Malteser, like, so he’s got brown balls.” He looked round, gave the man another wave.
Mickey smiled. “Fucking huge brown balls…”
Spike moved away from Thorne suddenly, and began edging slowly back toward Mickey. He nodded at Thorne, once, twice. “It’s okay, mate, I’m good from here.”
“Does your friend want something?” Mickey said.
“No, he’s cool,” Spike shouted.
Thorne wasn’t sure whether the dealer was talking about drugs or trouble. The man certainly seemed happy enough to provide whatever was required.
“Really, it’s fine now,” Spike said.
He was spinning around slowly as he went. He walked backward then forward between Thorne and the dealer, partially blocking the view as Thorne caught sight of a second figure emerging through the green door. Thorne stepped to one side to get a better look. To catch Caroline’s eye.
She looked as pleased to see him as dead eyes would allow. She tugged on Mickey’s shirt and pointed. “He likes to beat up coppers,” she said.
The dealer smiled. Let the backs of his fingers move down the girl’s arm. “I like it. He gets a freebie if he wants one.”
“Honest, you can go now,” Spike said. He was starting to sound desperate, to look embarrassed that Thorne was there at all. “We’re sorted. Both of us. Right, Caz?”
Caroline pulled fingernails through her hair and walked back into the flat as if she’d forgotten something. Thorne watched Spike drift over to the dealer. Watched the dealer press his fist against Spike’s and step back through the doorway.
“See you at the Lift later, then?” Thorne said.
Spike picked at the plaster, tore the stained wad of bandage from his neck, and lobbed it over the balcony. As he followed Mickey inside he stuck up a thumb without turning round, just as Hendricks had done the night before.
Thorne waited half a minute after the door had closed before walking up to it. A curtain was drawn across the only window and he could hear no sounds from inside, so he turned and walked back toward the stairs.
On the way down he took out his phone. He’d felt the vibration of a message coming through as he and Spike had walked from the tube station. It was a text from Phil Hendricks, another gag based around the possible “double date” with Brendan and Dave Holland…
Thorne stopped and stared at the screen.
He’d felt it up to now as something annoying yet unimportant; like something caught in your teeth that you couldn’t get at. That you pushed at until your tongue got tired and then gave up on. Suddenly Thorne knew exactly what had been nagging at him. And he knew why.
You know all sorts of things…
He remembered the voice from a dream, and he remembered other voices, too. He remembered what Hendricks had said:
Brendan likes Dave. Actually, I think he fancies him a bit…
And what Maxwell had said back at the Lift only an hour before. And, most important of all, what he’d said to Thorne a week or so before that…
He dialed Brendan Maxwell’s mobile number, the excitement building in him like nausea. “Bren, listen, it’s Tom. Remember you told me that a police officer was looking for me. A week ago?”
“I’m right in the middle of something…”
“It wasn’t Dave Holland, was it.” It was more statement than question.
There was a pause. Thorne could hear others talking in the background. Maxwell lowered his voice. “Sorry, Tom, I’m not with you.”
“This was a couple of days before Terry Turner was killed. You said that a police officer was asking where I was, and you’d pointed him toward the theater, yes?”
“Yes…”
“I know that Holland had been in, because he couldn’t get hold of me, so I presumed…”
“Dave came in the day after, I think. If I’d been talking about Dave, I’d’ve said so, wouldn’t I, because I know him. I’d never seen this other bloke before.”
“Right. And because I’m a fucking idiot, I’ve only just worked that out.”
“Is this important?” Maxwell asked.
Thorne began to move again. “How did you know he was a copper?”
“Can I call you back?”
“I just need a minute, Bren…”
Maxwell sighed. “He introduced himself, then he showed me ID. I’m not a complete moron.”
“Do you remember the name?”
Another pause. “No. Far too many names to remember.”
Thorne swung round fast onto another flight of stairs, began to swear with each step he took.
“Sorry,” Maxwell said.
“How did he get in to see you?”
“Same as anybody else, I think. They called me down from reception and buzzed him through.”
“So he would have signed in?”
“He certainly should have done. They’re usually pretty hot on health and safety. Do you want me to go and have a look?”
“I’ll be with you in about twenty minutes…”
Thorne took the remaining stairs two at a time, feeling each step jar and burn in far too many places. He was aware of the skateboarder’s eyes on him as he came out of the covered stairwell a whole lot faster than he’d gone in.
Rosedene Way was a quiet road, five minutes from the tube station and no more than a pitching wedge from Finchley golf course. The Volvo was not out of place among the SAABs and Audis; well-tended hanging baskets far outnumbered satellite dishes on the tidy thirties houses.
Mackillop had driven round for twenty minutes looking for somewhere decent to eat, and had eventually given up. He’d grabbed a sandwich from the M amp;S at Tally Ho corner and eaten it in the car. Now he was stupidly early for the rendezvous with Andy Stone, but he was as happy where he was-with the car radio and a newspaper-as he would have been anywhere else.
He looked up at the top floor of the house they would be visiting; it looked like an attic conversion. He dropped his eyes down to the ground floor, where their interviewee lived, then left to where a woman was watching him while her dog relieved itself in the gutter. Saturday afternoon and there were plenty of people around. He smiled at the woman, who bent down smartly, plastic bag at the ready to clear up the mess.
Mackillop thought about what Andy Stone was doing. How long it had been since he’d done the same thing. He’d split up with his girlfriend four months before, and one pissed-up fumble with a Colindale WPC after a lock-in at the Oak was the closest to sex he’d managed since. Mind you, he’d probably get fairly close, at least by association, when Stone showed up, gagging as always to go over the highlights of his performance.
The woman with the dog gave him a good look as she walked past the car; her face like she could still smell the turd in her plastic bag.
He realized that he’d forgotten it was Saturday when he’d been talking to Stone about the best route to take. Traffic could very easily be snarled up on the North Circ. There wasn’t a lot of choice, mind you; it was a pig of a journey by tube, with at least a couple of changes between Willesden Green and West Finchley…
He hoped he wouldn’t have too much longer to wait.
When they started playing cheesy country rubbish, Mackillop quickly retuned the radio. Then he opened the Express to the crossword, folded it across the steering wheel, and dug around in his pocket for a pen.
THIRTY-TWO
