Buried-6 (26 page)

Brigstocke stared at Thorne for a few seconds, as if looking for a hint before asking the inevitable question. ‘Hadn’t you more or less dismissed Freestone as a suspect?’

‘More or less.’ He was being more or less honest.

‘But he’s the closest thing we’ve got,’ Porter said.

Whatever the various moods in the room – prickly, confused, determined – nobody could argue with Porter’s assessment. Philip Quinn had final y been tracked down in Newcastle, and the assortment of crimes for which he’d been subsequently nicked had given him a cast-iron, if costly, alibi for the night Conrad Al en and his girlfriend had been murdered. With Quinn out of the frame, the only name on the list belonged to the man that Thorne and Porter had arrested in Boston Manor Park; the man now sitting in a cel five minutes up the road at Colindale station.

‘Where did we get Freestone’s name from anyway?’ Hignett looked and sounded as if everything were starting to get away from him a little. Like it was al so much easier when people were snatched for cash. When an ear or two might be sliced off to bump up the price a bit, and everyone knew where they stood. He pointed towards Thorne. ‘From some friend of yours, wasn’t it?’

‘An ex-DCI, now working on cold cases for AMRU.’ Watching Hignett nod, as though this were significant, Thorne felt as though he had just been accused of something. Of chasing wild geese and landing the team with the horrible inconvenience of an arrest. ‘She remembered Freestone making threats against Tony Mul en when she worked with him, and thought he might be worth pursuing. It seemed a reasonable avenue of enquiry, while you were busy looking at . . . other possibilities.’

The idea that Luke Mul en had committed manslaughter – that he had run amok with a knife and then vanished – thankful y seemed to have al but gone away. Thorne hoped that it had been as a result of certain officers coming to their senses, but couldn’t help wondering if certain
ex
-officers had brought a degree of pressure to bear.

Hignett looked at his feet and rubbed his fingertip across the desktop, as though checking for dust. ‘So, Freestone’s name wasn’t on the original list provided by Tony Mul en?’

‘No . . .’ Thorne let the word hang and make its point. Then threw a ‘sir’ in on the end for good measure.

‘It stil seemed like as strong a possibility as any,’ Porter said.

‘You thought initial y that he should be considered a suspect?’

‘
Considered
, yes,’ Thorne said. ‘We began talking to one or two of those who’d been on the MAPPA panel that monitored Freestone when he was released from prison in 2001.’

‘And as far as I understand it from your notes, those conversations persuaded you that he
wasn’t
our kidnapper.’

‘To a degree.’

‘But you carried on talking to people, chasing it . . .’

‘It was just a question of being thorough, sir,’ Porter said. ‘And, to be frank, we didn’t have a fat lot else to chase.’

Thorne was grateful for Porter’s help. He was hedging his bets, and sounding like it, and he didn’t know how much longer he could fight shy of tel ing them why he real y thought Grant Freestone was worth looking at. He’d spoken about it off the record to Brigstocke, but he couldn’t be certain who else might have Tony Mul en’s ear.

Brigstocke asked his question as if on cue: ‘Do we tel Tony Mul en that we’ve got Freestone in custody?’

‘No,’ Thorne said immediately.

Hignett asked why not, and while Thorne bit back the urge to say, ‘Because I don’t trust the fucker’, he came up with something more reasonable: ‘We should think careful y before tel ing Luke’s parents that we’ve made an arrest.’ He looked at Hignett and tried to summon an expression that was close to deferential. ‘I mean, I don’t know how you usual y do it . . .’

‘There’s no set procedure.’

‘Obviously, I’m thinking more about
Mrs
Mul en,’ Thorne said. ‘We’d be raising hopes,
false
ones, probably. Causing a fair amount of upset.’

It was clear from Brigstocke’s face that he couldn’t help but admire Thorne’s invention. His
cheek
. ‘I understand that, but I think
Mr
Mul en might be fairly upset himself if he finds out.’

Thorne was in no doubt that he would, sooner or later. ‘We’l have to live with it.’

‘Hopeful y Freestone won’t be here that long,’ Porter said.

Hignett had been shaking his head for a while, waiting for a chance to jump in. ‘We’ve got nothing whatsoever to tie Freestone to this kidnap, and it’s the kidnap we should be focusing on. Luke Mul en is stil missing. We don’t have time to piss about, so why are we even discussing this? Let’s just hand him over to Graham Hoolihan, and find a real suspect—’

‘Hoolihan fucked this up,’ Thorne said. ‘The Hanley case was not routinely reviewed. Christ knows when anyone from his team last spoke to Freestone’s sister, or when they were planning to. Yes, we got lucky, but at the end of the day we’ve done him a favour, and he’s the one who’s going to be buying big drinks when we eventual y hand Freestone over for the Hanley murder. Which, by the way, I also have serious doubts about—’

Hignett held up a hand to cut Thorne off, used it to point at Brigstocke and then himself. ‘When you eventual y hand Freestone over,
we
, Detective Inspector, not
you
, are going to get it in the neck from Hoolihan’s boss for not doing so straight away.’ He turned away from Thorne, spoke directly to his fel ow DCI. ‘I think this is a waste of time, Russel : talking to Freestone; even talking about talking to Freestone . . .’

‘Why can’t we have just one crack at him?’ Thorne asked.

‘Because you haven’t got a single good reason to do so.’ Hignett looked as though it were his last word on the subject. He stepped towards the door, which, after a perfunctory knock, opened as he reached for the handle.

Hol and had saved Thorne’s life a couple of years earlier, storming into Thorne’s bedroom with an empty wine bottle as his only weapon. It was the night Thorne had received the scar across his chin, and one or two more that weren’t as visible.

Hol and’s timing now was almost as perfect as it had been then. ‘Looks like I’ve missed al the excitement,’ he said.

‘If you mean Freestone,’ Hignett said, ‘there’s nothing to get excited about.’

Hol and caught Thorne’s eye as he moved further into the room. A silent exchange assuring Hol and that he would be brought up to speed later.
’

‘How did it go with Warren?’ Thorne asked.

‘Strange bloke: ex-junkie himself, turned to God. But I think we got something.’ Hol and had everyone’s attention. ‘He was concerned about client confidentiality, so he never actual y
said
as much, but I had a very strong feeling that he knew Amanda Tickel . That she’d been a client at some point.’

‘Which connects her to Grant Freestone,’ Porter said.

Thorne had been fired up by the morning’s result, but had felt the energy pissing out of him ever since he’d walked back into Becke House. Now he could feel a buzz beginning to lick at his nerve endings, the ticking in his blood starting to build. ‘They might have been clients of Warren’s at the same time,’ he said. ‘If they did know each other, we’ve got a direct link between Freestone and the Mul en kidnap.’ He looked at Hignett. Then, to Brigstocke: ‘Sir?’

Hignett could do nothing but blink, like he’d just walked into something.

‘Sounds like our
single good reason
,’ Brigstocke said.

Having wrapped up the meeting, he asked Thorne to stay behind, announced that he needed a word about a death by dangerous driving case for which Thorne had done the pre-trial paperwork.

‘Tony Mul en is already upset,’ Brigstocke said, as soon as they were alone.

‘He knows about Freestone?’

‘Upset with
you
.’

‘Ah . . .’

‘What the fuck happened at his place last night?’ Brigstocke moved behind his desk, sat down like he didn’t plan on getting up again for some time.

‘Trevor Jesmond been by to say hel o, has he?’

‘He cal ed.’

‘I bet he’s sorry he asked for me now.’

‘Mul en says you were harassing him and his wife.’

‘Talk to Porter,’ Thorne said. ‘She was there. To be honest, it was Mul en and his missus who were doing al the shouting.’

‘He says you caused the trouble.’

‘He’s ful of it.’

‘I’m just tel ing you.’

Thorne turned towards the door. It always amazed him that a good feeling could disappear so fast you could barely remember having had it. ‘Thanks, I’l consider myself told.’

Brigstocke hadn’t finished. ‘You shouldn’t be making an enemy out of Barry Hignett, either.’

‘Are you about to tel me that I’ve got enough enemies as it is?’

‘No. It would be stupid, that’s al . Hignett’s not a bad copper and he’s not a twat. He’s just one of those strange fuckers who takes a position, you know? Who sticks to his guns, because he doesn’t want to look indecisive. He’s the opposite of that character on
The Fast Show
, the one who agrees with anything anybody tel s him and keeps changing his mind.’

‘Right.’ Thorne knew who Brigstocke meant. The show had been one of his father’s favourites. The old man had been fond of shouting out the catchphrases at inappropriate moments.

‘It’s good to have people like Hignett around,’ Brigstocke continued. ‘Sometimes he’s going to be taking a
good
position and then you want him on your side. Chances are he’l be right just as often as
you
are.’

‘More, I should think,’ Thorne said. He reached for the door. ‘Almost certainly . . .’

You’d drive if it was pissing down, maybe, but by the time you’d negotiated assorted security barriers and wrestled with the limited car-parking space at either end, it was just as quick to walk between the Peel Centre and Colindale station. Thorne and Hol and had made the journey often enough for their steps to be automatic. They crossed Aerodrome Road where they always did, walked at their regular pace, with Hol and keeping to the left of Thorne, as usual.

They quickly completed the short conversation they’d begun wordlessly in Brigstocke’s office half an hour earlier. Thorne told Hol and what Hignett’s objections had been and thanked him for his timely interruption. Hol and said he was only too pleased to help, that it was another one up for the Murder Squad team, not that anyone was keeping score.

They never talked about the earlier incident, the one with the empty wine bottle, quite so easily.

‘God told this bloke to get off the coke then, did he?’

‘Apparently,’ Hol and said. ‘Says a prayer instead of doing a line.’

‘Knackering your knees certainly beats losing your septum.’

Hol and lengthened his stride to avoid a spatter of dogshit. ‘If Warren
did
know Tickel , should we be looking at him, too?’

‘Can’t see any point,’ Thorne said. ‘Why on earth would he want to kidnap Luke Mul en? Unless God told him to do it, of course.’

Though there was no option but to walk al the way around, Colindale station was clearly visible – its three storeys broken up into units of brown and white – across the quarter-mile of bleak scrub that separated it from the Peel Centre. The station had been designed along the lines of an airfield observation tower, standing as it did on the site of the old Hendon aerodrome, and next door to the RAF museum. Signs along the edge of the land proclaimed it to be ‘dangerous’. Thorne guessed that this was to do with the state of some of the disused buildings, but liked to imagine that it was something more sinister. He pictured London’s criminal fraternity throwing a hel of a party when it was announced that one of the city’s largest police facilities had been sited on top of a toxic-waste dump . . .

‘What about those two women on the MAPPA panel?’ Hol and said. ‘Kathleen Bristow and Margaret Stringer. Do you need me to talk to them as wel ?’

‘Only if you’ve real y got sod-al else to do. Now we’ve got Freestone, we can get it from the horse’s mouth. Whatever the hel there is to get.’

‘Fair enough, but Porter told me you were banging on about being tidy.’

‘Did she? What else did she say?’

‘Nothing. It just came up, that’s al . . .’

Further along, sight of the station was cut off by newly erected fencing. A sign on the gate announced the imminent building of ‘luxury studios and apartments’. Having seen similar developments spring up in recent years, Thorne wasn’t putting money on the view from his office window being significantly improved.

They turned right at the traffic island, where daffodils fought gamely for space with crisp packets and fast-food containers. For no good reason that they could fathom, two young women stood on the edge of the island, watching the cars move around it. Hol and suggested that they were trainee WPCs failing a road traffic exam. Thorne wondered if they might be extremely misguided tourists who thought it was a smal park.

‘Kenny Parsons was tel ing me a few stories about Porter,’ Hol and said.

‘Was he?’

‘She’s quite a character.’

Thorne stared casual y up at the British Airways hoarding above them, and fought off the temptation to pump Hol and mercilessly for everything he knew. The last thing he wanted was for anybody to think he gave a toss. ‘I’m not that interested in gossip,’ he said. ‘I don’t real y think we’ve got time for it on a job like this, do you, Dave?’

Hol and said nothing, just turned towards the road, but Thorne could see the trace of a smile and guessed that Hol and hadn’t been fooled for a second. He wondered if there was some kind of course you could take to make yourself less transparent when it mattered. He glanced back at the huge picture of a plane, shining above an ocean, and thought about going on holiday alone.

‘I probably wil fol ow up on Bristow and Stringer,’ Hol and said. ‘When I get a minute. Just because I’ve already started.’

‘I thought it was Andy Stone who couldn’t resist chasing women.’

Hol and smiled broadly this time, and continued: ‘I’ve made a couple of cal s and left messages. Waiting to hear back from Bristow and I’m stil trying to get a current address for Margaret Stringer.’