Chivers holstered his weapon, but the look he gave Pascoe made it clear he was unimpressed. As though she had just admitted to studying crop circles or reading tea leaves.
Donnelly sat down. ‘So, in your professional opinion…?’
‘It’s fine, sir,’ Pascoe said. ‘No harm done.’
Chivers took a long swig from his water bottle. ‘Well, at least we know the gun’s loaded,’ he said.
Thorne was torn from a dream, something vaguely sad and sexual which evaporated almost immediately with the clamour of the phone against his chest. He saw the time on the small, brightly lit screen and realised that he had been asleep for less than half an hour.
‘There was a gunshot inside the newsagent’s,’ Donnelly said.
‘ What? ’ Thorne sat up fast.
‘The gun went off for some reason, but nobody’s hurt. Sue Pascoe spoke to DS Weeks and assures us that everything’s fine.’
A pungent scrap of the dream drifted across Thorne’s mind, just for a second or two. A woman he had briefly known called Anna Carpenter. Alive again, with skin that tasted of salt.
‘I’ll come down,’ Thorne said.
‘There’s no need.’
‘I wasn’t asleep anyway.’
‘Look, it’s up to you, but I think you’ll be more use to us if you try and get your head down. More use to her.’
It made sense. Thorne knew he would struggle to get back to sleep, but could not pretend that he was not exhausted.
‘We’re handing over to the night shift,’ Donnelly said. ‘And I’ve briefed the SIO to call you if anything else happens, OK?’ He told Thorne he would see him first thing the following morning at the RVP, assured him they were leaving the safety of Helen Weeks in good hands.
Thorne sat in the dark for a while afterwards, thinking about the handful of occasions in the last twenty years when he had thought he might be about to die. Those slow-motion, shit-yourself seconds. Each moment was pin- sharp and terrible, though oddly more comfortable lying curled in his memory than those mercifully fewer times when he had felt himself capable of killing.
Thorne hoped that Helen was keeping such feelings at bay, though he knew they might well come along later on.
He pushed the idea from his mind, tried to focus instead on what he might do to help her. He thought about what Hendricks had said and imagined himself trying to shovel pills into Amin Akhtar’s mouth. Forcing him to swallow, his hand over the boy’s nose as he retched and kicked and bit.
He knew Hendricks was right. However perfect the timing of that theft from the dispensary was, it had to have been done another way.
He got up and switched on the light, then gathered together the papers that were spread out across the small table. Was the answer somewhere in those reports? Or would he come face to face with the person responsible for Amin’s death tomorrow?
If he had not done so already.
He turned the television on and picked up the dirty plates that were still lying on the floor. He carried them out to the kitchen. He ran hot water across the dried food and left them in the sink. Then he opened the fridge.
Presuming Hendricks had left any, Thorne decided there was no reason to deny himself that beer any longer.
TWENTY-FOUR
Five minutes on from it, Helen could no longer be sure that the noise in her head was the result of the gunshot. That it was not simply a silent scream of alarm at what had happened: the head slamming back against the radiator, the light leaving the eyes, the body slumping slowly down across her own.
And at what had happened afterwards.
The things she had said on the phone…
She had dragged herself, wailing, from beneath the dead weight of Stephen Mitchell. She had pushed his body away in disgust – her hands slick with him – and flinched when his head had cracked against the floor. She had turned, as the cry died to a ragged groan that bubbled in her throat, and seen Akhtar shuffle backwards to press himself against the wall.
She had listened to him murmur in a language she did not understand.
She had wondered if he was praying.
Then, when it had begun to ring, they had become still and stared at the phone. The handset juddering across the linoleum between Helen’s leg and Mitchell’s head. Its bright blue casing spattered with red.
It was not until it had rung a second time that her brain was able to do what was needed. Then, it had calmly told her hand to move and pick it up. Told her mouth to say what it needed to…
Now, she lifted the cushion from behind her by one sodden corner and tossed it towards the toilet door. She leaned back and tried to control her breathing. She could feel the sticky wetness on her blouse. The blood, livid against the ivory, pressing the material against her skin, and her chest rising upwards to push the skin against the wetness.
‘Can I please put my jacket back on?’
Akhtar was examining his hand, the gun that lay in his open palm.
‘ Please. I don’t want to look at the blood.’
Still, Akhtar did not raise his head. Just shook it, as though pushing it through water or treacle-thick air. ‘What have I done?’ he said, the whisper gaining in strength with each repetition. ‘What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?’
Helen could just make out her own voice, cracked and nervous, below the high-pitched whine in her head.
Asking the same question.
The party is shaping up nicely, and he bloody well needs it after a long day dealing with idiots. There are plenty of good bodies on display and the drugs are top quality as always. The first joint – in his hand before he had removed his jacket – has helped him relax a little, taken the edge off, and he will move on to some of the harder stuff later on, once things really start to get serious.
When the lights are dimmed and the bedroom doors begin to close.
He has already met one or two he might go back to see later and made more than casual eye contact with someone he hopes is as keen as he is to take things further. Just a look, but that is usually more than enough early on, and he had needed to step out into the hallway afterwards, slip a hand into his underpants and make the necessary adjustments.
The feel of things down there had got him even more excited of course. The smoothness of it, and the weight in his hand. He had spent a few minutes in the bathroom after that.
He is pouring Glenlivet into a glass when his phone rings. He sees the caller ID and hesitates for just a second as he reaches for the water jug. He lets the phone ring. Then, once he has taken a sip and helped himself to a nibble or two, he carries his drink out on to the balcony and calls back.
It is a warm night, if a little breezy, and there are three or four boys out there laughing and smoking. They smile, but he ignores them and walks to the furthest corner; stares out across the rooftops towards the winking light on top of Canary Wharf.
‘It’s me.’
There is a noisy breath at the other end of the phone. ‘Listen… you should know that some questions are being asked about one of our old friends.’
He takes a gulp of whisky. ‘You might need to be a little more specific than that.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
