The second change was the breathtaking one – the part of his plan that really raised the stakes. It was so beautifully brazen.
The woman who he was going to kill next would be invited to die. Now it was just a question of deciding on a guest list. Sarah McEvoy slammed the door behind her with such force that Holland braced himself, waiting for the sound of shattering glass, which thankfully never came. The windows were equally lucky to survive the onslaught of McEvoy's fury, which moved in front of her like a swinging bludgeon as she stomped across the office.
' You wanker, You self-righteous, tight-arsed little wanker!'
'Listen…'
'What was it? WD40? Motor oil?'
Holland felt like he'd been punched in the stomach, winded by the force of her anger, sick because of what had caused it. Gutted that what he'd done had been proved to be necessary. 'It was cooking oil. Just cooking oil…'
A thin layer across the top of the cistern in the Ladies, invisible unless you were looking for it. The cocaine gone in a second. A trick they used in some of the more drugs-conscious clubs. He'd picked up the oil on the way to work. He hadn't wanted to be seen taking the bottle from the cupboard at home…
'Think you're clever, don't you?'
'No.'
'Any idea what it costs? Come on smartarse, you've got your finger on the pulse, haven't you? Any idea how much it is a gram?'
Holland had had quite enough of being lectured at. He stood up, took a step towards her. 'Listen to yourself…'
'I can't afford to waste it…'
'I don't think you can afford not to.'
McEvoy laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. 'Which fucking seminar did you pick that one up at?'
Holland looked at her. She was shaking her head, breathing heavily. Her speech had been machine-gun fast. Though the oil had stopped her, it clearly hadn't held her up for very long. She'd probably just done a line off the back of her hand.
'You said you didn't do it at work.'
'You really think I've got a problem, don't you?' She was laughing again, looking anywhere but at him. 'You go on like I'm some fucking junkie. It's just an occasional thing. Just now and again, Jesus…' 'You said you didn't do it at work, Sarah.'
She coughed, wincing a little as something came up into her mouth.
'Yes, well, it hasn't exactly been a normal sort of day, has it?' She pushed past him and dropped into the chair behind her desk. 'I needed something after spending all morning staring into that hole, all right with you?'
Holland realised that at that moment there was almost nothing about this woman, whose body he knew intimately, that he recognised.
'No. It isn't all right.'
She glanced up, threw him a twisted smile. 'Are you still here?'
'That is the sickest piece of self-justification…'
'Bollocks! I don't need to justify what I do to you.'
'No, but you obviously need to justify it to yourself…'
McEvoy picked up a sheet of paper and studied it. 'The gun that Palmer failed to shoot Jacqui Kaye with. He says that Nicklin delivered it, left it outside his door. The boss thinks that's bullshit, reckons Palmer's lying for some reason…'
'I know. Sarah-'
'So we don't know why Palmer's not telling us, but he must have got the gun from somewhere. From somebody who made it very clear that he better keep the who's and where's to himself.'
Holland wasn't listening. He wasn't sure she was. 'This is stupid-'
'If there's a connection to Nicklin we've got to start chasing it, so this is a list of known, or suspected dealers which I've divided up, A, because it's depressingly long, and B, because we should probably work separately, I mean, I wouldn't want to compromise you…'
'You need to talk to somebody.'
Her look was one he would remember. 'Or you will?'
There was a small knock and Paul Moorhead, a trainee detective, poked his head round the door. His expression said that he knew full well it was about to be bitten off.
'Sorry…'
'What for?'
'DCI Lickwood on the phone for you. Do you want me to put it through?'
'Yeah, thanks.'
McEvoy put her hand on the phone, picked it up the instant it began to ring.
'Derek.'
She laughed at whatever it was Lickwood said, placed a hand across the mouthpiece and stared at Dave Holland until he left.
' There's something else I want to tell you.'
On TV, half a dozen dull, unattractive people sat about in a house, each trying to avoid being voted out. Thorne bit unenthusiastically into a sandwich and prayed for something interesting to happen. Like a meteor striking the house, or maybe a knife fight. He thought it was ironic that this was called fly-on-the-wall television. The morons that enjoyed it would have got as much entertainment out of capturing a real bluebottle in a jam jar; watching it smack into the glass over and over again.
The sound was turned down. Folsom Prison Blues provided the soundtrack.
Thorne was almost certain that there would be nothing jaunty about Belmarsh Prison Blues. No boom- chicka-boom two-beat. Just feedback. A tuneless dirge screamed over the monotonous thumping of boots on stairs and heads against walls. Martin Palmer had walked into the visiting area a few hours earlier looking like it was a song he'd been hearing a lot in the last week.
Thorne had said nothing. He'd put the plastic bag down on the table, slid it across. Palmer had leaned forward and stared at the wrapper, much as Hendricks and the others had done earlier. Palmer had seen what it was straight away. He'd recognised it.
'Nicklin killed Karen, Martin. He killed her and buried her in a ditch, then told everyone she'd been abducted.' Thorne had only glanced away for a second but when he'd looked back, Palmer's face had been wet. 'Come on, did you never even consider it?'
Palmer had reached forward and put his hand over the plastic bag. Obscured it.
'Karen was his first,' Thorne had said. 'At least, I think so. There isn't much of her left to test, so we'll never know for sure, but I'd guess he assaulted her as well. Some kind of sexual activity before he killed her…'
Palmer had looked away, poking two fingers behind his glasses to wipe his eyes. 'How did he do it?'
'He strangled her. Wrapped a rope around her neck.. Smart, who you loved.'
'I don't believe he did anything to her like that. Anything sexual, I mean.'
Thorne had scoffed. 'You're right, I'm only guessing. We'll just stick with murder and dumping the body in a shallow grave, shall we?
Did you ever ask yourself how many more he might have killed, Martin? How many more Karen's there might be?'
Palmer had turned back to him suddenly. 'I want to see where she was.'
'You know where she was. At the embankment. I told you, we found the body in a drainage ditch…'
'I want to see exactly. I'd like to see exactly where he put Karen.'
Thorne had heard similar requests before from friends and relatives of victims. Show me where he died. Take me to the spot they killed her. Where did the accident happen? Location was important to people. Somewhere to leave a marker, to visit. Increasingly, thanks to Diana and the emergence of a shrine culture, a place for complete strangers to leave bunches of flowers or teddy bears.
