away a bin-liner stuffed with clothes and cosmetics from Thorne’s place in Kentish Town, while Thorne had left Louise’s flat for the last time with a carrier bag, a few tins of beer and a box of CDs. It had ended with a hug, but it might just as well have been a handshake. Loading his boxes and bags into the back of his car, Thorne had decided that it might be a good idea to change a whole lot of other things.
To start again…
He turned towards Finchley and almost immediately hit a tailback. No more than five miles now, but still half an hour or so away from Hendon, and Becke House. The headquarters of the Area West Murder Squad.
‘Why the hell do you need to change your job?’
He had been out drinking with Phil Hendricks a few weeks before, and, as always, the Mancunian had not fought shy of giving his opinion. Thorne shook his head, but had listened anyway. Hendricks’ opinion was the one he most valued professionally and the same thing usually applied when it came to his private life, because the pathologist was the nearest thing he had to a best friend.
‘Only friend,’ Hendricks never tired of saying.
‘Why not?’ Thorne had asked.
‘Because it’s not… relevant. It’s not necessary. It would be like me doing a post-mortem on some poor bugger who’d been shot twelve times in the head, then saying the fact he had hardened arteries and a slight heart condition might have had something to do with his death.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Thorne had said.
‘It’s too much, that’s all. Just because you’ve split up with someone doesn’t mean you have to change everything. I mean, car… yes! The bloody thing was a death-trap and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with moving to a new flat either. We’ll find you somewhere much nicer than that dump you’re in now and I’ll take you shopping for some decent furniture, but do you really need to be looking for a new job as well?’
‘It’s all part of it.’
‘Part of what?’
‘New start,’ Thorne said. ‘New broom… leaf, whatever.’
‘You’re drunker than I am… ’
They had moved on to football then and Thorne’s desolate sex life, but Thorne could see that Hendricks had a point, and he had thought about little else since. Even though he still believed he was doing the right thing in looking for a new challenge, the thought of leaving Area West Homicide made him feel slightly sick. The nature of the job and the politics of arse-covering meant that it was often hard to build up real trust between members of a team. Thorne had come to value the relationships he had with a number of those he worked with every day. Men and women he liked and respected. Plenty of idiots as well of course, but even so.
Better the devil you know, all that.
On the radio, Chris Evans was making him almost as angry as Expresso Man, so Thorne turned it off. He switched to CD and scanned through the ten discs he had mounted in the changer. He turned up the volume at the familiar guitar lick and that first lovely rumble of the man’s voice.
Johnny Cash: ‘Ain’t No Grave’.
‘While you’re busy changing things,’ Hendricks had said, ‘you could always do something about that stupid cowboy music.’
Thorne grinned, remembering the pained look on his friend’s face, and pushed on through the traffic towards the office.
It was not as if he was going to take the first thing that came along. Chances were nothing suitable would present itself for a good while anyway, and by the time it did he might feel differently.
For now he would just do his job, wait and see what turned up.
THREE
As Helen backed away from the gun, she could see a face at the window over Akhtar’s shoulder. One of the boys he had chased from the shop, open-mouthed at seeing what was happening inside. He shouted something to one of his friends before tearing away, down towards the station. If Akhtar heard it, he did not seem unduly concerned. He just kept walking towards Helen and the man standing next to her.
Good, Helen thought, that’s good. At least now someone on the outside will know what the situation is and will alert the police. This was provided they believed it, of course. She could barely believe what was happening herself.
Mr Akhtar.
She could not say honestly that she knew the man, not really, but she had been coming into his shop for over a year. They’d spoken every day, no more than pleasantries, but still…
What the hell was he up to?
Pointing with the gun, Akhtar ushered Helen and the other customer around the counter and through a low archway into a cluttered storeroom behind the shop. Sitting on a battered wooden desk was a television showing Daybreak with the sound turned down. There was a single chair, a filing cabinet and a small fridge in the corner with a kettle, some mugs and a jar of coffee on top. Aside from a small sink, almost every inch of space on three of the walls was taken up with cardboard boxes and stacked plastic pallets containing replacement stock.
Tinned goods, crisps, kitchen towel, cigarettes.
There were two doors. The one with bolts top and bottom and a heavy padlock was clearly an exterior door which Helen presumed opened out on to the alleyway that ran along the back of the shops. She guessed that the unpainted plywood door led to a toilet.
Akhtar said he was sorry that things were a little cramped and told them to stand against the one bare wall. He asked Helen if she had a mobile phone. She told him it was in her handbag. He told her to slide the bag across the floor towards him and told the man to slowly do the same with his mobile phone. Then, once he had taken a seat at the desk, he ordered them both to sink down on to their backsides. Without taking his eyes from them, he rooted around in one of the desk drawers before tossing two pairs of metal handcuffs across to Helen.
‘Off the internet,’ he said. ‘Top of the range. Same as the ones you use, I think.’
Helen reached across and picked the cuffs up from the floor. ‘It’s not too late to stop this,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, things are not too serious yet, OK? I mean I can’t say for sure you’ll stay out of prison, because of the gun, but if you let us go now I’ll do everything I can to make sure that it’s not too bad. Are you listening, Mr Akhtar?’
He smiled at Helen, a little oddly. Said, ‘I would like you to handcuff one another to the radiator pipes. There is one at either end, see?’
Helen exchanged a look with the man slumped next to her, and nodded. She reached across and cuffed his right hand to the small pipe that ran down into the floor. When she had finished, though it had now become somewhat awkward and took rather longer, he did the same to her left hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ the newsagent said. ‘The radiator is not on, so you will not get too hot.’ He looked at Helen. ‘Nice weather, like you said.’
Helen could see that he was trying to make a joke, but she could also see the tension in his face and hear the tremor in his voice. She could see how frightened he was.
This was not necessarily a good thing.
Satisfied that his prisoners were secure, Akhtar stood up and walked back out into the shop. The man handcuffed next to Helen stared at the archway for a few seconds, then, apparently satisfied that the newsagent was not coming straight back, he turned to her.
‘You’re a copper, then?’ Perhaps it was because he was trying to talk quietly, but his voice was soft and high. He was well spoken with just a trace of a London accent.
Helen looked at him and nodded.
He had short hair and was wearing a blue suit and patterned tie. He reached up with his free hand and yanked the tie loose, tore at the top button of his shirt. He was sweating.
‘So what are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘Sorry?’
