their readers later on. They'll only play along up to the point that their circulation gets hit.'
'Nicklin needs to think that Palmer's still out there killing for him. Can't we make the papers print what we want them to?'
Jesmond glanced at Norman. 'Steve?'
Norman looked across at Thorne. Now who's asking stupid questions? 'There's something in what DCI Brigstocke is saying. A balance would need to be struck. We'd have to let them feel that they were being altruistic, at the same time as offering them the big story if it works. If we get Nicklin.'
Thorne nodded. It sounded like a way forward. Norman hadn't finished. 'There would of course be other, bigger problems. There could be… almost certainly would be, leaks from within the investigation, not to mention the odd, slightly unusual journalist with a strange compulsion to tell the truth.' He smiled at Thorne a little sadly, and shrugged.
'Perhaps I'm being a bit dim,' Jesmond said, flashing sharp incisors, 'but I'm still not quite sure why we don't just print the truth in the papers. About the failed attack on Ms Kaye I mean.'
Norman was nodding halfway through Jesmond's speech, and didn't stop. 'Right. 'Twin killers strike again. One strikes out.''
'Or something of that sort,' Jesmond agreed. 'Might not reporting the failure frighten Nicklin a little? Prompt him to contact Palmer perhaps?'
All eyes on Thorne now. He seriously doubted that much would frighten Nicklin, but despite seeing some sense in what Jesmond was saying, he stuck to his guns. 'I'm convinced that the most dangerous thing would be to disrupt the pattern.'
Jesmond was stubborn as well. Stubborn, and with pips on his shoulder. 'He might know about it anyway. He might have watched Palmer mess it up. He might have seen him fail to kill Jacqueline Kaye. What then?'
'Obviously, we can't rule that out completely until the missing body turns up and we establish time of death, but the Lovell and Choi killings would indicate that isn't part of his pattern. I think Nicklin does his bit and then gets another jolt from sitting back later, and watching the reports of Palmer's killings on TV and in the papers. Sir.'
Jesmond shook his head, slowly. 'We must have other options. More conventional avenues of investigation. We have a description for a start and it certainly sounds as if a decent description is what got us Palmer in the first place.'
'You're right, sir,' Thorne said, thinking, Yes, and who was that down to? 'Unfortunately, the description Palmer has given us, based on the single meeting the two of them had in the brasserie, is hardly decent. Nicklin had a beard. For all we know he doesn't have it any more. All Palmer really has is an impression of this man, a description based on his memory of him, rather than on the way he looks now.' Thorne pictured the look of confusion on Palmer's face, as he'd tried, with very little success, to recall how the boy he used to know had looked that day he'd strolled up to his lunch table and turned his dull little world on its head. 'Palmer can describe the fifteen-year-old boy like he saw him yesterday, but he can't give us an accurate picture of the man who walked into that brasserie six months ago. We've got height and a rough idea of weight, clothes, colouring, but we don't have a face. We sat him down with the CCTV footage from Euston, but he couldn't pick Nicklin out.'
'Or wouldn't; Jesmond said. 'We can't be certain he wants his friend caught as much as he says he does.'
Thorne shook his head. 'I am certain of that, sir.'
And yet…
There was something that Palmer was keeping hidden. He appeared to be co-operating fully, to be answering every question, but Thorne sensed there were secret places he was unwilling to go, pictures he was wary of painting too fully.
Thorne would keep digging. If they'd let him…
'What about these e-mails?' Jesmond opened a green folder and began pulling out copies of the messages Nicklin had sent to Palmer. The tech boys had printed them out from Palmer's home PC.
'They're untraceable,' Thorne said, emphatically. 'Anonymous servers. Accounts set up on stolen credit cards. He was very careful.'
Jesmond quickly re-read a couple of the mails, clenching his jaw at the most chilling – the ones that had issued Palmer with his instructions: the dates, venues and methods of the killings.
'Can't we just monitor his e-mails?' Jesmond asked. 'Have them forwarded on to one of our computers?'
Thorne leaned forward. 'We will be watching for any communication from Nicklin, of course, and using the description we've got, but I still don't think it's enough sir. It's got to be all or nothing.' He pulled one piece of paper away from the others, slid it in front of Jesmond.
'Look at that one, it pre-dates the first killing by a few weeks.'
Jesmond picked it up, started to read.
Received: (qmail 27003 invoked by alias); 28 Jun 2001
11:35:29 -0000
Date: 28 Jun 2001 11:35:29 -0000
Message-ID: ‹921065729.27000@coolmail. co. uk› To: martpalmer@netmail. org. uk
Subject: THINKING OF SUMMER
From: Old Friend.
Martin. Any thoughts yet? I can see you're thinking about it. You look miles away sometimes and I know that you're picturing it. Soon it will be a lot more than a picture. I'm presuming (as I could always presume with you) that you're on board. I will give you details in the fullness etc., etc. Your face tells me that you're remembering those summers. Think about the summers to come…
Jesmond looked up, and across at Thorne, his face giving nothing away. Stupid, or just playing stupid, Thorne was finding it hard to tell.
'He's watching him, sir. He says so. 'I can see you', 'you look miles away', 'your face tells me'. He's watching him.'
'It sounds like he was watching him, granted,' Jesmond said.
'I think he still is. He likes to be in control.'
Norman was keen to show that if his last question was a little… silly, it was a long way from typical. 'If he is watching, then what are we talking about? You've said yourself that we can't be sure he didn't see Palmer screw up with Jacqueline Kaye? He might also have watched him walk into that station on Monday. If he already knows we've got Palmer, Detective Inspector, what you're asking would be an enormous and potentially dangerous waste of time. Wouldn't it?'
It was the obvious question. The one Thorne had been most afraid of. He knew his response was hardly convincing, but it was the only one he had. 'It's a risk worth taking. It's why we need to do this quickly.' Jesmond stared down at the papers in front of him. Norman put away his pen. Thorne thought of something else. 'I'm not saying he watches Palmer all the time. He can't. He gave Palmer the impression that he had a full-time job…'
Jesmond started gathering up his notes, like he'd already made up his mind. 'Risk, you said. Risk is a very good word for it, Thorne. We take a murderer, a man who has killed at least two women, and just put him back on the street…'
Thorne sighed in frustration. 'That isn't what we'd be doing. I told you…'
'What would you call it, then?'
'Just leaving him… in vision. Not frightening Nicklin off. One way or another, when it's over, Palmer goes away.' Thorne looked back to Brigstocke, searching for backup and not getting it. He knew he couldn't rely on the DCI's support. Brigstocke was still smarting from Thorne going it alone two days earlier. Interviewing Palmer without waiting for him. The bollocking he'd dished out was still being talked about by anybody who'd been within half a mile of his office. Back to Jesmond. 'Organised Crime do this sort of thing all the time, sir,' Thorne said. 'When they need a witness on the inside. I don't see why we can't do the same. We release Palmer on police bail, pending further enquiries. It's a common enough procedure…'
It was probably as close as Jesmond came to losing his temper. 'I'm perfectly aware of the procedure, Thorne, but Palmer is not a fucking loan shark. He's killed two women, and we don't normally go around releasing murderers on police bail.'
