Like, oh, hello . . .

  Like smelling someone who used the same soap as he did.

  The Tom, Dick and Harry business had actually been her idea, but any leader worth their salt should encourage initiative. When she’d first suggested it, he’d thought it was over-egging the pudding a bit, but it was all about getting attention, so, in the end he’d decided that it couldn’t hurt. When he’d given her the go-ahead, she’d been like a kid on Christmas morning.

  Stupidly grateful and mad keen to play with her new toy.

  Well, second-hand, strictly speaking, but that was precisely why she’d wanted it.

  He thought that leader was perhaps the wrong word too, and even now he wouldn’t describe himself in those terms, but there was no denying that he had followers, so he supposed it made a kind of sense. Even if the majority of them were idiots, or just desperate losers like poor Rebecca, he’d been grateful for the help they’d given him over the years. For the entertainment, too, not to mention the fact that those of them who were a bit more . . . obsessive than others had provided a steady source of income.

  Ridiculous, the stuff they’d pay good money for, and how much.

  But he would never trust any of them. He couldn’t know exactly what was in Rebecca Driver’s messed up little head or what she might say or do when the likes of Tom Thorne turned the screws. He wasn’t a mind reader or a hypnotist. If she’d chosen to break down in that interview room and say, Stuart made me do it, Stuart was behind the whole thing, there would have been bugger all he could do about it. It wouldn’t have mattered, because as soon as they’d worked out where that scalpel had come from they’d have figured it out, just like they were meant to, but the girl spilling her guts early would have spoiled things slightly; thrown the game off course a little. There would have been no real damage in the scheme of things, though. He would always be unreachable until he decided otherwise, because he’d never trusted Driver or anyone else enough to give them anything that might be used against him. That could lead the police to whichever door he was waiting behind at the time.

  He knew that soon, when the moment came, Thorne would be desperate to get through that door. It would not be Nicklin’s own door, of course, but that was the whole point. Full of laughable, self-righteous fury, Thorne would be beating at that door alone; kicking and screaming to be let in, and when he did finally come charging through it he would discover that the prizes you struggled most to win always came with a cost.

  That you could come out on top and still lose everything.

  He tore into a chocolate bar with his teeth and took a bite; his weakness, if he had one. It had proved to be the case in more ways than one, when DNA from a discarded wrapper – like those scattered on the floor next to the sofa – had helped to convict him, first time around, though he could laugh about that now. He bit off another chunk and went back to his quiz show. It was getting exciting. He reeled off the seven wonders of the ancient world, then shook his head when the woman in the final could manage only three.

  Truth be told, he talked to himself almost constantly. It was comforting, and, despite the loony-bin connotations, no dafter than talking to a cat or a dog, same as most people did when there was nobody else around. He preferred it when there was someone to talk to, of course. He’d missed out on a lot of that over the years he’d been away, and what was not to like when the topic of conversation was one he was so fond of?

  Everybody’s favourite, if they were being honest.

  He’d been talking about himself rather a lot lately.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Thorne spent a good deal of Saturday clock-watching. When he wasn’t doing that, he was putting a barely scraped maths O-level to good use; trying to calculate what kind of pension he’d get if he chucked the job in now and work out if it would be enough to start a small business flogging second-hand albums, or go halves with someone buying a rundown pub, or set himself up as a Z-list gigolo. He knew his phone conversation the night before had a lot to do with his mood, but still.

  It passed the time.

  Most of the day was taken up with necessary admin, which suited the likes of Nicola Tanner, but had never been Thorne’s strong suit. Tits-deep in files and folders, they were alternately frustrated at hearing nothing from Hobbs and then excited when they did, though the excitement wore off quickly enough once the paperwork fairy began politely coughing to reclaim their attention.

  There was plenty that demanded it. The cases Tanner and Thorne had been working before catching the Richard Sumner murder had not gone away or been passed on to others. Thorne still had work to do on a gang-related stabbing in Finsbury Park, while Tanner was chasing the forensic results on a domestic in Hornsey.

  Understandably, both were finding it hard to focus.

  The first call from Hobbs came mid-morning, to let them know that not only had K-Man rejected his lower offer for the pill bottle, but that he’d actually upped the asking price to £900.

  ‘Looks like we’ve rattled his bars a bit,’ Hobbs said.

  The call was on speaker in Thorne and Tanner’s office. ‘Is that a good thing or not?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘Got to be good,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I agree,’ Hobbs said. ‘Now he knows he’s got someone who’s interested, he’s seeing how far he can push it. That, or he’s annoyed about the lower offer and thinks the buyer’s taking the piss. Either way, he’s hooked.’

  ‘Tell him you might lose the sale,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I already did that. Went back and forth a few times. He said it’s take it or leave it.’

  ‘OK, good. So, tell him you’ve passed that message on and now the buyer’s thinking about it.’

  ‘Will do,’ Hobbs said.

  The ‘buyer’ was thinking about little else.

  The majority of everyone’s time was naturally spent on pre-trial preparations for the three murders with which Rebecca Driver had been charged. The court date would be months away and the CPS had as solid a case as they could wish for, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot more work still to do. In many ways, the team had made a rod for their own backs, because the better a prosecution case was, the harder they had to work to ensure it did not get screwed up by some stupid failure in procedure; by being careless or taking the result for granted. A good many cases fell apart because someone forgot to feed a suspect often enough or have their fitness for interview assessed by the Force Medical Examiner; to get the correct form signed or say what was legally required of them on a recording. Simply put, that could not be allowed to happen with a case as high-profile as this one and with as much media interest.

  Is needed to be dotted and Ts crossed, then everything had to be checked again to ensure that the dotting and crossing had been done correctly.

  Thorne got his head down and only raised it to look at the clock.

  When he saw that it was nearly lunchtime, he called Greg Hobbs.

  ‘OK, Cameron . . . tell him your buyer has agreed to the higher price. That they’re so desperate to own Nicklin’s pill bottle, they’ll take it for £900.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Let’s see what K-Man does now he’s got a deal,’ Thorne said. ‘If he acts any differently. Sometimes people get careless when they can smell the money.’

  Thorne walked to the Royal Oak for lunch on his own. He was just about done with a microwaved shepherd’s pie that was all but welded to the plate, when Tanner, who had eaten alone in the other room, came through to join him.

  ‘I hope you didn’t have what I had,’ he said.

  ‘Cheese salad.’

  Thorne pushed his plate away. ‘Good choice.’

  ‘I didn’t want to talk about this in the office.’ Tanner swirled her mineral water round in the glass. ‘I mean, obviously . . . but I just wanted to say sorry about last night.’

  ‘It’s fine, Nic.’

  ‘No, it’s not, but . . . you don’t need to worry, all right? I really don’t want you to think there’s anything to be concerned about. I was just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all, and the wine kicked everything up a notch. It was stupid. So . . . ’

  ‘I told you, it’s fine.’ Thorne reached for his Diet Coke. ‘And I get it, OK?’

  Tanner nodded.

  ‘It’s never going to sit well, course it isn’t, so you shouldn’t feel bad about having a glass too many and getting worked up.’ Thorne leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘Listen, it could just as easily have been me freaking out and calling you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Trust me—’

  ‘I do,’ Tanner said. ‘That’s the whole point. Look, I know Phil can get a bit jumpy about what happened, and well, you don’t need telling I can, but you’re the only one who doesn’t panic. The one who just gets on with things.’ She sipped her water and managed a smile. ‘Thank God at least one of us is solid.’

  Thorne straightened his knife and fork. ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said.

  They said nothing else until one of the bar staff had cleared Thorne’s plate away. They finished their drinks and Tanner began to reapply her lipstick.

  ‘Russell got a call from the CPS,’ she said. ‘Apparently Driver’s brief’s going to push for diminished responsibility.’

  ‘Always on the cards,’ Thorne said. ‘Her getting “nutted off”.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  Thorne had known a great many killers whose legal teams had played the same card, and in some cases, bearing in mind the degree of violence or the apparent loss of control, it had been hard to quibble. This was different though, because however firmly Thorne believed Rebecca Driver to be responsible for those murders, he knew that someone else had given her that responsibility. Stuart Nicklin had suggested, insinuated, cajoled . . . until she’d decided it was a responsibility she wanted; that she was destined to bear.

  As usual, Thorne’s train of thought left its tracks across his face.

  ‘How’s things going with Hobbs, d’you reckon?’

  Thorne shrugged. ‘As of now, he’s the only hope we’ve got.’ He checked his phone in case there was a message from Hobbs that he’d missed. There wasn’t. ‘If the bloke who’s selling that pill bottle doesn’t lead us to Nicklin, I haven’t got the first idea how we get to him.’

  Tanner thought about it. ‘Obviously I don’t know Nicklin as well as you do, but from everything you’ve said . . . isn’t there at least a possibility he might come to us?’

  Thorne looked at her and shifted in his seat. The sudden stab of discomfort was probably down to no more than the shepherd’s pie oozing into his gut and doing its worst. It was not something he wanted to think about for very long.

  Tanner reached for her jacket. Said, ‘We should probably get back.’

  It was half an hour before going-home time when Hobbs called again.

  ‘K-Man’s very happy,’ Hobbs said. ‘Says he’s letting it go cheap and that our mystery buyer’s getting a good deal.’

  ‘Very generous of him,’ Thorne said. ‘So, he wants his money, right?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s mad keen to have the Bitcoin transferred to his account as soon as possible.’

  Thorne thought about it. ‘So keep on stringing him along, Greg. Tell him there’s no problem, but you’re having trouble getting hold of your buyer.’

  ‘OK . . . cool.’

  Seeing as the ‘mystery buyer’ was actually the Met­ropolitan Police, Thorne knew he should probably have sought further authorisation before agreeing to a higher asking price. He told himself that he’d been far too busy with paperwork. ‘We need to drag this out.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can drag it out too much longer,’ Hobbs said. ‘I don’t get the impression he’s all that patient.’

  Thorne did not know that what he was asking Hobbs to do would achieve anything, but he was out of ideas. ‘Just do your best, mate,’ he said. ‘You’re doing a top job, by the way.’

  A few minutes later, he was pulling on his jacket and heading down towards the car park. Chall passed him on the stairs and asked what the hurry was. Thorne considered a lie – a sick relative or an urgent lead – but in the end he couldn’t be arsed.

  He said, ‘I need to get to the library before it closes.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  It was not the book with which Thorne would have chosen to pop his library card’s cherry. That said, there wasn’t a long list of contenders. Or indeed any list. It was even more disheartening to see that dozens of people before him had chosen to borrow Killing On Command: The Life And Crimes Of Stuart Nicklin since it had first been published three years before.

  Once he’d eaten and lined up the couple of beers he felt sure he would need, Thorne sat down and put on his reading glasses.

  The library had been the only option in the end, because Thorne certainly wasn’t going to put money in the author’s pocket by buying the bloody thing. He’d been all too aware of what critics had apparently called a ‘hard-hitting portrait of evil’ when it had first come out, but he’d had no interest whatsoever in reading it then. He wasn’t awfully keen now, but there was always the possibility he might come across something that would help, so at this stage of the game he didn’t mind holding his nose. The book had, of course, been one of many in Rebecca Driver’s collection, but that copy – with its handwritten musings and schoolgirlish words of admiration – was now a crucial piece of evidence and, as such, unavailable for thumbing through again without the use of nitrile gloves.

  Opening the slightly battered volume from Kentish Town library, Thorne felt as though he should be wearing them anyway.

  ‘Jesus . . . ’

  The author – Stephen J. Campbell – had dedicated his book ‘to all the victims of Stuart Nicklin and to those they left behind’. Thorne wondered if ‘those they left behind’ had seen any of the profits.

  Thorne knew he could safely skip the first few chapters. He had no desire to find out anything he didn’t already know about Stuart Nicklin’s childhood; whether he had been made to wear girls’ clothes or locked in a cupboard under the stairs. Thorne could not have cared less about the killer’s family tree. So, as he presumed most people did when reading a book in which they themselves would feature, he went straight to the index and searched for his own name.

  It wasn’t difficult to find.

  The descriptions of the murders for which Nicklin had first gained notoriety, and which had seen him sentenced to life imprisonment, were horribly familiar. Unnecessarily graphic perhaps when described on the page, but more or less accurate. Some killings Nicklin had carried out himself, while others had been the work of a hapless, ill-fated individual named Martin Palmer, a young man Nicklin had been able to terrify into doing his will since they’d first met at school who had been shot dead just before Nicklin was arrested.

  Suicide by cop; that was what Thorne had always

  believed.

  There were plenty of quotes from Thorne himself, though he could barely remember some of the things he was alleged to have said back then. The text of the speech he’d given on the steps of the Old Bailey after Nicklin had been convicted was printed in full, as well as extracts from interviews given while Thorne was still hunting for the killers. He would be the first to admit that several of those early confrontations with the media had been somewhat . . . testy, but he almost spat out his beer when he saw himself described by the author as ‘truculent and over-sensitive’.

  ‘Twat . . . ’

  He turned the pages hard and fast enough to tear a couple. He wondered if he’d be fined. He decided he could claim it on expenses, so he accidentally tore a couple more.

  There was no mention of the murders committed several years later by a man named Marcus Brooks, the photographs of the victims that had been sent to Thorne’s phone, or the crucial part Stuart Nicklin had played in their deaths by orchestrating events from behind bars. It wasn’t a surprise. Nicklin’s role in that case had never become public know­ledge and the justice later meted out to him – which Thorne may or may not have had something to do with – had been dished out privately in the prison canteen, in the form of a lasagne laced with broken glass.

  Thorne smiled, remembering.

  The details of what had transpired on Bardsey Island were sketchy to say the least, but Thorne had expected as much. He had certainly never spoken to Stephen Campbell. He was fairly sure Nicklin never had, and virtually everyone else who’d been on that island at the time was dead.

  There was no mention of what had happened to Phil Hendricks.

  Nobody except Thorne, Nicklin, and the men Nicklin had paid or otherwise persuaded to do the job, knew what had been done with that scalpel.

  Nicklin had got away. That was the gist of two entire chapters and, thanks to what Mr Campbell could only describe as the ‘foolishness and over-confidence’ of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, a dangerous killer had not only been allowed to escape custody, but still remained at large; an ever-present danger to the public.

  There was a picture of Thorne; a snap taken by a local reporter just after he’d stepped off that helicopter back to the mainland. His face was bloodied and swollen, the result of the beating he’d taken from Nicklin at the end, that he’d begged for. Looking at it now, Thorne could remember how much worse he’d felt on the inside.

  Scalded, empty.

  He tossed the book to one side, deciding that the label on his beer bottle would provide a more fulfilling read, which it did.

  Well into a second bottle, Thorne wondered if, when all this was done with, when Nicklin was safely back in custody, he should seek out Stephen J. Campbell and pay the man a visit. He would perhaps ask him to autograph a copy – could you do that with library books? – and then politely suggest that now might be a good time to publish a fully up-to-date edition. Then, just to show the author how truculent and over-sensitive he could be, he would shove the man’s shitty book up his arse—