The Killing Habit Read online

  ‘Unsolved murders?’

  ‘Looking closer at the cat killings.’

  ‘I thought that’s what we were doing.’

  Brigstocke shook his head. ‘Let’s forget about where they might lead, just for a minute.’

  ‘What’s led to them, you mean.’

  ‘Perhaps… but either way I’ve still got the brass all over me, because the media are all over them. We need to do something.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘Be seen to do something, you mean.’

  ‘Come on, you know how this works. We’ve got to show that we’re making every effort to catch this bloke. Something positive to keep the Daily Mail happy, a horrified nation of animal lovers. I know you’ve got this new angle on it and I’m happy to let you run with it – happy-ish – but you need to find time to do something a bit more… visible.’

  It was Thorne’s turn to lean back. He guessed he was not going to like what was coming. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Just basic coppering, nothing fancy. Go and talk to one of the victims.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You want me to hold a séance for dead pets?’

  Brigstocke waved a hand. ‘One of the victims’ owners, more than one preferably. Get a few statements, something the press office can use, the impact… usual stuff. Come on, it’s not asking a lot, is it? Certainly a damn sight less than you marched in here asking for.’

  Thorne could see there was little point arguing. ‘Right…’

  ‘And you’d be doing everyone a favour if you could squeeze it in before the end of the day.’ Brigstocke waited a few seconds. ‘Good. Sorted.’ He picked up his pen again. ‘So where do you want to start with these theoretical homicides?’

  ‘We’ll work the computers, look for patterns.’

  ‘Really?’ Brigstocke’s slightly dubious expression returned. ‘Not exactly your strong point.’

  ‘No, but we both know someone who’s very good at it,’ Thorne said.

  Brigstocke shook his head. ‘Not going to work,’ he said. ‘She just caught a very nasty murder.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Thorne tried his best to look as though this was the first he’d heard of it.

  ‘I don’t want to put too much on her plate. You know, considering.’

  ‘Come on, Russell, she can multitask in her sleep.’

  Perfectly on cue, there was a sharp knock at the door and DI Nicola Tanner walked in. She looked suitably surprised to see Thorne, then waved a piece of paper at Brigstocke and stepped towards the desk. ‘We just got lucky on the Jandali homicide, sir. A match on the fingerprints from the murder weapon.’

  ‘Nice one,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Just thought you’d like to know I’m rustling up a couple of firearms officers, then I’m away to make an arrest.’

  ‘Good news,’ Brigstocke said.

  ‘Can you send someone else?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Hang on,’ Brigstocke said.

  Tanner looked from Brigstocke to Thorne and back again.

  ‘Yeah, OK… send Dipak to do it.’ The DCI removed his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose, as though his first hour at work had done him in for the day. ‘Tom’s got something he needs some help with.’

  ‘It’s a piece of piss,’ Thorne said, turning to her. ‘I swear.’ He summoned his sweetest smile; the one that was usually reserved for bedtime or, occasionally, the interview room. ‘I can’t think of anyone else better…’

  Brigstocke ran Tanner quickly through what was needed and why she was the ideal officer to oversee it. A search through nationwide force databases for patterns of offence; her invaluable expertise when it came to correlating and organising information. Then he told them both to clear off and get on with it, while he made the necessary call to Fulton.

  ‘Sir,’ Tanner said.

  As they were on their way to the door, Brigstocke spoke again, and the panic that Thorne had been feeling since he’d spoken to the psychiatrist was kicked up another notch. ‘You don’t just need to go back, of course…’

  What the psychiatrist had said on the phone.

  I mean, your theory’s interesting, but at the end of the day it doesn’t change much, does it? Not when it comes to the suspect’s activities speeding up, which almost everyone accepts to be the normal way of things. It’s not a pleasant thought, but it makes sense, when you think about it.

  Now, Thorne could not stop thinking about it.

  Once you’ve had your workout and cooled down, you have another workout, don’t you? Melita Perera had sounded matter-of-fact, but the implication was anything but.

  You get your kit back on and do it again.

  SEVEN

  ‘How was that for timing?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘Pretty much faultless,’ Thorne said. ‘Were you listening outside the door?’

  Tanner smiled, giving nothing away, then leaned across to help herself from the canteen’s salad bar. She spooned coleslaw and tomatoes on to her plate, while Thorne moved past her and asked for the shepherd’s pie.

  ‘Nice big portion,’ he said. ‘Oh, and if you could manage some of those lovely crispy bits round the edge, that’d be great.’ The woman behind the counter did not bother looking up and, without saying a word, served him a normal-sized spoonful from the middle of the dish. ‘No, thank you,’ Thorne said, taking the plate. He was tempted to say something a little more industrial, but gave her the benefit of the doubt and decided that sarcasm was probably as much as the woman deserved. He could only guess that a close family member had just died, or that the ludicrous netted trilby she was required to wear every day had resulted in serious self-esteem issues.

  He caught up with Tanner, who was waiting for him at the till.

  ‘You go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘After you.’ Tanner stared at him. ‘I think the least you can do is pay for my lunch.’

  Thorne watched the meals being rung up and shook his head. ‘Three pounds seventy-nine? You’d better be worth it.’

  ‘Keep the receipt,’ Tanner said. ‘Just in case.’

  They carried their trays across to a table in the corner. From the top-floor wraparound windows of Becke House, Thorne had a good view across the seventy-acre grounds of the Peel Centre. It had once been an RAF base and had become the Met’s cadet college in the 1930s, but was now one of several regional training centres, where officers could attend courses in everything from crime-scene analysis to advanced driving skills. The parade square and the running track were – thankfully – no longer considered important, and these days trainees were more likely to be spending their time at the firing range or in a state-of-the art HYDRA suite, developed for real-time critical incident training. Looking out past both these buildings, Thorne could see the memorial garden, built to honour those officers whose lives had been lost on duty, and struggled to remember ever being quite as keen as some of the eager young things he saw making daily use of the new facilities.

  He wondered if the powers that be should think about instigating a few new courses, that more accurately reflected a career wearing the Queen’s Cloth.

  Keep Calm And Step Away From The Bottle.

  Relationship Counselling For The Terminally Job-Pissed.

  Don’t Get Too Excited, It’s All Downhill From Here.

  There had been some genuine excitement a couple of years before, when sequences for a new Avengers film had been shot at the centre and for a week or so the grounds had been home to camera trucks and catering wagons, and the occasional permatanned movie star had stepped from an absurdly large trailer. Even Thorne had not been immune to the buzz around the place. Unlike several of his colleagues, he did not volunteer for work as an extra, but instead just had a quiet word with several of those who did; asked if anyone fancied trying to ‘liberate’ the odd prop or costume when nobody was looking.

  ‘That bloody big hammer would come in useful,’ he’d said.

  ‘Tom…?’

  Thorn
e turned from the window to see Tanner looking across the table at him. She was already tucking in to her salad. She said, ‘You’re a lucky bugger.’

  Thorne took his first mouthful. ‘I’m lucky? I’ve got to spend the rest of the sodding day talking to old ladies about dead cats. You’re the jammy bugger who caught a nasty one, then got a fingerprint match off the murder weapon.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s done you a big favour, hasn’t it? Got you what you wanted. I don’t think Russell would have gone for this otherwise, you and me working together.’

  ‘I’d have talked him into it,’ Thorne said.

  ‘You reckon?’

  Thorne grinned. He knew very well that he’d been fighting an uphill battle until Tanner had arrived like the cavalry and saved the day. ‘Actually, when you marched in there telling him your murder was all but done and dusted… for a second or two I thought you might be making it up.’

  Tanner looked at him, open-mouthed. Thorne held up his hands.

  ‘I’m joking.’

  It had taken a major charm offensive, first thing that morning, to persuade Nicola Tanner to ‘interrupt’ his meeting with Brigstocke, so that they might try to double-team the DCI. That in itself, Thorne knew, was very much at the limits of her personal and professional code of conduct. The day she lied to a senior officer’s face about an investigation would be the day pigs flew in formation across Scotland Yard and Piers Morgan went on a women’s march.

  Tanner glared, only half joking herself, and speared a cherry tomato. ‘You owe me a damn sight more than three seventy-nine,’ she said.

  Thorne had first become aware of Nicola Tanner a year or so before, when he’d been brought in to work undercover on a case for which she had done all the legwork. At the subsequent trial, he had been surprised when she had asked for his help again, this time in trying to catch two men she suspected were involved in a series of honour killings. The case they went on to work together had almost cost Tanner her life and, back then, Thorne had seen her break plenty of rules. She had done things that even he had been uncomfortable with, but at the time it had been unavoidable and made a twisted kind of sense. Something new and terrible had been driving her, and she was working ‘off the books’, on an investigation that, in accordance with standard Job protocol, she had no right to be part of.

  Because she had been trying to catch the men she believed had murdered her partner, Susan.

  ‘I hope it is,’ Tanner said now.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Done and dusted. The Adnan Jandali murder.’

  ‘No reason to think it shouldn’t be, is there?’ Thorne said. ‘I mean, it’ll be interesting to see how your man explains that fingerprint on the murder weapon.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘Right.’ Dipak Chall had already texted her to let her know that he had made the arrest and was on his way back to the station with their prime suspect in custody. ‘Should get the DNA back before close of play today, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to match as well.’

  ‘There you go, then.’

  ‘Just saying. We’ve all seen cases that looked open and shut go tits up at the last minute, haven’t we?’

  Thorne told himself that, experienced and thorough as she was, this murder was probably the biggest case Tanner had caught since she had made the move and joined a new team. That she was just understandably nervous. He said, ‘Yeah, but not this one,’ and went back to his tepid shepherd’s pie again, glancing up every few seconds to watch Tanner polishing off her lunch.

  She ate… efficiently, and it was hard to tell if she was enjoying it.

  He still had a clear picture of her lying broken in a hospital bed, drugged up to the eyeballs and talking to her murdered lover. Tender one moment and ranting the next. He could still remember the vehemence with which she’d sworn at him and a certain pathologist both of them knew well.

  And you can fuck off as well, Philip…

  When Tanner had finally returned to work, after the compulsory compassionate leave and a prolonged period of physical therapy for her injuries, it had been to a homicide team based at Belgravia. She and Thorne had stayed in touch for a while, gossiped and moaned a little, but eventually the texts and emails had become no more than sporadic. Then stopped altogether.

  He had been amazed when, only three months earlier, she had rung to tell him that she fancied a change of scene and was pushing to join the team at Becke House. The fact that she knew such a posting was up for grabs at all, when Thorne did not, was a perfect illustration of the difference between them. As was the confidence with which she announced that, were she to be making the move to Becke House, she would be bringing DS Dipak Chall – who had also been part of that original investigation – with her.

  As was usually the case, she had got exactly what she wanted.

  ‘I think they felt I was owed a favour,’ she had told Thorne back then. ‘After everything, you know.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Thorne had said, watching her smile falter a little. ‘Who cares why, though. You’re here now.’

  It was still somewhat strange, seeing her every day; a little disconcerting, but overall Thorne was glad of it. The good memories – the blood and the bullets and the end result – just about outweighed the bad.

  When Tanner had finished, she pushed her plate away and dabbed at her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Well let’s hope I can put this murder to bed on the hurry-up, because I’m not sure what you need me to do is quite the “piece of piss” you seem to think it’s going to be.’

  ‘I was saying that for Russell’s benefit,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Exaggerating a bit.’

  ‘A bit? I hope you’ve got the say-so for a lot of overtime.’

  ‘But I can’t think of anyone better to give it a go.’ He looked at her, long enough to let her know that he had not been stretching the truth when he’d said that, at least. That he needed her. Long enough to be reminded that in ways that were rather more obvious than some, Tanner was not quite the same woman he had first encountered twelve months before.

  Six weeks ago, on her first day in Hendon, Thorne thought that she had perhaps lost a little weight. Her face certainly seemed thinner and her hair was different, the somewhat severe bob now a little stragglier than it had been before her life had been turned upside down. The clothes were not quite the same either; a series of typically unfussy skirts and blazers, though in colours a little brighter than Thorne had remembered her wearing when they’d first worked together. Powder blue and pillar-box red.

  Stripes…

  ‘Because I’m anal, yes?’

  ‘Well, I prefer organised,’ Thorne said. He smiled, remembering the pathological neatness of Tanner’s front room and the colour-coded paperbacks on her bookshelves. He thought about the meticulous way she prepared material, gathered and collated everything from crime-scene photographs to coffee-shop receipts. ‘I know how good you are at putting together information and at not pissing off the dozens of different people – different forces – you might need to provide you with it. I know you can tell when something’s important and when it isn’t. Most of all, I know that once you’ve done all that, you can see what the information means, while the likes of me are stumbling around like idiots because we can’t see the wood for the trees.’

  Tanner nodded slowly and looked at him for a few seconds. She shrugged and said, ‘Anal. No need to dress it up.’

  It wasn’t quite a smile, but Thorne could see that she was pleased. Not that he had buttered her up, he knew that, because Tanner was not the sort to succumb to flattery. It was simply because he had acknowledged the facts. He had never known her to be remotely cocky, but much as she understood her weaknesses, she knew her strengths.

  The fact that, sometimes, they could be one and the same.

  ‘I hope you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘About what this bloke’s up to. I hope there’s nothing there for me to find.’

  Thorne pushed his own plate away,
the meal only half eaten. He knew that if the theory he had run past Perera and then Brigstocke were to be borne out, this case would turn out to be a damn sight bigger than the straightforward murder Tanner appeared to be so nervous about. It would make the fatal shooting of a man on his doorstep look like a minor shoplifting incident.

  Thorne did not think he was wrong.

  Tanner had turned to look out of the window, in the same direction as Thorne had been staring when they’d first sat down. She might have been looking down at the memorial, as he had, or further, over the rooftops of Colindale and following the winding grey ribbon of the M1. But Thorne saw that her eyes were raised a little higher up, towards a sky that was rapidly ceding ground to banks of dirty-white cloud; the early promise of the spring sunshine no better than a junkie’s vow to stay clean.

  ‘I hope so, too,’ Thorne said. ‘But if I’m not wrong, I need you to help me catch him, Nic.’

  Tanner stayed silent for just long enough to make Thorne think she might not have heard him. Then, without turning from the window, she gave the smallest of nods.

  EIGHT

  As Thorne drove away from the house in Gospel Oak, he glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw that the woman was still standing on her doorstep, one hand raised and the other still clutching the picture she had dug out from a leather-bound photo album half an hour before. Studied with a sad smile then passed across to Thorne. She had made him tea and fussed over the kitten she had bought to replace the cat she’d lost, and the tears had only welled up once, as she talked about the morning a few months before when she’d come out of the house and almost stepped into what had been left of her pet.

  Sodden scraps of blood-soaked fur and flesh.

  ‘I’m certainly not letting this one out.’ She’d picked up the kitten and pulled it to her chest. ‘Not until you catch whoever’s doing it.’

  ‘Probably sensible,’ Thorne had said.

  ‘Even when she’s bigger… I don’t care if she does her business all over the house.’ Her face had hardened before she set the kitten down again, her mouth twisted. ‘It’s sick, is what it is. The fact that he so obviously enjoys it. Creeping around in the dark with his hammer and his knives. Well, you’d better get hold of him before we do, is all I’m saying. Anyone who’s lost a pet. We’ve all got hammers and knives as well.’