Death Message

‘Why does Marcus Brooks want to kill a police officer?’ The question Thorne had come here to ask.

‘Why not?’

Thorne poured himself a glass of water.

‘Oh, right,’ Nicklin said. ‘Sorry.’ He straightened in his chair, mock-sombre. ‘All very serious now, is it? Could I just ask first: why is the life of a police officer any more important than any other? Than a little old lady’s or a child’s. Or mine.’

‘Now you’re just being ridiculous.’

‘I’m right though, aren’t I? I bet things have really gone into top gear, now it’s about a copper. I bet things are frantic.’

‘Did you tell Brooks to do it?’

‘I never tell anyone to do anything.’

‘Course not.’

‘I talk to people, that’s all.’ Nicklin looked up at the ceiling. ‘Invite them to weigh up their options.’

‘Right,’ Thorne said. ‘Until they start believing the ideas you’ve put in their heads are their own.’ He remembered a superintendent telling him once that this was the essence, the trick, of good leadership. Thorne knew that the man sitting opposite him had no shortage of ideas. A dark tangle of them; barbed and brilliant.

He took a deep breath and blinked away the face of Charlie Garner.

‘Tell me why I should help you.’ Nicklin scratched at the surface of the table. ‘Why should I tell you anything other than how far you can stick your questions up your arse?’

‘Because this is what you wanted all along, isn’t it? To get me involved enough that I’d come here looking for help. Well, I’m involved.’

Nicklin smiled. ‘Twice in two days.’

‘I understand about the bikers-’

‘Friend of yours, is he? This police officer?’

‘No.’

‘I’m relieved to hear it. Wouldn’t want you knocking around with too many bad apples.’

‘You saying he’s bent?’

‘Look, Marcus is hardly what you’d call a model citizen,’ Nicklin said. ‘Most decent people wouldn’t want him living next door, you know? But he didn’t murder anybody.’ He gri

‘Come on, how many people in here claim to be i

‘Plenty. But not for six years, and not to each other.’ Nicklin leaned forward, his head only inches above the table. ‘You get to know people intimately in here. You know when to look away from someone and when to let someone in on a confidence. After a while you can tell who’s had a shit just from the smell drifting along the landing. And like I said, eventually the bright ones realise there’s no point lying.’

Thorne took a sip of water. It was tepid; tasted metallic, old. ‘They went through all this when he was arrested: the story that he was fitted up.’

‘They didn’t look hard enough,’ Nicklin said. ‘Nobody believed him. But even if they had, they would have presumed that the two “police officers” were bogus – members of a rival gang or whatever.’ Despite the thick carpets and the panelling, there was the slightest of echoes: the low wheeze of Nicklin’s voice rising up from the polished surface of the table towards the elaborate cornicing and the ceiling rose. ‘Nobody considered it seriously enough to come to the more obvious conclusion.’

Thorne didn’t need it spelling out: nobody could play the part of a bent copper better than a bent copper.

Nicklin could see that Thorne had got it. ‘Hardly the most fiendish of plans, was it? They just gave false names. I don’t know if they had fake warrant cards, or if Marcus even bothered to ask. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?’

‘It’s starting to matter to quite a lot of people,’ Thorne said.

If Nicklin was right, then clearly Marcus Brooks would not have held just the Black Dogs responsible for the death of his family. He would also have blamed the people who got him sent to jail in the first place; those whose actions had ensured that his girlfriend and son would one day become targets. That he would not be around to look after them when it happened.

Thorne could understand why Brooks thought these men had to die. ‘I don’t suppose you know the names of these two men? Their real ones, I mean.’

Nicklin shook his head. ‘Marcus didn’t know their real names six months ago. I’m guessing he does now, though.’

Je

‘“Want to kill”,’ Nicklin said suddenly. ‘You said “want to kill a police officer”. So I gather that Marcus hasn’t got round to it yet.’

‘Well, you know, seeing as he gave us advance warning, we thought we might try to do something about it.’

‘I wouldn’t bother.’

‘Who the fuck are you to get on his high horse about who deserves to live and die?’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Nicklin said. ‘But as you bring it up, you can’t tell me you care quite as much about a bent copper as you do about a nice, dull, honest one, can you?’

Thorne said nothing.

‘I wouldn’t bother… because unless you’ve got this fucker locked up safe and sound in one of his own cells, Marcus is going to kill him.’

‘Thanks. We’ll bear that in mind.’

Whatever was on Thorne’s face, whether he was visibly holding his anger in check or being nakedly sarcastic, Nicklin seemed to enjoy every reaction he provoked. ‘I’m not saying he’s any kind of lethal weapon or whatever. He’s not a fucking ninja…’

‘That’s a relief.’

‘But he won’t give up. It’s very simple. You’ll be in a world of trouble unless you appreciate that.’

Thorne was already starting to, but he let Nicklin continue. Looked past him, staring at the prints on the white wall beyond. Washed-out landscapes and hunting scenes.

‘I’ve seen every sort of gate fever in the last few years,’ Nicklin said. ‘Blokes going mental, starting to lose it when that magical release date appears for the first time on their Page Three calendar. Getting hyper. Doing something silly, a few of them, and blowing it at the last minute. But Marcus just looked… lighter, you know? Like he’d slipped off some sodden, shitty overcoat, so he could go ru

‘Something you stirred up.’

‘It drove him,’ Nicklin said. ‘And I can’t believe that you don’t understand exactly what that must be like. I know that if someone did that to you, if they took away someone you loved, you’d want to hurt them. More, probably…’

Thorne looked up. Nicklin was staring at him; something intense, joyful in his eyes, and Thorne had to ask himself if this was more than just free character analysis. Could Nicklin really know such things? About what had happened to Thorne’s father.

Might have happened…

There had been moments earlier, just one or two, when Thorne had looked at the man across the table; when he had asked himself, in the absence of any prison officer and in the light of what he knew Stuart Nicklin to be capable of, if he should be concerned for his safety. Now, as he felt his own reservoir of bad blood start to leak, cold into his veins, he knew that Nicklin was the one who should be afraid.

‘Your friend,’ Thorne said. ‘The one who goes through my rubbish whenever he fancies it. Tell him it’s finished, OK?’ Nicklin held the stare. ‘Tell him that if I as much as see a rat nosing round my bins, I’m going to presume it’s him in disguise. That I’m going to find him and fuck him up. Make sure he gets that message.’

Nicklin gave a small salute.

Thorne pointed. ‘And you need to do some forgetting. Whatever you know… numbers, dates, names. Anything about me, or anyone close to me, just let it go.’