‘It was ten minutes, no more.’

  ‘Yeah, ten minutes when our customers went somewhere else. Ten fucking minutes too long, Davey.’

  He’d told the cocky little sod he’d had the shits: an iffy vindaloo the night before; had to shut up shop and get to a chemist’s. The cousin fucks off, then an hour later the boss cal s up, so he has to tel him the same story.

  ‘I don’t give a toss. Your dodgy guts have cost me money. Next time use a fucking bucket whatever, just don’t stop taking the tickets.’

  He’d laughed and said he was sorry. Thought he’d got away with it.

  Then: ‘How you getting home tonight, Davey?’

  Tindal walked back along the Embankment, then crossed underneath the railway line and took out his key. He was starving; started thinking about cheese on toast when he got indoors. He’d normal y have nipped across the road for a sandwich at dinnertime, but he’d been scared to leave the booth for so much as a few minutes after the boss had rung. There’d only been kebab shops open by the time he knocked off and that crap real y did give him the runs.

  He shouted a ‘hel o’ when he walked through the door; made a fuss of his Jack Russel , who came skittering across the lino to meet him. He fol owed her back into the kitchen and slopped some food into a bowl. Then he turned the gril on and wandered upstairs to the spare room.

  There was no answer when he knocked, so he stuck his head round the door.

  ‘Sorry, son, I thought you were out.’

  ‘Why d’you come in, then?’

  Brooks had spoken without looking up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone in his hand, pressing buttons. His training shoes were scuffed and dirty. There were papers scattered about on the bed, and more phones. Plastic bags against the wal containing al his clothes, a dirty mug and plate on the carpet.

  Tindal stepped in and picked up the empties. ‘I’m making a bit of cheese on toast if you want some.’

  Brooks said nothing for a few seconds, then looked up and stared, as if the Scotsman’s voice had just reached him.

  ‘Anyway, there’l be some downstairs if you fancy it, you know? And tea.’

  Tindal looked away, glancing around the room as if checking that everything were to his guest’s satisfaction, or that nothing had been damaged. The door caught as he started to pul it to; hissing against the pile of the carpet. ‘Need to get an inch shaved off this fucking door,’ he said.

  Brooks was looking at his phone again, studying the screen.

  ‘You need to get some sleep, son . . .’

  Tindal closed the door without waiting for a reaction, and went back downstairs to his supper and his dog.

  Thorne woke with his arm stretched across the cold side of the bed where Louise should have been. He walked naked and half asleep into the kitchen. Found Louise leaning back against the worktop in a dressing-gown, hands wrapped around her favourite mug.

  ‘You al right?’

  ‘I just wanted some tea,’ she said.

  Thorne peered at the digital clock on the front of the cooker. ‘At half past four?’

  ‘Why do you never tel me anything?’

  That woke him up fast enough. Fuck, was there any way she could have found out about the contact with Marcus Brooks? He tried to hide his alarm beneath confusion and lack of sleep. He breathed hard and blinked slowly. ‘Sorry . . . what? Is there some conversation I’m forgetting here?’

  Louise shook her head. ‘That’s the point.’

  It wasn’t about Brooks. It was something more general; something she’d been saving up. He felt relieved, then irritated, then cold. His hand drifted down to cup his shrinking tackle as he turned to head for the bathroom to fetch the ratty dressing-gown.

  ‘Night then,’ she said.

  His shoulders dropped, and he took a second. ‘What don’t I tel you?’

  Her eyes rol ed up, as though she had plenty to choose from. ‘Al sorts.’ Then, like she’d plucked one out of the air. ‘Your father . . .’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘I know what happened. More or less. The fire, the fact that it might not have been an accident.’

  Thorne sighed. Said it as though she might be stupid, and he was saying it for the last time. ‘There was a fire, and he died, and I don’t know, wil never fucking know if the stupid fucker left the stove on, or if someone came into the house and gave him a helping hand. Is that OK?’

  She nodded, meaning that it wasn’t.

  ‘I don’t see what else you want to know.’

  ‘How you feel about it.’ She put down her tea. ‘Christ, I—’

  ‘How do you think I feel?’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  ‘I’d’ve thought it would be fucking obvious.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  Thorne raised his arms in a gesture of helplessness; like maybe it was more her fault than his.

  ‘What about the man you think might have done it?’

  Thorne shook his head, would not even say the name.

  ‘How do you feel about him?’

  He studied his bare feet against the tiles; spoke to them. ‘I’m stark-bol ock naked and I’m half asleep. I can’t even think straight. This is stupid . . .’

  She took a step towards him, thrust her hands into the pockets of her dressing-gown. ‘We’ve been together five months and sometimes it feels like I’ve barely known you ten minutes. Five months, and the other night in bed I did something real y fucking stupid. I’ve thought about it and, whatever I said, there must have been some smal part of me that wanted it. Even if it was only for a few seconds.’ Her right hand came out of the dressing-gown pocket, clutched at a handful of material around her bel y. ‘Some part of me wanted it, which is why I’m making tea in the middle of the night, because if I’m honest, I don’t feel like you tel me any more, really tel me any more, than you tel Phil, or Dave Hol and, or the bloke you buy the fucking newspaper off in the morning.’ She stopped, and waited for Thorne to raise his head; looked for something in his face. ‘You’re right,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘This is stupid.’

  ‘Can we talk about it tomorrow?’

  Pushing past him, she said, ‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘This job’s a fucking joke.’

  ‘You only just worked that out?’ Thorne asked.

  Kitson walked past Thorne, who was waiting for toast, and dropped a herbal teabag into one of the smal , metal teapots-for-one, which invariably dribbled your tea al over the table when you tried to use it. ‘A good-news, bad-news joke,’ she said. ‘A whole fucking series of them.’

  Thorne reached for a foil-wrapped rectangle of butter and a sachet of jam, thinking that when Kitson was in a bad mood, she swore almost as much as Richard Rawlings did. His own language was industrial by any standards much of the time, but he’d started to notice it in others. Another hangover from his father’s final months, perhaps.

  ‘I take it you’ve got a joke for me, then . . .’

  They carried their trays to a table; sat next to a group of detectives from another team who’d just come off the overnight shift. These officers ate their breakfasts in virtual silence; worn out, but relieved at having put a Friday al nighter behind them. Thorne had worked that shift enough to know that one or two would be having mixed feelings about a day ahead with their families; potential y tense and stressful after what was invariably the toughest eight hours of the week.

  ‘Good news: we’ve got the name of a man identified as our kil er by the victim’s girlfriend.’ Kitson poured her tea. Used a paper serviette to mop up the spil s. ‘Bad news: he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Kemal?’

  ‘The dry cleaner’s has been closed for a week and the neighbours haven’t clapped eyes on him. Done a bunk, by the look of it.’

  Thorne spoke through a mouthful of toast. ‘Wel , it’s certainly not great news if you need a shirt pressed, but it sounds like he’s your man.’

  ‘Right. Which is why it’s fucking bad news.’

  One of the other detectives looked across, as though foul language from a woman this early in the day was putting him off his ful English. Kitson stared back, leaving him in no doubt that there was plenty more where that came from.

  ‘He’l turn up,’ Thorne said.

  ‘If he’s stil in the country. Probably hiding out in some Turkish fishing vil age by now.’

  ‘You got people on the ports?’

  ‘It’s being “organised”.’ She put the word in inverted commas, as though to question the efficiency of those doing the organising. ‘But I reckon it’s too bloody late.’

  ‘Do you think he got wind that his sister knew? That she was likely to grass him up?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘It would explain why she was so scared.’

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t the only one who was scared,’ Kitson said. ‘Deniz Sedat had some seriously unpleasant friends. If I was Hakan Kemal, it wouldn’t be the police I was most worried about.’

  Thorne nodded, chewed his toast. Thinking that Kitson’s theory was al wel and good, but that she hadn’t come across a certain sort of policeman as yet.

  On his way to his office, Thorne walked past as Stone was running over his ‘women and bin-bags’ routine for an attractive admin officer. It seemed to be working for him.

  This job’s a fucking joke . . .

  Plenty of them flying around, and an unusual y good atmosphere in the Incident Room. This in spite of the fact that most of those working would rather have been doing something else on a Saturday morning: having sex; watching Football Focus; having sex while watching Football Focus.

  Just after breakfast, he’d received a text on his old mobile.

  You were SO hot last night. You’re the best xxx

  Hendricks. Thorne was smiling as he deleted the message. Thinking that a short stay in prison didn’t sound too bad as things stood, he’d told Hendricks about the live listening. He knew the cheeky bastard was doing it for the benefit of those intercepting the texts on that line; imagined the comments once they had traced the number.

  Mid-morning, Thorne’s mood was taken down a notch or two by a cal from Keith Bannard.

  ‘Been upsetting my snout?’

  Tindal : a covert human information source, or CHIS, according to a thousand memos and expenses claims. But anyone wishing not to sound whol y ridiculous used the wel -worn slang, beloved of every fictional cop from Jack Regan onwards.

  ‘Obviously he’s easily upset.’

  ‘Yeah, wel , it’s me that gets the earache . . .’

  Listening to him, Thorne imagined the man from S&O as a TV policeman: a no-nonsense country copper running amok in the big city; red face and big flapping hands, constantly outraged by the way people did things and by the price of everything. Sorting things out his way.

  Thorne explained why he and Hol and had made the trip to Soho. That though Mr Tindal was clearly a very sensitive individual, he was also a lying toerag.

  ‘Get anything?’ Bannard asked.

  ‘What, you mean apart from the grief and the offer of free tickets to a dirty film?’

  ‘What, you mean apart from the grief and the offer of free tickets to a dirty film?’

  ‘Yeah, wel , we al get those.’

  ‘I got a list of names.’ Thorne told Bannard about the conversation Tindal claimed to have had with Marcus Brooks; about the people he’d advised Brooks to go and speak to about accommodation. He read out the names.

  ‘You talked to any of them yet?’ Bannard asked.

  ‘Some are getting visits later today.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Thorne was hardly surprised that Bannard was pessimistic. ‘What the fuck is it with these people when it comes to talking to the police? I don’t mean incriminating themselves, or grassing someone up. I mean just saying anything. With the Black Dogs it’s like a badge of honour or something. With the boys in the suits it’s right up there with pie and mash, and boxing, and loving their mums.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just you,’ Bannard said. ‘They al talk to me.’

  ‘Only when you’ve got something on them.’

  ‘It helps.’

  ‘How did you get Tindal to start talking?’

  ‘Money, mate.’ Bannard was matter-of-fact. ‘Easiest way of al . His wife was il , about to croak, I think. He needed money to help look after her.’

  Thorne felt a twinge of guilt at his appraisal of Tindal . At the same time he thought that Bannard’s character would perhaps be too steely for even the most jaded of television viewers. ‘Anything you can put our way?’ he asked. ‘On any of these names?’

  ‘Not real y.’

  ‘Thought you might have some . . . leverage.’

  ‘Listen, mate, if I had anything on any of those bastards, I’d have used it by now.’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘No harm in asking.’

  ‘Haven’t you got anybody on the inside with any of these firms?’

  Bannard sucked in a breath; answered like a taxi-driver being asked to drive south of the river at 4 a.m. ‘Can’t real y go there, mate.’ He said he’d ask around, see if anyone else on his team had any bright ideas. Everyone had different contacts.

  Thorne said that he’d be grateful. ‘What we were talking about the other night,’ he added. ‘Under the bridge. I was wondering if the Black Dogs had got themselves a new leader yet.’ He was thinking about who else Marcus Brooks might be planning on getting rid of. The message he was expecting some time that day.

  Bannard sniffed. ‘Wel , if they have, I don’t know who it is. I’l get word eventual y. It’l be some long-haired fucker with tattoos, though, I can promise you that.’

  Thorne knew what Bannard meant. He’d already been getting the three dead bikers mixed up in his head: a mass of dead white flesh and coloured ink.

  ‘I reckon that’s why they’ve got the nicknames,’ Bannard said. ‘So they can tel each other apart.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Thorne said. Bannard had been joking, but it was what his old man had done when everything had started to short-circuit. Names had been the first things to go, replaced by simple – and usual y unflattering – physical descriptions. Everyone from the man who ran the newsagent’s to Tom Thorne himself.

  ‘So, is that your best bet?’ Bannard asked. ‘The names you got from Tindal .’

  ‘Best bet?’

  ‘Trying to trace Brooks, I mean.’

  Wel , apart from the cosy text messages we send each other in the early hours, thought Thorne.

  ‘We’re chasing up a few other things,’ he said.

  Actual y, there were more than a few.

  The so-cal ed golden twenty-four hours after Martin Cowans’ corpse was hauled out of the canal had yielded nothing remotely precious, but there were stil plenty of active leads to fol ow up: the property taken from the address in Hammersmith; the latest description of Marcus Brooks; the information provided by Davey Tindal . Though officers had been dispatched to question those on Tindal ’s list, most of the inquiry team – which had now swel ed to fifty-plus police and civilian staff – were busy where most modern detective work was done: at a desk, with phone, fax and computer keyboard al within easy reach.

  These days, the majority of medical claims filed by Met employees were for bad backs or repetitive strain injury. Not even patrol officers – teamed up as often as not with CSO part-timers – suffered with their feet any more. Although Thorne thought he probably wore out a little more shoe-leather than most; certainly for someone of his rank.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not because you’re chasing stuff up, is it? It’s because you’re usual y running away from something.’ Hol and, or Hendricks . . . someone taking the piss, had said that.

  Once Thorne had got off the phone, stil with no real idea why Bannard had cal ed, he caught up with Hol and.

  ‘Stil haven’t learned to keep my big mouth shut, have I?’ the DS said. At Thursday’s briefing, he’d suggested that they might be able to find out where Brooks had bought his car.

  Aside from his trip into Soho with Thorne, he’d spent most of the time since regretting it.

  He pushed a stack of papers across his desk, towards Thorne. ‘Used-car dealers in Acton, Brentford, Chiswick and Shepherd’s Bush. Hundreds of the buggers, and that’s without the dodgy ones.’ He reached for a Post-It on which he’d scribbled some notes. ‘Found a couple of decent second-hand BMWs you might be interested in. You know, whenever you fancy trading in the puke-mobile.’

  ‘Not listening,’ Thorne said.

  Hol and rol ed back his chair, pointed at a thick pile of old newspapers and car magazines. ‘That’s been a treat, too. Cal ing up every low-life who might’ve flogged a dark Mondeo for cash a few days ago. You should hear the intake of breath when I tel them where I’m cal ing from. Like someone’s been kil ed because they’ve sold some poor sod a death-trap . . .’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve had fun,’ Thorne said. Hol and had been joking, but as far as the cases they normal y picked up went, the car was the murder weapon more often than the gun or the knife. Thorne handed the sheaf of papers back across, suddenly reminded that paperwork of his own was tucked away in his desk drawer.

  Letters from a man to his dead wife and child.

  ‘The DCI was looking for you,’ Karim said, behind him.

  Thorne turned. ‘Wel , he wasn’t looking very hard. I’ve only been here and in the office.’

  Karim pul ed a what do I know ? face, and fol owed it with one that suggested they continue the conversation somewhere else.

  They walked into the corridor.

  ‘Brigstocke’s got some appointment or other.’

  Karim had emphasised the word enough for Thorne to know that the DCI had not gone to see his dentist. Thorne asked the question with a look.

  ‘Solicitor,’ Karim said. ‘Sounds like this DPS business, whatever it is, has moved up a gear.’

  Same as everything else, Thorne thought.

  ‘So, you’re acting DCI.’

  ‘ What ?’

  ‘Only until he gets back. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours.’