Lifeless - 5 (22 page)

'Happy Christmas, Dad. Is Eileen looking after you?'

'She overcooked the sprouts...'

'She overcooked the sprouts...'

'Right. Did you like the video? I didn't know what else to get you.' 'Name al the reindeer.'

'You can watch it later maybe...' 'There's nine of them. Nine reindeer...' 'Dad...'

'Go on. I'l give you Rudolf, that's the easy one. Dasher, Vixen, Comet...'

Thorne closed his eyes and searched for an image Of his father from his childhood. He could smel disinfectant, taste semolina, hear the squeak of a plimsol on a gymnasium floor, but a picture of his old man as a young man was temporarily unavailable.

He opened his eyes to find the frightened boy staring at him before quickly looking away again.

Thorne didn't see fear on the faces of kids any more. Not the ones

he had cause to talk to. Maybe they just hid it very wel or maybe they just weren't scared. What he saw was arrogance and scorn, sometimes even something like pity, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd put the fear of god into a kid.

Thorne looked at the clock above the secretary's door, then back to

the boy. 'It's only just gone nine, son. How can you be in trouble already?'

The boy looked up at him and opened his mouth but Thorne would

never get an answer to his question. At that moment the door opened and a ludicrously tal man with a shock of white hair stepped from the room.

'I'm Brian Marsden. Come in.'

Thorne and Hol and did as they were told.

The next ten minutes were among the most bizarre of the entire

case. Marsden knew ful wel why they were there, knew about Palmer and Nicklin, and yet proceeded to treat Thorne and Hol and more like prospective parents than police officers on a murder investigation. He handed them each an expensively produced brochure containing an outline of the current syl abus, details of the school's impressive array of sports facilities and even a sample lunch menu. Before either of them could stop him, he launched into a potted history of the school. It had been a basic state grammar until the late eighties when it became grant maintained. This confirmed several things Thorne already knew: Palmer and Nicklin had both earned their places at the school on merit; Nicklin, despite being brought up by a single parent on a nearby council estate, had passed the necessary exams to get into the best state

school in the area. He was a very bright boy.

Things Thorne already knew...

A knock at the door stopped Marsden in ful flow. He stood up as

another teacher entered the room. This" one was short and hesitant,

and Thorne thought he looked a little embarrassed to be there at al . Marsden marched across to the door to usher them al out again.

'Andrew Cookson is our Head of English. He'l be showing you round, answering your questions. Perhaps you'l pop in again before you leave...'

Cookson led Thorne and Hol and back past the secretary's office and into the main reception area. The place stank of floor polish mingled with a hint of sweat.

'Actual y,' Hol and said, 'we don't real y need the tour.'

Cookson nodded slowly. He looked a little confused.

Thorne had other ideas. 'No, it's fine...' Hol and looked at him as if he were mad, but Thorne just shrugged. He thought getting a feel of the place couldn't hurt and he actual y quite fancied having a look round.

'Right, fol ow me,' Cookson said. 'There's something you'l want to see in the main hal , then we'l have a quick scoot round and then I'l hook you up with Bowles.' He held out his hands.

Fair enough? Thorne nodded and Cookson smiled. Thorne could see instantly that he'd be a popular teacher. The smile was huge and infectious. Thorne also saw, suddenly, that Cookson's dark eyes were mischievous, and that even though he must have been in his late twenties or early thirties, he stil had the energy, the vigour, of a child.

As he'd thought he might, Thorne hugely enjoyed being shown around. Cookson's wry commentary was highly entertaining, as was the look of boredom on Hol and's face.

'I think your sergeant must have bad memories of his time at school,' Cookson said with a grin. 'What about you?'

Thorne shook his head. 'Sounds a bit swotty, and trust me, I real y wasn't, but I bloody loved school.'

The too,' Cookson said. 'Stil do...'

King Edward IV had clearly model ed itself on a public school; unavoidable probably, considering the proximity of such a celebrated one. The imitation was a good one, right down to the fives courts, the

house system and even the mortar boards and gowns which, Cookson

was relieved to say, were strictly reserved for the big occasions. Speech day, prizegiving, school photos... 'These are the ones you'l be interested in...'

The entire back wal of the school hal was covered in framed photos, some dating right back to the forties. There were dozens, row upon row of them. Cookson led Thorne and Hol and to a group of photos covering the late seventies and early eighties.

'Here we go. 'Eighty-two, 'eighty-three and 'eighty-four.'

Each photo was about three-and-a-half-feet long; the sort where the entire school lined up, kneeling, sitting, or standing on chairs, and the camera panned slowly down the line. Thorne remembered his school photos and a boy named Fox who used to take great delight in waiting until the camera had begun to move, and then legging it round the back to pop up on the other side, so as to appear on both ends of the final photo. He got detention every time, but he always did it anyway...

Thorne stared at the first photo. He spotted Palmer almost straight away. He was a head tal er than the boys around him, with the same hair, the same thick glasses. He studied the list of names at the bottom and eventual y found Nicklin. The boy had moved as the shot was taken and his face was blurry, but it looked as though he was grinning. By nineteen eighty-three, Palmer and Nicklin were standing together. Palmer stared straight at the camera, his face flat. Nicklin's head, at the level of the tal er boy's shoulder, was bowed slightly, but his eyes were up, dark and ful of chal enge.

Thorne leaned in close to the photograph.

'Hel o, Smart...'

After a moment, Thorne moved on to the 'eighty-four picture, pressing his nose up to the glass. Again, Nicklin's head was looking away from the camera as he whispered something to Palmer who. stood stiffly beside him wearing an odd smile.

Thorne moved on, scanned the 'eighty-five picture, but of course,

neither Palmer nor Nicklin were there. He moved back, looked again at the blurred features, the face turned away. He knew that it wasn't possible, but he couldn't help imagining that seventeen years before, Nicklin had been deliberately trying to hide. Even then, as a thirteen year-old boy, he'd somehow foreseen the day when someone like Thorne would be staring at the picture, looking at him.

Looking for him.

Cookson turned to Hol and. 'Probably a stupid question, but ... this is the first time you've seen him, right?' Hol and nodded. 'Wel , couldn't you have got pictures off his family?'

It wasn't a stupid question.

Nicklin's family had been traced quickly. Only the mother was stil alive; nearly seventy and living in warden-control ed housing. Hol and had made the cal . The old woman's voice had been a little quivery, but clear. Hol and had introduced himself and explained that her son's name had come up in connection with an enquiry and that he had a few simple questions. Her answers had been al but monosyl abic. Had she seen him? No. Had she had any contact with him? No. Hol and had had no doubt that she had been tel ing the truth, but found it dismrbing that she seemed to have no interest whatsoever in what her son, missing these last fifteen years, might have been doing or where he might be. She had asked nothing.

It was her answer to Hol and's last question, which he had thrown in as if it were an afterthought, that had been oddest. Chil ing, even. He'd asked if she wouldn't mind letting them have a few photographs, she'd get them back of course, the most recent would be best, something taken just before Smart had left home maybe...

That would not be possible, she'd said. MrsNicklin had explained calmly that she didn't have any photographs at al of her son Smart. Not one.

It was strange, but not the end of the world. Thorne had been unconvinced, in light of what Palmer had said, that a fifteen-year-old picture would have been a lot of use anyway.

Hol and asked the teacher where he could find the nearest toilet and excused himself.

Cookson wore a moleskin jacket, button-down shirt and chinos. Thorne thought he looked rather preppy. The sound of expensive American loafers kissing the polished floor echoed as Cookson led him up a flight of stairs and down a long, straight corridor. It was a far cry from the lumbering sadists in corduroy jackets or tracksuits that Thorne remembered.

Cookson stared through the window into every classroom they passed. They were looking for Ken Bowles, a maths teacher, and the only member of staff who'd been here in the early eighties, at the same time as Palmer and Nicklin.

Thorne wondered why so few teachers from that time were stil here. It wasn't much more than fifteen years, after al .

'Teachers used to stick around a lot longer in one place,' Cookson said, 'but not any more. It's easy to... stagnate, and money's always an issue. This is a good school. If you've done a couple of years here, there's a fair chance you can double your money in the private sector. The place up the road poaches a few every couple of years...'

Thorne was leading the way. He looked into the next classroom, saw an old man with tufty white hair, sitting at a desk and staring out of the window. 'What about you?'

'Been tempted, but.., wel , I'm stil here. Seven years this year, and I'm' already one of the old farts.' Cookson looked past Thorne into the classroom. '�ep... here we go...'

He knocked on the door, pushed it and held it open for Thorne. 'I'l maybe see you later then...'

Sarah McEvoy took another swig from the bottle on her desk. She'd already got through a couple of bottles, but the water couldn't get rid of the dry mouth or the sour taste at the back of her throat any better than the cigarettes could.

She was stil feeling guilty, having harked at a DC five minutes

before. She was taking it out on a junior officer, as it had already been taken out on her. She'd arrived late, feeling rough, and a bol ocking from Brigstocke had done nothing to help her feel better. The bad mood was being passed around the investigation like a virus, while the man who'd caused it was off at some school chasing ghosts.

They should al have been on a high since Palmer had fal en into their laps, but that would have been far too easy for Tom Thorne. It was as if he had some aversion to a morale that was anything except down in the fucking dust. As if every minute that passed without catching the second kil er was their fault. As if he wanted to see shame etched onto the face of every officer and a hair shirt hanging in every locker. While he was content to let a murderer walk about, breathing the same air as normal people.

She screwed her eyes tight shut; tried to calm herself down a little. She knew that Thorne was only doing what he believed was right.

She'd been feeling edgier by the day since the holiday. A couple of long, long days trapped in her parents' house in Mil Hil . Like she gave a toss about Chanukah anyway, with her tedious brother and his

dul -as-ditchwater family. She had been desperate to get out, needing to be among strangers.

She'd found al the strangers she'd needed over New Year. The faces, strobed in white or lit up by the flashing reds and greens, had been reassuringly unfamiliar and the nights had become longer and louder, and altogether fucking fantastic, and suddenly - not in terms of the time, but in terms of her realising it - suddenly, dragging herself into work in the morning ...

some mornings, had become painful.

And Thorne and Brigstocke didn't fucking Wel like her anyway. The pair of them, commenting on her clothes and the way she looked, which she knew damn wel they would never have done if she didn't have tits.

She reached for the water bottle and unscrewed the cap. Her mobile rang.

'McEvoy.'

'It's Hol and...'

She took a mouthful of water while she waited for Hol and to say what it was he wanted, but he didn't. She listened to the hiss on the line, swal owed, and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt. 'What?'

Another few seconds of hiss. 'Nothing urgent. Just touching base.' Touching base? 'What cop show did you see that in?' 'Sorry?'

'Forget it. Just being a sarky cow. Where's Thorne?'

'Trying to track down Nicklin's old teacher...'

As McEvoy listened, the DC she'd shouted at earlier walked past her desk. McEvoy smiled - an attempt at an apology. The DC gave her nothing back. 'You sound al echoey.'

'I'm in the toilets,' Hol and said. 'Nice to see that posh kids piss on the floor as wel .'

'They're not that posh, are they?'

'I didn't see many of them playing footbal in the playground.' 'Yeah, but not like... Biscuit Game posh.' 'Eh... ?'

McEvoy laughed. 'I'l tel you later.'

'That's one thing they'l miss out on though,' Hol and said. 'Being

an al boys school...'

'What?'

'The sheer, unbridled pleasure of running into the girls' toilets and screaming your head off.'

McEvoy remembered the very same thing happening at her school. She suddenly pictured herself, twelve going on twenty-five, shaking her head in disgust as she listened to the whoops and cheers of half a dozen testosterone-crazed, adolescent boys. She grinned at the memory. This phone cal was doing her a lot of good. 'Why did you do that anyway? I could never work it out.'

'I think it was a genetic thing. Marking your territory or something...' McEvoy glanced up. On the other side of the incident room she could see Brigstocke talking to Steve Norman. Brigstocke looked across at her, then Norman. Weasel y little fucker. She wondered whether they'd heard her laughing. She took another sip of water, her