Ten minutes later, standing just inside the cage, Kitson saw Farrell’s solicitor in the backyard, enjoying a cigarette. She walked out to join him.
He offered her the packet but she shook her head: ‘Got anything stronger?’
‘You seemed a little wound up in there,’ Wilson said.
‘Well, he’s quite a lad, isn’t he?’
The solicitor didn’t bite. He took one last, deep drag, then flicked the butt towards a pair of police motorbikes. ‘Any thoughts on when you might be bringing him up again?’
‘Not specifically, but I wouldn’t go too far away.’
‘I was wondering if that pub up the road does a traditional Sunday lunch later.’
‘The Oak? It does lunch, but I’m not sure their definition of “traditional” is the same as yours.’
She walked back inside, deciding that once she’d sorted out the paperwork with the custody skipper, she’d grab some breakfast. Then she’d try to track down Tom Thorne. Everyone had heard about the overnight development on the Mullen case, and Kitson could only guess that Thorne had not yet had a chance to pick up the memo she’d left in his pigeonhole, or return the message she’d left on his mobile.
Compared to the discovery of a body, what she had to tell him was hardly particularly urgent.
NINETEEN
That was why people stopped to look at accidents: the vicarious thrill without the inconvenience of being doused in blood or dressed in twisted metal. It was almost certainly the same principle that made watching three senior officers arguing with one another so exhilarating.
It was the row that Hignett had predicted, and it was only surprising that Graham Hoolihan had taken as long as he had before coming down and throwing around some of his considerable weight.
‘I was cooperative when DI Thorne first contacted me. I was more than helpful. And, unlike anyone on this case, I showed a bit of common fucking courtesy.’
‘There’s no point chucking insults at people.’
‘Why not? You clearly don’t understand how the proper channels work.’
Thorne had decided not to get involved, but just to stand there at the back of Brigstocke’s office and watch. Maybe chip in every now and again.
‘I found out about this in the pub, for crying out loud,’ Hoolihan said. ‘Because your chief superintendent was at some function or other with mine, and just happened to mention it over the gin and tonics.’
Thorne pictured Trevor Jesmond with one trouser-leg rolled up, clutching a tumbler and talking shop over the clinking of ice cubes.
‘Look,’ Hignett said, ‘we’d certainly have been making contact with you today. But then we picked up a murder in the early hours and other things became somewhat more important.’
It sounded convincing enough. Brigstocke picked up the baton. ‘As it was, we’d only had Freestone in custody a little over twelve hours anyway.’
‘And there was every reason to believe he could help us with an ongoing enquiry into a kidnap and double murder. So…’
‘So it wasn’t as though we were trying to keep the fact that we had him a secret.’
Brigstocke and Hignett were making a decent job of putting on a united front. Thorne was impressed by Hignett’s stance in particular. Under the circumstances, the DCI from the Kidnap Unit could have been forgiven for jumping up and down, pointing the finger elsewhere and telling everyone that he’d wanted to hand Grant Freestone over straight away.
‘Why didn’t anyone call me when he was brought in?’ Hoolihan asked. ‘Just as a common courtesy.’
Brigstocke and Hignett looked at one another, each trying to formulate a nice, polite answer.
It had all kicked off towards the end of the morning’s briefing, which had naturally concentrated on the discovery of the body in Shepherd’s Bush. As ever, the first twenty-four hours were the most crucial, so all efforts would now be channelled into investigating the murder of Kathleen Bristow. Though this was clearly the best chance they had of making progress on the main case, too, the kidnap itself had barely been talked about.
It had not escaped Thorne’s attention that Luke Mullen’s name was being mentioned less and less as the days went by. Spoken more quietly, when it was. There were the murders to work on now, he understood that; other angles that might prove more productive. But Thorne knew that wasn’t the only reason.
As the briefing had broken up, Graham Hoolihan had appeared, and a heated discussion had rapidly reached boiling point, until a sergeant from another squad had ushered them all towards Brigstocke’s office, like an irate landlord escorting drunks from the premises.
‘You should know that I’ve got written authority to take Freestone back with me to Lewisham.’
Lewisham, Sutton, Earlsfield. The three places Homicide South were based on the other side of the river.
Hoolihan reached down for a briefcase, then swung it on to Brigstocke’s desk. ‘My guvnor got it signed by Commander Walker first thing this morning.’
From where Thorne was standing, it looked as though Hignett and Brigstocke couldn’t quite decide whether to bristle or shudder. Clive Walker was head of Homicide Command, London-wide. He was one of the few men who could make Trevor Jesmond seem like one of the lads.
‘So let’s not waste any more time,’ Hoolihan said. ‘Do you still have every reason to believe Freestone can assist with your enquiries?’
There seemed little point pretending there was any reason whatsoever. Freestone had been questioned earlier that morning, and had claimed to have been tucked up in bed at his sister’s flat when Kathleen Bristow was having a pillow put across her face. Predictably, Jane Freestone had confirmed her brother’s story, and, though she was hardly the world’s most reliable witness, the alibi would be tough to dispute.
Not that Thorne could see any reason to even bother trying. He knew that Freestone had no more murdered Kathleen Bristow than he had Amanda Tickell or Conrad Allen; any more than he was behind the kidnapping of Luke Mullen. He thought back to when he and Porter had nicked Freestone in the park the morning before. He hadn’t looked happy, of course, why would he? But he
The hesitation that followed his question seemed to give Hoolihan the answer he desired. ‘Right, well, let’s get a move on, then.’ He tapped the lid of his briefcase. ‘We’ll have plenty of paperwork to push at each other.’
Thorne felt himself stepping forward, then heard himself speaking. ‘For someone who obviously sets so much store by courtesy, I was thinking that maybe a “thank you” might be in order.’ Brigstocke threw him a look, but Thorne ploughed on, making a mental note to adjust his definition of ‘chipping in’. ‘OK, we may not have handled things exactly as you’d have liked them, but the fact remains we did you a bloody big favour.’
Hoolihan pulled his briefcase to his chest, folded his arms around it and waited for Thorne to continue.
‘You’d taken your eye off the ball as far as Grant Freestone was concerned, or given it up as not being worth the effort. Somebody rubber-stamped the review paperwork once a year, but you weren’t doing much of anything, as far as I can make out. The fact that you’re going to get a nice, fat feather in your cap is down to us. We may not have been as courteous as we should have been, but I still think you should be fucking grateful.’
It was the F-word that did it; that caused the colour to rise to Hoolihan’s face. Though he pointedly refused to respond to what had been said, it was clear that Thorne would no longer be getting any favours from anyone at Homicide South.
After losing what was only a half-arsed staring contest, Hoolihan turned back to Brigstocke and Hignett. ‘It’s not like I’ll be taking Freestone very far,’ he said. ‘We’ll get him up in front of a magistrate within a day or two, so he’ll be on remand somewhere, if you need to speak to him after that.’
There was some shouting once Hoolihan had left, but not too much. Hignett once again showed restraint in his decision not to gloat or say, ‘I told you so.’
There were more important things to be discussed.
‘We got a preliminary PM report from Phil Hendricks,’ Brigstocke said. He picked up a piece of paper from his desk, and read: ‘Asphyxia due to suffocation, obviously… three broken ribs… a broken nose. That’s from where he’s put his weight on the pillow, Phil reckons…’
