Spike stretched out an arm for the newspaper and dragged it toward him. Thorne watched, wondering what his response should be if Spike were to say anything about the headline. As it was, he turned straight to the back and began to flick very slowly through the sports pages.
“You follow a team?” Spike said eventually. “Spurs, because I’m stupid. What about you?” “Southampton. Not properly for a few years, like…”
“Is that where you’re from?”
Spike lowered the Standard, then folded it. “Not far away. Just some shitty little seaside town.” He ran his hand slowly back and forth along the crease he’d made in the paper. Stared at a spot approximate to where Thorne was sitting. “Couldn’t wait to get the hell out of it, tell you the truth. And they couldn’t wait to get rid of me…”
It sounded like Spike had got himself into trouble before he’d come to London. It was the same story to one degree or another in most provincial towns. Kids reached a certain age, ran out of things to do, and looked around for something to combat the boredom. It was usually drink, drugs, crime, or a combination of all three. Some got out and got lucky. Others were drawn to those places where their blighted lives might flourish among like-minded souls. Many were destined to fare no better in London, Manchester, and Edinburgh than they had at home, but they would not be short of company; equally doomed perhaps, but not quite as freakish.
“They let you out on police bail, right?” Spike asked.
“Right…”
“But what if you needed to be bailed out? If you needed someone to come and get you, to pay to get you out. Would you have anybody?”
Thorne said nothing. Thinking it would probably be Hendricks; Holland at a push. But beyond them…
“It’d be my sister, I think,” Spike said. “It’d have to be. She bailed me out a year or so back, when I got caught with my stuff as well as Caroline’s and this other bloke’s, and they done me for dealing. So my sister stumped up the bail and gave me some extra cash on top of that.” His head dropped, and when he raised it again a smile was smeared across his face. His eyeballs were starting to roll upward, creamy under the streetlight and cracked with red. “She wanted to set me up for a bit, you know? To tide me over. I told her I was going to try and get myself clean, but I went straight out and used the money she gave me to score. Surprise, surprise, right? I think deep down she knew I would, ’cause she knows well enough what I’m like. She knows me better than anyone.” He stared at Thorne for half a minute, blinking slowly. “She knows, right?”
Thorne nodded. From a club somewhere nearby came the deep thump of a bass line. It was not 2 a.m. yet.
“I’d really have to be in the shit before I’d ask her for help again. Really deep in it. D’you know what I mean? Because I know bloody well I’d only let her down, and life’s hard enough without feeling guilty all the time, right? It’s not like she can’t afford it, mind you. She’s done brilliantly. She’s got a really posh job, got herself a flash car and a swanky flat in Docklands and all that. It’s just like it’s become dead important for me not to ask my sister for anything. I’m fucked, right? I know I am. We’re all completely fucked. But whatever happens, I’m not going to disappoint her again…”
Spike unfolded the paper and turned it over. He stared down at the front page, mouthing the first few words of the headline. Thorne was looking down at him from six feet away, but even if he’d been eyeball to eyeball, there would have been no way to tell if Spike was really taking in what was in front of his face.
If he was, something in the story made him suddenly laugh out loud. He cackled and hissed, chortled to himself for the next minute or more.
Thorne could only wish he found it that funny.
TWENTY-ONE
“Dan Britton’s not here,” McCabe said. “In case you’ve come to apologize.”
Nothing could have been further from Tom Thorne’s mind. “Still pissed off, is he? Maybe he decided to get his own back by opening his mouth…”
They were standing on the corner of Agar Street, on the north side of the Strand, a hundred yards or so from Charing Cross Station. Thorne had asked the desk sergeant to pass on a message; he needed to meet Inspector McCabe outside, urgently.
“I’ll tell him,” the desk sergeant had said. “He’s most likely up to his neck.”
Thorne had leaned onto the counter. “Tell him I’ve got information that could help prevent a serious assault…”
Outside, the wind whipped the litter in front of passing cars. “I saw the paper.” The lopsided smile appeared. “It’s unfortunate.”
“It’ll be a lot more unfortunate when I break his nose all over again.”
“Don’t even think about accusing anyone on my team.”
“Well, someone’s got a big mouth.” Thorne realized what he’d said straightaway, and the mileage that the man would enjoy getting from it.
“Talk about pots and fucking kettles,” McCabe said. “I don’t know how long you’ve been mixing with smackheads and winos, mate, but you’re starting to make about as much sense…”
McCabe began to walk. He turned right along Chandos Place toward Covent Garden. Thorne watched him, then followed, a hundred yards or so behind. At a corner of the piazza, McCabe stopped and Thorne caught him up. They stood on the edge of the Saturday-morning crowd that had gathered in front of a heavily tattooed juggler.
“This bloke’s good,” McCabe said.
Thorne grunted. There were a lot of people watching, and if one in five of them chucked a bit of money his way, the juggler would do all right for himself. Maybe he’d tell Spike to start practicing…
“Better than those arseholes who paint themselves silver and stand around pretending to be statues. I think I’d rather have junkies and dossers on the streets than out-of-work actors.”
“Shame our killer doesn’t agree with you,” Thorne said.
McCabe turned slightly to look at him, as if he wasn’t sure whether Thorne was joking. As if he wasn’t sure about Thorne, full stop. “Seriously,” he said, “I tried to make certain everyone got the message. I did as much as I could to keep the lid on.”
“Fair enough…”
Thorne was starting to calm down a little. It didn’t matter whether McCabe was telling the truth or not. There was nothing anyone could do about the leak now. But still, Thorne couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would bother going to the paper with the story. “It’s not like it’s a royal sex scandal, is it?” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Not giving Princess Anne one, are you?”
“Come on, they don’t pay big money for this kind of tip, do they? So what’s the bloody point?”
“Not big money, no,” McCabe said. “But if it was one of your rough-sleeper mates, they’d settle for a few quid, or a bottle of scotch. They’d take anything they could get.”
“Nobody I’ve met on the street has a clue…” Then Thorne remembered the drunk outside St. Clement Danes: the one who’d known he was a copper, who’d shouted about it until Spike had come along and shut him up. Could he have told the Standard? Could Moony have said something to somebody? Either was a possibility, of course, but Thorne was far from convinced.
“You wouldn’t know if they did,” McCabe said. “The Drugs Squad sent a UCO in a year or two back; before my time. He was sussed within five minutes. Silly beggar was buying everyone beer and sneaking off to hotels every night.”
“I’ve not been that stupid,” Thorne said. He continued quickly before McCabe could say anything. “Not quite that stupid.”
McCabe turned back to the show, his interest waning suddenly. “If it isn’t about money, I haven’t got a clue.”
“That’s why I was only half joking when I suggested Britton. He’s got a motive. I could understand him
