Lifeless - 5 (42 page)

Thorne wondered how far into it McEvoy had got. He looked up and

saw the answer reflected around the room, from one mirror to another... 'Fuck... oh fuck, no.'

'What?' Thorne felt the change in his body straight away. He sensed a livening in the nerve endings, a heightening of the senses as he moved rapidly across the room, reacting instinctively to the panic in Hol and's voice. 'What is it, Dave?'

Hol and ran his fingers through his hair, scratching hard at his scalp, staring in disbelief at the screen. Thorne leaned in and looked over his shoulder. He couldn't immediately work out what he was looking at. 'I can't...'

'She's been getting e-mails from the kil er,' Hol and said. 'From Night Watchman...'

Thorne felt something prickle around the top of his shoulders, heard his heartbeat quicken. 'Getting them, or getting them and replying? How long... ?

'Wait ...' Hol and clicked, sorting the mails by date. He began to scrol slowly through them, and Thorne watched it move down the screen in front of his eyes. A correspondence between a woman on his team and the man they were trying to catch. A man who kil ed more brutal y than anyone Thorne had ever lost sleep over.

'A week or more,' Hol and said. 'Shit, there's fucking dozens of them...'

It had begun tentatively, like an exchange of letters between lovers

to-be. He told her he thought she was special, that there was something about her. He wondered how far across the line she would go to get the right result. His words were cryptic, teasing. Thorne could tel that, at least initial y, he had been fishing, trying to find out how much she knew, how much any of them knew about him. He was wooing her. Thorne could see it, clear as day. He wondered if McEvoy had seen it. Her responses were open and forthright. She had fal en for it, or was letting him think she had. Thorne couldn't tel which.

'What the fuck is she playing at... ? Hol and's panic was increasing

with every minute that passed, with every e-mail opened.

As Thorne read on, the answer became horribly apparent. The round-the-houses stuff had given way, in the last day or two, to something specific. An invitation. Did she want to meet him? Was she the individual he thought she was? McEvoy had replied. She was everything he thought she was, and more.

'When? There's got to be something that gives us a time...'

'Got it,' Hol and said, opening another mail. 'Jesus, it's today. Four o'clock...'

Thorne looked at the time flashing at him in the top right-hand

corner of the screen. Whatever the hel McEvoy thought she was

doing, she probably had about twenty-five minutes to live.

'Where?'

Hol and clicked, scrol ed, jabbed viciously at the keys. 'His last email was.., just after one this morning.' He opened the file and they stared at the kil er's words on the screen.

Let's make it the place where Martin was told the Jungle Story. Looking forward to it, Sarah ...

'What the hel does that mean?' Hol and put his finger against the

screen and pressed hard, as if he was trying to push through it, rub out the words floating on the other side.

'What about McEvoy's last mail?'

Hol and cal ed it up. 'She sent two, one after the other, just before midday today...'

No idea what that means. Should I? If you want me to come, you'd better spel it out.

'Let's see the second one.' Thorne dared not hope. He already knew there was no reply from the kil er, nothing that spel ed anything out. Would McEvoy's final message be to cry off, to suggest they rearrange? She would have no choice, surely. She didn't know the place he was suggesting...

Going out now. Not sure when I'l be back. Need to know where to meet.

Then, two words that jumped off the screen, sent the guts shooting up towards the throat.

Text me.

Hol and's body spasmed. 'Shit. He's sent a text message tel ing her where to meet him.'

'We don't know if he contacted her at al ,' Thorne said. 'We don't know anything. She might come breezing back in here any second, off her tits with a bag ful of Charlie.' Hol and's look told Thorne that he didn't believe it any more than he did.

Thorne grabbed at the phone on the corner of the desk,thrust it at Hol and. 'Cal her mobile.'

He walked away, across to the window and stared out into the garden. The wind was coming up. He watched the overgrown grass sway slightly, and the long, rusty mirror bump gently against the fence post. Watching, hoping to hear Hol and's concern translate into anger when he got through. Where thefuck are you?

Hearing instead a long, frustrated breath, the crack of the phone going down, two more words

he could real y have done without.

'Switched off...'

Thorne turned around, walked back to the desk and picked up the

phone himself. He dial ed, waited, then hung up.

'Who are you cal ing?'

Thorne said nothing, his hand never leaving the receiver. He snatched it up again and dial ed the number. He looked away from Hol and, waiting for an answer...

'It's me. Tel me about the Jungle Story... never mind that, just tel me! Listen, Palmer, there isn't time for this, tel me what it is. No... forget that, just tel me where. Where was it ... ?'

Hol and couldn't believe what he was hearing. Palmer? What the hel was Thorne playing at... ? He stopped thinking about anything at al when Thorne's face changed. Even the bruises on his face seemed to grow momentarily pale. He thought that perhaps Thorne let out a long, low moan, though it might actual y have come from him...

Thorne hung up with his finger. Gently but quickly he passed the receiver to Hol and.

'It's at the school. He's meeting her at King Edward's.'

'Where are you... ?'

Thorne was on his way to the front door, his voice getting louder as he moved further away. 'Get on the phone and get it organised, right now. Tel Brigstocke I want an armed response unit. Keep trying

McEvoy's mobile, or get somebody else to.'

'Sir...'

By now Thorne was shouting:

'And get a message through to the school...'

TWENTY-EIGHT

McEvoy walked into the playground in slow motion.

Stop. Just move backwards. Out of here the way you've come. Only he wil ever know you bottled out. You don't have anything to prove, Sarah...

It was that strange time between darkness and light, the half an hour or so that can't quite make its mind up. As McEvoy pushed herself through the air, she felt like she was wading through a sticky, viscous liquid.

Adults and children mil ing around. Their movements impossibly fast. Their voices ringing through her, setting her teeth on edge. The squeals of the younger children, the honking voices of those a year or two older, the shouting of teachers. A braying cacophony fighting for space in her head with the voice.

The voice was back with a vengeance.

She thought about turning round, getting away to somewhere she could do a line and shut herself up. Getting away was just what the voice was tel ing her to do, though, so she kept moving forward. Maybe, if she just dived inside the school, found the toilet ... She couldn't do it out here, not with children around. It would only take a minute. The teachers had to have their own toilet, surely...

What the fuck do you think you're doing? Think why you've come here. Worrying about where you do your next line is neither here nor there, considering.

She just kept walking. She'd decided that when she reached the far side of the huge playground she would turn around, walk slowly back again. They hadn't agreed on anywhere more specific. His text message hadn't narrowed the location down.

Sil y bitch. Hard-faced bitch. Hard-faced as you like.., not going to do you any good now. What's he going to do to you?

Her bag was over her shoulder. She pul ed it in close to her body. Was there anything in there she could use against him if it came to it? Run. Get out. Cal Thorne...

Most of the boys smiled as they walked or ran past her on their way out. In a hurry to get home, but stil polite as they had been taught to be. Deferential to adults, wel -mannered, especial y with ladies.

He was a pupil here, wasn't he? He isn't very wel -mannered with ladies.

She raised her head and looked up at the school building on one side of her, the trees in the park high up in the distance on the other. Was he watching her from somewhere? Would there be some sort of signal? The weight of al the things she didn't know felt suddenly unmanageable. She felt stupid. Trapped and stupid. Even fifteen minutes before, she was so in control, so ready for this.

Now she walked across a playground, her grip loosening with every step.

He could see that she was scared.

Probably nobody else who saw her would have spotted it. She looked like she was out for a strol . Adjusting her route to avoid col ision with a burly sixth-former, turning side-on to miss a gaggle of first-years. She looked like she was in control.

He knew what to look for, though., He recognised fear. He would

have seen it even if he'd been a long way away. He could see it coming off McEvoy like a heat-haze.

Her being scared was good, but it was less important than the fact that she was here. And that she'd come alone.

That had been the gamble al along, and it was one he couldn't real y lose. He'd been able to watch her arrive. From his vantage point he'd been able to verify absolutely that she'd done as he'd asked. If she hadn't, if at the last moment she'd double-crossed him, gone to Thorne, he'd have known it. Even if they'd sent her in as if she'd come alone, using her as bait, he'd have seen it. He'd have spotted them, however wel hidden they were.

They would never have recognised him.

Even if she'd stood him up he would have coped, taken her to task over it later.

But she was here, as ready for him as she was ever going to be. He felt a surge of pure excitement that, but for these moments just before he kil ed, he hadn't felt since he was a child.

He grinned. He could stil taste the chocolate. Was that what al this was about? Getting in touch with his inner child?

cu O 4 @ plygrnd :o)

The text message had been simple. The childish shorthand was proof, if she needed it, of his sense of fun.

Now it was time for the real fun to start.

Driving like an idiot through Wembley Park, horn blaring, lights flashing; one eye on the dashboard clock, and a speech forming itself in his mind. The words tumbling into sentences with each busy junction, every queue at traffic lights. The speech he would 5e giving to Sarah McEvoy's parents if he was too late...

Why had the kil er targeted McEvoy? How had he targeted her? Thorne leaned on the horn, swerved inside to accelerate noisily past a Transit van. He knew he wouldn't get the answers to these questions, not yet. Not until the fucker was in a chair opposite him, shitting himself in an interview room in the early hours of the morning.

There were other questions, though. Questions a little closer to home that got into his head and stayed there like a jingle he couldn't shake. Why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't he seen a senior member of his team getting into this? The drugs, the lies, the descent into something warped and deadly...

He drove north across Fryent Country Park, the school now maybe less than five minutes away. The minute hand moving another notch past the vertical. The speech almost ful y formed.

DS McEvoy was a fine officer, who gave her life in the line of duty...

Thorne hammered the Mondeo across a roundabout and turned left towards the centre of Harrow. He bel owed at the windscreen as the car that should have had right of way missed him by a matter of inches, the face of its driver murderous. Thorne returned the look with interest and stamped on the brakes, catching his breath through gritted teeth as a line of stationary vehicles appeared in front of him.

Al of those who worked with her, of whatever rank, wil miss her dedication and good humour. . .

The school was no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thorne's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his foot pumping the accelerator as he raced the engine in neutral. The shriek of the complaining engine was almost as loud as the scream inside his head.

Nothing was moving. There were no lights ahead, no sign of an accident. Nobody was going anywhere.

The fucking school run.

McEvoy reached the far side of the playground, turned and looked around, thinking come on you fucker,-where are you? Moving back towards the centre now, saying it out loud, like a madwoman on a bus. I'm here, why the hel aren't you? There's a big surprise coming your way, coming everybody's way...

Then a few words from the voice, and she stopped, because she needed to evacuate the playground. Of course she did. After al , she had no idea what was going to happen. There were stil plenty of kids around - the slower ones, the stragglers, a group kicking a bal around. Christ he'd used a gun before, hadn't he? Thoughts of Dunblane, of Columbine High...

How messed up are you? Protecting the public should have been your first thought, would have been a few months ago. If this is about showing how good you are at your job, it's not going very wel so far... .

She reached into her jacket pocket for her warrant card, opened her mouth to start shouting...

What if they panicked? If he was nearby, it might provoke him into something. No, she might scare him off. She needed to do what they'd agreed. Besides, if he was nearby, she was going to take the fucker before he could hurt anybody.

That was her last thought before she felt the knife in her back and heard the voice, close to her ear.

'You are alone, aren't you, Sarah?'

'Yes.'

'You're not lying. That's good. Walk with me, and please be sensible...'

She gasped as the point of the knife pressed through her jacket and shirt, and into her skin. A hand was placed in the smal of her back and began to guide her forwards towards the exit.

His voice. Did she recognise it? Yes, maybe, couldn't remember. Fuck it...