Chamberlain smiled at her husband and shook her head. It was nothing.
Thorne pressed the handset hard against Brook house's ear until he began to moan in pain.
'Now, say it again,' Thorne said. 'Like you mean it.' Brookhouse winced and took a deep breath. 'I burned her.' Thorne yanked the phone away, his fingers still clutching Brook house's hair. Something in the near silence on the line, a horror in the gentle hiss, told him that Carol Chamberlain had recognised the voice.
'Carol?'
'There's a train from here in less than fifteen minutes,' she said. 'I can be there in an hour and a half.'
Thorne felt a second or two of doubt, but no more. He had been fairly sure what Chamberlain's reaction would be as soon as he'd decided to make the call. 'Give me a ring when you're coming in,' he said. He flicked his wrist sharply to one side, smacking Brook house's head against the window. 'There'll be a cab there to meet you.'
THIRTY
Wayne Brookhouse's face open and attractive beneath the mop of thick, dark hair broke into a smile. He looked relaxed and happy. Only the redness, livid around his right ear, and the expressions on the faces of the two people sitting opposite him indicated that anything might be out of the ordinary.
'How much longer we going to carry on with this?' Brookhouse said. It was not far short of midnight, and in the two hours since Thorne had first confronted him, in the time spent waiting for Carol Chamberlain to arrive and travelling back to Thorne's flat, Brookhouse had recovered his confidence.
'Hadn't really thought about it,' Thorne said.
'That much is fucking obvious.'
Chamberlain looked at Thorne. They were sitting next to each other on kitchen chairs. Brookhouse was a few feet in front of them in the middle of the sofa. 'I don't think there's any time limit, is there?' she said.
Thorne shook his head, stared for a few seconds at Brookhouse before speaking. 'Tell us how it worked between you, Rooker and Zarif.'
Brookhouse's smile didn't falter. 'They clearly aren't paying you enough,' he said, looking around. 'This place is shit.'
'Why were you pretending to be responsible for the attack on Jessica Clarke?'
Thorne knew this was not going to be easy. In the time that Brookhouse had honed his cocky act, Thorne had put a few pieces of the puzzle in place. He was now working up to the really important questions by asking a few to which he already knew the answers.
'It smells as well,' Brookhouse said. 'It stinks of curry.' Whoever had put the idea together and right now Thorne's money was on Gordon Rooker had been intent on putting the ball into the police's court. Drawing the police to him. And, like mugs, they'd come. Brookhouse had made the calls and, sent the letters and sure enough, eventually some idiot had gone along to have a word with Gordon Rooker and started the ball rolling. They'd pressed Rooker until, finally, he'd confessed his innocence, and told them about Billy Ryan. Then he had them.
Some idiot.
'So, Rooker was sorting out a deal with us, and at the same time making sure he had a slightly different kind of protection from Memet Zarif, right? Is that right, Wayne?'
'You came to my house.' Chamberlain crossed her legs, smoothed down her skirt.
Thorne glanced at her, imagining for a bizarre moment that the two of them were interviewing Brookhouse for a job.
'You stood in my front garden and looked up at me, didn't you?' Brookhouse stretched out his legs, knocked the toes of his trainers together. 'This is so fucked up,' he said. He nodded towards Chamberlain. 'Look at her. She's not a copper. She's like my fucking auntie or something.'
'I'm a copper,' Thorne said.
'So? You wouldn't be with her if this was anything official. It's obvious you aren't going to arrest me. This is something. private. Right?'
Thorne shrugged. 'So what are you going to do, Wayne? You want to call the police?'
Brookhouse leaned forward, his forearms braced across his knees. 'I might call a solicitor, yeah.'
'The phone's by the front door.'
The man on the sofa held Thorne's stare for a few seconds, then, slowly, the smile reappeared. 'You can't do shit to me.' He started to laugh softly in short, high-pitched bursts, and Thorne could see that the amusement was real. The little fucker really found the situation funny. He genuinely believed that they could not touch him, that he was protected.
'You're absolutely right, Wayne. This is private, which means that I won't lose my job if I come over there and kick your balls up into your throat.'
Thorne's threat, or perhaps it was his expression as he made it, was enough to stop the laughter, but no more than that.
'Fine,' Brookhouse said. 'It's probably the only way this can end up, right?'
'That's up to you.'
Brookhouse sat up straight. 'It's OK with me if it means we can get this shit over with. I'll take a pasting if I have to, but I'll hurt you at the same time, man, I swear.' Another nod towards Chamberlain.
'She going to have a crack as well, is she? 'Cos I tell you, I've got no fucking problems with giving her a slap as well.' The confidence vanished for a second as Chamberlain stood suddenly and stepped towards him, shouting: 'No fucking problems with trying to set fire to a young girl at a bus stop, either, have you?'
'No idea what you're on about.'
Thorne knew now that the attack in Swiss Cottage had been made to up the stakes, had been the only option left when it looked like Rooker's offer had been rejected. It had certainly done the trick, leaving the police no option but to agree to Rooker's deal.
'That was you, too, wasn't it, Wayne? At that bus stop?' Chamberlain stood, red-faced, above him. 'That's attempted murder, and you're looking at the same sentence Rooker got.' Brookhouse stared at her, calmly bringing up his hand to wipe her spittle from his cheek.
'Jack of all trades, aren't you?' Thorne said. 'Are you the only one Memet's got who can do all these things? Or has the family blown all its money on hookers and expensive hitmen?' Brookhouse said nothing.
Thorne leaned forward. This was an important one. 'Who put the cross on my door, Wayne?'
The answer came at the back end of a yawn. 'Piss off.' Thorne's fingers curled into fists at the exact moment that Chamberlain turned to him, suddenly composed again.
'Have you got any handcuffs knocking about?' she asked. Gordon Rooker was shopping.
He'd spent a lot of money already. He'd splashed out on smart new clothes and several pairs of fashionable shoes. He'd got drinks in for a bar-full of strangers who were now his closest friends. He'd bought the latest mobile phone, a nice radio and a massive flat-screen TV that he'd seen in a magazine and planned to put in the corner of his new living room. He didn't know where that living room was going to be yet, or how much money he'd have to buy all these things when he really got the chance, but he relished the planning. He savoured the dream of owning again, the joy of the notes passing through his hands. Lying on his bunk in the dark, he tried to imagine the future. This was something he'd done countless times before, of course, when there was even a sniff of hope that he might be let out, but this time it was different. He could taste, smell and touch the freedom that was no more than a few days away.
He ate an expensive meal three courses and a fancy bottle of wine in a restaurant that was almost certainly no longer in business. He left a large tip and walked out of there feeling like his shit would taste of sugar.
Money had been mentioned back when Ryan was still alive. It had been part of the deal then, even though they'd been a bit coy about exactly how much. He was likely to cop for a bit less now than he would have done originally, but they still had to give him something, surely. They couldn't just dump him in a strange town or city, point him towards the nearest dole office and tell him to get on with it, could they?
He'd tried getting some straight answers out of that bastard Thorne, but it had been like trying to piss up a rope. There was still so much that was unsettled, and it was disconcerting after twenty years of routine, but he
