remotest idea what her husband got up to in his spare time.
McCarthy waited for ten, fifteen seconds after the door had closed. ‘I thought the whole thing was stupid,’ he said. ‘Worse than stupid.’
‘By “the whole thing”, you mean killing Amin Akhtar.’
The doctor nodded, slowly. ‘It was all so… unnecessary.’
Just the man’s choice of word made Thorne want to kick his face off, but he bit back the impulse, let him continue.
‘Amin showed no sign whatsoever that he recognized me. Nothing, not a glimmer of it, in all those months. So why anyone else thought they might have been recognized, I don’t know.’
‘Anyone else meaning one man in particular.’
McCarthy nodded.
‘He didn’t want to take any chances,’ Thorne said.
‘I told the other two what I thought, that there was absolutely no need to take such a pointless risk, but my opinion clearly didn’t carry the same weight as… some other people’s.’
‘And Simon Powell was happy enough to go along with it.’
‘Not happy, exactly,’ McCarthy said. ‘Nobody was happy about it. But yes.’
Thorne thought about the man who, by the sound of it, had been orchestrating the trio’s activities, both before and after the killing of Amin Akhtar. Who had led a conspiracy to murder first one boy, then another whose help had been enlisted in the killing of the first. Who was clearly a great believer in covering his tracks. Once again, Thorne asked himself what the chances were of finding Jonathan Bridges alive.
Did this man simply believe that he had that much more to lose than his friends? Or was he just that much more inhuman?
‘When was the last time you talked to him?’ Thorne asked.
McCarthy hesitated. ‘Last night.’
‘And when were you planning to see him next?’ He saw the answer in McCarthy’s face. ‘Tonight? That’s what’s messing up wifey’s plans for dinner, is it?’
‘There’s a party.’
McCarthy had only whispered it, but Thorne heard it loud and clear. There it was, the piece of luck that he was long overdue. He could not keep the grin from his face. ‘Is Powell going as well?’
‘I don’t think so,’ McCarthy said. ‘Some of the parties, there’s a different crowd.’
‘Well don’t worry, I’ll make up the numbers.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll tag along as your “plus one”.’
McCarthy shook his head. ‘No.’
Thorne dropped the jovial tone. ‘Maybe we should just get your wife back in here, see what she thinks. Maybe she’d like to come along as well.’
McCarthy began to squeeze his hand again, muttered, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck… ’
‘I don’t know why you’re so scared,’ Thorne said. ‘Because as things stand right this minute, I’m the one you need to be afraid of. You clear about that, Ian?’
McCarthy looked up. The smallest nod.
‘Good. Glad we’ve got that sorted.’ Thorne sat back and spread his arms along the back of the sofa. ‘Like I said, been ages since I went to a decent party.’ He took a sip of coffee and grinned. ‘Might be quite an adventure.’
FIFTY-NINE
Kim Yates looked up from his ‘extra-fiendish’ sudoku and glanced across at the woman sitting a few feet away. She was concentrating on the same puzzle in her own puzzle book. He looked at his watch. He and Annette Williams had been working together as technicians for almost a year now, but it did not look as though either of them was likely to beat their personal best on this occasion.
Today, it was just going to be about who finished first.
In their headphones, from the speakers, the sounds of some drama or other. One of those set in a hospital. Bar a short exchange about tea – asked for by the hostage and curtly refused by the hostage taker – it had been nothing but television for the last hour or so.
Behind him, on the other side of the van, Yates was aware that the hostage negotiator had her nose buried in one of those magazines. Hello! or some rubbish. He knew what Annette would think about that.
He wondered if he should let her finish the sudoku first. Beating him would put her in a good mood and she might be more inclined to say yes if he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out for a meal. He would need to think carefully though. Taking the standings between them into account, the fact that he had now won six in a row, she was far too smart not to at least suspect that he had let her win, and her reaction to that could only really go one of two ways. Would she think he was being gallant, or patronising? Would she be angry with him? Or would she pretend to be offended, but only because she was secretly pleased?
Hell’s bells, this was why he found women such a nightmare, he could never second-guess them.
He went back to the puzzle, filled in another couple of numbers.
Who was he trying to kid anyway? Like he was ever going to ask Annette out for a meal. Perhaps he should ask another woman what she thought. Yes, that was a sensible idea, he decided. Get a second opinion before deciding what to do next.
He would ask his mother when he got home.
Yates, Williams and Pascoe all looked up at the same time when the sound stopped suddenly. Magazines and puzzle books were pushed quickly aside.
‘TV’s off,’ Pascoe said.
The two technicians made a few minor adjustments to the levels. All three listened. Pascoe looked back to where Donnelly was talking to Chivers in the playground, just beyond the back doors of the truck.
She shouted, ‘Sir… ’
Akhtar: I think I have been very patient up to now, but I am running out of it. No more patience.
More adjustments, to cope with the sudden increase in volume level from the hostage taker.
Weeks: Please put the gun down, Javed-
Akhtar: I think I am being laughed at.
Weeks: That’s really not true.
Akhtar: Inspector Thorne thinks I am a fool, that he can tell me this and that and string me along while I sit in here like an idiot making bloody tea! Well, that’s enough.
There was a pause. Half a minute. Donnelly and Chivers stepped up into the van.
Akhtar: Does this have a camera on it?
Donnelly looked at Pascoe as he grabbed a pair of headphones. She shook her head, no wiser than he was. They all listened, but for the next few minutes until Akhtar spoke again the only sounds were generated by Helen Weeks. A grunt as she shifted position, the rattle of metal handcuffs against the radiator pipe.
Akhtar: There. Now we’ll see. Then, Sorry about the smell.
Weeks began to cough.
Akhtar: I brought this. Should help a bit.
There was a long hiss, then another. Donnelly looked at Pascoe.
‘Aerosol,’ she said.
Akhtar: That’s better.
A few seconds later the television was switched on again. The channels were changed in rapid succession; music, football, canned laughter, before Akhtar – presuming it was Akhtar – finally settled on the same drama they had been watching a few minutes earlier. There were a few more coughs from Helen Weeks, then the sound of something – a remote control or possibly the gun – being dropped on to a table.
Then nothing.
