‘That’s true.’
‘Not that you haven’t been doing a fair bit of blundering yourself.’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ Thorne said. ‘But you’ve been pretty clever.’
‘Right. The “we can talk about this” approach didn’t work, so now you’re trying to flatter me.’ Garvey sighed. ‘You’re very predictable.’
‘I’m just trying to save a woman’s life.’
‘You know, it’s awfully noisy where you are,’ Garvey said. ‘Wailing sirens and what have you.’
‘Tell me if Debbie’s alive—’
‘I’ve got enough of a headache as it is.’
‘Just get out of there,’ Thorne said. ‘If she’s still alive, just run. OK? I don’t care.’
‘Makes me think I should get a move on.’
‘Anthony—’
The line went dead.
Thorne turned to look at the driver, who had not taken his eyes off the road for a moment. At the speed they were travelling, Thorne was more than grateful, but he knew that the man had been listening.
‘Five minutes,’ the driver said.
Thorne could only close his eyes and clench his fists, and hope that Debbie Mitchell had that long.
FORTY-ONE
She took another step towards the kitchen, one eye on the doorway that led out into the hall, where the man was still on the phone.
‘I need to take this,’ he’d said, looking down at the phone’s small screen and smiling before answering. ‘You took your time, Mr Thorne.’ He’d taken a step or two towards the door then, looking at her and shaking his head as if to say, ‘What a pain in the arse. Just give me a minute.’
Debbie had nodded her understanding and signalled to him that she’d make some tea, biting her lip and trying not to let her face give anything away until he stepped out into the hall and lowered his voice.
You took your time, Mr Thorne . . .
It wasn’t what he’d said that was making her insides churn and slop, though she knew that was no way for a detective to talk to his colleague. It was what she’d seen as he’d raised himself up from her side a minute or two earlier. The sudden flash of red where his jacket had fallen open, the slash and spatter of it.
The bloodstain on his shirt.
She could hear him muttering now, a laugh in his voice as she stood on the threshold to the kitchen and beckoned Jason to her. He was still engrossed in his colouring book.
She hissed his name. Got no response.
She called him again, raising her voice a little. When Jason turned his head towards her, she looked to the sitting-room door to make sure she had not been overheard.
She counted to three and took a deep breath, fighting back tears and a desperate need to urinate. ‘Come with Mummy, Jason . . .’
He nodded at her.
‘Please, chicken.’
Jason got up slowly, then, for an agonisingly long few seconds, stood staring at the wall, as though he’d forgotten what he was meant to be doing. Debbie held out her hand and waved. She clicked her tongue and made ‘puff-puff’ noises until, with a spin and a smile, her son was bounding across the carpet towards her.
She almost dragged him into the kitchen and quietly pushed the door closed. She could see straight away that he was agitated, picking up on her terror. But there was no time to calm him.
She eased up the volume on the radio, then bent down to whisper in Jason’s ear.
‘Let’s go blow at the trains,’ she said.
He beamed and grabbed at her, squeezed away the trembling in her free hand, while the other gently pushed down on the handle of the back door.
FORTY-TWO
Brigstocke had called no more than a minute or so after Thorne had finished talking to Garvey. The DCI had arrived at Nina Collins’ flat with a team of detectives from Barnet station and a unit from CO19 that had been stood down from the scene in Euston and had left before Thorne had.
‘How far away are you?’
‘Minutes.’
‘What do you think, Tom?’
Though nominally his senior officer, Brigstocke sounded keen to get Thorne’s feedback. Thorne was both gratified and appalled by the courtesy, if that’s what it was.
‘I think you should go in,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t we hang back a bit?’ Brigstocke asked. ‘Assess things, I mean? He could well be armed.’
‘There’s no reason to think he’s got anything,’ Thorne said. ‘But it doesn’t matter either way. He’ll just use whatever he can find. He used a mug-tree back there, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Right.’
‘Put the fucking door in, Russell. Don’t give him the chance.’
So, for the second time in less than an hour, Thorne arrived at a crime scene and could do no more than search the faces of those who had beaten him to it for some clue as to how things stood.
If he was too late to change anything.
This time, pulling up hard outside Nina Collins’ flat, the prevalent expression was one of bemusement and Thorne felt relief wash over him as he sprinted up the path to be met at the door by Russell Brigstocke.
‘Nobody here,’ Brigstocke said.
The relief was short-lived. Had Garvey taken her? ‘Any signs of—?’
‘No blood. Nothing to indicate a struggle.’
‘That’s got to be good,’ Thorne said. ‘Do you think?’
Before Brigstocke could answer, there was a shout from the back of the house. A few seconds later, a plain-clothes officer wearing a stab vest came running down the hall.
‘You might want to take a look at the garden.’
While the officer was telling Brigstocke what he had found, Thorne moved quickly into the house and out through the open kitchen door. He saw it immediately. A white plastic garden chair had been taken from the end of a matching table on the patio and placed against the fence at the far end of the small garden. There were muddy footprints on the seat. Thorne bent down to take a closer look.
Three different sets.
Wary of destroying evidence, Thorne ran to grab another chair, climbed up and peered over the fence. He could see nothing but an area of scrubland backing on to a row of garages, the ground littered with shards of glass and twisted scraps of metal, an old mattress, the remains of several fires. In the far corner, a dilapidated cross-hatch fence curled around a corner and out of sight.
He jumped back down and tried to think, then reached for his phone.
When she eventually answered, Nina Collins sounded as though she was very busy, but she was still happy enough to let Thorne know what she thought of him.
He cut her off fast, while trying to keep his voice calm. He did not want to scare her, but he needed information quickly. ‘Debbie’s gone,’ he said.
‘Gone where?’
‘If you climb over the fence at the end of your garden, where do you come out?’
‘What?’
‘Where does it go, Nina?’
‘Fuck’s sake, she’s climbed over the fence?’
‘Where might Debbie go?’
There was silence for a few seconds, then Nina began to curse again. Thorne told her several times to be quiet, and when she had finished, he could hear a man’s voice in the background.
Thorne said, ‘Where would Debbie take Jason, Nina?’ He waited until he could hear her breathing and said it slowly. ‘If she was frightened. ’
‘I don’t know, Christ!’ The man was talking again, and Nina’s voice was muffled as she put her hand over the mouthpiece and told him to shut up. ‘The park, maybe.’
‘The park?’ The kid’s favourite place. ‘Are you sure?’
‘They go there all the time.’
When the man with Nina started to shout, Thorne hung up. As he turned, he saw a woman standing in the garden next door. She was cradling a child and staring at Thorne over the fence.
‘It’s like a madhouse here,’ she said.
‘Did you see anything?’
She shook her head, then nodded towards the phone in Thorne’s hand. ‘I was listening,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Thing is, there’s a quicker way.’
It had been so easy, there had seemed no other choice, as she had stumbled across the patch of wasteland beyond Nina’s garden, through the hole in the fence and out from the tangle of trees into the park. The thought of what might be behind her had driven her forward, compelled her to keep Jason moving, pulling him away from the old woman with the dog and across the football pitches towards the bridge. The certainty had been as total, as all-consuming, as the panic.
Now, though, looking down from the bridge, she was paralysed by a very different sort of terror.
Rigid with it and helpless.
In her head it had all been so simple, and so obvious. She had not chosen this way of doing it and if she’d been given any option, she would have gone about things very differently. Unable to sleep and listening for Nina’s key in the door, she’d imagined the final moments and settled on a long lie down, with crushed-up tablets and booze, and Jason pressed against her beneath the covers. Drifting away together with the radio on, or maybe the music from Jason’s video coming through from the next room. His long, warm body stretched out next to hers.
Knowing nothing. Unafraid.
Next to her now, Jason slapped his hands against the edge of the bridge, grunting with excitement. She opened her eyes and watched the broken snake of the train curl out, the tracks crackling beneath it as the final carriage rumbled on to the straight.
This would be quick, she knew that, but the drop was so terrible and for a few seconds, she was a little girl again, no older than Jason was now. Shivering, her toes curled around the edge of the high board as her father pushed her in the small of the back and told her not to be so stupid. Not to be a baby. She blinked away the tears, staring down at the black lines on the bottom of the pool, wavy beneath that solid block of blue. Leaning back against her father’s hand. Closing her eyes and swallowing back the sick feeling.
Was that what was stopping her now, pressing her down against the stone and shredding her heart like wet paper? Or, Christ . . . perhaps she was wrong. Was she being stupid and selfish? She had been thinking of nothing else since the police had first come to her door to warn her. Had been so sure that it was the right thing.
For both of them.
Jason could not survive without her, she’d always known that. He would have no sort of life with anyone else. Nobody but Debbie could truly understand him or make him happy. Nobody could ever love him as much as she did.
Now, though, with the bricks humming beneath her, the voice that screamed inside her head told her that she was thinking only of herself. How could she possibly know the way things would turn out for Jason? The sort of future that he might have? They were discovering stuff all the time, making medical advances and coming up with new ideas. Finding ways to get through to kids like him.
‘Puff, puff . . .’
Debbie dragged her head around, looked down at Jason, his lips moving, his eyes wide and bright. Fearless. Movement at the edge of her vision told her that the man who had brought them to this was no more than yards, no more than moments, away.
She could smell her own sour stink, feel the rush of wind slapping against a face she knew was blank and bloodless. Like someone who was dying.
Which, of course, she was.
It was then, as she sucked in the strength, that she heard Thorne’s voice, hoarse and desperate above the clack-and-grind of the train. He was calling her name every few seconds, first from the street and then from the path, up and away to her right.
His timing is as bad as his jokes, she thought, turning back.
Closing her eyes, her fingers reaching to adjust the tight, thin straps of a long-lost swimsuit.
Her father’s hand in the small of her back.
FORTY-THREE
Thorne had followed the instructions that the woman in the garden had given him. He had rushed back through the house and out of the front door, ignoring the looks of those he all but flattened and the questions as he legged it past Russell Brigstocke. He had grabbed the keys to the nearest squad car and floored it. Back on to the Great North Road and south towards Whetstone, counting off the turnings until he’d reached the correct one, then heading downhill into a U-shaped side street.
Looking for the path that ran above the Tube line.
This was the normal way in, the woman had told him, the way that the local kids and dog-walkers usually went, and it would get him into the park a damn sight quicker than the route Debbie Mitchell appeared to have taken. There were a couple of cut-throughs off the same street, she’d said, narrow alleyways between blocks of houses, but this was definitely the way to go if you were looking for someone. It would give him the best view of the whole park as he entered it from above, would take him in across the railway bridge.
Thorne double-parked as soon as he had found the entrance and when he came around the car he saw an old woman with a dog emerging from one of the cut-throughs a dozen or so houses to his left. He ran towards her. He saw the look of alarm on her face as he approached, watched her step towards the nearest front gate and pull the Labrador tight to her leg. Thorne dug into his pocket for ID and began shouting when he was still fifteen feet away.
‘Police,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for a woman and an eight-year-old boy.’
The dog started barking and the woman told it to be quiet.
‘Did you see them in the park? She’s tall, blonde hair.’
The old woman fed the dog something from her pocket. ‘That’s right, with her son,’ she said. ‘Bless him. He doesn’t say much—’
‘Was there anyone else with them?’
The woman shook her head, suddenly flustered. ‘I don’t think so, love. I didn’t see anybody.’
‘Where?’
She thought for a few seconds and pointed over Thorne’s shoulder. ‘They were heading towards the bridge, I think.’ The dog was barking again, in search of another treat. ‘This was only five minutes ago, but they were in quite a hurry.’
Thorne was already running.
Where it left the road, the path was just wide enough for a car, but Thorne could see that it narrowed ahead of him. It ran straight for fifty yards or so, before curving to the right. His view of what was round the corner was obscured by treetops and a block of low buildings where the straight ended.
Thorne shouted Debbie’s name.
For half its distance, once it was past the gardens, the path was bordered by garages and other outbuildings at the back of houses. Fences in various states of repair bulged or rose up on either side of Thorne as he ran. Overgrown bushes and small trees gave way to stretches of flaking wood and brick, the graffiti that covered them no more than flashes and washes of colour as he sprinted past.
‘Debbie!’
My fault, Thorne thought as he ran. My fault, my fault, the words sounding in time with his feet as they pounded against the dirt and loose stones. Or if not, then my responsibility . . .
He shouted again, heard only his ragged breath, the loose change jumping in his pockets and the cawing of crows high away to his right as he charged towards the curve of the path.
Down to me.
At the end of the straight he kept as close to the right-hand side as possible, trying to cut the corner, but lost his footing as a cat darted from under a gate and he changed direction hard to avoid it. He was sweating and breathless now, felt as though something had torn behind one of his knees, but he could see that the path cut sharply left again only thirty feet ahead of him. Through gaps in the trees he caught glimpses of the Tube line below. He knew that the bridge was around the corner, that he would get the view he needed as soon as he made the next turn.
He could hear a train coming.
He ran, picking up speed as the downhill slope grew more pronounced, as the panic gained momentum
equally fast. Scuttling around in his head, dark images and ideas, like trapped rats.
Garvey reaching for a brick and a bag. The boy screaming. Blood in Debbie Mitchell’s dirty-blond hair.
Thorne shouted again as he took the final turn, tried to scare away the rats.
There was a series of metal gates on his right as he turned on to the section of path that approached the bridge: yards filled with engines and old tyres; a collection of logs and antique lawnmowers; a row of dirty greenhouses and a sign made out of plastic leaves saying, ‘Whetstone Nurseries’. After a few steps, Thorne could see that the woman in the garden had been right. The land swept away below him, granting him a fantastic view of the park. He could see across the treetops to the two football pitches; the parallel foot and cycle paths snaking around them towards a small lake with fields on the far side; and, beyond them, perhaps half a mile from where he stood, the edge of a golf course. But he didn’t need the view.
Debbie and Jason were on the bridge right ahead.
Thorne stopped dead when he saw them sitting on the wall. He felt his stomach turn over and his breakfast start to rise up. Should he stay where he was or move towards them? Should he shout or keep quiet? The last thing he wanted to do was startle her. He needed her to stay calm and still, but Christ, the train was coming. Then he saw Garvey jogging on to the bridge from the other side, no more than a few steps from them, and he knew that he had no choice.
He shouted Debbie’s name - a warning and a plea - and began to run. He saw Garvey raise his head to look at him, saw Debbie do the same. He ran, with no thought of what he would do when he reached the bridge, his eyes flashing from the figures ahead of him to the train moving fast from his right, then watched in horror as his path was blocked by a metal trailer rolling out in front of him from one of the yards to his right.
Thorne shouted, but the trailer kept coming, piled high with plastic water-butts, bags of compost and potted palms; shunted out of the nursery gates by a miniature tractor whose driver stared at Thorne as he reversed on to the path, stopped and prepared to turn round.
‘Get out of the fucking way. Christ . . .’
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