Lazy Bones (37 page)

There would be an outcry from certain sections for sure, from the misguided and the bleeding hearts. From those who believed he should 311

pay his debt to society, in the same way that those fine, upstanding citizens he'd kil ed had once done.

That would be al right with him. Let the sil y bastards protest. Let them take the words 'perversion' and 'justice', and put them together like they owned them, even though they hadn't got the least fucking idea what either of them could real y mean.

Perversion and justice. The degradation and the dashed hope. The hideous comedy that had started everything...

It was al a fantasy, of course, unless the police came knocking on his door in the next couple of days. After that, after the final kil ing, nothing he could say would save him. The loyalties of the gutter press would switch very bloody quickly, along with everybody else's, once the final victim had been discovered.

Rapists were one thing, but this was, after al , very much another.

Thorne was in the corner of the Major Incident Room, feeding coins

into the coffee machine wen Karim approached him.

'Miss Bloom on line three, sir..'.'

Momentarily confused, Thorne reached for his back pocket, understanding when he found it empty. His mobile was on his desk in the office. Eve would have tried that first and then, having got no reply, would have cal ed the office number...

Thorne crossed to a desk and picked up the phone. He held it to his

chest until Karim had wandered far enough away.

'It's me. What's up?'

'Nothing serious. Keith's let me down, so I just need to change the time a bit on Saturday. I told him I was going out and he said that he'd lock up for me. Now he turns round and says that he needs to leave early as wel , so I'm a bit stuffed...'

'It doesn't matter. Get over when you can.'

'I know, I just wanted to get to your place early, drop some stuff off before we go out to eat.'

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'Sounds interesting...'

'It'l probably be nearer seven now, by the time I've sorted out the shop and put my face on.'

'I can't see myself getting home a lot sooner than that anyway...'

'Sorry to screw our arrangements around, but it's not my fault. Keith's usual y pretty reliable. Tom... ?'

Eve's voice had faded away. Thorne was no longer listening. Our arrangements... Zoom in close and hold.

The certainty of it came as swiftly, and snapped into place as tightly, as a ligature. Like the blue blur of the line as it whips past the face and down, only becoming clear when it begins to bite, Thorne knew in a second exactly what it was that he'd missed. What had lain shadowed

and just out of reach. Now he saw it, brightly lit...

Something he'd read and something he hadn't...

They'd found al Jane Foley's letters to Remfry, the ones sent to him in prison and the couple that had been sent to his home address after his release. Nothing indicated that there were any letters missing, ad

why would there be? Something had been missing though.

Thorne had read those letters a dozen times, probably more, and nowhere had Jane Foley discussed the plans for her meeting with Douglas Remfry. The rendezvous itself was never talked about specifical y. Not the time, or the date. Not even the name of the hotel...

So how the hel had anything been arranged?

Something Thorne could remember reading had been written by Dave Hol and. His report on that first visit to col ect Remfry's stuff, the day he went round there with Andy Stone and pul ed those letters out from under Remfry's bed. Mary Remfry had been keen to stress her son's success with women. She'd made a point of mentioning the women that were sniffing around after Dougie had been released. The women that were cal ing up...

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Remfry, Welch and Southern had not just walked into those hotels thinking they were going to meet Jane Foley. They'd known they were going to meet her.

They'd spoken to her.

314

TWENTY-FIVE

'Not just spoken on the phone either,' Hol and said. 'I'm not sure about the others, but I think Southern might have met her.'

They were gathered in Brigstocke's office, prior to a hastily arranged team briefing. Eighteen hectic hours since Thorne had put it together. Since he'd worked out that there was a her...

'Go on, Dave,' Brigstocke said.

'I interviewed Southern's ex-girlfriend...'

Thorne remembered reading the statement. 'Right. They split up not long before he was kil ed, didn't they?'

'That's just it. She said that the main reason she dumped him was that she'd heard about some other woman, thought he'd been two timing her. Somebody told her that Southern had been bragging about it in the pub. Tel ing his mates he'd picked up this fantastic bit of

stuff. Actual y ...'

'What?' '

'I need to look at the statement, but I think Southern supposedly told his mates that she had more or less picked him up.'

Thorne looked past Hol and, down to Brigstocke's desk, at the

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series of black and white photographs laid out in two lines across it. 'Jane Foley,' he said.

'Who is she; real y?' Kitson said.

Could be anybody,' Thorne said. 'We can't discount any possibility. A model he hired, or a hooker. The kil er could have used her for the pictures, paid her to make the cal s to Remfry and Welch. Bunged her a bit extra to pick up Howard Southern...'

Brigstocke was gathering his notes together. He didn't believe what Thorne was suggesting any more than Thorne himself did. 'No, it's Sarah. The sister. Got to be...'

'Using her mother's name,' Thorne said.

'This is al about the mother,' Hol and said. 'It's al about Jane.'

Thorne moved towards the desk, correcting Hol and as he passed him. 'It's al about a family...'

'Which means nothing's straightforward,' Brigstocke said. 'Which means it's a damn sight more fucked up and impossible to fathom than we can even begin to imagine.'

Thorne was thinking ott loud as much as anything. 'I'm beginning to imagine it,' he said. 'Families cari do damage.'

'Are we about done?' Kitson asked, suddenly. She moved towards the door without waiting for an answer. 'I've got a couple of things to do before the briefing starts.'

'I think so. Everybody clear?' Brigstocke looked at his watch and then at Thorne. The face of the watch was a whole lot easier to read. 'Right, we'l start in five minutes then...'

The 'missed-cal ' message had been scribbled on a memo sheet and left on Hol and's desk. He screwed the paper up into his fist as he began to dial the number.

'Mrs Noble? This is Detective Constable Hol and. Thanks very much for getting back to me.' He'd meant to chase her up at the end of the day yesterday, but after Thorne's moment of revelation, things had gone haywire...

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'I'm afraid I didn't get your message until quite late,' she said. 'And I didn't know whether or not to cal you at home.'

'It would have been fine,' Hol and said. He probably wouldn't have heard the phone anyway over the sound of the argument he'd been having with Sophie.

'I wil get these photos back, won't I?'

'Definitely. We'l take care of them, I promise.'

'You'l need to give me a little bit of time to put my hands on them. They're in the cel ar, I think. Actual y, it might be the loft, but I'l find them...'

Hol and looked over his shoulder. The Incident Room was fil ing up. There were doubtless stil a dozen or more smokers outside somewhere, getting their last lungfuls of nicotine for an hour or two, but

most available seats and areas of bare desktop were already taken. 'So what do you think? A day or two?'

'Oh yes, I should think so. I've picked up such a lot of old rubbish over the years, mind you...'

'Once you've got the photos, when can we come and pick them up?'

'I beg your pardon?'

Hol and asked the question again, raising his voice above the growing level of hubbub around him.

'Any time you like,' she answered. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

Thorne was alone in Brigstocke's office. There were only five minutes until the briefing was due to begin. Brigstocke, who would kick things off, was already in the Incident Room. After he'd said his piece, it would be down to Thorne.

He stood before the gal ery of pictures on Brigstocke's desk. A series of images careful y designed to tempt and tease. To offer while at the same time giving absolutely nothing away...

Thorne could not be sure if the woman in the photographs was Sarah Foley. It didn't real y matter. She was there and yet she was absent. In most of the shots she was kneeling, her head bowed, or else

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artful y shadowed. Thorne picked each picture up in turn, studied it, waited in vain for it to tel him something that it had managed, thus far, to keep to itself.

Aside from the powerful, disconcerting message the photos sent to his groin, Thorne saw nothing new.

Even physical y, though the promise of submission was constant, little was revealed. In some of the photos the woman looked to have dark hair, while in others it seemed more fair. In two of them the hair definitely looked blond, but it could easily have been a wig. The body itself appeared to change, depending on how it was posed and lit. It was alternately lissom and muscular, its position making it impossible to accurately judge the height, or even the build of the woman to whom it belonged.

Sarah Foley, if it was her, had not been captured.

Thorne looked at his watch. Another minute and he'd need to get out there. His job was to gee them up, to give the team enough to carry it into the home straight.

The next few days they'd work their arses oft; and none more so than him. They'd be going back, as 'always, checking what they had in light of the new lead, but al the time there was forward momentum. He could already sense it, the hunger that increases when it smel s the meal, a col ective ticking in the blood. The investigation was picking up speed quickly, starting to race. From this point on, Thorne would make bloody sure nothing else got away from him.

Stil , barring an actual arrest, by the weekend he'd be ready for a break. Saturday night with Eve and Sunday with his old man. He al owed himself a smile. If everything went wel on Saturday night, he'd probably be making something of a late start the fol owing morning.

Thorne was guessing that by knocking-off time on Saturday, he'd need something to divert him. There were other parts of him, better parts, that needed exercising, and he wasn't just talking about sex. It would be good to feel the fizz of it with Eve, the flush and the promise of it. The scary thril and the wonderful release. He was also 318

looking forward to spending a few hours with his father. He needed to feel that lurch, that wel ing up of whatever it was his old man could suck into Thorne's chest without trying...

Karim appeared in the doorway, gave him a look.

'On my way, Sam,' Thorne said.

He would speak with real passion to the officers who were waiting for him. He wanted to catch this kil er more than ever now, and he wanted to spread that desire around like a disease.

He wanted to engineer that heady feeling of desperation and confidence that could sometimes make things happen al by itself.

But he would take care to hold the other feeling inside, the one that had begun to come and go, and cause something to jump and scuttle behind his ribs...

Yes, they were moving quickly. They were suddenly tearing along, they were up for it. But Thorne couldn't help but feel as if something was moving, equal y as fast and with just as much determination, towards them. There was going to be a col ision, but he didn't know

when, or from which direction. He wouldn't see it coming.

Thorne gathered up the photos from the desk, slipped them into a folder and walked towards the Incident Room.

319

TWENTY-SIX

They spoke to each other slowly, in whispers.

'Did I wake you?'

'What time is it?'

'Late. Go back to sleep...'

'It's OK...'

'I'm sorry.'

'Were you dreaming about it again?'

'Every bloody night at the moment. Jesus .... '

'You never used to have dreams before, did you? I had them al the

time, always did, but never you...' 'Wel I'm having them now. With a vengeance.'

'That's an appropriate word.'

'Wil they stop, do you think? Afterwards?'

'What?'

'The dreams. Wil they stop once it's al over?'

'We'l know soon enough...'

'I'm nervous about this one.'

'No need to be.'

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'We're less in control of it than with the others. You know? With them we knew what to expect, we knew everything that might happen.

That was the advantage of the hotels, they were predictable...' 'It'l be fine...'

'You're right, course it wil , I know. I wake up like this and I'm stil thinking about the stuff in the dream and my head's al fucked up.'

'Is that the only reason you're nervous? Something going wrong?'

'What else would it be?'

'That's al right, then.'

'You'd better be there on time, though...'

'Don't be sil y...'

'You'd better fucking be there, al right? Think about the traffic.'

'I never have any problems with the traffic, and I've always been there.'

'I know you have. Sorry...'

'What about Thorne?'

'Thorne won't be a problem.' '

'Good '

'I'm so tired. I have to try and get back to sleep now.'

He reached for her, slid an arm across her bel y.

'Come here and I'l help you...'

321

TWENTY-SEVEN

Not a very long time before, on a freezing night when weather and loneliness had seemed meant for each other, Thorne had dial ed a number he had copied frorr] a postcard in a newsagent's window. He'd driven round to a basement flat in 'Tufnel Park, handed over a few notes, and watched a fat, pink hand toss him off. He'd heard the woman's less-than-convincing groans and entreaties, the jangle of the charm bracelet that bounced on her wrist as she worked. He'd heard his own breath, and the low, desperate grunt as he finished.