‘How long you been in?’
‘Two years and a bit.’ Daniels glanced up. ‘One more to go.’
Thorne knew better than to ask what the boy was in for. He guessed, with a sentence that long, that he’d done more than steal a car or get caught with a bit of blow. ‘So did you and Amin become friends quickly after he came in?’
‘I suppose.’
‘You looked after him.’
‘Just showed him the ropes, that’s all.’ Daniels’ face gave little away. He was very dark-skinned and, up close, Thorne could see the skin was pitted with acne scars. ‘He didn’t need looking after.’
‘No?’
‘He was no threat to anyone.’
‘What about the kid who attacked him?’
‘Yeah, that was strange,’ he said. ‘Usually in this place you hear whispers, you know? You hear when something’s likely to kick off or if someone’s after someone else. That just came out of nowhere.’
‘You hear any whispers about who might have done it?’
‘Maybe,’ Daniels said, after a few seconds. ‘One name, but as far as I know he wasn’t even someone Amin had ever spoken to and anyway he was out of here two days after it happened, so… ’
‘So no time for you to do anything about it.’
Daniels said nothing.
‘Any chance it was one of the imam’s boys?’
Daniels grunted. ‘They’re not happy when they get knocked back, that’s for sure. Like it’s an… affront or something, you know?’ He thought for a few seconds then shook his head. ‘Amin wasn’t interested in any of that stuff, but I don’t think they’d take it quite that personally.’
‘Why wasn’t he interested?’
‘Just wasn’t.’
‘In religion, you mean? Or in joining Shakir’s little gang?’
‘Neither,’ Daniels said. ‘Didn’t suit him, that’s all.’
‘Sounds like you knew him pretty well.’
Daniels looked up at him. His fingers crept around to grip the edge of the bunk. He said, ‘Yeah.’
‘How was he?’ Thorne asked. ‘When you went to see him in the hospital wing.’
‘How d’you think he was? Some toe-rag cut him up.’
‘Was he depressed though? Did he say anything that made you feel like he was thinking about killing himself?’
‘No chance,’ Daniels said. ‘He was upset, you know? But he was still himself at the end of the day. Joking about the scar he was going to have on his face. He was feeling good about how the appeal was shaping up and all that stuff.’
‘And the transfer to Long Minster.’
‘Yeah, that.’
‘Listen, I need to ask you if you took anything in,’ Thorne said. ‘When you went to see him. There’s no way he could have got all those tablets himself. You understand?’
‘No way.’ Daniels shook his head, kicked out with one foot. ‘I swear.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Just some books, that’s it.’
‘Anyone else visit him?’
‘Just staff, that’s all. The governor, Shakir, them lot.’ He looked up at Thorne with a twisted smile. ‘All the assorted God-botherers.’
‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ Thorne smiled back, guessing that for a majority of the patients such visits would be right up there in the popularity stakes with injections or enemas. He took the few small steps across to the adjacent wall, so that he was directly facing Daniels. ‘Did Amin tell you anything else had happened to him?’
‘Like what?’
‘They say he was raped.’
For fifteen seconds or more the only sound came from outside the cell. A series of shouts from further along the landing. A TV set blaring somewhere nearby. Daniels slowly shook his head and Thorne saw the fingers tighten still further around the metal frame of the bed.
‘You didn’t know, or…?’
Daniels looked at the floor.
‘I heard you got into a fight,’ Thorne said. ‘Over what happened to Amin.’ He looked at the empty space above a corner shelf where in other cells a television would have been, a PlayStation even. ‘Lost your TV, lost your nice room on the Gold wing.’
‘I’ll get it back.’
‘Tell me about the fight.’
‘Not a fight.’
‘You punched someone.’
‘That was the end of it.’
Looking again at the size of Antoine Daniels, Thorne could well imagine that it was. ‘What happened?’
‘Just some smartarse, saying stuff to wind me up. No big deal, OK?’ He stood up. ‘Listen, I’ve got a class, so-’
‘Stuff about Amin?’
Daniels moved to gather up some exercise books and a pencil case from the small desk. He looked sideways at Thorne and stared, as though he were willing him to leave. Thorne stayed where he was.
‘You and him were close, right?’
Daniels’ chest was heaving against his T-shirt. He tried to hold Thorne’s eyes, but could not.
He gave the smallest of nods and said, ‘Yeah.’
Just one word, whispered, but Thorne felt as though he were being pushed back hard against the whitewashed bricks. The breath pressed from him. One small affirmation that screamed a barrage of questions.
Yeah, like have you not been listening?
Like how good a detective are you anyway?
Yeah, like how long have you fucking got?
The cell door swung inwards, nudged a few inches then booted wide open by a gleaming white Nike. The same pair of young boys who had given Thorne such a hard time earlier stood grinning in the doorway. The gobbiest looked at Thorne and then at Daniels. ‘What’s happening, batty-boy? You like them a bit older these days?’
His mate laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Why don’t you both fuck off?’ Thorne said.
Thorne’s words had little effect, but one hard stare from Daniels was enough to send the pair scurrying away, shouting and laughing at their comic genius. Oddly, the look – the dead eyes and the muscles working beneath the jaw – had seemed even more menacing than it otherwise might, with tears coursing freely down Antoine Daniels’ face.
NINETEEN
Holland and Kitson stood leaning against Kitson’s Mondeo eating their chips. They watched parents collecting their kids from a primary school opposite and Holland called his girlfriend to see what kind of a day their daughter had had at nursery. A boy in her class had taken to biting the other kids and he and Sophie were both a little concerned.
‘Everything OK with Chloe?’ Kitson asked, when Holland had hung up.
‘Still got all her fingers,’ Holland said.
The afternoon was starting to cool off a little as the sky clouded over and the first delicate spatters of drizzle were coming down.
‘Should we knock this on the head?’ Holland asked.
Kitson swallowed. ‘Maybe we should try Clarkson again. Or call the DCI, see if he’s got any bright ideas.’
‘Up to you,’ Holland said.
‘We’ve got to do something.’
Holland looked down at his chips. ‘These are pretty good actually.’ He stuffed a handful into his mouth. ‘Should have got something to drink though. Maybe a sausage or something.’
Kitson nodded ahead. ‘Let’s walk up towards Islington Green.’
‘It’s raining.’
‘It’s only ten minutes away.’
‘What is?’
‘The place where Amin Akhtar and his mate were attacked.’
‘And?’
Kitson began to walk. ‘And I don’t want my car to stink of chips.’
Helen leaned down towards the wrist that was handcuffed to the radiator and checked her watch. They had been there for the best part of eight hours already. By rights she should be stepping off the train about now, getting excited about seeing Alfie again and putting whatever darkness the day had thrown up out of her head until tomorrow.
Her stomach lurched.
He would need collecting from Janine’s in less than ten minutes.
Would Jenny take him home, she wondered. Or would she drop him round at their dad’s place then come back to Tulse Hill? Yes, that’s what she would do, Helen decided, what Helen would prefer her to do. Her sister always enjoyed being where the action was.