'You're out of breath,' Cookson said. 'What have you been doing?'
It was a moment of terrible clarity. The sort that only ever comes hand in hand with terror, or great pain. Thorne embraced it as he would the sting of the flame that cauterised a wound. Andrew Cookson. ..
'You killed Bowles because he recognised you,' Thorne said. 'It wasn't random. It wasn't a message. You needed to do it…'
Cookson casually placed a hand on McEvoy's shoulder. 'Silly old sod should have retired years ago. Could barely do his sums any more. Then after half an hour with you he takes one good, hard look at me without the beard and.., bang! Cobwebs well and truly blown away. Corners me in the staff room. Pointing his finger and making melodramatic speeches. I know who you are. Fucking idiot…'
Thorne pictured the chalk on Bowles's Crotch, the soil dropping down on to the lid of his coffin. Why hadn't he called the police?
Why, when he'd recognised Cookson as Nicklin, hadn't he used the card that Thorne had given him, the one that Jay had found in his jacket pocket?
The answer was a painful one to acknowledge. It wasn't heroism, it was desperation. It was Ken Bowles's last chance. A crack at balancing that chair on his chin one final time.
'Enjoyable as this is,' Cookson said, 'the situation is a little tricky, wouldn't you say? I think we need to resolve it quickly. So, any bright ideas?'
His tone was easy and faintly amused. Not hard when you were the one with a knife in a woman's back.
'Not really,' Thorne said.
'I thought not.'
There was a silence that should have been heavy with threat and danger, but with children filing past smirking, it felt no more than awkward or embarrassing. Thorne wondered what the three of them looked like. Cookson and McEvoy might have been lovers, and he the ex-boyfriend, bumped into at an inopportune moment… Cookson smiled, as if working something out that pleased him enormously.
'You've come on your own as well, haven't you?
Thorne thought about lying but wasn't quick enough. Cookson leaned forward, ready to move on. 'Well, you have somewhat gate crashed things, but we're not going to let it spoil our enjoyment, are we, Sarah?' McEvoy winced as the knife nudged through another layer of skin. Thorne was close to rushing at him, hammering fists into his face. 'So, we're just going to carry on as if we never saw you. Excuse me…
There was nothing Thorne could do. He had to step aside to let Cookson walk away. He didn't have a shred of doubt that he would push the knife into McEvoy's spine at the slightest provocation. He turned side-on, giving Cookson the room to get past, to maneuver McEvoy through the gate and away. Thorne noticed that in his free hand Cookson was carrying his briefcase with him. His cover was perfect. This was territory he'd felt safe on. Just a tired teacher heading home with a friend at the end of a long day… Cookson froze suddenly, looked right and left. Then Thorne saw what was happening. Children were moving back towards the building, some running. Teachers had appeared silently around the edge of the playground and were gathering in those pupils still around. The message had got through.
Hissing instructions, beckoning, gesturing, the teachers emptied the playground in as orderly a way as they could. Following the directives that they had been given – that were standard in such situations they were trying to do it without alarming anyone, least of all the killer they'd been told might be nearby.
He was nearer than they realised and he was alarmed. Thorne could see the hesitation, the tension in Cookson's face and in the hand that squeezed the back of Sarah McEvoy's neck.
'Please,' McEvoy said. It was more of a moan than a word.
'I think we're stuck with each other,' Thorne said. 'Half the Met is waiting for you out there. Plenty of them are armed and looking for an excuse…
Cookson shook his head, and in an instant he had brought the knife round to McEvoy's throat. Smiling, he began to move backwards, towards the centre of the playground. Thorne followed slowly, praying that what he'd just told Cookson was, or would very soon be, true. As they neared the middle of the playground, McEvoy's eyes locked on to Thorne's. He couldn't begin to guess what they were trying to tell him. Cookson stopped and took a deep breath. He adjusted his position, leaving the knife exactly where it was, the blade biting into McEvoy's neck, but moving round a little to stand next to her.
'You know I'll kill her, so why don't we stop pissing about. One way or another, I'm leaving here. If I'm in the back of a squad car, then she'll be leaving in a body bag.'
'Fuck you,' McEvoy said.
Cookson opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. 'It speaks,' he said.
'I was wondering where you'd got to. I reckon your blood must be about ninety-eight per cent Colombian.' He laughed, and McEvoy grunted as a line of blood an inch or so long sprang onto the flesh of her throat and began to drip.
'Sorry,' Cookson said. 'Accident…'
Thorne twitched and Cookson's look told him to keep very still. It told him that the next time there would be a lot more blood.
'What did you do with the boy when you killed Carol Garner?'
Thorne said. 'Did he see it happen?' Cookson narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as if confused by the question. 'Did you make her son watch while you killed her?'
Cookson shook his head, blew out a breath through tight lips.
'Sorry, you'll have to help me. Which one was Carol Garner again?'
Thorne knew then that as things stood, none of them were likely to leave that playground alive. He was willing his feet to stay where they were, but he knew that at any moment he would fly at this man, that rage would simply stop him caring any more. He knew that McEvoy's throat would open and cover the two of them with blood as she dropped away while he and Andrew Cookson murdered each other with cuts and clutching hands on the cold asphalt… Thorne became aware of a low buzzing noise. He realised that the sound was coming out of McEvoy's mouth.
'I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…'
'McEvoy…'
Thorne's voice just seemed to activate some switch in McEvoy's brain. Now the words gushed out of her. She shook her head violently as if trying to dislodge something, shake it out of there; her neck moving back and forth across the blade of the knife, the blood running down Cookson's fingers.
'I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry…'
Thorne could have sworn that the scream that followed came from him, or was at the very least inside his head, but if it was, why was Cookson spinning round? Why was he looking so astonished…?
The figure came running from around the side of the main building, shouting and waving. Thorne blinked, looked again. The figure was waving a gun.
Martin Palmer lumbered towards them, and the things that Thorne was seeing seemed to happen in slow motion at the same time that the thoughts in his head started coming faster than he could make sense of them.
Cookson pushing McEvoy away, dropping the knife… McEvoy turning, running straight at Palmer… Cookson bringing up his hands to protect his head as the first shot rang across the playground…
As Thorne went down hard, he heard the second shot, and at the edge of his vision he saw McEvoy stumble and crash heavily to the ground. An instant before he closed his eyes, he saw the look of astonishment frozen on Cookson's face, and a look there were simply no words to describe on Martin Palmer's.
It was no more than a few moments, but when Thorne opened his eyes, it seemed to have become considerably darker. There were a few spots of sleet in the air.
Thorne raised his head. Twenty-five yards away, McEvoy lay on the floor. He had no idea where she'd been hit, how badly she was hurt. He heard her moan as she tried to move the leg that was twisted awkwardly beneath her.
She was moving at least.
Thorne slowly got to his feet. His eyes, and those of Andrew Cookson, never moved from the figure of
