The Dying Hours Read online

  Dunn said that there had been. ‘A prisoner named George Jeffers,’ she said. ‘More or less the same age. But if they are still in touch it’s probably down the pub.’

  Thorne waited, though he could guess what was coming.

  ‘Jeffers was released about eight weeks before Mercer was.’

  Thorne scribbled the name down while Dunn gave him a few more details. Jeffers had been serving the latest in a long string of sentences for a variety of offences, though none that was anything like as serious as Mercer’s. Jeffers had looked up to Mercer, had done him plenty of favours.

  It seemed logical to Thorne that, whether or not he knew exactly why he was being asked, George Jeffers might continue to do his mucker a favour or two as soon as he was on the outside.

  Do a little of the groundwork.

  Somebody else they would need to trace.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could give me the name of Jeffers’ probation officer, could you…⁠?’

  A few minutes later, when Thorne thanked her for all her help, Caroline Dunn slipped briefly back into mild-flirtation mode. ‘It’s always a pleasure, Tom,’ she said. She showed him to the door and as he opened it to leave, she said, ‘All right… an extra pillow and a pair of monogrammed pyjamas. I can’t say fairer than that.’

  Standing in the car park, waiting for his taxi back to the station, Thorne pictured Terry Mercer sitting meekly at a desk in one of the prison classrooms. He imagined an old man in a faded blue prison shirt listening politely and taking notes as he was told all he needed to know about pensions and winter fuel allowances. Sharing a joke with his classmates while a well-meaning social worker talked far too slowly about healthcare, sheltered housing and the difficulties of readjustment to the outside world.

  Smiling and nodding, taking the literature when it was offered.

  Thinking only about fatal dosages and the silky opening of veins.

  A man who could fool an old hand like Caroline Dunn.

  Thorne felt for the phone in his pocket, pulling his jacket tighter across his chest as the wind picked up. He called Yvonne Kitson and was still choosing his words when the call went to answerphone.

  He left a message, waving as he saw his taxi come round the corner.

  TWENTY

  The chilli was a big hit.

  Helen had developed an aversion to anything too spicy while she was pregnant, so Thorne had gone easy on the chilli powder then spiced his own up with Tabasco once it was served up. Alfie ate with them, burbling cheerfully at the end of the kitchen table as he smeared macaroni cheese across everything within reach.

  Thorne said, ‘I don’t know if he’s a messy eater or some sort of performance artist.’

  He tuned the radio in to Bob Harris Country and cleared up while Helen put Alfie to bed.

  ‘So, how was the record fair?’ Helen asked when she came back in.

  ‘Good.’ Thorne took a San Miguel from the fridge and held up an open bottle of white wine. ‘Got a couple of things.’

  Helen nodded an enthusiastic yes to the wine. ‘Let me guess. Both by someone called Hank or Lefty or whatever.’

  ‘That kind of area.’

  ‘You left them at your place, right?’

  ‘We’re talking about a couple of Merle Haggard albums,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s not torture porn.’

  She nodded towards the radio. ‘Actually, this is all right.’

  Thorne told her that this was Rosanne Cash and that there might be hope for her yet.

  They carried their drinks through to the small living room and slumped down in front of the television. Thorne flicked half-heartedly through the channels while Helen talked about her day. The child found injured at home was thankfully recovering, but his mother was still refusing to admit that her boyfriend had anything to do with it.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t,’ Thorne said. ‘Maybe it was her.’

  ‘It was him,’ Helen said. ‘I watched his eyes when we read him a list of the child’s injuries. Fucker didn’t even blink.’

  Thorne took a swig of beer. ‘So, maybe she just loves him.’

  Helen turned and stared at him as though he were mad.

  ‘What would you think?’ Thorne said. ‘If you came home one day and I was the only person here and something had happened to Alfie?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Seriously, what would you do?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

  ‘I’m just saying. Would your first thought be that it was me?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I’m not a hopeless junkie,’ she said. ‘And neither are you.’ They stared at the television for a few minutes, some quiz show or other. Then Helen said, ‘Her child should have come first. The child always comes first.’

  Thorne considered suggesting that perhaps the truth should be the thing that comes first and, not for the first time, he wondered if the parents of young children were necessarily those best equipped to work on Child Abuse Investigation Teams. However detached they felt able to remain, was there not at least the possibility of tunnel vision? He knew that Helen would point out somewhat icily that for every mistake that was made, every mother or father who was falsely accused, a hundred children were saved. She would quite reasonably ask where he stood exactly, when it came to taking killers off the streets? What was a fair price to pay? She also knew him well enough to point out that, as far as tunnel vision was concerned, they were firmly in pot and kettle territory.

  Thorne kept his mouth shut, and his eyes on the quiz show.

  Yes, children came first… while those so old that it was hard to imagine they were ever anyone’s children were often ignored. Marginalised at best. Violent death was violent death and Thorne would never quantify it in terms of a victim’s age. Certainly not when it came to considering the steps he had already taken in pursuit of Terry Mercer.

  That cracked and creaking limb.

  On television, a young couple gambled all they had won so far on one final question and lost the lot.

  They made love without a great deal in the way of preliminaries, each with an ear out for crying from the next room.

  Afterwards, Thorne said, ‘I want to point out that the only reason that didn’t last longer was because I’m aware we don’t always have a lot of time, all right? I’m learning to make the most of any opportunity I get.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Helen said. ‘At least you’re enthusiastic.’

  He nudged her.

  ‘I’m kidding.’ She nudged him back. ‘It was nice.’

  Their timing was spot on. Alfie began crying before Thorne’s breathing had returned to normal and Helen brought him into bed, laid him down between them. Thorne enjoyed the feeling of the small, warm body against his own, Helen quietly shushing her son from the far side of the bed.

  Despite the thoughts clattering about in his head – the war being waged between excitement and blind panic – Thorne was asleep before either of them.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Four days off or not,’ Treasure said, ‘the first morning back’s still a major arse-ache.’ She took the Fanny Magnet past a white van with its hazards flashing and, for want of anything more interesting to do, turned off the High Street towards Ladywell Fields.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘What happened to that buzz you were telling me about?’

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  ‘Like getting your leg over, you said.’

  Treasure’s half-smile became a full-on yawn. ‘Fat chance of anything that exciting this time of the morning, is there?’ She groaned and hit the brake hard as the green light up ahead changed to red. ‘Earlies are shit.’

  Treasure had a point. The 7.00 a.m. briefing had not thrown up anything that was likely to get her or anyone else’s pulse racing. The usual follow-ups on the burglaries and minor assaults that had come in overnight. Half a dozen stolen cars to watch out for. The faces of a few local
drug dealers who would probably not be dragging their sorry arses out of bed much before teatime.

  Thorne was not complaining, of course. With everything else that was going on – his off-the-books investigation gathering momentum, a collection of stories he needed to get straight – he had more than enough juggling to do.

  A shift that was nice and… Q---- suited him down to the ground.

  He had clocked the email’s arrival while Two-Cats was busy with his PowerPoint; his phone on silent, the single pulse of it against his chest, and once the patrol pairings had been organised and the first few vehicles had pulled out of the station yard, he had hurried back to his office to get a good look at it.

  From Holland’s personal email account to Thorne’s.

  Mercer Trial: List

  It was as Thorne had expected: the judge; the key members of the legal teams on both sides; the witnesses and prosecution experts; the senior investigating police officers. Holland had indicated which of the police officers was now retired and had put D for deceased next to the names of those on the list they would no longer have to worry about. Those who had died while Mercer was in prison – senior investigating officer, judge and QC included – and those he had taken care of himself since his release.

  Dr John Cooper. Fiona Daniels. Brian Gibbs.

  Thorne knew that it would be problematic to say the least to talk about what was happening to a serving copper, so he was pleased to see that the senior Flying Squad officer on the case thirty years before was one of those no longer on the force.

  He underlined the name.

  It would be hugely useful to get the insights of somebody who knew their suspect well, who Thorne could confide in and who would… should have more to worry about than procedure or chain of command.

  Somebody who might well be the next person on Terry Mercer’s list.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Treasure said. She switched on the blues and twos and put her foot down. ‘Tom?’

  ‘Right,’ Thorne said.

  Thorne had not really been listening. Jolted back in his seat as Treasure pushed the car up to seventy-five, he leaned forward to read the Computer Aided Dispatch details on the screen. A suspected sexual assault in Brockley Cemetery.

  They were only minutes away.

  In his time, Thorne had done some fairly dangerous driving of his own. He remembered tearing through rainy streets only months earlier; a man, white-faced and swearing threats in the passenger seat, the night his career had come so spectacularly off the rails. Even so, it was those moments when the sirens were blaring and the blue light danced across the cars ahead, doing motorway speeds down quiet suburban streets, that terrified him more than almost anything else the job entailed.

  A dog running out in front of the car. A child.

  In the time it took for Thorne’s heart rate to return to normal, he and Treasure were able to establish that the ‘sexual assault’ was no more than a hysterical woman laying flowers on her sister’s grave and a teenage boy bunking off from Forest Hill School and caught short in the trees fifty feet away. Nina Woodley had arrived at about the same time, so Thorne was happy to leave her comforting the woman and telling the boy to be a bit more careful about where he chose to piss and to piss off back to school. Fifteen minutes after the dispatch had come through, Thorne and Treasure were back on the main road, driving slowly south towards Catford.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Treasure said. ‘If she could see his cock from that far away, he’s going to be beating the girls off with a shitty stick.’ She looked in her mirror. ‘Hello, who’s that?’

  Thorne looked over his shoulder and saw that the car behind them was flashing its lights.

  ‘Is she mental?’ Treasure said, raising her hand.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Thorne said, having recognised the car and its driver. He asked Treasure to pull over and told her that he would be no more than a few minutes. Before the sergeant could ask him any questions, he got out and walked back to the blue Mondeo that had now drawn up behind them.

  ‘Did she give me the finger?’ Yvonne Kitson said, when Thorne had shut the door. She nodded towards Christine Treasure who had turned round in her seat to stare at them.

  ‘Probably,’ Thorne said. ‘Trust me, you really don’t want to upset her.’

  The car radio was tuned to LBC; somebody saying that having a mayor who spoke Latin didn’t mean that the bus service was any better. Kitson leaned forward and turned it off. Said, ‘So, come on then.’

  ‘Not sure where to start,’ Thorne said.

  ‘You weren’t offering Holland any football tickets, were you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When you called him the other day. He gave me some crap about spare football tickets.’ She turned and stared at him. ‘I haven’t got all day, Tom.’

  So, Thorne told her. Then, he asked her.

  Kitson thought for a minute or so, then let out a long slow breath. ‘You can understand why I might be a little reluctant to do anything stupid. Job-wise.’

  ‘Course I can.’

  ‘And this would be a damn sight more stupid than last time…’

  This was what Holland had been alluding to in the pub on Monday night, the reason Yvonne Kitson might be more than a little ‘risk averse’. A few years before, her own career had hit a brick wall almost as hard as Thorne’s, after an ill-judged affair with a senior officer. While her lover had walked away still smelling of roses and Paco Rabanne, Kitson’s own career prospects – once considered extremely bright – had been all but wiped out. She had worked her arse off to get back to where she presently was and Thorne knew perfectly well how reluctant she would be to jeopardise that.

  ‘You don’t ask, you don’t get,’ Thorne said.

  Kitson shook her head as if to clear it, then asked Thorne the same questions Holland had, the same reasonable questions. He gave her the same unreasonable answers and told her what he had learned about Mercer during his trip to Gartree the day before. ‘This bloke Jeffers would be a good place to start, I reckon.’

  Kitson held up a hand. Thorne was getting way ahead of himself.

  ‘Assuming that Mercer is in breach of his licence, there’s already going to be officers out looking for him, surely.’

  ‘They won’t be in any great hurry,’ Thorne said. ‘He’s just an old bloke who’s gone missing.’

  ‘An old bloke who shot a copper.’

  ‘A long time ago. Come on, you know as well as I do that finding someone who hasn’t spoken to a probation officer for a few weeks isn’t going to be top of anyone’s list of priorities.’

  ‘Besides which,’ Kitson said, ‘you want to find him first.’

  ‘I need to find him first,’ Thorne said. He let that hang, knowing that Kitson would understand there was more than just the obvious reason why.

  Thorne turned and stared ahead. Treasure was still watching from the Fanny Magnet. He turned down the chatter from his radio; a dangerous dog on the loose in Deptford.

  ‘You’re asking a hell of a lot,’ Kitson said. ‘Too much.’

  ‘Look, Yvonne… if I thought I could do this on my own, don’t you think I would?’ Thorne tried to keep the desperation from his voice, but it wasn’t easy. ‘It’s not even about finding the time. I could always throw a few sickies, do whatever I needed to at night. Even then…’

  ‘You don’t have the access any more.’

  ‘Right,’ Thorne said. ‘And yes, I know I’m asking too much.’

  ‘What if you don’t find him?’ Kitson said.

  ‘I can’t afford to think about it.’

  ‘Come to that, what if you do?’

  ‘If we do, nobody’s going to give a toss how we did it.’

  ‘Really? You think?’

  ‘I don’t know what else to tell you,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Either way, if all this comes out, the unauthorised use of time and resources… the lying, where does that leave Holland?’ Kitson cocked her head, asked nice and s
imply, ‘Where does that leave me?’

  Thorne turned to look at her again. Took a deep breath. ‘OK, listen. I didn’t really want to tell you this, but I don’t think I’ve got a lot of choice.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kitson angled her rear-view mirror, checked herself in it. ‘This sounds like it’s going to be good.’

  ‘I’m not really back in uniform,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s what everyone’s supposed to think. That I got my wrist slapped.’

  Kitson waited, a small shake of the head.

  ‘Truth is, I’ve been put in undercover by the DPS.’

  ‘The Rubberheelers?’

  Thorne nodded.

  ‘You?’

  ‘They think there’s something iffy going on in the MIT at Lewisham, have done for a year or more. Somehow what’s going wrong on the other side of that bridge is connected to this Mercer business and that’s why I’ve got to come at it like this.’ He shrugged. ‘Under the radar.’

  Kitson let her head drop back, said nothing for half a minute. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  Thorne held the pause for a few seconds, then blinked. ‘Of course I am. Bloody hell, Yvonne, you seriously think the Directorate of Professional Standards would trust me to do anything?’ There was a hint of a smile, but it quickly vanished. ‘But if you’re ever asked to explain yourself, to justify anything you’ve done, you tell them that’s what I told you. You tell them I lied through my teeth, that I conned you, that I’ve lost it. I don’t care…’

  Kitson nodded slowly, taking it in. ‘I don’t think that last bit would be much of a stretch,’ she said. ‘You losing it, I mean.’

  ‘I haven’t even started,’ Thorne said.

  Kitson sat back again and laughed; relief or genuine amusement it was hard to tell. She said, ‘You needn’t worry about being bumped down to constable. They’ll throw you off the force. You’ll probably go to sodding prison.’

  Now, Thorne let the smile spread just a little. ‘Why do people keep telling me that?’