The Burning Girl

by Mark Billingham

  ‘We’ll get him shifted back to the healthcare wing tomorrow, with a bit of luck,’ the officer said. ‘It’s a level-three unit. They’ve got all the facilities, all the medication for any infection or what have you…’

  Rooker looked less than delighted, but it made sense. The prison would want him back as soon as possible. The officers would be wanted back where they could be of more use, and the hospital would be glad to get shot of any patient who needed guards.

  Thorne heard the single, short tone as Holland ended the call and turned to ask him. ‘What?’

  ‘That was DCI Tughan. He wants me to give you a message. You’re not going to like it…’

  ‘Fuck…’

  Thorne could guess what the message would be. They must have turned down Rooker’s offer. There hadn’t been enough time for it to get up as high as it needed to go. It must have been blocked at a lower level. It would be interesting to find out exactly where…

  Thorne stood and pulled on his jacket. ‘It’s not looking too promising, Gordon.’

  He saw the prison officer smirk, and return to his book.

  Thorne managed to make it through to the end of the day without having it out with Nick Tughan. He lost himself in a pile of unread memos, Police Federation junk mail and case updates from investigations he’d been working on before this one.

  He then spent an evening in front of the TV without calling Tughan at home.

  By lunchtime on Friday, just when he thought he’d given up on the idea, he found himself cornering Tughan in the Incident Room, spoiling for a fight. Sam Karim, who had been talking to Tughan when Thorne had marched over, made himself scarce pretty bloody quickly. Tughan leaned across a desk, flicking through the Murder Investigation Manual that seemed to have become his Bible.

  ‘Answer in there, is it?’ Thorne asked.

  Tughan glanced up. ‘What do you want, Tom?’

  Thorne wasn’t 100 per cent sure. ‘Why didn’t they go for it?’

  ‘All the obvious reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, come on. Russell and I raised a number of concerns when you first brought it to our attention. When you eventually brought it to our attention…’

  It was clear to Thorne that Tughan was as riled up as ever. ‘This was a genuine chance to get Ryan for something and make it stick.’

  ‘Right. On the word of a man who confessed to it twenty years ago, and who suddenly decides to change his story…’

  ‘Ryan is panicking. He’s seriously fucking rattled. Why else would he try to get Gordon Rooker out of the way after all this time?’

  Tughan went back to the manual. He licked a finger and began to flick through the pages. He was trying to slow things down, to put a foot on the ball. ‘Securing the release of a potentially dangerous prisoner is not something to be undertaken if there is any room for doubt.’

  ‘He’d be released into our custody, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘The last thing we need is a compensation case for wrongful imprisonment.’

  ‘How could Rooker claim compensation for that? He confessed.’

  Tughan looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘If a decent lawyer gets a sniff of what’s going on, that confession might suddenly turn out to have been all but beaten out of him…’

  ‘These are just excuses.’

  Tughan turned over another page.

  ‘You’re just pissed off because I came up with a way to nail Billy Ryan.’

  ‘I think you should get back to work…’

  ‘Same thing with the idea that it was Ryan who killed Moloney. Is anybody actually pursuing that line of inquiry?’

  The colour began to rise above Tughan’s button-down collar. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Ryan had the perfect cover. He knew exactly what the X-Man did to his other victims. His men found two of the bodies, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘I know all this…’

  ‘All he had to do was make sure that whoever killed Moloney used the same type of gun and carved the X. It was a piece of piss…’

  ‘We’re looking into it.’

  Thorne snorted. ‘Right, but not too hard. Because it came from me.’

  Tughan slammed the manual shut. It sounded as though he was trying hard to keep his voice down. ‘Me again. There’s over fifty officers working on this case…’

  ‘Don’t give me that fucking “team player” speech.’ Thorne leaned forward, gripped the edge of the desk. ‘It’s all well and good as long as you’re the captain of the team. That’s the truth.’

  ‘I’m not going to stand here and listen to this.’ Tughan picked up the manual and waved it angrily at Thorne. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’

  Thorne stepped back from the desk, laughing in spite of his anger. ‘What? Are you going to throw the book at me?’

  For a few seconds, Tughan glared. Then, he dropped his eyes, gave a smile some room on his face. He opened the manual again and leafed through it until he found the page he was looking for. ‘Maybe just a bit of it,’ he said. Tughan snatched up a pen, dragged it hard across the page, and tore it out. He hesitated for just a second before stepping forward and pressing it hard against Thorne’s chest. ‘Something to think about.’

  Thorne grabbed at the torn-out sheet while Tughan stamped out of the room. Tughan had underscored one section hard enough to go through the paper…

  ‘The modern-day approach to murder recognises the fact that there is no longer the place for the “lone entrepreneur” investigating officer.’

  Hendricks was working late. For the second night in a row, Thorne sat alone in front of the TV, trying to regain some equilibrium. It rankled that Tughan was choosing to ignore perfectly sound ideas, but, more than anything, Thorne couldn’t cope with the idea that Ryan was going to get away with it. Yes, Tughan might nail him one day for drugs offences, or fraud, or bloody tax evasion. Who knew, perhaps even the Zarifs would get him?

  But he wouldn’t have paid for Jessica Clarke…

  Thorne brooded for most of the evening, then shouted at a TV chef for a while until the sourness began to dissipate and he started to feel better. Fuck it, February was almost over and spring was around the corner. He was thinking about maybe picking up his dad, driving down to Eileen’s place in Brighton for the weekend, when the phone rang.

  ‘Are you watching ITV?’ Chamberlain asked.

  ‘I was going to call you. The Rooker thing’s a nonstarter…’

  ‘Put it on,’ she demanded.

  Thorne reached for the remote, changed the channel and turned up the volume.

  A female reporter was talking straight to camera. Thorne watched, not clear what he was supposed to be seeing, until the camera cut away from the reporter and the story was told in a series of related shots…

  An empty playground. A group of schoolgirls gathered at a bus stop. A can of lighter fluid.

  Thorne felt his guts jump.

  ‘He tried to do it again,’ Carol Chamberlain said. ‘He tried to burn another girl.’

  March

  The Weight of the Soul

  TWELVE

  Thorne pulled up outside the house and sat for five minutes. It felt like the longest pause for breath he’d taken in a while. The time had passed in a flurry of activity, mindless and otherwise: seven days between the attempt to kill one young girl, and this, a visit to the father of another who had died almost twenty years earlier.

  Seven days during which the powers-that-be had quickly changed their minds about Gordon Rooker’s offer…

  Thorne waited until the engine had ticked down to silence and it had begun to get cold in the car before he got out and walked towards the house. It was in the centre of a simple Victorian terrace on the south side of Wandsworth Common, not far from the prison. Thorne rang the bell and took a couple of steps back down the path. There were lights on in most of the houses: people settling down to eat, or getting ready for a Friday night out. The place would pro
bably fetch around half a million. It was certainly worth much more now than it had been fifteen years ago, when the Clarkes had moved back here from Amersham. Back from where Jessica had gone to school.

  The man who answered the door nodded knowingly while Thorne was still reaching into a pocket for his warrant card. ‘Don’t bother,’ he said, stepping away from the door. His voice was thin, and a little nasal. ‘What else would you be?’

  Ian Clarke had been on the phone within an hour of that first news report. He’d sounded angry and confused. He’d insisted on being told the details, had demanded to know exactly what was being done. Thorne sensed that he’d calmed down a little during the week that had followed.

  ‘Thanks for coming. There might be some tea on the way, with a bit of luck…’

  ‘That’d be great…’

  ‘We’ve got some Earl Grey, I think…’

  ‘Monkey tea’s fine.’

  The tea delivered, Mrs Clarke announced that she had work to do. She smiled nervously as she stepped out of the room. She was wearing what, to Thorne, seemed like the look people gave to seriously ill patients before closing doors behind them in hospitals.

  ‘Emma runs her own catering business,’ Clarke said. He pointed towards the ceiling. ‘She’s got a small office at the top of the house.’

  ‘Right. What about your daughter?’

  There was the shortest of awkward pauses before Clarke responded. ‘Isobel?’

  Thorne nodded. The second daughter.

  ‘Oh, she’s around somewhere.’

  Clarke had split from his first wife in 1989, three years after Jessica’s death and almost immediately after they’d moved back to London from Buckinghamshire.

  Thorne had seen it plenty of times with bereaved parents. It was often impossible to deal with the guilt and the anger and the blame. Impossible to look into the eyes of a husband or wife and not see the face of a lost child.

  ‘No more news, then?’ Clarke asked. He ran a hand across his skull. He’d lost a fair amount of hair and cut the remaining grey brutally short. It emphasised the chiselled features and lively, blue eyes that belied his age. Thorne knew that he had to be in his early fifties at least, but he looked maybe ten years younger.

  Thorne shook his head. ‘Only the same stuff rehashed to sell a few more papers. None of it’s coming from us, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Witnesses? Descriptions? It was a busy street, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed since I last spoke to you on the phone. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know I don’t really have a right to be told anything at all. I’m grateful…’

  Thorne waved away the thanks and the implicit apology. For a few seconds they drank their tea and stared into the flame-effect gas fire. On the mantelpiece, Thorne could see postcards, cigarettes, a party invitation in a child’s handwriting. The large wooden mirror above reflected a watercolour on the wall behind him.

  Clarke caught Thorne studying it. ‘That was Jessica’s mother’s,’ he said. ‘One of the few things I got to keep.’

  Clarke was sitting on a lived-in leather armchair. Thorne was adjacent, on the matching sofa. They were both leaning forwards, mugs of tea on their knees.

  ‘It’s like the old joke, then?’ Clarke said, suddenly changing tack. ‘About the police having their toilets stolen.’

  Thorne smiled. ‘Right…’

  Though Thorne obviously understood, Clarke trotted out the tawdry punchline anyway: ‘You’ve got nothing to go on.’

  ‘We need a bit of luck,’ Thorne said. ‘We always need a bit of luck.’

  Clarke put down his mug and stood up. ‘And if he tries to do it to another girl, would that count as a bit of luck?’ He smiled and walked past Thorne to draw the curtains.

  Thorne was struck again by how good Clarke looked for his age, though the fleecy blue tracksuit top may have been helping to create the illusion. He was grateful for finding something with which to break the slightly awkward silence. ‘You look pretty fit,’ he said. He patted his belly. ‘I could do with shifting this.’

  Clarke walked round the sofa, dropped back into his armchair. ‘I manage a leisure centre,’ he explained.

  Thorne nodded, thinking that actually, it explained nothing. Most hairdressers had terrible hair, and he’d known plenty of dishonest coppers. ‘Listen, we’re making an assumption,’ he said. ‘We’re assuming that this recent incident is connected, in some way, to the attack on your daughter.’

  Clarke pulled at his lip with a finger and thumb. ‘Obviously. It’s the same…kind of attack. Whoever this lunatic is, he must be aware of what happened to Jess. He must have read about it…yes?’

  ‘Yes. Or there could be other connections.’

  ‘Could there?’

  ‘I said we’re making an assumption.’

  ‘Other connections, right.’ Quickly: ‘Such as?’

  Clarke had been correct when he’d said that he had no right to be told anything, but Thorne knew bloody well that there was no other reason for him to be sitting in the man’s living room. He’d come to tell him.

  ‘It’s possible that the man found guilty of attempting to murder your daughter in 1984 was not in fact the man responsible.’

  Clarke gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘What? Because some psycho’s gone out and bought himself a can of lighter fluid?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘That’s bloody ridiculous.’

  ‘Hang on, Mr Clarke.’

  ‘So, if a prostitute gets cut up in Leeds tomorrow night that means Peter Sutcliffe’s innocent, does it?’

  ‘We had good reason to believe that Gordon Rooker was innocent before the attack last week.’

  The skin tightened across Clarke’s jaw at the mention of Rooker’s name. ‘I presume that “good reason” is some bloody police euphemism, yes? Like when doctors say “as well as can be expected” when somebody’s on their deathbed. Yes? Am I right? Because, don’t forget, we’re talking about the man who confessed to setting my daughter on fire.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘The man who confessed.’

  ‘He’s withdrawn that confession.’

  ‘Well, he’s a bit fucking late…’ Clarke slapped both palms hard against his legs, and grinned as if he’d been half joking, but there’d been no mistaking the venom in his voice. He reached behind the armchair. ‘Hang on,’ he said. He found a switch, and flicked on an uplighter. ‘Best to lift the gloom a bit.’

  Thorne looked up at the soft circle of light on the ceiling. ‘You’re right. Of course you are. It’s very fucking late…’

  ‘So, you think the man who attacked the girl last week is the man who really attacked Jess?’

  ‘We’ve got to consider the possibility.’

  ‘Where’s he been for the last twenty years, then?’

  It was, of course, the obvious question and Thorne had only obvious answers. ‘Living abroad, maybe. In prison for something else…’

  ‘And he’s doing this now, because…?’

  ‘Because he’s worried that Rooker’s about to come out. He’s trying to make us look stupid, tell us we got it wrong. Or he’s trying to claim credit that should rightfully be his. I don’t honestly know, Mr Clarke.’

  ‘The toilet joke again…’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

  For want of anything else to do, Thorne brought the mug to his lips and tipped it back, though he knew full well that the tea was finished. ‘Listen, we don’t know who this man is, or if he is the man who attempted to murder your daughter, and neither, so he says, does Gordon Rooker.’

  ‘So, you don’t believe everything he says?’

  ‘What he does say is that he knows who is responsible for what happened to Jessica. He knows who paid the money, and he’s going to tell us.’

  ‘It was some gangster.’ Clarke said it as if it were in inverted commas. ‘I was told, unofficially, that no one could be one hundred per cent sure which one, but that he was p
robably killed shortly after what he did to Jess. Right?’

  Thorne saw Clarke’s expression start to darken when he didn’t answer him instantly. He knew that the water was suddenly getting deep and that he shouldn’t wade in any further. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t really go into…’

  Clarke held up his hands. He understood.

  ‘I just wanted you to be clear about something,’ Thorne continued. ‘If Rooker comes out of prison, it’s only so that the man who was behind what happened to your daughter can go in.’

  Clarke pondered this for a minute. He turned his chair towards the fire, held his hands towards it. Thorne thought that it had suddenly become a lot colder. He also thought: How can he stand to look into a fire? What does he see when he stares into the flames?

  ‘You should have a picture of Jess,’ Clarke said, suddenly.

  The smallest of shivers crept across the nape of Thorne’s neck. He felt as if the man opposite him had somehow known what he was thinking. He watched as Clarke got up and walked across to a pine chest in the corner of the room. Photos in assorted metal frames were scattered across the top.

  ‘Right…’

  ‘A reminder.’

  Clarke picked up a small frame, began removing the clips that held the picture in place. ‘This is a good one.’ He removed the glass and took out the photograph. He waved it at him.

  Thorne stood and moved across the room to take the picture from Clarke’s outstretched hand. Clarke handed it over and stepped towards the door. ‘That’s the “before”. You need the “after” as well. I don’t keep any out down here because they upset Isobel. That’s the only reason.’

  He left the room. Thorne heard him running up the stairs, heard a door open and close.

  You should have a picture of Jess…

  Thorne thought about how Clarke had said it. As though it were a simple piece of good advice that would aid his well-being. You should check your cholesterol. You should keep up your pension payments. You should have a photo of my dead daughter.

  Thorne knew that Clarke was well aware that this visit was not procedural. This was not part of any inquiry, and nor was the offer of the photograph. This was something Ian Clarke wanted Thorne to have. Thought he should have…