Thorne stopped at the door, locked it himself, and turned back into the restaurant. ‘Remains to be seen… ’
Zarif froze, then turned quickly at the noise of footsteps on the stairs. His gut wobbled as he was pulled in two directions at once. As he saw the man appear above the white balustrade, and performed a near-perfect double take; a low noise in his throat.
‘Someone else wanted a chat,’ Thorne said.
‘This is not… right,’ Zarif said. ‘You are very fucking crazy.’ He was genuinely searching for the words this time; speaking slowly, trying to order his thoughts.
Talking to Thorne, but staring at Marcus Brooks.
It struck Thorne that, like himself, Zarif would never have seen Brooks in the flesh; may not even have had any idea what the man whose life he had turned upside down looked like. But it was clear from the old man’s face that he knew exactly who his visitor was.
Brooks’ dark hair was longer than it had been in the most recent E-fit, and he had the makings of a decent beard. But his face was even thinner. He had a large spot, or a sore of some kind, on the edge of his top lip, and above dark semicircles the eyes seemed filmed over and far away.
He wore jeans and a faded sweatshirt under a brown puffa jacket. His training shoes were muddy, and he swung a plastic bag from one hand.
Nothing had been planned – not past this point at any rate – and it may just have been that Brooks was following Thorne’s lead, but they began to move towards Zarif at much the same moment. Zarif backed towards the booth at which he’d been sitting; stopped at the edge of the table.
He looked at Thorne. ‘You know I have friends close by. My sons…’
‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t you have some sort of panic button? You never struck me as the type to scream for help, but you could give it a go.’
Thorne thought that Zarif looked scared; unnerved, certainly. But there was no mistaking the anger. The olive skin of the old man’s face darkened further with blood. He pushed back his shoulders.
‘You are trespassing.’
‘You invited me in,’ Thorne said. ‘I seem to remember being offered a drink.’
Zarif turned to look at the man he had most certainly not invited.
‘The door was open,’ Brooks said.
‘Seriously fucking crazy.’ Zarif shook his head, swallowed hard. ‘Maybe I just go to the phone and call the police.’ He pointed at Thorne. ‘Talk to someone who will deal with you.’
Brooks took another step forward. ‘Tell me about Angie,’ he said.
Zarif said nothing. His eyes on the bag; on the weight of it. Thorne knew that even if Zarif did not know what Brooks looked like, he must have known exactly what he’d been doing, and how. Up until this moment, Zarif had probably relished every detail.
‘He just wants to know,’ Thorne said.
‘I want the names of the men you sent,’ Brooks said. ‘Whoever was driving the car.’
‘It’s a peace-of-mind thing,’ Thorne said.
‘Did you know Angie would have my son with her?’
‘Or was that another bonus?’
‘Was it
Zarif was stock-still, but his eyes flicked rapidly between the two of them.
‘I should imagine so,’ Thorne said. ‘Families have never really been off-limits with you, have they, Baba?’
‘Did you plan to kill them both?’
Zarif shook his head.
Thorne leaned back against the bar. ‘No, “don’t know”? Or no, “won’t tell”?’
‘Fuck you,’ Zarif said, equally casual.
Brooks hefted the bag into his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter either way.’
‘And fuck you, too…’
Thorne pushed himself away from the bar and walked behind it. ‘If that’s as much as you’ve got to say for yourself, there’s no point hanging around, is there?’ He looked across at Brooks. The exhaustion was scored in lines across his face; but now Thorne could see hunger there, too. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then…’
‘Sounds good,’ Brooks said.
Thorne scanned the shelves above him, searching for the CD player. Once he’d found it, he turned up the volume. The woman was laying it on thick; the drummer working overtime.
‘Where are you going?’ Zarif asked.
Thorne didn’t answer, enjoying the fear he’d heard in the question. He nodded his head in time to the music as he walked back around the bar, and away past Zarif, towards the stairs.
‘You have to stop now, and think how foolish you are being.’
Trying to look unconcerned, while his heart smashed against his chest…
‘You are too smart to do this.’
Ignoring the noise as he stepped down: the shouting and the swearing; the sounds of a man losing control. Focusing instead on the voice of the woman; the notes of her song rising to a perfectly pitched scream of joy, or agony, as he walked quickly down the stairs, and out through the grey, metal door.
He took his time walking along the alleyway to the street; then back on to the main drag. It wasn’t far short of one in the morning, but there was still plenty of traffic on Green Lanes. Drivers heading north towards Turnpike Lane and beyond, or south towards the City.
Thorne watched the cars, cabs and lorries go past, and wondered how many of their occupants felt part of anything; were really connected to others around them. There were communities in London, tightly knit and isolated pockets, where it was possible to feel as though the people next door gave a shit. But it was also a city in which a copy of the Evening Standard could shield you from almost anything.
Where death – violent death, certainly – had become part of the city’s fabric, like the extortionate house prices and the impossibility of parking.
Where life expectancy in boroughs like Islington, Camden and Haringey could be as much as ten years less in some parts than it was in others.
Where people like Arkan Zarif could make plans and grow fat.
Thorne walked slowly past the front of the estate agent’s and stopped for a second time outside the window of the restaurant. He could see the bottle and the glass on the table, hear the music from inside. The place looked empty now. He presumed that Brooks had either moved Zarif into the room at the back or taken him downstairs. He wondered if he had been thinking about the noise.
‘Sounds good,’ he’d said before Thorne had walked out. He’d looked as though he’d meant it.
Thorne turned from the window, feeling empty, and OK about it. He had decided the first time round that where Zarif and others like him were concerned, his moral compass would have to be… adjusted. He had a line, of course, same as everyone else, and there were people who had forced him into stepping over it more than once.
Psychopaths, sadists, users of children.
But Arkan Zarif had fucked with Thorne’s view of the world; with his grasp of what was just and decent. Had redefined it…
A squad car raced past on blues-and-twos. Thorne blinked and saw Louise’s face; flushed as it might be after love-making, or in temper.
He heard her voice, and his own.
And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you? Or what I did last night make me?
We haven’t murdered anyone.
The image dissolved, drifted, and he walked on, happy enough. When it came to Arkan Zarif, getting the right result was the only thing that mattered.
Waiting, Thorne looked at his watch many times. It was seventeen minutes from when he’d left the restaurant, to the moment when his phone rang.
His old mobile phone.
He took it from his pocket but didn’t answer. Let it go to voicemail.
