Having switched her phone to silent in the cinema, Louise checked it for messages. She listened, then called Hendricks. As she and Thorne walked, a few feet apart, she told Hendricks that the movie had been decent enough, asked him what he’d been doing. She laughed at something and said she’d call him again in the morning.
‘He’s doing OK,’ was all she said as she put the phone away.
When they reached Thorne’s street, Louise announced that she was going to carry on up to the Tube station and head home. She said that she was tired and had an early start the next day.
‘That makes two of us,’ Thorne said.
‘OK, then.’
‘No, I meant so you might as well stay.’
She hoisted her bag a little higher on her shoulder, looked at Thorne as though she wanted to say something. She stepped up to kiss him, in much the same way as Jan had done.
Said: ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’
For the third or fourth time, a car slowed, then blared its horn when the driver saw that the man waiting at the side of the road had no intention of using the zebra crossing.
Brooks didn’t even look up.
He’d thought about bringing some flowers, but knew they wouldn’t have lasted long. That was something else that had changed since he’d been inside: bouquets and teddies tied to lamp posts and benches, right, left and centre. He’d seen several of them walking about the last few weeks. He wondered if anyone had left tributes to Tucker or Hodson. A nice wreath in the shape of a motorbike by the side of the canal for Martin Cowans.
It occurred to him that he didn’t know what time it had happened. As Angie and Robbie were together, they were probably walking back from school. Heading to the sweet-shop on the way home, maybe. It would still have been light then. Nice and easy for the driver to see them both; and for them to see that the car wasn’t going to stop.
He wondered if there’d been any skid marks on the road. Bloodstains to scrub off the crossing. ‘Joy-riders’, that copper had said, when they’d come to give him the news. He remembered the male one with the dirty collar breathing heavily, saying, ‘We were able to get a paint sample.’
He hadn’t seen their bodies.
At the time he’d felt relieved; uncertain he’d have been able to cope with seeing them like that. Now, standing in the cold, a few feet from where it had happened, he wished he’d had the chance. He would have closed his eyes and kissed them. Said something.
A woman arrived next to him and stood waiting. Told him they reckoned there might be snow on the way. When a car stopped she ambled across, turning to look back at him when she reached the other side of the road.
The funeral hadn’t given him the chance to say goodbye, not really. He’d stood sweating in a borrowed suit, avoiding people’s eyes and moving away whenever the whispering had started. Sitting in one of the cars with cousins and uncles; relatives Angie had had no time for. The priest had said, ‘May you have an abundant life’ when he’d stepped dutifully up to kiss the icon in front of their coffins. Placed a manicured hand on each ornate casket and said, ‘May their memory be eternal.’
A few minutes later, he’d watched the coffins disappear, like props in some dark magic trick, still unable to believe that Angie and Robbie could possibly be in there.
Angie’s parents had refused to speak to him the whole time.
Another car sounded its horn, and this time Brooks reacted. He stepped quickly out on to the crossing, then stopped; turned and stared at the driver like a mad person. He watched the woman raise a hand, saw her check to see that her door was locked.
Brooks walked the rest of the way across, and kept going without looking back. There was nothing for him there.
Nothing of them.
He turned into the side street where the Mondeo was parked. Thought about the quickest way to go. With any luck he’d be able to get another picture tonight, maybe a video.
Then he could put Tom Thorne out of his misery.
… And tell Robbie that he’s going to have to prove it! I want to see that he’s just as good as he tells me he is when he visits. We’ll get straight over the park as soon as I’m back and I’ll put him through his paces. Both feet, tell him. I want to see him shooting with both feet. He’ll have to, if he’s ever going to get that trial at West Ham he’s always on about. And I’ll start taking him to see a few games as well, tell him that.
Christ, I can’t wait…
When I say ‘as soon as I’m back’, obviously there’s one or two other things I’d like to do first, if you get my drift! Actually, between bed and home cooking, I can’t see Rob dragging me out of the house for at least a week.
Fifteen fucking days, angel, that’s all. Thirteen probably, by the time this gets to you. That’s nothing. It’s less than the average holiday, but the stupid thing is it’s going to feel like ten times as long. It’s the hardest part, the end of it, everyone knows that. When a lot of blokes inside start to go mental…
Talking of holidays, though, we should get away, soon as we can. Where d’you fancy? Somewhere hot with a fuck-off big pool. Why don’t you look into it, and see what’s around? Only thing is, I’m not sure when Rob’s on holiday from school.
I don’t care where we go to be honest, so you decide. It’s all going to feel like a holiday from now on…
Thorne laid the photocopied sheet down on the table. The letter that had never been sent; that had been written the day before Marcus Brooks had received the death message.
He walked across to the computer. The game was running, but he’d sat out half an hour earlier. He’d logged on when he had arrived back at the flat, hoping that a few hands might take his mind off things a little, but it would have taken a damn sight more than poker. He watched for five minutes, then sat down again.
Unusually, Johnny Cash wasn’t helping: ‘I See a Darkness’ torn from him; that ragged voice imploring his friend to pull the smiles inside and save him from death.
Thorne reached across to rub a finger under the cat’s chin and thought about the look on his friend’s face when Hendricks had walked away from him outside the club the night before. Louise’s face, too, pale and tight, across the breakfast table.
Christ, and seeing Jan…
Would she really have called him to tell him about the baby? It must at least have crossed her mind that he deserved to know. Or maybe just that he would think he deserved it. Now he did know, he felt all sorts of emotions, and he felt bad because pleasure wasn’t among them.
He looked back at the letter on the table. He imagined Marcus Brooks walking back to his cell, having been told about his girlfriend and son; putting the envelope away in a drawer. It must have felt like he’d been hit by that car. He probably wished he had been.
It wasn’t as though Thorne usually had any problem with hate, and it should have been easy to hate Marcus Brooks for what he’d been about to do to Hendricks. But pity came easier.
The same went for himself, this time of night, with a can of beer in his hand and Cash on the stereo.
So much easier to feel got-at and ganged-up-on than ashamed.
He moved quickly when the doorbell went, Elvis half a second behind him, jumping down and tearing under the TV, like she thought there was nothing good coming.
Louise walked in without a word, without looking at Thorne, and stopped in the middle of the living room.
Thorne closed the door and followed. ‘What?’
She dropped her bag and started to take off her coat.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘I had a question,’ she said.
‘I don’t understand. Did you get all the way home?’
‘You squeezed my hand.’ Now she looked at him. ‘When you were talking to Jan. When we were standing around on the pavement.’