‘I don’t have one,’ Thorne said.
‘Making it up as you go along again?’ Holland asked.
‘Best way, I reckon.’ Thorne told them that he would send McCarthy back out once he was safely inside. ‘You hang on to him for me, and I’ll call to let you know what’s happening up there. If I need you for anything else. In the meantime, watch the exits and if anyone comes out of there before I’m finished, nick them.’
‘Nick them for…?’
‘Anything you fancy.’
‘What if we don’t hear from you?’ Kitson asked. ‘How long do you want us to give it?’
‘This won’t take long,’ Thorne said. ‘I think the party’s going to be winding down fairly soon after I get in there.’
As Thorne walked quickly back through the drizzle towards the BMW, the message alert sounded on his mobile. He saw that he had been sent a text from Helen Weeks’ phone. When he opened it, there was only an MMS attachment.
Unknown JPEG.
Thorne clicked to open the picture. Stopped and stared. He swallowed, wiping a finger across the small screen, and for a few seconds he could not be sure if it was rainwater he could feel creeping, slow and icy, down the back of his neck.
The gun went off for some reason, but nobody’s hurt.
The image was slightly blurred, but Thorne could make out the waxy, bloated features well enough. The lips, pinched and so much paler than the rest of the face. The spatters of what looked like dried blood around the chin and neck, a few brown flecks near the hairline. It took him a few moments before he recognised the tattered scraps of shiny black that seemed to flutter around the head like bats’ wings, but it made sense to him, once he had.
He was looking at a man he could only presume was Stephen Mitchell.
A dead face.
His body, wrapped in bin-bags.
Thorne took half a dozen steps towards the car, then turned and walked back again, his mind racing. Had Pascoe and Donnelly been sent the same image? If they had, then surely they would be calling to tell him. Thorne looked at the phone, waited half a minute… more, for it to ring.
He punched in the number for the RVP.
‘Where are you?’ Donnelly asked.
‘I’m about to meet the man who organised the murder of Akhtar’s son,’ Thorne said. ‘Actually, we’ve met before.’
‘Well, quicker the better.’
‘Something going on?’
‘Akhtar’s kicking off a bit,’ Donnelly said. ‘Waving the gun about, shouting about running out of patience.’
‘What’s Pascoe saying?’
‘She’s worried.’
‘Tell her, when she speaks to him, to say that I’m getting exactly what he wanted. All the answers.’ Thorne glanced up towards the shining half-moon of penthouses high above him, narrowed his eyes against the rain. ‘Tell him this’ll be finished tonight.’
‘I hope so,’ Donnelly said. ‘And I really hope he listens. Chivers is getting decidedly jumpy, and I can’t say I blame him.’
Thrusting the phone back into his pocket, Thorne walked back towards the car, asking himself why on earth Helen Weeks had not told those on the outside about the death of Stephen Mitchell. Was she simply being coerced into silence by the gun at her head? Or had she deliberately chosen to keep it quiet? As a police officer, she would have understood only too well how quickly a situation could escalate once there were fatalities. As a mother, she had more than just her own life to worry about. He remembered what Donnelly had just said about Chivers, and thought he could understand why Detective Sergeant Helen Weeks might have decided to say nothing.
Whatever the reason, now Thorne had done the same thing and kept the fact of a hostage’s death from those running the operation. One more black mark against him, but it could not make things any blacker.
What else could he do?
Akhtar’s kicking off a bit…
Now, Thorne understood all too clearly that Javed Akhtar was not running out of patience. It had already been exhausted. The picture of Stephen Mitchell’s body had been a simple enough message and one meant only for him.
Get a move on.
He reached the car and yanked open the passenger door. ‘Let’s go.’
McCarthy looked up at him. His face was pale and clammy under the sickly interior light. ‘You said it was too early before. You said-’
‘That was before,’ Thorne said. ‘And I’ve never been particularly fashionable.’
SIXTY-ONE
Donnelly had taken Thorne’s call in the playground, shivering beneath a Met Police umbrella and helping himself to some slightly stale fruit cake from Teapot One as they had talked. Now, he walked quickly back to the TSU truck to relay Thorne’s news. If they could contain the situation, keep the lid on things inside the newsagent’s for just another couple of hours, then they might well see the result they all wanted before knocking-off time.
As soon as he climbed up into the truck, he could see that he had missed something.
‘What?’ he said.
Pascoe was pale, slumped in a chair. The two TSU technicians were looking at the floor. Chivers shook his head and said, ‘Jesus.’
‘I didn’t think about it,’ Pascoe said. ‘It never even occurred to me.’
‘ What? ’ Donnelly asked again.
‘She kept saying everything was fine.’ Pascoe looked from Donnelly to Chivers. ‘Every time I asked, she told me they were all doing fine. You heard.’
The sounds of the television in Akhtar’s storeroom were still coming through the speakers. Donnelly asked the technicians to lower the volume a little, then stepped across to Sue Pascoe. ‘Exactly what didn’t you think about, Sue? What never occurred to you?’
She looked at him.
The male technician – Yates – cleared his throat. ‘Well, it was Annette who pointed it out.’ He gestured towards the female technician sitting next to him; whip-thin with spiky black hair coloured red at the tips. He tentatively laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘It was her idea, really.’
His colleague nodded and spoke quietly. ‘I was just saying that we’ve been monitoring the conversations in there for about four hours now, and yes I know that the television’s been on for a lot of the time and that nobody’s said a great deal. It’s just that in all that time we haven’t heard anything from the second hostage. From Mr Mitchell.’
‘Not a peep,’ Yates said.
Donnelly stared at the speakers for a few seconds, as though willing Stephen Mitchell’s voice to suddenly burst from them. ‘Oh, Christ.’ He turned and looked at Chivers.
‘DS Weeks assured us that everything in there was fine.’ Pascoe sounded as though she was talking to herself. ‘Repeatedly.’
‘You told us it was fine,’ Donnelly said.
‘Because I believed that it was.’
‘All that guff about her voice being normal and no signs of coercion. “There isn’t a problem,” you said. That was your professional opinion, if I remember rightly.’
‘That’s the way I remember it, too,’ Chivers said.
Pascoe looked as though the breath had been punched from her. ‘This wasn’t just me,’ she stammered. ‘Nobody else seemed too concerned about Mitchell.’ She stood up, fumbling to straighten her jacket. ‘It was not just me… ’
Donnelly reached for a headset and threw it at Pascoe.
‘Call her.’
SIXTY-TWO
Helen had been unable to say anything, to do anything but watch, when Akhtar had walked calmly away into the shop with her phone.
Does this have a camera on it?
She had fought to control her breathing as she thought about what he might be taking a picture of, struggled that little bit harder as she considered what he might be thinking of doing with such a photo. After a minute or so, she had finally managed to catch her breath and hold it. She had almost convinced herself she was being ridiculous, when the smell hit her and she knew that she had been right to worry.
He had torn open the bags.
Something like this had been coming for the last few hours, the signs had been clear enough. Or might have been, if she had been able to think clearly and focus for five minutes, if she had not been in such a state herself.