'Define lucky,' he said.
The improvised shiv actually a sharpened paintbrush which Alun Fisher had stuck into his belly during an art class had somehow missed every vital organ in Rooker's body. He'd lost a lot of blood, but the surgery had been about patching him up rather than saving his life. Rooker settled back. 'Lucky that I'm alive, but it's hardly fortunate that certain parties have got wind of things, is it?' Thorne decided that it wouldn't do Rooker any good to know who was responsible for mentioning his name to Billy Ryan.
'Told you I'd be marked, though, didn't I?' Rooker said. 'Now I've got even more reason to make sure the fucker gets put away.' Rooker's hair was lank and his skin was the colour of a week-old bruise. The gold tooth still glinted in his mouth, but half of the top set was missing, the bridge sitting in a glass on the bedside cabinet. A drip ran into his left arm and an oxymeter peg was attached to the index finger. His right wrist was connected, rather less delicately, to a prison officer, one of two on a rotating bed watch. The officer, skull and chin neatly shaved, sat with his head in a paperback. Rooker raised the handcuffs, lifting his and the officer's arm.
'Fucking ridiculous, isn't it?' The prison officer didn't even look up. 'Like I'm going to do a runner. Like somebody's going to spring me. Like who?'
Holland smiled. 'Got no friends, Gordon?'
'See any flowers?'
'Friends, acquaintances, we'll have to check all of that,' Thorne said. 'One or two people are still bothered by this bloke turning up out of the blue and claiming responsibility for what happened to Jessica Clarke.'
'Check what you like,' Rooker said. 'I can't help you. I tell you what, though: if it is the bloke who did it, who really did it, we both know who can give you his name.'
The small room was strangely half lit. The curtains had been drawn against the dazzling sunshine, filtering it through thin, brown and orange nylon. A dirty amber light moved across the pale walls, softening the metallic gleam of the dressing-trolley and the drip-stand.
'Tell me about Alun Fisher,' Thorne said. With what few teeth were left in his upper jaw, Rooker bit down hard on his bottom lip. 'He's nothing. A fucking little tosspot.' Thorne heard the prison officer chuckle quietly and glanced across. It wasn't clear whether it was Rooker or his book that he was finding so funny.
'A little tosspot with a smack habit.' Thorne could see where it was going. 'And a drug debt, right?'
'A fucking big one. Three guesses who he owes the money to.'
'So Fisher just walks up to you in the middle of a class?' Holland said. 'Stabs you, just like that, while you're doing your Rolf Harris bit?'
'I thought you could see it coming,' Thorne said. 'That's what you told me last time. If someone was going to have a pop at you, you'd know about it.'
Rooker sniffed, cast his eyes to the right. 'Well, somebody looked the other fucking way, didn't they? Took their eye off the ball. These teachers in the Education Department don't get paid much, do they? Or maybe a screw fancied a new car, a holiday for the wife and kids.'
If the prison officer was upset, he wasn't showing it. Park Royal was already carrying out an inquiry into exactly what had gone wrong, while Alun Fisher sat in a segregation cell waiting to see what they were going to do with him. Having fucked up and left Gordon Rooker breathing, he was probably more worried about what Billy Ryan was going to do. He might suddenly find that his debt had increased in all sorts of ways.
'So are you going to press charges?' Holland asked.
'Not much point, is there? They'll move Fisher to another prison. Might as well try to get through the rest of the time without any hassle.'
'Up to you,' Thorne said.
Rooker moved his hand and began scratching the top of his leg. The prison officer raised his head, waited a few seconds, then yanked the hand back down to the mattress.
'What you were saying about checking my friends,' Rooker said. 'How long is all this going to take? The sooner they get everything sorted out, you know, and arranged, the quicker we can start talking. Right?
This has been going on too long already.' Thorne knew what Rooker meant, realised that he was reluctant to talk specifically about protection, and evidence, and Ryan, with the prison officer in the room.
'It won't be a quick decision,' Thorne said. 'They've only been considering the position seriously for the last couple of days.' Rooker shook his head. 'Right. That's typical. Maybe, if they'd considered it a bit earlier, I might not have had a fucking paintbrush jammed in my guts.'
Thorne knew that was probably his fault. He looked at the indignant expression plastered across Rooker's yellowish chops. He could remember feeling guiltier. From the corner of his eye, he saw the prison officer look up when Holland's mobile rang. The DC checked the caller ID, stood up and took the phone out of earshot to answer it.
'You're supposed to turn those off in here,' Rooker said. 'They can interfere with medical equipment, you know. Fuck up the machines .'
The prison officer spoke for the first time: 'Shame you're not wired up to a couple then. Might have done us all a favour.' Thorne couldn't help smiling. 'How long's he going to be here for?'
'We'll get him shifted back to the health care wing tomorrow, with a bit of luck,' the officer said. 'It's a level-three unit. They've got all the facilities, all the medication for any infection or what have you.'
Rooker looked less than delighted, but it made sense. The prison would want him back as soon as possible. The officers would be wanted back where they could be of more use, and the hospital would be glad to get shot of any patient who needed guards.
Thorne heard the single, short tone as Holland ended the call and turned to ask him. 'What?'
'That was DCI Tughan. He wants me to give you a message. You're not going to like it.'
'Fuck.'
Thorne could guess what the message would be. They must have turned down Rooker's offer. There hadn't been enough time for it to get up as high as it needed to go. It must have been blocked at a lower level. It would be interesting to find out exactly where. Thorne stood and pulled on his jacket. 'It's not looking too promising, Gordon.'
He saw the prison officer smirk, and return to his book. Thorne managed to make it through to the end of the day without having it out with Nick Tughan. He lost himself in a pile of unread memos, Police Federation junk mail and case updates from investigations he'd been working on before this one.
He then spent an evening in front of the TV without calling Tughan at home.
By lunchtime on Friday, just when he thought he'd given up on the idea, he found himself cornering Tughan in the Incident Room, spoiling for a fight. Sam Karim, who had been talking to Tughan when Thorne had marched over, made himself scarce pretty bloody quickly. Tughan leaned across a desk, flicking through the Murder Investigation Manual that seemed to have become his Bible.
'Answer in there, is it?' Thorne asked. Tughan glanced up. 'What do you want, Tom?' Thorne wasn't 100 per cent sure. 'Why didn't they go for it?'
'All the obvious reasons.'
'Such as?'
'Oh, come on. Russell and I raised a number of concerns when you first brought it to our attention. When you eventually brought it to our attention.'
It was clear to Thorne that Tughan was as riled up as ever. 'This was a genuine chance to get Ryan for something and make it stick.'
'Right. On the word of a man who confessed to it twenty years ago, and who suddenly decides to change his story.'
'Ryan is panicking. He's seriously fucking rattled. Why else would he try to get Gordon Rooker out of the way after all this time?' Tughan went back to the manual. He licked a finger and began to flick through the pages. He was trying to slow things down, to put a foot on the ball. 'Securing the release of a potentially dangerous prisoner is not something to be undertaken if there is any room for doubt.'
'He'd be released into our custody, for fuck's sake.'
'The last thing we need is a compensation case for wrongful imprisonment.'
'How could Rooker claim compensation for that? He confessed!
Tughan looked at him as if he were an idiot. 'If a decent lawyer gets a sniff of what's going on, that confession might suddenly turn out to have been all but beaten out of him.'
