animal species as yet unidentified.

And yet, incredibly, they'd found a match.

They were no nearer finding the kil er, of course, but now they were at least certain who his victim had been. The dead man's DNA had been on file, for a very good reason.

Thorne cleared his throat, got a bit of hush. 'Douglas Andrew Remfry, thirty-six years of age, was released from Derby prison ten days ago, having served seven years of a twelve-year sentence for the rapes of three young women. We're putting together an accurate picture of his movements since then, but so far it locks like a pretty consistent shuttle between pub, betting shop,and the house in New Cross where he was living with his mother and her ...?' Thorne looked across at Russel Brigstocke who held up three fingers. He turned back to the room. 'Ier third husband. We'l hopeful y have a lot more in terms of Remfry's movements and so on later today. DCs Hol and and Stone are there at the moment with a search warrant.

Mrs Remfry was somewhat less than co-operative...'

An acnefied trainee detective near the front shook his head, his face screwed up in distaste for this woman he'd never met. Thorne gave him a good, hard stare. 'She's just lost a son,'

he said. Thorne let his words hang there for a few seconds before continuing. 'If the landlady is to be believed, Remfry, unless his kil er happens also to be his double, booked the room himself. He didn't feel the need to give a name, but he was happy enough to hand over the cash. We need to find out why. Why was he so keen to go to that hotel? Who was he meeting...?'

Thorne, in spite of himself, was smiling slightly as he recal ed the interview with the hotel's formidable owner - a bottle-blonde with a face like Joe Bugner and a sixty-fags-a-day rasp.

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'And who pays for the replacement of those sheets?' she'd asked. 'Al them pil ows and blankets that this nutter nicked? They were one hundred per cent cotton, none of 'em was cheap

...' Thorne had nodded, pretended to write something down, wondering if her memory was as good as her capacity to talk utter shite with a straight face. 'And the stains on the mattress.

Where do I get the money to get that lot cleaned?'

Tl see if I can find you a form to fil in,' Thorne said, thinking, Wil I fuck, you hatchet-faced old mare...

In the Incident Room, the trainee detective Thorne had stared at before poked a single finger up. Thorne nodded.

'Are we looking at the prison angle, sir? Someone Remfry was in Derby with, maybe. Someone he got on the wrong side of...'