The Burning Girl-4 (33 page)

"What about Stephen?"

"What about him?" Hol and said.

"Nobody knows what he's likely to do."

Thorne glanced at Hol and. He had to admit that Rooker had a point. Since his father's murder, a great deal of time had been spent fruitlessly speculating as to exactly how Stephen Ryan was going to react.

"He might decide to play the big man," Rooker said. "Come after me because of his father."

Hol and picked at a fingernail. "Can't see it, Gordon. I know Steve's not the sharpest tool in the box, but even he knows you didn't top his old man."

Rooker's eyes narrowed. "You know perfectly fucking wel what I mean."

Hol and's mood changed in an instant. "Watch your mouth."

"Sorry. Look, I just think that now might be a good time to tie up a few loose ends, you know? And I think they'l use someone a bit more reliable than Alun Fisher next time."

"I real y don't think so," Thorne said. "We aren't the only ones with better things to do. Stephen Ryan's got quite enough to worry about at the moment.. ."

The man on the motorbike pul ed over to the pavement and waited. He sat letting the traffic move past him, revving the bike for no good reason. Letting his breathing grow shal ower.

It was a hot day and he'd have been sweating under his gear anyway, but in those places where the leather met flesh, the two skins slid across each other on a sheen of perspiration.

He raised the dark visor just a little and took a few gulps of air that was anything but fresh. He swal owed petrol fumes and hot tar. He could taste the flavoured grease from the seemingly endless parade of fast-food outlets on this stretch of the Seven Sisters Road.

The bike, which had been his only since that morning, had cut easily through the traffic, and he was wel ahead of schedule. He thought about parking up and grabbing a Coke but knew that he'd be taking a stupid risk. He had a bottle of water in the box on the back, along with a few other bits and pieces. There'd be somewhere better to stop up ahead. Maybe he could take a strol around Finsbury Park, kil some time before delivering the message.

This was a big job, his biggest yet. He'd told his wife to pack for a spring break. Al the swimming things and plenty of high-factor sun cream for the kids. He'd told her that it was a surprise, knowing that she'd be thril ed to bits with the amazing place he'd booked for them al in the Maldives. Four weeks, ful y catered, would make a big hole in what he was getting for the job, but there'd stil be a decent amount left for other things. They'd been talking about shel ing out to send their eldest private. The secondary schools in his part of Islington were a disgrace, and going private was a damn sight cheaper than upping sticks and moving. They'd have enough to cover three or four years at least, and stil have some left over to tart up the house a bit. A conservatory maybe, or a loft conversion. He knew a few builders, people who'd give him a good price and stil do a top-notch job.

Doing a good job without charging sil y money. It was simple real y. He thought that he could build a decent reputation for himself by doing the same thing. He knew there were others, a few foreigners especial y, who asked for more, but he believed that pitching yourself somewhere in the middle was the best policy long term.

He flicked on his indicator, edged the bike's front wheel towards the road.

Not the cheapest, but one of the best: that was what he wanted people to think. Al anyone real y wanted was to believe they were getting value for money, wasn't it? Everyone loved a bargain.

A lorry's horn blared as it rumbled by him. He pul ed out into the stream of traffic, accelerated, and overtook it within seconds.

Rooker was standing. Maybe he thought it gave him some authority. "We had an agreement," he said.

Thorne leaned back in his chair. He knew exactly how much authority he had. "I'm a police officer, and, unless I'm much mistaken, you're a convicted felon. This is a prison, not a gentleman's club, and

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the only part of you I'd ever consider shaking is your neck. Are we clear?"

Rooker ground his teeth.

"Any agreement you might have thought you had is worth precisely less than fuck al ," Hol and said.

Thorne shrugged. "Sorry."

Rooker sloped across the room, dragged back his chair and sank on to it. He pushed a palm back and forth across white stubble, the loose skin beneath his chin shaking gently.

"There's stuff I know," he said. "Stuff about plenty of people. I told some of it to DCI Tughan's boys, but there's other bits and pieces. There's a few things I kept back."

"Why was that, then?" Thorne asked.

"Because I wasn't sure you lot were being completely straight with me .. ."

Hol and laughed. "Straight with you}'

"I was right as wel , wasn't I?" Rooker smiled thinly. His tongue flicked the spit away from his gold tooth.

Thorne could wel believe that Rooker hadn't told them everything. He could equal y wel believe that Tughan had kept a few pieces of information back from the team himself. Thorne didn't real y give a toss on either score.

"Whatever you may, or may not, have told SO7, the deal was based on you helping to put Bil y Ryan away .. ."

Hol and took over. "Now that he's been put away for good, you're not a great deal of use."

"I want to talk to Tughan."

"You can talk to whoever you like," Thorne said. "I'm sick of listening to you .. ." He reached behind for the leather jacket that was draped across the back of the chair.

Rooker slid a hand forward, slapped a palm down on the scarred metal tabletop. It was a gesture of frustration as much as anger. "I need to get out. I was supposed to get out."

"You'l be out soon enough," Hol and said.

Rooker spoke as if his mouth were fil ed with something sour, with something burned. "No. Not soon enough."

"Unfortunate turn of phrase, Hol and." Thorne pul ed on his jacket.

"Without your say-so I'l never get through the DLP next week. Those evil bastards'l make sure I die inside."

"You'l get out eventual y," Hol and said. "Think how much more enjoyable it'l be. Things are always better when you've looked forward to them for a while."

Thorne tried to catch Rooker's eye. The irises, green against off-white, darted around like cornered rats. "Especial y now you don't have to worry about Bil y Ryan paying someone to put a bul et in your spine."

"Wel you certainly won't be worrying about it," Rooker said.

Hol and stood, tucked in his chair. "I reckon you've probably stil got time to do something useful," he said. "Why not squeeze in a quick degree? Come out with a few letters after your name .. .?"

Rooker muttered curses.

Thorne watched as he snatched the lid from his tobacco tin, dug into it. "Why are you so very keen to get out, Rooker? Got a little something stashed away?"

Rooker spat back the answer without so much as raising his head. "I told you before."

"Right. Some desperately moving crap about fresh air and wanting to watch your grandson play footbal ."

"Fuck you, Thorne."

"You never know, Gordon. If the pair of you avoid injury, you might be out in time to watch him score the winning goal in the FA Cup Final. Although, with him playing for West Ham .. ."

The motorcyclist idled the bike, steady against the kerb, waiting out the final minute.

Trying to focus. Deciding to go half a minute early, to take into account the probable wait for a gap in the late afternoon traffic. Trying to clear his head. Trivial thoughts intruding, sul ying the pure white horizon of his mind in the final few moments. They'd need to set aside enough for school uniforms. They weren't cheap when you needed to buy four or five of everything.

Did the al -inclusive package in the Maldives include booze? He'd need to check. That could make a big difference .. .

He let one car pass, two cars, a push bike before accelerating away hard from the kerb and swinging the machine across both lanes in a wide U-turn. He pul ed up outside a dry cleaner's, two doors along from the address he would be visiting. Then, within fifteen seconds, the moves he'd gone over in his mind a hundred times or more in the last few hours.

He flicked the bike on to its stand, left the engine running.

He walked quickly to the box on the back. It had been left unlocked.

He reached inside, withdrew his hand as soon as it had closed around the rubberised grip of the gun, and turned away from the street.

The arm swung loose at his side as he walked, quickly but not too quickly from kerb to shop front Without breaking stride, he turned right into the open doorway of the minicab office.

He was two large paces towards the counter before the man behind it looked up and by then the gun was being level ed at him. A man in an armchair in the corner lowered his newspaper and executed a near-perfect double-take before crying out. Hassan Zarif cried out too as a bul et passed through him. The spray of blood that fel across the calendar behind him was somewhat over dramatic in comparison with the gentle hiss from the weapon that had caused it.

The motorcyclist fired again and Zarif fel back, dropping behind the wooden counter. The gun bucked in his hand, but only slightly. No more than it might recoil had it brushed the surface of something hot to test the temperature.

As he strode forward, his target having disappeared from sight, the door to the right of the counter burst open, and the motorcyclist turned just as the gun in Tan Zarif s hand began to do its work. The bul et smashed through the plastic of the darkened visor. By the time the first passer-by had spil ed his shopping, and others who knew very wel that a car was not backfiring close by were starting to run, the man in the leathers had dropped, with very little noise, on to the grubby linoleum.

For a few seconds inside the tiny office, there was only the ringing report of the unsilenced gunshot. The high-pitched hum of it rose above the deep rumble of a bus, passing by outside on its way towards Turnpike Lane.

Tan Zarif shouted to the man in the armchair, who jumped up and ran past him through the doorway that led to the rear of the office. Zarif stepped smartly across to the body. And it was a body, that much was obvious: the ragged hole in the visor and the blood that poured along the cushioned neck of the helmet and down, made it clear that the man on the floor would not be getting up again.

It didn't seem to matter .. .

The man who had been sitting in the armchair, the man who was now behind the counter bending over the bloodied figure of Hassan Zarif, clapped his hairy hands across his ears as Hassan's younger brother emptied his gun into a dead man's chest.

The first part of the drive back had been pleasant enough. They'd moved through the Wiltshire and Hampshire countryside quickly, but with enough time to enjoy the scenery, to laugh at the signs to Barton Stacey and Nether Wal op. Once they'd joined the M3, however, things had quickly become frustrating. It was one of those journeys where drivers had decided to sit there, beetling along at seventy or below in al three lanes. As usual, Thorne sat in the outside lane, grumbling a good deal and damning those ahead of him for the selfish morons they were. He never for a moment entertained the possibility that he might be one of them.

A couple of weeks into spring, and summer weather seemed to have come early. The BMW's fans were chucking out al the cold air they could, but even in shirtsleeves it was stifling inside the car.

Hol and took a long swig from a bottle of water. "Stil pleased you bought this?"

Thorne was singing quietly to himself. He reached across, turned down the volume of the first Highwaymen album. "Say again?"

"The car." Hol and fanned himself theatrical y. "Stil think it was a good move?"

Thorne shrugged, as if the fact that they were al but melted to the leather seats was unimportant. "When they made these, cars didn't have air conditioning. It's the price you pay for a classic'

"I'm surprised they had the wheel when this thing was made .. ."

"Good one, Dave."

"And what you pay to keep this on the road for a year would buy you a car with AC

Thorne drew close to the back of a Transit van and flashed his lights. He slammed his palm against the wheel and eased his foot off the accelerator when the signal was ignored.

"Rooker's not easy to like, is he?" Hol and said.

"Probably the right reaction, considering you're one of the Met's finest and he kil s people for a living. Not that I haven't met plenty of murderers I could sink a pint or two with .. . and more than a few coppers I'd happily have beaten to death."

"Right, but Rooker's an arse hole whichever way you look at it."

"You do know that bit about "the Met's finest" was ironic, don't you .. .?"

Hol and opened his window an inch, turned his face towards it. "Absolutely."

"Rooker was a touch more likeable when I had something he wanted," Thorne said. "And he'd probably say the same thing about me."

He pul ed across into the middle lane but was stil unable to get ahead of the Transit van. It had a sticker on the back that read: "How am I driving?" Thorne thought about cal ing the phone number that was given and swearing at whoever was at the other end for a while .. .

"Tel me about some of them," Hol and said. "The murderers you got on with."

Thorne glanced into his rear-view mirror. He saw the line of cars snaking away behind him. He saw the tension, real or imagined, around his eyes.

He thought about a man named Martin Palmer; a man who, in the final analysis, had kil ed because he was terrified not to. Palmer had strangled and stabbed, and his final, clumsy attempt at something like redemption had been made at a tragic price. He had changed Tom Thorne's thinking, not to mention his face, for ever. Thorne had not 'got on' with Martin Palmer. He had despised and abused him. But there had been pity, too, and sadness at glimpsing the man a murderer could so easily have been. Thorne had been disturbed, was stil disturbed, by feelings that had asserted themselves; and by others that had been altogether absent when he'd sat and swapped oxygen with Martin Palmer.