Buried

A second or two of looking at feet, and walls, and a sky that couldn’t make its mind up.

‘You still think he was after something?’ Hignett asked.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Thorne said. ‘Porter’s going to have a good look through those filing cabinets later. I think she’ll be at the mortuary for a while yet.’

‘Whatever it was, he obviously wanted it badly.’ Brigstocke took a last look at the PM report. ‘Or else he’s just rattled.’

‘Not too rattled, I hope,’ Hignett said.

Thorne knew what Hignett was saying, the dreadful possibility it would be stupid to ignore. He noted that, yet again, the point had been made without any mention of the boy’s name.

The Major Incident Room seemed just a little busier than it had the day before. Conversations were less likely to go round the houses. People moved from desk to desk, from phone to fax machine, with greater urgency. It was not even twelve hours since Kathleen Bristow’s body had been discovered, but Thorne knew that unless those doing the chasing were quick enough, murder cases could be away and out of sight long before that. He exchanged quick words with Andy Stone and a couple of the Kidnap boys, then spent a few unwelcome, but necessary, minutes talking admin with DS Samir Karim, who was also office manager. Thorne liked Karim, an overweight, gregarious Asian with a shock of prematurely greying hair and a thick London accent. But the smile that was normally hard to shift was not much in evidence this morning.

‘Everything’s fucked up,’ he said.

Thorne nodded, without really needing to know exactly what Karim was talking about.

Dave Holland seemed as focused as anyone, but up close his eyes betrayed a man who hadn’t slept the night before.

‘Pissholes in the snow,’ he said, ‘I know, but still slightly bigger pissholes than yours.’

Thorne looked down at Holland’s computer screen: a page from the Borough of Bromley website displaying various contact telephone numbers and email addresses.

‘There’s an out-of-hours contact service,’ Holland said, ‘which is fine if a water main bursts or you see someone fly-tipping, but not much use for anything else. I’ve spoken to a couple of people at home, but I’m not getting anywhere. As far as any records Kathleen Bristow might have kept, I think we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning, talk to someone at social services who’s got access to the files. Even then, I’m not sure it’ll be a five- minute job.’

‘Get hold of the other people who were on the panel with her,’ Thorne said. ‘Roper and the rest of them…’

Holland left the website and quickly accessed the Crime Reporting Information System. CRIS was updated constantly, with every detail of the case to that point logged and catalogued for the entire team. He entered the case number, searched the files, then called up the names and contact details of those on Grant Freestone’s MAPPA panel:

Roper, Warren, Lardner, Stringer, Bristow.

Holland tapped a finger against the screen. ‘I never managed to track Stringer down first time round.’

‘See what you can do,’ Thorne said.

‘Right. It’ll be interesting to see how they react to the news about Kathleen Bristow. Maybe one of them can confirm she had the records.’

‘Roper thought she probably did,’ Thorne said. ‘But that’s not why I was suggesting it.’ He looked at the list on Holland’s screen, the cursor blinking beneath the final name. ‘While we’re still not sure exactly why Kathleen Bristow was killed, it can’t hurt to make sure each of the other people on that panel is still walking around.’

Thorne had been in the backyard when they’d eventually brought out the prisoner. He’d been leaning against the van that was waiting to take Freestone south, talking about a recent Spurs-Crystal Palace game to one of the DCs sent to fetch him.

Hoolihan had walked past Thorne without a word and climbed into an unmarked BMW, ready to follow the van down to Lewisham.

Freestone himself had been considerably keener to chat.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

‘It’s time to answer for Sarah Hanley, Grant.’

‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘Keep telling them that,’ Thorne said.

‘You’re a fucking genius…’

Freestone was cuffed, an officer on each side marching him purposefully towards the open doors at the back of the van.

Thorne ambled after them. ‘I’ll give your best to Tony Mullen.’

‘You should get him down here,’ Freestone said.

‘Can’t see any point now,’ Thorne said. ‘He’s got nothing to do with the Hanley case.’

‘I saw him.’

‘What?’ Thorne picked up his pace. ‘When did you see him?’

But Freestone was already being bundled into the back of the van, and pushed on to a bench between his two escorts. He turned to look at Thorne, but there was no time to register the expression before the doors were slammed shut. The Crystal Palace fan shrugged an apology and walked round to the driver’s side.

Thorne took a step back as the van started up. Parked alongside it, Hoolihan raced the BMW’s engine; impatient probably, but perhaps also hoping to send a fatal dose of carbon monoxide Thorne’s way.

As he walked back in through the cage, Thorne saw Danny Donovan loitering near the custody skipper’s platform. A uniformed PC was leading a young woman by the arm. As Thorne approached, he watched Donovan engage the woman in conversation, then hand her something just before she was led towards the cells.

‘Still here, Danny?’

‘Can’t seem to tear myself away.’

‘Someone else going to be looking after Freestone now, then? One of those people with qualifications?’ Thorne held out a hand. Waited until Donovan handed over one of the business cards he was cradling in his fist. ‘Touting for business? You cheeky fucker.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem for you is that you’ve run into me. And that this’ – he held up the thin, cheaply produced card – ‘really pisses me off.’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Away you go…’

Thorne was already moving towards the exit, arms wide, shepherding Donovan in the direction of the metal doorway.

‘You want to get out of this game sharpish, Thorne.’ Donovan stepped backwards into the cage, half turned as if to leave. ‘It’s sending you a bit mental.’

Thorne approached Donovan fast, backed him against the side of the cage. ‘You really should fuck off now,’ he said. ‘And next time you’re in here, if I so much as see you helping yourself to a teabag, I’ll nick you for theft.’

Donovan waited for Thorne to step back. ‘Things carry on as they have been, you’ll probably be desperate for any sort of result by then.’

When the ex-copper moved to walk past him, Thorne reached out both arms and pushed him hard against the wall. Donovan slammed into the metal, which gave a little, then bounced back, dropping the handful of business cards as he reached out to retain his balance.

There was a shout from inside the custody suite and Thorne yelled back that everything was fine. Donovan squatted and tried to pick up the cards, but Thorne was quicker. Breathing heavily, he slapped away the other man’s hand, grabbed as many cards as he could, and threw them, fluttering out into the backyard.

A pair of uniformed beat officers appeared at the doorway on their way into the station. They watched for a few seconds, then stepped around the two men scrabbling around on the floor.

Thorne’s heart was still beating faster than normal when Kitson found him in one of the CID offices on the first