The Burning Girl-4 (38 page)

Thorne stared at his front door; at the ragged "X' carved deep into it.

TWENTY-NINE

Thorne was dragging the car around and flooring it back towards the main road within a minute, spitting his fury out loud at the windscreen as he drove. His heart was dancing like a maniac in his chest, his breathing as rapid as the baby's he'd been watching only an hour before.

It was important to try to stay calm, to get where he was going in one piece. He had to hold on to his anger, to save it up and channel it against Memet Zarif when he final y got hold of the fucker .. .

He shouted in frustration and stamped on the brake, his cry drowning out the squeal as the wheels locked and the BMW stopped at the lights with a lurch. He watched his knuckles whiten around the wheel as he waited for red to turn to green.

Watching a taxi drive past. Feeling his chest straining against the seat-belt over and over. Listening to the leather move against the nylon, the spastic thumping of his heartbeat.. .

The realisation was sharp and sudden, like a slap, and Thorne felt the stinging certainty spread and settle across him. Slowly, he leaned forward and flicked on his hazard lights, oblivious to the cars snarling round him and through the traffic lights.

31 n

A taxi.. . a minicab .. .

He recal ed the face he'd barely registered that morning behind the wheel of a black Omega the driver outside Zarif's place on Green Lanes who'd asked if he needed a cab. He remembered where he'd seen that face before.

Thorne waited until the lights had changed again, turned the car around and cruised slowly back towards his flat.

Why was this man driving a cab for Memet Zarif? Would he stil be working this late in the day? It was certainly worth a try .. .

Thorne's mind was racing every bit as fast as it had been before, adrenalin fizzing through his system, but now a calmness was making its presence felt, too, flowing through him where it was needed.

The calmness of decision, of purpose.

He was dial ing the number before the BMW had come to a standstil outside the flat. He listened to the cal going through as he stepped out on to the pavement.

The phlegm-hawker who answered was no more polite on the phone than he had been in person.

"Car service .. ."

"I need a cab from Kentish Town as soon as you can," Thorne said.

"What's the address?"

"Listen, I need a nice one, a good-looking motor, you know? I've got to impress someone. You got a Merc or anything like that?"

"No mate, nothing like that."

Thorne leaned back against his car. "You must have something nice. A Scorpio, an Omega, that kind of thing. I don't mind paying a bit over the odds .. ."

"We've got a couple of Omegas." The man sounded like he resented every syl able of the conversation.

"Yeah, that's great. One of those. Which driver is it?"

"What's the difference?"

Was there a hint of suspicion in the question? Thorne decided it was probably just a natural sourness. "I had one of your lot a couple of weeks ago and he wouldn't shut up .. ."

Thorne was told the driver's name and felt the buzz kick in. "That's perfect," he said.

"What's your address, mate?"

Thorne stared at the "X' on his front door. There was no way he was going to give them an address they would clearly be al too familiar with. The very last thing he wanted was for the driver to know who he was picking up. He named a shop on the Kentish Town Road, told the dispatcher he'd be waiting outside.

"Fifteen minutes, mate .. ."

Thorne was already on his way.

The fifteen minutes was closer to twenty-five, but the time passed quickly. Thorne had plenty to think about. He couldn't be certain that when the driver had spoken to him that morning outside the minicab office, he hadn't done so knowing exactly who he was. Thorne could only hope that the man he was now waiting for had simply been touting for business, and that he'd just been viewed as a potential customer.

When the Omega pul ed up, Thorne looked hard at the driver. He saw nothing that looked like dissemblance .. .

Thorne climbed into the back of the car, knowing ful wel that he'd been wrong about these things before.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

It was the one thing Thorne hadn't considered. "Hampstead Garden Suburb," he said. It was a couple of miles away from them, beyond Highgate. Thorne was hoping it was far enough away, that he'd have got what he needed wel before they arrived .. .

The driver grunted as he steered the Omega into the traffic heading north along the Kentish Town Road.

They drove for five minutes or more in complete silence. Perhaps the dispatcher had mentioned that the customer was not fond of chit-chat. Perhaps the driver had nothing to say. Either way, it suited Thorne perfectly. It gave him a little time to gather his thoughts.

He'd recognised Wayne Brookhouse had final y remembered his face from the CCTV tape of Gordon Rooker's visitors. He remembered Stone and Hol and laying out the black-and-white stil s on his desk. Brookhouse, if that was his real name, wasn't wearing the glasses any more and his hair was longer now than it had been when he'd last visited Rooker. He was supposed to be the daughter's boyfriend, wasn't he? Or ex-boyfriend, maybe .. .

What had Stone said about Brookhouse after he'd been to interview him? "A bit dodgy1} Thorne had good reason to believe that the young man driving him around was rather more dodgy than anyone had thought.

The soft leather seat sighed as Thorne relaxed into it. "Busy day, Wayne?"

Brookhouse looked over his shoulder for as long as was possible without crashing. "Sorry, mate, do I know you?"

"Friend of a friend," Thorne said.

"Oh .. ."

Thorne watched the eyes move back and forth from road to mirror. He could almost hear the cogs whirring as Brookhouse tried to work out who the hel he'd just picked up. Thorne decided to give him some help .. .

"How's your love life, Wayne? Stil giving Gordon Rooker's daughter one? What's her name again?"

Thorne watched Brookhouse's back stiffen, felt him struggle to figure out what might be the 'right' answer, given the circumstances. Thorne was starting to doubt that Brookhouse had ever even met Gordon Rooker's daughter.

"Who the fuck are you?" Brookhouse said. He'd clearly decided that aggression was his safest option.

"You won't be seeing a tip with an attitude like that.. ."

"Right, that's it." Brookhouse indicated and began to pul over to the kerb.

"Keep driving," Thorne said. His tone of voice made it obvious that he did not respond wel to aggression.

Brookhouse swerved back towards the centre of the road and they drove on past the tennis courts at the bottom of Parliament Hil .

"Who put you up for the part?" Thorne asked. "I can't work out whether you were already one of Memet's boys and he suggested you to Rooker, or whether you did have some kind of connection with Rooker and he was the one who found you the job driving the cab." He waited for an answer. Didn't get one.

"It's not vital information," Thorne said. "I'm just curious. Either way, you were clearly just passing messages backwards and forwards. Popping in to see Rooker, playing the part of the harmless tear away who used to shag his daughter, giving him messages from Memet.. ."

There were stil a great many questions that needed answering, but Thorne had worked one thing out: whatever deal Rooker had been trying to strike with him, he had been busy setting up another with Memet Zarif. If he was going to hand over Bil y Ryan, Rooker had clearly decided to play it very safe indeed.

"Rooker told us you were a car mechanic. Is that bol ocks, Wayne? Would you know a big end from a Big Mac? You certainly convinced my DC when he interviewed you .. ."

"You're Thorne."

"Spot on. And you're fucked .. ."

Through the gap between the seats, Thorne watched Brookhouse's hand slide across, reaching for something on the passenger seat. Thorne leaned forward, grabbed a good handful of Brookhouse's hair and pul ed his head back.

"Ow, Jesus!"

Thorne looked and saw that Brookhouse had been reaching for a mobile.

"Look, I was just pretending to be a visitor," he said. His voice had risen an octave or two. "Like you said, I was just delivering a bit of information, nothing important, I swear. I know fuck al about fuck al , that's the truth."

Thorne stared at the tiny mobile phone, smal and shiny, nestled in the folds of a dark blue anorak that had been neatly laid across the seat. Wayne Brookhouse had posed as a car mechanic, and as the ex-boyfriend of Gordon Rooker's daughter. Thorne suddenly wondered if he might not have played another role.

"Now you can pul over," Thorne said. "Anywhere .. ."

"What for?"

Thorne barely registered the cry as he dragged Wayne Brookhouse's head a little further back. "I need to make a cal .. ."

Chamberlain reached for the phone, both eyes stil on the TV programme she was trying to lose herself in.

Thorne's voice concentrated her thoughts.

"Oh, hel o, Tom .. ."

Thorne spoke quickly and quietly, and her expression changed when she heard the edge in his tone. From his armchair, Jack looked across at her, concern in every line of his face. He pointed the remote control, turned down the volume on the TV.

Thorne told her to listen.

Chamberlain smiled at her husband and shook her head. It was nothing .. .

Thorne pressed the handset hard against Brookhouse's ear until he began to moan in pain.

"Now, say it again," Thorne said. "Like you mean it." Brookhouse winced and took a deep breath. "I burned her .. ." Thorne yanked the phone away, his fingers stil clutching Brookhouse's hair. Something in the near silence on the line, a horror in the gentle hiss, told him that Carol Chamberlain had recognised the voice.

"Carol.. .?"

"There's a train from here in less than fifteen minutes," she said. "I can be there in an hour and a half.. ."

Thorne felt a second or two of doubt, but no more. He had been fairly sure what Chamberlain's reaction would be as soon as he'd decided to make the cal . "Give me a ring when you're coming in," he said. He flicked his wrist sharply to one side, smacking Brookhouse's head against the window. "There'l be a cab there to meet you."

THIRTY

Wayne Brookhouse's face open and attractive beneath the mop of thick, dark hair broke into a smile. He looked relaxed and happy. Only the redness, livid around his right ear, and the expressions on the faces of the two people sitting opposite him indicated that anything might be out of the ordinary.

"How much longer we going to carry on with this?" Brookhouse said.

It was not far short of midnight, and in the two hours since Thorne had first confronted him, in the time spent waiting for Carol Chamberlain to arrive and travel ing back to Thorne's flat, Brookhouse had recovered his confidence.

"Hadn't real y thought about it," Thorne said.

"That much is fucking obvious .. ."

Chamberlain looked at Thorne. They were sitting next to each other on kitchen chairs. Brookhouse was a few feet in front of them in the middle of the sofa. "I don't think there's any time limit, is there?" she said.

Thorne shook his head, stared for a few seconds at Brookhouse

3.7A

before speaking. "Tel us how it worked between you, Rooker and

Zarif."

Brookhouse's smile didn't falter. "They clearly aren't paying you enough," he said, looking around. "This place is shit."

"Why were you pretending to be responsible for the attack on Jessica Clarke?"

Thorne knew this was not going to be easy. In the time that Brookhouse had honed his cocky act, Thorne had put a few pieces of the puzzle in place. He was now working up to the real y important questions by asking a few to which he already knew the answers.

"It smel s as wel ," Brookhouse said. "It stinks of curry .. ."

Whoever had put the idea together and right now Thorne's money was on Gordon Rooker had been intent on putting the bal into the police's court. Drawing the police to him. And, like mugs, they'd come. Brookhouse had made the cal s and, sent the letters and sure enough, eventual y some idiot had gone along to have a word with Gordon Rooker and started the bal rol ing. They'd pressed Rooker until, final y, he'd confessed his innocence, and told them about Bil y Ryan. Then he had them .. .

Some idiot.. .

"So, Rooker was sorting out a deal with us, and at the same time making sure he had a slightly different kind of protection from Memet Zarif, right? Is that right, Wayne?"

"You came to my house." Chamberlain crossed her legs, smoothed down her skirt.

Thorne glanced at her, imagining for a bizarre moment that the two of them were interviewing Brookhouse for a job.

"You stood in my front garden and looked up at me, didn't you?"

Brookhouse stretched out his legs, knocked the toes of his trainers together. "This is so fucked up," he said. He nodded towards Chamberlain. "Look at her. She's not a copper. She's like my fucking auntie or something .. ."

"I'm a copper," Thorne said.

"So? You wouldn't be with her if this was anything official. It's obvious you aren't going to arrest me. This is something .. . private. Right?"

Thorne shrugged. "So what are you going to do, Wayne? You want to cal the police?"

Brookhouse leaned forward, his forearms braced across his knees. "I might cal a solicitor, yeah."

"The phone's by the front door .. ."

The man on the sofa held Thorne's stare for a few seconds, then, slowly, the smile reappeared. "You can't do shit to me." He started to laugh softly in short, high-pitched bursts, and Thorne could see that the amusement was real. The little fucker real y found the situation funny. He genuinely believed that they could not touch him, that he was protected.

"You're absolutely right, Wayne. This is private, which means that I won't lose my job if I come over there and kick your bal s up into your throat."

Thorne's threat, or perhaps it was his expression as he made it, was enough to stop the laughter, but no more than that.