“That’s one word for it.”
“How are you going to play it?” Thorne looked across at Brigstocke and received a small shake of the head in return.
“You’ve got some good stuff in here,” Holland said. “All the Scream movies. A lot of Jim Carrey stuff…”
Thorne pointed to the Jiffy bag. “I think I’d rather watch that again.”
They all laughed, but nobody’s heart was really in it. Least of all Thorne’s.
“Why don’t you find us a caff, Dave?” Brigstocke said. “Bring us some teas back.”
Thorne had eaten no more than Holland, but for different reasons. Now he wanted a variety of cakes and sandwiches with his tea, and in the end Holland had to write it all down. When he’d gone, Thorne turned to Brigstocke. “What was all that about?” He mimicked the strange shaking of the head that had gone on just before.
“I need to get this rubber-stamped by Jesmond first thing in the morning,” he said. “He’s gone higher up, but for what it’s worth, I’ve told him I don’t think we should tell the army about the video just yet.” Thorne considered this for a moment or two. “It makes sense.”
Brigstocke looked relieved that Thorne was agreeing with him, but explained himself anyway. “What’s on this tape is a bloody big deal, and once the army gets hold of it, they might well think they’ve got better things to worry about than a few murders.” “You’re worried they’ll try and find some way to cover it up?”
Brigstocke looked worried about something, certainly. “I don’t know. Look, when our case is put to bed they can do what they want with it and I’ll be happy to cooperate in any way I can. Right now, though, that tape’s just evidence in my murder investigation, and I need their help.” He looked down at the photograph on the table. “I need the names of those men, and if the army knows about this tape,
I’m not sure we’ll get given them very quickly. See what I’m saying?”
“Like I said, it makes sense.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
It was obvious that Brigstocke was still nervous about having made such a potentially dangerous decision. He needed reassurance, and Thorne could understand why he’d sent Holland out before he’d gone looking for it. Thorne wanted to tell him that he was handling the situation well, that he was making a good job of a miserable case. He wanted to tell him that he wasn’t the only one in the room who needed reassurance. The moment came and went… “Jesmond might well bottle it,” Brigstocke said.
“If he orders us to hand the tape over, we’ll hand it over and see what happens. The Met’s worked well enough with the RMP when we’ve had to. It’ll probably be fine.. .”
“Or it’ll be like we never had the tape in the first place.”
“We’ll see…”
“What about the sister?” Thorne asked. “She’s back home, but we got pretty heavy with her. She thinks there’s a charge of conspiracy to pervert hanging over her.”
“Is there?”
“We’ll let the CPS decide. It’ll be a difficult one to call, because she never actually did anything. She was lying to protect a dead man.”
Thorne had never met Susan Jago. He imagined her as hard-faced and cunning. He pictured thin lips and dead eyes; features she’d have shared with one of the men behind goggles and a colored kerchief. A man who’d tied up prisoners and executed them.
“She didn’t know he was dead when she lied, though, did she?”
The two of them sat back in their chairs, waiting for Holland to return with the food and hot drinks. “It’s just such a fucking relief,” Brigstocke said.
“To have a motive. It’s got to be blackmail, agreed?” Thorne nodded. “It’s the only thing that explains why it’s happening now.” It was the obvious conclusion. Someone was willing to kill to prevent this tape getting out. A threat had been made to expose what had happened fifteen years before, and whoever had been threatened had reacted violently. Thorne looked at the picture of the four soldiers. Whoever was doing the blackmailing, the killer had decided to take no chances…
Brigstocke sat up, leaned down to study the photograph alongside Thorne. The conditions when the picture was taken, alongside that of the broken-down image itself, had combined to give it the strange quality of a double exposure. The figures, dark green against gray, seemed incomplete, almost spectral.
Brigstocke traced a finger along the row of soldiers.
“We know two of those four are dead, right? If the other two are still alive, we need to find them.” “Especially if one of them’s the killer,” Thorne said. “I don’t think it’s very likely.” Brigstocke sat forward. “A blackmailer’s going to target someone with money. Someone who’s done pretty well for himself.
Right? Based on what we know so far, that doesn’t sound like your average ex-squaddie…”
Thorne had to agree that it made good sense. He thought about the voice on the tape, distorted on occasion, and too close to the mike. The voice that had seemed to be giving the orders. “Well, that only leaves one option,” he said, nodding toward the blank screen. “We’re looking for whoever was behind the camera.”
By the time they’d finished at the Lift and Thorne had gone on his way, Holland and Brigstocke were off duty for the night. Brigstocke had gone straight home, and Holland knew that he should really do the same. Instead, he’d called the office to see who might still be around, and, finding that Yvonne Kitson had not yet left, had arranged to meet her for a drink. He’d jumped on the tube and headed all the way back north to Colindale, to meet the DI in the Royal Oak.
Inside half an hour they’d put away a couple each and begun to loosen up a little.
“Where are the kids tonight…?” As Holland was asking the question he realized he was unsure what he should call Kitson. He couldn’t remember having a drink with her on her own before, and something about it-and perhaps about the fact that they were drinking so fast-seemed to alter the dynamic between them.
“Tony’s got them. He picks them up from the child minder if I’m on a late one.”
“Right.” Holland hadn’t heard Kitson mention her new bloke’s name before.
“And ‘Yvonne’s’ fine, by the way,” she said. “I think we’re off the clock in here.”
They took sips of white wine and lager top and looked around at the pub’s brightly lit and unwelcoming interior. The place had no frills, but was still very busy. As it happened, being very much the local for the Peel Centre, there were usually just as many coppers in the place as were to be found up the road in Becke House.
“What about you, Dave? You were somewhere near Leicester Square, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.” Kitson still had no idea that Thorne had gone undercover, and so obviously had not been informed that Holland and Brigstocke had gone into the West End to meet up with him and show him the tape. “Some old boy told one of the local lads he’d seen something on the night of the last murder. Waste of bloody time…”
“That’s only a few stops from Elephant and Castle, isn’t it? You could have been home in quarter of an hour.”
A copper, whose face he’d seen before in the pub and at various times around Becke House, came to the table and asked Holland if the empty chair opposite him was taken. Holland shook his head, watched the man take the chair across and join a group who looked like they were settling down to make a night of it. He turned back to Kitson. “It’s not fair on Sophie. I’m bringing such a lot of shit home with me at the moment, you know? Like I’m walking it through the flat and getting it everywhere. Dirtying everything…”
“Is this about the tape?”
“It’s mad, I know. We see loads of horrible stuff, right? It’s just seeing it happen like that. Watching them do it.”
“It’s how you’re meant to feel, Dave. You should be worried if you didn’t.”
“This is going to sound stupid, but I don’t want to pass any of it on to Chloe. I have to deal with it, but there’s no reason why she should, is there? It’s like passive smoking or something. I don’t want her anywhere near anything that might affect her, and right now it’s like I’m choking on it. I feel like I’m carrying it around on my clothes and in my hair. Passive evil…”
Kitson smiled as she raised her glass to her lips.
“Told you it was stupid,” Holland said.
Kitson shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said. “I curse my three sometimes, but perhaps I should be
