Scaredy cat Thorne 2 Read online

  Thorne shrugged. 'I don't know.., it's brown.'

  McEvoy was gob smacked by Thorne's answer, and by how much he suddenly looked like a confused and sulky teenager. 'So, get another one...

  'I like this car,' Thorne said. 'It's got all my tapes and stuff.'

  'Oh right, yeah. Dolly Patton and Tammy Wynette.'

  Thorne sighed and opened the door. 'I'm going to kill Holland. No, I'm going to make him listen to some proper country music and taken I'm going to kill him...'

  McEvoy climbed out of the car, snickering like the cartoon dog in Wacky Races. 'It wasn't his fault. He didn't say...'

  'Actually, fuck that, the music would be wasted on him anyway. I'll just kill him.' Thorne turned the key in the lock, looked at McEvoy across the Mondeo's roof. 'While I'm busy killing Detective Constable Holland, I want you to do something for me.'

  'I think I'm already doing quite enough keeping Derek Lickwood away from you. He knows you're avoiding him.'

  Thorne smiled. 'Don't worry, it's a lot easier than that.' McEvoy waited. 'Get on the phone for me, and find out who was in charge of the Karen McMahon case.'

  Alf from Stoke-on-Trent : 'Hanging's too good for these bastards. I'd happily pull the lever myself...'

  He shook his head and broke off another big piece of the chocolate bar, thinking: Come on, Alf, you can't have it both ways. Still, he knew that this was how a fair proportion of the British public thought that he, and others like him, should be dealt with. This was what they considered an appropriate response.

  The phone-in host, who was normally there to play devil's advocate, agreed wholeheartedly with All, and the two of them began to gleefully discuss whether or not, if we ever came to our senses and brought back capital punishment, we should stick to the noose or perhaps move into the twenty-first century and go for lethal injection.

  He closed his eyes, tuned out the chat.

  Others like him...

  He couldn't say that he'd ever actually met anybody else like him. Not really. He'd run into his fair share of those for whom respect for the law was a luxury, and some whose moral framework had never existed or had been eaten away. He'd known plenty of men desperate enough to consider anything, but never an individual who was happy to consider everything. This fact didn't disturb him, but neither did it give him any great comfort. He just accepted it as the way of things. He wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he was completely unique. He accepted that one day he might stare across a street, or along a station platform, or even at a television screen and recognise a look in someone's eye.

  It was a look he'd certainly never seen in Martin Palmer's eye. Now it was time to get in touch with his old friend again. He got up from the armchair and crossed the room to where the laptop computer, bought for cash in Dixons the day before, lay on the dining table. He switched it on, and while it was booting up, he fetched the freshly cloned mobile he'd picked up in south London on the way home. He'd ditch the computer and the phone the next morning on the way in to work.

  He had always been careful to vary his methods. Opening up any one of a hundred free e-mail accounts was easy, and he always took care to make the hardware as near to untraceable as possible. The first few times, he'd simply walked into an Internet cafe. He preferred the smaller places - converted greasy spoons that advertised cheap photocopying, and had a couple of grubby, first-issue iMacs lined up in a back room. These places were tucked away, almost invisible between massage parlours and dodgy minicab firms: places that even the backpackers didn't know about, where no-one served cappuccino or gave a toss about what porn sites you accessed. These were places without CCTV. He'd moved on to laptops which were, of course, ideal for his purposes, and then it had just been a case of where to plug the things in. This wouldn't be the first time he'd used a stolen mobile - he had a contact who knocked them out for next to nothing - but in the past, he'd also enjoyed the telecommunications facilities offered by a number of shitty hotels in and around central London. Just a matter of checking in, logging on and fucking off. If, and it was a very big if, the place was ever traced, nobody would have any memory of the anonymous businessman with the small leather carry case. He connected the phone to the laptop and sat down in front of it. He began to give some thought to what he was going to write. He always liked to get the wording right.

  It was funny, he'd almost predicted that something like this would happen, that in some strange way his hand would be forced, his mind made up for him. Now, he had no choice but to respond. The response, appropriate or not, was pretty much the only one he could make.

  He logged on and the computer began to dial. In a matter of minutes he'd opened a new account, invented a name and created a password. He enjoyed assuming fresh identities whether they lasted many years or just a few hours in a dingy hotel room. He even relished those which, like this one, he would only ever need to assume in cyberspace for the few short minutes it took to send a handful of words across the city.

  Pretty much the only response he could make... He wasn't sure exactly what Thorne had been hoping to gain by going to the school, but there it was. He snapped off another chunk of chocolate. The Detective Inspector was clearly not a man whose actions were predictable or immediately explicable. That was all right. Neither was he.

  He laid out his instructions in the e-mail with the usual care. There was to be no misunderstanding. He had always strived to make it straightforward for Palmer, to make everything clear. Martin had always needed that.

  Do this, now. Do that, only when I tell you. What was less clear, at least right now, was exactly why he was bothering to do this at all. Why was he sending these details to Palmer in the first place? Why was he issuing instructions which would never be followed, except in the creation of a newspaper story about a murder that had not taken place? Mind you, once the murder that would be taking place was discovered, they wouldn't bother making up any more stories anyway.

  So why was he going through the motions like this? Why was he playing their game?

  Palmer had chosen to remove himself from the equation and in doing so had taken away with him some of the ... mustard. Dulled that extra buzz. Maybe he could get a little of it back this way. He needed to get it back, to go along with their not-so-clever bit of let's pretend, and see where it led all of them.

  But that wasn't the only reason.

  If he was being honest, he liked his routines and only he would decide when they changed. So, yes, it was a refusal ... an absolute refusal to relinquish control, but it was also, he had to admit, because of a perverse desire to ... carry on as normal. Business as usual, at least for the time being. He'd always had a sneaking admiration for that very British breed of nutcase who treated flood, fire or pestilence as no more than a minor inconvenience and refused to adapt. There was never any need to move house, or see a doctor or make a scene. Stubborn and stupid. Brave and barking mad. It worked the other way round, of course. It was only ever in this country that people could win millions on the lottery and decide to carry on working in a factory. Of course, in the end, those morons always did adapt, and so would he, when he absolutely had to. It wasn't rocket science, after all. Go with the flow, or rot where you stood. Adapt or get caught. For now though, he'd suck it and see.

  He heard Caroline coughing in her sleep upstairs. Poor thing had been feeling rough for a couple of days. As he checked his typing for spelling errors, he made a mental note to pick up some Benylin for her the following day.

  He popped the last square of chocolate into his mouth and pressed

  'send'.

  They rolled apart from each other and lay there, sweating, exhausted. Holland leaned up on one elbow and whispered mock-seductively into the ear of the woman next to him.

  'So, come on, tell me about this mysterious Biscuit Game.'

  McEvoy was still getting her breath back and marveling at how, just an hour and a half before, she'd arrived home to find Holland on her doorstep, clutching a bottle of wine and stammer
ing like a poor man's Hugh Grant.

  Seven thirty: awkward exchanges as keys were fumbled for. Twenty past eight: second bottle opened, lying around like students. Nine o'clock: the pair of them, smiling, naked and slippery. She had definitely been a lot more impulsive lately.

  'Come on then...'

  Was she actually blushing? 'It's just this stupid--It's probably not even true, it's like an urban myth, about this game they play at public schools.' She turned on to her side. He was staring at her, grinning, waiting for her to carry on. 'OK, basically, all the boys stand in a circle wanking.'

  'Wanking?'

  'Yes, apparently. There's a biscuit in the middle, and they all come on it, and whoever comes last has to eat the biscuit.'

  There was a pause worthy of a great comedian before Holland let out a groan of disgust. 'You're making it up.'

  McEvoy started to giggle. 'I swear...'

  'Whoever comes last?'

  His look of confusion made her laugh even more. 'I said it was stupid...'

  'So they're actually being trained to come quickly?'

  'I know. Mind you, it certainly explains why all the public schoolboys I've ever shagged have been shit in bed.'

  They lay there for a minute, saying nothing, laughing now and again and trying to get their new, rather odd picture of the world into some sort of focus. McEvoy wondered how long he was planning to stay. Holland had just decided that he should be getting home, and was thinking about Sophie for the first time since McEvoy had put her tongue in his mouth and her hand on his cock, when she spoke.

  'What about you?'

  'What?'

  'Were you a public schoolboy?'

  Holland raised his head up off the pillow. 'Was I fuck!'

  McEvoy's leg slid across his, and her hand began to creep across his stomach. 'Calm down, Holland. I'm kidding. You've already made that very obvious.' She smiled as she hoisted herself across him and began wriggling into position.

  Holland put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. 'What sort do they use?' She looked down at him, confused, so he explained. 'The biscuit. Digestive, custard cream, bourbon... ?'

  She was still laughing when they'd finished. Thorne had been right about the relationship counselor bit. Within ten minutes of the kick-off, he'd learned that Brendan had not, as predicted, buggered off as soon as Hendricks had given him his Christmas presents, but had actually stuck around and was now, miracle of miracles, dropping hints about moving in. At half time, Thorne got up and threw the remains of the Chinese takeaway into a bin-liner. There wasn't a great deal of anything left, Elvis having licked both plates clean within moments of them putting down their forks for the final time.

  He returned with two more cold cans from the fridge. 'So you're happy about this, are you? Brendan staying?' Hendricks looked decidedly unsure. Thorne handed him a can. 'Oh, for fuck's sake, Phil.'

  'It's just unexpected. I need to think about it a bit...'

  'Not easily pleased, are you?'

  Thorne opened his beer and slumped back into his chair. In the studio, some bald bloke who'd won three caps in the early seventies was attempting to make the previous forty-five minutes sound interesting. Aston Villa and Leeds United grinding out a nil-nil draw in the pissing rain was proving to be far from riveting.

  'So what does he make of this then? Brendan...'

  'He's not a football fan, well, not beyond thinking Thierry Henry's got nice legs anyway, so he's not really bothered.'

  Thorne took a sip, stared at the TV. 'No, I meant, you know, you coming over here...'

  For a minute, Hendricks said nothing and Thorne wondered if, like him, he was thinking about what had happened between them a year before.

  They had fallen out badly in the middle of a case. Hendricks had told him he was gay, at the same time as telling him what a selfish bastard he was being. Thorne had been gob smacked by the confession and shamed by the accusation - he knew that Hendricks had a point. His friend had gone out on a limb for him and suffered for it. Thorne hadn't been there to speak up on his friend's behalf when he should have been.

  Back then, with the bodies piling up, Thorne hadn't even been there for himself.

  It was the death of strangers that had eventually brought them back together, as it had brought them together in the first place.

  'You want to know what Brendan thinks about you?'

  Thorne shrugged, gestured with his can towards the slow-motion replay on the screen. 'Look, he should have scored, he was clean through. Couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. No... just, you know...'

  'Why is it that eventually, you always get round to asking if my boyfriends fancy you or not?'

  'That's bollocks.'

  'Don't get me wrong, you're usually quite subtle about it, but there's always some comment, some bit of fishing...'

  'All in your twisted mind, mate...'

  'He thinks you're a bit chunky.'

  Thorne's show of mock annoyance, the raised voice and wounded expression, barely masked how genuinely pissed off he really was.

  'Chunky? What does he mean, "chunky"?'

  Hendricks sniggered and reached for the remote. The teams were coming out for the second half. 'Shut up, you tart...'

  They watched in silence as twenty-two thoroughly bored-looking individuals with bad haircuts jogged half-heartedly out into the rain. Hendricks picked up the remote again and pressed mute.

  'What about you anyway? Much going on horizontally?'

  'Sod all. Turn the sound back on...'

  'You never rang Anne Coburn, did you?'

  Thorne shook his head and pictured the woman he'd been involved with a year ago.

  'Why don't you call her?'

  A question Thorne had asked himself often enough. 'No, mate. Far too complicated.'

  'Don't worry about it, you're better off on your own.' Hendricks made a wanking gesture. 'That's... not complicated.'

  'Right, but the conversation's awful.'

  Hendricks turned the volume back up, but not very high. They said nothing for a minute or two, listened to the pundits doing much the same thing.

  'You haven't said a lot about the case...' Hendricks said. Thorne hadn't even mentioned it, but he didn't need to. It was there all the time, the synapses sparking, the associations bursting into life in his brain and forcing themselves upon him, in spite of his best efforts.

  Katie Choi's mother and father owned a Chinese restaurant in Forest Hill...

  The programme on television, sponsored by Vauxhall. . . Would Charlie Garner grow up supporting Aston Villa now that he lived in the Midlands? Or had he already begun to cheer for a London club?

  Was Charlie an Arsenal fan like the man lying on the sofa? The man who performed the post-mortem on his mother...

  Thorne shifted in his chair, looked across at Hendricks. 'Not much to say.'

  Hendricks nodded. 'Just waiting...'

  'Yep, for a lot of things. Some tiny piece of fucking luck. Waiting for them to run out of patience and hand me back my uniform. Waiting for a body to show up.'

  'Make it a warm one, will you?'

  Thorne raised his eyebrows, snorted. 'We'll do our best, Phil.'

  'I want the bastard fresh on her, you know?'

  Thorne did know. A warm body, a crime scene crawling with evidence. That was what they all wanted.

  He nodded at Hendricks and raised his can to him. His friend was someone you could measure yourself against. Someone Thorne did measure himself against. Hendricks's voice was flat, and the words could often sound harsh and ill thought through, but they sprang from somewhere deep and very clean, somewhere passionate and honest.

  'Do you think he's still around?' The tone was casual, as if he was asking whether Thorne could see a goal on the cards, second half.

  'Oh yeah ... he's around,' Thorne said. 'It's just a question of whether he decides to let us know about it.'

  Hendricks considered this for a moment. 'I think we can co
unt on it. Man who enjoys slicing and dicing as much as he does...'

  Thorne almost spilt his beer. Even for Hendricks, that was a good one. 'Slicing and dicing? Fuck, and they let you near grieving relatives?'

  'Only when they're very short-staffed.'

  'Turn it up.' The teams were about to kick off. They let a silence fall between them as they stared at the television, both trying to think about anything but warm bodies and cold slabs. After about ten minutes Thorne turned to Hendricks again.

  'Fucking "chunky"?'

  The second forty-five minutes was, if anything, less entertaining than the first. This, combined with beer and central heating, and the general level of fatigue that was creeping over everybody on the case, ensured that they were both asleep at just after eleven, when the phone rang.

  It was Martin Palmer.

  'There's more instructions. He wants to do it again.'

  It was as if Thorne had been jolted awake with a cattle prod.

  'When?'

  'Tomorrow.'

  'Fuck.' He looked across at Hendricks who was already walking towards the kitchen mouthing 'coffee'. Thorne nodded.

  'He's going to do it again tomorrow.' Palmer sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. 'Can you stop him?'

  'Just shut up, Palmer, OK? Shut up. Shit...'

  Thorne could hear the beep on the line. That would be the boys in IT trying to reach him. They were monitoring Palmer's computer and would have seen the e-mail at the same time he had.

  'Palmer...'

  The beep on the line stopped, and immediately the landline began to ring. Hendricks came through from the kitchen and picked up the phone.

  Thorne could have hung up and talked to the technicians, but he wanted to hear it now, that second, from the man it had been sent to.

  'Palmer, is there anything else? What does the message say exactly?'

  Palmer held back the sobs just long enough to tell him.

  FIFTEEN

  Date: 9 January

  Target: Male (Let's not be predictable)

  Age: You're as old as you feel