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  ‘You’re doing well, by the way,’ Donnelly said.

  Pascoe looked at him, swallowed her coffee. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know.’

  Pascoe turned away, not wanting the superintendent to see her blush, to see what the praise had meant to her. Almost immediately she began to wonder why he had told her. Was it perhaps because he fancied her a bit and was trying to gain favour? Or did he simply think she was the sort that needed reassurance?

  Neither explanation made her feel particularly good.

  ‘I’m pleased that’s what you think,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I’m not … but I just wondered why you felt the need to mention it. Is it because you don’t believe I’m … confident?’

  ‘No. I mean I think you are—’

  ‘Because I am.’

  Donnelly raised his hands in mock-surrender. ‘I know, I know. Look, I just thought you were a bit nervous when you arrived, that’s all, but you’re doing a great job and I wanted to let you know that I’m impressed. That’s it. No hidden agenda.’

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that.’

  ‘I think it’s part of my job to make sure everyone on the team’s feeling positive about themselves,’ Donnelly said. ‘Every bit as much as they are about the operation. People work better, simple as that.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘So, are you still feeling positive? About what’s happening?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Pascoe said. ‘There’s no increase in references to violence and no insistence on face-to-face negotiations. We’ve got a hostage taker demonstrating no more than mild to moderate anxiety and a hostage with at least basic training in dealing with her situation.’

  ‘Right … ’

  Donnelly had grunted and nodded three or four times as Pascoe had been speaking, but she got the impression he had been looking for something other than chapter and verse from the hostage-negotiator handbook. ‘I think it’s looking good,’ she said.

  ‘You still think we should wear him down?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Provided the state of play stays the same.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Donnelly nodded again, and not for the first time Pascoe saw an uncertainty that bothered her. She would have been far from happy had the officer in control of the operation been one of those hard-arses unwilling to listen to those around them, but she was nervous nonetheless. Donnelly was starting to look increasingly like someone who needed others to make decisions for him. Who took advice only because it meant he could duck responsibility if things didn’t work out.

  ‘It was impressive,’ he said. ‘The way you squared up to Chivers earlier.’

  ‘I was just fighting my corner.’

  ‘It was good,’ Donnelly said, smirking.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s used to people taking him on, you know?’

  It had been good, and Pascoe smiled remembering the look on Chivers’ face. Thorne had clearly been impressed too, and she in turn had enjoyed watching him give every bit as good as he got.

  Still impossible to say, Bob …

  Donnelly said he was going to have another coffee and asked if she wanted one. She handed her cup across. He filled it from one of the vacuum jugs and handed it back to her.

  ‘Are you married, Sue?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Just asking, that’s all.’ Donnelly slurped at his coffee. ‘I mean I noticed there wasn’t a ring, so just wondered … ’

  ‘I don’t think that’s part of your job, sir,’ Pascoe said. ‘Is it?’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Though Helen knew what time it was and that it would be dark outside, the light in the storeroom never changed. With no windows to the back and the shutters down in the shop itself, the sickly white wash of the flickering striplight had remained constant and, exhausted as she was, Helen knew that once again there was little possibility of sleep.

  Akhtar was lying on his camp bed. He had one arm folded across his eyes, but Helen knew that he was awake.

  The most recent call with Sue Pascoe had been brief and uneventful, which Helen knew was a good thing. It was becoming routine. The woman was good at her job, Helen decided; businesslike, but as friendly as she was required to be. Helen guessed that she could also be firm if the need arose, but for now she was doing all that was necessary to keep Akhtar calm and relatively relaxed.

  Helen had once again reassured Pascoe that she and Mitchell were fine and in good spirits and, when the call had ended, Akhtar had thanked her for continuing to lie. He had made her more tea, asked her if there was anything she would like to watch on the television, before moving across to his bed and settling down.

  Now, while he was still awake and feeling well disposed towards her, she decided to ask him a favour.

  ‘Javed … ’

  He sat up and looked at her.

  ‘Can I call Thorne?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I understand why you didn’t want me to call my sister,’ she said. ‘But if I could speak to Thorne, then maybe he could call her. I just need to know that my son’s all right.’

  When Akhtar looked at the phone on his desk, Helen knew that he was going to agree. She was still surprised when, instead of pointing the gun and sliding the handset across the floor, he left the gun where it was and handed the phone to her. It was as close as they had been to one another since Akhtar had bent down to uncuff and then remove Stephen Mitchell’s body.

  ‘Thank you,’ Helen said.

  Akhtar nodded and returned to sit on the edge of his bed. ‘So you can tell them how well I am treating you.’

  Helen dialled and the call was answered every bit as quickly as she had been expecting. Thorne had obviously recognised the number.

  ‘Javed?’

  ‘It’s Helen.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘It’s fine. Listen, I wondered if you’d be able to call my sister for me? I need to know that everything’s OK with Alfie, that’s all.’

  ‘No problem,’ Thorne said. ‘What’s the number?’

  Helen told him. ‘And tell her that I’m all right and not to worry.’

  ‘I’ll call you back when I’ve spoken to her,’ Thorne said. ‘Is that OK with him?’

  Helen raised her head and asked Akhtar the question. He thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘It’s fine,’ she said.

  They sat in silence, waiting for Thorne to call back, occasionally catching one another’s eye and smiling a little awkwardly like patients in a waiting room. Helen’s stomach rumbled loudly and Akhtar pretended not to hear.

  Helen stabbed at the button the instant the phone began to ring.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Alfie’s fine,’ Thorne said, immediately. ‘He’s asleep now, obviously, but Jenny said he’s in top form. Giving her the runaround by the sound of it.’

  Helen’s breath caught in her throat when she tried to speak. She managed to say, ‘Thanks,’ then took a few seconds. ‘Is he eating OK, did she say that? Because sometimes he’s fussy, you know?’

  ‘He’s fine. I promise.’

  ‘OK … ’

  ‘Probably hasn’t even noticed you’re not there,’ Thorne said. ‘You know what kids are like, right?’

  Helen managed to laugh, but it felt tight in her chest. ‘Yeah, she’s probably spoiling him rotten.’

  ‘Course she is.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘She’s worried,’ Thorne said. ‘She’s your sister. But I told her how well you’re doing, and that you’re going to be seeing her very soon.’

  ‘Did she mention my dad?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s bearing up, she said. He’s worried too, obviously, but your sister told me she’d send him your love and tell him everything was going to be fine. Helen?’

  ‘Sorry, yeah … listen, thank you.’ She glanced up at Akhtar. ‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘Thank you, real
ly. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.’

  ‘I can’t think of any,’ Thorne said.

  Helen laughed and this time it felt a little easier.

  ‘And it is going to be fine, all right, Helen? So just hold on.’

  When Helen had hung up, she held the phone out for Akhtar to take. He stood for a few moments, looking up at the striplight and shaking his head, then walked across to the same cupboard from which he had dragged the camp bed and reached inside.

  ‘Let’s see what we can do,’ he said.

  With a small cry of satisfaction, he retrieved a wooden table lamp with a torn green shade. He carried it across to the desk then fumbled underneath with an adaptor until he had managed to plug it in. As soon as he had switched the lamp on, he turned off the overhead light and considered the effect.

  ‘Still too bright,’ he said. Then, ‘Wait.’

  He stepped across and picked up one of the cushions that Helen had discarded after Mitchell had been shot. He pulled the cover off and held it up triumphantly, as though looking for her approval. Helen watched as he tried and failed to tear it, then walked across to the desk and took a large pair of scissors from one of the drawers. When he had finished cutting the cushion cover in half, he put the scissors back then carefully draped the square of dirty brown material across the lampshade.

  ‘There,’ he said, making final adjustments. ‘That’s much better. Not perfect, but at least you might be able to get an hour or two’s sleep. Before, it was impossible, I know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Helen said.

  Akhtar went back to his camp bed and lay down. Helen still thought that the chances of sleep were slim, but the light was better, she had to admit that, softer. Diffused as it was through dirty cotton and dried blood.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Thorne had barely eaten a thing all day, so had made himself three pieces of cheese on toast as soon as he’d got home. Now, after finishing his conversation with Helen Weeks, he went back into the kitchen to make himself another couple.

  He hoped it was a myth, the business about cheese and bad dreams.

  It had been uncomfortable, lying to Helen on the phone, but it was not as if Thorne had been given a great deal of choice. Her sister’s landline had been engaged every time he’d called and she had not been answering her mobile. Having sat and eaten in front of the ten o’clock news, Thorne had a fair idea of why that might be. However much those running the operation in Tulse Hill tried to keep a lid on it, the press was persistent and had deep pockets. Leaks were all but inevitable. During the latest report ‘live from the siege’, Helen had finally been mentioned by name, and Thorne guessed that her sister was now leaving her phone off the hook in an effort to avoid the media.

  He bent to check what was happening under the grill.

  There would almost certainly be a fair-sized scrum of hacks and snappers on the poor woman’s doorstep by now.

  So, in the end, he had said the things he felt sure he would have been saying if he had spoken to Helen’s sister. The things Helen was clearly desperate to hear. It had not been easy listening to the emotion in her voice and he had fought to keep it from his own; letting her know simply that all those she loved and who loved her would be waiting on the other side of those shutters.

  Waiting, with those who loved Stephen Mitchell, and Javed Akhtar.

  When it was ready, Thorne carried his supper back into the living room. He opened a can of supermarket lager and ate while flicking through the channels on the TV.

  Supersize v Superskinny, Rude Tube, golf …

  I’m sure you’ve got better things to do …

  He called Louise.

  He was thirty seconds into leaving a rambling message on her answering machine when she picked up.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Sorry, I was just … I thought you’d probably gone to bed.’ He waited for her to say something. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘It’s late.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’m on stupid hours at the moment.’ He told her about the situation in Tulse Hill. She had been following developments on the news, but was still surprised to hear that he was involved. Thankfully, as of yet, Thorne’s name had not been mentioned.

  ‘I would have thought this one was right up your street,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Someone to catch and someone to save.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.’

  ‘Chuck in a dead kid,’ she said, ‘I reckon this just about ticks all your boxes. Probably not quite enough bodies yet, but plenty of strangers to care about.’

  ‘Come on, Lou.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s not get into that.’

  There was a long pause, then Louise apologised. She told Thorne that she was still thinking about getting out of the Job and away from London. Then, as if by way of explanation, she talked a little about the case she was working on. The kidnapping of a fourteen-year-old Romanian girl that had widened to become a major investigation into sex trafficking.

  ‘It’s hard to think of anything but the faces of those girls,’ she said. ‘The marks where they stubbed fags out on them.’

  Thorne waited a few seconds. ‘That’s what used to piss me off,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘All that stuff about me caring, when it was always perfectly bloody obvious that you care every bit as much as I do.’

  ‘Yes, but I care a bit more about myself.’

  ‘Listen, the reason I was calling,’ he said. ‘We’ve got this hostage negotiator in Tulse Hill … ’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Her. Sue Pascoe?’

  Louise hadn’t heard of her and asked if she was any good.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Thorne said. ‘But you’d be better. Maybe if I talked to the superintendent … ’

  ‘What, you think we can just arrange a job swap or something?’

  ‘It might be worth thinking about.’

  ‘Right, presuming he’d be happy for you to bring your ex-girlfriend in and the woman who’s there already would be happy to step aside, and presuming I hadn’t got anything better to do.’ It was mock-outrage, nothing more, and there was lightness in her voice. ‘Have you actually thought about this?’

  ‘Well … ’

  ‘It wasn’t the reason you called at all, was it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Anyway, I’m pretty much burned out when it comes to all that stuff.’ Louise laughed. ‘After two years trying to negotiate with you … ’

  Rahim fetched a knife from the expensive set in the kitchen, chopped out two fat lines of cocaine with it, then sat and stared at them. He raised the knife and licked the few grains from the blade. Let the metal rest against his tongue.

  He had always known Amin was brave of course, he’d seen that for himself, but when he heard what Amin had done to himself at Barndale, that had been his first thought.

  Then: I could never be brave enough to do that.

  Even if what Thorne had told him was to be believed, it didn’t matter that Amin hadn’t actually killed himself. It still applied. His best friend had been so much braver than he was.

  Amin had taken far more risks than Rahim had ever done. It had not mattered what he might have seen in the eyes of some of the men at those parties, what some of them had asked him to do. Some part of him had enjoyed the danger. He had taken all the chances and laughed when Rahim had talked about playing it safe.

  ‘That’s what nice Indian boys like us are meant to do,’ he had said.

  Yeah, well, Rahim thought, the anger rising up in him suddenly. Which of us is still here? Which of us has all this? He looked around at his expensive furniture, listened to the jazz whispering from his expensive speakers. The things that caution had bought him.

  The drugs. The knife in his hand.

  Amin had been the one that night, after it had all happened, who had come up with the story about t
he party. Rahim had been hysterical, had wanted to tell the police everything, but Amin had told him that they would be all right, that they just needed to stick to their story.

  To stick together.

  Rahim had never visited him in Barndale, never written him a letter. At the funeral, he had sat in the corner with some of the other boys they had met at the ‘parties’ and laughed at half-remembered stories. He had eaten samosas and drunk Kingfisher like a big man and had not been able to look Nadira or Javed Akhtar in the eye.

  One of these men might have killed Amin.

  The music finished and, in the few seconds of silence before the next track, Thorne’s words came back to him.

  Rahim turned the knife over in his hand, the wooden handle slick against his palm. He placed the edge of the blade against his wrist and began to press.

  He cried out and jerked the knife away the instant it broke the skin. He pushed his wrist against his mouth and sucked. Why had he thought, for even one second, that he would have the courage? He stared down at his wrist and watched the scarlet line rise up again through the skin and begin to run.

  He reached across the table for a banknote and rolled it, then when he lowered his head towards the first line of cocaine, he watched a drop of blood splash down into the white powder. He angled his wrist so that more would follow.

  Rahim remembered his friend slipping as he bent to pick up the knife that Lee Slater had dropped, and screaming as he lunged. He remembered sitting on the ground and watching it all happen, his own arse wet and cold, and safe.

  He stared down at the table, remembered blood on the snow.

  FORTY

  No ‘birds’ whatsoever had proved to be even remotely ‘up for it’ by the time Allen and Bridges left their fourth pub of the evening. They had tried their luck gamely in each place and Bridges called the latest woman to reject their advances a ‘fat lesbian’ before the pair of them stumbled out on to the Lower Clapton Road. Allen said, ‘She wasn’t fat,’ which reduced Bridges to fits of hysterics and they were both still laughing fifteen minutes later when they arrived at Allen’s front door.