The room wasn't warm, and up to this point Thorne had kept his leather jacket on. Now he stood and dropped it across the back of his chair. Chamberlain stayed where she was. Thorne guessed that her smart, grey business suit was new. He thought she might have had her hair done as well, cut a little shorter and highlighted, but he'd said nothing.
'I hope this isn't an obvious question,' Thorne said. 'But why did you confess?'
'Billy Ryan made sure that every face in London thought I'd done it. I was well stitched up. That lighter they found by the fence was left there deliberately.' He looked at Chamberlain. 'You saw what Kevin Kelly did to the people he guessed were responsible. Imagine what he'd have done to me. I had Kelly after me for what he thought I'd tried to do to his Alison, and Billy after my blood because I was the only person who knew who'd really set it all up.' He turned back to Thorne. I was a marked man.'
'So, prison was a preferable option, was it?' Rooker took the lid off his tobacco tin. He put the cigarette together without looking down, and spoke as if he were trying to explain the mysteries of calculus. 'I thought about running, pissing off to Spain or further, but the idea of spending years looking over my shoulder, shitting myself every time the doorbell went…' Chamberlain shook her head. She glanced at Thorne and then looked back to Rooker. 'I'm not buying this. You'd be just as much of a marked man in prison.'
Rooker put down his half-finished roll-up. 'Do you think I didn't know that?' He reached down and gathered up the bottom of the bib and the sweatshirt underneath, then hoisted them up above sagging, hairy nipples to reveal a jagged scar running across his ribs. 'See? I was a marked man from the moment I walked into Gartree, and Belmarsh, and this place.'
'So why not just take your chances outside?'
'It's on my terms in here. I'm not scared of it.' He pulled down the sweatshirt, smoothed the bib across his belly. 'On the outside it could be anyone who's on a big pay-day to take you out. It's the bloke who wants to know the time. The bloke taking a piss next to you, asking you for a light, whatever. In here, I know who it's going to be. I can see it coming and I can protect myself. I've had a couple of scrapes, but I'm still breathing. That's how I know I did the right thing.'
Thorne watched Rooker's yellow tongue snake out and moisten the edge of the Rizla. He rolled the cigarette, slid it between his lips and lit up. 'You did the right thing by Billy Ryan as well. You never grassed him up.'
'I wasn't a complete fucking idiot.'
Chamberlain drummed her fingers on the table. 'That 'honour among thieves' shite again.'
'So why now?' Thorne asked.
'Listen, it was you who came to see me, remember. Started me thinking about this. Started people round here whispering.'
' Why now, Rooker?
Rooker removed the cigarette from his mouth, held it between a nicotine-stained finger and thumb. 'I've had enough. I'm breathing, but the air tastes of stale sweat and other men's shit. I'm arguing with rapists and perverts about whose turn it is to change channel or play fucking pool next. I've got a grandson who's signing forms with West Ham in a few weeks. I'd like to see him play.' He blinked slowly, took a drag, flicked away the ash. 'It's time.' Chamberlain stood up and moved towards the door. 'That's all very moving, and I'm sure it's just the kind of stuff the parole board loves to hear.'
Rooker stretched. 'Not so far, it isn't. That's why I need a bit of help.'
'I still don't see why you confessed to the attempted murder of Jessica Clarke. You could have got yourself safely banged up by putting yourself in the frame for any number of things. That security manager you tied to a chair and set light to, for instance. Why claim that you tried to kill a fourteen-year-old girl?'
Thorne had the answer. 'Because you're less of a marked man on a VP wing. Right, Gordon? You're harder to get at.' Rooker stared, and smoked.
There was a knock, and the prison officer put his head round the door, offered tea. Thorne accepted gracefully and Chamberlain declined. The officer bristled a little at Rooker's request for a cup but disappeared quietly enough at the nod from Thorne.
'So, who was it?' Chamberlain said.
Thorne knew that she was thinking about the letters, about the calls, about the man she'd thought was smiling up at her from her front garden.
'If it wasn't you who took Billy Ryan's money, you must have some idea who did.'
Rooker shook his head. 'Look, I haven't got a clue who this nutter is who's been pestering you.'
'Who burned Jessica Clarke?' Chamberlain asked.
'I haven't got the faintest, and that's the truth. I don't know anyone who would have done it. Who could have. Over the years, I've started to wonder if maybe it was Billy himself…' They sat in the car for a minute, saying nothing. When Thorne leaned forward to turn the key, Chamberlain suddenly spoke.
'What did you make of all that?'
Thorne glanced at her, exhaled loudly. 'Where do you want to start?'
'How about with Rooker getting himself put away for something he didn't do?'
'I've heard similar stories once or twice,' Thorne said. 'I suppose if you've got a head case like Billy Ryan on your back.'
'Twenty years, though?'
'Yeah, well, he didn't bank on that, did he?' Chamberlain turned her head, stared out across the car park.
'You not convinced?' Thorne asked.
She spoke quietly, without looking at him. 'I haven't got the foggiest bloody idea. I'm not far away from a free bus pass, and, to be honest, I'm no better at working out what goes on in the heads of people like Gordon Rooker than I was when I first pulled on a uniform.' Thorne started the car. As he pulled out of the car park his mind drifted back to how their interview with Rooker had ended. Thorne had almost gasped when he'd suddenly remembered something else from Chamberlain's history lesson. 'Hang on, didn't Ryan marry Alison Kelly a few years after all this happened?' Chamberlain had nodded. 'He tries to kill her, pays someone to set fire to her, maybe even does it himself. and then marches her down the aisle as soon as she's old enough?'
'That was the perfect fucking touch,' Rooker had said. 'That was good business, wasn't it? The heir marrying the daughter, like he was cementing alliances.' He had chuckled at the sight of Thorne shaking his head in disbelief, then nodded towards Carol Chamberlain. 'She'll tell you about Billy Ryan. She knows him. She knows what he's like.'
Chamberlain had remained silent.
Rooker stared at Thorne through a sheet of blue smoke. 'Billy Ryan's cold.'
SIX
On Monday morning, just after ten-thirty, Tughan stuck his head round the door, scanned the bodies in the Major Incident Room, and backed out again, his face like a smacked arse.
Holland checked his watch.
Samir Karim shuffled his sizeable backside along the edge of a desk and leaned in close to him. 'Someone's in trouble,' he said. Holland nodded. He knew who Karim was talking about. Behind an adjacent desk, DI Yvonne Kitson had her head buried in a thick, bound manuscript. 'What you reading, Guv?' he asked. Kitson looked over the top of a page and held up the latest edition of the Murder Investigation Manual. A weighty set of strategies, models and protocols produced by the National Crime Faculty. It was, in theory at least, required reading for all senior investigative officers, and covered everything from crime-scene assessment and media management to offender profiling and family liaison. If there was a 'book' by which homicide detectives were supposed to do things, this was it.
'Having trouble sleeping?' Holland asked. Kitson smiled. 'It's not exactly holiday reading, but it doesn't hurt to keep up with the latest guidelines, Dave.'
'Trouble with guidelines for solving murders is that they're only really any use if the murderers are following some of their own.'
