Lifeless - 5 (23 page)

mouth stil sticky. 'So, anything of interest?'

'Not real y, you?'

'Nothing. Derek bloody Lickwood's been on the phone again, demanding to know what's going on. He reckons he's being kept in the dark, keeps threatening to come over and make trouble. Why should I have to deal with him?'

'Short straw. Lovel was his case so we've got to work with him. The boss reckons you'd be better at it than he would...' McEvoy grunted. 'What about Palmer?'

'At work.' She said no more than that, but there was an edge to her voice. The unspoken bit was obvious. At work, totting up figures and drinking coffee, when he should be sitting against a rough stone wal listening to keys turning in locks; his knees pul ed tight against his chest, his heart thumping, his belt and shoelaces taken away.

She would never criticise Thorne to Hol and. Besides, she knew, somewhere, that her judgement was perhaps a little off these days. Her thinking was maybe a bit extreme...

'Right,' Hol and said. 'Do you want to grab a beer later?'

She looked across at Brigstocke. He and Norman were stil deep in conversation. 'I've never been propositioned by a man in a toilet before.' She could hear Hol and blush. 'I'm joking Hol and.' 'Yeah...'

She murmured huskily into the phone. 'I've been propositioned by

men in toilets loads of times.'

Hol and didn't laugh.

McEvoy puffed out her cheeks, blew out the air noisily. She reached

for the bottle of water. It was empty. 'Listen, Dave.. '

'I just meant.., a beer. That's al .'

She tried not to snap at him, but couldn't help herself. 'I know.'

'If they were in my class it's because they had a particular aptitude for mathematics, but I don't remember either one of them covering himself in glory.'

Thorne nodded patiently. Ken Bowles didn't seem to remember a great deal about anything. He knew that teaching was a stressful profession but Bowles could not possibly be as old as he looked. He had hair the colour of confectioner's custard and leathery grey skin. Behind the wire-framed spectacles the eyes were watery, and he had big discoloured teeth, like old-fashioned sweets in a jar, which clacked noisily together when he spoke and sometimes when he didn't.

'You do remember Palmer and Nicklin being close?' Thorne asked. Bowles pushed himself away from the edge of the desk with a smal grunt and moved across to the window. His tie was askew and there were chalk marks around his crotch. 'I don't recal a great deal about them at al . I don't think I liked either of them very much but that isn't unusual. Maths is the lesson where the most disruption occurs. The tal er one ... was that Palmer?' Thorne nodded. 'He let himself get distracted by his friend. There...' He pointed to a corner of the room. 'The two of them messing about at the back. Passing notes and laughing. Palmer's homework was good, I think, but in class he was ... somewhere else.'

'Could you not have split them up? Moved Palmer to the front... ?' Bowles shrugged, stared out of the window. 'I never real y had them for that long, you see. They would probably have gone into different streams anyway that September, but of course they got expel ed.' He raised his hand, rubbed with a finger at a dirty spot on the window. 'An older boy, can't remember his name. They grabbed him outside the school gates, dragged him into the park, I think...'

Thorne knew the story. Palmer had told him. His eyes fil ing behind his glasses, the nodding slow and sorrowful as he looked back at himself down the wrong end of the telescope, sweating as he relived it. Each detail preserved in the hideous aspic of shameful memory. The big feet in scuffed brogues, rooted to the spot, refusing to carry him away. The thick fingers, closing slowly around the brown, pimpled grip of the air pistol.

Thorne knew then that this had been the moment when everything had changed. From then on it had been unavoidable. He thought about what Bowles had just told him. A couple more months and Palmer and Nicklin would have been in different streams, moving along different paths; Nicklin's influence on the younger boy not as strong. Would they have drifted apart then? Might a few months, al

those years ago, have saved the lives of five women?

At least five women...

There was a knock at the door and Hol and entered. Thorne nodded in his direction. 'This is Detective Constable Hol and...'

Bowles peered theatrical y across the room, feigning shock. 'Looks like a bloody sixth former.' Hol and shrugged and smiled at the feeble joke.

'Did you fol ow their progress after they'd been expel ed?' Thorne asked.

The teacher shook his head vigorously. 'Didn't miss either of them for a second. Nicklin was nothing but trouble and Palmer was just a big blob. Not his fault, I suppose. Boys his age can be terribly awkward, find it difficult to fit in. Like a lump of Plasticine that needs shaping. Palmer just got shaped by the wrong person, I think.'

Thorne nodded at Hol and. Time to make a move. 'Thanks Mr Bowles.' Thorne handed over a card, which Bowles took without looking at it. 'If there's anything else that occurs to you...'

'I taught myself to juggle when I was younger,' Bowles announced. 'I'd do a bit for the class. Last day of term, that sort of thing. I can remember doing it for their class - Palmer and Nicklin's class. Cascade of five bal s, six on a good day. Balancing a chair...' He pointed at a heavy looking wooden chair behind the desk on the platform. '... one of those chairs, on my chin. Do you know that Marsden's younger than I am?'

Thorne was itching to get away. 'Sorry, sir?'

'Headmaster. They brought Marsden in a couple of years ago, from outside. I'm ten years older than he is.' He threw his arms wide, as if the sense of what he was saying was obvious for al to see. 'Be glad to get out of here to tel you the truth. Can't even manage three bal s these days...'

Hol and opened the door, and Thorne grateful y took a few steps towards it. 'We'l be on our way, sir.'

Bowles nodded and spoke quietly. 'What's Nicklin done?'

'I'm afraid we can't...'

'Of course not, I'm sorry I asked. Do you know, I hadn't thought about either of those boys in years until I was told it was them you wanted to talk to me about? I've taught hundreds of boys.

I can't remember most of them to be honest. I can recal the work sometimes, but not faces. Ever since I heard those two names again, I've been thinking about them a good deal.

Thinking about him. There's a look on your face, Inspector Thorne, whenever you talk about him, did you know that?'

Thorne knew it would be pointless to deny it, to express surprise. His face hid nothing. It never had. Not the scorn he felt for some, not the pity for others. The creases in his face folded as natural y into genuine expressions of horror, disgust and rage as those of a bad actor might shape themselves into their phoney counterparts. His face fel easily into darkness; the scowl more at home there than the smile.

Though the smile was the rarer, it was arguably the more powerful. Both had got him into plenty of trouble.

Bowles moved to the door to show them out. 'I suspect that now I shal be thinking about Stuart Nicklin often.' The watery eyes studied Thorne's face. 'The boy's moved on from air pistols, hasn't he?'

Thorne thought about Rosemary Vincent: the memory of an argument on the phone, the photograph turned over and over in her hand that day at the press conference. The hole in her precious daughter's head.

The shadow moved across Thorne's face as he answered the teacher's question.

'Yes. He's moved on.'

He was thinking about something that had happened a long time ago.

Years earlier, back when he'd stil been Stuart Nicklin and supporting himself by tossing off sad old men and confused young ones, he'd learned about making the appropriate response to a situation. Another rent boy, a spiteful little prick who was older and uglier, had stolen some of his customers. Not his regulars, they were loyal, but some of the passing trade. The fucker was undercutting, a tenner here, twenty notes there, a bit more cash and we'l forget about the condom poaching punters to make some last ditch money before his looks went altogether. Understandable, but very bloody annoying.

He was furious. He wanted to do something to punish the thieving toerag, the little bitch, but he knew that the sensible thing, the appropriate thing to do would be to ignore it. Let it go and move on. There were plenty of punters to go around and there was no need to risk trouble with the police. No need to rock the boat. That would be stupid.

He was also thinking about what was happening right now.

They were afraid he was going to disappear. Scared shitless that, with his partner taken, he would pack up and head for the hil s. If that was what they were afraid of, he knew that it was exactly what he should do. It was the appropriate response. They didn't want him to melt away and then resurface when the time was right to start again. So, that was the right thing for him to do. It was simple and sensible. It was self-preservation.

It would be hard, there was no question of that. He loved what he was doing. He was very good at it and he loved that too. It was a rush like nothing he could remember, and even without the added buzz of the other, even without Palmer playing along for real, he knew that not doing it would be like dul ing al his senses. Stopping would be like cutting off the oxygen to the very best part of himself. Giving it up would be like going to sleep for a while. It wouldn't be for ever, it might not even have to be for very long, but it would be very bloody hard. Stil , it made sense. It was the appropriate thing to do, so he would have to try.

He would try to stop.

Years earlier, back when he'd stil been Stuart Nicklin, having decided not to do anything stupid, he'd made a few cal s and lured the thieving rent boy to an empty flat he sometimes used off Glasshouse Street. It was February and freezing. From the smal window he could see the crowds in scarves and heavy coats, moving across Piccadil y Circus. He could just make out the icicles dangling from the bow of Eros and the frost on the steps leading up to the statue, sparkling in the multicoloured neon from the vast signs above.

When the boy arrived, Nicklin beat him unconscious with a house brick, stuck a funnel in his mouth and poured a gal on of bright blue anti-freeze down his throat.

In its own way, an appropriate response. After al , it was a very cold night.

He was thinking.

He would try to stop...

Thorne, too, was thinking about something that had happened a long time ago ...

The boy he'd last seen trudging towards school sporting a feather

cut, though he wasn't an awful lot tal er, had at least fil ed out a little. It was three years later. It was twenty-five years ago.

Boxing day. Nineteen seventy-six. A two-al draw at home against Arsenal, ground out on a snowy pitch with an orange bal . An acceptable result in a season that was going from bad to worse.

His dad had stayed up near the ground for a pint with his mates, leaving him to make his own way back He trudged up the Seven Sisters Road, the dark slush soaking through his boots, fil ing his turn-ups. The blue and white scarf worn as much for warmth as to declare al egiance.

They looked like grown men from a distance, but as they got close,

he could see that they were only a year or two older than he was. They were bigger too, with green Harrington jackets, and red and white scarves.

He brushed shoulders with one as they passed and a look was exchanged. He had shrugged slightly and smiled.

Two apiece. A fair enough result, don't you reckon?

A few minutes later he heard the footsteps thumping behind him and before he had a chance to react, the first of them was on his back, an arm around his neck, driving him face first on to the icy pavement.

Cars roared past, spraying water and light across the three figures, but not slowing down.

He pushed himself up on to his knees and got the first of several punches in the face. As the fists came down, he deflected some with his arms, feeling something crack in his hand at the same time as something long and heavy smashed across his shoulder blades. He was crying and straining to get down on to the floor so he could pul his knees up to his chest. He could no longer tel which were the grunts of pain and which were the dul sounds of fists clubbing into cheekbone and shoulder.

He heard a voice and saw the shadow of an arm reaching across him. The biggest of the Arsenal fans stepped over him, cursing, and final y, he was free to drop back to the floor. He rol ed over, moaning, and as he began to crawl away, he turned to see them laying into an older man in shirt sleeves. One of them had him by the hair while the other casual y brought his forehead down into the man's face. The man was Greek, he thought, maybe Cypriot. Difficult to tel with al the blood. Perhaps he was a shopkeeper who had heard the noise and stepped out to intervene. He shouted and swore as the two thugs pushed him down into the wet gutter and drew back their feet.

Tom Thorne began to shout too, then, for someone to come. Shouting for help as the first kicks went into the groin and stomach. Shouting even louder than the man on the floor as the boots flew in again and again. Shouting for help and running away, fast...

He moved around the flat, turning off the lights, very ready for bed. He smiled, remembering the way his dad had ranted from the terraces: foul-mouthed and usual y wide of the mark.

'Hoddle, you're fucking useless?

He wondered what had become of the man who'd tried to help him and got a good kicking for his trouble. He probably hadn't made the same mistake again.

He stil felt guilty that he hadn't gone back. He'd scanned the papers for days afterwards but found nothing. The man was probably not seriously hurt, but the boy couldn't forget the pain and fury on his face. Twenty-five years on and Thorne could stil see it, and hear the soggy thump as the man had crashed down on to his back in the slush.

Thorne closed the bedroom door, sat down on the side of the bed and started to undo his shoelaces. Twenty years a copper and he stil couldn't understand why they'd attacked him.