Death Message

‘I understand some of them do a lot of work for charity,’ Thorne said.

They crossed the road in front of a Met minivan which had just turned out of the main gates. The driver leaned on his horn and, recognising him as someone he knew, Thorne gave him a friendly finger.

Brigstocke was taller, with a longer stride, but had to jog a step or two to match Thorne’s pace. ‘Slow down, for fuck’s sake.’

‘I’m too bloody cold to dawdle,’ Thorne lied.

They showed their passes at the Driving School entrance as it was closer, and walked towards Becke House, which rose, less than majestically, brown and grey on the other side of the parade square. They passed the gym, and Brigstocke put a hand on Thorne’s arm. ‘Listen, I wanted to say sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For being a twat.’

‘Which particular time?’

Brigstocke looked at the floor as they walked. ‘You know there’s been something going on.’

‘The Dark Side, you mean?’

‘Right. I don’t want to go into it, OK?’

Thorne had raised it three days before with Nu

But he still wanted to know; now more than ever.

‘I told you before,’ Thorne said. ‘If you want to talk about it…’

‘Cheers.’

‘We can go and get hammered somewhere. Sit and slag the fuckers off.’

Brigstocke nodded. ‘It’s tempting, but I just wanted to explain why I’ve been walking around with a face like a smacked arse, that’s all.’

‘I couldn’t tell the difference,’ Thorne said.

They walked into Becke House and straight into a waiting lift. They rode up in silence, each staring ahead at his own reflection in the steel doors. Stepping out on the third floor, Thorne made straight for the Incident Room, watching Brigstocke head the other way along the corridor and close his office door.

He loitered for a minute, then went to find Holland. ‘How busy are you?’

‘Up to my tits in phone-company correspondence and CCTV requisition orders,’ Holland said. ‘Have you got a better offer?’

Ten minutes later they were arguing about which CD to listen to as Thorne drove towards Southall.

SEVENTEEN

A quick glance at the Police National Computer had revealed not only a couple of fines for shoplifting and a suspended sentence for possession of a Class A drug, but the rather more surprising fact that Martin Cowans’ ‘old lady’ was actually a nice posh girl called Philippa. That she’d been brought up in Guildford and privately educated.

‘How the fuck should I know where he is?’

Standing on the doorstep of Martin Cowans’ semi, Thorne couldn’t help but admire the degree to which the young woman doing the shouting had reinvented herself. There was no hint of anything remotely genteel; not the slightest trace of a ‘Pimm’s and ponies’ accent.

‘And why would I tell you? Even if I did fucking know?’

Thorne wondered if her parents had ever met their prospective son-in-law. He imagined two jaws dropping and the hasty redrafting of wills.

‘Have you called him on his mobile?’ Holland asked.

Bin-bag’s girlfriend almost smiled, but caught herself in time. She took the cigarette from her mouth and flicked it past Holland’s shoulder on to the path. ‘Call him your-fucking-selves,’ she said. She tightened the dressing-gown across her black T-shirt. ‘I’m going back to bed.’

‘Thanks for your help, Pippa,’ Thorne said.

Her eyes widened, furious for just a second before she slammed the door.

Holland left a beat, cleared his throat. ‘Have we got his mobile number?’

Thorne shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen it listed anywhere. He didn’t give us a business card, did he?’

‘Maybe your mate at S &O’s got it.’

Thorne owed Keith Ba

Coming off the back of twelve hours in the front seat of a Ford Focus, the uniformed officer on surveillance had been a tad surly when Thorne and Holland had first arrived. He seemed cheerier now, having obviously enjoyed watching them get Cowans’ front door slammed in their faces.

‘Silly bitch,’ he said. ‘Probably just pissed off because he didn’t come home all night.’

Thorne felt a bubble of panic rise and burst in his stomach. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘He’d already gone out by the time I came on last night. He stays out quite a lot, mind you. Crashes round at other bikers’ places, one of the lads was saying.’

Holland looked at Thorne. ‘We’ve got people watching all the known addresses for Black Dogs members. Shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.’

The officer in the car gri

‘Jammy sod,’ Holland said.

Thinking about the video clip he’d seen a few hours earlier, Thorne wondered how many of those women Martin Cowans had to pay for.

Kitson carried the cassette player through to her office and closed the door. She’d listened to the most recent batch of calls in the Incident Room, leaning close to the speaker to hear above the chatter; had jabbed at the buttons, pressed REWIND, and listened again to one call in particular.

One that was exciting and confusing in equal measure.

In her office, she played the tape again, studying the transcript of the call as she listened. It was no more than twenty seconds long. Then she went back out and helped herself to the headphones from Andy Stone’s iPod, came back and listened one more time, to make sure.

The voice had sounded familiar to Kitson immediately, but not because she’d heard it when the woman had called before. That first time, when she had obviously rung from a mobile on the street, the voice had been competing with the noise of traffic. The words had been muffled; hesitant and choked with nerves.

This time, there was only the sound of her voice. This time, the woman had been braver. Clearer.

‘I know who killed Deniz.’

And Kitson recognised the voice. The woman had still not been quite brave enough to mention a name, and Kitson could not be sure she was telling the truth. But she knew for certain who the caller was.

From Cowans’ house they drove up on to the main drag and east along the Broadway. The traffic moved slowly through the densely populated half-mile of Asian shops and markets – the Punjabi Bazaar, Rita’s Samosa Centre, the Sikh Bridal Gallery – before they turned into a small road that ran alongside the canal and parked just below the bridge.

Thorne got out and walked back up to lean on a low wall a dozen or so feet above the water. To his right, razor-wire coiled along the top of a fence separating the towpath from a huge B &Q warehouse, its windows dull and its red metal siding streaked brown with dirt and rust.

Holland took a pack of ten Marlboro Lights from his pocket. He pushed at the wrapping with a fingernail for a few seconds, then put it back. ‘What are we doing here?’

It was a perfectly fair question, and Thorne could do no better than duck it. ‘Would you rather be back at the office filling those forms in?’

Dotted along the edge of the black water, overflowing rubbish bags hung from fence-posts every twenty feet or so. The banks were littered with cans and plastic bottles, but Thorne was amazed to see, concentrated in one small spot next to the water, upwards of two dozen swans, gathered as if for a meeting. Most were all white, but a number had darker bills and feathers, seemingly covered in dust. The grass around them was thick with small, white feathers.