the man everyone thought was guilty of the policeman’s murder.
Has to be the other copper.
It took a minute for Brooks to come back.
not really surprised
Who is he?
Thorne had got nothing useful from his hour and a half in the pub with Richard Rawlings. The DS had given a good performance, or at least that’s how it had seemed to Thorne. Maybe more so, thinking back…
‘It’s looking like Paul was into some nasty stuff.’ Rawlings had looked close to devastated, putting away a pint in three visits to his glass. ‘
‘That what Nunn told you?’
‘As good as.’
‘And you knew nothing about it?’
‘Maybe… I don’t know. I had suspicions, now and again, but you keep them to yourself, don’t you? We were mates, and I was probably kidding myself, but I never thought it was anything too heavy. Not in a million years. Fuck, you think you know people…’
The phone buzzed again in Thorne’s hand.
squire
Thorne kicked at the side of the bath in frustration. His hand was clammy again; sticky against the plastic of the phone.
What’s his real name?
i’ll send u a message
So, Skinner had been Jennings. It was obvious that Brooks thought both men were equally guilty, but Thorne hoped one day it might matter to a court which of them had been responsible for what.
Did he kill Tipper?
one of them did
Thorne was typing too fast now, making mistakes, not bothering to go back and correct them.
Tell me who sow e can findhim
no point Then: i’ve already found him
Thorne’s excitement was giving way to irritation, and anger at himself. The exchange with Brooks that he’d been hoping for, that he’d pinned so much on, was going nowhere. The other night he’d felt as though everything he and Louise had said to each other was loaded with meaning, but this was just words on a screen, and none of them were telling him anything he needed.
Contact was not the same thing as connection.
He typed: I meant it about the letters.
Thorne knew as soon as half a minute had come and gone that Brooks had nothing else to say. He imagined him on a dark street corner, cracking open the shell of a phone, tossing the tiny SIM into a drain.
He gave it another five minutes, then stood up and washed his hands again; drying them until they were sore, until he could spin the ring freely around his finger. He put the phone away and trudged into the living room to wake Louise.
Davey Tindall hopped off the night bus at Vauxhall Cross and started walking. Spitting feathers. A youngster stepped in front of him, some junkie with his hood up, and was told to fuck off before he’d even opened his mouth.
Tindall’s employer had a business to run; had overheads and profit margins and whatnot. Tindall understood that. So it wasn’t him he was pissed off with; it was that pair of shite-hawks with warrant cards.
A half-price minicab at the end of a night was one of the perks that Tindall’s boss put his way. He’d rather have had another tenner in the pay packet come the end of the week, but the bloke who paid his wages had interests in a cab firm, so that was that. There’d been no lift home tonight, though. Forty-five minutes on a bus full of nutters and winos. He’d be lucky enough to hang on to his job, he reckoned…
The Filth never took that kind of thing into account, did they?
Someone in one of those bargain bookshops opposite the cinema, the ones with wank-mags in the basement, had spotted that the ticket office was closed for fifteen fucking minutes. Nosey cunt mentions it to someone, and word gets passed same as it always does. Next thing, one of the cousins is popping in with his smart suit on, swaggering about and wanting to know what’s been happening.
‘It was ten minutes, no more.’
‘Yeah, ten minutes when our customers went somewhere else. Ten fucking minutes too long, Davey.’
He’d told the cocky little sod he’d had the shits: an iffy vindaloo the night before; had to shut up shop and get to a chemist’s. The cousin fucks off, then an hour later the boss calls up, so he has to tell him the same story.
‘I don’t give a toss. Your dodgy guts have cost me money. Next time use a fucking bucket whatever, just don’t stop taking the tickets.’
He’d laughed and said he was sorry. Thought he’d got away with it.
Then: ‘How you getting home tonight, Davey?’
Tindall walked back along the Embankment, then crossed underneath the railway line and took out his key. He was starving; started thinking about cheese on toast when he got indoors. He’d normally have nipped across the road for a sandwich at dinnertime, but he’d been scared to leave the booth for so much as a few minutes after the boss had rung. There’d only been kebab shops open by the time he knocked off and that crap really did give him the runs.
He shouted a ‘hello’ when he walked through the door; made a fuss of his Jack Russell, who came skittering across the lino to meet him. He followed her back into the kitchen and slopped some food into a bowl. Then he turned the grill on and wandered upstairs to the spare room.
There was no answer when he knocked, so he stuck his head round the door.
‘Sorry, son, I thought you were out.’
‘Why d’you come in, then?’
Brooks had spoken without looking up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone in his hand, pressing buttons. His training shoes were scuffed and dirty. There were papers scattered about on the bed, and more phones. Plastic bags against the wall containing all his clothes, a dirty mug and plate on the carpet.
Tindall stepped in and picked up the empties. ‘I’m making a bit of cheese on toast if you want some.’
Brooks said nothing for a few seconds, then looked up and stared, as if the Scotsman’s voice had just reached him.
‘Anyway, there’ll be some downstairs if you fancy it, you know? And tea.’
Tindall looked away, glancing around the room as if checking that everything were to his guest’s satisfaction, or that nothing had been damaged. The door caught as he started to pull it to; hissing against the pile of the carpet. ‘Need to get an inch shaved off this fucking door,’ he said.
Brooks was looking at his phone again, studying the screen.
‘You need to get some sleep, son…’
Tindall closed the door without waiting for a reaction, and went back downstairs to his supper and his dog.
Thorne woke with his arm stretched across the cold side of the bed where Louise should have been. He walked naked and half asleep into the kitchen. Found Louise leaning back against the worktop in a dressing-gown, hands wrapped around her favourite mug.
‘You all right?’
‘I just wanted some tea,’ she said.
Thorne peered at the digital clock on the front of the cooker. ‘At half past four?’
‘Why do you never tell me anything?’
That woke him up fast enough. Fuck, was there any way she could have found out about the contact with Marcus Brooks? He tried to hide his alarm beneath confusion and lack of sleep. He breathed hard and blinked slowly. ‘Sorry… what? Is there some conversation I’m forgetting here?’
Louise shook her head. ‘That’s the point.’
