Lifeless - 5 (36 page)

'Smart lied to me,' Palmer said.

Thorne had heard stranger things said, but he couldn't remember

when. 'Did he?' he said, thinking: he did a lot more than fucking lie to

you...

'Something happened the day Karen went missing.' He cleared his

throat, corrected himself. 'The day she was kil ed. When the three of us were together down here.' He began to move, each step taking an age, as though he were walking in slow motion.

Thorne moved after him, taking two steps to each one of Palmer's.

They'd cut the grass and the earth felt spongy beneath his feet. He was aware of Hol and away to his right at the edge of his vision, the bright jacket vivid against the dark bank behind him.

'It was a trick,' Palmer said. 'I don't know for sure whether they were

both in on it. It doesn't matter now anyway. I thought Karen ... wanted me, and I felt excited. She wanted me, you see. Not Smart.' His voice was a little higher than usual, as if the memory were forcing it closer to the way it had sounded fifteen years before. He shrugged.

'Like I say, it was a joke. I was being made a fool of, but I didn't know that then. I was excited, more than I'd ever been, more than I have ever been. What happened wasn't intentional. I'd tel you if it were, you could hardly think any worse of me, but it genuinely was not.' He took a breath. 'I exposed myself to her.'

Palmer had stopped moving and turned to look at Thorne as he arrived at his shoulder. 'I'm wel aware of how ... insignificant this sounds now. Then, at that moment, I would have taken my life in a heartbeat if I'd had the means. If I'd had the courage. When I turned round I saw the joke, I could see that they had probably been conspiring, but the look on Karen's face was horrible. She was disgusted. Not comic disgust, real horror, like she was reminded of something...

'I've wondered since if perhaps she was being abused, if the sight of me brought something back.' He nodded to himself. 'Useless to speculate now, I know...

'Whatever, I ran from that place, from this place, terrified that I had done something to Karen that day. Later, after she had disappeared, Stuart did his best to confirm it.'

Thorne looked down. He saw that Palmer's fists were clenched. They bobbed in front of his groin, forced forwards by his elbows, pressed tightly together by the handcuffs.

'He told you that it was your fault she got into the car, didn't he?' Palmer nodded. 'Like I'd disturbed her so much she needed to get away. He told me he would keep it secret. He told me he was protecting me. He reminded me of it, that day when he walked into the

restaurant. Hinted at things.., made threats.'

'He was using you to protect himself.'

'Yes I know that now,' Palmer said, irritation creeping momentarily into his voice. He lowered his head for a second, raised it. The irritation had gone. 'I'm sorry.'

Thorne said nothing.

'Over the years I gave it al a slightly spooky twist. I thought about it al the time, and it got hammered into this bizarre shape in my head.

I convinced myself that what I'd done to Karen had somehow contaminated her. Like I'd put the smel of it on her. The victim smel . Something ... powerful. The perversion of it lingering around her, attracting that man in the car, drawing him to her...'

Thorne waited a few seconds, making sure the story was finished. 'What else did you want to tel me about Nicklin, Martin?' Palmer's eyes slowly closed. His head drooped. As Thorne watched, he half expected to see Palmer's bulk begin to sink into the soggy ground, pushed into it by the force of the invisible weight that was pressing down on him.

'What else were you going to tel me?'

Thorne turned and signal ed to Hol and, shaking his head. It was getting dark anyway. They might as wel try and beat the rush hour.

Martin Palmer wasn't saying anything else for the time being.

Two cars driving nose to tail from north-west London in a long diagonal down to the south-east. In the dirty blue Mondeo, three men, lost for the majority of the journey in their own thoughts. Looking for solutions. Nursing desperate ideas.

Martin Palmer. Remembering lies, considering the nature of betrayal, praying in advance for forgiveness.

Dave Hol and. Weighing up his options and finding each of them in their own way unpleasant, sickening. Beyond him.

Tom Thorne. Running out of time and ideas. Wondering if this was to be one of the ones he'd be doomed to remember. Would Smart Nicklin's be a face he'd never see and so never be able to forget?

For each of them the answers would come sooner than they could have guessed.

'I want this sorted before we get back to Belmarsh, Martin.' Thorne spoke casual y, as if resuming a conversation. They were passing through Maida Vale, down towards Paddington.

Twenty minutes without a word and he'd had about enough. 'I took you to see Karen's grave. Believe me, I went to a great deal of trouble...' Brigstocke's face had been a picture. Thorne couldn't begin to imagine the rictus that must have distorted Jesmond's death mask features when the request was passed on.

'You led me to believe there was something else you wanted to say.

That's what I told people. Something about Nicklin.'

Palmer sat handcuffed to Hol and, unmoving.

'I want to hear it, Martin. It felt like an agreement to me.'

'Quid pro quo, Doctor Lecter,' Hol and whispered.

'Right,' Thorne said. Fuck knows what it meant, but he'd seen the film. He turned and threw Palmer a look. Wel ?

If Palmer knew what it meant, it didn't appear to make a great deal of difference.

Five minutes later, just past Victoria Station, Thorne yanked the wheel sharply to the left and put his foot down. Behind them, the Vectra flashed its lights.

'Sir,' Hol and said, 'Vauxhal Bridge, Camberwel , Peckham, New Cross. That was the agreed route...'

Thorne raised a hand, acknowledging the Vectra. He raised his voice a little to answer Hol and. 'Lambeth Bridge, Elephant & Castle.

That's the new route. I've changed it.'

'The Elephant?'

'Dropping you off home, Dave.'

Hol and leaned forward looking concerned. Palmer did likewise and not just because of the handcuffs. 'I appreciate the gesture, but in terms of the amount of shit we're al likely to be in, this real y isn't one of your better ideas. Sir.'

'Probably not, but there's no need for anybody to know about it, is there?'

'No, but I stil think...'

'Look, we're virtual y driving past your place anyway. Besides, I think Martin's come over a little shy.'

Hol and looked at Palmer, looked behind to the back-up car.

One of the detectives raised both his palms. What the fuck are we doing?

They drove on through Victoria, across the river and past the huge twin guns outside the Imperial War Museum. Ten minutes later they were cruising slowly up Hol and's road.

'Get the handcuffs off, Dave. Unless Sophie wants an extra body for dinner. Second on the left isn't it... ?'

Thorne watched, amused, as Hol and slammed the door and walked back to the Vectra. The two detectives were out of the car before he got there. A couple of minutes of shrugging and headshaking later, they were back inside, waiting.

Hol and came round to Thorne's window, leaned down. 'Are you sure, sir?'

'Go inside, Hol and.' He nodded towards the back seat. 'Look at him. I don't think he's going to be giving me a great deal of trouble. We're just going to be chatting.., hopeful y.'

Hol and stepped aside as the Mondeo pul ed away and sped off towards the Old Kent Road.

Inside, Thorne was playing cabbie. 'Look at this traffic, not even four o'clock and it's mental. I bet it's already snarled, up round Deptford. You've got about fifteen minutes I reckon, twenty, tops.'

Thorne checked the rearview mirror. Palmer was staring at the back of his head, breathing hard. Was what he had to say so difficult to spit out?

'A quarter of an hour until we get back to the prison, Palmer. That's al . Now fucking speak up...'

Nearly going-home time.

The place was starting to empty but he was staying behind. He had one or two things to catch up on. Above al , he wanted to sit alone for a while and enjoy his cleverness.

He never thought about what he did as being particularly clever. What he did with his knives and his hands and his friends. It was something he needed to do, it felt more instincve than anything else. Yes, of

course there was planning, more when he was maneuvering Palmer, but none of it was real y difficult. It was straightforward stuff, mostly. Surviving was easy. It was making it interesting that was the tricky bit.

This was clever though, no question. He wondered whether it had been lodged in his subconscious for a while, waiting to pop out, ful y formed. It was so perfect. She was so perfect. She fitted the plan and the plan fitted her, so snugly that he wondered if perhaps it was her, the idea of her, the things she made him think, that had been responsible for it in the first place.

He had final y selected his guest and real y, there could never have been any other.

He could not be certain of course, not yet, that she would come, or if she did, that she would do precisely as she was invited to do. Whatever happened, he was protected. That was the bril iance of the scheme. As things stood, he was quietly confident. He knew he had made a wise choice.

A wise choice. Like ordering an expensive bottle of wine in some up-itsown-arse restaurant. A wise choice if I may say so, sir...

It quickly became apparent to him that he was not going to get any work done. He could concentrate on nothing but the enterprise ahead.

How was he going to kil her? Where? Jesus, so much excitement ahead, so many bril iant bits of it al left to work out...

No wonder he couldn't be bothered with paperwork. That had always been his way though: scan the horizon, find the source of the new adventure and then forget everything else. Throw yourself into it, take others with you if they had the bottle to come, wring each last ounce of life out of it, every drop of juice...

He'd pick up a nice bottle of something on the way home, Caroline would like that. She'd forgiven him for Monday night, suggested that maybe he was working too hard, getting stressed out. He'd .agreed, said that yes, perhaps he had taken on a bit much, laughed to himself about that when he was alone.

Dinner and some TV, and then the radio later, after Caroline had

gone up to bed. He was thinking about it already, but later, alone, he'd decide on the final wording. The wording of this first part at any rate. It wasn't going to happen immediately, of course. He'd need to make it irresistible and that would take time. The time frame was stil a little vague. He only had a provisional date in mind for the big event itself, but he would start tonight.

Sending out the invite.

'We'l see the fucking prison in a minute, Palmer. It's less than half a mile.' Thorne was trying not to shout. 'Once I pul up to the barrier, that's it. You can forget anything else you might want to say to me, ever. If I don't hear something from you in the next few minutes, I stop listening. Do you understand?'

Thorne wasn't sure he understood himself. He wasn't certain what he was threatening Palmer with. Al he knew was that Palmer had seemed keen to tel him something. He always had.

He suddenly wondered if al this time it had simply been the confession about exposing himself to Karen McMahon. That was certainly something about which he'd been obsessed.

Thorne's hands were clammy on the wheel. Had he seen salvation or inspiration in what was nothing more than a teenager's guilt about getting his cock out?

No, there had to be something else. Something that could point

Thorne towards Nicklin.

'What is it, Palmer?'

Palmer, bouncing his handcuffed wrists on his knees, those annoying little nods...

'For Christ's sake, you walked into a police station with a gun. You walked in bleeding. I saw how desperate you were, how fucked up. You said you were sick of it, you said you would do anything to help. You

said you wanted to stop him.'

'I do.'

Thorne almost jumped. Palmer's first words since the railway

embankment. ,

'So tel me, then. What is it? What was it you were talking about in the prison the other day?'

As Thorne asked the question, the car turned a corner and Belmarsh came into view, the lights of the perimeter fence just a thousand yards away, dancing as the light dimmed.

'Here we go, Palmer, home sweet home.' Palmer made a noise, something like a growl. 'Not very nice is it? Why not go back in feeling like you've done something useful. You can't make up for the women you kil ed, but you can help me try and stop any more dying...'

Palmer shaking his head, wrestling with something. Thorne no

longer trying not to shout.

'Come on!'

They slowed down, stopping at the point opposite the main drive, the T-junction where they had to wait before crossing the main carriageway. Headlights sped towards them from their left, a gap in the traffic maybe half a minute away. The Vectra pul ed out to come up alongside them.

'I fucking mean it. I'm walking away...'

The driver of the Vectra looked across at Thorne, waiting for the confirmation that everything was hunky-dory, looking for the signal that they could go.

'Give me something on Nicklin. I know there's something you aren't saying...'

Just a couple more cars.

Thorne glanced to his right. 'How much more guilty do you want to feel? How much more fucking guilty?'

Thorne waved. The Vectra nosed forwardl waiting for the gap. Palmer's body tensing, reaching for something.

'Tel me about Smart. Tel me what you're thinking. Please..'

The Vectra sounded its horn, the detective nearest Thorne's window raised an arm.

'Come on? Thorne shouted, as the car alongside him roared away to

the right. Thorne watched it go, slammed his hands on the dashboard, took his foot from the brake. 'Too late...'