The Dying Hours Read online

  ‘So why aren’t they on this list then?’ Hendricks asked.

  They sat and drank for a minute or two. The place was busier than the last time they were here and they had been having to lean closer to one another to make themselves heard, while still keeping their conversation private. There were a couple of Grafton regulars at the next table with no such concerns, arguing loudly about the new striker West Ham had bought. For a few moments, Thorne wished that he could join them; arguing the toss and getting fiercely worked up about something that would not keep him awake at night. Then he glanced down at the damp scrap of paper on the table and remembered the famous Bill Shankly quote about football being more important than life and death.

  Shankly was a great manager, but he was talking out of his arse.

  ‘There is another possibility,’ Holland said. ‘There could be others that Mercer didn’t need to trace, because he’d already done it from inside.’

  ‘He had no visitors, remember.’

  ‘Phone calls then, letters. Easy enough, I would have thought.’

  ‘I’ll check with Caroline Dunn,’ Thorne said.

  ‘He’ll have had access to a computer too,’ Hendricks said. He rubbed a palm across his closely shaved scalp. ‘And a bloody long time to figure out the best way to use it.’

  Holland said, ‘That might explain why there’s no police officers on the list. No lawyers.’

  Thorne nodded, getting it.

  ‘Almost anyone with any sort of professional profile has some kind of internet presence, if you look hard enough.’ Holland looked at Hendricks. ‘Right? The world and his wife has a sodding blog.’

  ‘Thinking I might start one myself,’ Hendricks said. ‘Gab from the Slab. Sounds all right, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe the names on Anderson’s list were the only people he hadn’t been able to trace.’

  ‘Christ.’ Thorne downed what was left of his pint. ‘So, what do we do?’

  ‘How’s he funding all this?’ Hendricks asked, after they had all taken a drink. ‘I’m not sure the old age pension covers it.’

  ‘I was thinking about that,’ Thorne said. ‘Did they recover everything that was taken in the original robbery?’

  Holland said he didn’t know, that he’d try and find out.

  ‘Even if they did, you can bet he had something stashed away. Long-term villains like Mercer have always got a nest egg.’

  ‘So, we’re not going to find him through credit cards, anything like that.’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘What about DVLA? How’s he getting around?’

  ‘Worth thinking about,’ Thorne said. ‘We could try and get a look at CCTV at all the locations where the victims were found. See if any vehicle comes up more than once.’

  ‘Not sure how the hell I’m supposed to get the authority for that,’ Holland said. ‘There’s a shedload of forms to fill in. Well, you know.’ He thought about it for a few seconds, the other two staring at him. ‘I’ll have a word with Yvonne,’ he said. ‘See if she’s got any bright ideas.’

  ‘Any ideas at all would be good,’ Thorne said. After the disappointment of his meeting with Frank Anderson, he had been hoping that getting together with Holland and Hendricks might at least help point the investigation in the right direction. So far, it felt as though the brick wall they were in danger of running into was just going up three times faster.

  ‘It might help if we talked about the big question,’ Holland said.

  ‘Which one?’ Hendricks leaned forward and stared, mock-serious. ‘Is life ultimately meaningless? Does God exist? Chocolate HobNobs or plain? They’re all equally tricky.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Thorne said.

  ‘There’s never any sign of force,’ Holland said. ‘No defence wounds, nothing, so how’s he doing it?’ He looked at Hendricks, who was no longer seeing the funny side, and then at Thorne. ‘How the hell is he making these people kill themselves?’

  Holland left before the other two and, after a quick half for the road and fifteen minutes spent arguing about whether Liam Brady had been a better midfielder than Paul Gascoigne, Thorne and Hendricks wandered out into the car park. Thorne grimaced into the drizzle as he rooted in his pockets for car keys.

  ‘You’re over the limit,’ Hendricks said.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave the car here and stay at your place?’

  ‘Can’t,’ Thorne said. ‘I need to get back to Helen’s. I’m in enough trouble as it is because she knows I’ve not been ill in bed all day.’ He held out his mobile phone. ‘Four missed calls.’

  ‘So, just tell her you were meeting me and Dave. She knows it’s important, so what’s the big deal?’

  Thorne took half a step away and grunted something non-committal.

  ‘You have told her what you’re doing, haven’t you?’ Hendricks said. The look on Thorne’s face was answer enough. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

  ‘What?’

  Hendricks shook his head and raised his arms, exasperated, then began waving to flag down a black cab that was heading towards Chalk Farm Road. The cab slowed, did a U-turn and pulled over. Hendricks ushered Thorne towards it. ‘Here…’

  Thorne yanked open the cab door. Said, ‘Tulse Hill.’

  ‘No, sorry, mate.’ the driver said, without turning round.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not going south of the river this time of night.’ He began to ease away, the door still open.

  ‘You’ve got to.’ Holding on to the taxi’s door, Thorne stepped into the road. ‘It’s the law.’

  ‘Yeah, and it’s my cab.’

  ‘You’ve got to take me.’ Thorne’s voice was raised. ‘I’m a police officer.’ He thrust his hand inside his jacket, one pocket then another, scrabbling for his wallet.

  Hendricks moved in front of him, said, ‘Leave it,’ and slammed the door. The cab pulled quickly away from the kerb.

  ‘Twat!’ Thorne shouted after it. He aimed a kick at a plastic bottle in the gutter. ‘Fucking south London.’ He dug for his car keys a second time and turned to look for his friend.

  Hendricks had already begun walking towards the main road, but stopped after a few yards to turn and shout back. ‘You need to tell her, you stupid sod.’

  Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t really eaten properly that day, that he’d put away three and a half pints of Guinness on top of two bags of crisps and a dodgy-looking Scotch egg, but suddenly Thorne felt every bit as sick as he’d been pretending to be.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Holland had no intention of telling his girlfriend where he had been and certainly not with whom. Her animosity towards Tom Thorne was of long standing, dating back to when he and Thorne had first begun working together. What Thorne had brought upon himself three months earlier had only confirmed her belief that he was not the sort of copper anyone – least of all the father of her child – should be modelling himself upon, and while she had not exactly crowed about what had happened, she did say that nobody should have been particularly surprised.

  That Thorne’s fall from grace was long overdue.

  Holland did not agree, but had said nothing and he could certainly say nothing now.

  ‘Your dinner’s in the dog!’ Sophie had been half asleep in front of the TV and grinned as she reached up to him from the sofa. Holland leaned down to kiss her and she smelled the beer. ‘Don’t tell me, another leaving do.’ She sat up and the smile became a yawn.

  ‘One of the other teams had a result, that’s all. The DCI was getting them in, so…’

  ‘So, why not?’

  Holland was angrier with himself than he was with Thorne for being in this position, for putting his career on the line, but he really resented having to lie. ‘How’s the Teeny Tyrant?’

  Chloë, their five-year-old daughter; angel-faced and ruthless.

  ‘Oh, plenty of big decisions today,’ Sophie said. ‘She doesn’t like cheese, she thinks Iggle Piggle is stupid an
d that joke about the dog? She wants one.’

  ‘We haven’t got the space,’ Holland said.

  ‘I told her we’d think about a hamster.’

  Holland crept into his daughter’s bedroom and watched her sleep for a minute or two, then crept into his own and called Yvonne Kitson.

  ‘I was just going to bed,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry.’ Going to bed with the new man in her life about whom she said very little. He was not a copper though, Holland knew that much. He told her what had been discussed in the Grafton.

  ‘The CCTV sounds like a good idea.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can do it,’ Holland said. ‘Any of it.’ He had perhaps been exaggerating a little to imagine that his entire career was in jeopardy, but he knew that if what he had been doing for Tom Thorne ever came out, he would not be making DI any time soon. ‘Think about what we’ve got to lose, compared to him.’

  ‘So, tell him,’ Kitson said. ‘He’s not going to hold it against you.’

  ‘It’s not just that, though, is it?’ Holland lay back on the bed, stared at the cracks that spider-webbed out from the central light fitting. ‘This is a major investigation, or at least it should be. Don’t you think it deserves to be done… properly?’

  ‘Meaning by other people.’

  ‘What if there are more killings and we didn’t do everything we could to try and stop it?’

  ‘You want to go behind his back?’

  Holland closed his eyes. He heard the television being switched off in the other room. ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘I’m tired, Dave,’ Kitson said. ‘And you’ve been in the pub.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  For Richard Jacobson, the evening every four weeks when his wife went out to attend the monthly meeting of her book club was the one he looked forward to the most. Not that she and her friends actually talked about books a great deal. From everything he had heard, there was a cursory five minutes spent saying, ‘Yes, I liked it,’ or ‘No, it was pretentious twaddle,’ and the rest of the conversation revolved around hairdressers, house prices and the daily agonies of dealing with teenage children.

  He didn’t really care what they talked about – nominally, this evening’s ‘title’ was something about Chinese girls with pushy mothers – as long as she was out of the house for a few hours. Once every few months of course there was the nightmare scenario of his wife being the hostess for the evening; when the gaggle of big-haired women would descend on his house and he would be desperate to get out, but when he had the place to himself, as he did tonight, he could really kick back and enjoy it.

  He could pull on a scruffy old jumper, open a bottle of something decent and enjoy his collection.

  It wasn’t the only time he spent pottering with his machines of course, but it was never the same when Susan was about. He could sense her disapproval seeping through the walls; from the pristine kitchen or the Sitting Room of a Thousand Cushions into the cold, dusty garage where, to a soothing soundtrack of fifties and sixties jazz, he would happily fill hours restoring rollers and oiling chains.

  His Royal Blades, his Ambassadors, his cherished Eclipse Rocket.

  Stepping into the garage and waiting for the strip lights to flicker into life, he breathed in the glorious smell of them all. The oil and the polished wood and still the heady whiff of grass from fifty, sixty, a hundred years ago. He moved eagerly towards his workbench, having already decided that tonight would be Sonny Rollins and some more restoration work on the 1965 Ransome Marquis he’d bought the week before.

  He switched on the CD player and, once the music had begun, he moved, snapping his fingers to the beat, towards the metal shelving unit stacked with oil cans, paint tins and neatly labelled jars filled with antique screws, nuts and bolts. He jumped back and cried out in alarm when the old man stepped from behind it.

  A noise more than a word.

  Sonny Rollins’ sax kicked in at that moment, as if Jacobson’s yelp had been a cue, but he was unaware of it, and after those few seconds it took for his breathing to even out just enough for him to speak, he had to shout above the frantic drumming in his chest.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The old man stared casually around the garage, nodding his head gently in time to the music. ‘Yeah, well. Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, that one.’

  Jacobson took a step towards him, energised by a welcome surge of anger and adrenalin. Some tramp sleeping off the booze, it had to be; a shock of white hair and a plastic bag dangling from his fingers. The clothes looked too new though, and something about the smile, the enjoyment in it, was becoming familiar.

  ‘You can bugger off now, or I can call the police,’ he said. ‘Simple as that.’

  The old man didn’t move, content to let his plastic bag swing a little.

  ‘The police know me,’ Jacobson said, his voice breaking slightly.

  The old man nodded. ‘Well of course they bloody do. Important bloke like you.’

  Jacobson felt his breath catch. If the intruder knew who he was, it had to be bad. It must mean he had been targeted for some reason. He felt a wave of relief as he remembered that he was alone in the house; that whatever was going to happen, his wife was safe.

  ‘Your problem is, they know me as well. I haven’t seen them for a while, that’s all.’ The old man smiled when he saw Jacobson’s eyes widen with recognition; when the penny dropped. ‘There you go,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The old man began to walk slowly towards him – no great urgency to the sway and swagger, moving to the music – and Jacobson was simply unable to step away. Rooted to the spot, too terrified to move a muscle. God, how many times had he heard that story at work?

  ‘There’s money in the house.’

  ‘I’m sure there is.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Then what—?’

  The old man was quick; faster and fitter than he had any right to be, than Jacobson had ever been, lifting up the plastic bag suddenly and rushing forward when Jacobson’s eyes moved with it.

  Richard Jacobson sucked in a last gasp of grass and motor oil, half a second before the old man punched him in the face.

  THIRTY

  Alfie was wide awake, and crying, which certainly didn’t help.

  Wailing, he threw himself around on the bed, as if his little world were coming to an end. Helen kept leaning across to grab him, pulling him towards her, but he writhed in her arms, unwilling to be cuddled, until she let him go again.

  ‘I feel like such a bloody idiot.’ Helen was sitting up in bed, Thorne standing at the door, a reversal of their positions the night before. The expression of concern Helen had been wearing then was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I can only say it so many times.’

  ‘When I called you this morning I thought you might be asleep. So I waited a bit and when you still weren’t answering I kept trying your mobile, then eventually I gave up.’

  ‘I was asleep, and when I woke up I was feeling better, so—’

  ‘Bollocks, Tom.’ She held a hand out towards Alfie, but he swatted it away. ‘That’s bollocks and I don’t want to hear it.’

  Thorne let out a slow, beery breath and closed the door. He sat down near the bottom of the bed, just outside slapping distance. ‘I wanted the day off, OK?’

  ‘So, why not just say “I fancy throwing a sickie” or whatever? Why bother lying to me?’ Before Thorne could answer, she said, ‘It feels like there’s been a lot of lying lately and I’m fed up with it.’

  Thorne said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ because it felt as though he should, though he knew he was only prolonging the agony.

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘All that crap about catching up on paperwork and going to non-existent record fairs. The other night, when you said you went to see Phil.’
r />   ‘I was with Phil,’ Thorne said. ‘I was with him again tonight.’

  ‘More “boyfriend trouble”, was it?’

  Thorne shook his head, took a few seconds to think about the best way into it. Alfie crawled across, softly butted his head against Thorne’s arm a few times, then moved away again. ‘I made that up because it was easier,’ Thorne said. ‘And all that other stuff.’ A deep breath. ‘Phil’s been helping me out with this suicide thing, all right? Dave Holland as well.’

  Helen sat up a little higher. ‘Suicide thing? You’re talking about that couple a week ago, right?’ She shook her head. ‘I thought you were told to leave that alone. I mean, Jesmond called.’

  ‘It wasn’t suicide and it’s not just them.’ He moved a little closer to Helen. ‘Five murders so far, all made to look like suicide. I found out exactly what links them together and I know who’s doing it.’ He saw the look on her face. ‘Helen, really. Listen…’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll call Phil.’ He fumbled for his phone. ‘You can ask him!’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ She was still shaking her head, more in exasperation than shock at what was she was hearing.

  He told her the rest of it.

  When Thorne had finished, Helen drew her son to her again. She held him tightly to her chest and stroked his head, shushing him gently while she thought about everything Thorne had said. Alfie had calmed down a little, though he was still crying, still not ready to settle.

  ‘You said Phil’s helping you? And Holland?’

  Thorne nodded, relieved that he had finally got through to her, that she could see the scale of the case he had stumbled across. ‘And Kitson as well. A bit of the legwork.’

  She nodded, still shushing, still thinking. ‘But Phil’s a pathologist, and Kitson and Holland are north London MIT.’