along. This worked fine for a while, with the car gradually speeding up and the horse cantering along quite nicely. Unfortunately, what they had fashioned was less of a tow rope and more of a noose, so that without warning the horse had suddenly collapsed in a heap on the road and begun to shake dramatically. Certain that he’d killed it, the officer climbed out of the boot and walked over to the stricken beast, just in time for the horse to leap to its feet and charge through the nearest hedge, dragging the stunned copper behind him.
Brigstocke wound up by explaining that the officer concerned was recovering in Chase Farm Hospital, while the horse, who was still at large, had last been sighted galloping gaily along a B-road near the gloriously named Trotter’s Bottom.
Then he finished his briefing.
“That sort of thing’s good for morale,” Brigstocke said. “Pretty welcome round here at the moment.”
Holland piped up. “It can’t hurt to remind ourselves every so often that it isn’t all murder and mayhem…”
“Right, and you told it very well,” Kitson said.
Russell Brigstocke seemed pleased with the compliment as he walked around his desk and sat down in the chair behind. His office was one of three on a corridor that snaked alongside the large, open-plan incident room. Holland and DC Andy Stone were based in one of the other two; and while the man she usually shared it with was on gardening leave, Yvonne Kitson was sole occupant of the third. These officers-together with office manager DS Samir Karim-had followed Brigstocke into his office. As the everyday core of Team 3, it was their practice to gather here after the formalities of the morning and catch up. To brainstorm and to bitch a little. It was off-the- record, and what was said was usually nearer the mark than much of the official briefing that preceded it.
“It’s not… hugely exciting, is it?” Brigstocke said. Holland and Stone were leaning against the wall near the door. Kitson and Karim had commandeered the available chairs.
Holland replied for all of them: “We nearly got lucky with Susan Jago. We’ll get lucky next time.”
“Right,” Kitson said. “There’s still plenty of calls coming in.”
“Plenty of ’em from fruitcakes.” Brigstocke straightened the picture of his wife and kids that sat on his desk in a scarred, metal frame. This sole attempt at personalizing his office had made it far more attractive than most of the other airless, magnolia boxes that honeycombed Becke House. “Why do these morons ring up?”
“I’ve got three officers on the phones full-time,” Karim said.
Stone shrugged. “It’s got to be our best bet, though.”
Brigstocke was not one of them, but there were plenty of senior officers who spoke, who thought only in cliches. As the case stood, they’d have been spoiled for choice. Every available drawing board had been located and gone back to. The book by which things were done was being pawed until its spine cracked. “Our only bet,” Brigstocke said.
There’d been a flurry of activity in the days following Robert Asker’s murder, but now, in reality, there was little to be done but donkey work. The response to appeal posters, press updates, and the continuing profile being appended to the picture of the first victim meant dozens of calls to be chased up daily. There were the obvious cranks to be eliminated; those who turned out to be cranks and were then eliminated; and those, like Susan Jago, who were genuine, but proved to be ultimately worthless. The team’s dedicated Intelligence Unit, meanwhile, was sifting through endless hours of CCTV footage taken in and around the relevant area. Aside from the predictable brawls and drug deals, and the occasional bout of drunken coupling in a doorway, there was nothing much to merit pressing freeze – frame. It was hard when nobody really knew what they were looking for.
Suspicious behavior in London’s glittering West End? There was plenty of that. Dodgy-looking characters? More than you could shake a shitty stick at…
What few officers were left had gone back out onto the streets, but with even less luck than before. If there was any information out there to be gathered, people were keeping it to themselves. The latest death had only led those who might still be at risk to close ranks even further.
There were tighter lips and still greater suspicion.
“Trevor Jesmond was less than thrilled with last night’s Standard, ” Brigstocke said.
Kitson groaned. “It was silliness, guv, that’s all…”
“It just got blown up,” Karim said.
Close enough to the responses Brigstocke had heard when he’d raised the subject at the main briefing. But it was still embarrassing
…
The day before, an officer had been trying to question a group of older rough sleepers by the Embankment. When they’d become what he deemed to be overaggressive, he’d panicked and handcuffed one of them to some railings. The old man’s caseworker had contacted the team at Charing Cross, and although the mess had eventually been sorted out, some bright spark had called the Evening Standard and the old man had cheerfully re- created the incident for a photographer.
Russell Brigstocke had spent an hour on the phone the night before, having his ear chewed. He looked up at the four in front of him. “This is not how we deal with this community. Especially not now.”
“It was a one-off,” Holland said. “I know it looked bad…”
Brigstocke shook his head, unimpressed, and looked over at Kitson. “Spread the word, will you, Yvonne? These people were vulnerable enough before some nutter started killing them. We’re starting to look like fucking idiots.”
He leaned back in his chair, exhausted at a little after ten in the morning. Hendon and beyond were the color of oatmeal outside his window.
Thorne had spent most of the morning begging. Sitting against a wall at the top end of Regent Street, with a blanket across his legs and his rucksack laid out in front to catch the coins. He’d picked a spot nice and close to a cash point, and while he wasn’t expecting too many banknotes to come his way, people did already have their wallets out, so he’d done fairly well.
He had also turned down a fairly lucrative offer of work…
A man in Timberland boots and designer casuals had squatted down and asked if Thorne would be interested in making some real money. It was messy work, as it turned out, but certainly paid better than begging. All Thorne had to do was catch a tube up to Camden or Hampstead-a travelcard would be supplied-and spend a few hours going through the bins at the back of one or two big houses. Thorne could guess how it worked. He’d be paid a few quid an hour and then anything useful he dug up and handed over-credit-card slips, bank statements, whatever-would be sold on for a very healthy profit. You could get fifty notes for someone’s credit-card details; passport documents and the like were worth even more. The homeless were perfect for the job, of course. They were smelly and shitty already, so why would they object to rooting through someone’s garbage?
Thorne had told the man that he’d think about it and the man had given him the name of a pub where he could be contacted. Someone would certainly be making contact with him once Thorne had passed the details on…
When a five-pound note fluttered down onto his rucksack, Thorne looked up and saw Hendricks looming above him.
“A cup of tea’s bloody extortionate these days,” Hendricks said. “And coffee’s just ridiculous. You won’t see a lot of change out of that if you go to Starbucks…”
“I’ll try not to.”
“So, how’s it going?”
Hendricks squatted down next to him, much as the bin man had done earlier. They spoke in low voices, but Thorne was relaxed enough. If any rough sleeper were to see them talking, it would not look out of the ordinary. Most of them knew Hendricks from the surgery work he did at the Lift.
“If anyone comes by, I’ll have to start examining you,” Hendricks said.
“Did you actually want something?”
“I just wanted to run this idea by you… Well, I’ve done it anyway, but I wanted to let you know.”
“Is this the bee in your bonnet that Brendan was on about?”
Hendricks rolled his eyes. “He’s a wanker sometimes…”
“Are you two not getting on?”
Hendricks was about to say something, but stopped himself. He took a moment and the irritation seemed to disappear. “He’s very down about what’s happening, which is understandable. A lot of his clients are obviously
