“I’ll take that as a no, then…”
They stared at each other for a few moments.
Thorne was finding it hard to dislike McCabe, much as he thought it would be the appropriate thing to do. Maybe he’d start disliking him later, when the hangover had worn off a little. “Let me try and guess why you’re so tetchy,” he said. “You clearly are, smiling or not
…”
McCabe said nothing.
“It might be piles, or money worries, or maybe it’s because your wife has discovered that you’re really a woman trapped in a man’s body. If I had to choose, though, I’d say it was because you haven’t been kept informed. Not about the undercover operation, obviously. That’s need-to-know…”
“Not last night, it wasn’t…”
Thorne nodded, allowing McCabe the point, then carried on. “I’m talking about the rough-sleeper murders generally. Maybe as senior officer on a specialist unit that deals with the homeless, you feel that you should have had some involvement. That you should have been consulted more.”
McCabe’s smile had disappeared.
“I know fuck-all about it,” Thorne said. Decisions about who should be talking to whom had been taken before he was ever involved, but he knew how these things worked. It wasn’t just computers that had problems talking to one another, and much as Brigstocke had been loath to take this case on, once he had, his Major Investigation Team were as territorial as any other. When it came to expertise and information, the idea was to avoid sharing wherever possible. “You know the game. Everyone takes what they can and tries to give sweet FA in return.”
“Like oral sex,” McCabe said. “Right?”
“I’m not sure I can remember back that far…”
McCabe leaned back, ran a finger and thumb up and down the golf-ball tie. “I’ve not been here long, but I’ve made it my business to get to know this area. To forge some kind of relationship with most of the people who bed down around here every night. Your lot were complaining that no one was telling them anything, that they weren’t being trusted, but the dossers know the lads on my team. They might have talked to them. If we’d been invited to the party.”
“You must have been consulted at some point, though?”
“We were liaised with.” He said the word with huge distaste. Like it meant interfered…
“You’re right,” Thorne said. “It’s stupid. Maybe they should have put the two of us together before I went onto the streets.”
McCabe nodded, like he thought that would have been an excellent idea, turning up his palms in weary resignation at other people’s idiocy. “So how’s it going, anyway?” he asked. “It’s all gone a bit quiet since Radio Bob was killed.”
Thorne took a mouthful of coffee. Gave himself a few seconds to formulate a response. As far as his own part in things was concerned, the cat was out of the bag and happily spraying piss anywhere it wasn’t wanted. Nevertheless, he thought it might be best to keep quiet about other matters. He thought that McCabe had every right to feel aggrieved at being marginalized, and that if he were brought up to speed on the case, he might even prove to be of some use.
Still, something told Thorne to say nothing.
McCabe saw the silence for what it was. “And it’s staying quiet, is it?”
“Like I said, you know the game…”
The crooked smile appeared again, but Thorne could see that it contained no warmth. “So you’re happy to suck up a bit when it’s in your interests. When I’m sitting here deciding whether or not to put the complaints paperwork through on your assault.”
“Listen-”
“But when it comes to talking about your case, you’ve suddenly got nothing to say. Shame you weren’t so fucking tight-lipped last night.”
“Don’t I know it.”
McCabe pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Whatever else happens, I hope Dan Britton presses charges. You can take your chances with the DPS…”
The Directorate of Professional Standards. The people that investigated corruption, racism, blueon-blue violence. They’d made headlines a few months earlier after prosecuting a pair of budding entrepreneurs from the Flying Squad who’d been caught trying to sell footage of car and helicopter chases to TV companies. Thorne had been subjected to DPS attention a few times before. He’d made his fair share of work for those who handed out smacked wrists. But the way things stood now, in his career- in his life -there were plenty of things he was more afraid of.
“I was in enough shit before I took this job,” Thorne said. “A bit extra isn’t really here or there…”
McCabe picked up his mug, and took Thorne’s half-drunk cup as well. “We’ll see.”
“Listen, I was taken off the world’s most tedious desk job to do this, for fuck’s sake, so it’s not like I’m committing career suicide, is it?” Thorne turned, spoke at McCabe as the inspector walked across the room. “You can do what you like, but I’ve got to tell you, I could have ripped your sergeant’s head off and things wouldn’t be much worse than they were already…”
McCabe paused at the door. “Things can always get worse, mate.”
“What happens now?” Thorne asked.
“You sit there and wait. Your guvnor’s on his way over.”
Thorne turned back to the table as the door slammed shut. He leaned down to the tabletop and lowered his head onto his arms. He felt wiped out by the exchange with McCabe and hoped he might be able to get a bit of sleep before Brigstocke arrived. Even ten minutes would be fucking great…
He closed his eyes. He could hazard a pretty good guess at what sort of mood Russell Brigstocke would be in when he arrived. Thorne was fairly certain he wouldn’t be bringing coffee.
From what Kitson and Holland had seen on the cab ride from the station, the army had built on, or fenced off, vast tracts of land in and around the lush river valley a few miles from Taunton that was now home to the 12th King’s Hussars.
Standing at the main gate, as they’d waited to be escorted to the admin block, they’d been able to hear the boom of guns from ranges a long way distant and see sheep and cows grazing, unconcerned, on the hills that swept away on either side. Such incongruities were everywhere: a fully outfitted soldier in face paint and camouflage coming toward the barrier on a rickety bicycle; a car park full of Lagunas, Volvos, and Passats, while fifty yards away, on a rutted patch of tarmac as wide as a football pitch, rows of tanks and other armored vehicles stood in lines, some grumbling and belching out plumes of black smoke as they were repaired.
Major Stuart Poulter’s office was small, but predictably neat and organized: a series of drawings illustrating the development of the modern tank was arranged along one wall; wooden “in,” “out,” and “pending” trays were lined up along the front of his desk; and kit bags of various sizes were laid out in one corner, as if he were expecting to be called away at any moment. Poulter was in his early forties, a little under average height, and with a thick head of dark hair worn relatively long. A full mouth and ruddy cheeks gave him an oddly girlish expression, but his body looked hard and compact under his uniform. He was immaculate in gleaming, brown oxfords, light trousers, and a green sweater with leather epauletes over regulation shirt and khaki tie.
As they waited for their tea to be delivered, Holland explained just how confused he’d already become by the terminology; by the unfathomable series of initials and numbers on the signs that hung outside every office on the corridor. He wondered why an RSM was a WO1 while a CSM was a WO2, and even when he’d been told what OC and CO stood for, he wasn’t certain what made commanding officer any different from officer commanding. Poulter, who chain-smoked, and smiled rather too much, explained patiently that anyone unfamiliar with the military was bound to find it all terribly bewildering at first.
Then, even though they knew that Poulter had been comprehensively briefed, Holland and Kitson were obliged to spend five minutes or so going over their reasons for being there.
“Just so we’re singing from the same hymn sheet,” the major said.
The visit had, of course, been agreed between the army and the Met well in advance; the details hashed out in a series of telephone conversations between officers far senior to both Detective Inspector Yvonne Kitson and
