Thorne jabbed at the buttons on the phone. He’d only signed out for two hours, so now he needed to let them know that he wouldn’t be back until sometime the following day. He’d have been happiest leaving a message, but he was connected straight through to Detective Sergeant Samir Karim in the Incident Room.
‘You must be psychic.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The DCI’s in the middle of leaving a message on your phone.’
Thorne reached into his jacket for his mobile. He’d turned it off in the hospital and forgotten to switch it back on again. By the time the screen had come back to life and the tones were sounding to indicate that he had a message, Detective Chief Inspector Russell Brigstocke was on the landline.
‘Good timing, mate. Or bad.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve just caught a job.’ Brigstocke took a slurp of tea or coffee. ‘Nasty one, by the sound of it.’
Thorne swore quietly, but not quietly enough.
‘Look, I was about to give it to Kitson anyway.’
‘You were right before,’ Thorne said. ‘Bad timing.’
‘It’s yours if you fancy it.’
Thorne thought about Louise, what the woman had said about needing to take things easy. Yvonne Kitson was perfectly capable of dealing with a new case, and he had plenty on his plate at work as it was. But he was already on his feet, hunting for a pen and paper.
Elvis was mooching around his ankles while Thorne scribbled a few notes. Brigstocke was right, it was a nasty one, but Thorne wasn’t overly surprised. It was usually The nasty ones they put his way.
‘Husband?’ Thorne asked. ‘Boyfriend?’
‘Husband found the body. Made the call, then ran out into the street screaming the place down.’
‘Made the call first?’
‘Right. Then lost it, by all accounts,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Banging on doors, telling everyone she was dead, screaming about blood and bottles. Definitely not what the good people of Finchley are used to.’
‘Finchley’s easy,’ Thorne said.
‘Right, nice local one for you.’
Five or six miles north of Kentish Town. He’d be more or less driving past the Whittington Hospital. ‘I’ll need to make a quick stop on the way,’ Thorne said. ‘But I should be there in half an hour or so.’
‘No rush. She isn’t going anywhere.’
It took Thorne a few seconds to realise that Brigstocke was talking about a dead woman and not about Louise Porter.
‘Give me the address.’
TWO
It was a quiet street, a few turnings east of the High Road. Edwardian houses with neat front gardens and off-road parking. Many, like number 48, had been divided into flats, though this house was now itself divided from its neighbours: a tarpaulin shielding the side-alley, uniformed officers stationed at each corner of the front lawn and crime-scene tape fluttering above the flower beds.
Thorne arrived just before eight, and it had already been dark for almost an hour. It was light enough in the kitchen of the downstairs flat, where the beams from twin arc-lamps illuminated every mote of dust and puff of fingerprint powder, bounced off the blue plastic suits of the CSIs and washed across the linoleum on the floor. A retro-style, black-and-white check, its simple pattern ruined by a few spots of blood. And by the body they had leaked from.
‘I think I’m about ready to turn her,’ Phil Hendricks said.
In the corner, a crime scene investigator was scraping at the edge of a low cupboard. She barely glanced up. ‘That’ll be a first . . .’
Hendricks grinned and gave the woman the finger, then looked around and asked Thorne if he wanted to come closer. To squeeze in where he could get a better view.
Thorne doubted that the view would get any better, but he walked across and placed himself between the still- and video-camera operators, opposite the pair of CSIs who were preparing to give Hendricks the help he needed. To add the necessary degree of strength to his gentleness.
‘OK, easy does it.’
The woman was face down, arms by her sides. Her shirt had been lifted, or had ridden up, showing purplish patches on the skin just above her waist where the livor mortis had started and revealing that her bra had not been removed.
‘Something, I suppose,’ a female CSI said as she walked past.
Thorne raised his eyes from the body and looked towards the single window. There were plates and mugs on the draining board next to the sink. A light was flashing on the front of the washing machine to let somebody know that the cycle had finished.
There was still a trace of normality.
Assuming they didn’t get a result in the first few days, Thorne would try to come back at some point. He found it useful to spend time where the victim had lived; even more so if it was also where they had died. But he would wait until he didn’t have to weave between crouching CSIs and negotiate the depressing paraphernalia of a crime scene.
And until the smell had gone.
He remembered some movie where the cop would stand in the houses where people had been murdered and commune with their killer. Was this where you killed them, you son of a bitch? Is that where you watched them from?
All that shit . . .
For Thorne, it just came down to wanting to know something about the victim. Something other than what their last meal had been and what their liver weighed at the time of death. Something simple and stupid would usually do it. A picture on a bedroom wall. The biscuits they kept in the kitchen cupboard or the book that they would never finish reading.
As for what went on in the mind of the killer, Thorne was happy knowing just enough to catch him, and no more.
Now, he watched as what remained of Emily Walker was moved, saw the hand flop back across the leg as it was lifted and turned in one slow, smooth movement. Saw those strands of hair that were not caked in blood fall away from her face as she was laid down on her back.
‘Cheers, lads.’
Hendricks worked with a good team. He insisted on it. Thorne remembered one CSI in particular - back when they were content to be called scene of crime officers - handling the partially decomposed body of an old man no better than if it were a sack of spuds. He’d watched Hendricks pushing the SOCO up against a wall and pressing a heavily tattooed forearm across the man’s throat. He couldn’t recall seeing the two of them at the same crime scene since.
The cameramen stepped forward and went to work. When they’d finished, Hendricks mumbled a few preparatory notes into his digital recorder.
‘How much longer, Phil?’ Thorne asked.
Hendricks lifted one of the dead woman’s arms; began bending back the fingers of a fist that was closed tight. ‘Hour and a half.’ The thick Manchester accent stretched out the pathologist’s final word, flattened the vowel. ‘Two at a push.’
Thorne checked his watch. ‘Right.’
‘You on a promise or something?’
Thorne did his best to summon the right expression, something conspiratorial and devilish, but he wasn’t sure he’d managed it. He turned to see where Detective Sergeant Dave Holland had got to.
‘She’s got something in her hand,’ Hendricks said.
Thorne turned back quickly and bent down to get a closer look, watched as Hendricks went to work with his tweezers and lifted something from the victim’s fist. It appeared to be a small square of plastic or celluloid, dark and wafer thin. Hendricks dropped it into an evidence bag and held it up to the light.
‘Piece of film?’ Thorne asked.
‘Could be.’
They stared at whatever was in the bag for a few more seconds, but both knew they would only be guessing until the Forensic Science Service laboratory had finished with it. Hendricks handed the bag over for the evidence manager to log and label, then carefully fastened polythene wraps around both the victim’s hands before moving further up the body.
Thorne closed his eyes for a few seconds, let out a long breath. ‘Can you believe I
had a choice?’ he said.
Hendricks glanced up at him. He was kneeling behind the victim’s head and lifting it so that it was resting against his legs.
‘Brigstocke gave me the option.’
‘More fool you.’
‘I could have let Kitson take it.’
‘This one’s got your name on it,’ Hendricks said.
‘Why?’
‘Look at her, Tom.’
Emily Walker was . . . had been early thirties or thereabouts, dark hair streaked with a little grey and a small star tattooed above one ankle. She was no more than five feet tall, her height emphasising the few extra pounds which, judging by the contents of the fridge and the magnet on the door that said ‘ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE HUNGRY?’, she was trying to lose. She wore a thin necklace of brown beads and there was a charm bracelet around one wrist: dice, a padlock, a pair of fish. Her shirt was denim. Her skirt was thin cotton, the same pillar-box red as the varnish on her toenails.
Thorne looked across at the sandal that had been circled on the lino close to the fridge. At the decorative bottle a few feet away, with what looked like balsamic vinegar on the inside and blood and hair caught in a few of the glass ridges on the outside, and beyond, to the light still winking on the front of the washing machine. His hand drifted up to his face, fingers moving along the straight, white scar on his chin. He stared until the red light began to blur, then turned and wandered away, leaving Hendricks cradling Emily Walker’s head and talking quietly into his Dictaphone.
‘There is nothing holding the plastic bag in position over the victim’s head. Assume that the killer kept it in place around the victim’s neck with his hands. Bruises on neck suggest he held it there with a great deal of force until the victim had stopped breathing . . .’
Holland was standing out on the patio at the rear of the house, watching half a dozen uniforms combing the flower beds. There were arc-lamps out here too, but this was only an initial sweep and more officers would be back at first light to conduct a fingertip search.
‘So, no forced entry then,’ Thorne said.
‘Which means she knew him.’
‘Possibly.’ Thorne could smell cigarettes on Holland, wanted one himself for a second or two. ‘Or she answered the door and he produced a weapon, forced her back inside.’
Holland nodded. ‘Let’s see if we get lucky with the house to house. Looks like the kind of street where there’s plenty of curtain-twitching.’
‘What about the husband?’
‘I only had five minutes before they took him to a hotel up the road,’ Holland said. ‘In pieces, much as you’d expect.’
‘Trying too hard, you reckon?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Sounds like he wanted everyone in the street to see just how upset he was. After he’d called us.’
‘You heard the 999 tape?’
‘No.’ Thorne shrugged. ‘Just . . .’
‘Just wishful thinking?’ Holland said. ‘Right?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ It was getting a little chillier. Thorne shoved his hands inside the plastic suit and down into the pockets of his leather jacket. ‘Be nice if it was . . . a simple one.’
‘I can’t see it,’ Holland said.
Nor could Thorne, if he were being honest. He knew only too well how domestic violence could escalate; had seen the ways a jealous boyfriend or a domineering husband could lose it. He blinked, saw the flop of the arm as the body was turned. Spots of pillar-box red against black-and-white squares. Not a simple one . . .
‘Maybe he was just that upset,’ Holland said. ‘How many of these have we done?’
Thorne puffed out his cheeks. There was no need to answer.
‘Right. And I still can’t imagine what it must be like. Not even close.’
Holland was fifteen years younger than Thorne. He had been working alongside him for more than seven years and though the fresh-faced newbie was long gone, Thorne still relished the glimpses of someone who hadn’t been totally reshaped by the Job. Holland had looked up to him once, had seen him as the kind of copper he would like to become, Thorne knew that. He knew equally that Holland was not the same as he was . . . not where it mattered, and that he should be bloody grateful for it.
‘Especially when it’s a woman,’ Holland said. ‘You know? I see the husbands and boyfriends and fathers, how it hits them, and it doesn’t matter if they’re hysterical or furious or sitting there like zombies. I’ve got no bloody idea what’s happening inside their heads.’
‘Don’t knock it, Dave,’ Thorne said.
They both looked across at laughter from further down the garden, where one of the officers had obviously stepped in something. Watched as he scraped the sole of his shoe across the edge of the lawn.
‘So, where were you skiving off to earlier, then?’ Holland asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘When all this kicked off.’
Thorne cleared his throat.
Louise had been fine about him taking the job on, when he’d popped into the hospital to drop off her stuff. She was already in bed, working her way through a copy of heat and trying to tune out the incessant chatter of a woman in the bed opposite. He’d asked if she was sure. She’d looked at him like he was being stupid and asked why she wouldn’t be. He’d told her to call if she wanted anything, if she needed him. She’d told him not to worry and said that she could get a taxi back when it was all over, if she had to.
‘Dentist,’ Thorne said. ‘An hour with the Nazi hygienist. The woman’s like something out of Marathon Man.’
Holland laughed. Said, ‘Is it safe?’
‘I’m telling you.’
‘They remade that film, you know?’ Holland waited for Thorne to take the bait and look at him. ‘But they had to call it Snickers Man.’ He laughed again, seeing that Thorne was doing his best not to.
‘You told Sophie you’re back on the fags?’ Thorne asked.
Holland shook his head. ‘Got a glove compartment full of extra-strong mints.’ He leaned down and spat into a drain. ‘Stupid really, ’cause I’m bloody sure she knows. Just doesn’t want a row, I suppose.’
Holland and his girlfriend were another couple who had been talking about getting out of London, and about Holland giving up the Job. Thorne wondered if that was something else that was not being mentioned for fear of reigniting an argument. He had always been convinced that Holland should stay where he was, but he would never have said so. If Sophie so much as got wind of Thorne’s opinion, she would fight tooth and nail to do the opposite.
So he kept his mouth shut, content that Holland was still there.
‘We’ll get the official ID done first thing in the morning,’ Thorne said. ‘Then bring the husband in for a chat.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘You never know, we might get lucky.’
Holland snorted, nodded across to where the uniformed officer was now working at the sole of his shoe with a twig, flicking out the shit. ‘That kind of lucky,’ he said.
They both looked up as a plane passed low overhead, lights blinking, on its way to Luton. Thorne watched it move fast across a clear sky and swallowed hard. Eight weeks earlier, he and Louise had gone to Greece together for their first proper holiday as a couple. They had spent most days lying by a pool reading trashy books and done nothing more culturally demanding than work out how to ask for beer and grilled squid in the local taverna. They’d both tried hard not to talk about work and had laughed a lot. One day, Louise had rubbed cream into Thorne’s shoulders where he’d got burned, and said, ‘This is as far as it goes for me in terms of non-sexual intimate contact, all right? I’m not into squeezing other people’s blackheads and I will not be wiping your arse if you break both your arms .’
She’d bought the pregnancy testing kit on their final morning there. Used it just before they’d gone out to dinner that last night.
Thorne was sitting in the car when Hendricks came out.
He’d check
ed his phone and tried both flats, but Louise hadn’t got back yet and there were no messages. He’d listened to the radio for a while then called again to no avail. Louise’s mobile was switched off and Thorne guessed it was too late to ring the hospital.
Hendricks walked around to the passenger side and got in. He’d changed out of the protective suit and was wearing black jeans and a skinny-rib sweater over a white T-shirt. ‘Just about done,’ he said.
Thorne grunted.
‘You OK?’
‘Sorry . . . yeah.’ Thorne turned and looked. Nodded and smiled.
A skein of red and blue ink was just visible above the neckline, but most of Phil Hendricks’ tattoos were hidden. Much to the relief of his superiors, a good few of the piercings remained out of sight, too. Thorne was happy to have been spared the graphic details, but knew that some had been done in honour of a new boyfriend, one for each conquest. There hadn’t been a new piercing for quite a while.
It was not what many people expected a pathologist to look like, but Hendricks was the best Thorne had ever worked with; and still - despite the many ups and downs - the closest friend he had.
‘Fancy a pint later?’ Thorne asked.
‘What about Louise?’
‘She’ll be fine.’
‘No.’ Hendricks grinned. ‘I mean she’ll be jealous.’
‘We’ll make it up to her,’ Thorne said. In truth, he was the one who had suffered from jealousy. He and Louise had been together almost a year and a half, having met when Thorne was seconded to help out on a kidnap case she had been working, but it had taken her only a couple of weeks to get as close to Phil Hendricks as Thorne had managed in ten years. There were times, especially early on, when it had been disconcerting; when he’d found himself resenting them their friendship.
One night, when the three of them were out together, Thorne had got pissed and called Louise a ‘fag-hag’. She and Phil had laughed, and Phil had said how ironic that was, because Thorne was the one acting like an old queen.
‘Yeah, OK then,’ Hendricks said. He looked towards the house, from which officers had begun to drift in twos and threes. ‘Mind you, if I’m going to be elbows deep in that poor cow first thing in the morning, I’d better just have the one.’
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