‘Hope you’ve left some bread,’ Greg said, flicking on the kettle. He heard another grunt as he walked to the bread-bin, then a mumbled request for an apology as he moved to the fridge. ‘Oh, right, as if you would have scoffed it al . . .’ He scanned the inside of the fridge, looking in vain for a yoghurt he knew had been there the day before. Kieron, the flatmate who had moved out at the end of the previous year, had a habit of polishing off the last of the communal bread, milk or whatever, as wel as eating stuff that had never been his in the first place. Now Alex was shaping up to be almost as bad. But Greg was more inclined to forgive his own sister, and she did leave the bathroom smel ing a lot nicer than Kieron had done.
She pushed the paper away when he final y brought over his tea and toast and sat down. ‘You’re going in early.’
‘Twelve o’clock lecture,’ Greg said. ‘Henry the sodding second. And it’s not real y what the rest of the world would cal early.’
‘Feels early enough to me.’
‘What time did you get in?’
‘I don’t know,’ Alex said. ‘Not
stupidly
late. But a bunch of us ended up in some place in Islington where they were necking these lethal-looking vodka shots.’
‘
They
were necking?’
Alex grinned. ‘Fair enough, I necked a few.’ She pointed as Greg shook his head and slurped his tea. ‘You can’t get al big brother-ish, matey. Not with some of the things
you
get up to.’
Greg blushed, which annoyed him, then he got even more annoyed when Alex giggled knowingly and he blushed some more. ‘Look, you’ve only been here two weeks, that’s al I’m saying.’ He cut her off when she opened her mouth. ‘And don’t tel me to “chil ax” or whatever. You’re not twelve.’
‘I’m making friends,’ she said.
‘Wel , you need to pace yourself. Oh yeah, and maybe do some
work
.’ He struck his chest theatrical y. ‘I know,
mental
idea . . .’
‘Like you said, I’ve only been here two weeks.’ She reached across, tried and failed to grab a piece of his toast. ‘And, you know . . . it’s
drama
. It’s not like there’s a lot of work to do.’
‘How thril ed was the old man when you got a place here? When you told him you were moving in with me?’
She shrugged.
‘And how pissed off would he be if he knew you were caning it every other night?’
Just when it looked as though Alex was about to shout, or storm off, she produced the same butter-wouldn’t-melt smile she’d been turning on for eighteen years. ‘You’re just jealous because you got lumbered with a proper course, with proper lectures,’ she said. ‘Henry the sodding second.’
‘Dul as fucking ditchwater,’ he said.
They both laughed, and she made another, more successful grab for the toast. Greg cal ed her a sneaky bitch. Alex cal ed him a tight-arse, then got up to make them both some more.
‘You going to be in the Rocket tonight?’
Alex turned from the worktop, pul ed a mock-horrified face. ‘After what you just said?’
‘I’m just letting you know I’l probably be in there.’
‘Right.
Probably
.’ She pointed accusingly, with a knife smeared in butter and Marmite. The Rocket complex on Hol oway Road was the student union of the Metropolitan University’s north London campus. It was also home to one of the city’s trendiest clubs and until very recently had not been a place her brother had been known to frequent very often. ‘That’s three times this week.’
‘So?’
‘Making a bit of a habit of it, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘The drink’s cheap.’
‘Right, so it’s not like you’ve got your eye on anyone, or anything like that?’
Greg blushed again and stood up. He told her he was running too late for more toast, that he needed to get ready. She shouted after him, told him he could eat it on the way. He shouted back: ‘Yeah, if I want to get kil ed . . .’
Five minutes later, he was wheeling his bike on to the pavement and doing his best to finish the toast Alex had thrust into his hand at the top of the stairs. That was often the way it went. However much their father thought Greg would be keeping an eye his little sister, she was the one who usual y ended up doing the looking after. Fussing and checking up on him, and general y behaving like the mother they didn’t have.
As he climbed on to the bike and waited for a gap in the traffic, he glanced up and saw her waving from her bedroom window. She pressed her face against the glass like a child. He waved back and cycled away, heading for the Hornsey Road, the Emirates Stadium glorious against the grey sky ahead of him.
Greg raised a hand to wave again, in case Alex was stil watching.
Unaware of the eyes on him.
On both of them.
FOUR
Though what was inside their heads remained largely a mystery to Dave Hol and, he had seen the way that those directly affected by violent death could seem altered physical y. It was as if they had been hol owed out by it; or, as in the case of George Walker, shrunken slightly. Walker was six two or three and thickset, but sitting opposite him in the Interview Room at Colindale station, Hol and saw a man who seemed almost slight.
‘Won’t be too much longer,’ Hol and said. ‘It real y helps us to get everything down on tape, you know?’
The Murder Squad was based five minutes away at the Peel Centre, but the brown, three-storey building that housed the offices was no more than the administrative HQ. While investigations were orchestrated from Becke House, officers needing the use of interview rooms, custody suites or good old-fashioned cel s would usual y make the short journey up the road to Colindale.
‘Anything I can do,’ Walker said.
Hol and nodded. He had no way of knowing what George Walker had sounded like before his wife was murdered, but now even his voice seemed smal . ‘So, the day before yesterday, you came home at the usual time?’
‘Twelve forty-five, give or take.’
‘And stayed for an hour or so.’
Walker nodded, then said, ‘Yes, an hour,’ when Hol and prompted him to speak for the benefit of the tape. He was a teacher at a school close to where he and his wife lived, and Hol and had already established that he came home for lunch every day.
‘School meals not got any better, then?’
‘They’re pretty good actual y,’ Walker said. He’d been staring at the tabletop, picking at the edge of it with a thumbnail. Now, he looked up and directly at Hol and. ‘I just enjoyed going home.’
‘Wish I could do the same,’ Hol and said. ‘The canteen here’s bloody atrocious—’
The door opened and Thorne walked in. Hol and announced his entrance for the tape, then paused the recording while Thorne made his apologies to Walker for being late. Walker told him not to worry about it.
‘Traffic’s a nightmare,’ Thorne said.
He had popped into the Whittington en route and caught the tail-end of the Friday morning rush hour. They had final y performed the D and C the previous afternoon but had kept Louise in overnight. She had eaten an enormous breakfast and was in better spirits than at any time since she and Thorne had been told about the miscarriage. Thorne could not explain why, but it had made him oddly nervous.
‘I just want to get home now,’ she had said.
He had told her he would do his best to pick her up at lunchtime, or to let her know if there was a problem.
In the Interview Room, once Thorne had sat down, Hol and quickly fil ed him in on what had been covered so far, and they resumed recording George Walker’s statement.
‘Tel us about when you got back after school,’ Thorne said.
Walker cleared his throat. ‘It just felt wrong the minute I came through the door,’ he said.
‘Wrong?’
‘Different . . .’
‘This would have been what time?’
‘Just before five,’ Walker said. ‘I run a chess club after school on a Wednesday. Otherwise it would have been earlier.’
Thorne glanced over at Hol and, made sure he saw the significance, then nodded to Walker to continue.
‘I caught a whiff of something, which was . . . the blood, obviously. There was a vase on the floor in the hal , and water everywhere. She must have tried to fight him off, don’t you think?’
‘We’re stil trying to put it al together,’ Hol and said.
‘So, I was cal ing Emily’s name out in the hal , and then I walked into the kitchen. Wel , you saw it.’
‘And you phoned us straight away, didn’t you?’ Thorne glanced down at his notes, although he knew the time very wel . ‘We’ve got the cal to the emergency services logged at four fifty-six. You sounded very calm.’
‘Did I? I think I was just in shock.’ Walker shook his head, breathed noisily for ten seconds, then said, ‘I can’t even remember cal ing.’
‘What about afterwards?’ Thorne asked. ‘Do you remember running out into the street? Knocking on your next-door neighbour’s door and shouting about the blood?’
More shaking of the head. ‘Sort of.’ Walker’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I can’t remember exactly what I said . . . shouted. I can remember my throat being sore afterwards and not knowing why. I was kneeling down with Emily by then, waiting for someone to come. It seemed to be taking ages, you know?’ The tears were coming now, but Walker did not seem bothered. He casual y lowered his head and pushed them away with the heel of his hand when he needed to. ‘I real y wanted to touch her,’ he said. ‘I knew I shouldn’t, because it would mess up the evidence or whatever. Seen too many of those TV shows, I think. But I just wanted to hold her hand for a few minutes. To reach inside that bag and tuck her hair behind her ear.’
Hol and looked hard at Thorne until he got the nod. ‘Do you want to take a few minutes, Mr Walker?’ He pushed back his chair, mumbled something about finding some tissues.
‘Actual y, I think we can leave it there,’ Thorne said.
Walker nodded, the gratitude evident in his eyes before he closed them.
As soon as Hol and had stopped the tape, Thorne was out of his chair and moving towards the door. ‘Right, let’s see if we can get you a cab organised.’
Walker rose slowly to his feet. ‘The hardest thing was tel ing Emily’s dad,’ he said. ‘After what happened to Emily’s mother, I mean.’ He turned to look at Thorne. ‘How bloody unlucky can one family get?’
‘Sorry, I’m not with you,’ Thorne said.
Walker seemed confused. He looked at Hol and, who shook his head to indicate that he was every bit as in the dark.
‘Oh, I thought you must have known,’ Walker said. ‘My wife’s mother was murdered herself, fifteen years ago. Emily’s maiden name was Sharpe.’
Thorne could do no more than say ‘sorry’ again. As a matter of course, Emily Walker’s name had been run through the CRIMINT system to see if she had a criminal history, but there was nothing on record. A tragedy in her family’s past would certainly not have been considered relevant criminal intel igence.
Walker was stil looking from Thorne to Hol and and back, as though he were expecting the name he had mentioned to be recognised. He reached for his jacket and, when he spoke, it was clear he was wel used to what he was saying being the end of a conversation.
‘She was one of Raymond Garvey’s.’
They watched Walker’s taxi pul away, and began walking in the other direction, back towards the Peel Centre. It wasn’t quite ten yet. The morning was mild, but there was the lightest drizzle in the air.
‘I made a cal before he came in,’ Hol and said. ‘He was back at school by two. Didn’t leave until a quarter to five. I can talk to Hendricks again if you like, double-check to see if he’s sure about the timings.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Thorne said.
They picked up the pace a little in an effort to stay as dry as possible.
‘I was thinking about him going back to school after he’d had his lunch,’ Hol and said. ‘Suddenly had this image of the kil er watching him leave, marching straight up and ringing the doorbel . Emily opening it, thinking her old man had forgotten something.’
Thorne shook his head. ‘Times stil don’t fit.’
‘Just had that image, you know?’
They walked on, turning left on to Aerodrome Road and fal ing into step within a few paces.
‘I think you were right the other night,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s somebody she knew. Not
well
. . . not necessarily, anyway. Maybe he works in a local shop, does next-door’s garden, whatever.’
‘A face she recognises.’
‘That’s al he needs to be. You heard what Walker said about if it had been a different day. Sounds like whoever kil ed Emily
had
been watching, and for a while. He knew their movements, knew when the time was right.’
‘So he targeted her?’
‘Looks that way. He wasn’t just ringing doorbel s until someone answered that he liked the look of.’
‘Why Emily, though?’ Hol and asked.
Thorne looked sideways at him and Hol and acknowledged the stupidity of asking the question now, when they had so little to go on. When there were a thousand answers, and none at al . They both knew that the true answer, if they ever found it, would almost certainly give them their best chance of catching whoever had kil ed Emily Walker. At that moment, Thorne could do no better than a muttered ‘Christ knows’, before jogging across the road and walking quickly towards the main gate.
‘That’s weird though, isn’t it, this Garvey business?’ Hol and was doing his best to keep up, a few feet behind Thorne. ‘Before my time, but
shit
. . . that was a big case, wasn’t it?’
Ahead of him, Thorne was waving his ID at the officer inside the control box.
‘Did you work on it?’
Half a minute later, it was Hol and’s turn to wait, light rain blowing into his face, while his warrant card was checked. Thorne was already twenty feet clear of the barrier and moving across the car-park towards Becke House. He didn’t appear to have heard Hol and’s question.
Thorne
had
worked on the Raymond Garvey investigation, though not in any significant way. He’d knocked on a few doors, been part of a fingertip-search team one night. At the time, it was the biggest investigation for a decade or more, with hundreds of detectives working to catch a man who would eventual y murder seven women. There can’t have been too many officers in the Met who had not been involved in some capacity.