‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’
Fowler nodded, muttered a ‘ta’, and spread his arms wide. ‘Home from bloody home,’ he said. Then he smiled, revealing that a number of teeth were missing, top and bottom. ‘Home from homeless.’
‘We’l see what Social Services can do about finding you somewhere permanent,’ Thorne said. ‘When al this is over.’
‘No thanks, you’re OK.’
‘You want to go back on the street?’
‘I don’t like hostels much, anything like that. Too many stupid rules, and some of those places won’t even let you have a drink.’
‘That might be a good idea.’
‘Al a bit late now, mate.’
Thorne knew there were others on the streets who thought the same way as Graham Fowler, who for one reason or another had an aversion to any sort of institution. He’d shared space with several when he’d been sleeping rough a few years back. Fowler’s attitude explained why they had been unable to trace him through the records of hostels and emergency shelters.
‘So, when are we talking?’ Fowler asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘“When al this is over.” When you catch him, right?’
‘Right. I don’t know.’
‘How long’s a piece of string, sort of thing?’ He nodded eagerly, without waiting for an answer. ‘Listen, pal, you just keep the methadone and the Special Brew coming, you can take as long as you bloody like.’ He laughed, then pul ed up short when he saw the look on Thorne’s face. ‘Joke, mate, al right? Joke.’
‘With a bit of luck, we’l be kicking you out of here before they get a chance to change the sheets,’ Thorne said.
Fowler stood up and tossed his cigarette butt out of the window, agitated again suddenly. ‘Why’s he doing this, anyway? Nobody’s said.’
Thorne saw no reason to keep him in the dark. If patients had a right to see their medical records, then a man deserved to know why someone wanted him dead. ‘He thinks that the man who kil ed your mother should not have been convicted.’
‘Garvey?’ Fowler spat the word out like abuse.
‘He believes that Raymond Garvey was not in control of his actions. That it was al because of a brain tumour, and if it had been spotted earlier, he would not have died in prison.’
Fowler shook his head, taking it in. ‘So, why not go through the courts or whatever? Why do
this
?’
‘Because he’s seriously disturbed.’
Fowler thought about that for a while, then lowered himself gingerly back into the chair, as though he were aching. ‘Wel , when you catch him, I’l make sure I stop by for a chat. Sounds like we might have a fair bit in common.’
Thorne realised that he had not touched his drink. He picked up the mug, drank half the lukewarm tea in one go. ‘I don’t suppose you were aware of anyone fol owing you over the last few weeks? Anyone you didn’t recognise hanging around?’
Fowler shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’m not very observant at the best of times.’
‘Anybody asking after you?’
‘Not as far as I know. You could ask some of the boys, if you can find them. Strangers are pretty easy to spot. There’s a . . . look, on the street, you know?’
‘Can you give me any names?’
‘I can tel you where to try and find them.’
Thorne had known that was the best he was likely to get. When it came to those dossing down or shooting up in the shadows every night, there was no such thing as a ful name and address. ‘That’d be good, thanks.’
‘Say hel o from me, wil you?’ Fowler said. ‘Tel them I’ve won the Lottery.’
Thorne assured Fowler that he would. He stared at the uneven grin, the slightest of tremors around the mouth, and thought that, as far as luck went, the good sort was clearly something that happened to other people.
A few minutes later, he was in the corridor outside, waving at one of the CCTV cameras mounted on the wal . He was on the verge of marching back downstairs and mouthing off about security when he heard Brian Spibey’s distinctive burr echoing in the lobby beneath him.
‘I’m coming, al right, I can bloody see you! Just I’ve got a bugger of a sudoku going here . . .’
TWENTY-SIX
Andrew Dowd’s apartment was much the same as Graham Fowler’s - bland and comfortable - and though Dowd himself seemed a little more at ease than his neighbour, and was certainly better dressed, in khakis and an open-necked shirt, in another respect his appearance was equal y shocking.
‘You look . . . different,’ Thorne said, remembering the photo Dowd’s wife had provided and which the newspapers had printed the previous Friday.
‘This?’ Dowd shrugged and ran a hand across his shaved head. Thorne noticed the expensive watch around his wrist. ‘Lots of things are different,’ he said. ‘Lots of changes.’
‘Not just a walking holiday, then?’
‘I did plenty of walking.’
Thorne nodded, leaned back on a sofa identical to the one he had been sitting on a few minutes earlier. ‘I’ve always fancied going up there myself.’
‘It’s nice.’
‘A good place to get away?’
‘I needed to get my head straight.’
‘Wel , you can certainly see more of it,’ Thorne said.
Dowd smiled, showing a few more teeth than Graham Fowler had.
When Thorne arrived, Dowd had been reading a newspaper, with the radio on in the background. Where Fowler had been jumpy and mercurial, Andrew Dowd appeared relaxed and resigned to his situation, but Thorne guessed there was plenty going on beneath the surface. Shaving his head might just have been a radical grooming decision, but coupled with what Thorne had gleaned about his troubled domestic situation, he was pretty sure that the man had suffered some kind of nervous breakdown.
Not one of Anthony Garvey’s victims, but stil one of Raymond’s.
‘Apart from just checking to see how you’re getting on,’ Thorne said, ‘I wanted a word about your wife.’
‘Wel , “bitch” is usual y the first one that springs to mind,’ Dowd said. ‘But I’ve got plenty more.’
Thorne summoned a smile to accompany the thin one Dowd had flashed before he’d spoken. ‘We want to go and see her.’
Dowd’s face darkened for a second or two. ‘Good luck. Make sure you take some garlic and a wooden stake.’
Plenty going on beneath the surface
. . .
Having spoken to the officers who had escorted him back from Kendal, Thorne was not surprised by Dowd’s attitude towards his wife, but the venom was startling none the less; more so, as he spoke so calmly, without losing his temper.
‘He didn’t even want to see her,’ one officer had said. ‘Just told us to take him straight to the station.’
Dowd had been adamant that he wanted no contact with his wife. That he would not go home with them to pick up some clothes and that he definitely did not want her informed of the address where he would be staying. He even went so far as to say that, if he’d had his way, she would not have been informed that he’d been found in the first place.
‘It might have done her some good to worry,’ he’d said. ‘And I would have had something to keep myself amused.’
Now, Dowd sat back and closed his eyes, apparently uninterested. But curiosity got the better of him after a minute or two. ‘Why do you want to see Sarah?’
‘Obviously, you know we’re looking for a man who cal s himself Anthony Garvey.’
‘I should hope so.’
‘We think he got close in some way or another to the people he’s kil ed so far.’ Thorne stopped, saw that Dowd had picked up on the final two words. ‘To the people he kil ed.’
‘Slip of the tongue?’ Dowd said.
Thorne pressed on, feeling himself redden a little. ‘We’re fairly sure he was known to them. Probably no more than casual y, but known. That he put time into making sure they would be relaxed around him, let him into their homes, whatever.’
‘How did he do that?’
‘We know he picked one of them up in a bar,’ Thorne said. ‘He may have got to know another through the hospital where she worked. We’re stil putting al that together, if I’m honest, but we’re pretty sure he gets involved in their lives somehow.’
‘You think he’s involved in mine?’
‘Wel , it might be that he just hadn’t got round to you yet—’
‘Jesus
. . .
’
‘But yes, it’s possible. Can you think of anyone who you might have met in the last few weeks?’
‘I’ve met lots of people,’ Dowd said. ‘When I was up at the Lakes there were other walkers, people in pubs.’ He raised his hands, like it was a stupid question. ‘We meet people al the time. Don’t you?’
‘OK, someone you might have seen a few times. A new neighbour, maybe. A window cleaner.’
Dowd thought for a few seconds. ‘There’s this bloke Sarah found who comes round once a week to wash the cars. He’s got one of those little vans with a generator in it, you know?’
‘Since when?’
‘A couple of months now, I think.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I barely spoke to him, to be honest,’ Dowd said. ‘You’d be better off asking Sarah.’
‘Like I said, we were planning on talking to her anyway.’
Dowd grunted and looked away, drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. The sky outside Graham Fowler’s window had been clear, but glancing out of this one, Thorne could see that a blanket of grey cloud was slowly moving to darken the day.
‘What’s the problem with you and your wife, Andrew?’ Thorne asked. When Dowd looked up sharply, he said, ‘Look, I won’t even try to pretend it’s got anything to do with the case, but
. . .’
Dowd began fingering the col ar of his shirt. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘There’s no point me kidding you. I’m not the easiest person in the world to live with, al right?’
‘You and me both,’ Thorne said.
‘I’m on a fair few tablets which don’t help matters. Been on al sorts, more or less since I was a kid.’
Thorne remembered the relevant chapter from one of the books he’d been reading. Since Raymond Garvey caved your mother’s head in, he thought. Since he dumped her on a patch of waste ground behind a bus station in Ealing.
‘But Sarah knows how to push al my buttons. She’s a bloody expert at it. It’s like she
enjoys
pushing them . . . pushing one in particular. You know how some women just get off on winding you up? Sometimes, I think it’s the only time she actual y feels anything, feels properly alive. Like she thinks her life’s shit and the only way she can get her blood pumping is to push and push and push until she gets a reaction. Until she forces me to push back. Wel , I’m sick of pushing. I just need to get to a place where she can’t reach me, do you understand?
Not just in my head, I mean.’
Thorne nodded, guessing that he was the first person Dowd had ever said this to, but that he’d been rehearsing it. He suddenly had a vision of the man tramping around the Lakes al day, working out what he’d say to his wife when he had the chance. Getting pissed in the pub each night, trying to forget why he was there. Going back to some damp B&B and reaching for the scissors and the razor.
‘One button in particular, you said.’
‘Kids,’ Dowd said quickly. ‘She wanted them and I absolutely didn’t.’
Thorne blinked. ‘Tricky.’
‘Oh, yes. A few days before I buggered off she got pissed and started talking about finding someone who
did
want them.’ He folded his arms and dropped his head back. ‘Maybe that bloke who washes the cars would oblige. A couple of quick squirts . . .’
‘Sorry,’ Thorne said. He wasn’t, not particularly, but it felt like the right thing to say.
When he stood up to leave, Thorne saw Dowd’s confident mask slip a little, saw something like disappointment that the conversation was over. There was fear in his eyes, too, as he fol owed Thorne towards the door.
‘You wil catch this bloke, right?’
‘We’l do our best.’
Dowd nodded fast. ‘’Course, yeah, sorry. So, talk to Sarah. See if it leads anywhere. You know, this car-washer business.’
‘I’l let you know how we get on,’ Thorne said.
When Thorne was reaching for the door, Dowd stepped close to him. Said, ‘Why would anyone want to bring kids into a world like this? A sick world.’
Certainly a weird one, Thorne thought a little later, as he walked back to the car. When one man asks you to pass on his regards to his mates in the soup queue while another has nothing to say to his own wife.
‘How do people get like that?’ Louise asked. ‘Why would they stay together for that long if they hate each other so much?’
‘Easier than being on their own, maybe?’
‘No . . .’
‘Or it’s like he said and some people just enjoy conflict. Doesn’t light
my
candle, but what do I know?’ Thorne had told her about his conversation with Andrew Dowd, about the dysfunctional nature of his marriage. He had not bothered mentioning the central disagreement that Dowd claimed lay at the heart of it. That one button in particular.
Louise shook her head. ‘If it doesn’t work, you should get out.’
‘I’l bear that in mind.’
‘Good. Because if you start pissing me off, I’l just trade you in for a younger model.’
Thorne was on the sofa with a beer. He had been looking through his copy of Nick Maier’s book on the Garvey kil ings, rereading those sections that dealt with the deaths of Andrew Dowd’s and Graham Fowler’s mothers, and the harrowing chapter that detailed the murder of Frances Walsh, the mother of Simon. Her body was the third to be discovered, though it was later determined that she had been the first victim.
A spot of light entertainment after dinner.
Louise lay on the floor, making a fuss of Elvis, moving a finger back and forth under the cat’s chin. Elvis closed her eyes and stretched her neck towards her new best friend. Thorne watched, thinking that Elvis was rarely that affectionate with him. She had been owned by a woman before Thorne got her - albeit one who didn’t know the cat was a she - so perhaps that was the reason. Or maybe it was something to do with pheromones, whatever they were. Or maybe the cat just enjoyed winding him up.
‘Seriously, though,’ Louise said, ‘life’s too short.’
Thorne glanced down at the cover of the book on the sofa next to him. He wasn’t arguing.