Scaredy cat (36 page)

'Maybe never. Maybe half an hour from now...' Holland wanted so much to cross the five feet of space between them, right then, and take hold of her. He couldn't.

'Nobody else knows about this, Dave.' McEvoy watched herself, feeling like a ditzy blonde trying to avoid a speeding ticket. Loathing it.

'Let's just forget all the shit that's happened. Dave... ?'

'Nobody else knows for now. I don't think you're doing a very good job of hiding it.'

McEvoy changed tack in a second. 'You go to Brigstocke and I'll be right behind you. I'll tell him you've been harassing me. They'll think you're making it up because I wouldn't fuck you...'

Holland could see that she was desperate, backed into a corner. He knew that she was clinging to the ledge by her fingernails, saying things she didn't mean and would never carry through, but still his temper got the better of him. He marched across the office, picked up the newspaper from the top of a filing cabinet and threw it down in front of her.

McEvoy stared down at the picture of Thorne and Palmer at the drainage ditch.

'You talk to anybody; Holland said, 'and you'll be opening a major can of fucking worms.'

McEvoy looked up at him, confused. 'You think I'm the leak?'

'I can't afford to waste it, you said.' Holland snatched up the paper, screwed it into a ball. 'Shit, this is easy money, isn't it? A tip here, a photo opportunity there, that's you sorted for the week. For all I know, they probably fix you up with the coke themselves, save messing about with cash.'

'Dave...'

'Just admit it, you did, didn't you? Just fucking well admit it...'

Holland saw McEvoy's eyes flicker, saw her body tense. He turned to see Thorne standing in the doorway. There was no awkward pause, no meaningful silence. McEvoy was up and moving towards the door, wisecracking to Thorne on her way out as if nothing had happened.

'Some people around here are obviously feeling as shitty as you look...'

Then there was a silence.

Thorne closed the door, moved into the room. 'Dave, is there a problem between you and Sarah?' Holland said nothing. Thorne felt hot and hassled. He did not want any more uncertainty, any more disorder.

'DC Holland, is there a problem between yourself and Detective Sergeant McEvoy?'

Holland looked at Thorne. Later, standing at bars or staring up at a striplight, he would remember this moment. In the months and the years to come, sitting on the side of the bed in the middle of the night, Sophie stirring next to him, he would look back and picture this instant. He would recall every detail of Thorne's bruised face, every nuance of his bruising voice. He would remember, and wish to God that he'd told the truth.

Holland looked at Thorne. 'No, sir.'

Thorne let out a long slow breath and moved across to the window. He looked down, hoping to see something that might raise his spirits. Some cadets marching badly would do the trick. Better yet, a group of them forming a human pyramid, mounted on the back of two motorbikes like they used to do on those displays when he was a kid... There was just a pair of civilian staff smoking in a doorway. Thorne turned and walked back across the room. He was feeling aimless, untrusted, unnecessary. He opened the door of the office, looked out across the incident room. In the far corner he saw Norman standing over McEvoy's desk. She said something that made him laugh.

'McEvoy and Norman are getting friendly, aren't they?'

'He's probably trying to talk her into going on to the next press conference,'

Holland said. 'He's been telling her she should get some media training. Says he thinks she'd come across well on camera.'

Thorne turned back into the room. 'What about me? How camera friendly am I looking?' Holland said nothing, trying to decide how diplomatic to be. 'Does it really look bad?'

'Once the bruising's gone it'll be fine. A broken nose is quite cool actually. Women go for that sort of thing...'

'Please, God...'

'I should look on the bright side,' Holland said. 'Fact is, with all due respect, sir, you were quite an ugly fucker before.'

No picking, no sneezing. The pain told Thorne that they definitely needed to add laughing to the list.

Thorne waited until the office was quiet before making the call. His heart was pounding as he dialed, as it had each time he'd tried the number from home. A dozen times or more since getting back from the hospital. A dozen times or more, he'd got the answering machine.

He waited for the connection.

He should have told them about this, there were things they could have done - traces - but he felt instinctively that their efforts would be fruitless, that this was the right thing to do.

The phone rang.

This was the way he might make up for his mistake... Ten, twelve rings as usual, then the familiar message. 'Shit...' 'This is Tom Thorne. Leave a message or try my home number, which Then suddenly Thorne remembered the call he'd seen Steve Norman take earlier. He pictured the press officer as his phone was ringing. Looking at the screen before answering.

Caller ID...

This number, the office number, was withheld, as was his own at home. Both would show up on the screen as private numbers. The calls would go unanswered. He needed a number which was registered, which would show up and give the man who had .his phone a good idea who was calling.

Thorne opened the door, scanned the incident room, hoping that Dave Holland hadn't left yet.

Minutes later he was dialing the number again on Holland's borrowed mobile. The name would show up on his phone. He had programmed it in himself.

The phone began to ring...

Whoever was holding it would be seeing HOLLAND MOB come up on the small screen and would surely be able to guess who was calling. Would perhaps risk taking the call.

The phone was answered.

'Palmer. This is Thorne.'

Fifteen seconds. Thorne was starting to wonder if maybe it wasn't Palmer on the other end. Then that voice, the nasal tones even more pronounced over the phone. 'I'm really sorry, Mr. Thorne...'

'You broke my fucking nose...'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.'

Thorne moved across to the window, stared out at the lights of Hendon, the cars speeding north on the M1. 'Why did you take my phone?'

'I won't be on long enough for you to trace this. I presume you're tracing this...'

'Did you take it to give yourself more time to get away, or because you knew I'd call?'

Thorne could hear Palmer breathing, considering the question. 'A little of both, probably.'

'This is so stupid you know. We'll find you. You've given yourself up once, you should do it again.'

Palmer laughed, but it sounded desperate. 'Why? Is it going to make a difference to my sentence?'

'Why should you care about that? You wanted to be locked up for life anyway. What's changed, Martin? Why are you doing this?'

'I should go...'

'Is it because of what I said about what might happen to you in prison?'

'Not really. Yes, sort of...'

Thorne looked at himself reflected in the blackness of the window, the bruises dark shadows across his face. For half a second he forgot that he was chatting to a murderer. He felt like a character in some noir-ish pop video, his mouth miming these disconnected sentences strange snippets of conversation dropped into a dark ballad about loss or the impossibility of forgiveness.

'What did you mean in the car? What did you mean about Nicklin being a policeman?'

'I didn't mean anything. I was just saying it. I needed to distract you...

'That's bollocks, Martin. You could have done anything, said anything. Why did you say that?'

'I had a feeling, that's all. It was just an impression, like he was used to people doing what he told them...'

'Wasn't he always like that?'

'I told you, it was just a feeling. Something about him that day in the restaurant. It's nothing I could put into words. I have to go now...'

'Wait. I want you to think about stopping this. Wherever you are, we'll find you. What's the point of it?'

'I really can't talk to you any more...'

'Wait a minute. I'll call again. I'll let it ring three times first, and then hang up, so you'll know it's me. Three times, Palmer. OK?'

The line was dead.

McEvoy lay on her back, holding her breath, staring up at the mirrors. Her heart was going bonkers in her chest. Her face was tingling, the gorgeous numbness spreading across her mouth and teeth, the buzz dancing its way up into her skull.

She froze as she heard a car pull up outside. Every muscle tensed, waiting for the footfall outside the door. She could get to the mains switch in ten seconds...

She was flat on the floor beneath the window ledge in the living room, out of sight. She'd moved the free-standing mirror in from the bedroom, positioned it to the inch, tilted it until it gave the optimum view. Now she could lie here safely and watch the back garden. She would see any of them coming immediately. There was another mirror halfway down the garden - a big one she'd hung from a fence post. From this position, she could see around the side as well.

When she'd first bought the flat, the garden had been great. She'd enjoyed sitting out there on summer nights, with a man sometimes, sharing a bottle of wine before bed. These days it was a bloody liability. It would be the way they would come. It was the place they watched her from most of the time, though the officer in the cherry picker pretending to fix the lamp post on the street outside was a clever idea. But she was cleverer. She knew all the tricks, didn't she?

The surveillance game. She knew the car that was following her was probably the one in front. She knew all the tricks because she was one of them.

Holland must have been talking. Everybody knew, she was certain of it. She'd caught two people at it in the space of five minutes, earlier in the day. Talking about her, clamming up when she came into the room. Watching her and judging. Well she was watching, them as well. As she re-applied make-up using the small mirror she kept in her bag. She could see what they were thinking. Same as Holland. Same as everybody. All of them thinking that she couldn't do the job. She froze. A shadow moved across the garden. She could be at the mains switch in less than five seconds at a push, plunge the place into darkness, turn everything off. She'd done it before when she'd heard them coming. It was a pain to spend the time re-programming the video and re-setting clocks, but she'd had no choice. They were out there, listening. The bastards weren't going to hear or see anything tonight. She .slid across the floor until she was away from the window before standing up and inching her way around the wall. She dropped into the chair by her desk, woke up her computer.

There were those she could talk to who knew how good an officer she was. Who thought she was probably better at the job than anybody else. Who challenged her to prove it.

She had email.

The ringing phone punched its way into Thorne's dream where it became the bark of a hungry animal, scrabbling at a door, digging its way beneath it. Behind the door stood a small boy, rooted to the spot, terrified, until a girl arrived and took him by the hand. Thorne woke then and leaned across, fumbling for the phone.

'Palmer?'

'Thorne? It's Colin Maxwell. You in bed?'

Thorne blinked hard and looked at the clock. It was just after eleven. He'd been asleep less than half an hour. 'I was reading. Trying to get an early night...'

Maxwell. The hotel killings. More bodies...

'Which hotel is it?'

Maxwell sounded surprised. 'The Palace, in South Kensington. How the hell did you know?'

Thorne was wide awake now. He needed some more painkillers.

'Why else would you be calling? How many dead?'

'Nobody's dead. Listen, I think we've got our wires crossed here, mate. This is good news, and I reckon you could do with cheering up. Our man isn't as bright as we thought he was.'

The painkillers could wait. 'You've got him?'

'He delivers bar supplies. Drives a fucking beer wagon. Delivery once a month, gets friendly with the catering managers, chats up a few waitresses. Who've you got staying? Who's throwing their money about? Bungs them a few quid for the right bit of information...'

'What's the Palace hotel got to do with it?'

'A witness comes forward, a cleaner, gave the suspect information last year when she was working at the Regency, back when our murderer was still just a thief. The suspect approaches this girl again last week, only now our cleaner's read the papers hasn't she? She knows all about him. We've told her she's in the clear if she plays along.'

Thorne was growing irritated. They could go over it all in detail later. 'Colin, just tell me about the Palace hotel...'

'That's the best bit, mate. What are you doing next Tuesday night?'

TWENTY-FOUR

Thorne looked down at his new phone. It was smaller than the one it was replacing and flashier. He'd spent most of the day making sure that everyone who mattered had the new number. He hadn't discontinued the account on his old phone. He wanted that number active for the time being.

While it was quiet, while they were waiting, Thorne messed around with some of the new phone's features. This one had a predictive text function. He had never been one for sending text messages, it always seemed easier and quicker to make the call. This might be fun, though. He typed the message. There were probably all manner of symbols and shortcuts he could be using - he knew this stuff was hugely trendy with kids - but he just kept it straightforward. He pressed the send button and looked up, smiled at a couple of the others. Nobody was saying a great deal.

Thorne was pretty sure that what he'd sent would be read. There was no risk in opening it, even if the number that sent-it wasn't familiar. It was a simple enough message.