Death Message

‘I’m chasing the results from Hodson’s room in the hospital,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Be nice to get a positive ID at both scenes, but I think we may have got our man…’

‘Marcus Brooks,’ Thorne said. He let it hang for a few moments, enjoying the sound of the DCI’s amazement crackling down the line. ‘Go on, tell me I’m the best.’

‘Who the fuck were you seeing in Long Lartin?’ There was a short pause, then Brigstocke remembered. ‘Oh…’

‘It’s why I’m getting the messages.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

So, Thorne told Brigstocke what Nicklin had told him: about why Marcus Brooks was on a killing spree, about his relationship with the prison’s most notorious inmate, and why photos of his victims had ended up in Thorne’s inbox.

‘How do you feel about it?’ Brigstocke asked, when Thorne had finished.

‘What?’

‘Nicklin. The stuff he says he knows, the personal stuff.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, “feel about it”,’ Thorne said, ducking the question. Killing it.

Thorne told Brigstocke he’d be back at Becke House by about five, that they could go over things in more detail then, decide on which way to go over the next few days. Brigstocke told Thorne that he’d see him later. Said, ‘You know exactly what I meant by “feel about it”.’

When the train began to pull away, Thorne realised that he wasn’t facing the direction of travel. He’d been distracted, hadn’t been paying attention when he’d sat down, and although it wasn’t a big thing with him, he’d always face forward, given the choice.

He got up and changed seats.

When she’d asked, on a trip down to Brighton, he’d told Louise that sitting the other way made him feel slightly sick. He’d been unwilling to admit that, in truth, he found it disconcerting. It made no real sense, he knew that. Even now, having moved, he didn’t have any sort of view beyond the toilets at the end of the carriage. But he told himself that it wasn’t a literal thing, anyway. It was stupid, but it was simple enough.

He was happier sitting this way; facing forward. He felt as though he could see what was coming.

NINE

Thorne could sense it within seconds of coming through the door: the change of atmosphere in the Incident Room. Before he’d had a chance to ask anyone what had happened, he saw that it was still happening. The man and woman walking down the corridor that ringed the Incident Room answered his question with a look, glancing in at Thorne and the rest of the team as they passed on their way to the lift. A moment of something like defiance before their eyes slid away from his own.

These were the sorts of coppers who had become so used to the reaction their presence triggered that most of them decided to get their retaliation in first. They were those who, whatever their nickname might have been, no longer cared if anyone could hear them coming.

Rubber-heelers…

Whether it was the expansion of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, or something altogether more insidious, the Directorate of Professional Standards had grown into a branch of the Met as complex and overstretched as any other. It had Internal Investigation Commands based in every one of the four Met areas, each one handling every sort of basic complaint or allegation against police officers, from simple ineptitude upwards. Other DPS units, including an Anti-Corruption Group and an Intelligence Team, handled more specialist enquiries, and were engaged where accusations of murder or other major offences were involved.

As someone who had fallen foul of the DPS enough times to wonder if he merited some sort of loyalty card, Thorne had made up his mind long ago. There were good ones and bad ones, of course there were, but they all needed the sticks extracting from their arses. That whole ‘taking the piss’ thing tended not to apply to the upstanding men and women of the DPS.

Samir Karim appeared at Thorne’s shoulder. They moved to the door together and stood, watching the two DPS officers step into the lift.

‘What’s going on?’ Thorne asked.

‘Someone’s fucked.’

‘Who?’

Karim shrugged, nudged him. ‘Well, if you don’t know…’

Thorne turned to see Brigstocke stalking from his office, and for the second time in as many minutes his question was answered by the look on a colleague’s face. Without any signal, the pair of them drifted away from one another as Brigstocke entered. Thorne watched as the DCI walked across to the fridge behind Karim’s desk and casually flicked on the kettle. Then he rejoined Karim in front of the whiteboard, looked across to where they’d last seen the DPS pair.

He kept his voice low. ‘Where were they from?’

‘Just local, by the look of them,’ Karim said.

Thorne nodded. The four north-west teams were based five minutes’ walk away at Colindale station. ‘Working late, aren’t they?’

Karim smirked. ‘It’s very important work, Tom.’

‘Probably just something stupid.’

That was more than likely. One recent complaint had concerned an officer who’d arrested a man twice, each time mistaking him for an elder brother who had been sent to prison six months earlier. Thorne knew a sergeant on one of the other murder squads who had been questioned by the DPS following the apprehension by an armed unit of a man whose only crime had been sleeping with the sergeant’s girlfriend.

‘Yeah, probably,’ Karim said. ‘I’ll call a couple of mates at Colindale, see what I can find out.’

Thorne sauntered across to where Brigstocke stood, pressing his hand against the kettle every few seconds, impatient for it to boil.

‘Cracking news about those prints,’ Thorne said. ‘Looks like we got him from two directions at once.’ Brigstocke squatted to take milk from the fridge. Poured a splash into a mug. ‘And sorry for stealing your moment of glory when you called, but I couldn’t resist.’

‘Not a problem,’ Brigstocke said.

‘I needed some light relief, I think. After a morning with Stuart Nicklin, you know?’

Brigstocke nodded, pouring in the hot water. He turned away, began mashing the tea-bag against the side of the mug with a teaspoon.

‘Are you OK, Russell?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘I’m around if you fancy a pint later on, have a natter or whatever.’

‘Not sure I know what you mean.’

‘Must be catching,’ Thorne said, smiling. ‘Didn’t I come out with much the same crap on the train?’

Brigstocke looked around, his eyes moving beyond Thorne and catching those of several others turning quickly back to desktops. Gazes shifting to nothing or dropping down to shoes. He tried, but could summon only the weakest of bedside smiles. ‘I think I’ll get some tea in the canteen,’ he said.

Thorne watched Brigstocke go and heard the volume of conversation climb as soon as he’d left the room. Coppers were rarely short of opinions, and they gossiped almost as much as they took the piss.

He picked up the tea Brigstocke had left untouched and carried it through to his office. Yvo

Thorne nodded, blew on to his tea. ‘They didn’t stop in here, then?’

Kitson looked up. ‘I’m clean as a whistle, mate,’ she said.

‘Goes without saying.’

‘There was that wanker from Vice I punched in the knackers when he grabbed my arse at Andy Stone’s birthday party, but I don’t think he’ll have told anybody…’

Thorne laughed and, looking across at Kitson frowning over her keyboard, decided that she was looking pretty good. A couple of years before, her life – private and professional – had almost fallen apart after an affair with a senior officer. These days, although the Job still mattered, she seemed to care about the career much less, and to Thorne’s eye, it suited her. She’d traded in the harsh lines of the designer business suits for outfits that were a little softer. The blunt bob had become shaggy, and the face it framed belonged to someone who knew she didn’t need to try so hard.