Death Message

‘What makes you think I can do anything about it?’

‘You’ve been working with him, haven’t you?’

‘That’s putting it a bit strong.’

Rawlings waved his hands, impatient. ‘Whatever. You’ve got some sort of a relationship with the bloke; as much as you can have with their sort.’

‘And?’

‘And maybe you can get him to ease off or something.’

‘Now who’s not being serious?’

‘I don’t know… find out what the fuck he’s after.’

‘Nunn wouldn’t tell me what he’d had for breakfast,’ Thorne said.

Rawlings just sat there, looking gutted, waiting for Thorne to stop laughing. When Thorne caught his eye, he saw a man trying hard to work something out. Trying to work him out, certainly.

‘Sounds to me like you’re stuck with it,’ Thorne said. ‘Sod all I can do, I know that much…’

The waitress stopped on her way past the table, asked if there was anything else they wanted. Rawlings said nothing, waved his cigarette packet at her. She reddened and walked away.

‘She’s just doing her job,’ Thorne said. ‘She doesn’t need wankers like you any more than you need wankers like Adrian Nunn.’

Rawlings nodded; muttered something. When he saw Thorne downing what was left of his coffee, he leaned forward. ‘Look, here it is. I’m starting to think that Paul… might have been into a few things.’

Thorne slid the empty cup to one side. ‘What sort of things?’

Rawlings looked down at the table, took a few seconds, then looked up. Lowered his voice, said it slowly: ‘All sorts.’

‘And you reckon Nunn wants you to help him build the DPS’s case?’

Rawlings nodded; solemn, but pleased to see that Thorne was finally getting it.

Thorne wasn’t certain what he was getting, but it was all useful. He hadn’t exactly dragged this information from the man sitting opposite him and wondered what Rawlings was up to. If he was up to anything. He knew that people reacted oddly when they were threatened, and Rawlings obviously felt under threat.

Thorne glanced at his watch.

‘You sure you don’t fancy nipping over the road?’ Rawlings asked.

Thorne was certainly warming to the idea of continuing their conversation. Not so much for what else he might glean about Paul Skinner – he already knew enough – but rather for what half an hour’s more chat might tell him about a man who was suddenly willing to grass up his dead friend.

He looked at his watch again.

Said: ‘Just the one.’

The nature of kidnap investigations meant that when Louise Porter caught a big case, it tended to be full on. There were no such things as ordinary working hours, and leaving the job in the office was never really an option. Simply leaving the office at all was hard enough. Happily, the case involving the drug dealer who had kidnapped himself had been judged unlikely to make it past the CPS and scaled down. The wife of the Albanian gangster had turned up with no more than cuts and bruises and with no one willing to press charges. With little else coming in, things had been mercifully quiet for the past few days, and she was feeling pretty relaxed.

She couldn’t say the same for the case Thorne was investigating. For Thorne himself, come to that.

There were some inquiries that drew you in further than others. They’d been working on one together when they’d first met and Porter knew the signs. The series of killings, the messages that had been sent directly to him; this was never going to be the kind of job that Thorne could do on autopilot, even if he had one.

She poured herself a glass of wine and looked at the TV for a while. It was almost eight-thirty and Thorne had called three hours before to say he was on his way.

He was a moody sod at the best of times, but then again so was she; so were most of the coppers she knew, even those who drifted through the day with smiles on their faces, then went home and whacked their kids or got shitfaced. She’d thought about it, and put his reaction to the baby discussion down to the case; to an involvement in it that, even by his standards, had become a little extreme. She hoped that was the reason, anyway. Decided that if she were the one being sent pictures of the dead and the soon-to-be-dead, she’d probably be behaving in exactly the same way.

When Hendricks called, she topped up her glass and carried the phone across to the sofa; glad of the chance to talk to someone who knew Tom Thorne even better than she did.

‘He’s probably off with some slapper,’ Hendricks said.

‘That’s OK, then.’

‘Can’t blame him though, can you? Poor old bugger just wants to shag someone who isn’t desperate to be heavy with his child.’

Porter almost spat her wine out. She’d spoken to Hendricks earlier and they’d laughed about the conversation she’d had with Thorne. She hadn’t told him about the incident that had sparked it off; those few seconds she couldn’t really explain. When she’d wanted so badly to hold on to him, to feel him come inside her, knowing full well what it could mean.

‘Honestly though, Phil. You should have seen his face.’

‘He always looks like that.’

‘I’ve got a good mind to buy a pregnancy testing kit,’ she said. ‘Hide it in the bathroom. Just to see the look on his face when he opens the cabinet looking for his Rennies.’

Hendricks spluttered out a laugh. Porter could hear that he was smoking; knew that a spliff was his particular way of winding down at the end of the day. Knew too that Thorne didn’t approve.

‘Do you fancy coming out clubbing tomorrow night?’ Hendricks asked.

‘God, I don’t know…’

She’d enjoyed the nights out she’d had with Hendricks; dancing and drinking in a variety of gay clubs and bars, watching Hendricks make his moves, or more often, get hit on. She was starting to worry, though, that she didn’t have more female friends. Any real ones, if she thought about it. There was the odd drink after work with a couple of the women in her squad, but it never went beyond that, and she’d lost touch with all the girls she’d known when she joined the force.

‘Come on,’ Hendricks said. ‘Saturday night, we’ll have a laugh. If you’re cramping my style, I’ll put you in a taxi, OK?’

Not that she had that many close friends who were men, either. Hendricks was about the closest, which was perhaps what was bothering her most. There was Jason, who she’d gone through Hendon with, but she hadn’t seen much of him since he’d been posted south. She was still matey with Jon, her ex-boyfriend, but hadn’t spoken to him lately; Thorne getting decidedly frosty whenever his name had come up in conversation.

‘Let me talk to Tom first,’ Porter said.

‘Well, he won’t mind, will he? It’s not as if you’re going to pull.’

She giggled. ‘I just want to find out if he’s likely to be working.’

‘You’ll have more fun with me.’

‘Definitely. But, you know, it might be a good idea for the two of us to spend some time together, if we can. We were talking about going to see a film or something.’ She reached across for Time Out, began flicking through the film section.

‘Just don’t go freaking him out again,’ Hendricks said. ‘Daft old bastard’s probably got a weak heart.’

‘I’ll try not to.’

‘I’m the one who’s supposed to be broody.’

Porter said nothing. Listened to Hendricks taking another drag, moaning with pleasure as he let it out.

‘Give me a shout if you’re up for it,’ he said. ‘OK, Lou…?’

Porter heard the outer door slam shut as she was saying her goodbyes. She waited, recognising the sounds of him – the shuffles and the sighs – as he rooted around for his key.

‘Sorry,’ he said, before he was halfway through the door. He stepped inside and watched her carrying the phone back to its cradle on top of a low pine chest. ‘Been talking to your boyfriend?’