Lazybones (18 page)

“They're staring because of what you look like, mate, not because of our interesting table conversation. And no, you can't come over. I'm meeting someone a lot better looking than you.”

“Surely not.”

“With no embarrassing piercings…”

Hendricks grinned. “You never know. She might have them in special, secret places.”

The waitress was there again. She took the plate from in front of Hendricks. He'd left a perfect ring of pizza crust.

“If you don't eat your crusts, you won't get curly hair,” Thorne said.

Hendricks ran a hand across his shaved head. “With the look I'm cultivating, that's not really a problem…”

 

The afternoon had bled into the evening, and by the time Thorne pushed through to where Eve was sitting, at a small table next to the cigarette machine, it was almost last orders. Plenty of time to get through a bottle of wine between them. For Thorne to apologize for messing her about, and for Eve to tell him he was being stupid. More than enough time for Thorne to tell her almost nothing about the sort of day he'd had.

It was a small, friendly pub near the Hackney Empire. They stepped out onto Mare Street and looked up and down the road. They fastened unnecessary buttons on jackets, studied parked cars, filling up a suddenly awkward moment.

Eve stepped over to him, put her hands on his shoulders. “Now, about that kiss…”

Thorne didn't need asking twice.

They kissed, his hands moving around her waist and hers to the back of his head and neck. She bit softly on his lower lip. He pushed the tip of his tongue into the gap between her teeth. Then his mouth widened into a grin and they leaned away from each other.

“I
knew
you were well up for it,” Thorne said.

She dropped her hand down, gave his backside a good hard squeeze. “I'm well up for anything.”

They were a few minutes' walk from Eve's flat. A short bus or cab journey from Thorne's. This wasn't the reason for the uncertainty that Eve saw in Thorne's expression.

“You still haven't bought a new bed, have you?” she said.

Thorne tried his best to look like a guilty schoolboy. He imagined that it made him look endearing. “I haven't had time…”

She grabbed his hand and they began to walk.

“I've only really had last Sunday and there was all manner of shit that needed doing.” Thorne decided not to elaborate. He didn't explain that the shit in question had involved replacing his stereo system and those twenty-five or so CDs that he
really
couldn't do without. Spending his nights curled up on the sofa as he was, some people might have questioned his priorities. With the prospect of a night curled up with Eve Bloom looking distinctly achievable, even
he
had to agree that they seemed completely bonkers.

They walked a little way up Mare Street and then
turned left, crossing the railway line and cutting across London Fields. The night wasn't as muggy as some had been recently, but it was still warm. There were plenty of people around.

“You're not waiting for the insurance, are you?” Eve asked suddenly.

“What?”

“To pay for a new bed.”

Thorne laughed. “I think I can afford a new bed. It's actually only a new mattress, so it won't break the bank. I'll need the insurance to sort out a new car, though. I'm getting pissed off with buses and junk heaps from the car pool…”

“What are you going to get?”

Thorne wasn't sure whether he'd spent more time the previous week on the phone chasing the insurance company or sitting at his kitchen table poring over car magazines. “It doesn't really matter,” he said.

Eve leaned in close to Thorne to let a jogger go past. “Do coppers cheat on their insurance like everybody else?”

“Well, cheat is putting it a bit strong. I may have got the make and model of the stereo ever so slightly wrong. All right,
and
the price. I might have thrown the odd boxed set in when I was doing my CD inventory, but fuck 'em, I probably forgot stuff as well.”

They walked on in silence for a minute or so and then stopped at the edge of the park. They watched a group of lads kicking a ball around, floodlighting courtesy of a couple of lampposts and a full moon.

Thorne remembered the game he'd watched just over a week earlier. The park near the hotel in Slough. That one had been just
before
a postmortem…

“There was another body today,” Thorne said. “Well, last night and today. That's why I had to cancel.”

Eve squeezed his hand. “Is it the same man? The one who left the message on my machine?”

They moved away from the game and out onto the road that ran parallel to the one where Eve lived and worked.

“He kills men who have assaulted women,” Thorne said. “Who've raped them and been to prison for it. The one we found yesterday was slightly different, but that's basically what he does. Fucked if I know why he does it, or when he's going to do it again, and fucked if I know how I'm going to stop him.”

“So don't.”

Thorne laughed. Stared at the pavement. Stepped around the dogshit. “I'm not the one who decides…”

“It's not like he's chopping up old ladies, is it?”

They turned onto a small side street and walked slowly up the middle of the road.

Hand in hand, at arm's length.

“I'm always reading about how stretched police resources are,” Eve said. “So why not use them on something a bit more worthwhile?”

“More worthwhile than a murderer?”

“Yeah, but look at who he's murdering…”

Thorne took a deep breath. He shouldn't have said anything. He did
not
want to get into this. “Look, whatever you think about what those men had done, whatever any of us thinks, they'd been to prison for it. I haven't got a
lot
of respect for the legal system, but surely—”

“All right. Just think of this bloke as cutting reoffending rates, then.”

Thorne looked at her. She was smiling, but there was something set around her eyes. She clearly felt strongly about what she was saying, and Thorne knew that it was tough to argue with. “I can't think like that, Eve. I can't go down that road…”

“As a police officer, you mean? Or just…personally?”

They emerged from the side street. Eve's shop stood in darkness on the corner opposite.

“Listen, just how much of a problem would it really be with Denise? If I was to stay?”

Eve sighed heavily. “I told you. She gets a bit weird…”

“Aren't there nights when she's not there? Doesn't she ever stay at Ben's?” Eve shook her head. “Why not?”

“I don't know. He's just as batty as she is. Come on, you've seen them together…”

They walked past the shop, stopped at Eve's doorstep. Eve reached into her bag for the door keys.

“She's got no right to tell you who you can have staying,” Thorne said.

Eve pressed her palms against his chest. “She doesn't exactly tell me. Listen, it's just not worth the hassle.” She grabbed the lapels of Thorne's leather jacket, pulled him toward her. “Especially when you can just buy a mattress. I could do it for you, if you like…”

They stopped kissing when the front door of Eve's flat suddenly swung open from the inside. Denise stood in the doorway, looking surprised. A figure loomed behind her, and Thorne recognized the man he'd seen working in the florist's that first day he'd been in there.

“Hello, Eve,” he said.

Denise stepped out into the street. The man followed her. “Keith just dropped round to say he won't be able to make it again on Saturday,” Denise said.

Eve moved forward, put a hand on Keith's shoulder. “Everything okay, Keith?”

He shook his head, reddening. “It's difficult…”

Eve turned to Thorne. “Keith's mum hasn't been well…”

The four of them stood there a little awkwardly. Denise's arms were bare and she rubbed at them, shivering slightly as a breeze began to pick up.

Keith pulled on the denim jacket he'd been carrying. “I'm going home.” He nodded to himself a couple of
times, then turned and marched quickly away. The others watched him go.

“I'm going to bed, hon,” Denise said. “I'm utterly fucked.” She bounded across and threw her arms around Eve's neck. “See you in the morning…”

Thorne watched as she kissed Eve on both cheeks. He was slightly taken aback when she leaned over and kissed him, too. Half on the cheek and half on the mouth.

“'Night, Tom…” She turned and stepped smartly back inside the flat, pushing the door behind her until it was almost, but not quite, closed.

Thorne checked his watch. There was probably still time to make a late bus to Kentish Town or Camden.

“I'd better be getting off as well,” he said.

Eve gave him a theatrical leer. “You won't be getting off with anyone if you don't buy yourself a bed. I'll take you to IKEA at the weekend…”

“Oh, please God, no,” Thorne said.

 

Thorne could see Keith striding along the street a hundred yards or so ahead of him. He hung back, trying not to catch up. Feeling awkward, the good nights having been said, and not wanting to go through it again. Thorne was relieved when he saw Keith turn off onto a side street. Keith looked back and stared at him for a few seconds before he moved out of sight.

When Thorne reached the corner and looked, there was no sign of him.

As he hurried toward the bus stop on Dalston Lane, Thorne admitted something rather puzzling to himself. He'd asked Eve about staying the night at her place only because of what she'd already told him about Denise. Because he'd known very well that it wasn't going to happen. He actually felt comfortable that it hadn't…

There was a seedy-looking burger van opposite the
bus stop and Thorne was suddenly starving. The late-night bagel bakery was five minutes' walk away. It was a toss-up between food poisoning and the risk of missing the last bus.

Ten minutes later the bus rumbled into view and he was already wishing he hadn't had the burger. As he rummaged in his jacket for the exact change, Thorne wondered why on earth he should be feeling something like relief that he was on his way home alone.

 

Carol Chamberlain was three quarters of a team of two.

She had been assigned a research officer, but ex–Detective Sergeant Graham McKee was, to use a favorite phrase of her husband's, about as useful as a chocolate teapot. When he wasn't in the pub, he made it perfectly clear that he thought Carol should have been the one making coffee and phone calls, while he was out doing the interviews.

A few years ago, she'd have had his undersized balls on a platter. Now she just got on with doing the job, his as well as her own. It might take a bit longer, but at least it would get done properly. She believed in that. She couldn't be sure yet, but if the case she was on now had been handled properly first time around, there might well have been no need for her to be doing anything at all.

The drive to Hastings hadn't taken her as long as she'd thought, but she'd left early to be on the safe side. Jack had got up with her, made her some breakfast while she got ready. She could see that he was unhappy that she was going out on a Sunday, but he'd tried to make a joke of it.

“Bloody unsociable hours. Sunday down the drain. Now I
know
you're working for the police force again…”

She checked her makeup in the mirror before she got out of the car. Maybe she'd overdone the foundation a
little, but it was too late now. She was pleased with her hair, though; she'd run a rinse through it the night before to get rid of most of the gray.

Jack had told her she looked great.

She walked up to the front door and knocked, telling herself to calm down, that she'd done this a thousand times, that there was no need to grip the handle of her briefcase as though it were stopping her from falling…

“Sheila? I'm Carol Chamberlain from AMRU. We spoke on the phone…”

Carol could see that the woman who answered the door was clearly not expecting someone who looked like her, rinse or no rinse. She had gained a stone in weight for each year that she'd been out of the force, and at a little over five feet tall she knew very well how it looked. Her hair could be as fashionable and artificially auburn as she wanted, but—whatever lies Jack might tell her—she could do little about the rest of it. However sharp she
felt,
she knew that those thirty years on the job showed in her face. Some mornings she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were like currants sinking into cake mix…

The woman opened the front door a little wider. However disappointed or confused she might be, Carol hoped that good old British reserve would prevent Sheila Franklin saying anything about it.

“I'll put the kettle on,” she said eventually.

In the kitchen, while tea was being made, they spoke about weather and traffic. Sheila Franklin wiped down surfaces and washed up teaspoons as she went. Settled a few minutes later in the small, simply furnished living room, her face crinkled into a frown of confusion.

“I'm sorry, but I thought you said that the case was being reopened…”

Carol had said no such thing. “I'm sorry if you were
misled. I'm re
examining
the case, and if it's considered worthwhile, it might be reopened.”

“I see…”

“How long were you and Alan married?”

Alan Franklin's widow was a tall, very thin woman whom Carol would have put in her mid to late fifties. Not a great deal older than she was herself. Her hair was pulled back from a face dominated by green eyes that did not stay fixed on any one spot for more than a few seconds. From behind the rim of her teacup, her gaze darted around like a ferret's as she answered Carol's questions.

She'd met Franklin in 1983. He would have been in his late forties by then, ten years older than she was. He'd left his first wife and a job in Colchester a few years before that and moved to Hastings to start again. They'd met at work and married only a few months later.

“Alan was a fast worker,” she said, laughing. “Very smooth, he was. Mind you, I didn't put up much of a struggle.”

As always, Carol had done her homework. She was up to speed with what very few background details there were. “How did Alan's kids react? What would they have been then? Sixteen? Seventeen…?”

Sheila smiled, but there was something forced about it. “Something like that. I'm not even sure how old they are now. In all the time we were married, I think I saw the boys once. Only one of them bothered to show his face at Alan's funeral…”

Carol nodded, like this was perfectly normal. “What about the first wife?”

“I never met Celia. Never spoke to her on the phone. I'm not even sure that
Alan
ever did, to be honest, after they split up.”

“Right…”

Sheila leaned forward and put her cup and saucer down. “I know it probably sounds odd, but that's just the way it was. It was Alan's
past
…”

Carol tried not to let any reaction, any
judgment
of these people's lives, show on her face, but it was hard. She and Jack had married relatively late, and there were times when relations with his ex-wife were a little strained, but they were civil. They acknowledged each other. And Jack's daughter had
always
been a part of their lives.

“I did make an effort with the children,” Sheila said. “For a while I tried to persuade Alan that he should see them, that he should try and build bridges. He was always a bit funny about it.”

“Perhaps he thought his ex-wife had turned them against him.”

“He never said so. The kids were more or less grown up anyway, and we did try briefly to have our own.” She began piling the tea things back onto the tray she had brought them through on. She took hold of the tray and stood up. “I was nearly forty by then, and it never happened…”

Carol followed Sheila as she walked back toward the kitchen. “Did Alan never talk about why he and Celia had divorced?”

“Not really. I think it was unpleasant.”

From what Carol was hearing, that was probably an understatement. “Presumably there was alimony, though? They must have communicated through solicitors…?”

“For the last few years we didn't even know where they were living. The son who turned up at the funeral only knew Alan was dead because he saw it on the news.”

“I see…”

The cups and saucers were already being washed up. When Sheila turned from the sink, Carol saw her read something in her face. Maybe that judgment she'd been trying to hide…

“Look, it was always just Alan and me,” Sheila said. “We were self-sufficient. Anything that happened before didn't seem to matter. And I was the same, honestly. I never bothered with old boyfriends or what have you, and we never saw much of my family. Alan had no contact with the family he had before, because he had me.” She took a step toward Carol, who was standing in the doorway, water dripping from a teacup onto the linoleum. Her face seemed to soften as she spoke. “That's what he always used to say. That I was his life now. What he had before hadn't worked out and so he didn't want to think about it. Alan was trying to get away from his old life…”

Carol nodded. “Could I use your loo…?”

 

She leaned against the sink, letting the water run awhile.

She had never worked much on instinct, but in thirty years Carol Chamberlain had learned to give it breathing space. Back in 1996, Alan Franklin's murder had gone unsolved. Unsolved, largely because it had been seemingly motiveless.

She smelled the soap, began to wash her hands…

It was at least possible that whatever Alan Franklin had been trying to escape from, here in this house with his new job and nice new wife, had finally caught up with him in that car park.

Sheila Franklin was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

“Do you have any of Alan's old things?” Carol asked. “I don't mean clothes or—”

“There's a couple of boxes in the loft. Papers and what have you, I think. Alan put them up there when we moved in.”

“Would you mind if I had a look?”

“God, no, not at all. Actually, you could do me a favor and take them with you.” Sheila looked past Carol, back up the stairs. She blinked slowly and a film appeared over her eyes. “I could do with getting things tidy…”

 

It wasn't exactly a photo fit, but then there wouldn't have been a lot of point…

Thorne had taken the picture out of his bag while the train was pulling out of King's Cross, laid it out on the table in front of him, stared at it for ten minutes.

The waiter from the café opposite Dodd's studio had made his statement the day after the body had been found. He'd described a motorcycle courier who'd been hanging around a few days before. He hadn't actually seen the man in the dark crash helmet and leathers go in through the door, or even go up to it. It was a hot afternoon. He'd had a lot of tables to look after…

A Wednesday, nearly a fortnight ago. Five days before they'd broken down the narrow brown door and smelled a murder scene.

So, Charlie Dodd had not been
completely
full of shit. The man to whom he had rented out his studio
had
worn a crash helmet. The lie, Thorne guessed, had been about not seeing the face underneath it. It was a lie that Charlie Dodd thought might make him some money and had ended up costing him a lot more.

At the noise of the buffet trolley squeaking down the carriage Thorne glanced up. Thameslink food would not be his Sunday morning breakfast of choice, but he was hungry. He felt in his pocket for change.

Dodd had probably felt totally safe as the man in the motorbike gear had strolled up the stairs in the middle of the afternoon. As likely as not, he'd felt in control, ready to squeeze the mug for whatever he could get. He'd had no idea of the kind of man he was dealing with.

No witness from the Remfry or Welch killing had mentioned seeing anybody in a crash helmet, but all the same, it needed to be checked out. On any given afternoon, Soho was thick with bikes, scooters, and mopeds, delivering scripts and videos, sandwiches and sushi. It had taken the best part of two days to trace every courier who had been in the area on legitimate business and eliminate them. Two days dicking about to confirm what Thorne had known to be true from the moment the waiter had described what he'd seen.

The face behind that visor had belonged to the killer, and the black rucksack slung across his shoulder had contained a length of blue washing line.

“What can I get you, love?”

The trolley was at Thorne's table. He asked for tea and a Kit Kat. He took the top off the cardboard cup, mopped up the inevitable spillage with his napkin, and began to dunk the tea bag.

He stared again at the picture he had begun to draw a few days earlier. A man in a crash helmet was too generic to have justified any kind of official image, but Thorne had begun scribbling at his kitchen table and added to it on subsequent days at his desk, or on the tube to and from Hendon. Thorne was about as competent an artist as he was a medieval dancer, but he could see
something
in his thick and clumsy shading. Something about the heavy, crosshatched pencil lines suggested a darkness behind the visor. Blacker and harder than tinted plastic…

He looked up, and out at the scenery moving past. He watched it get greener, saw the houses get bigger, as the train moved into Hertfordshire.

Thorne drank his tea and ate his chocolate. Reflected in the window, he watched as the old boy sitting across from him dithered over what to order. One of the women working the trolley rolled her eyes at the other, and a teenager in a tracksuit sighed loudly, impatient to get past.

Eileen had rung him from Brighton a couple of nights before. His father's home help had come down with shingles and there was a bit of a flap on. Eileen had called a neighbor who was coming over with a casserole on Friday, and arranged for a temporary home help to come in, but
she
wouldn't be able to start until Monday, and with nobody there to make sure…the old man wouldn't eat a thing…

Thorne had felt guilty that she'd asked him like it was a favor. A few miles away from St. Albans, a packet of his dad's favorite mints in his pocket, he felt guiltier still that he was wishing he was somewhere else. Thinking about a Sunday in a pub by the river with Eve.

The automatic door at the end of the carriage slid open. The two women maneuvered the trolley past the teenager in the tracksuit, now enjoying a crafty fag by the toilets. He shrugged at them, turned, and blew his smoke out of the window.

Thorne remembered Yvonne Kitson with her cigarette outside Becke House. He didn't really think of her as a friend, they had never socialized outside work, but something about that encounter pricked at him. Without thinking too much about it, Thorne reached into his bag for the contact sheet, looked up Kitson's home number, and dialed. She was probably up to her elbows in getting Sunday lunch ready…

A man, presumably Kitson's husband, answered.

“Hi, could I speak to Yvonne, please?” Thorne said.

“She's not here.”

Thorne waited for a bit more information, but none was forthcoming. “It's not important. Could you just tell her that Tom Thorne rang? I'll maybe try later…”

“You can try, but I don't know when she'll be back. She said she'd only be a couple of hours…”

Thorne was still thinking about the conversation five minutes later as he walked out of St. Albans Station looking for a taxi. Maybe Yvonne Kitson's husband was a naturally surly bastard. Maybe he was in a foul mood because he'd got the kids to look after when he wanted to be out playing golf or reading the Sunday papers. Maybe it was something else altogether. Whatever the reason he was pissed off, he didn't seem bothered about letting a total stranger know about it.

She
said
she'd only be a couple of hours
…