Lifeless - 5 (7 page)

Nicklin whispered. 'Go on Martin...'

Palmer looked down at Bardsley's soft, spotty backside, afraid to so much as glance at the boy next to him. Afraid of his friend's excitement. He could see the twin rol s of sweaty, girlish fat on his chest shudder as his heart thumped beneath them. He could taste the perspiration that was running into his mouth. He knew that he should throw the pistol away and get to his feet and run through the park, without looking back, down .past the bowling green and up and across the playground, not stopping until he was home...

Nicklin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and as the mynah bird screeched raucously behind him, Palmer pul ed the trigger.

Bardsley screamed as the jet of compressed air fired the tiny lead pel et deep into his flesh.

FOUR

The train journey back to London had been half an hour quicker than the outward leg, but had seemed infinitely longer. For the first twenty minutes or so, Thorne and McEvoy had tried to make conversation, then given up. He picked up the newspaper he'd already read and she made for the smoking carriage.

Thorne had closed his eyes and tried, without any success at al , to

go to sleep.

McEvoy hadn't bothered coming back.

It was after six by the time Thorne final y got back to Hendon.

Becke House was in the Peel Centre, a vast compound that also housed the Metropolitan Police Training Col ege. Hundreds of fresh faced recruits buzzing about, learning how to put handcuffs on, learning procedure. Learning nothing.

A BBC film crew had been around for the past few months making

a documentary on the new intake. Thorne had spoken to the director one day in the canteen, suggested that he might like to catch up with his subjects again in a year or two; see how those ruddy-cheeked recruits had matured into the job. The director had been hugely,

stupidly enthusiastic. Thorne had walked away thinking: that'l be one show they'l need to put out after the watershed...

Thorne headed for the office. He decided he wanted to put in another couple of hours. It would be a good idea to save the drive back to Kentish Town until the rush hour had died down a little. That was the excuse he gave himself anyway.

Hol and was the only member of the team there, stil hunched over a computer screen. In spite of the day he'd had, Thorne didn't envy him. He'd been forced to attend two courses and was stil a computer il iterate. The only things he could access with any speed were the Tottenham Hotspur FC supporters' newsgroup and the technical support line.

'Where's the DCI?'

Hol and looked up from his computer, rubbing his eyes. 'Meeting with the Detective Super.'

'Jesus Christ.' Thorne shook his head. 'We've only just started.' 'Where's McEvoy?'

'Probably soaking in a long hot bath by now...' Hol and nodded. Thorne noticed how tired he was looking. 'Go home, Dave. Start again in the morning.'

'Yeah, I'd better, before I get RSI. My mouse finger's fucked.' He stopped laughing when he pictured Sophie's expression as he walked through the door. 'I'l just finish what I'm doing...'

One week into it, and neither of them wanting to go home. Both afraid of looks on faces.

Thorne pushed open the door to the office he shared with Brigstocke, and waited for a second or two before turning on the light. The room looked a damn sight better in the dark. Who the hel could be expected to work efficiently in an airless grey box like this, or the even smal er one next door that Hol and and McE+oy worked out of?. Worn grey carpet, dirty yel ow wal s and a pair of battle scarred brown desks, like two rectangles of driftwood floating down a shitty river. No amount of potted plants or family photos, or knick-knacks on monitors could stop this roon sucking the energy out of him, blunting him.

There were moments in this office, when Thorne almost forgot what he did for a living.

He flicked on the light and saw a post-mortem report sitting on his desk.

When he almost forgot...

Sarah McEvoy consoled herself with a glass of wine, another cigarette and the thought that crying was easy.

She couldn't think of the boy in Birmingham as anything other than a potential witness and she knew that perhaps she should. She knew that there were feelings missing. Not maternal ones necessarily, or even feminine. Just human. She felt angry at what had happened to the boy's mother al right. Anger was always instant and powerful. It made her feel light-headed.

Anger was enjoyable, but sympathy never came as easily.

It wasn't fair. She felt that her behaviour was being judged. Maybe right now, Thorne was tel ing somebody else, Hol and probably, how.., hard she was. There was no middle ground as a woman. She was used to it, but it stil pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hard, or emotional y unstable. Actual y, hard-faced was a favourite with female col eagues.

Usual y fol owed by bitch or cow.

She was sure that Tom Thorne wouldn't be crying about anything. As it was, there had been quite a few times lately when she'd woken up and been pretty sure that she had been crying.

She could never be positive of course, however puffy she looked, or fucked up she felt. She certainly wasn't going to ask whoever she might have woken up next to, for the details.

Conversation of any sort, by that point, would be kept to a bare minimum in an effort to get rid of them as fast as possible.

She knew what those at work who guessed at her domestic arrangements would make of them. For this reason she did her best to ensure that it stayed as guesswork only. She wasn't frigid, so there was only one other option wasn't there? It was a smal jump for a smal brain from 'sexual y active' to 'sexual y active with superior officers'. There were stil those who suspected that any woman rising through the ranks, did so on her back.

Right. Lying on her back and staring at that glass ceiling...

It was nobody's business and it was her choice. A regular boyfriend was nice in theory and a bonus at parties, but in her experience it rarely meant regular sex, and she needed that. She needed to feel wanted, and if that occasional y meant used then that was fine, because it cut both ways.

Al the time she was checking to see what was on TV and thinking about what she might eat, she knew perfectly wel that she'd end up going out. She'd been thinking about it al the way back on the train. Staring at her own reflection in the blackness of the carriage window, smoking cigarettes down to the filter and wishing the hours away. She might even walk there. It was only fifteen minutes away. Fol owing the path of the railway line al the way from Wembley Park to Harlesden.

She'd need to get changed first though. The people she was going to see, like those on the train earlier, almost certainly had no idea what she did for a living, but she didn't want to take any chances.

In the single pool of light from a desktop lamp, Thorne sat, trying to keep his mind on death, but distracted constantly by an image that was ful of life. Much as he tried to concentrate on Ruth Murray's postmortem report, he couldn't stop the animated features of Charlie Garner from intruding: staring up at him from beneath the gurney, or peeking around the mortuary door.

He had final y worked out what it was that had disturbed him so much when Charlie had looked up at him in that sitting room only a few hours before. He'd seen it instantly, but it took a while before he understood exactly what it was he'd been looking at when he stared into

that child's eyes. There, in that face, in those shining brown saucers

beneath long lashes, Thorne had seen doubt.

My mummy's asleep...

The smile had been broad and beautiful, but in those eyes had been

the tiniest flicker of something like uncertainty. The smile hopeful, but the eyes betraying a knowledge Charlie Garner didn't even know he had. Who could blame him? Now, that child could never be real y certain about anything ever again. It was too harsh a lesson and learned too early.

And each time Thorne saw that face, the flicker of doubt grew stronger...

When the phone on the desk rang, Thorne started a little, and on glancing at the page in front of him, realised he'd been staring at the phrase blood-spotted conjunctivae for the past half an hour.

'DI Thorne...'

'It's Phil. Have you read it?'

'It's right in front of me. I've... had loads of stuff to wade through.'

'How was Birmingham?'

Thorne exhaled and leaned back in his chair. He should have gone

home much earlier. Even with a smooth run back to Kentish Town, it would be ten o'clock by the time he got in. Another couple of hours to wind down meant getting to sleep late and waking up pissed off. Hendricks, by contrast, sounded relaxed. Thorne could picture him, legs up on a piece of sixties' black-leather furniture, some skinhead in the kitchen making them both dinner. 'That bad?' Hendricks asked. 'Sorry?'

'Birmingham. Doesn't matter, tel me tomorrow. Listen, bit of good

news. Catch the bastard, we'l put him away. There was plenty of Ruth Murray's own tissue under her fingernails, but loads of his as wel . Profile should come through some time tomorrow.'

It was very good news. Now he would at least drive home in a good

mood. 'No need to test those teardrops you were so excited about then?'

Hendricks snorted. 'Nah, tel you the truth it were a fuck of a long

shot. We might have had a chance if he'd worn contact lenses.' Thorne was intrigued. 'This sounds good...'

'Obvious real y. A foreign body in the eye would cause a certain amount of irritation so the tear fluid would probably have contained more cel ular material. See? Even better if he'd cried out of his nose actual y...'

'I don't want to know...'

'It's al academic now anyway.'

'No chance of a Nobel prize just yet then?'

'One day, mate.'

Thorne folded up the post-mortem report and started putting papers into his briefcase. 'Never mind, it told us something about him anyway...' There was no response. Thorne heard someone talking to Hendricks. He heard his friend's muffled voice answering, then heard the hand being taken off the mouthpiece.

'Sorry Tom, dinner's nearly ready.' Hendricks's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Got myself a cracker here, mate. Nice arse, and handy in the kitchen. Sorry, what were you on about?'

'The tears. I'm not sure exactly what they tel us about him, mind you.'

'Wel , we know he was in a better mood than when he kil ed Carol Garner.'

Thorne stood up and closed his case. He might make it home by quarter to, with a fol owing wind. 'Right...'

'No, I mean it. Go through the report, it's obvious. He must have calmed down or something. Maybe whatever the fucker was on had worn off. It's a very different attack. The hyroid is intact, there's only minimal damage to the cartilage...'

Then Thorne could feel the tingle. The smal curren running up the nape of his neck. Making him catch his breath. Almost sexy...

Something that had been nagging at him was coming into focus, revealing itself. He sat down again, opened the case and pul ed out the post-mortem report. 'Take me through this slowly can you, Phil?'

Opening the report now, tearing pages as he turns them too quickly, speed-reading, his breath getting shorter by the second as Hendricks turns their murder case into something altogether more disturbing.

'OK... external y, both bodies were much the same, Murray and Garner, but internal y it's a different story. Ruth Murray died from a slower, more sustained pressure on the artery. Cal it a slow, hard squeezing. Carol Garner was nothing like that. She had bruises on the back of her skul where he smacked her head on the floor as he was throttling her. That was.., frenzied.

With Ruth Murray it was different. Maybe he'd got the anger out of his system. Maybe that's his pattern. You tel me mate...'

Then, Thorne knew. No, not his pattern...

The tears. A big man's tears on a body, outdoors. A body less damaged, wept upon. Elsewhere, a child in a house, nuzzling what was once the sweet-smel ing neck of his mother, now bruised, and bloody,

and broken inside. The wrapper from a chocolate bar, discarded... Was he tal er than your Grandad?

And Charlie Garner slowly, defiantly, shaking his head.

'Phil, can I cal you back... ?'

Tired as he was, Hol and had stil not left. Thorne's expression, as he burst into the office next door, was enough to wake him up in a second.

'The stabbings.., tel me about the stabbings.' Thorne's voice low, measured, but with a scream of something - excitement maybe, or horror - lurking just beneath the surface.

'Sir... ?'

Moving across the cramped office, talking quickly. 'Two women, both stabbed on the same day. July, i think you said.' Thorne nodded towards the computer, trying to stay calm. 'Cal them up.'

Hol and spun the chair round and began to type, trying to recal the details. 'One in Finchley, I think. The other one ... much further south if I remember ...' The relevant documents appeared on his screen and Hol and studied them for a second or two. 'Forest Hil , that's right...' He scrol ed slowly through the document, shaking his head. 'No ... no ... it's not possible. He couldn't have done them both.'

Thorne nodded and glanced out of the window. His eye was taken by the sparks flying up from beneath a tube train passing below on its way south from Colindale; lol ing heads in the brightly lit carriages,

snaking away from him as the track curved round and out of sight. 'He didn't.'

Hol and stared at him, waiting. Thorne stood stock stil and spoke slowly, but Hol and could see his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. 'The knives used might have been similar, might not, I don't know.., not sure it matters. The pattern and depth of the wounds though.., in al probability the number of wounds, on each of the victims, wil be at odds with each other. The ... character of the two attacks wil be completely different.'

Hol and turned back to his screen and typed again, cal ing up SOC and pathology reports as Thorne continued. 'One of the women wil have died from multiple stab wounds. Vicious...