his hand had moved from her shoulder. In his effort to reassure her, he'd been gently rubbing her back in small circles. She raised her eyebrows comically. 'So, this offer to stay the night,' she said. 'What exactly did you have in mind?'
Ian Clarke sat on the sofa, his arm around his wife. He stared across the room in the direction of the television.
He cried once a year on his first daughter's birthday. The day that was also the anniversary of her death. For the rest of the time, everything was kept inside, squashed and pressed inside, his ribs, like the bars of a cage, holding in the thoughts and feelings and dark desires.
He sat still, going over the details of Thorne's visit, the things that were said, feeling as if his ribs might crack and splinter at any moment.
His wife laughed softly at something on the television and nestled her head into his chest. His hand moved automatically to her hair. He stared at a small square of white wall a foot or so above the screen. From time to time, he could hear a gentle thud on the ceiling as his second daughter moved around upstairs.
Thorne lay awake in bed, wondering if it was simply indigestion he was suffering from, or something a little harder to get rid of. Enjoyable as the evening had been, he'd been happy to see Carol call for a cab. And he'd been relieved when, later, Hendricks had decided to leave the clearing up until the morning and get an early night. The uncertainty that surrounded every aspect of the Billy Ryan/ Jessica Clarke case had squatted next to him all evening, like an unwanted dinner guest. Now he felt it pressing him down into the mattress as he stared up at the Ikea light fitting he hated so much. Not knowing was the worst thing of all.
In the course of some of the cases he'd investigated over the years, Thorne had learned things, seen things, understood things that, given the choice, he'd have preferred to avoid. Still, in spite of all the horrible truths he'd been forced to confront, he preferred knowledge to ignorance, though the dreadful weight of each was very different. Beneath the duvet, his hand drifted down to his groin. He fiddled around half-heartedly for a few minutes, then gave up, unable to concentrate.
He began to think about the photos of Jessica Clarke, out in the hallway inside his leather jacket. He pictured the image of her blasted and puckered face pressing against the silk lining of the pocket. He thought about the diary in his bag, waiting for him. It was reading he'd postpone until another night.
Reaching across for his Walkman, he pulled on the headphones and pressed play: The Mountain, Steve Earle's 1999 collaboration with the Del McCoury Band. He rubbed at the tightness in his chest, deciding that it almost certainly was indigestion.
It was impossible to stay down for too long, listening to bluegrass.
THIRTEEN
'You're looking a bit better, Gordon,' Holland said. Rooker grunted. 'It's all relative, isn't it?'
'OK then,' Stone said. 'You look better than a bag of shit, but not quite as good as Tom Cruise. How's that?'
The prison officer who had been standing behind them took a step forward, leaned down. 'Can we hurry this up?' They were gathered around a table in the small office-cum-cubicle in a corner of the visits area. A TV and VCR had been set up. Holland was stabbing at a button, trying to cue up the tape. Without looking at him, Stone waved a piece of paper towards the prison officer. 'Don't worry, it's not a long list.' The paper was waved in Rooker's direction. 'He isn't exactly your most popular guest, is he?'
This was part of the checking-up that Thorne had spoken about to Tughan when the doubts about Rooker were first raised. While Stone and Holland had headed into HMP Park Royal, others on the team were looking at those who had recently moved in the opposite direction; those who might have associated closely enough with Gordon Rooker to do him a favour on the outside.
The list Stone was brandishing contained the names of all those who had been to the prison to see Rooker in the last six months. If the man who had made the calls to Carol Chamberlain, and perhaps been responsible for the attack in Swiss Cottage, had cooked up something with Rooker, chances were the plans would have been hatched in the visiting area. Something could have been organised via the telephone, but it was highly unlikely. As a Category B prisoner, any calls made by Gordon Rooker would, at the very least, be randomly monitored. If Rooker had an accomplice, Thorne felt sure that his name would be on the visitors list.
'It's easy to check names and addresses,' Thorne had told Holland, 'but I want you to go through them with Rooker in person, get any extra information you can from him. See how he reacts when you show him the pictures. Let's make absolutely sure we're not being pissed about.'
Copies of the visiting area's security tapes had been requested from the prison, sifted through and edited until the team was left with a sequence no more than a few minutes long. This was the tape which Holland, Stone and Rooker were about to watch.
'Here we go,' Holland said, leaning back from the video recorder. Stone patted Rooker on the shoulder. 'This is very much a highlights package, Gordon. And we want you to provide the commentary, all right?'
Rooker picked up a pair of glasses from the table and inched his chair a little closer to the screen.
Out of the screen-snow came a series of clumsily cut-together shots, the images jumping disconcertingly from one to the next: half a dozen individuals walking into the visiting area, depositing bags and coats on or beneath chairs and sitting down. Each a different size in frame, sliding or slumping behind the narrow tables not a single one of them looking particularly pleased to be there.
'Cath, my eldest daughter.' Rooker pointed and spoke while Holland scribbled. On the screen, a dark-haired woman in her late thirties sat down. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt. If she'd been wearing a bib, she might have been a prisoner. 'Her son's being taken on by West Ham.'
A jump-cut replaced the woman on the screen with another. In her early seventies, probably. A buttoned-up green overcoat. Handbag clutched in front of her on the table. 'My mother's youngest sister, Iris. Pops by every now and again to tell me who's died.' A man, around the same age as Rooker. Arms moving animatedly as he spoke. Dirty grey suit and hair the same colour. 'Tony Sollinger, an old drinking mate. He got in touch with Lizzie out of the blue, told her he wanted to come in. Insisted on telling me he had cancer, for some fucking reason.'
A woman, anywhere between fifty and seventy. Hair hidden beneath a patterned headscarf. Saying little. 'Speak of the devil. The wife, the ex-wife, as near as dammit, on her annual visit.' From somewhere on the wing behind them came a sudden howl of what might have been rage, or pain, or neither. Holland and Stone both turned. The prison officer didn't so much as raise his head.
'You can see why people aren't queuing up to visit, though,' Stone said. 'It's hardly fucking Alton Towers.' The prison officer looked like he was laughing, but he did it without making any noise.
'Wayne Brookhouse,' Rooker continued. 'He used to go out with my youngest.' A man in his early twenties. Dark, curly hair and glasses. Lighting a cigarette from the nub-end of another. 'My daughter never bothers, so he comes in, tells me what she's been up to. Supposed to be a mechanic, probably just a cut-and-shut merchant. Ducks and dives, but he's a decent lad.'
A black man, fortyish. Very tall and smartly dressed. A short-sleeved white shirt and dark tie. 'Simons, or Simmonds, or something. Fucking prison visitor. I reckon deep down they're all after some sort of thrill, but he's harmless enough. It's better than talking to some of the beasts in here.'
And finally, the most recent visitor. A broad-shouldered man, a little shorter than average. Hair greying at the sides. Sitting very still and staring at the top of Gordon Rooker's bowed head. Stone laughed, turned from the image of Tom Thorne and looked at Holland. 'Christ, this one really looks like a nasty piece of work.' Then white noise, until the tape ended and began to rewind.
Holland put away his notebook. Stone leaned back in his chair and turned to Rooker. 'Five real visitors in six months. Looks to me like you've been all but forgotten, mate.'
Rooker stood up. 'That's what I'm hoping.' He turned and walked out of the door. The prison officer calmly stood and followed, picking the dirt from beneath his fingernails with the edge of a laminated ID badge.
'It's gone very quiet around here,' Kitson said. Thorne had to agree. He knew that she wasn't just talking about the fact that many of the team had taken lunch early and gone over to the Oak. 'I think, as far as the Swiss Cottage thing goes, it's going to get a lot bloody quieter,' he said. 'Things might pick up, if somebody makes a
