‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m just . . . I think that’s great.’

  Tanner looked dubious; about Thorne or about the date, it was hard to tell which.

  ‘So, where did you meet her?’

  Tanner found more papers to straighten, a pen to pop back into the mug where it lived with a dozen others. ‘It was a dating app.’

  ‘OK . . . ’

  ‘It’s called Scissr, if you really want to know.’ She shook her head, watching Thorne struggling to suppress a smirk. ‘Screw you.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just the name.’

  ‘I’m registered on a few of them, actually,’ Tanner said. ‘I started looking around when we were checking out all those apps Rebecca Driver had used. Just logged on and started swiping, you know? Felt a bit weird, if I’m honest . . . using a series of horrible murders as a springboard for putting myself back out there. Is that bad?’

  Thorne shrugged. ‘I worked with a DC once who shagged a murder victim’s wife the day after the bloke’s funeral. I mean, I don’t think the couple had been all that close, but still.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Anyway, never mind . . . let’s have some details. Blonde? Brunette? Younger than you or older? OK, forget all that . . . was she hot?’

  ‘She was, as it happens. Well, I thought she was.’

  Thorne saw the hesitancy. ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘I knew more or less straight away it wasn’t going to work out.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, she doesn’t like cats. Or she doesn’t wash up as she goes along. Oh, I know, she doesn’t reorganise her handbag once a week.’

  ‘She’s a copper,’ Tanner said.

  ‘Ah . . . ’

  ‘Uniform, over in Hackney.’ She shook her head. ‘I reckon that’s just asking for trouble. Too much Job all round. Well, you know that better than anyone.’

  Thorne was in no position to argue with Tanner’s hypothesis. She had been on the spot to witness his relationship with DI Helen Weeks going down in flames. She had provided a shoulder to cry on, or more accurately been someone sympathetic to rant at.

  Thorne wasn’t sure he’d ever thanked her properly.

  ‘Sadly, I do know,’ he said. He watched Tanner logging on to her computer, as though the conversation was done with. ‘Hang on . . . so there might not have been any wedding bells ringing, but you said yourself she was hot. So, I mean, did you not just fancy . . . ’

  ‘No,’ Tanner said. ‘I did not just fancy, and even if I did, I didn’t get the impression that’s what she was after.’ She shrugged. ‘Dinner was nice, though.’ She began to type.

  Thorne watched her for half a minute. ‘Listen, I wanted to say sorry for being such an arsehole yesterday. More of an arsehole than usual, I should say. I was out of order.’

  Tanner didn’t look up. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Gave me something to talk about on my date. Now, haven’t you got any work to do?’

  Thorne was smiling as he typed his own log-in.

  ‘Oh, and washing up as you go along is just common sense.’

  They worked solidly through the morning: on Tanner’s domestic and on Thorne’s gang-related stabbing; on statements from witnesses to a serious assault that, according to the hospital where the victim now lay in a coma, could well become a murder; and on a fatal hit and run that had come in overnight. They managed the best part of three hours without any mention of Stuart Nicklin or the cases that bore his fingerprints, and had almost finished lunch in the canteen when Thorne’s mobile rang.

  When the news began to come through about a major incident at HMP Bronzefield.

  While the majority of those who worked in the building were already drifting towards car park, bus stop or tube station, Russell Brigstocke was passing information sheets across a large table in the meeting room. Thorne took his and began to read. Details had been coming in – piecemeal and occasionally conflicting – throughout the afternoon, from the prison authorities and from the local homicide unit on site, but this was the first chance he and the rest of the team had been given to find out what had happened.

  What those at the scene thought had happened, anyway.

  ‘So, Rebecca Driver was found dead in her cell at HMP Bronzefield just after midday.’ Brigstocke looked down at the hastily compiled sheet, the list of bullet points. ‘It appears to have been a stabbing with a home-made weapon, and as the victim was seen on the wing around an hour before that they’re putting the time of death at somewhere between eleven o’clock and midday. The team from Kent police that are handling this have taken a thirty-nine-year-old woman into custody and are currently questioning staff and prisoners, but at this time there’s no obvious motive for the killing.’ The DCI laid the sheet of paper down and sat back. ‘Jesus, what a nightmare.’

  Whatever their personal thoughts about what had been done to Rebecca Driver, nobody around the table was in any doubt that the DCI was talking about logistics; the organisational complexities involved in what would now be three different forces working together on cases that were obviously linked.

  ‘Maybe she just pissed the wrong person off,’ Chall said.

  ‘No chance,’ Thorne said. The connection between the three cases – the man who connected them – was blindingly obvious and he didn’t think his colleagues in Kent police would need to spend too long looking for their motive. ‘She was killed because I went to visit her.’

  ‘We don’t know that, Tom,’ Brigstocke said.

  ‘Course we do.’

  ‘It’s possible, I’m not saying it isn’t . . . or Dipak might be right.’ Thorne was shaking his head, but Brigstocke ignored it. ‘Either way we need to let the Kent team get on with it. We pass on any relevant intelligence, obviously, we pass on our thoughts, but we don’t tell them how to do their job. If we do, it’ll be muggins here that has to deal with the fallout.’

  ‘I get that, Russell.’ Tanner well understood the delicate position her boss was in. ‘But I’m with Tom on this. It’s got to be Nicklin, surely?’

  Brigstocke nodded. ‘Yeah, I know, but I’m not convinced Tom’s visit necessarily had anything to do with it. Nicklin might have been planning to kill Driver all along.’

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Thorne said. ‘If he was . . . and I don’t see why he would be . . . far easier to do it before she’s in prison, I would have thought.’

  Tanner grunted her agreement. ‘So, maybe Driver really did know more than she was telling. Maybe Nicklin had her killed because of something he thought she’d told Tom. Or something she might tell him if he visited her again.’

  ‘He knew I was going.’ Thorne looked at Tanner, then at Brigstocke. ‘I mean yeah, he could have found out I’d been there because he’s got some contact in the prison, but that’s unlikely . . . it’s not like he’s got eyes everywhere, is it? It’s possible he found out I’d been there because Driver told him, but I don’t see how, and, more to the point, it was yesterday for Christ’s sake.’ He waited a second or two, as though it should be obvious to everybody. ‘There’s no way he could have arranged all this that quickly . . . found someone willing to stick a knife in her, bribed them or threatened them, whatever.’ Thorne’s hands tightened around the edge of the table. ‘He knew I was going to Bronzefield in advance.’

  ‘Like he knew about Coventry,’ Tanner said.

  Thorne thought he could hear the ticking in his blood; the thrum of it gaining a little speed. Since discounting the Herberts, he remained clueless as to where Nicklin was getting his information from.

  ‘OK, well, that’s something we need to bear in mind,’ Brigstocke said. ‘In the meantime . . . Tom, you need to get yourself down to Ashford first thing in the morning and talk to the Kent team.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll play nice,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Well, when the time comes, I would hope so . . . but they actually want to interview you as a witness.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Like I said, they’re just doing their job. Aside from guards and her fellow prisoners, you were the last person to talk to Rebecca Driver before she was killed.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Nicklin wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he was incapable of making mistakes. People who thought like that usually made a hatful. He was always careful, obviously, but who was to say he hadn’t taken his eye off the ball when he’d been communicating with Rebecca Driver; his mind going walkies maybe, when one of those lovely yellow pills was working its magic, and letting something slip?

  He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure. That had been the issue.

  That’s why he’d felt the need to make certain arrangements at the prison.

  The only disappointment was that he hadn’t been able to get it together a little faster. He’d done his best, but he wasn’t a miracle worker and he’d been obliged to wait until that prison officer had been thirsty enough to visit the pub on his way home. The ideal scenario would have been for his little helper to have got busy with her shiv on the day Thorne got there.

  Terribly sorry, Detective Inspector, but I think you’ve had a wasted journey. Thorne’s face . . .

  He thought a lot about Thorne’s face.

  He always felt good and relaxed after a session; at ease with himself and with the world. He turned his head and stared out at it from the top deck. It was dark already and he checked out every lighted window as the bus went past, hoping for a glimpse of something that might fire his imagination when he got home. Those moments were always very special: arms and legs moving behind glass or shapes glimpsed through thin curtains; a torso moving across the frame and even, once or twice, a blank face staring straight back at him. Later he would flesh out these snapshots of what he supposed were ordinary lives and imagine the things he could do which might transform them into something very much out of the ordinary.

  Nothing yet, but he kept on looking.

  That niggle about possible carelessness hadn’t been the only reason for deciding Driver had to go. If he was being honest, he’d been irked at all that diminished responsibility rubbish. That was not what had been agreed. On top of which, he sensed that she might be the sort to get above herself a bit and he wasn’t going to have that. He’d given her a golden opportunity to be part of his game, to work alongside him for a little while, but he couldn’t tolerate anyone with aspirations to become the main attraction. He couldn’t bear the thought of her swanning about like a queen bee in her secure hospital, dropping his name to see people’s reactions and loving how dangerous they all thought she was. Cheeky little bitch.

  If she was dangerous, it was only because he’d made her that way.

  So, yes, he would admit that in deciding to have Rebecca Driver killed, there’d been a degree of . . . petulance involved. How could he deny that when he’d been accused of it before?

  He smiled, remembering the teacher who’d written it on his school report.

  Stuart’s behaviour often appears deliberately petulant.

  He’d paid for that when his mother had seen it, but of course the teacher had paid for it too, in the end. Nicklin had found out where the man lived and watched his house for a while. He’d watched him leave home every evening at the same time to walk his dog, until one day, when the teacher and his pooch were in the park, Nicklin had broken into the back garden and sprinkled a little rat poison around. There wasn’t much dog-walking needed after that.

  When the bus passed Kensal Green tube station, Nicklin got up, rang the bell and began walking down the stairs.

  There would come a time when he would think fondly of Rebecca Driver, he knew that. He remembered all of them that way, eventually; the same way, he supposed, that people thought about old sweethearts. Martin Palmer and Marcus Brooks and poor old Jeffery Batchelor, who’d played such an important part in his adventure on Bardsey Island.

  It would sound odd to most people, he was aware of that, but there were even times he thought fondly of Tom Thorne. Not that odd, he decided, considering the amount of pleasure the man had given him over the years; that he would be giving him again, soon enough.

  Nicklin thanked the driver then stepped off the bus. He tugged his baseball cap down a little and began to walk.

  He did seriously doubt that the feeling was mutual.

  Melita called when Thorne was driving home.

  ‘I rang you last night,’ she said.

  Thorne did not want to try to explain why he hadn’t picked up. ‘I must have been in the shower or something.’

  ‘I left a message.’

  Thorne had still not listened to it. He’d meant to, then forgotten, then been far too distracted by the day’s events to remember. He wondered why he was feeling quite so bad about it. There had been several occasions recently when he’d been unable to get hold of her, when she hadn’t responded to the messages he’d left, and he hadn’t made a big deal about it. He’d just presumed she’d needed time to herself, to unwind after a stressful session. It was understandable. ‘Sorry . . . ’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m needy.’

  ‘A lot on, you know?’ He told her about Rebecca Driver. His visit to the prison and what had happened the following day.

  ‘So, do you feel guilty?’

  ‘Why would I feel guilty?’

  ‘You just said that she was killed because you’d been to see her.’

  Thorne accelerated to beat the lights on Archway Road, but he didn’t quite make it and was forced to brake hard. He swore quietly. ‘Yeah. I mean . . . I think she was, but that doesn’t mean I’m feeling guilty about it.’

  ‘Because you’re not to blame?’

  ‘Of course I’m not to blame.’ Thorne had been thinking about it all day. He still believed that Nicklin had known about his visit in advance, but he could not help regretting the fact that he’d chosen not to make use of a private visits area. Driver would be dead anyway, he knew that, but it still nagged at him a little.

  ‘Do you feel sorry for her?’

  ‘Is this some kind of unofficial therapy session?’

  Melita laughed again. ‘I’m just saying it would be perfectly natural, despite everything she’d done.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I don’t feel sorry for her.’ He remembered trying to scare her; the speech he’d made about staying safe. ‘Look, I’m not saying she deserved to be carved up in her cell . . . then again, I don’t think the three men she murdered deserved what she did to them.’

  ‘She still has friends and family, though, Tom. There are people who loved her. They’ll be grieving every bit as much as her victims’ loved ones.’

  ‘I know that,’ Thorne said. He understood that the parents of those who had done terrible things, while they might lie awake at night questioning what they had done wrong, did not love their children any less. He struggled to find any real sympathy himself. No, he was not happy that Rebecca Driver had been killed, but how he felt about it had far more to do with the fact that his only direct line to Stuart Nicklin had now been cut. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘Are you pissed off with me?’

  Thorne was pissed off with the woman driving the Audi in front of him who had spent the last two minutes slowing for turnings, indicating, then changing her mind. He wanted to get home. ‘Sorry . . . just got the nadgers, that’s all.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Something my mum used to say.’ Thorne smiled, remembering. A family word for that feeling of generalised tetchiness you couldn’t really explain. Or didn’t particularly want to. ‘I’m just knackered.’

  ‘I was hoping you might want to come over.’

  ‘Can we do it tomorrow?’ Thorne asked. ‘I’ve got to drive down to Kent first thing in the morning. Could do without it, if I’m honest.’

  ‘OK, I’ll cook.’

  ‘Sounds great.’ The Audi finally turned off the main road and Thorne put his foot down. ‘I could do with slobbing out for a night . . . something to take my mind off all this for a few hours.’

  ‘Oh, I can do that,’ she said.

  FORTY-SIX

  To begin with, Thorne thought that he and Clive Coleman were going to get on.

  His opposite number from the Homicide Unit at Kent Police had been waiting for him in reception at Ashford station. He’d all but bounded across to shake Thorne’s hand and thanked him for coming. Very much appreciated . . . I know it’s a pain in the arse etc etc. He was tall – at least six foot four – and the shape of him suggested someone who didn’t drink a great deal and rarely got up close and personal with a full English or an entire packet of Hobnobs. Despite what Thorne would normally class as irredeemable character flaws, the man seemed genuinely welcoming, so Thorne was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The cheap suit and shoes were another good sign. In Thorne’s experience, a copper who spent a month’s wages on tailoring was usually one to avoid.

  ‘Good journey down?’ Coleman asked, as they walked towards the interview room. An estuary accent: classless, edgeless.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ Thorne said. ‘Forty minutes door to door.’

  ‘I gather you’re a Spurs fan.’

  Thorne said that he was, wondering just where Coleman had gathered it from. Was it in a file somewhere? Alongside his arrest reports and service history and the disciplinary records that probably had a drawer all to themselves?

  ‘I’m Man United,’ Coleman said.

  ‘Can’t be helped.’

  ‘Well, we’re not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to local teams.’

  ‘Glory hunter, then.’

  Coleman laughed. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘What about when it comes to the job?’

  ‘Oh Christ, no. I’m all about keeping my head down.’