… I was sitting in the park in the middle of the night, getting rained on, and thinking what a soft piece of shite I am. That I can get rid of everyone I blame for what happened, and feel next to nothing, but that I don’t have enough bottle to kill myself. It was my first thought back inside, when I got the news. Taking a blade to myself, I mean, and I’ll admit that it was a relief when I started to think about making other people pay instead. Once I had that, I didn’t have to think too hard about topping myself any more; facing up to the fact that I didn’t have the bottle to go through with it.
It might help if I believed in something, I suppose. In fucking anything. If I thought there was even a chance I might see you both again afterwards. I know this much, if I believed in God or whatever else to begin with, I certainly wouldn’t any more…
And look, I know this is never going to happen, not now anyway, but I’ve started to imagine what it might be like to be with someone else one day. To have another kid, even. Christ, I’m so sorry, baby, I can’t stop those stupid things popping into my head. I think about the sex, and going on holidays and Christ knows what, and the rows me and this woman would have. How she’d always be jealous of you, feel like she was competing with a dead woman, whatever. I imagine her flying off the handle big time, and saying something about you or cutting up an old picture, stuff like that. And then I’d just fucking lose it and want to hurt her. End up boozing, probably, messing up everybody’s life.
See? I’ve got far too much time to think about this sort of shit. All the time when I’m not writing letters to a ghost.
I was thinking, though. If it ever did happen, if someone else came along, I mean. Would you leave me then? Would that be when I lost you and Robbie for good? Thing is, I know you’d want me to be happy, to move on, but it’s really not on the cards.
Happy means forgetting…
Thorne stared at the last line for a few seconds, then slipped the photocopy of the letter back into his desk drawer with the others. He nodded to Sam Karim as the DS passed his office door, then sat back and slurped his tea, and thought about the terrible power of grief.
He understood what drove Marcus Brooks. The impulse. Looking again at the newest picture of the man, the one based on the description given by the security guard, he was starting to see behind it. To connect with someone anaesthetised by loss; aloof from the basic pain and pleasure of everyday life. Someone astonished all the time by their own capacity to walk, or to dress themselves, and functioning for no other reason than to hunt down those who had smashed their life into pieces and scattered them.
When that trainee DC had eventually grasped the nature of the letters Thorne had discovered in Hammersmith, he had rolled his eyes and said something about Brooks ‘losing it’. It was an understandable reaction, and Thorne had smiled and nodded. Had suppressed an urge to give the bumptious little prick a slap.
When I’m not writing letters to a ghost…
Thorne had done something similar; had spoken to his father for a while after the old man had died. Actually, his father had been the one doing the talking, but Thorne knew well enough that it amounted to the same thing.
It took a second to say ‘good-bye’, and a lifetime.
He looked up as Kitson bustled in, tossing her coat across the back of a chair, rattling on about how students looked even younger than policemen nowadays.
‘You should chuck the job in,’ Thorne said. ‘Go back to college as a mature student. Don’t you fancy three years of drinking and sleeping with eighteen-year-olds? Thinking about it, I’ll come with you…’
Kitson told him about her meeting with Harika Kemal. The name of the man she’d identified as her boyfriend’s killer.
‘How does she know for sure?’ Thorne asked. ‘She said before she didn’t see it happen.’
‘I’m not sure about that any more.’
‘Going to be iffy without a witness.’
‘I’ll worry about that later.’
‘Did she say why her brother did it?’
‘I wasn’t getting that out of her without thumbscrews,’ Kitson said.
‘There must be some knocking around somewhere.’
Kitson rummaged in her bag and took out a small jar. ‘Hakan runs a dry cleaner’s on Green Lanes.’ She pursed her lips, ran a dab of balm across each. ‘Up near Finsbury Park…’
Thorne knew that many businesses in that area paid local drug gangs for protection; that some operated as fronts for the dealers and heroin traffickers. Restaurants, minicab firms, supermarkets. He wondered if Hakan Kemal might be laundering more than shirts and blouses.
Kitson had obviously been thinking along the same lines. ‘Maybe S &O had it right all along, and it was gang-related.’
‘Not the smoothest hitman I’ve ever come across,’ Thorne said, ‘but what do I know?’
Kitson was happy to agree on both counts.
Thorne looked across at her, deadpan: ‘Have you ever seen a film called Shy and Shaven…?’
He was trying to give an accurate description of the smell in Davey Tindall’s office when his mobile rang. He looked at the caller display, thought about dropping the call, but felt immediately guilty. Sighing, he hit the green button.
‘Tom?’
‘Hello, Auntie Eileen, I was going to call you tonight.’
‘Sorry if you’re busy, love. I don’t like to phone when you’re at work.’
‘It’s OK…’
‘Only I’m trying to get numbers organised for Christmas, you know?’
‘Right.’ It was the conversation Thorne knew had been coming. He winced inwardly at the thought of that technician listening in his cupboard; pissing himself.
‘Obviously it’d be smashing to see you, love. We’ve asked Victor if he’d like to come over for Christmas lunch.’
‘That’s good of you,’ Thorne said. Eileen, his father’s sister, had semi-adopted the old man who had been her brother’s only friend in the last year of his life. ‘I’m sure he’ll like that.’
There was a long sigh. ‘Poor old bugger…’
Thorne wasn’t certain if she was talking about Victor or his father.
‘So, anyway, you have a think about it,’ Eileen said. ‘Only I’d hate to think you were sitting on your own, like you were last year.’
In fact, Thorne had spent the previous Christmas – the first since his father had died – with Hendricks and his then boyfriend, Brendan. Now that the boot was on the other foot, and Hendricks was the single one, Thorne had been wondering if he should offer to return the favour.
‘The first few Christmases are always the worst, love. That’s why I thought you might want family around.’
‘OK, thanks.’
‘You’re welcome to bring your new girlfriend, of course…’
Louise had already raised the idea of spending Christmas with her parents, which was problematic in itself. At the time, Thorne had attempted that trickiest of manoeuvres – appearing keen while hedging his bets – and he knew it hadn’t gone down too well. They’d agreed to talk about it properly later, which was another conversation he wasn’t much looking forward to. He’d never met Louise’s parents, but her father had been in the army and Thorne had already formed a daunting mental image of the man. He wasn’t sure he fancied a Christmas Day spent listening to war stories, or a long walk with the family dog after lunch. Much as he wanted to spend the time with Louise, he was starting to think that getting pissed with Hendricks and watching The Great Escape sounded pretty good. He needed to check and see who Spurs were playing on Boxing Day, come to that.
‘Everything’s up in the air, to be honest,’ he said. ‘They don’t sort the work rotas out until the last minute and even then, you know, if we catch a big job…’
‘That doesn’t matter. You turn up on the day and we’ll cope.’