Thorne’s phone rang.

  Hobbs.

  ‘You were spot on.’

  ‘What?’ Thorne sat up.

  ‘What you said about him smelling the money and getting sloppy.’ Hobbs was gabbling, fired up. ‘I’m ninety-nine point nine per cent sure who K-Man is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘So, I’ve already explained that these emails are fully encrypted at both ends. Basically, he’s untraceable, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, with every email he’s sent so far I’ve made a point of checking the header. All the gobbledegook you don’t ordinarily see, yeah? The routing, the source and most importantly the IP address of the computer. Up to now it’s been a dead end because he’s been using a VPN, right? You know what a VPN is?’

  ‘Visible panty something?’

  ‘It’s a virtual private network.’

  ‘I’m kidding,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Oh, OK. Well, it basically encrypts all your data, but the main thing is it disguises your IP address . . . your computer’s location. With the last email he sent, though, the IP address was actually resolvable. Do you see what I’m saying?’

  Thorne wanted to say hurry the fuck up, but the man had earned his moment. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘He forgot to switch on his VPN.’ Hobbs waited for Thorne to grasp the significance of what he’d been told. ‘Or maybe the connection to it dropped out at the crucial moment, because that can happen . . . but, either way, his last IP address resolves to a regular service provider – Virgin, if you’re interested – and from there it was like shelling peas, basically. I mean, this is what we do round here all day long, right? One call to Virgin – well, a couple of calls in the end – and I had the name of the bill payer.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Oh . . . Kevin Bartley. K-Man’s name is Kevin Bartley, and it gets even better because I’ve already run the name through the PNC. I know that’s a bit above my pay-grade . . . ’

  ‘I forgive you,’ Thorne said.

  ‘He’s in the system.’ Hobbs paused again, as though he was waiting for a round of applause. ‘Kevin Bartley is in the system. Various offences, most of them drug-related, going back years. I mean, we could check that pill bottle, see if his prints are on it . . . you know, if we really want to make sure it’s him.’

  ‘Yeah, we could . . .’ The bottle was already being examined forensically, but Thorne knew that would take time.

  Clearly, Hobbs knew it too. ‘So I did a bit more digging, and . . . this is the good bit.’

  ‘It’s already good.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but Kevin Bartley’s got a record in France, too. Did six months in a prison in Marseille two years ago for supplying heroin. So it checks out, right? The story about him and Nicklin knowing each other when they were both in France.’

  ‘Fuck me, Greg.’ Thorne was on his feet, trying to decide who he should call first. Brigstocke was the obvious choice, but more than anything he wanted to tell Phil. ‘What do you do for an encore?’

  ‘Would a current address be any good?’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  By just after three o’clock on Monday morning, they’d been sitting in the unmarked command car for twenty minutes. There was frost forming on the windows and Thorne was starting to lose the feeling in his legs. He leaned forward and prodded the shoulder of the officer in the driver’s seat. ‘Any chance of turning the heating up a bit?’

  ‘High as it’ll go, mate.’ The officer looked round and smiled, slapped his palms against his jacket. ‘I’ve got thermals on under here.’

  ‘Me too,’ Tanner said.

  Thorne looked at her. ‘Why didn’t you remind me?’

  ‘I think there were more important things to worry about.’

  Squeezed in between them on the back seat, the Tactical Firearms Commander, a heavy-set superintendent with a Peaky Blinders accent, stared down at the screen of his laptop; at the separate feeds from the helmet-mounted cameras of the six-man Firearms Operations Unit which had taken up various positions outside the target address.

  He keyed his Airwave radio. ‘All units from TFC. State Amber, repeat State Amber . . . stand by.’

  ‘Besides which,’ Tanner said, ‘I’m not your mother.’

  Thorne could not argue, about that or the number of things that had needed organising the day before. The address Hobbs had provided for Kevin Bartley was in Coventry, which had meant urgent liaison with West Midlands Police and all the authorisation necessary for a full-on firearms operation. Thorne had wondered initially if they were going a little over the top. He’d been all for jumping straight in a car with three other members of the team and charging up the M1, until Brigstocke had pointed out that whatever their target’s criminal history might be, any association with a suspect as dangerous as Stuart Nicklin meant that the strictest degree of protection for officers and members of the public alike would be needed when attempting an arrest. It meant taking no chances and that meant firearms.

  ‘How do we know Kevin Bartley isn’t still knocking about with Nicklin?’ Brigstocke had asked.

  ‘Unlikely,’ Thorne had said.

  ‘How do we know Nicklin won’t be there?’

  ‘He won’t.’ Thorne had been ready to push, until he’d seen the look on his boss’s face, remembered that quote about foolishness and over-confidence and stopped making a fuss.

  As well as getting things set up with the team from the West Midlands, there was a good deal of back-and-forth with police and prison authorities in Marseille. Predictably, it being a Sunday, this had been somewhat less vite than it might have been. Appeals for a little more speed had been met with the emailed equivalent of a Gallic shrug, and it hadn’t been until the end of the day that all the records, and crucially a recent photograph of Kevin Bartley, had eventually been sent.

  ‘That’s Brexit for you,’ Tanner had said

  ‘Roger, State Amber received.’ The voice of the FOU team leader was loud and tinny through the superintendent’s radio. ‘Standing by on red.’

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Thorne asked.

  The superintendent ignored him, kept his eyes fixed on the screen, at the images lit by the torches mounted on six SIG Sauer carbines: patchy grass and blackened brick, a metal door next to a row of large plastic bins at the rear of the two-storey block; the foot of a concrete stairwell.

  ‘Repeat, standing by on red . . . ’

  Thorne and Tanner had finally left London just after ten-thirty the night before and were sitting down with the Firearms Operation Unit in Coventry by one a.m. Thorne had quickly told them everything he knew about Kevin Bartley and explained exactly why they needed to talk to him. He was informed that officers from West Midlands Police had already conducted a drive-past of the target address as well as a helicopter sweep, and reported no signs of activity in the second-floor flat.

  ‘If your man’s in there, he’s probably asleep, which is exactly what we want,’ the superintendent had said. ‘All being well, we can get in there and have him in handcuffs before he’s woken up properly.’

  A floor plan of the property was produced and projected on to a screen as each member of the FOU was given their individual instructions. The superintendent had briefed his team carefully, talking them through every detail of the operation several times, and had only stopped when he caught the look on Thorne’s face.

  ‘Sorry if we’re boring you.’

  ‘No, I was just . . . sorry.’

  ‘How many deaths did you say he was responsible for? Your Mr Nicklin? I mean just the recent ones.’

  ‘Three,’ Thorne had said. ‘Indirectly.’

  ‘All right then.’

  The superintendent wore the same blank expression now as he continued to stare down at the laptop.

  Thorne slid numb fingers beneath his thighs.

  Now he needed a piss.

  ‘State Red.’ The superintendent sat up straight. ‘Go when you’re ready.’

  Thorne knew what would happen next; that it would not be the chaos of shouting and screaming they were so fond of on cop shows. He watched the moving images as two armed officers moved slowly and silently up two flights of stairs. The torches illuminated a scarred front door and a few seconds later, a short stretch of dark hallway as the door was smashed open with a metal battering ram.

  ‘Armed police. Come to the door slowly with your hands on your head.’

  Thorne and Tanner stared at the screen.

  There was movement from a third camera and another torch lit up the shape of a firearms support dog which was let off its leash and immediately bounded through the door into the flat. The dog had been trained to bark at any sign of life, but there was no sound from inside and after a minute or so the dog reappeared.

  In the car, the superintendent shook his head. He glanced at Tanner and Thorne, then leaned towards his radio. ‘OK, all officers. Go . . . ’

  Now the shouting began, the thud of boots on the stairs, the rasp of breathing behind helmets.

  ‘Armed police . . . .’

  The images on the superintendent’s screen lurched and tilted, shifting violently as the officers poured into the flat and scattered, yelling.

  ‘Room to the left.’

  ‘Room to the right.’

  ‘Clear . . . ’

  ‘Kitchen clear . . . ’

  Struggling to take in the six camera feeds at once, Thorne watched bulky shapes in black body armour flashing across the screen, pressed against walls or reflected in mirrors. He stared, holding his breath, as thin beams of light danced over grey Anaglypta and doors crashed open. He saw a gloved hand pulling at a wardrobe door and a bottle kicked across curling lino, and everywhere he saw the barrels of semi-automatic guns pointing at nothing and briefly lighting up the gloom.

  ‘Flat clear.’

  ‘Shit,’ Thorne said.

  Then: ‘One in the back bedroom. We need a medic.’

  ‘Shit,’ Tanner said.

  The superintendent let out a long sigh and said, ‘That’s not good,’ and by the time he was closing his laptop Thorne already had the door open and was stepping out into the cold.

  On the way up the stairs, he passed several members of the FOU on their way down, the fizz of the adrenalin still clear on their faces. As Thorne and Tanner approached what was left of the front door, someone inside turned all the lights on and an officer who’d been waiting just inside nodded, then pointed them towards the back of the flat.

  Thorne heard a message come through on someone’s radio.

  The medic was on the way.

  The place was small and pretty basic. A kitchen immediately off to the right and a cluttered living room to the left; needles on a low table, a laptop computer. It was not anywhere Thorne would have chosen to live, but even taking into account the stench of cigarettes and sweat, he and Tanner had both been called to plenty of worse places. They glanced into the larger of the two bedrooms, saw a bed that had not been slept in, and kept walking until they reached the smaller room at the back, where two of the armed officers were waiting for them; where the man in the chair was.

  The victim was sitting in a straight-backed chair, naked from the waist up. His arms had been tied behind him and each foot bound hard to a leg of the chair with what looked like washing line. His head hung to one side, like he was thinking about something, and the long red hair and scraggly beard were both matted with blood.

  There was no reason for the medic to hurry.

  The damage to one side of his face – almost certainly the result of the blunt force trauma that had killed him – meant that, even after pulling out the photograph from his pocket, Thorne could not be certain he was looking at Kevin Bartley. The tattoos on his arms were clear enough, though: the same as those listed on the man’s PNC file. An acid-house smiley face; another with crosses for eyes; COMING ON STRONG.

  A child of the eighties.

  The two officers who had remained in the room were staring at the body. One shook his head. ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Not a clue, mate.’ His colleague turned away, nodding at Tanner as he headed out of the room. ‘Not our problem.’

  Thorne had only met these men a few hours before, so there was no reason why they should have known his first name. No reason at all why they would have understood the message carved deep into the dead man’s chest.

  Tanner stepped across to stand close to Thorne. She asked if he was OK and leaned gently against him, and they both stared at the rivulets of blood that had snaked down Kevin Bartley’s mottled torso, leaking from every letter scored into his flesh and now dried into rusty-brown trails. Thorne understood only too well.

  He knew exactly who the message was for and who was sending it.

  BUYER BEWARE, TOM.

  While a full debrief of the firearms operation was taking place, a local homicide unit was securing the crime scene in Coventry. A murder inquiry had been set up and discussions were already taking place between the heads of major crime teams from the Met and West Midlands Police as to how two investigations which were obviously linked could be brought together and worked.

  The Top Brass, doing what they did best.

  At WMP headquarters, Thorne and Tanner sat together at the back of an otherwise empty office, high above the city. It was their first chance to talk privately. They drank coffee and ate bacon sandwiches, while the sky pinked and the sun heaved itself up from behind a ragged line of tower blocks.

  ‘It was Nicklin all along,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘He was the one who supplied that pill bottle for Margaret Herbert’s website. Waiting for a buyer to come along, posing as K-Man and then deliberately making that “mistake” in his last email to set Kevin Bartley up.’

  ‘Then killing him.’

  ‘The same way he put that scalpel up there and then told Rebecca Driver exactly where she could buy it. How perfect it would be.’ Thorne sat and chewed for a few moments. ‘I think it might be how he’s been funding himself all this time. Putting a few of his mementoes up for sale whenever he’s running short of cash.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Tanner shook her head. ‘If I could get fifty quid for a few locks of hair, I’d have the scissors out every five minutes.’

  They sat in silence for a while.

  A cleaner poked her head round the door, saw that the office was being used and quickly withdrew again.

  ‘What you’re saying makes sense.’ Tanner picked at the rim of her Styrofoam cup. ‘We’ve got one major problem though.’

  Thorne waited.

  ‘That message . . . ’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Thorne said. ‘Well, not fine, because it’s scary as fuck, but when it comes to Stuart Nicklin, I’m always scared.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’

  ‘If I wasn’t scared I’d be stupid—’

  ‘He knew we were coming, Tom.’ Tanner put down her coffee and turned to look at him. ‘He put Kevin Bartley in the frame and killed him, knowing that you’d be the one to find his body. He laid it out for you.’ She began to talk faster, a grim urgency in her voice. ‘Everything Greg Hobbs did was . . . ultra-secure at our end, right? Using Cameron Herbert’s computer, all the right passwords . . . it was completely anonymous. Yes, Nicklin put that pill bottle up there with just enough evidence tying it to Kevin Bartley, but in the end his buyer could have been . . . anybody.’ She took a deep breath as she saw it on Thorne’s face: the realisation that there was one more thing to be seriously scared about.

  ‘So, how did he know it was us?’

  PART THREE

  A CHOICE

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There was a Christmas tree in the corner of the restaurant, silver with red decorations, and Thorne found himself staring at it. He thought how nice it looked; simple and perfect. It was not as if he didn’t know Christmas was just over a fortnight away because, as always, it was impossible to avoid. He had heard all the usual songs on the radio or in shops and passed plenty of suitably decked-out houses, but they had just been . . . noise and lights, and with so much else to occupy his mind this was the first time it had fully registered.

  There would probably be a few decorations up at work by now, a bit of tatty tinsel round the doorways and a card or two on desks, but he had not really noticed.

  Unlike the tattooed curmudgeon sitting opposite him – Phil Hendricks, who, with immaculate timing, was actually grinning, having seen that their food was on its way – Thorne actually quite liked Christmas. This year was shaping up to be another one of those when work meant he would not really get time to do all the things he wanted, but given the chance he would usually try to celebrate, same as everybody else. To think about unwanted socks for a few days, instead of unwanted bodies. He would sing along tunelessly with Slade and Wizzard and the Pogues and he never needed an excuse to stick on Christmas albums by Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson. He would buy the necessary gifts for the few people who mattered and plenty of unnecessary ones for himself. He would find time to visit his Auntie Eileen and his father’s only surviving friend Victor and, when the big day came, if he was spending it alone – though there had been occasions when he’d turned up at Ebenezer Hendricks’s place, bearing gifts of beer and turkey sandwiches – he would sit, happily sozzled, in front of Elf or The Great Escape and eat half his body weight in nuts and Quality Street.