The Burning Girl Thorne 4 Read online

  "I can tell you who paid for it. I can tell you whose idea it was to kill a kid."

  "We knew that. We knew it was one of the other firms who."

  "You knew fuck all."

  Next to him, Chamberlain sat stock still, but Thorne could feel the tension radiating off her. He asked the question slowly: "So, who was it then?"

  This was Rooker's big moment. "It was Billy Ryan. That's why I can give him to you. Billy Ryan put the contract out on Kevin Kelly's little girl-'

  A pause, but nothing too dramatic before Thorne asked the obvious question: "Why?"

  "It wasn't complicated. He was ambitious. He wanted to take on the smaller firms, but Kelly wouldn't have it. He thought things were fine as they were. Billy reckoned Kevin was losing his edge."

  "So he tried to take over?"

  "Billy wanted what Kevin had. More than Kevin had. He'd tried to get him out of the way earlier but fucked it up." Thorne remembered Chamberlain's gangland history lesson: the failed attempt on Kevin Kelly's life a few months before the incident at the school. "Were you anything to do with that, Gordon?"

  "I'm not getting into anything else. Point is, the Kelly family thought I was."

  "So, Billy targets his boss's daughter, but whoever he's paying tries to kill the wrong girl."

  "Yeah, that got fucked up as well, but it still worked. Kevin Kelly goes mental, wipes out anybody who's so much as looked at him funny, then hands the whole fucking business over to Billy Ryan and walks away. It couldn't have gone better."

  Thorne saw Rooker flinch slightly when Chamberlain spoke. "I'm not sure Jessica Clarke or her family would have seen things in quite the same way."

  "How come you know any of this?" Thorne asked.

  "Because Billy Ryan asked me to do it, didn't he? I was the perfect person to ask. I'd done a bit of freelance stuff for one or two people, a few frighteners and what have you."

  "You're telling us that Ryan offered you money to kill Kevin Kelly's daughter."

  "A lot of money."

  "And you turned the job down."

  "Fuck, yes. I don't hurt kids."

  Chamberlain groaned. "Jesus, this stuff makes me sick. It always comes down to this "noble gangster" bollocks. "We only hurt our own", and "it was only business", and "anybody who touches kids should be strung up". He'll be telling us how much he loves his mum in a minute."

  Rooker laughed, winked at her.

  The room wasn't warm, and up to this point Thorne had kept his leather jacket on. Now he stood and dropped it across the back of his chair. Chamberlain stayed where she was. Thorne guessed that her smart, grey business suit was new. He thought she might have had her hair done as well, cut a little shorter and highlighted, but he'd said nothing.

  "I hope this isn't an obvious question," Thorne said. "But why did you confess?"

  "Billy Ryan made sure that every face in London thought I'd done it. I was well stitched up. That lighter they found by the fence was left there deliberately." He looked at Chamberlain. "You saw what Kevin Kelly did to the people he guessed were responsible. Imagine what he'd have done to me. I had Kelly after me for what he thought I'd tried to do to his Alison, and Billy after my blood because I was the only person who knew who'd really set it all up." He turned back to Thorne. I was a marked man."

  "So, prison was a preferable option, was it?" Rooker took the lid off his tobacco tin. He put the cigarette together without looking down, and spoke as if he were trying to explain the mysteries of calculus. "I thought about running, pissing off to Spain or further, but the idea of spending years looking over my shoulder, shitting myself every time the doorbell went.. ." Chamberlain shook her head. She glanced at Thorne and then looked back to Rooker. "I'm not buying this. You'd be just as much of a marked man in prison."

  Rooker put down his half-finished roll-up. "Do you think I didn't know that?" He reached down and gathered up the bottom of the bib and the sweatshirt underneath, then hoisted them up above sagging, hairy nipples to reveal a jagged scar running across his ribs. "See? I was a marked man from the moment I walked into Gartree, and Belmarsh, and this place."

  "So why not just take your chances outside?"

  "It's on my terms in here. I'm not scared of it." He pulled down the sweatshirt, smoothed the bib across his belly. "On the outside it could be anyone who's on a big pay-day to take you out. It's the bloke who wants to know the time. The bloke taking a piss next to you, asking you for a light, whatever. In here, I know who it's going to be. I can see it coming and I can protect myself. I've had a couple of scrapes, but I'm still breathing. That's how I know I did the right thing."

  Thorne watched Rooker's yellow tongue snake out and moisten the edge of the Rizla. He rolled the cigarette, slid it between his lips and lit up. "You did the right thing by Billy Ryan as well. You never grassed him up."

  "I wasn't a complete fucking idiot."

  Chamberlain drummed her fingers on the table. "That "honour among thieves" shite again."

  "So why now?" Thorne asked.

  "Listen, it was you who came to see me, remember. Started me thinking about this. Started people round here whispering."

  ' Why now, Rooker?

  Rooker removed the cigarette from his mouth, held it between a nicotine-stained finger and thumb. "I've had enough. I'm breathing, but the air tastes of stale sweat and other men's shit. I'm arguing with rapists and perverts about whose turn it is to change channel or play fucking pool next. I've got a grandson who's signing forms with West Ham in a few weeks. I'd like to see him play." He blinked slowly, took a drag, flicked away the ash. "It's time." Chamberlain stood up and moved towards the door. "That's all very moving, and I'm sure it's just the kind of stuff the parole board loves to hear."

  Rooker stretched. "Not so far, it isn't. That's why I need a bit of help."

  "I still don't see why you confessed to the attempted murder of Jessica Clarke. You could have got yourself safely banged up by putting yourself in the frame for any number of things. That security manager you tied to a chair and set light to, for instance. Why claim that you tried to kill a fourteen-year-old girl?"

  Thorne had the answer. "Because you're less of a marked man on a VP wing. Right, Gordon? You're harder to get at." Rooker stared, and smoked.

  There was a knock, and the prison officer put his head round the door, offered tea. Thorne accepted gracefully and Chamberlain declined. The officer bristled a little at Rooker's request for a cup but disappeared quietly enough at the nod from Thorne.

  "So, who was it?" Chamberlain said.

  Thorne knew that she was thinking about the letters, about the calls, about the man she'd thought was smiling up at her from her front garden.

  "If it wasn't you who took Billy Ryan's money, you must have some idea who did."

  Rooker shook his head. "Look, I haven't got a clue who this nutter is who's been pestering you."

  "Who burned Jessica Clarke?" Chamberlain asked.

  "I haven't got the faintest, and that's the truth. I don't know anyone who would have done it. Who could have. Over the years, I've started to wonder if maybe it was Billy himself.. ." They sat in the car for a minute, saying nothing. When Thorne leaned forward to turn the key, Chamberlain suddenly spoke.

  "What did you make of all that?"

  Thorne glanced at her, exhaled loudly. "Where do you want to start?"

  "How about with Rooker getting himself put away for something he didn't do?"

  "I've heard similar stories once or twice," Thorne said. "I suppose if you've got a head case like Billy Ryan on your back."

  "Twenty years, though?"

  "Yeah, well, he didn't bank on that, did he?" Chamberlain turned her head, stared out across the car park.

  "You not convinced?" Thorne asked.

  She spoke quietly, without looking at him. "I haven't got the foggiest bloody idea. I'm not far away from a free bus pass, and, to be honest, I'm no better at working out what goes on in the heads of people like Gordon Rooker tha
n I was when I first pulled on a uniform." Thorne started the car. As he pulled out of the car park his mind drifted back to how their interview with Rooker had ended. Thorne had almost gasped when he'd suddenly remembered something else from Chamberlain's history lesson. "Hang on, didn't Ryan marry Alison Kelly a few years after all this happened?" Chamberlain had nodded. "He tries to kill her, pays someone to set fire to her, maybe even does it himself. and then marches her down the aisle as soon as she's old enough?"

  "That was the perfect fucking touch," Rooker had said. "That was good business, wasn't it? The heir marrying the daughter, like he was cementing alliances." He had chuckled at the sight of Thorne shaking his head in disbelief, then nodded towards Carol Chamberlain. "She'll tell you about Billy Ryan. She knows him. She knows what he's like."

  Chamberlain had remained silent.

  Rooker stared at Thorne through a sheet of blue smoke. "Billy Ryan's cold."

  SIX

  On Monday morning, just after ten-thirty, Tughan stuck his head round the door, scanned the bodies in the Major Incident Room, and backed out again, his face like a smacked arse.

  Holland checked his watch.

  Samir Karim shuffled his sizeable backside along the edge of a desk and leaned in close to him. "Someone's in trouble," he said. Holland nodded. He knew who Karim was talking about. Behind an adjacent desk, DI Yvonne Kitson had her head buried in a thick, bound manuscript. "What you reading, Guv?" he asked. Kitson looked over the top of a page and held up the latest edition of the Murder Investigation Manual. A weighty set of strategies, models and protocols produced by the National Crime Faculty. It was, in theory at least, required reading for all senior investigative officers, and covered everything from crime-scene assessment and media management to offender profiling and family liaison. If there was a 'book' by which homicide detectives were supposed to do things, this was it.

  "Having trouble sleeping?" Holland asked. Kitson smiled. "It's not exactly holiday reading, but it doesn't hurt to keep up with the latest guidelines, Dave."

  "Trouble with guidelines for solving murders is that they're only really any use if the murderers are following some of their own."

  "You know who you sound like, don't you?" Kitson said. Holland knew very well, and thought that maybe there was still hope for him, after all. It struck him as odd that people had taken to talking about Tom Thorne without using his name.

  As if on cue, the man himself walked through the door looking almost as angry as Tughan had been a few moments before. and still was, judging by his expression as he loomed at Thorne's shoulder.

  "You've kept a lot of people waiting, DI Thorne." Thorne spoke to the room, without so much as a glance towards Nick Tughan. "I'm sorry. The car wouldn't start." He caught the beginnings of a smirk on the most likely face. "And neither should you, Holland. I'm not in the mood."

  "OK, we've wasted enough time," Tughan said. "Core-team briefing in my office. Five minutes."

  While Tughan spoke, Thorne let his mind drift. He was taking it all in, but he was thinking about other things.

  Thinking about Yvonne Kitson for one. He'd seen the copy of the Murder Manual that she was cradling as he'd walked into the Incident Room. It was like her to stay on top of things; she was someone who Thorne had always admired for her ability to juggle her responsibilities at work and at home. Those responsibilities had shifted somewhat since the previous summer, when her husband had found out about the affair she'd been having with a senior officer and walked out with the three kids. She had the kids back at home now, but she was a changed person. Before, she'd been moving effortlessly upwards. Now, she was clinging on. Thorne could see the difference in her face. She seemed to be hanging on every one of Tughan's words, but Thorne was pretty sure he wasn't the only one thinking about other things. His mind drifted on to his father. He needed to talk to him, to see how everything was going. Perhaps it would be easier if he just called Eileen.

  Then, he started thinking about why, nearly three days after he and Chamberlain had been to Park Royal prison, he still hadn't told Tughan what Gordon Rooker had told them.

  All over the weekend Hendricks had kept bringing it up, looking at him as if he were an idiot, nagging him about it while they slob bed out in front of The Premiership.

  "You want to get Billy Ryan yourself, don't you?" Hendricks had said.

  "You want to catch whoever set fire to that girl. Whoever as good as killed her."

  "Heskey is such a bloody donkey. Look at that."

  "You're an idiot, Tom."

  "I do not want to get him myself."

  "So why haven't you told anybody about Rooker?" Thorne knew no more than that it was because of his relationship with Chamberlain, and, OK, to a degree because of the one he had with Tughan. He had also virtually convinced himself that Rooker's information, his offer, related to a case that was twenty years old. It was not strictly relevant to the investigation into the killings of Mickey Clayton, the Izzigils and the others. He would, of course, have fucking loved to nail Billy Ryan on his own, but he didn't have the first idea how.

  Tughan was talking about Dave Holland and Andy Stone. He commended them on the work that had thrown up the all-important name. Thorne focused on what Tughan was saying, but noticed how pissed off Holland looked at having to share any credit with Andy Stone.

  "The NCIS have been working on this for us over the last forty-eight hours," Tughan said, 'and we now have a decent bit of background on the Zarif family."

  Tughan was leaning against the front of the desk. Brigstocke stood to the left of it, arms folded. There were maybe a dozen people facing them, crammed into the small office: the senior officers from Team 3 at the Serious Crime Group (West), together with their opposite numbers from SO7.

  "The Zarif family would appear to be model citizens," Tughan said.

  "Each property they own or have a stake in, every business interest we've been able to establish mini cabs a chain of video outlets, haulage, van hire are all completely legal. Not even a parking ticket."

  "Par for the course, right?" Brigstocke said. Tughan nodded towards one of his DCs, a squat, bearded Welshman named Richards. Thorne's heart sank as Richards started to address them. He'd been stuck in the corner of a pub with him a day or two into things and been less than riveted.

  "Think of it as three concentric circles," Richards said. Not caring if it was spotted or not, Thorne closed his eyes. The tedious little tit had given him the 'concentric circles' speech in the pub. Cornering him next to the fruit machine, he'd explained in ten minutes when it could easily have been covered in two the basic way a gangland firm, or family, operated. There were the street gangs: the robbers and the car-jackers and those who'd shove a handgun in a child's face for the latest mobile phone or an MP3 player. Then came the institutionalised villains: those controlling loan-sharking operations, illegal gambling, arms-smuggling, credit-card fraud. Finally, there were the tycoons: the seemingly legitimate businessmen who ran huge drug-trafficking empires and money-laundering networks, and who behaved as if they were respectable captains of industry.

  "Think of three concentric circles," Richards had said, an untouched half of lager-top in his fist. "They all touch and bleed into one another, but the points where they actually meet are always shifting, impossible to pin down." He'd smiled and leaned in close. "I like to think of them as concentric circles on a target." Thorne had nodded, like he thought that was a great idea. He preferred to visualise the circles as ripples moving out across dirty water. Like when a turd hits the bottom of a sewer-pipe.

  He was jolted back from dull remembrance to even duller reality by Richards talking about 'footsoldiers'. Thorne rubbed his eyes, let his hand fall over his mouth to cover the aside to Sam Karim: "Jesus, he thinks he's in an episode of The Sopranos."

  "The Izzigil video shop is a good example of how it works," Richards said. "The name Zarif appears on the deeds of the property, and on the paperwork at Companies House; and the vehicles that th
eoretically distribute the perfectly legal videotapes are leased from their company. But there's nothing tying them to anything illegal going on in those premises and they can't be held responsible for what the people who hire their vans and lorries get up to." Tughan cleared his throat, took over: "There are three brothers. We'll distribute photos as soon as we have them." He glanced down at his notes. "Also a sister, and probably plenty of cousins and what have you knocking about. At this stage, even the NCIS don't know a great deal about them. They're Turkish Kurds, been here a couple of years, kept their heads down." He looked up from his clipboard. "Getting their feet under the table. Main business premises and homes in the area you'd expect, between Manor House and Turnpike Lane." A voice from the back of the room: "Little fucking Istanbul." Tughan smiled for about half a second. "Now they've got themselves established, it seems like they're looking to expand. And poor old Billy Ryan's on the receiving end."

  "Let's bring a bit of pressure to bear," Brigstocke said. "See just how well established they are."

  Tughan pushed himself upright, tugged at the sharp creases in the trousers of his suit, dropped his clipboard down on to the desktop.

  "Right, DS Karim, DC Richards, let's get some Actions organised and allocated."

  As the briefing broke up, Thorne was amazed when Tughan stepped over and spoke almost as if the two of them didn't hate the sight of each other.

  "Fancy coming to see Billy Ryan?" Tughan asked.

  "What about the Zarifs?"

  "We'll give that a day or two. Get ourselves a bit of ammunition first."

  "Right."

  "At the moment, the Ryans are four-two down. Let's go and see how they're coping with getting spanked, shall we?" Thorne nodded, thinking that the surprises were coming thick and fast. Four-two down. It was tasteless, but still, any joke from Nick Tughan was firmly in X-Files territory.

  They said virtually nothing as they sat in Tughan's Rover, heading towards Camden Town, the music from the stereo conveniently too loud to allow casual conversation. They took what was more or less Thorne's usual route home, south through Hampstead and Belsize Park, through one of the most expensive areas of the city towards what was arguably still the trendiest, though the combat-wearing media brigade in Hoxton or Shoreditch might have welcomed the argument. They drove past the development on the site of Jack Straw's Castle, the coaching inn on Hampstead Heath named after one of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt and once a favourite haunt of Dickens and Thackeray. Now, on certain nights of the week, gay men who liked their sex casual, and perhaps even dangerous, would gather there in darkened corners before disappearing on to the Heath with strangers.