Scaredy cat Thorne 2 Read online

  It was probably as close as Jesmond came to losing his temper. 'I'm perfectly aware of the procedure, Thorne, but Palmer is not a fucking loan shark. He's killed two women, and we don't normally go around releasing murderers on police bail.'

  There was little Thorne could say and Jesmond quickly relaxed. The advantage was his. He took out a handkerchief and pushed one corner up a nostril, digging around, his face contorting with the effort. 'So, hypothetically, Palmer's walking about, we're watching him. Then what? Nicklin makes a silly mistake? He hasn't made too many so far has he? So, we wait for him to kill again?' Thorne said nothing. He knew it might come down to just that. 'I'm not sure you've thought this through, Inspector.'

  'With respect, sir...' The volume rising now. Precious little respect anywhere.

  Brigstocke leaned across the table. 'Listen, Tom...'

  Thorne narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth far too quickly.

  'That fence you're sitting on must be playing havoc with your arse, Russell.'

  Jesmond raised a palm but Thorne carried on. He looked at each of them as he spoke, knowing he only had the one chance, if that. 'Yes, Palmer is a killer, a fucking freak, and when this is all over, whatever we decide to do, he's going away for the rest of his life. He wants to go away, he's not angling for anything, he's not trying to make a deal.' He stopped, took a breath, carried on. 'I firmly believe, however, that if this investigation continues along the lines I have suggested, he will not be a danger to anybody...'

  Jesmond was ready to come in. Thorne didn't let him. 'I think this is our only chance to get Nicklin and if we don't take it, we'll regret it down the road. Now, as things stand, with a killer in custody, we all get patted on the back or promoted or whatever. Later there'll be blood.'

  He stared at Jesmond. Why the luck should you care? You'll probably be long gone by then. He had drawn the line at talking about 'taking full responsibility' but something in Jesmond's small, ratty eyes told Thorne that it would be a given; that should it prove necessary, the grip he was barely maintaining on his career would be loosened by a few strategically placed boots on fingers. Something else told him that it was all academic anyway. They weren't going to go for this in a million years...

  Thorne stood up. 'I've said my piece I think, sir.'

  Jesmond looked to his colleagues, straightening his papers like a newsreader for want of anything better to do. 'Thank you, Inspector. Obviously, this needs discussing and not just by us. I've got a conference call with the Deputy Assistant Commissioner arranged and he may want to take it even higher. So...'

  So... Thorne sat in the office next door, fighting a childish urge to put a glass against the wall, and cursing the tiny strand of DNA somewhere within him that made him do ... these things. Made him incapable of settling for anything.

  He had never been one for war stories. He could prop up a bar with the best of them and swap tales, but when stories of who put who away were told, he would smile, slap backs and retreat inside himself to where he could silently revisit failure. Success did not occupy him a great deal, but failure was always around, waiting to be given the nod. He was English, after all.

  It wasn't the ones he caught that Thorne remembered. That he always remembered. It wasn't the ones he finally got to see in an interview room or through the peephole of a holding cell, or across a courtroom. It wasn't them.

  It wasn't the Palmers.

  Thorne had forgotten the faces of a dozen convicted killers down the years, but he still saw, clearly, those killers for whom he never had a face at all. He would do whatever was necessary to prevent Stuart Anthony Nicklin as was, taking his place in that particular gallery. Bloody-minded, stubborn and pig-headed were easy words to use. Guilty on all three counts. Yes, yes and yes again. But they were not the right words.

  It would have been so easy to accept the plaudits and take what had been handed to him on a plate. Easy to look at a picture of Martin Palmer on the front page, to prop up that bar for a night or two. Easy to pose with the victims' relatives, to shake hands and look into grateful faces, then turn away, ready to go to work again, to begin the next hunt.

  Easy to crack on, smug and satisfied.

  So hard to dismiss a small boy with a squeaky hammer. Can you forget his face, Charlie? I hope so... Now Holland and McEvoy were moving across the incident room towards the open doorway of his office. He watched them getting closer, taking an age to get to him, wondering at the expressions on their faces, tight and dark, the piece of paper in Holland's hand, the fist clenched at the end of McEvoy's arm. Then they were in his office and the sheet of paper was on his desk, and he was trying to take in what it said and McEvoy was talking.

  'The body of Miriam Vincent was found this morning in her flat on Laurel Street in Dalston. She's been dead a couple of days. Shot in the head.' McEvoy's tone had been professional, calm and informative. Now, in a reddening rush, she let the anger come through. 'She was a student at North London University. She was nineteen for Christ's sake.., a fucking teenager...'

  Holland looked at her, alarmed at the sudden display of emotion. Thorne took it, used it, let her anger clear his head. Where a few moments before he had felt woozy and disorientated, now he was suddenly bright and focused. He knew exactly what to do.

  'I haven't seen this.'

  McEvoy cocked her head. 'Sorry... ?'

  'You couldn't find me. Clear?' He handed the piece of paper to Holland, pointed towards the office next door. 'Go and tell them.'

  Holland hesitated for a second and McEvoy snatched the paper from him. 'I'll do it...'

  Thorne held out his hand. 'No you won't, you're too.., charged up. They've already had me.'

  McEvoy handed back the piece of paper, grunted and turned away. Thorne passed it on to Holland, caught his arm, squeezed. 'Calm...'

  Holland nodded and quickly marched out. Without looking back he walked straight up to the door of the adjoining office, knocked and went in without waiting to be asked.

  McEvoy went back to the incident room and while he waited, Thorne watched her, moving among her fellow officers, fired up about Miriam Vincent's murder, blazing with the knowledge of it. He liked her anger. He understood it. He worried that lately, she seemed a little less able to control it.

  McEvoy and Holland were the only people, aside from the three next door, who knew what he was proposing to do. The rest of those working on the case were still flushed with the success of the Palmer arrest. There was suddenly a lot more laughter around the building, and those not laughing were only nursing the hangovers that came from too much celebration. He knew that if his idea was to stand any chance of working, the celebration would need to stop. The lid needed to come down hard and stay on tight.

  Thorne suddenly saw how unutterably stupid he was being. Stupid to think that the powers-that-be would agree to releasing Palmer and stupid for wanting them to. He started to feel relieved, light and free of it, anticipating their polite but firm refusal. He knew that what he was planning would have gone down like a cup of cold sick anyway, for all sorts of reasons, not least the time of year. He wondered whether he owed his colleagues a chance to wind down a little, to level out, to have a life with their families. It only took a second or two to remember that there were others, dead and alive, to whom he owed a lot more.

  Those that would pull faces if Thorne got his way, those that would mutter in corners and ignore him in the pub after work, had not met Carol Garner's mother and father. They had not met her son. Perhaps he should invite what was left of that family down for the day, show Charlie around the station and sit every single officer, every member of the civilian staff, down with them for fifteen fucking minutes. He wondered whether Carol had bought Christmas presents for Charlie before it happened. Would her mum and dad give them to him, and would they tell him who they were from... ?

  Thorne heard a door open and looked up to see Brigstocke emerge from the office next door, eyes scanning the incident room, looking for him.
r />   'Russell...'

  Brigstocke turned to look at him. When their eyes met, it was clear to Thorne that his earlier comments, which he had meant but now regretted, had neither been forgotten, nor forgiven. They would need to talk.

  Suddenly, Thorne wanted it more than anything. Wanted the go ahead. In those last few seconds, while he waited for some sign from Brigstocke, he wanted the chance to stop Smart Nicklin, to be rid of him, and bollocks to careers, and pissing people off and celebrating a job only half done. Less than half done...

  Brigstocke closed his eyes and nodded. All right. Thorne acknowledged the nod with his eyes, then spoke the words quietly, but out loud.

  'Oh, fuck.'

  ELEVEN

  The man who used to be called Smart Nicklin was not a big fan of Christmas shopping, but these things had to be done. He'd nipped out at lunchtime and was pretty pleased with the progress so far. He wouldn't be able to face the coming weekend, the last before the big day, the crowds of zombies milling around. Everyone pretending they were happy about handing out cash for disposable shit and shiny paper. His wife would brave the crush of course, but then she had that many more things to buy. For parents and friends, people at work. His colleagues never really bothered. Christmas was a time to forget about work for a while...

  He carried his coffee to a table by the window and dropped his bags down beside the seat. She would like the necklace, he was certain, and the smelly stuff, but the sweater was a bit risky. He'd got the receipt: she could always take it back. They usually spent the morning of the twenty-seventh, or twenty-eighth, queuing up with dozens of others at the M&S exchange counter, everyone silently seething, horrified at what they'd become.

  This was a time of day he looked forward to immensely. Normally he'd retire to his room about now, and maybe he'd get half an hour of peace with the papers. A chance to go through each story, each version, update or piece of breaking news. He watched the television as well, of course. He was a slave to Teletext in the days after one of his adventures, but there was nothing like getting it fresh. Seeing it laid out on the page in front of him. Feeling it on his fingertips for the rest of the day. He always bought two papers. A tabloid and a broadsheet. Needing both breadth and brevity, the detail and the distaste. He'd been waiting four days now for the latest ... coverage. The stories would always appear eventually, cheek by jowl with political analysis in the broadsheet, or jammed up against some piece of pouting, top-heavy jailbait in the Red Top. He fucking loved it all. The anticipation, as in the act itself, growing keener, almost unbearable as each day without news of what they had done, passed. Now, the waiting was over. Today was the day, and he was really looking forward to what they had to say this time. This time it was going to be very interesting.

  He took a sip of his overpriced cappuccino and reached down for the two newspapers in the purple WH Smith carrier bag. An Independent and a Mirror today. An old woman sitting opposite tore a chunk away from a pastry with her teeth and grinned at him. He smiled back as he unfolded the Independent... There it was. There they were.

  He looked at his watch. He didn't have to be back for at least a quarter of an hour. Fifteen blissful minutes in which to switch off, enjoy his coffee and immerse himself in the coverage of two brutal murders. One, of which he had first-hand knowledge, of course. One was so real, was so fresh in his memory, that he could still smell the girl's vomit. Acrid and boozy. She'd puked the second he'd raised the gun. Opened her mouth as if to scream and heaved instead. He'd had to step back smartish to save his shoes, then stretch to step over the stuff, and put the gun to her head.

  The other one, Palmer's murder.., well, that was one the silly bastards had gone and made up.

  The detail was good, it sounded convincing enough, but they had wasted their time. Palmer was motivated by fear, pure and simple, always had been. He was scared enough of Nicklin to kill in the first place, but what he was really scared of, was letting him down. Fucking up would be the only thing that could possibly have scared Martin enough to turn himself in. After Nicklin had shot the girl in her flat, he'd watched Palmer all the next day. He'd seen him come out of his flat like a man in a dream and followed him all the way to the station. Watched him totter inside like a drunk, failure as visible about him as the stained bandage on his fat head.

  So, now they didn't want him to know that they had Palmer in custody. Too late. The real question of course, was just how to respond...

  He'd think about it more later, while he was supposed to be working. Now he had ten minutes left to read all about the two murders. One true, one false...

  He wondered which one he was going to enjoy reading about more. Thorne watched the rest of the world moving round him, over wound, frenetic, going about its business. He saw people, running around like blue-arsed flies, buying presents they didn't want to give, heaving bags crammed with food they wouldn't eat. Unable to stop themselves. Caught up in it. Peace, goodwill and socks to all men... He saw some absurdly happy.

  He saw those that hated it, battening down the hatches. He saw a set of shell-shocked parents organising their daughter's funeral.

  While all this was going on, Tom Thorne spent the last few days before Christmas working at his own speed. Slowly but very surely pissing off virtually everyone who knew him. To most coppers 'overtime' was a magic word, right up there, and in some cases, well above, 'conviction'.

  But not at Christmas.

  Coppers got a bit huffy come Christmas. Self-righteous and sentimental, and salt-of-the-earth indignant. Jesus ... (not used in any religious sense of course) ... didn't they deserve a break, them and their families, after the shit they waded through for the other fifty-one weeks of the year? To Thorne, it was a moot point. He didn't get overtime anyway. DI's and above had been bought out with a few grand extra on the annual salary. It was cases like this one that made it obvious how much they'd been shafted. As it was, despite gripes of his own, Thorne didn't blame anybody for feeling fired, for needing a rest from it, but there was one major stumbling block... Killers didn't stop for Christmas.

  Suicide was the well-known one of course, but it wasn't the only pastime which became popular once the novelty singles began clogging up the charts. Crime figures tended to go up across the board during the seasonal period and murder was no exception. Domestics, incidents involving alcohol - all increasing, all leaving victims and the relatives of victims, demanding action. None of them giving a toss if your parents were coming down from the North, or if you'd put a reservation on a cottage in the Cotswolds, or if it was your kid's first Christmas.

  Especially if their own kid was not going to see another one. Easy to think like that of course, when you were the one cancelling the holidays. No meticulously worked-out rota, no amount of overtime, was going to make the majority of officers on this case think any differently of Tom Thorne. Not Brigstocke. Not McEvoy. He wasn't even sure about Dave Holland. The simple fact was, that thanks to him, they would all be spending Christmas babysitting a double murderer.

  Palmer would not be going back to work until the New Year now, but Sean Bracher had been well briefed, so that there would be no problem when he did. Palmer's absence just before Christmas would be put down to illness, and the issue of his resemblance to the man police were seeking would not be ducked. He had come forward and been immediately eliminated from enquiries. End of story. Bracher would assist in disseminating this information as well as smoothing the passage for the new Baynham & Smout employee who would be working very closely with Martin Palmer. One unhappy DC, seconded from SCG (South), would be spending their Christmas ploughing through Accountancy for Idiots...

  Palmer's domestic situation would be easy to monitor. He lived on the second floor of a fifties mansion block in West Hampstead. There was one entrance. He would be followed to and from work, with permanent surveillance maintained outside his flat and at least one plain-clothes officer inside at all times, though at no time would Palmer be accompanied as he entered the buildi
ng.

  According to Palmer, he seldom went out anyway and had never invited anybody to his flat, so comings and goings shouldn't be a problem. Thorne was keen that Palmer's movements appeared normal and so, to a degree, this side of things would be played by ear. If he was asked out for a drink (which he had told them had happened, but not often), they'd decide at the time whether to cry off or not. Similarly, at work, he'd be accompanied to lunch by the undercover DC, with a backup team on hand should this start to become suspicious in itself. In fact, the only break from any kind of routine, involved Palmer ringing his parents to tell them that he couldn't make it home for Christmas Day. This was also the only part of the whole complex arrangement that Palmer seemed remotely uncomfortable with. Thorne wanted everything tied down tight. No mistakes. The man he was after was clever. He would, Thorne felt certain, be watching at least some of the time. He might well of course have seen enough already to tell him that Palmer was in custody. Stable doors and horses...

  As Thorne had told Jesmond, it was a risk he felt they had to take. There were certainly plenty of risks...

  Norman had spotted a couple of them straight away. He himself would handle the media, but the team had not responded well to the lecture Thorne had delivered, that he felt needed to be delivered, on leaking ships. He'd wanted Brigstocke to do the honours, but the DCI was still in no mood to do Thorne any favours. In terms of the bad feeling coming his way, the atmosphere that followed his speech was pretty much the icing on the cake, but Thorne knew that it was necessary. Besides, normally he only alienated the top brass. Now he was getting on everybody's tits. At least this was a change... Thorne wanted this to go right. He wanted nothing in the public domain, nothing, unless it could have come from a source other than Martin Palmer. They could, for example, go with Palmer's description of Nicklin - they could always invent a witness who might have come up with that - but any avenue of investigation that could only have originated with Palmer needed to be walked with the utmost care and discretion.