The Killing Habit Page 7

  Is he always such a slob?

  Why’s he still wearing T-shirts like that at his age?

  It’s probably because you’re that much younger than he is. Mid-life crisis kind of thing…

  Turning the radio off, Thorne could hear voices from the living room, so he leaned close to the bedroom door and was just able to catch snippets of the women’s conversation. Jenny’s voice was far louder than Helen’s, more strident. He couldn’t hear everything, but he heard enough.

  ‘Well, there’s bound to be trouble if that woman’s involved.’ And, ‘If it’s anything like last time.’

  He could not make out Helen’s response, if there was one.

  After a few minutes of prowling the bedroom, quietly seething, he was delighted to hear the front door opening, the sounds of goodbye. He pictured the sisters hugging at the door, Jenny whispering that she was always around if Helen needed to talk about anything.

  You know, like how unhappy you are.

  Then he heard Jenny shouting through to him: ‘See you then, Tom.’

  Not if I see you first.

  ‘Yeah, see you, Jenny…’

  The moment the front door had closed, Thorne opened the bedroom door and followed Helen back into the living room.

  ‘Nice to see Jenny giving us the benefit of her wisdom about Nicola Tanner,’ he said.

  Helen dropped on to the sofa and looked up at him. If she was confused about what he was wearing, why he wasn’t dressed as he would usually be by this time, she didn’t say anything.

  He knew that Helen would never have discussed Tanner with her sister, or the details of any inquiry that Thorne had been involved with. But the dramatic conclusion to the case he and Tanner had worked on together the previous year had made most of the papers. Armed police, a car chase; an officer in hospital and a dead suspect. The coverage would have been more than enough to make Helen’s sister an expert.

  ‘She might have a point,’ Helen said.

  ‘What?’ Thorne joined her on the sofa and looked down at Alfie. He did not want to be the one instigating raised voices before the boy’s bedtime. ‘I thought you liked Nicola.’

  ‘I did,’ Helen said. ‘I felt sorry for her. I do.’

  ‘So…?’

  ‘I still think she went back to work a bit early.’

  ‘Come on. It was a while ago now.’

  Helen looked at her watch and groaned, seeing how long it was past her son’s bedtime. She leaned down to him and gently prised her iPad away. She said, ‘Right then, matey. Teeth. Pyjamas.’

  She watched Alfie slope disconsolately out of the room, then turned back to Thorne. ‘I didn’t go back that soon after Paul was killed. Not officially, anyway. And I didn’t spend months on crutches after somebody tried to kill me. She’s still… fragile, if you ask me, and that’s not good for anyone working with her, is it?’

  Thorne took a few seconds, the way he always did after Helen’s ex was mentioned. The man who was probably Alfie’s father and had been murdered before he was born.

  ‘I think Nicola knows what she’s doing,’ Thorne said. ‘She seems fine to me, honestly, and she’s so the best person to help out with this.’

  Helen got up and began clearing away assorted toys and games. ‘She’s worried, that’s all. Jenny.’

  ‘About you, maybe. I don’t think she gives a toss about me.’

  ‘Let’s not have a stupid argument about that.’

  ‘I don’t want to have an argument about anything,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Am I going to have to start arranging for her to come over when you’re not here?

  ‘No —’

  ‘You know she gets on my tits every bit as much as yours.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Thorne said.

  It was certainly true that Jenny often annoyed her elder sister intensely and that Helen tried not to show it because she wanted to avoid the confrontation and, more important, because she needed the babysitting. But Jenny’s obvious dislike, or distaste, for Thorne was something else entirely. When he was feeling generous, he put it down to the fact that she thought Helen, having had one relationship with a police officer that had ended so unhappily, was unwise to embark upon another. Or perhaps she simply disapproved of the age gap.

  There were other times, though, when he just felt Jenny plain didn’t like him, for reasons he could never fathom. And it seemed to be getting worse.

  ‘Maybe she secretly fancies you,’ Hendricks had said once, when drink had been taken.

  ‘She’s only human,’ Thorne had said. ‘At least I think so.’

  ‘This isn’t like the case last year,’ he said now. ‘Nothing like that.’ The truth was that he had no idea what it was going to be like, and there was still the possibility that there might yet turn out to be no case at all. He didn’t say that to Helen. He wasn’t fooling himself, so there was no point trying to fool her. Instead, he said, ‘Look, I’ll keep an eye on Nicola, if it makes you happy, but nothing’s going to kick off. She’s gone back to being the sensible one, I swear.’

  ‘You need to be sensible, too,’ Helen said.

  ‘Goes without saying,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Does it?’

  They both looked up as Alfie reappeared and neither was hugely surprised to see that he looked no more ready for bed than he had a few minutes earlier. Thorne got another hug, the boy veering suddenly away from Helen and rushing across as she tried to usher him back towards the door. Welcome as it was, Thorne knew well enough that this show of affection was a trusted and effective time-wasting manoeuvre.

  He saw through Alfie’s scam every bit as easily as Brigstocke had quite probably seen through his.

  He said, ‘Sleep well, Trouble.’

  ‘You’re trouble.’ Alfie grinned and punched him on the leg. ‘You’re big trouble.’

  Helen said, ‘Now,’ running out of patience.

  When they had gone, Thorne thought for a moment about getting undressed again and putting on the things he’d wanted to wear in the first place, but he couldn’t really be bothered. Instead he sat back and pointed the remote.

  Flicked through the channels and wondered if someone somewhere was taking the piss.

  An old episode of Juliet Bravo.

  A true crime documentary about Ted Bundy.

  Garfield: The Movie.

  ELEVEN

  Oddly, she felt less pain in her hips and ankles walking upstairs than when she was sitting still. Less than when she was lying down even, waking in the night with it and needing to get up and move around. Overall, it was better than it had been, and Tanner was content to grin and bear it, because she was no fan of painkillers. Hadn’t addiction to painkillers done for Elvis and Michael Jackson and Prince? She’d read all sorts about it and wasn’t quite sure what to believe, but she didn’t want to take the risk, because she’d seen dependency up close and it had not been pleasant. She was not someone who sought to abandon control, as others did.

  As Susan had done, for reasons Tanner had never understood.

  So she got on with it, because she didn’t have a lot of choice. The limp had almost gone and she doubted anyone who did not know her well would ever see that there was a problem. Once or twice, she was aware Dipak Chall had caught her wincing as she climbed out of the car, or seen her face whiten on a very bad day, but he knew better than to mention it.

  Thorne too had said nothing, but perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t be sure.

  Once she had finished in the bathroom, Tanner walked into the bedroom and closed the curtains. It was dark outside anyway, but the view down to the patio, the York stone slabs on to which she had crashed from this very spot, was not one she was particularly fond of any more. Gardening, if you could call it that, was not something she had done since Susan’s death and the events that had followed, so a few weeks before she’d asked one of her brothers to come round and tackle the weeds when they had been threatening to take over. They’d done so much for her afte
r the fire; rebuilt and redecorated, done their best to turn the house into a home again. Though there was little they could do, of course, about the thing she missed the most.

  She carefully laid out her outfit for the following day before getting undressed. She folded back the duvet and reached for the book on her bedside table. She’d done a lot of reading since Susan died, more than she’d ever done, now that there was no longer anything better to do in bed. Not that she and Susan had been at it like rabbits or anything, they’d been together far too many years for that, but there had always been puzzles to argue over, conversations to be had.

  They had been… comfortable.

  She put the paperback down when she realised she’d been reading the same paragraph for several minutes. Her eyes were already tired after two hours sifting through documents relating to what had now been christened Operation Felix, and from a file she had brought home, crammed with Police National Computer printouts on unsolved murders nationwide.

  She turned on the radio and switched off her bedside light.

  These days, it was the conversation on Radio 4 that helped her sleep or kept her company when she got up in the night and spent long hours walking around the house. Rattling around. That’s what it was now, she knew that; rattling around, in a house that was far too big for one person.

  She had been thinking about moving for a while, had taken the first few steps more than once and then put it off, but only because she was busy and certainly not because she was sentimental.

  Never that.

  You took memories with you wherever you went. These were just rooms; too many walls to bounce off, too much air.

  No… not comfortable.

  It had not been like that, not towards the end, anyway. It had not been comfortable clearing up the mess, physical and emotional, after Susan had been on a binge. It had not been comfortable being screamed at for interfering, for trying to impose standards – so she had been less-than-politely informed – that nobody but a robot could ever live up to. It was not comfortable to be told by the woman you loved that her alcoholism was your fault.

  Some memories you would not want to take with you.

  On the radio, they were discussing the day’s proceedings in parliament and, as the bickering, braying voices distorted into background noise, Tanner found herself thinking about Andrew Evans.

  He certainly had the look; the face of someone well used to intimidating others, or worse. Nothing that had taken place in the interview room had caused Tanner to question that initial impression, and despite an alibi provided by the man’s wife, the evidence already gathered had left her in little doubt as to his guilt.

  And yet…

  She had interviewed many people accused of murder. Plenty had looked her in the eye and sworn they were blameless as babies, when she’d known them to be guilty as sin. Some had crowed happily about their crimes and a few had broken down and confessed them. She had seen every variety of fear written on the faces of men and women in those interview rooms; from those who knew that only prison lay ahead, and from one or two so unfortunate as to genuinely have no idea what they were doing there.

  Today, her suspect had barely spoken, doing exactly as his brief had advised, but he had looked as if he wanted to. Hard as that face was, it had been easy enough to read. It niggled at her, because whatever the evidence suggested, Tanner could not shake the impression that Andrew Evans had been afraid to say he was innocent.

  Andrew Evans was not sleeping.

  Many hours earlier, being marched in handcuffs to the police car, he had turned to see Paula watching from the front door. An expression he had last seen nearly two years before and had tried hard to forget. He had shaken his head and said, ‘I swear, I’ve got no idea what this is all about,’ and he had not been lying. He had kept on saying it; on the journey to the station, as the cell door closed and was locked behind him, while the nurse had done what she’d needed to.

  Then the solicitor had arrived and explained what was going on, and those protestations had died in his throat.

  And all he could do then was fall for a while; a numbness creeping across his body as he went down, and a scream so loud inside his head that he could barely hear himself speak from that point on. Meaningless words tumbling from a dry mouth.

  No comment.

  No comment.

  No…

  Saying it and saying it, like a button was being pushed; because he’d been told to and because there was really nothing else he could say. Because he was still falling and because he was trying to make sense of the things he was hearing or being presented with.

  Guns and photos and witnesses.

  I swear I’ve got no idea…

  He turned on the thin plastic mattress and lay on his side. He stared at the wall and shivered. More than anything he wanted to get high, but he knew that was not going to happen, much as he knew that the same need was what had led him here.

  He punched the wall, once, twice, until he felt his knuckles split.

  No, the drugs had come later, and there was nobody to blame but himself for the reason he’d needed them.

  One glance too many at the phone in his lap, a second too late on the brake, and his life had been turned upside down.

  He licked at his bloodied fist, the flap of skin shifting and the raw flesh tart beneath his tongue, and thought again about what he’d told Paula. When it was still the truth and he had no reason to believe he would not be home in time to put his son to bed. The words he’d said on the phone from the police station after they’d booked him in; shouting to be heard above the sound of her sobbing and the boy crying somewhere in the background.

  What would she tell him, now? How could she even begin to explain?

  Now, he’d finished falling and he finally understood exactly what was happening; what it was all about. He knew what had been done to him and he knew who had done it. Try as he might, though, he still had not got the faintest idea why.

  His eyes did not leave the screen as he bit into toast that was darker than he would have liked and thought how pitiful it was sometimes; how needy some people were.

  That craving for a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. A body to rub up against when you wanted other things.

  It had been handy for him, obviously, but even now he found it baffling, that overwhelming desire to be appreciated. Why should that be anyone’s right? You had to earn appreciation and those with plenty of good company to call on usually deserved it, because they were good company themselves. How hard was that to understand? Like with most things, you got back what you gave out. When it came to those whose own company was not enough for them, he thought he knew better than most what he was talking about, and believed that though there were certainly plenty of people who were lonely and unable to find companionship the traditional way, there was usually a very good reason for it.

  Even if some people couldn’t see it themselves; deluded as wannabe pop stars, setting out their stalls like some chancer in a dodgy market who was knocking out antifreeze and calling it Chanel No. 5.

  Outgoing meaning loud and annoying.

  Educated meaning dull as ditchwater.

  Sensitive meaning mental.

  And nobody needed telling what attractive really meant, did they? Or Rubenesque, for pity’s sake. People lied to themselves all the time, but there was no excuse for lying to others. Not that he felt even a little bit sorry for those on the receiving end of such shoddy goods, because (a) they should have known better and (b) nine times out of ten they were doing much the same themselves.

  Liars and losers, the bunch of them.

  So needy, so unlikely to be mourned, and all of them making what he wanted to do nice and simple.

  After checking to make sure there had been no last minute changes to anyone’s plans – he had been caught out by that before – he printed out the pictures he would need the following day. He closed the computer and studied the faces one more time; popped them into h
is satchel, together with everything else he would need for the journey.

  Not as long as some had been, but he did not want to have to make unscheduled stops. There, done, and back in a few hours, which was how he liked it.

  He brushed crumbs from his shirt and walked towards his bed, thinking how wrong it was; the idea that nothing worth having came without hard work. That getting what you wanted should be a struggle. These people might have been difficult to understand or sympathise with, but they were easy enough to find.

  TWELVE

  Tanner was already working at a desk in the incident room when Thorne arrived a little after nine. She raised a hand as he walked past on his way to the kitchen. Clocking the empty mug and sheaf of notes gathered neatly in front of her, he guessed that she’d already been at it quite a while.

  He brought his coffee across to the desk. ‘Any joy?’

  Tanner looked up at him. ‘Joy?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Her eyes returned to the screen. ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  Thorne wandered into the office he shared with DI Yvonne Kitson, who arrived a few minutes after he’d sat down. She looked flustered.

  ‘Psychopaths.’

  Thorne glanced towards the incident room. ‘Yeah, the place is full of them.’

  ‘I’m talking about kids,’ Kitson said.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Little bastards. Teenagers, specifically.’

  Thorne nodded and slurped his coffee. Kitson was a single mother of two boys, though he couldn’t remember their ages. Seventeen, eighteen, around there. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

  ‘Both of them.’ Kitson dropped her bag on to her desk and dropped into the chair. ‘I’m serious. Teenagers are basically psychopaths with acne.’

  ‘It’s not pulling their trousers up properly that bothers me.’

  ‘It’s like nothing matters outside their own little worlds, nothing else is remotely important, you know? They’re totally selfish, they’ve got no empathy. Like I said, psychopaths.’ She sat back and sighed. ‘Talking of which, Tanner the Planner’s hard at it out there.’