'So you heard nothing?' Thorne asked. 'No raised voices?' The boy shook his head. 'I heard the bell go on the door when someone opened it, but that isn't unusual.'
'It was a bit early, though, wasn't it?'
'We often have customers who come in on their way to work, to pick up a film that's been returned the night before.'
'Anything else?'
'I was in the bathroom after that. There was water running. If not, I might have heard something.' His hand went to his face, pressed and wiped. 'They had silencers on their guns, didn't they?' It was an odd thing to say. Thorne wondered if perhaps the boy knew more than he was telling, but decided it was probably down to seeing far too many of the shitty British gangster movies his father kept on the shelves.
'What makes you think there was more than one of them, Yusuf?'
'A week ago two boys came in. About the same age as me, my father said. They tried to scare him.'
'What did they do?'
'Pathetic stuff, threats. Dog mess in a video case. Throwing a litter bin through the window.' He pointed towards the shop front where a thick black curtain now ran across the plate-glass window and front door, rigged up to hide the activity within from the eyes of passers-by. 'There was a letter first. My father ignored it.'
'Did he keep the letter?'
'My mother will have filed it somewhere. She never throws anything away.'
The boy realised what he'd said, and blinked slowly. The hand that went to his face stayed there a little longer this time. Thorne remembered the sign he'd seen stuck to the front of the till: You are being recorded. 'Did your father get it on tape? The incident with the two boys?'
'I should think so. He recorded everything, but it won't be there any more.'
Thorne asked the question with a look.
'Because he used the same few tapes over and over again,' Yusuf said.
'Changed them half a dozen times every day, and recorded over them. He was always trying to save money, but this business with the videotapes was really stupid, considering that we sold the bloody things. Always trying to save money.'
The boy's head dropped. The tears that came were left to run their course, the hands that had been wiping them away now clutching the countertop.
'You're not a child, Yusuf,' Thorne said. 'You're far too clever to buy any of my bullshit, so I won't give you any, all right?' He glanced back towards the screens, towards what lay behind them. 'This is not about an argument, or an affair, or an unpaid bill. I'm not going to tell you that I can catch whoever did this, because I don't know if I can. I do know I'm going to have a bloody good try, though.'
Thorne waited, but the boy did not look up. He gave a small nod to Terry, who stood and put an arm on Yusuf's shoulder. The constable said something, a few murmured words of comfort, as Thorne closed the door behind him.
He arrived back in the shop in time to see the black curtain swept aside and DCI Nick Tughan stepping through it like a bad actor.
'Right. What have we got?' Tughan was a stick-thin Irishman with less than generous lips. His short, sandy hair was always clean, and the collars crisp beneath a variety of expensive suits. 'Who's filling me in.?'
Thorne smiled and shrugged: Me, given half a chance, you tosser. He was happy to see Holland walking across to do the honours, clearly not relishing the task, but knowing that he'd earn himself a drink later. A pint sounded like a good idea, even at eleven o'clock in the morning. Including the Izzigils, there were a dozen people inside the small shop, which, combined with the heat coming off the SOC lights, had turned the place into a sauna very quickly. Keen to get some air, Thorne stepped towards the front door, just as another person pushed through the curtain. This one was dressed from head to foot in black himself.
'What happened to you last night?' Hendricks asked. Thorne sighed. He'd completely forgotten to call and tell Hendricks he'd be stopping over at his old man's. 'I'll tell you later.'
'Is everything all right?'
'Yeah, fine. just my dad.'
'Is he OK?'
'He's a pain in the arse.'
'I stayed up. You should have called.'
'Oh, that's sweet.' It was Tughan's voice. The DCI was standing over the bodies of Muslum and Hanya Izzigil, a mock-sweet smile on his face.
'No, really, it's very touching that he's worried about you.' Thorne was still spitting blood ten minutes later when Holland joined him on the pavement outside the shop.
'If ever there was an incentive to solve a case.'
'Right,' Thorne said. 'Get shot of the slippery bugger.'
'Mind you, he had a point. It was touching.' Thorne turned, ready to let off some steam, but the broad grin on Holland's face softened the scowl on his own. He let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the shop window. 'You look rough, Dave.'
Thorne had seen DC Dave Holland do a lot of growing up in recent years, no more so than since his daughter had been born. The floppy blond hair had been cut shorter recently, which put a couple of years on him, and the lines around his eyes had added a few more. Thorne knew that very few coppers stayed fresh-faced for long. Those that did were lucky or lazy, and Holland was neither of those things. He'd saved Thorne's life the year before, and the circumstances the dark, depraved intimacies which the pair of them had witnessed and experienced had rarely been talked about since the resulting court case.
'I'm utterly knackered,' Holland said. Thorne looked at the gingerish stubble dotted across the pale and slightly sunken cheeks. Maybe the change in him was due to responsibility as much as experience. A few years ago, and particularly during his girlfriend's pregnancy, Holland hadn't shown a great deal of either.
'Is it the baby?'
'Actually, it's Sophie,' Holland said. 'It's probably hormones or something, but she's at me three or four times a night demanding sex.'
'What?'
'Of course it's the baby! Have you had a sense-of-humour bypass?'
'I didn't get a lot of sleep myself. I was staying at my dad's place.'
'Sorry, I forgot. How's he doing?'
'I reckon he'll be the death of me before he manages to kill himself.'
On the other side of the road, a small crowd had gathered to stare at the comings and goings at Izzigil's video shop. The cafe from which Constable Terry had run to see what all the screaming was about had now become a convenient vantage-point. The owner was cheerfully scurrying around, serving coffee and pastries to those who wanted to sit outside and gawp.
Holland took out a packet of ten Silk Cut. He scrounged a light from a woman walking past with a push chair.
'How long's that been going on?' Thorne asked, nodding towards the cigarette. He hadn't smoked in a long time, but would still happily have killed for one.
'Since the baby, I suppose. It was fags or heroin.'
'Well, you're in the right place for that.' North of Finsbury Park, Green Lanes straightened into a strut of what had become known as the Harringay Ladder. Looking at the bustle around its shops and businesses at that moment, it was easy to see the area for what it was: one of the busiest and certainly one of the most racially diverse areas of the city. Of course, that did not explain the presence of armed police on its streets. A fierce gun-battle in those same streets six months earlier had left three men dead, and shown the other side of the area only too clearly. Harringay was home to a number of gangs operating within the Turkish community. According to figures from the National Criminal Intelligence Service, they were in control of over three-quarters of the seventy tonnes of heroin that passed through London every year. They protected their investments fiercely.
'Does Tughan think it's about smack?'
Holland wasn't listening. 'Sorry.?' Thorne pointed back to the shop. 'The Izzigils. Does our gangland expert in there think this is a turf war?'
