damn sight higher than Jesmond even
…' He took a breath and reached for the phone. As he and Brigstocke got up and headed towards the door, Thorne thought about what Brigstocke had known and had chosen not to pass on. He wondered if he should have a chat with him about whose side they were supposed to be on. He decided it was probably not the right time. By lunchtime in the Royal Oak, the mood of the team had lightened a little, though it might just have been the power of beer. The Oak was the team's regular, but for no other reason than proximity. No one could remember a time when it hadn't been full of coppers, so no one could swear that they were the reason for the atmosphere, or the lack of it. It wasn't that Trevor, the cadaverous landlord, hadn't made an effort. He'd decorated the front of the lacquered-pine bar with Polaroids of various female regulars, all hoisting up their T-shirts to reveal bras or bare breasts. Elsewhere, he'd gone for a Spanish theme, with a good deal of fake wrought iron, a couple of sombreros gathering dust on a shelf above the bar, and two days a week when he cut up pork pies and Scotch eggs into small pieces and called it a tap as menu.
There was no Tughan, Kitson or Brigstocke in the pub, but most of the others were there. They raised a glass to Marcus Moloney. His death had eased a little of the tension between the Serious Crime Group mob and their counterparts from SO7. They were understandably united in their resolve to bring to justice those responsible for his death. For all the recent deaths.
Thorne applauded the sentiment, even if that's all it was. He hoped that the cracks wouldn't begin to show again too soon. He pushed away a half-eaten plate of chicken and chips as Holland slid in next to him with a tray of drinks. By now, everyone had moved on to Coke, mineral water or orange juice. Thorne, feeling himself starting to wilt a little, poured out his can of Red Bull. He glanced up at Holland and remembered the invitation he'd turned down. 'Did you go for that beer last night? Sounded like you were set on a major session?'
'Just had a couple in here with Andy.' He nodded towards the other side of the bar where Andy Stone, Sam Karim and a female DC from SO7 were deep in conversation. 'Good job I didn't, really. Bearing in mind what time we were called out.'
'I wasn't exactly stone-cold sober myself at four o'clock this morning,' Thorne said. 'Given what was down by that canal, it was probably a good thing.'
'Found out something brilliant in here last night, though.' Holland grinned and inched his chair a little closer to Thorne's. 'You know Andy Stone reckons he has quite a bit of success with the women?'
Thorne followed Holland's gaze: Stone and the female DC seemed to be getting on extremely well. 'Yes?' Thorne stretched the word out.
'He told me one of his tricks. He'd had a bit more to drink than me.'
'I'm listening,' Thorne said.
'He keeps a book on philosophy in his car.' Holland laughed as Thorne's eyes widened. 'Seriously. On the passenger seat, or down by the tapes, or wherever. Girl gets in…'Oh what's this?' Picks it up, has a look, she's convinced Stone's a deep thinker.' There was a pause, then Thorne almost snorted Red Bull down his nose. 'This is the worst bit,' Holland said, 'it fucking works.' Thorne laughed even harder, wiped the drink from his jacket. He looked up when he heard a familiar Mancunian accent.
Hendricks was pointing at the can of Red Bull. 'That stuff won't wake you up if you apply it externally,' he said.
'What are you doing up here? I thought you had Moloney's PM to do.' Hendricks glanced at his watch. 'Starting in a couple of hours. There's a queue of corpses out the bloody doors down at Westminster Morgue.'
Holland got up to make room for Hendricks and headed for the Gents'.
'Tughan wanted to see me over the road.' Hendricks dropped into the chair Holland had vacated. 'He wanted a preliminary report.'
'Well? Do I get to hear it?'
Hendricks looked confused. 'What d'you think I came here for?'
'Go on, then.'
'Moloney died from gunshot wounds to the head. Almost certainly a nine mil. No bullets found in the car, so I'll have to dig them out to be certain.'
'Same pattern of knife wounds?'
'Yeah.'
Thorne had heard Hendricks sound more certain. 'Not sure?'
'I'm still not convinced I know what sort of blade he's using. It could be a filleting knife. Also, the cuts weren't quite as neat as they were on Clayton and the others.'
'Perhaps he had less time.'
'Right. And maybe Moloney struggled a bit more than some of the other victims.'
'This is the first time he's done it in a car, remember. He had less room to manoeuvre than he did with the others.' Hendricks nodded. It all made perfectly good sense.
'You'd say it was the same killer, though,' Thorne said. 'The X-Man.'
It was a few seconds before Hendricks gave a nod that said 'probably'. Enough time for Thorne to find himself wondering if they hadn't got things arse about face. They were assuming that the Zarifs had targeted the Ryans again and killed Marcus Moloney, unaware that he was a police officer. But there was an equally plausible possibility.
'What if the killer knew exactly what Moloney was?'
'Sir?' It was Holland, back from the Gents'. The more Thorne articulated it, the more convinced he became. He thought back to the previous night, in the street outside the games arcade: Moloney on the phone, not to Billy Ryan's driver, as Thorne had thought, but to Nick Tughan. Making the last call he was ever going to make. Unaware that his cover had been blown
'I think they found out he was a copper,' Thorne said. 'With what was going on, with what had happened to the others, they had a perfect way to get rid of him, didn't they? I think Billy Ryan killed Moloney.' Thorne reached for his mobile to make the call to Tughan. Before he could start dialing, it began to ring.
It was Russell Brigstocke.
'Tom? We've just had a call from the Central Middlesex Hospital.' Thorne didn't quite take it all in. He just heard the key word and immediately thought: Dad.
'Up by Park Royal.'
The initial relief quickly gave way to mild panic. 'What's happened?' Thorne guessed what the answer would be before Brigstocke gave it.
'Somebody tried to kill Gordon Rooker.'
ELEVEN
Thorne could think of better places to be on a sunny morning. He hated hospitals for all the obvious reasons, as well as for a few others unique to the job he did to some of the cases he'd worked. He shuffled his chair a little closer to the bed. Holland was sitting next to him. On the other side of the bed, a prison officer relaxed in a tatty brown armchair.
'You're a lucky bastard, Gordon,' Thorne said. Rooker had been attacked two days earlier, an hour or so after Thorne and Chamberlain had confronted Ryan in the street, and four hours before Marcus Moloney had been murdered. Thorne had presumed it had been the confrontation with Ryan which had prompted him to do something about Rooker, but now he realised that it could not have been organised in the time. It had to have been Thorne's earlier meeting with Ryan in his office, when he'd first mentioned Rooker's name, that had sparked things off.
He'd certainly touched a raw nerve.
Thorne tried to picture Ryan as he'd stood in the street outside his arcade, the wind whipping across his face. Ryan had stood there and smiled when Thorne had offered the greeting from Rooker, safe in the knowledge that a special greeting of his own had already been arranged. Rooker in the evening; Moloney later that night. Two problems solved within hours of each other.
What was it Rooker had said? Billy Ryan's cold. Rooker tried to lift himself up the bed a little. He grimaced in pain.
