The Dying Hours Page 18

  Ever since that first night in the Coopers’ bedroom, Thorne had been asking himself how Mercer got so close to his victims. How he got inside their houses and flats. The open door to the garage had confirmed his suspicion that these killings had been carefully planned, with plenty of time built in to watch and wait. To look for the times when his targets were at their most careless, to study the patterns of behaviour that made them vulnerable.

  Fiona Daniels (70), Brian Gibbs (71) and the others.

  Mercer had known that the elderly were that little bit more likely to be careless when it came to matters of security; that an opportunity would eventually present itself. Thorne guessed that one or two had simply opened their front door to him.

  The side door to the Jacobsons’ garage was almost certainly locked at night, but Thorne was betting that Mercer had been well aware it was often left open during the day. That he had crept in many hours before the murder would be carried out, then settled down to wait. Such a possibility would not have been lost on the Murder Investigation Team of course, but they would need more than that. Knowing that someone else could have been in that garage when Richard Jacobson had set fire to himself was never going to be enough.

  Thorne doubted that Terry Mercer had left them anything.

  Susan Jacobson was sitting on a raised terrace with the promised glass of water. When Thorne joined her at the table she passed the glass to him and said, ‘I’ll redecorate in there, obviously. Haven’t had much time to think about it the last few days. Well, you know.’

  ‘All that stuff can wait,’ Thorne said.

  ‘God knows what I’m going to do with all those bloody machines of his. I don’t know which ones are valuable.’

  ‘What about a museum?’

  She took a sip of water, thought about it. ‘Yes, I think he would have liked that.’ She stared out at the garden for a few seconds. ‘I think his brother should have all his old jazz records. I mean I certainly don’t want them and it’ll be nice to have a bit more room.’

  Thorne nodded, drank. He’d seen this many times before; the need to plan, to think ahead, to stay busy. It was understandable, but he was not convinced it was altogether healthy in the long term. It was only putting off something that needed facing up to and getting through. He had done much the same thing when his father had died… when his father had been killed… and he had come to regret it. He had thrown himself back into work far too quickly, taken on more than he could manage, when he should have allowed himself the time to take it in. He’d heard a counsellor talk once about ‘owning’ your grief. Thorne had certainly never owned his.

  ‘Sod all wrong with wallowing,’ Hendricks had said, and as usual he had been right.

  ‘I can’t stand all that parping and noodling,’ Susan Jacobson said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  She looked at Thorne. ‘Jazz…’

  ‘Oh, me neither,’ Thorne said.

  He could not recall having seen a bigger garden in London. It sloped away from them, probably more than a hundred feet long and almost as wide, with tall trees – oaks, sycamores, a huge copper beech – shielding it on two sides and an old stone wall running along the third. The beds were wide and filled with flowers and the terrace was dotted with bay trees and box balls. ‘This is lovely,’ Thorne said. The lawn was neatly mown into stripes and he wondered how recently Richard Jacobson had used one of his precious machines on it. How long it would take for the stripes to fade.

  ‘Should probably get rid of that thing too.’ Susan Jacobson nodded towards the large trampoline, standing next to a rickety-looking shed in one of the corners. ‘While I’m sorting things out. I mean, the kids are too old to want to use it again and I spend my life clearing away the leaves and fox poo. The fox certainly enjoys bouncing on it.’ She smiled. ‘I had a go myself last year after we had a party out here and put my back out for a month. Silly old mare…’

  Her face crumpled suddenly and she looked down into her glass.

  Thorne looked back towards the trampoline. Two squirrels were chattering and chasing each other through the tangle of branches above and there was music coming from a couple of gardens away.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re not CID or whatever it is, but…’

  ‘Sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I don’t know any more than you.’

  ‘They took loads of stuff away.’

  ‘All routine.’

  ‘They were in there for ages, scraping and putting things in bags. They must know something.’

  ‘What is it you’re hoping to hear?’ Thorne asked.

  She looked at him.

  ‘Which would you rather it was?’ He inched his chair a little closer to her. ‘Would knowing one way or the other really make all this any less painful?’

  Jacqui Gibbs had told him that knowing her father had not taken his own life had made her feel a little better. The difference was, he had felt able to tell her the truth. With a Murder Investigation Team already looking into her husband’s death, he could not tell Susan Jacobson what he believed. She would immediately pass it on, and then it would just be a question of whether he jumped before he was pushed. If Caroline Dunn would need to sort out that nice, comfy pillow for him at Gartree.

  For reasons he knew were wholly selfish, Thorne wanted, needed to hear that knowing whether her husband had been murdered or had committed suicide was not going to make this woman feel any better.

  That it would not make any difference.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, eventually. ‘How could anyone possibly answer that?’ She shook her head, turned to look out at the garden. ‘If Richard… did that to himself, at least I’ll know that’s what he wanted. That it was his choice. I’ll always wonder why though… and why on earth he chose to do it like that.’ She took a few seconds, swallowed. ‘If someone did that to him… all I can think about is how frightened he must have been and how long it… lasted.’ She turned back to look at Thorne. The colour had gone from her face and her eyes were wide and glassy. ‘I can’t answer that question,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know why you would ask me that question.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said. He finished his drink. He let the silence lengthen, hoping that it might become less awkward, but it didn’t. He stood up and said, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  He told her he would see himself out and, as he walked down past the garage towards the front of the house, he thought: Leave you to what, exactly?

  To what?

  As he emerged on to the sunlit drive, Thorne saw a car on the other side of the road. A BMW, its engine still running. Leaning against it, he recognised the unmistakable figure of DCI Neil Hackett.

  Thorne stopped and stared across the road.

  ‘Come over and get in,’ Hackett shouted cheerily and beckoned Thorne towards him, squinting up at the sun and fanning his hand theatrically in front of his face. ‘The air-con’s running.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘Been to see the widow, then?’ Hackett asked. ‘Interesting.’

  Thorne settled back into the soft cream leather of the BMW’s passenger seat. So, Hackett was the officer Susan Jacobson had been expecting. The man who was leading the team looking into the circumstances of her husband’s death. Thorne was not sure if this was good news for her, but he could not see any way in which it would work out well for him.

  Like Hackett said.

  Interesting.

  ‘Just popped by to see if she wanted a patrol car to look in for the next few evenings,’ Thorne said. The same think-on-his-feet bullshit that had seemed to work half an hour earlier with Susan Jacobson. ‘Keep an eye on her.’

  ‘That’s extremely thoughtful.’

  ‘Community policing,’ Thorne said.

  Hackett shifted his considerable bulk and leaned forward to adjust the temperature. It was certainly nice and cool in the car, but clearly not cool enough for him. Thorne had no idea how long Hackett had been leaning against his car, bu
t there was a trickle of sweat running from his ear down to the collar of his expensive-looking shirt. He turned the dial a notch further into the blue zone. ‘OK for you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Some music?’ Hackett said. Without waiting for an answer he leaned forward again and turned on the sound system.

  Thorne braced himself for the inevitable onslaught of soft rock; a nice Bryan Adams power ballad would be the perfect way to make him feel even more uncomfortable than he was already. He was pleasantly surprised to hear the opening chords of a familiar Johnny Cash track. His cover version of a Tom Petty number, ‘I Won’t Back Down’.

  Thorne smiled, unable to shake the suspicion that there was a less than subtle message in Hackett’s choice of song. If so, were the words meant to be a dig at Thorne or a description of Hackett himself? An accusation or a warning?

  Hackett nodded his head in time with the music. ‘This your kind of stuff, isn’t it? Country.’

  ‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’ Thorne asked. ‘My inside leg measurement in some file?’

  Hackett smiled, drummed his palm against his thigh.

  ‘You brought this along deliberately, did you?’ Thorne nodded towards the sound system control panel.

  Hackett shook his head, laid it back against the headrest, both palms now tapping out the rhythm. ‘I didn’t even know I was going to be seeing you,’ he said. ‘Someone’s getting paranoid.’

  ‘So, just a coincidence.’

  ‘Well, I know why I’m here,’ Hackett said. ‘I had an appointment. So I think the coincidence is that you’re here. That’s right, isn’t it? I mean, it is a coincidence?’

  ‘Like I said.’

  ‘Right. The caring face of Uniform.’ He left a beat. ‘Oh, and it’s thirty inches.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your inside leg measurement.’ Another smile. ‘Just a guess…’

  They said nothing for ten, fifteen seconds. ‘So, what are you going to tell her?’ Thorne asked. ‘Suspicious death or not?’

  Hackett turned to look at him. Thorne could not be sure if the DCI was deciding whether or not to answer or simply picking his words. Choosing a lie, perhaps. Looking back at Hackett, Thorne suddenly found himself hoping – despite everything – that the man would simply say, ‘Yes, it was murder and we know who did it.’

  Nice and simple. The choice made for him, the truth out in the open and his own future in the lap of the gods, or at least the Top Brass. Would that not be better for all concerned?

  ‘Waste of bloody time,’ Hackett said. It sounded like he meant it.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Haven’t we already had this conversation?’ Hackett said. ‘What’s that little thing we were talking about before? Oh yeah, evidence.’ He shook his head. ‘Bugger all of that as far as this one’s concerned.’

  It was more or less what Thorne had been expecting. Mercer had been jailed a year or two before DNA profiling came in, so he would have no worries on that score. His fingerprints would be on record, but Thorne was sure that a man who had planned his killing spree so carefully would not have jeopardised it for want of a pair of rubber gloves. While watching his victims he would have taken careful note of where any CCTV cameras were, along with the movements of any potentially nosy neighbours.

  Not that being noticed once or twice would have worried him a great deal.

  It was something else Terry Mercer had going for him.

  People would always remember the menacing-looking gang of youngsters or the kid in the hoodie, but an old man was as good as invisible.

  ‘Still, I suppose we had to go through the motions,’ Hackett said. ‘I mean it was an unusual one. Plus he was a QC, so there’s always the chance someone he put away had a score to settle.’

  Not someone he put away, Thorne thought.

  ‘And he had some powerful friends, did our Mr Jacobson. Some judge ringing up to give us grief every day.’

  Thorne took a quick decision. ‘Alastair Howard?’

  Hackett turned and looked at him.

  ‘I still have friends on the MIT,’ Thorne said. ‘I hear things.’

  If Hackett was bothered by what Thorne was telling him, he didn’t show it. It just seemed like a good idea to Thorne that if and when the you-know-what hit the fan, it would appear that he had been fed certain information rather than gone digging for it. He dried a sweaty palm in front of the air vent, wondering suddenly if he might just have inadvertently implicated Dave Holland and Yvonne Kitson.

  Too late now.

  ‘Anyway, nothing’s panning out,’ Hackett said, leaning back again and mouthing a few of Cash’s words. ‘So His Honour can carry on calling all he bloody well likes. Forensics have got sod all, nothing on CCTV, neighbours didn’t see or hear anything. Looks like the poor bastard finally found some use for that collection of useless old crap in his garage.’

  ‘That what you’ve come to tell her?’

  Hackett nodded. ‘Make all the right noises, you know. Assure her that we’ve done everything we can. At least she can have the body back now, get on and sort the funeral out.’ He glanced at Thorne. ‘Mind you, he’s already done the cremation bit.’ He waited for the laugh that didn’t come, then sat forward. ‘So, what the hell is it with you and suicides anyway?’

  ‘No idea,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Whenever some nutcase tops himself, up you pop. Not thinking of going that way yourself, are you?’

  ‘Coincidence, like you said.’

  ‘Maybe you should look for a vacancy at the Samaritans.’ Hackett did not bother waiting this time and just went ahead and laughed himself. He hauled himself forward and checked his hair in the mirror. ‘Listen, maybe we could have a pint later on. Have a natter.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘Why not? Now we know we’ve got the same taste in music.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to work.’

  Hackett was still smoothing down a strand of hair that stubbornly refused to lie flat. ‘Right,’ he said, nice and slowly. ‘So you have.’

  It was plain enough that his audience with the DCI was at an end, so Thorne climbed out of the car. Walking away, the afternoon seemed even hotter and he was aware of the driver’s door opening slowly behind him. He turned and watched Hackett lock the BMW, then amble across the road towards Susan Jacobson’s house, hoisting up his trousers and straightening his tie.

  Pasting on his best give-a-shit expression.

  Halfway back to his own car, Thorne felt the vibration of an alert from his phone. He pulled it from his back pocket, turned off the silent mode and read a message from Ian Tully.

  how’s it going?

  fancy another walk?

  i think my dog liked you!

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  It’s the last one he’s most nervous about.

  Mostly because it is the last one – though he knows there’s going to be a spot of clearing up needed as well – and he’s not really sure how he’s going to feel afterwards. Bound to be an anti-climax, he knows that. How could it be anything else after thirty years, but it’s more a question of what he’s going to do with himself when it’s finished. Find himself a suitable hobby? Evenings at the bingo hall? A spot of fishing or a friendly game of dominoes with the other coffin-dodgers?

  Fat fucking chance.

  It’s also because it’s been the trickiest of them all to arrange, because finding the individual in question has not been easy. He never thought it would be, of course. The man has spent the best part of that same thirty years trying very hard not to be found.

  Thirty years, though? You get careless eventually, don’t you?

  Mercer is on his way to meet the man who’s going to help him. He’s counting on being able to stop worrying and start making plans. He’s hoping for good news.

  Driving south on the A21, he tries to stay calm and keep his temper, but it isn’t easy. When the hell did London traffic get so ridiculous? When did people sta
rt driving like idiots? It was like trying to get anywhere in one of those stupid cities you saw on the news like Shanghai or Calcutta. He’s half expecting someone to pull up next to him at the traffic lights on a donkey.

  When he does have to stop at a pedestrian crossing, he watches, hands clamped tight around the steering wheel, as an old dear with candy-floss hair steps out into the road in front of him. One pavement to the other, twenty feet or whatever it is, and it might as well be a marathon. Shuffling and hunched, slower than a pallbearer, as though the weight of the world is pushing down on her narrow shoulders.

  He’s tempted to jam his fist down on the horn, give the old girl a fright. Anything to put some bloody life into her. She’s probably younger than he is, for heaven’s sake, and she looks like she’s doing nothing but waiting for death.

  What happened to people?

  Why did they reach a certain age and promptly give up?

  You had to find something to make it worth struggling out of bed in the morning. Surely to God. He’d spent almost half his life shitting in a metal bucket – or as good as – and he still managed to stay alert and keep on fighting.

  He knew people who’d thrown the towel in, course he did, but some people just weren’t cut out for a life inside. Even when he was out he’d known a few who’d hit sixty or sixty-five and turned into the walking dead. He can’t understand it, never could.

  She’s still only halfway across. Slippers on, for crying out loud and a coat when it’s shirtsleeves weather. Head down, like she’d be happy enough for some lorry to come ploughing into her.

  Yes, the bloody government didn’t make life easy. Went without saying. Tough for some of them to survive on what passes for a pension and the whole world seems designed for kids these days. You had to adapt, though, you needed to find things to keep the blood pumping if you didn’t want to shrivel up. You were just taking up space otherwise and there was no excuse for that.

  Finally the old woman reaches the pavement on the other side. She takes a few seconds to catch her breath when she gets there, then totters slowly away.