The Dying Hours (30 page)

Hendricks sounded as though he had been asleep, but when Helen apologised for calling so late, he said that it was fine. He told her he would probably be up for hours yet, making notes for a lecture he was giving to students first thing the following morning.

‘Cellular adaptation to injury, regeneration and healing, and it’s not as interesting as it sounds. Trust me, it’s taking a lot of coffee to keep me awake.’

Helen grunted something like a laugh as she walked across to the window again, looked down at the street and watched for headlights. ‘I was just wondering if you’d heard from Tom,’ she said.

‘Since when?’

‘Tonight, I mean.’

‘I haven’t talked to him since Friday night.’

‘Right.’

‘Everything OK?’

‘I’m probably just being an idiot,’ she said. She walked across to the kitchen table, poured herself another half-glass of wine. She explained that she had last spoken to Thorne some time around eight, when he had told her that he would not be home for a while.

‘OK, so that was what…⁠?’

‘Four hours ago.’ It was now nearly midnight. Helen had been checking her watch every few minutes. She heard Hendricks hum, non-committal, clearly unconvinced that there was any problem at all. ‘I know, like I said, I’m being stupid… I mean he told me he was going to be late, right? Thing is, he tried to call me about half an hour ago and when I picked up there was nobody there. It just went dead. I’ve been calling him back, but now he’s not answering.’

‘He’s probably not got any signal.’

‘No, he’s definitely got a signal, because it’s ringing. It just rings out until it goes to his answerphone.’

‘You left a message?’

‘Yeah, I told him to call.’ Back to the window. She caught her breath as lights appeared, then released it when the car accelerated past. ‘Listen, sorry, Phil.’ She walked back to the table. ‘I’ll let you get back to your… what was it again?’

‘Did he sound all right when he called?’ Hendricks asked.

‘He told me he was waiting for some drug dealer.’

‘Well there you go then,’ Hendricks said. ‘They don’t tend to keep regular hours.’

‘He did sound a bit odd, though.’

‘Odd like… he was lying?’

‘No.’ Helen picked up her glass. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She used the edge of the old T-shirt she was wearing to mop up the ring of moisture where the glass had been. ‘You don’t know what that’s about, do you?’

‘What?’

‘This drug dealer business.’

‘Not a clue,’ Hendricks said. ‘Must be something that came up today.’

‘But I mean, nothing to do with the suicides thing?’

‘Not as far as I know.’ The doubt was evident enough in Helen’s silence. ‘Listen, I’d tell you if it was.’

‘Yeah, I know. Sorry.’

‘You ask me, he’s got his phone on silent and he’s stopped off for a kebab. That, or it was his own drug dealer he was waiting for. Maybe he’s just off his tits somewhere.’

‘I’ll call him again,’ Helen said.

‘Listen, call back if you’re still worried.’

Helen was swallowing a mouthful of wine, so did not have a chance to say that she wasn’t worried.

‘Or if you just want a natter, whatever,’ Hendricks said. ‘If you’re gagging to find out about cellular regeneration…’

‘Any idea?’ Mercer asked. ‘Go on, stand up, have a look around.’

With his hands still tied behind his back, Thorne had to lean his shoulder into the wall in front of him, use it to heave himself to his feet. It took half a minute, the pain in his arms, the pain everywhere causing him to cry out with the effort.

Then, looking out and down, he understood that it was not a wall.

The edge of a roof…

Through the rain he could see the cars a hundred feet or so below, uneven strings of light moving in a dozen different directions. The Shard rose up, shining in the distance. A little nearer, the beacon on Canary Wharf flashed away to the east and closer still he could see the spidery legs of the O2, squatting in the crook of the river ahead of him. Directly below, he saw the dark sprawl of smaller buildings and T-blocks, the walkways and rat-runs between them. To either side of him, a ten-storey block identical to the one he stood on top of. He could just make out figures in one or two lighted windows, the glow of TV sets and a necklace of coloured lanterns strung from a balcony.

He knew exactly where he was.

‘The Kidbourne,’ he said.

‘Spot on,’ Mercer said. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen it from this angle though.’

‘No…’

‘Can’t hear you.’

Thorne raised his voice above the noise of the wind and the rain. Said it again.

‘Turn round,’ Mercer said.

Thorne did as he was told and took half a step away from the edge.

‘I grew up here.’ Mercer used the gun he was holding to gesture with, waving it around, pointing with it. ‘Three floors below where we’re standing right now, as a matter of fact.’

He wore jeans and training shoes, a dark windbreaker buttoned up just below his chin. He had cut his white hair back to the scalp, but despite this, Thorne was surprised to see a face that seemed far from hard. The smile, wistful if anything, further softened a face that was fuller and less lined than he had expected and which looked almost pinkish in the bleed from the emergency lights dotted around the rooftop. An old man who would probably not merit a first look, let alone a second.

Then Thorne realised that he’d seen the face before. The old man the female PC had spoken to outside the house in Woolwich. The ‘friend’ of the man who’d been found hanged.

Mercer saw the recognition on Thorne’s face and smiled. ‘Well, me and him
were
pretty close at one time,’ he said.

Thorne narrowed his eyes against the stinging rain.

‘Mid-fifties when this place went up, it was paradise,’ Mercer said, looking around. ‘We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Central heating, no damp, playgrounds for the kids, what have you. State of the art this place was back then. Social housing, that’s what they called it.’ He shook his head and the smile began to slip a little. ‘
Social
housing. Great big con, that’s what it was, and I’ll tell you something, it wasn’t very long before the cracks started showing and we knew we’d been cheated… before everything started rotting or breaking down, but it was all a bit late by then.’ He looked left then right, to the towers on either side. ‘Slums in the sky, that’s what they really were, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Basically, they were designed for the likes of us, for the “problem families”. Makes life that much nicer for everyone else if you round all the scum up and stick them in one place. Makes it easier to keep an eye on them. Who gives a shit if nothing works? Who cares if there’s no decent bus service and rats the size of dogs?’ He wiped the rain from his scalp with the flat of his free hand. ‘Brutalist, that’s what they call this style, isn’t it? Just chuck a shitload of steel and concrete at everything, no need to tart it up too much. Brutal buildings for brutal people to live in, right?’

Thorne said nothing. He tried to loosen whatever had been used to tie his hands, but there was no give in it.

‘Even more of a shithole now, isn’t it?’ He looked at Thorne. ‘No-go area for you lot, am I right? Gangs, whatever.’

‘Yeah, there are gangs,’ Thorne said.

‘Well, what do you expect? Vicious circle, isn’t it? You treat people like dirt they’re only going to behave one way.’

‘It’s not an excuse,’ Thorne said.

‘Come again?’

‘Any of that. Where you grew up. It’s not an excuse for what you’ve done.’

‘Never said it was.’ Mercer rolled his shoulders and adjusted the grip of the gun in his hand. ‘Just telling you the way things were.’

Thorne’s phone began to ring in his pocket. He and Mercer studied one another as it rang out and suddenly the minutes Thorne had lost started to come back to him. The blanks filled themselves in. He remembered running out of Tully’s flat and sprinting across the street to his car, reaching for his keys with one hand and trying to dial with the other. Helen’s phone had just begun to ring out when he’d become aware of the figure behind him and turned…

On the roof, his phone stopped ringing and there were a few seconds’ silence afterwards. Then the sound of the alert to signal that a message had been received.

‘Someone who’s worried about you?’ Mercer asked. ‘Someone you care about?’

The rainwater was running from Thorne’s hair into his eyes and, unable to use his hands, he did his best to shake it away. He said, ‘That’s not an excuse either.’

‘I don’t need excuses,’ Mercer said. ‘I have reasons.’

‘I know what those years in prison cost you. I know you didn’t have any visitors. Wife, kids…’

‘You
know
?’ The gun moved slightly in Mercer’s hand. ‘It’s easy to say that, but why don’t you let me know how you feel when you lose all the people you love?’ He smiled. ‘I mean obviously you won’t be able to, but you get the point.’

‘Blaming people changes nothing,’ Thorne said. The wind was blowing harder, whipping the rain into Thorne’s face, forcing him to raise his voice still further to make himself heard across the six or eight feet that separated him from the man with the gun. ‘Won’t bring your wife and kids back, will it?’

If Mercer was listening, he chose not to react. ‘The interesting thing is, I’m giving you a choice. Kind of choice I never had, but like you say, no point dwelling on ancient history. Now, you obviously saw that picture I sent you, the speed you came tearing out of Mr Tully’s.’

‘I saw it.’

‘Good, so you understand.’

‘If you go near them, I’ll kill you,’ Thorne said.

Mercer smiled. ‘I think you’ve got things arse-about-face, old son. I won’t be paying a visit to your nearest and dearest until after
I’ve
killed
you
. And only if you make me do that by refusing to kill yourself. Simple enough to grasp, I would have thought.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

Mercer’s chuckle was high and wheezy; nails on a blackboard. ‘Yeah, a couple of the others said something like that. Suggested I might be making empty threats, that I wouldn’t go through with it.’ He shrugged. ‘I just gave them a few more details, let them see I’d done my homework. You want to know what I’ve got in mind for your two?’

‘No…’

Ignoring him, Mercer calmly recited the address of Helen’s flat, the name and address of Alfie’s childminder. ‘I think I’ll do the boy first,’ he said. ‘Watch his mother’s face while she listens to him scream—’

‘OK,’ Thorne shouted, his voice breaking. ‘I believe you.’

‘Yeah.’ Mercer looked pleased. ‘That’s more or less what the others said.’

‘Please don’t hurt them.’

‘Quite a cutie, the little lad.’

‘
Please
…’

A small nod, as though a simple accommodation had been reached between them. ‘Well, like I said, it’s entirely up to you. You can die having saved the people you love. The people who love you.
Or
, you can die knowing that you were responsible for their deaths.’ He scratched briefly at his neck with the barrel of the gun. ‘Funny really, because suicide used to be a sin, didn’t it? Eternal damnation, all that. But this way, you’re choosing to save lives while you take your own, so if there
is
anything waiting for you on the other side… well it’ll be a nice warm welcome, I expect.’ He waited, cocked his head. ‘Come on, it’s no choice at all really.’

The roar of a jet on its way into City Airport drowned out Mercer’s voice right at the end. Simple enough to make out what he’d said though.

‘Is it?’

Thorne lowered his head, then was bent over violently by a sudden attack of dry heaves and retching. He coughed and spat. When he lifted his head again, he was shaking it.

‘Good,’ Mercer said, waving the gun. ‘So, up you get.’

Thorne turned and moved slowly forward, until his feet were pressed against the brick. He had to wait for the gap between involuntary gulps of cold, wet air before he could get the word out.

‘Can’t…’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ Mercer said. ‘Stupid.’

Thorne heard Mercer moving towards him. He felt the barrel of the gun against his head again, then the rough tug on his shoulders as whatever was binding his hands behind his back was cut away. He heard Mercer step back. He massaged the cramp in his shoulders and rubbed at the welts on his wrists.

‘On you go…’

The first step up was hard, but the
second
– the one that actually lifted him on to the ledge and to within inches of what lay beyond it – was more terrifying than anything Thorne had ever experienced. He badly wanted to close his eyes but knew that balance would be impossible if he did. He fought to control the urge to void his bowels and bladder, at the same time knowing such a worry was foolish, pointless.

‘Almost there,’ Mercer said.

The ledge was no more than a foot wide, smooth and slippery. The toes of his shoes hung over it as he squatted, clinging to the edges of the bricks with his fingers.

‘This is the trickiest bit, you ask me. Once you actually step out, it’s a piece of cake.’

Thorne let go of the edge and grabbed it again, let go and grabbed… then slowly, an inch or so at a time, he began to get to his feet. The wind pushed harder at him the higher he rose. He used his arms, windmilling to steady himself against the force of it, the weight of the rain, heavier against one side of him, and the convulsions that shook his body from head to toe every few seconds. Head swimming as he forced it up a little further into the blackness, further from his feet, further from anything solid. Pausing for long, desperate seconds and struggling for control of his limbs, while the rain stung and the breath sang like a tea-kettle out of him, until finally he was standing.

Then he took a few moments and looked down, and suddenly everything was nice and still and simple.

His face was slick with rain, snot and tears. The ground a little blurry down there, soft even.

It was not that far to fall, not really.

Not when he thought about how far he’d fallen already.

He had lied without thinking. He had believed those closest to him,
all
of them, capable of betrayal. He had become mistrustful and devious and worst of all, he had put lives at risk. He had been willing to take a chance on the safety of others for his own ends. He had become the worst type of copper there was.

A fucking glory-hunter.

He lifted his toes, then stretched them, and the tips of his shoes moved a little further out across the ledge.

Yes, he had been lost and unhappy, exiled from a life he had loved, the job that had got his blood pumping every morning. They were not excuses, though, he didn’t have them any more than Terry Mercer.

There could be no excuses.

He rose up on to tiptoes, lifted his arms a foot or so away from his sides.

Most importantly of all, who the hell would miss him?

Now
he closed his eyes, and behind them was the picture of Helen and Alfie. She might as well have been waving goodbye.

This would be the last decent thing he could do for them…

‘Put the gun down, Terry.’

‘Fuck are you?’

‘Put it down…’

Raised above the rush of the wind and the rain and the babble inside his own head, it took Thorne a few seconds to realise that the voices were real.

‘Listen to me, Tom. Just turn round and get off the ledge, nice and easy.’

‘No!’

‘Do it, Tom…’

Thorne moved each foot a few inches at a time, tried to keep his upper body as still as possible, his weight evenly distributed. He turned slowly around until finally he was staring back across the roof, towards the door through which he had been dragged a few minutes, a lifetime before.

The figure was in shadow, but the size of him was unmistakable.

‘Down you come, Tom,’ Hackett shouted.

Mercer had turned the gun towards the newcomer, but now he wheeled and levelled it at Thorne again. He shook his head. Said, ‘Only one way down for you, son.’

Hackett stepped smartly forward into the light. ‘There are firearms officers in position on top of both the other towers.’ He nodded once towards each block, the wind whipping the bottom of his long coat around his legs. ‘You understand? The inspector goes over the edge, they fire. They get so much as a hint that you’re going to use that gun on either of us, they fire. A pre-arranged signal from me… see how this works, Terry? Now drop the gun, kneel down and put your hands behind your head.’

Mercer shifted his position, stepping carefully back and to his left until he was side on to Thorne and Hackett, with a good view of each. ‘Now, let’s just think about this for a minute,’ he said. ‘Shall we?’ He slowly moved the gun back and forth between the two of them.

‘Come on, Tom. Get down.’

Eyes on the gun as it moved, Thorne took a breath and jumped down on to the roof. Mercer snapped his arm round and trained the gun on him.

‘Terry!’ Hackett raised his hands when the gun swung quickly back round to him. ‘Listen to what I’m saying now. The men on those buildings don’t need an excuse, all right?’

Slowly, Thorne eased his hand into the pocket of his jacket and felt for the switches on his radio. He turned it on, then moved his finger to the top of the unit and pushed the ‘Oh Shit’ button.