Lifeless - 5 (17 page)

Hol and grimaced, unsure which direction to head in now. Thorne pointed north. Keep going.

'Slight problem,' McEvoy said. 'West Hampstead doesn't have a custody suite.'

'Fuck.' Thorne thought fast. 'Right, Kentish Town's about the nearest. Get somebody to run him over.'

'I'l cal them and get straight down there.'

'Good. We should be with you in about fifteen minutes.'

McEvoy was already there by the time Thorne and Hol and arrived. The three of them stood outside the room where Martin Palmer was being held. McEvoy fil ed them in on the details.

He had walked calmly into the station to give himself up at around about the same time that Bracher had barged into Chafing Cross, shouting his name out. Palmer hadn't been cautioned. He was there of his own volition.

Hol and sat down on one of the green plastic chairs that were bolted in a row along the wal . 'He saw the picture too, must have. Knew somebody was going to recognise it. Thought he'd be doing himself a

favour.' McEvoy looked across at him, nodded her agreement. Thorne stared at the door. 'Maybe...'

'Reckon he'l give up his mate?' Thorne turned and stared at McEvoy. She'd asked, knowing it was What he was thinking, watching the tension take hold as he glared at the scratched grey door, imagining the man on the other side of it.

Give up his mate...

It had been the question Thorne had been asking himself since he'd heard Palmer's name for the second time. Christ, it could be that simple. Perhaps there was a chance, if he was hit quickly, and hard. 'Is Brigstocke coming?' Hol and asked.

McEvoy took a few paces back towards the main reception area, smiled politely at the smal col ection of gawping uniforms gathered around the desk. 'On his way.'

'Should we wait for him?'

'Probably,' Thorne said, and opened the door.

In the couple of seconds he spent marching across to the tape recorder on the far side of the room, he took it al in. The uniform in the corner, jumping slightly as Thorne slammed the door. The cold. Palmer, his white col ar grubby, sitting at the brushed metal table, head bowed. The wad of bandage clumsily plastered to the top of his head, the blood dried brown.

Thorne picked up two fresh cassette tapes and began tearing roughly at the plastic packaging, his eyes never leaving the figure seated at the table.

Palmer was a big man, that was obvious, slumped and hunched over as he was. Wispy, sandy-coloured hair and metal-framed glasses. Murrel and Knight had done a good job. The picture was spot on.

'I'm Detective Inspector Thorne and I'm in no mood to piss about, is that al right with you?'

Palmer said nothing. He didn't even move.

Thorne slammed the tapes into the recorder, hit the red button and waited. Once the buzzing had stopped and the reco.rding had begun, he cautioned his interviewee. He spoke the caution quickly, spitting out the words like pips from something gone sour. He told Palmer he was free to leave, that he was not under arrest, that he was entitled to free and independent legal advice. He said these things because he had

to, without thinking about them, or caring a great deal. The only moment of hesitation came when he looked across at the uniformed statue in the corner, to ascertain his name for the tape.

The constable's eyes widened and he spoke his name as if he was confirming it from the dock.

Thorne stood opposite Palmer, his hands on the dul metal tabletop, staring hard. He was aware of constable Stephen Legge in the corner, shifting his feet nervously. Good, Thorne thought. I'm scaring you, I

must be scaring this fucker...

Palmer didn't look up.

'Now then, these two murders you're so courageously putting your hand up to. That's two murders out of four, if we're being accurate, isn't it? Four murders al told. There's another man, isn't there?'

Nothing. Thorne let a few seconds become thirty. Moved in that bit closer.

'Actual y, we'd better make that five murders. You fucked up last night, fucked up or bottled out, doesn't matter which, but I'm bloody sure he didn't.' Slowly, asking it again, 'There's another man, isn't there?'

Palmer nodded. Sniffed. He was about to cry.

'Who is he?' Casual. Like asking the time. Just give me a name... Thorne moved round the table, stood behind him. Only a clich6 because it was true, because it worked. Leaning down, close enough to smel the sweat, to see the first, fat teardrop plop onto the fag-browned table edge.

'There's a woman's body ... somewhere. At the moment, she's only missing. I'm not sure it's even been reported yet, but people are missing her. There's people somewhere who are starting to feel it in their guts about now, just starting to feel it. That flutter of worry, turning to concern and then eventual y to panic. That's when it real y starts to hurt, like a cramp that's squeezing the inside of them, making it hard to breathe. Crushing the pipes and valves, there, in the gut. Al of them, al those people, friends and'relatives, huddling together because they al feel the same, and al of them feeling like parts of them are starting to shut down bit by bit. To stop working. Feeling as bad as anyone could ever feel, ever...'

Palmer's head drooped slowly down until his cheek lay flush on the table. There were stil tears, pooling beneath the side of his face, but no sound at al .

Thorne's voice got lower, quieter. 'But it isn't. It isn't as bad. It's nothing like. When their missing wife or daughter or mother becomes their dead wife or daughter or mother, that's when the real pain begins.

'Hearing the news, there's a hammer blow to the skul , and the blows don't stop coming. Identifying the body. Waiting while it's stared at and quantified and fil eted. The funeral to arrange, the loose ends, the belongings to sort through. The clothes to bag up for Oxfam. To bundle up and bury your face in...

'The lives that have got to be carried on with, while the pain settles, inside and out. A scalding in the bel y, a scab to be picked at. Rage and guilt. That's agony a long way beyond the physical, Martin.

'That's not better in the morning, or in a week's time or a month's. That's terminal...'

Everybody and everything perfectly stil . The room, freezing but

suddenly airless. Final y the question, on a slow, shal ow breath. 'What's his name?'

Thorne actual y flinched, as Palmer raised his head with surprising speed. His eyes were red-rimmed beneath the thick lenses, and desperate. His voice came from somewhere a long way away.

'I don't know.'

Thorne pushed himself away from the table with a roar and charged back across the room towards the door. He wanted two things, badly. He wanted to punch a hole in Palmer's fleshy face and he wanted Palmer to think that he was going to.

'You had your fucking chance...'

'No, please.' There was terror in the voice, and helplessness. Thorne

stopped at the door and turned. 'You don't understand. We were at

school together...'

Thorne shrugged, raised his palms, waiting. And... ?

Palmer turned his face slowly away from him. He cast his eyes back

down to the wet tabletop. Down to his own indistinct reflection in the scarred and dirty metal.

'No... I don't know who he is. But I know who he was.'

TEN

Detective Superintendent Trevor Jesmond smiled like he was sucking on a lemon.

'Let me see if I've got this straight. There's a double murderer sit ring in the cel s at Kentish Town right now, and you're suggesting that not only do we keep the fact that we've caught him to ourselves, but that we start fil ing the newspapers with stories of other murders that haven't even happened? Murders that we... make up?'

Jesmond raised an eyebrow and looked to the men on either side of him, Russel Brigstocke and Steve Norman.

The fourth man in the room rubbed at a mysterious white patch on

the sleeve of his black leather jacket.

'In a nutshel .., yes.'

Thorne was watching Brigstocke and Norman as wel , looking for a reaction, trying to gauge just how much, how many, he was up against. He thought that Brigstocke looked non-committal, the slight shake of his head unreadable. Norman, the oily media merchant, just looked bored.

Thorne spoke again, thinking: I've beaten tougher opposition than this. 'We didn't catch him.'

Jesmond stared. 'I'm sorry?'

'We didn't catch Palmer. He wandered in off the street.' Brigstocke leaned forward. 'Tom, splitting hairs isn't...' 'It makes a difference.'

The DCI leaned back again, the head movement loud and clear this time. Don't go getting cocky and fucking up your chances, Tom. This whole idea sounds stupid enough as it is...

It was two days since Palmer had walked a little unsteadily into a police station with a head wound, a revolver and a few dark secrets to whisper. The idea had lodged itself in Thorne's head from the moment

Palmer had first spoken to him.

I don't know who he is...

The idea grew, rol ed around his brain like a snowbal being pushed around a field, making more noise as it gained weight, groaning, until it was massive and immovable, impossible to ignore.

Palmer had been like a man in a dream, terrified of waking up to the nightmare of an agonising reality.

He told Thorne al he knew. About the past and the messages and the terror, and Jesus, the excitement. He told him al he'd done. With his knife and his hands and the tears that had to be wiped away, so that he could see their faces properly as he kil ed them. Now, he wanted no more than to be punished for it. To be put somewhere secure. To be removed.

Thorne though, wanted much more and as soon as the plan had become ful y formed in his mind, he had offered Palmer a way, surprising and simple, to make the waking up more bearable. To end the nightmare...

Palmer had agreed in principle to al of it.

Now, he sat waiting, as Thorne waited, for approval of what at the very least was an unorthodox move, and at the very worst, would end a career or two.

Jesmond shuffled his chair a little closer to the table, sat up straight. 'I have to tel you, I'm not convinced.'

You don't have to tel me anything, thought Thorne. It's written al

over your pointless, pinched face. Spelt out in the red veins across your nose and cheeks...

Jesmond continued. 'Palmer is a multiple murderer, a serial kil er if you want to be sensationalist about it...'

Norman nodded. 'Why not? It's what the press want.'

'Right. Now, we can give him to them. Now, we have a chance to ease what I assure you, Detective Inspector, is a great deal of pressure to get some results, and I must say I'm inclined to take it.'

Thorne tried to make it as clear-cut as he knew how. 'If we announce that we've got Palmer, we lose a far more dangerous kil er.'

Jesmond flicked a finger across his thin lips, glanced down at the notes in front of him on the table. 'Smart Anthony Nicklin. As was.'

Thorne nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

'"Far more dangerous" is a little bit over the top isn't it? Nastier,

agreed, but he and Palmer have each kil ed twice, so...'

'That we know of, sir.'

Brigstocke nodded. 'I have to agree with DI Thorne, sir. Nicklin seems to be the more predatory of the two. Certainly the more violent.'

Thorne thinking, thank fuck, about time. 'Nicklin is the one that has arranged these kil ings. Without him the kil ings would stop. Without Palmer... I think he'l simply go to ground.'

There was a pause. Thorne looked over at Brigstocke but the DCI was looking at the table. Thorne shifted his gaze to the window. The sky was the colour of a long-dead fish. It was quietly drizzling.

It was Norman who spoke up. 'And that's.., bad is it? Nicklin just disappearing?'

Thorne tried to sound informative, tried not to make Norman feel too stupid. 'He won't disappear for ever. He'l wait until he thinks it's safe, then start again. He'l do it differently. Maybe he'l move and start kil ing somewhere else.'

Norman nodded, but Thorne caught something in his look that told him he hadn't tried hard enough. Norman felt stupid...

Brigstocke took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Thorne had a sudden, disconcerting memory of seeing him do the same thing, right before he punched the front teeth out of a paedophile's mouth. 'I'm not sure the papers'l go for it, Tom. Knowingly running false murder stories could get them into deep shit with their readers later on. They'l only play along up to the point that their circulation gets hit.'

'Nicklin needs to think that Palmer's stil out there kil ing for him.

Can't we make the papers print what we want them to?'

Jesmond glanced at Norman. 'Steve?'

Norman looked across at Thorne. Now who's asking stupid questions? 'There's something in what DCI Brigstocke is saying. A balance would need to be struck. We'd have to let them feel that they were being altruistic, at the same time as offering them the big story if it works. If we get Nicklin.'

Thorne nodded. It sounded like a way forward.

Norman hadn't finished. 'There would of course be other, bigger problems. There could be ... almost certainly would be, leaks from within the investigation, not to mention the odd, slightly unusual journalist with a strange compulsion to tel the truth.' He smiled at Thorne a little sadly, and shrugged.

'Perhaps I'm being a bit dim,' Jesmond said, flashing sharp incisors, 'but I'm stil not quite sure why we don't just print the truth in the papers. About the failed attack on Ms Kaye I mean.'

Norman was nodding halfway through Jesmond's speech, and didn't stop. 'Right. "Twin kil ers strike again. One strikes out.'"

'Or something of that sort,' Jesmond agreed. 'Might not reporting the failure frighten Nicklin a little? Prompt him to contact Palmer perhaps?'

Al eyes on Thorne now. He seriously doubted that much would frighten Nicklin, but despite seeing some sense in what Jesmond was saying, he stuck to his guns. 'I'm convinced that the most dangerous thing would be to disrupt the pattern.'