'Or enough time to forget.'
'Oh for fuck's sake.'
It had been nearly a month now since the attack on the girl in Swiss Cottage. Nearly a month since the Powers That Be had agreed to take Gordon Rooker up on his offer to give evidence against Billy Ryan. Tughan had told Thorne the day before the day of the round-table session in Maidenhead that, all being well, Ryan was likely to be charged within a week or so.
The case was being carefully built on a number of fronts; many of the people connected with Rooker and Ryan back in 1984 had been sought out and questioned. Some were still in the game. Some had long since sloped off to the suburbs. Others had gone even further, to countries with better weather and more attractive tax systems. A few had talked, but not enough for Tughan and his team to feel confident. Omerta, the Mafia called it: the code of silence. The foreign language and associations made it sound honourable, dignified even, but there was no honour or dignity in the lives of these people, hiding out in villas, mock-Spanish and otherwise, shitting themselves. Thorne would have liked to spend some time with a few of these old fuckers, these fossilised hardmen in Braintree and Benidorm. He wanted to slap their stupid, per ma-tanned faces and press a picture of Jessica Clarke up close.
'Like I told you before,' Rooker said, 'I got the call from Harry Little and drove up to meet Ryan in Epping Forest. A track near Loughton.'
One way and another, Rooker's testimony was going to be key, and, as with all evidence from convicted criminals, it would not be hard to discredit. If it was given any credit in the first place. Whatever happened, they had to be sure it was nailed down tight.
'You got into his car.' Thorne said.
'I got into his car.'
'What kind of car was it?'
Rooker looked up, stared at Thorne like he was mad. 'How the fuck should I know? It was dark. It was twenty years ago.' Thorne sat back, like he'd proved a point. 'Details are important, Gordon. Ryan's defence team are going to slaughter you if you give them a chance. If you can't remember the car, maybe you can't really remember exactly what Ryan said. Maybe you were confused. Maybe you thought he was asking you to do something when he wasn't. You with me?'
'It might have been a Merc. One of those old ones with the big radiators.'
'Do you understand what I'm saying? This is why we have to do this.' Rooker nodded, reluctantly. 'I wasn't confused,' he said. The door opened and Thorne muttered his thanks as a guard stepped in with drinks. Tea for him. A can of cheap cola for Rooker. The guard closed the door behind him. The drinks were taken.
'This is warm,' Rooker said.
'When you got into his car, did Ryan come straight out and say what he wanted or did you talk about other stuff first?'
'He wasn't really the type to chat about the weather, you know? We might have talked about this and that for a couple of minutes, I suppose. People we both knew.'
'Harry Little?'
'Yeah, Harry. Other faces, what have you. I don't remember him beating around the bush for very long, though.'
'So, he asked if you'd be willing to kill Kevin Kelly's daughter, Alison?'
Rooker puffed out his cheeks, prepared to trot out the answers one more time. Thorne asked the question again.
'Yes.'
'In exchange for money that he would give you.'
'Yes.'
'How much? How much was he proposing to pay you to kill Alison Kelly?'
Rooker looked up quickly, stared at Thorne. A charge ran between them, flashed across the metal tabletop. Thorne realised, shocked, that this had not come up before.
Rooker seemed equally taken aback. 'I think it was about twelve grand.'
'You think about?'
'It was twelve grand. Twelve thousand pounds.' He said something else, something about what that sort of money might be worth now. Thorne had stopped listening. Now he knew what Alison Kelly's life had been worth. He was wondering whether he would have told her -the exact amount had he known it on the night he'd started whispering truths to her in the dark. Thinking that he probably shouldn't have said anything at all. 'Did Ryan say why he wanted you to do this?'
'He was trying to get at Kevin Kelly, wasn't he?' Rooker said. 'He wanted him to take on the other firms. He wanted to take over.'
'I know all that. I'm not talking about that. Did he say why he was trying to do it by killing a child? You said yourself that it was extreme. That it was out of the ordinary.'
'Right. Which is why I walked away. But, beyond what I've already told you, I don't know anything else. Same with all the jobs I did back then. Why was never my business.'
Thorne took a slurp of tea. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but Rooker cut him off.
'How many more times do we have to do this?'
'This is probably the last time,' Thorne said. 'The last time we need to go over it, at any rate. I'm not saying there won't be further interviews with other officers.'
'Tell me about afterwards.'
'The trial?'
'After the trial. Tell me about what happens to me.' It was Thorne's turn to sigh. This was an area which Rooker seemed keen to keep going over.
'I've told you,' Thorne said. 'I don't have any say in what happens, where you end up, any of that. There's a special department that takes care of that stuff.'
'I know, but you must have some idea. They'll presumably move me a good way away, right? Don't you reckon? A whole new identity, all that.'
'There are different. levels of witness protection. I think it's safe to say you'll probably be top level. To start with, at least.'
Rooker seemed pleased with what Thorne had told him. Then he thought of something else. 'Can I pick the name?' he asked.
'What?'
'My new name, my new identity. Can I choose it?'
'Got something special in mind, have you?'
'Not really.' He laughed, reached into his tobacco tin. 'Don't want to go through all this then end up with some twat's name, do I?' Thorne felt something start to tighten in his chest. The cockiness that he'd first seen in Park Royal was back. Rooker was talking to him as if he were a mate, as if he were someone he liked and trusted. It made Thorne want to reach across the table and squeeze his flabby neck.
Thorne looked at his watch, bent his head to the recorder. 'Interview terminated at two-thirty-five p.m.' He jabbed at the button.
'Are we done, then?' Rooker asked.
Thorne nodded towards the recorder. 'We're done with that! He leaned forward. 'What did it feel like, Gordon?'
'Come again.'
'When you killed someone for money. When you carried out a contract. I want you to tell me how it felt.'
Rooker continued to roll the cigarette, but slower, the yellowed fingers suddenly less dextrous than before. 'What's this got to do with anything?' he asked.
'We already know that why wasn't your business, so I was just wondering what was. Did you get job satisfaction? Did you take pride in your work?'
Rooker made no response.
'Did you enjoy it?'
Rooker looked up then, shook his head firmly. 'You enjoy getting the job done clean, that's all. Getting the
