Death Message (15 page)

Thorne took a sip of water. It was tepid; tasted metallic, old. 'They went through all this when he was arrested: the story that he was fitted up.'

'They didn't look hard enough,' Nicklin said. 'Nobody believed him. But even if they had, they would have presumed that the two "police officers" were bogus - members of a rival gang or whatever.' Despite the thick carpets and the panelling, there was the slightest of echoes: the low wheeze of Nicklin's voice rising up from the polished surface of the table towards the elaborate cornicing and the ceiling rose. 'Nobody considered it seriously enough to come to the more obvious conclusion.'

Thorne didn't need it spelling out: nobody could play the part of a bent copper better than a bent copper.

Nicklin could see that Thorne had got it. 'Hardly the most fiendish of plans, was it? They just gave false names. I don't know if they had fake warrant cards, or if Marcus even bothered to ask. Doesn't really matter now, does it?'

'It's starting to matter to quite a lot of people,' Thorne said.

If Nicklin was right, then clearly Marcus Brooks would not have held just the Black Dogs responsible for the death of his family. He would also have blamed the people who got him sent to jail in the first place; those whose actions had ensured that his girlfriend and son would one day become targets. That he would not be around to look after them when it happened.

Thorne could understand why Brooks thought these men had to die. 'I don't suppose you know the names of these two men? Their real ones, I mean.'

Nicklin shook his head. 'Marcus didn't know their real names six months ago. I'm guessing he does now, though.'

Jennings and Squire. Thorne wondered which one Paul Skinner had been.

'"Want to kill",' Nicklin said suddenly. 'You said "
want
to kill a police officer". So I gather that Marcus hasn't got round to it yet.'

'Well, you know, seeing as he gave us advance warning, we thought we might try to do something about it.'

'I wouldn't bother.'

'Who the fuck are you to get on his high horse about who deserves to live and die?'

'That's not what I meant,' Nicklin said. 'But as you bring it up, you can't tell me you care
quite
as much about a bent copper as you do about a nice, dull, honest one, can you?'

Thorne said nothing.

'
I wouldn't bother
... because unless you've got this fucker locked up safe and sound in one of his own cells, Marcus
is
going to kill him.'

'Thanks. We'll bear that in mind.'

Whatever was on Thorne's face, whether he was visibly holding his anger in check or being nakedly sarcastic, Nicklin seemed to enjoy every reaction he provoked. 'I'm not saying he's any kind of lethal weapon or whatever. He's not a fucking ninja...'

'That's a relief.'

'But he won't give up. It's very simple. You'll be in a world of trouble unless you appreciate that.'

Thorne was already starting to, but he let Nicklin continue. Looked past him, staring at the prints on the white wall beyond. Washed-out landscapes and hunting scenes.

'I've seen every sort of gate fever in the last few years,' Nicklin said. 'Blokes going mental, starting to lose it when that magical release date appears for the first time on their Page Three calendar. Getting hyper. Doing something silly, a few of them, and blowing it at the last minute. But Marcus just looked...
lighter
, you know? Like he'd slipped off some sodden, shitty overcoat, so he could go running out of here that little bit quicker. Then those coppers turned up with their best bad-news faces on, and it was like something cracked open inside him. Let the bad blood out. Everything he'd spent six years looking forward to was gone, and you could see the poison spread.' Nicklin gestured as he spoke, splaying his waxy fingers. 'It was in his face, in the way he spoke, strung a sentence together... everything. When he finally walked out of here, he went just as quickly, but there was something very dark slopping about in his head.'

'Something you stirred up.'

'It
drove
him,' Nicklin said. 'And I can't believe that you don't understand exactly what that must be like. I know that if someone did that to you, if they took away someone you loved, you'd want to hurt them. More, probably...'

Thorne looked up. Nicklin was staring at him; something intense,
joyful
in his eyes, and Thorne had to ask himself if this was more than just free character analysis. Could Nicklin really
know
such things? About what had happened to Thorne's father.

Might have happened...

There had been moments earlier, just one or two, when Thorne had looked at the man across the table; when he had asked himself, in the absence of any prison officer and in the light of what he knew Stuart Nicklin to be capable of, if he should be concerned for his safety. Now, as he felt his own reservoir of bad blood start to leak, cold into his veins, he knew that Nicklin was the one who should be afraid.

'Your friend,' Thorne said. 'The one who goes through my rubbish whenever he fancies it. Tell him it's finished, OK?' Nicklin held the stare. 'Tell him that if I as much as see a rat nosing round my bins, I'm going to presume it's him in disguise. That I'm going to find him and fuck him up. Make sure he gets that message.'

Nicklin gave a small salute.

Thorne pointed. 'And
you
need to do some forgetting. Whatever you know... numbers, dates, names. Anything about me, or anyone close to me, just let it go.'

Nicklin shook his head. 'As it happens, I've almost forgotten your girlfriend's address already. The number, I mean. But I'm sure the street name will go as well, eventually.' He jabbed at his temple. 'Maybe my mind's going, same as your old man's did. I'm having some trouble remembering the last two digits of Auntie Eileen's phone number as well, so I don't think you need to worry.'

Thorne could feel the dark blood starting to rush, singing beneath the skin. 'You need to forget it all,' he said.

'It's such a shame...'

'Really, you do. Because even if you spend the rest of your life inside, whether or not you think you've got fuck all left to lose, trying to use any of this stuff would not be clever.'

Nicklin chuckled, but he suddenly looked tired. 'Well, you were as good as your word in that playground.' He grinned, showing Thorne his false teeth. 'As good as your threat, I should say. But those were exceptional circumstances, weren't they? I'm not sure you'd be up to it this time.'

Thorne leaned back, folded his arms. 'Just take a good, long look, and remember me sitting in this chair.'

But Nicklin was already pushing his arms along the tabletop. He leaned down slowly and turned his head to lay his face on top of them. From where Thorne was sitting, he could see several small, irregular patches, dark against the baby-pink of Nicklin's bald head. Purplish blots or lesions, like wine stains, on his scalp.

Paul Skinner steadied himself against the worktop and tried to stop the can rattling against the glasses as he poured out the beer. He stopped and took a deep breath, fought the urge to vomit.

He'd been telling himself that the sweat was a result of being frantically busy all day, but it was sounding less convincing by the minute. Not that he hadn't been tearing around like a blue-arsed fly. He'd spent the best part of two hours persuading his wife what a nice idea it would be for her to take the kids across to her mum's for the weekend. He'd helped them pack, loaded up the car and waved them off. Once they'd gone, he'd continued to charge around; aimlessly, he knew, but he couldn't stop. He refused just to sit and wait for whatever was coming.

The sweat had begun to prickle the moment those two Murder Squad twats had stepped across his doorstep, and it had been pouring from him, thick and sticky, ever since. It wasn't the same as sweat on a hot day, or after a kick-about in the garden with the kids. He'd smelled fear on plenty of people in his time, but his own sweat was richer and more rank, worse than anything he'd caught coming at him across a cell or over an interview-room table.

The stink of his own terror made him gag.

He dropped the two empty cans into the bin and told himself that things were sorting themselves out. He'd made the call as soon as Annie and the kids were out of the way, and it had calmed him down a little. He'd been told to relax, to try not to panic; that there was nothing to get worked up about. They'd been in this sort of mess before, hadn't they? No, not
this
kind, he'd tried to say, and it's not like it's
you
on that fucking video clip, is it? But in the end, after some arguing, he'd been as reassured as he could have hoped for.

There had been trouble over the years, of course. That was the risk when you went the way they'd chosen to go, he knew that. A couple of colleagues had got nosey once or twice. The rubber-heelers had sniffed around on occasion, too, but to no avail. And when it came to those on the other side of the fence, there were always one or two toerags who tried to have it both ways: happy to hand over cash to get you onside, then trying to be clever and putting the squeeze on once they thought they owned you; when they thought they'd got enough to put you away.

Arseholes like Simon Tipper. Top Black Dog and stupid, greedy, dead bastard. Which was where Marcus Brooks had come into all this in the first place...

Skinner carried the beers back into the sitting room, cursing as he tripped and banged his head against the edge of the door. He pushed himself up on to one knee, moaning and puffing; rubbed at his head and at the spilled beer that was soaking into his trouser leg. He looked up at the familiar figure standing above him; saw the blood that seemed to be painted on to his hand, that was dripping on to the carpet, and realised that he hadn't tripped at all.

That he hadn't banged his head.

The room grew suddenly hot and bright, the whiteness screaming inside his skull, and his tongue was heavy in his mouth as he tried to speak. 'Do we really need to do this?'

And, gasping for breath, the smell grew richer still: the bite of urine, the coppery smack of his own blood.

'Yes, we
really do.'

But the words never reached Skinner's ears. They were lost in the grunt of effort as the hammer was brought down a second time.

Down to the last four in a no-limit tournament, playing as the 'old lady', Thorne called a ten-dollar raise with a king-queen suited, and sat back to see what Number1Razr made of it. He looked at the chair that was occupied, as always, by the huge, bald man in the Hawaiian shirt; chewing on his cigar, ready for anything. Thorne couldn't help but be reminded of Nicklin. The figure looked as full of himself and was equally difficult to read. The major difference was that the cartoon looked a damn sight healthier.

Number1Razr lived up to his name, and when Thorne missed out on the flop completely, he got out of the hand while the going was good.

By the time his train had reached Paddington there was no point going back to the office, so he'd filled Brigstocke in over the phone. Since the call, he'd tried to convince himself that he'd simply misread the DCI's mood, but there was no doubting the strangeness of his boss's reaction when Thorne had suggested that Skinner was one of a pair of corrupt officers being targeted by Marcus Brooks. There had been a weariness in the long silence before Brigstocke had spoken: 'This is based on what you've been told by a convicted serial killer, is it?'

'He's got no reason to bullshit me.'

'He doesn't need a reason.'

'It makes a lot of sense,' Thorne had said.

Another pause. Then: 'Let's talk about it tomorrow.'

He'd as good as told Thorne to sleep on it. That Skinner was tucked up, safe and sound, with officers outside his house. He'd said there was nothing they could usefully be doing that night anyway, and even if the accusations being thrown around by reliable chaps like Stuart Nicklin were true, it wouldn't make much difference in terms of trying to stop him being murdered, if that was all the same to Thorne.

Thorne had let it go. He knew very well that Brigstocke had plenty on his mind; knew even better there would be no point asking if he wanted to share any of it.

He folded a low pair when Number1Razr went all-in and was called by The Big Slick, playing as the cool black guy in the snazzy waistcoat.

Thorne had lost count of the times he'd been swayed by Brigstocke's opinion; when his judgement in doing so had proved to be spot on. But this time the DCI's lack of enthusiasm had done nothing to lessen Thorne's conviction that Nicklin, and by association Brooks himself, had been telling the truth...

At the table, Slick showed a pair of tens, and even though he'd hit a third, he was put out of the game by Razr's low flush. Thorne watched as a message appeared on the site's dialogue box: Bye Nigga!

Thorne didn't know if he was outraged in spite of or because of the absurdity in racially abusing a cartoon. Either way, he made the decision that he was going to put Number1Razr out of the game if it took him all night.

They each folded their next three hands early. Then, with a decent-sized pot already built up and with two cards still to come, Thorne found himself sitting on 8-9, with 10-jack-queen on the board. He should probably have slow-played it, but couldn't resist making a big bet and typing out a message to go with it: Come on then, you racist fuck...

Number1Razr took the bait and went all-in. Thorne called immediately. When the hole cards were revealed, Thorne saw the ace-king which gave his opponent the higher straight, and with the final two cards of no further help, he crashed out of the tournament in third place.

Later, getting ready for bed, he realised that he'd probably been stupid. He knew well enough that players deliberately wound each other up in the hope that someone at the table might start to bet rashly; might go 'on tilt', as poker parlance put it.