Thorne watched her squeezing the napkin, thinking that if Andrew Dowd’s version of events was to be believed, a row such as the one she was describing
had
become perfectly normal. Thinking, as she looked at her watch, then made noises about having to go, that he liked her far more than he had ten minutes earlier, especial y when he considered what the rows between her and her husband had been about.
‘It’s al right,’ Thorne said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
He ordered another coffee and stayed for ten minutes or so after Sarah Dowd had left. Thinking that the background music - salsa, was it? - was actual y pretty good and that, what with his newly discovered appreciation for classical music, perhaps his taste was broadening a little. He wondered if one day he might even grow to like jazz, then decided that was probably pushing it.
Thinking for the most part about a kil er who was perhaps the most meticulous, the most
organised
, he had ever tried to catch.
Had Anthony Garvey ever planned to let Nicholas Maier write his book, or had that been no more than a scheme to extort the money he needed? When did he first draw up his list of victims? How early in their relationship had he decided that Chloe Sinclair was expendable?
Wondering, as he stared at the passers-by, what plans Anthony Garvey was making now, with three of those on his list stil alive and wel , and with no way to reach them.
On his way out, Thorne was almost knocked flat by a man who then glared at him for daring to be in the way. Thorne said, ‘Sorry,’ then wished he hadn’t - the typical English response.
He winced at the rib-tickling slogan on the man’s T-shirt: IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO THE PUB
.
Walking back to where he had parked the BMW, Thorne decided that if a prick like that was lost, then those who knew him would surely be praying he stayed that way, or that anyone who found him left him exactly where he was.
TWENTY-NINE
‘I don’t know how you can stand the smel .’
‘What?’
‘It’s like . . . dried piss and damp, and you’re right up close to them.’
‘You’ve obviously not been to a post-mortem yet,’ Kitson said.
Trainee Detective Constable Bridges looked away to hide his embarrassment. He had been assigned to Kitson for the evening, and she could see that he was no more thril ed with the arrangement than she was. It was sensible, though. A night-time trawl around the West End’s less glamorous locations was unpredictable, and al six feet three of TDC Bridges was there as back-up as much as anything. Even though Yvonne Kitson could handle herself if it came to it, she supposed that the occasional stupid comment was a smal price to pay for feeling safe; and, green around the gil s as her companion might have been, he had at least been smart enough to stay back when she was talking to anyone.
That bit of the assignment obviously suited him.
They had already covered Leicester Square and the smal streets off Piccadil y Circus, and both were grateful for the mild weather. Kitson had shown pictures of Graham Fowler to anyone who looked as though they might be sleeping rough, and she was ready to produce an E-fit of Anthony Garvey if she got lucky. Thus far, the E-fit had stayed in her bag.
Having spoken to Tom Thorne and picked his brains about life on the streets, Kitson had not expected to strike lucky immediately. The population of rough sleepers around the West End was thankful y not huge, but it was fragmented into distinct cliques - the drinkers, the addicts, those with mental-health issues - and big enough for many of its members to be strangers to one another.
‘You shouldn’t have to look too hard, though,’ Thorne had told her. ‘People can move on quite quickly, or just disappear, but there’s a hard core who’ve been knocking around for years.’
Bridges was not quite so optimistic, or understanding. ‘Even if some of them have seen this bloke,’ he had said after the first hour, ‘most of them are too out of it to remember.’
They walked down to Trafalgar Square and along to Charing Cross station. An old man with an East European accent, a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders, shook his head at Fowler’s picture, though he was clearly finding it hard to focus. He pointed Kitson further up the Strand, where a soup run would shortly be taking place. ‘Be many types around there,’ he said.
Kitson thanked him, though the location was on the list that Fowler had provided anyway, and pressed a couple of quid into his hand.
‘You can probably claim that back on expenses,’ Bridges said, as they walked. ‘You know, as part of the inquiry.’
Kitson ignored him.
The van pul ed up just after nine-thirty in a quiet street behind Somerset House, between a smal park and the grand building that housed the headquarters of American Tobacco.
About two dozen men and women had been waiting, and they moved forward quickly to form a queue as soon as the serving hatch was lowered and the smel began to drift across the road.
Like the man at Charing Cross had said: many types.
Several customers took their soup or coffee and immediately drifted away, but others remained, standing alone and looking as though they preferred it that way, or gathered in smal groups on either side of the road. The first few people Kitson approached shook their heads, not interested or unfamiliar with Graham Fowler’s face, it was hard to tel the difference.
One man just stared at her and the woman next to him told her to piss off. Much as she wanted to do just that, Kitson persevered until she final y got a positive response from a Scotsman named Bobby who was standing on the edge of a group near the railings that ran alongside the park. He nodded enthusiastical y between slurps of tea and jabbed a finger at the picture. ‘Aye, I know that bloke.’
‘You sure? His name’s Graham Fowler.’
Bobby shrugged and peered again at the photo. He could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. ‘Graham, is it?’
‘Graham Fowler.’
More nodding. ‘Aye, I know that bloke.’
Others in the group moved across then, and two more men said that they recognised Fowler, too.
‘He’s al right, he is,’ Bobby continued. ‘Had a go at some arsehole who gobbed at me, down by the river.’
Another man said he would have punched the arsehole, but agreed that Graham, if that was his name, was a decent sort.
‘Not seen him for a few nights,’ Bobby said.
Bobby’s friend nodded at Kitson. ‘Why d’you think they’re going round showing everyone his picture? He’s dead as mutton, mate. Probably been done over by that arsehole who gobbed at you.’
‘That right?’ Bobby asked.
‘He’s fine,’ Kitson said. ‘He’s just staying with friends.’ She quickly dug out the E-fit. ‘We’re more interested in this man.’
‘Bloody terrible photo,’ Bobby said.
Kitson laughed along with everyone else. ‘Do any of you remember seeing him, probably hanging around whenever Graham was there?’
Bobby shook his head, but then another member of the group said, ‘Seen someone with the same eyes. Hair’s al wrong but the eyes are spot on. I thought he looked a bit mental, so I stayed wel clear.’
‘When was this?’
‘Two weeks ago, maybe. Right here, waiting for the van.’
One of the others agreed and said he’d spoken to the man with the smal , dark eyes. Kitson asked if he could remember the conversation.
‘He was just asking about where various places were, you know . . . shelters and day centres, what times they opened. Al that.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Said he was new, just getting to know the ropes, so I put him straight. Wel , we was al new to this once weren’t we, so you try and be helpful. And it doesn’t bother me if they’ve got a screw or two loose.’
‘Graham was here, was he?’
‘Yeah, far as I remember.’ He finished his drink and turned to head back to the van for more. ‘Yeah, Graham was probably knocking around somewhere.’
‘You sure he’s not dead?’ Bobby asked.
Kitson thanked everyone and put away the pictures. She was turning to leave when a man she had not spotted before came marching across the road in her direction. He was probably mid-twenties, skinny as a stick, with bad skin and dirty-blond hair teased into sharp spikes. His walk was oddly purposeful, and the fact that he was grinning was probably the only reason why Bridges did not step forward to meet him.
‘I know one of your lot,’ he said.
Kitson was wary. ‘Oh yes?’
‘We did a job together once, as it goes. I helped him catch a bloke. You can ask him about it.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Thorne.’ He stared at her, waiting for some sign of recognition and seeing none. ‘Been a few years, like, but you don’t forget stuff like that. We’re talking seriously heavy business.’ He stepped a little closer. ‘You know him?’
‘Yeah, I know him.’
The grin grew wider and Kitson got a good look at what few teeth the boy had left, brown against grey gums. She could almost smel the rot. A junkie’s mouth.
‘Tel him Spike says hel o, yeah? He’l know who you mean.’ He began rooting in the pockets of his jacket and eventual y produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Tel him to take care.’
Walking away, Bridges was keen to know what the boy had been talking about, but Kitson ignored the question, talking instead about what Bobby and the others had told her. She said they should be pleased with a good night’s work: ‘It puts Garvey here. Tel s us a bit more about the way he does things.’
Bridges looked unconvinced. ‘Doesn’t help us catch him, though, does it? Not real y sure of the point.’
‘It’s cal ed building a case, al right? Helps us put him away when we do catch him.’
‘If you say so.’
Kitson picked up her speed and moved a step or two ahead of the TDC. The lad was probably able to handle himself, and if she’d been interested she might have said he wasn’t bad looking, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d got herself lumbered with the superintendent’s idiot son.
Bridges grumbled behind her. ‘It al takes so bloody long.’
‘You want a job that’s quick and easy,’ Kitson said, ‘you made a very bad career choice.’
‘I thought he’d be back by now, to be honest.’ Louise took another look at her watch and pul ed up her legs. ‘I knew he was going to be late, but it’s usual y before this. Maybe there’s been a break in the case.’
Hendricks was sitting at the other end of the sofa. ‘He’l cal if something’s happened,’ he said. He reached down for the wine bottle and poured each of them another glass. ‘This
is
a bloody awful case, Lou.’
‘Why does he always get the bad ones?’
‘They seem to suit him.’
‘Maybe I should be worried about that,’ Louise said. ‘If he’s going to be the father of my child.’
‘Don’t worry. With any luck, the kid’l get your looks and your personality. ’
‘Right, and his bloody taste in music.’
They were talking over an album Hendricks had dug out from the back of a cupboard, a CD he’d left at the flat one time or another, something they both knew Thorne would have hated.
‘I’ve got to say, I was amazed he had it in him at al .’
‘He was sound asleep at the time,’ Louise said. ‘I just helped myself.’
Hendricks laughed for a few seconds longer than he might have done with fewer glasses of wine inside him. Said, ‘So you
are
going to try again?’
‘We’ve not talked about it, and maybe not yet . . . but I want to, yeah.’
Hendricks drank, holding the wine in his mouth for a few seconds before swal owing. ‘Funny, I remember sitting here a couple of years ago . . . wel , lying here actual y, because I was staying over while I was getting the damp sorted in my flat. I was upset, because I real y wanted a kid back then and the bloke I was with at the time wasn’t keen, so . . .’
Louise shuffled across and let a hand drop on to Hendricks’ knee. ‘I remember tel ing him about seeing this . . . exhibition on children’s mortuary facilities, this special room al done up to look like a kid’s bedroom. I’d seen a kid in there and it was like being kicked in the stomach. Anyway, I was tel ing him al this and suddenly I was just lying here, crying like a girl. No offence.’
‘None taken.’
Hendricks took another swig, emptied the glass. ‘Sil y soft sod.’
‘You’d stil like to have a child, though?’ Louise asked. ‘“Back then”, you said.’
‘Yeah, ’course I would. But now it’s just like . . . if it happens, it happens, you know? There’s no point getting worked up about it.’
‘That’s how I feel, I think. I
say
that - if we get pregnant again I’l probably be going up the wal - but I reckon I’m less stressed about the whole idea now.’
‘That’s good,’ Hendricks said. ‘I mean, stress can have a lot to do with . . . you know.’
‘How was Tom? When you got upset?’
‘Awkward.’
Louise nodded, half smiling. ‘That’s how he’s been about this. Like he doesn’t know what to say. Or he wants to say something but he doesn’t know how to get it out.’
‘He’l get there in the end.’
‘Yeah, that’s him,’ Louise said. ‘Awkward. And only happy when he’s got some awful murder case to get his teeth into.’
‘I don’t know about happy.’
‘OK then,
comfortable
.’
Hendricks thought, said, ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’
And they sat there and carried on drinking, comfortable enough with one another to say nothing for a while.
Thorne had rounded off a longish day with a quick one in the Oak, which had turned into a couple once Brigstocke and a few of the other lads had turned up. He had not meant to stay quite so long, but was glad he did, knowing now, as he drove back towards Kentish Town, that he had needed to let off a little steam.
It was better for everyone concerned.
He reached across to the passenger seat for his mobile, deciding to compound the fact that he was almost certainly over the limit by committing a second offence. If he were stopped, it would be by one of only two kinds of copper. There were those who would cal him al sorts of sil y beggar and look the other way and those who did their job properly and would gleeful y do him without turning a hair.