He wondered if it was something Holland and his girlfriend argued about.
Or did Holland think he was a prick as well?
Half a mile further on and he was in Southwark, looking for somewhere to park, when his phone rang. He pulled over.
‘How’s it going then?’
DI Martin Dawes was trying to sound cheery and no more than curious, but Thorne knew better. ‘Checking up on me?’ he asked. ‘Worried that I might find something you didn’t?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘How do you think Amin got hold of those drugs?’ There was a pause, as though Dawes was trying to work out if it was a trick question or not, so Thorne ploughed on. ‘Were they brought in by someone else, d’you reckon? Or maybe he nicked them himself.’
‘Well, either’s possible.’
‘What about those thefts from the DDA cupboard, do you think they might be important?’
‘Listen, I took all that into account.’
‘Really? Including the fact that the Tramadol was stolen the day after he was admitted?’
Another pause.
‘You never thought to check that, did you?’
‘Well, I did find out later on,’ Dawes said, flustered. ‘It was mentioned at the inquest, as a matter of fact, so it’s not like you’ve found Shergar or anything. Didn’t make any difference in the end, so to be honest, I don’t see quite what you’re getting so worked up about.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘If he took them it’s still suicide, isn’t it?’
‘ If he took them.’
Dawes clearly wasn’t listening. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’
‘Actually it does,’ Thorne said. ‘I was wrong yesterday when I said you were an idiot. You’re a fuckwit.’
He parked behind the Local History Library on Borough Road and walked back across Keyworth Street, which neatly bisected the Southwark campus of South Bank University.
Thorne had called the office before he’d left Tulse Hill and asked DS Samir Karim to do some checking for him. Karim had spoken to the university registrar and discovered that Rahim was in the first of a three-year Marketing and Accountancy course. A second call to his tutor had established the day’s lecture schedule.
10.30-12.00: Quantitative Literacy.
Thorne stopped to ask directions from a couple of girls who tried their best to help, despite having little English. He knew which building he was looking for, but it still took him another quarter of an hour to find it.
He checked his watch. He still had fifteen minutes.
It was striking, the way that Rahim Jaffer’s expression changed twice after he had spotted Thorne on the way out of the lecture theatre. He was talking to another student who was laughing at whatever was being said, when his eye was caught by the man in the leather jacket standing up from a chair in the corridor. The smile was instinctive, a natural enough reaction on seeing someone he recognised, but it lingered no more than a second or two, until Rahim remembered where he had met the man before.
When he had last seen him.
Thorne knew that none of this was necessarily significant, of course. As investigating officer in the manslaughter of Lee Slater, Thorne had been giving evidence for the prosecution, while Rahim had been a key witness in his friend’s defence. It was nine months ago, so understandable that Rahim had been unable to place Thorne for a few seconds. It was also very likely that the circumstances in which their paths had last crossed would be the reason that he did not seem overjoyed to see him again.
‘Remember me?’ Thorne asked. He could see that Rahim did, but it was always worth trying to elicit a lie immediately. It told you something straight away. Brigstocke called it ‘getting the lie of the land’.
Rahim nodded and put out his hand.
Thorne shook and said he needed a word. ‘It won’t take long and you’re not due at your Digital Marketing seminar until one o’clock, so there’s plenty of time.’
Rahim blinked, taken aback. ‘Right… ’
Again, it was a simple enough trick, but when you weren’t sure where a conversation with someone was going to lead, the back foot was usually the best place for them to start.
Thorne led the way to a small seating area where he had spent most of the previous fifteen minutes drinking coffee and flicking through a student newspaper. A few metal tables and chairs, vending machines for snacks, hot and cold drinks. He sat Rahim down and asked him if he wanted anything. He bought him a bottle of still water, then took the chair opposite.
He saw Rahim looking around and told him not to worry.
He had been careful to select a table where they would not be overheard.
‘So come on then,’ Thorne said. ‘What the hell is “quantitative literacy” when it’s at home?’
‘It’s just about being comfortable with numbers really,’ Rahim said. ‘How we use them in our everyday lives. So… logic and reasoning, algebra, geometry, probability, statistics. It’s basically just a pretentious way of saying maths.’
‘Enjoy it?’
‘Yeah.’
Thorne nodded. ‘Take away the algebra and geometry bits and it’s the same kind of stuff I use. Reasoning, probability, all that. Maybe I should start calling myself a quantitative detective.’ He stumbled over the words and smiled. ‘Well, I would if I could say it.’
Rahim smiled too, but it was as short-lived as before. He fiddled with the cap from his water bottle.
‘What are you now, eighteen?’
Rahim nodded.
Thorne had recognised Rahim straight away, but the boy had certainly changed a good deal since he had last seen him. Perhaps it was just that jump from sixth-former to undergraduate. The neatly combed hair was now gelled up into a fin and the simple grey suit had been replaced with baggy jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. A tattoo was just visible on his forearm and he wore a diamond stud in each ear.
Before he had clapped eyes on Thorne, he had seemed comfortable and happy.
‘You know what this is about?’ Thorne asked. ‘Right?’
‘What’s going on with Amin’s dad, you mean? Yeah, I saw it on the news.’ Rahim sat back. ‘Is everybody OK?’
‘At the moment.’
‘So, what’s it got to do with me?’
‘You lied about where you were,’ Thorne said. ‘The night you and Amin got attacked.’ He waited, but Rahim said nothing. ‘I mean we knew you were lying back then, but we didn’t think it was very important. Now, it might be.’
Rahim took a long swig of water.
‘I know you’re gay, Rahim.’ Thorne knew no such thing, but the look on the boy’s face told him he was right.
‘So?’
‘And so was Amin.’
‘Look… ’ Rahim put down the bottle. ‘We couldn’t say anything because our parents didn’t know. Mine still don’t know. They’re pretty strict… very strict, and there’s no way I can tell them that isn’t going to be a nightmare. It’s an Indian thing, OK? You wouldn’t understand.’
‘I do understand,’ Thorne said. ‘And for what it’s worth I’ve got no intention of telling them.’ He studied the boy’s face, looking for a sign of reassurance or relief, but there was none. He was clearly worried about something else.
‘I still don’t see-’
‘Javed Akhtar doesn’t think Amin killed himself.’
‘Sorry, I don’t-’
‘He believes that Amin was murdered.’
‘What?’
‘And I think he’s right.’
‘Jesus…!’
It could easily have been an exclamation of shock, but it had taken just a second too long and to Thorne it looked more like fear. ‘Here’s the thing, Rahim,’ he said, leaning across the table. ‘Right now, I don’t have a motive and if I’m going to catch the person responsible for this, I really need to find one. So… using “logic” and “reasoning” and a bit of bog-standard guesswork, there’s a fair chance that there are other things about Amin that I don’t know and maybe one of them got him killed.’ He let his words hang for a moment, waiting until the boy looked up and met his eyes. ‘Now, you’d know way more than me about the probability, but I’m betting that he had more than one secret, and I need you to tell me what they were.’