Death Message

He had decided back in Long Lartin, when he and Nicklin were going over it, that everyone had to be treated the same. That they all had to share the responsibility equally. It would have been stupid to do it any other way; to say that the one who’d been driving the car had to die, or suffer before he died, while some of the others should just be crippled or whatever.

It was cleaner to blame them all.

He didn’t know this latest one from Adam, but he’d played his part, same as everyone else who’d fucked his life up. First time or second. Second wouldn’t have happened without the first, after all…

He didn’t know him, but now he’d had his first good look. Waited in the cold at the address he’d been given until he’d got back from work. He’d taken out the phone and grabbed his few seconds of video while the bloke was getting out of his car.

Done his bit for Nicklin.

He’d do his own bit tomorrow night.

It was busy coming around the big island at the end of Waterloo Bridge; cars and people. He stopped for a few seconds and watched figures moving north and south, leaning into the wind, lining up and chatting at bus stops on either side of the road, like fuck all mattered. He thought about where they might have been; knew there were cinemas and theatres under the bridge. Then he began to move his feet again; speeding up, because he couldn’t care less.

He walked around the back of Waterloo station and up past St Thomas’s Hospital. He’d spent a couple of hours in casualty there one Saturday, years back, when some idiot had nutted him outside a club. He remembered Angie having a right go when she caught up with him. Shouting at him, saying he probably asked for it. Kissing his stitches later on…

Just a few minutes away now; he’d do it in a little over an hour. Right above the river until the last possible moment, then cutting back and across four lanes of the Albert Embankment. Not ru

Imagining Angie’s face when she realised too late what was going to happen. And knowing she’d have been thinking about Robbie. That she would have done anything to save him.

Thinking about his boy; about what might have gone through Robbie’s mind at the end.

Hoping he had been in there, somewhere.

Louise had fallen asleep on the sofa, halfway through a documentary neither of them had been particularly interested in. Thorne had plugged in the headphones to Louise’s laptop and logged on; settled down to a few hands, playing as a glamorous blonde in a low-cut blouse. Fancying himself, in every sense.

An hour into it, he/she had been heads-up with PokerMom, a shifty-looking character in a cowboy hat. He had just raised sixty dollars when he saw the screen on his prepay come to life; watched the handset buzzing across the tabletop next to the computer. He had switched the phone to silent, so that any call or warning tone wouldn’t wake Louise up.

He scrolled down and looked at Brooks’ message.

Then he crept past Louise and took the phone with him into the bathroom, while, back at the virtual table, his bet was called and his kings and sixes lost out to three sevens.

were u at the flat?

It had been sent from another new number. Brooks was still using SIM cards once, then disposing of them. He could have no way of knowing that his messages were not being monitored; that Thorne was the only one seeing them and that no effort was being made to trace their source.

Thorne lowered the lid of the toilet seat. Sat down and typed into the reply screen.

Yes. Your letters are safe.

He waited. Watched as he was told that his message had been sent. And, more importantly, received.

His hands felt sticky, something between his fingers. His father’s wedding ring, which Thorne wore on his right hand, would not move smoothly when he tried to spin it. He got up and used the sink while he waited to see if Marcus Brooks had anything else to say; was drying his hands when he got his answer:

doesn’t matter

Thorne was trying to work out how to respond when another message arrived.

got another vid to send

When?

tomorrow

Thorne did not know what Brooks meant. Would he be sending the video the next day, or killing whoever was on it?

Alive or dead? Thorne waited.

tomorrow

He listened to water moving through the pipes. One of his old dressing-gowns was hanging on the back of the door, faded and pulled to pieces by the cat. He’d brought it over when Louise had treated him to a new one for his birthday. She had also taken a good deal of her stuff over to his place. His bathroom was starting to smell almost as nice as this one.

who killed ski

Thorne saw no reason to hesitate. Thinking it was ironic, as he typed, that he should be sharing his theory with the man everyone thought was guilty of the policeman’s murder.

Has to be the other copper.

It took a minute for Brooks to come back.

not really surprised

Who is he?

Thorne had got nothing useful from his hour and a half in the pub with Richard Rawlings. The DS had given a good performance, or at least that’s how it had seemed to Thorne. Maybe more so, thinking back…

‘It’s looking like Paul was into some nasty stuff.’ Rawlings had looked close to devastated, putting away a pint in three visits to his glass. ‘Seriously fucking nasty.’

‘That what Nu

‘As good as.’

‘And you knew nothing about it?’

‘Maybe… I don’t know. I had suspicions, now and again, but you keep them to yourself, don’t you? We were mates, and I was probably kidding myself, but I never thought it was anything too heavy. Not in a million years. Fuck, you think you know people…’

The phone buzzed again in Thorne’s hand.

squire

Thorne kicked at the side of the bath in frustration. His hand was clammy again; sticky against the plastic of the phone.

What’s his real name?

i’ll send u a message

So, Ski

Did he kill Tipper?

one of them did

Thorne was typing too fast now, making mistakes, not bothering to go back and correct them.

Tell me who sow e can findhim

no point Then: i’ve already found him

Thorne’s excitement was giving way to irritation, and anger at himself. The exchange with Brooks that he’d been hoping for, that he’d pi

Contact was not the same thing as co

He typed: I meant it about the letters.

Thorne knew as soon as half a minute had come and gone that Brooks had nothing else to say. He imagined him on a dark street corner, cracking open the shell of a phone, tossing the tiny SIM into a drain.

He gave it another five minutes, then stood up and washed his hands again; drying them until they were sore, until he could spin the ring freely around his finger. He put the phone away and trudged into the living room to wake Louise.

Davey Tindall hopped off the night bus at Vauxhall Cross and started walking. Spitting feathers. A youngster stepped in front of him, some junkie with his hood up, and was told to fuck off before he’d even opened his mouth.

Tindall’s employer had a business to run; had overheads and profit margins and whatnot. Tindall understood that. So it wasn’t him he was pissed off with; it was that pair of shite-hawks with warrant cards.

A half-price minicab at the end of a night was one of the perks that Tindall’s boss put his way. He’d rather have had another te