Lifeless tt-5 Read online

  “They can get a bit naughty as well, so you need to be careful. You look like you can take care of yourself, though…”

  A few months ago, Thorne might have agreed with him. Right now he felt weak and incapable. Then he remembered the anger that had boiled up as he’d dragged Moony from one side of the street to the other.. .

  Near the door that led from the cafe into the reception area, a trophy cabinet was mounted on the wall. There were a number of highly polished cups and shields, and a note taped to the glass showing the position of the center’s five-a-side team in the Street League.

  Spike turned to Thorne as though divine inspiration had struck. “I knew some football fans who had ’em. What you were asking about before. A couple of Chelsea boys who had tattoos with their blood group or what have you. They had blue dotted lines an’ all, tattooed around their wrists and necks, saying ‘cut here’…”

  Thorne thought about what Holland had been saying on the phone: Something Something Football Association. He found it hard to believe that either of the men with the mysterious tattoos was a football hooligan, but it might still be worth considering.***

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought he might be dead…

  While he was talking to Susan Jago, Stone told himself that it could have been an awful lot worse. It wasn’t exactly a bolt from the blue. They were the ones nobody wanted.

  I’m sorry to have to tell you that your son/daughter/husband/wife

  … I’m afraid there’s been an accident… I think perhaps you might want to sit down.

  Every copper he knew had their own way of handling those awkward moments, his or her own style. The death message was usually delivered in person, of course, but as this was more of a confirmation than anything, it was decided that a phone call would not be improper. Even so, he’d been annoyed when Holland had palmed the job off on him, but, all in all, it hadn’t gone too badly. He’d told Susan Jago about the hit-and-run; about the scar on the dead man’s arm that had been detailed in the postmortem report, and led them to believe that the victim had been her brother…

  “I don’t understand why they couldn’t get hold of any of us when they found him.”

  “Your brother had no identification, Miss Jago. There was no way to-”

  “How bloody hard did they try?”

  “I couldn’t possibly say, I’m afraid.”

  Sam Karim walked past Stone’s desk and raised his eyebrows. Stone shook his head, puffed out his cheeks.

  “It’s just the thought that nobody was with him,” she said. “You know?”

  “Of course. We understand, and we’re all very sorry for your loss.” It was a phrase he’d picked up from American cop shows.

  “Couldn’t they have put something in the press and on TV? Like they did with the man I thought was Chris?”

  “They did. Locally…”

  Susan Jago repeated the word on an exasperated breath. There was a pause and Stone waited, expecting there to be tears. They didn’t come.

  “Right, well, I’m sorry to be… you know, the bearer-”

  “It’s all right. It’s a relief in a funny sort of way.”

  “I forgot to say, about the tattoos. We know now that some of the letters are a blood group. Your brother had his blood group tattooed on his arm. We wondered if you had any idea why.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Stone began to doodle in the corner of his notebook. “So you don’t know what it means?”

  “I have to go now. I’ve got to try and find out where they’ve buried my brother.”

  “Right. I’m sorry…”

  There was another pause. Then: “Will you remember to thank Dr. Hendricks for me?”

  Brigstocke was clearly still on his diet.

  “You need to get a few pork pies down you, Rus sell. You’re starting to look gaunt.”

  “I can’t say that you’re looking too good yourself…”

  Thorne and Brigstocke had arranged to meet up in

  Chelsea, a good distance south of the West End. They stood together outside the Royal Hospital, lingering awkwardly for a few minutes like spies who’ve forgotten their code words, before they started to walk. “I was going to ask,” Thorne said. “That fascinating report I did so much work on at Scotland Yard. I do hope someone’s polishing it up.”

  “I think they binned it,” Brigstocke said. “Excellent…”

  They walked through the grounds of the hospital-still an almshouse for more than four hundred red-coated Chelsea Pensioners-past the National

  Army Museum and down toward Albert Bridge. “I bet Phil Hendricks is pleased with himself,”

  Thorne said.

  “Actually, he’s pissed off because he didn’t see it before. AB negative is the rarest blood group of the lot, and even though he typed those letters out himself several times on the postmortem report, he never made the connection with the tattoo.”

  “Tell him well done from me, but that he shouldn’t make a habit of it. If he carries on playing detective,

  I might have to start slicing up corpses.”

  Brigstocke laughed. “Quite right, too. God forbid he should make us look like we don’t know what we’re doing…”

  “Did you see the PM report on Jago?”

  “It was faxed over this morning, and I managed to get hold of the original SIO in Nottingham.” “And?”

  “It was a hit-and-run. As to whether it was a deliberate hit-and-run…”

  “We’ve got two rough sleepers,” Thorne said.

  “Both with practically identical tattoos, and both dying violent deaths. What are the odds of there not being a connection?”

  “I think we’re working on the presumption that they’re connected.”

  “It’s just a question of finding the link between

  Christopher Jago and our friend in Westminster

  Morgue…”

  It was a few minutes before seven o’clock and the bridge was already illuminated; the lamps swooping and arcing above the dusty-pink metalwork. “It blows this serial-killer shit out of the water, anyway,” Thorne said.

  Brigstocke looked genuinely curious. “I really don’t see why.”

  “The MO, for a kickoff. He runs one over in Nottingham, then six months later he comes down to

  London and kicks another one to death.”

  “More than another one.”

  “It’s the first victim that counts. It’s about him and Jago. The others are nothing to do with it.” “I’m not sure their nearest and dearest would agree, Tom…”

  Thorne hadn’t meant it to come out that way. All the same, he knew he was in danger of focusing too hard on the first victim, and of forgetting those still mourning the other men who had died. He thought about Paddy Hayes’s son pulling the plug; about

  Caroline and the others trying to smile through Radio Bob’s funeral.

  “So what about this blood-group business?” Brigstocke asked.

  On the left of them, Battersea Park lay spread out to the east. Thorne could make out a few joggers and cyclists moving along the avenues. There was some sort of event taking place by the Peace Pagoda. “I can’t see that it’s medical,” Thorne said. “The first victim didn’t have any condition that would make it necessary. What about Jago?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Right…”

  “A bracelet’s a damn sight easier anyway.” “What about the football angle?”

  Brigstocke had already heard Holland’s thoughts on what the initials might stand for, and Thorne had told him what Spike had said about hooligans. “It’s possible, I suppose. We certainly can’t discount it.” “What’s your profiler make of all this?”

  “Well, it’s a bit early. Cochrane’s feeding the new information into his report and we should get something in the next day or two. He’s been considering the idea that the killer might be someone who used to be homeless himself.”

  “And he’s basing that on what?�
�� Thorne asked. “The killer obviously has a knowledge of that community.”

  “Because he found a few rough sleepers? They’re hardly invisible, Russell.”

  “If he had lived in that world himself, feeling powerless and marginalized, and escaped it somehow, it’s possible that he’s trying to wipe out that part of his life. He’s showing that he’s got the power now.

  The money’s a symbol of that. How he’s worth so much more than they are.”

  Thorne looked sideways at him, held the look until eventually Brigstocke gave in and smiled; like he wasn’t exactly convinced by any of it himself. “And they binned my report?” Thorne said.

  They turned in to the park and walked down toward the all-weather football pitches. There was a game being played under floodlights and they stopped to watch.

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure the undercover thing’s working out,” Brigstocke said.

  Thorne, who had arbitrarily picked the team playing in red and begun rooting for them, winced at a particularly high tackle. “That must have hurt…”

  “Tom?”

  Thorne had heard him well enough. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘working out.’ ”

  “Are you really getting any more out of people than we were before?”

  “What about the information I got out of that fucker Moony?”

  “It’s not hard to threaten somebody, is it?”

  As if on cue, words were exchanged and a couple of players squared up in the center circle, every breath visible in the air as they spat curses at each other. Thorne and Brigstocke watched until they were sure no punches would be thrown.

  “All I’m saying is that we should maybe take a view on it,” Brigstocke said. “It’s been three weeks…”

  “Give me a bloody chance.”

  “I’m getting pushed on this…”

  Thorne turned from the game to look at Brigstocke. “I don’t know if anybody knows anything,” he said. “And I’m not expecting them to just spill the beans over a can of strong lager if they do. I still believe we need a presence, though, and by being part of that community, I’m learning stuff that I think’s going to help. I mean, Christ, if you’re willing to put faith in your profiler…”

  “A limited amount.”

  “You never know. If he’s right, by living as a rough sleeper, I might be able to get some idea of how the killer thinks. Ask him. I bet he’ll tell you it’s a good idea.”

  Brigstocke couldn’t help but look impressed by the cheek of it. “You’ve always got an answer, haven’t you? Always got some angle.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Thorne turned around and they watched for another few minutes during which the team in red conceded two soft goals.

  “I need to get back,” Brigstocke said. “I’m in the shit for missing a parent-teacher conference.”

  Thorne stayed on, the solitary spectator, for a while.

  At halftime, the red team’s dumpy left-back trotted slowly across to the touchline. His face was scarlet, running with sweat, and the fat on his chest and belly strained against the nylon of his shirt. Thorne watched through the chain-link fence as he wheezed and hawked, bent to take hold of his knees, then threw up onto the Astroturf.

  It seemed as good a time as any to head back to the West End. Thorne turned and walked away, thinking, I know how you feel, mate.

  FOURTEEN

  There were a surprising number of places that gave out free food if you knew where to go and when.

  Spike had given him the lowdown early on, and Thorne had thought that it was quite an achievement to keep all those different names, places, and times in your head. On any one day in the very center of London alone, you could get a free breakfast, lunch, or dinner in one of a dozen different churches, hostels, and ad hoc street cafes. Some operated a ticketing system and with others it was first-come, first-served; some provided full meals, while others offered tea, coffee, and biscuits, or maybe sandwiches on certain days. With all these possibilities open to those in the know, and with a three-course meal available for little more than a pound at the London Lift, Thorne could not understand why so many were still willing to hang about in all weathers for a bowl of free soup on the street.

  Caroline had spoken like someone who knew what she was talking about. “Some people just don’t like going into places. You know? They’re not happy in buildings, for whatever reason. Centers like the Lift aren’t for everyone…”

  “And cheap’s not the same as free, is it?” Spike had added. “When you’ve got fuck all and there’s free stuff on offer, you take everything that’s going.”

  The three of them were walking quickly, from the Trafalgar Square end of the Strand, heading for the nine o’clock soup run behind Temple underground station. The street was gaudy with lights: the multicolored neon from the Vaudeville and Adelphi theaters; the huge yellow lamps across the front of the Strand Palace Hotel; the pulsing red or bright white of the cars, crawling in both directions.

  The night was cold again, but as yet mercifully dry.

  “You get whatever you can, whenever you can, ’cause there’s not a lot to go round,” Spike said. “Yeah?”

  Caroline had slowed to light a cigarette, and was just catching up with Spike and Thorne again. “Except at fucking Christmas,” she said.

  Thorne told them about something he’d read once: a quote from one of those pointless “It” girls with too many names and too little to do. She’d said something about how dreadful it was to be without shelter at Christmas, and suggested that all homeless people should move to the Caribbean during the winter, and live on fresh fish.

  Caroline’s laughter quickly turned into a coughing fit.

  “Dozy posh cunt,” Spike said.

  December was still a few months away, but plenty of shops had already put out the decorations. Thorne had no idea where he’d be when it came. His father’s sister Eileen had offered, as had Hendricks. Everyone said that the first one was the most difficult…

  “It’s supposed to be the worst time to be on the street, right?” he said. “There’s always documentaries on the telly. Women in green wellies taking a tramp home for Christmas.”

  Spike shrugged. “It’s the same as the rest of the year, just a bit colder. It’s every other punter that changes.” He put on his best Islington trendy accent: “It’s when people really start to care…”

  They told Thorne about the cold-weather shelters that Crisis and other organizations would open. About the donations that poured in from members of the public, and from some of the more forwardthinking companies. Big-name stores playing Santa and clearing out old stock.

  “You can pop along Christmas Day, get yourself turkey and all the trimmings, and as many Gap sweatshirts as you can carry.”

  “It’s hysterical,” Caroline said. “You get these poor bastards walking into day centers and hostels all through January with nothing except major drug habits and enormous bags of brand-new toiletries.”

  Spike took Caroline’s cigarette from her mouth, used it to light one of his own. “The new clothes thing is ace, though. People who give stuff to Oxfam or whatever seem to think we’re all desperate to dress like some old granddad. Fucking cardigans and pajamas that somebody died in.”

  “Nothing wrong with a decent cardy,” Thorne said.

  Caroline took hold of his arm. “Yeah, but you are an old granddad, aren’t you?”

  They drifted across the pavement toward a gift shop and stationer’s, whose window was already well stocked with tinsel and tat. They stared for a few seconds.

  “Too bloody soon,” Thorne said. There was a Dixon’s next door and he turned his attention to the television screens, still flickering in the window. A soap opera, The Bill, Sky News. He watched a journalist talking to camera and tried, without the benefit of sound, to work out what he might be talking about. He remembered Alan Ward, the reporter he’d met outside Colindale Station when he’d run into Steve Norman. Thorne de
cided that if Spurs were at home over the Christmas period-if he were at home-he’d take the man up on his offer of football tickets. He thought about the pies and the hot dogs and the scalding tea at halftime; more attractive, at that moment, than the prospect of watching the game itself…

  Spike leaned his face against the glass, steaming it up as he spoke. “I think I might go to my sister’s this year. She’s got a fantastic flat in Docklands…”

  Thorne nodded. Spike was constantly telling him things that he’d told him once or twice already.

  “I don’t care, as long as I’m indoors,” Caroline said. “This year more than any.”

  Thorne knew that she was talking about the murders. For the families, wherever they were, and for those still sleeping on the same streets as their dead friends, this would be that first, difficult Christmas.

  “Killing people, or scaring them into leaving,” Caroline said. “One way and another, he’s clearing a lot of us off the street.”

  Spike leaned back, drew a face on the window with his finger. “Maybe he’s working for the council…”

  As with those places that dispensed more substantial meals, there were soup runs happening across the West End at different times during the evening. There was one at ten o’clock, just around the corner on the Strand, where, with irony far thicker than the soup itself, the homeless were fed within spitting distance-within sniffing distance-of the Savoy. Again, it was all about knowing when and where. There were some, with appetites all but destroyed by drugs, who would go all day without eating and get by on two or three bowls of soup; trudging between the various locations with the weary resignation of those for whom eating has long ceased being a pleasure.

  There were a dozen or more people already waiting by the time they got arrived, including a good few that Thorne had come across before. He recognized faces he’d seen at the Lift, from the streets around the theater where he bedded down for the night. He met-but only briefly-the disturbing gaze of the man who’d come close to attacking him and Spike a couple of days earlier.

  Thorne, Spike, and Caroline joined those who were milling around outside a building that was-according to a discreet but highly polished nameplate- the headquarters of British and American Tobacco. Some lurked as close as possible to where they were expecting the van to stop, while others hung back, preferring to wait across the road. They gathered in small groups, talking or staring into space: the pale-faced kids in dirty anoraks, and the entrenched, long-haired and bearded, in dark clothes that seemed smeared across their bulky frames in grease. One group looked like backpackers who’d run out of money. Thorne caught a word or two in an Australian accent and decided that’s exactly what they were.