Bloodline

‘I’ve been doing this a bit longer than you have,’ he’d said.

Thorne had sounded jokey enough himself. ‘I doubt that, Brian, but you certainly look as though you have.’

Cheeky sod.

He wasn’t sure that Thorne had altogether approved when he’d walked in on their card school. Fu

He entered the code for Dowd’s apartment, knocked and waited. ‘Grub’s up, Andy.’

Dowd opened the door and took the cup and paper bag.

‘They better find this bloke soon,’ Spibey said, ‘else you two are going to end up as a right pair of fat bastards. Me an’ all, come to that.’

Dowd didn’t seem to see the fu

‘Right, fair enough,’ Spibey said, after a few seconds. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He took a few steps away, then turned as Dowd was about to close the door. ‘Listen, you up for another game of cards a bit later? Only Graham said he fancied it.’

Dowd had already bitten into his croissant. ‘Yeah, why not? Least he’s got some money to play with now.’

‘I’ll have that back, don’t you worry,’ Spibey said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘I’m telling you mate, I feel lucky.’

‘Well, you’re the only one round here who does,’ Dowd said.

THIRTY-FOUR

Her train arrived in Reading just before midday. A simple check of the voters’ register had revealed that Sandra Phipps – as she had been called thirty years previously – was not working, and Chamberlain guessed that lunchtime would be as good a time as any to catch her at home. If there was nobody in, she would find some way to kill an hour or two, perhaps see what Reading had to offer in the way of retail therapy, and try again later.

How threatening could a middle-aged woman carrying a couple of shopping bags be?

Waiting on the platform at Paddington, Chamberlain had been aware that this was the place where Anthony Garvey had collected the cash to fund his killing spree. Also where he had disposed of Chloe Sinclair’s body. She did not know if it was an ill omen or a good one, but she had focused instead on the possibilities of the day ahead: a positive outcome to the interview; the breakthrough she hoped she would be able to pass on to Tom Thorne.

Looking through her notes on the train, she had been unable to stop thinking about their session the night before. She wondered how the state he had been in – might still be in – had affected his ability to handle the inquiry. Had it weighed him down or fired him up? She knew that personal problems usually had an impact one way or the other, and remembered a spell of a few months, twenty years earlier, when she and Jack had been going through a rocky patch. Afterwards, to satisfy her curiosity, she had checked and been amazed to see that her arrest record had been better than ever.

She hoped it worked out the same way for Thorne.

It was a short trip from Reading station to Caversham, a small district a few minutes to the north of the town on the other side of the Thames. The taxi, whose driver gave a ru

Walking up to the house, Chamberlain could see rowing boats and steamers moored on both sides of the river, and a pair of swans treading water in mid-stream while a group of kids threw bread from the far bank, trying to spin the slices, like frisbees.

‘Got him, right in the neck,’ one of them shouted.

‘See if you can do it again…’

Chamberlain had already decided that, should the worst happen, she would move, a little nearer to London maybe, and that this was the kind of place she would choose. She loved being near the water, and though this stretch of river had a little less character, it was probably a damn sight cleaner than the English Cha

And some of the people here were under fifty.

The door was opened by a surly-looking girl, aged fourteen or so, who stared at Chamberlain, careful not to open the door too far. Chamberlain remembered her notes. This would be Nicola, Sandra’s daughter by her third husband, who would be at work as manager of the local Tesco’s. Chamberlain toyed with freaking out the sour-faced little cow by using her name, but instead she just produced her photo ID and asked the girl if her mother was at home.

After a few seconds, the girl backed away from the door, then pushed it until it was almost closed again before disappearing. While Chamberlain waited, hearing the girl’s footsteps on the stairs followed by a muffled conversation, she started to believe that this was all going to work out the way everybody wanted. She wondered if the girl knew anything about a half-brother twice her age, a serial killer who might well have babysat her.

The woman apologised as she yanked the door wide. ‘Sorry… she’s not very chatty at the best of times,’ she said. ‘And she doesn’t like to see me upset.’

‘Oh, right. Is everything OK?’

The woman cocked her head. ‘I don’t understand. She said you were police.’

‘I’m working with the police, yes, but-’

‘So, you haven’t come about…’ The woman gave a small shake of her head, seeing the confusion on Chamberlain’s face. ‘Sorry, I just presumed. We’ve had a death in the family and I thought that’s why you were here.’

‘Oh… I’m sorry,’ Chamberlain said. ‘What happened?’

The woman leaned her head against the edge of the door. ‘One of those things, love. Poor bugger was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all, ran into some nutter. We weren’t exactly close, if I’m honest, but still, it’s a shock.’

Chamberlain waited.

‘My nephew,’ the woman said, nodding. ‘Not even thirty! God only knows when they’ll let me bury him, mind you.’

Chamberlain cleared her throat and the woman’s eyes flashed to hers. ‘Well, apologies if this is an awkward time, but I actually wanted to have a word with you about Raymond Garvey.’

The woman blinked and slowly straightened.

‘A name from the past, I know,’ Chamberlain said. ‘And this is probably a bit out of the blue.’

‘Well, yes and no.’

‘Sorry?’

The smile was somewhere between relief and resignation, and it remained in place as Sandra Phipps took a step back into her dimly lit hallway. ‘I’d better make us both a drink,’ she said.

Gibbons brought up sandwiches and cold drinks for lunch, moaning about being a glorified waiter and looking horrified when Spibey invited him to join the game. Before he left, he pointed out that at least one of them needed to stay on duty downstairs. ‘You know, do the job we’re being paid for.’

Now that one is a stickler, Spibey thought.

After an hour or so, Dowd was well ahead, with several well-organised stacks of chips in front of him, and was even able to sub Fowler, who had lost heavily early on to both the other players. Taking the last game into account, Spibey was still down overall, and was keen to exert a little more pressure. Luck was one thing, he thought, but he was far and away the most experienced player at the table. On top of which – he smiled to himself – neither of them was exactly playing with a full deck.