'I'm fine. OK? I just wanted to tell you that. I really am absolutely fine.'
TWENTY-SEVEN
The voice was getting quieter, line by line. She hadn't slept in nearly thirty-six hours. She hadn't been straight for a good while longer. It was hard to work out exactly which of these things was responsible for the various things her body was now subject to every few minutes. She was overtired. She was shaking. She was out of it. She was wired, hysterical, comatose, terrified, buzzing, fearless… The night before, as soon as Holland had gone, she'd done the last of the coke in the flat and rushed to her computer. She'd written a few e-mails, received a few and then she'd gone out to score. Walking, running most of the way, she hadn't stepped on any of the cracks in the pavement, as per usual. That way she knew that her dealer would be there, that he'd have something for her.
For the rest of that night she'd been awake – drinking and chain smoking, opening up the wrap made from a folded lottery ticket, chopping out a line every half an hour or so. Since the sun had come up, she'd been doing one every fifteen minutes. The fucker was ripping her off, must be. She'd always got four lines out of a quarter, and now, suddenly, she was getting no more than three. She was needing to make the lines thicker. The bastard must be cutting her stuff… Still, cut or not, the stuff was doing the trick. It was silencing the voice. The voice in her head – so much posher and more attractive than the one that came out of her mouth – had been growing quieter with each new line. The voice that told her she was stupid, that what she was planning was insane, that she was risking her life. Each hit was turning it down another notch.
There were other voices she could still hear, that she needed to hear. Holland's voice, telling her she couldn't do her job any more. Her mother's voice. The voice she had never heard, but which she imagined when she read the e-mails. These were the voices that, for the time being, she didn't want to tune out, that were making her do this thing, that she would soon silence once and for all. A wave of rage swept over her as she imagined them all taking the credit for what she was going to do; praising her initiative and then taking all the glory. Fuck that. She imagined Holland coming back to her, walking out on his dim girlfriend and trying to start things up again…
She moved to the table. The empty vodka bottle. The empty wrap. Fuck, fuck, fuck…
She opened up the lottery ticket, pressed it flat on the table and licked. She got down on her knees and began dabbing at specks on the carpet, rubbing equal amounts of cocaine, dirt and dead skin into her gums. Christ alive, how much had she got through? Bastard must have cut it half and half. Must have…
She lit a cigarette, put on her coat.
There wasn't a great deal of time. There was still that one crucial piece of information she needed. The one thing he'd held back while he was sending his cryptic little messages. He thought he was being so clever this last week or so, but he had no idea how good she was. None of them did. She was one step ahead of them, all the time. And she was one step ahead of him.
She sent an e-mail, and when she didn't get an immediate reply, she sent another, telling him she had to go out. Telling him how he could contact her. It was the only thing she could do, other than sit and wait until lunch-time which was when he usually came on line. She couldn't wait another second.
She grabbed her bag, and after making sure there was nobody on surveillance outside, she closed the door behind her, shivering as she stepped into the cold air.
McEvoy walked quickly away down the greasy pavement, making quite sure she didn't step on any of the cracks.
'How did it go?'
Holland had been waiting for Thorne in reception, chewing the fat with an old mate on duty behind the desk. He waved goodbye as he and Thorne pushed out through the doors and started the ten-minute walk back to Becke House.
What little sun there was up there was having no luck breaking through a solid blanket of cloud. The sky was the colour of pewter. There were already one or two cars with sidelights on. It was a little after three o'clock.
'How was it really?'
'I think I got lucky,' Thorne said. 'A pair of rubber-heelers with a sense of humour.'
Holland smiled. Rubber-heelers. You couldn't hear the buggers coming. 'What was it that they found funny…?'
It hadn't begun well.
DCI Collins (short and overweight) and DI Manning (tall and overweight) did not look like they enjoyed a laugh. Both had that strange expression – a mixture of boredom and seething resentment which Thorne had previously seen only on the faces of men standing on Oxford Street with signs reading GOLF SALE. Manning had shuffled papers while Collins had leaned forward across the table to deliver the caution. It had begun and ended with much the same words that Thorne had used to caution Martin Palmer. In the middle, they had detailed the neglect of duty – the procedural lapse that had allowed Palmer to escape – speaking slowly and seriously. These officers were doing their job of work so much better than Thorne had done his.
'I'd like a number of other serious incidents noted for the record,'
Thorne had said. 'Incidents where I neglected my duty.'
Manning had thrown a sideways glance at Collins and then at the tape recorder to check that the spools were turning. 'Go ahead, Inspector.'
Thorne had cleared his throat. 'I have, on a number of occasions, farted without apologising, and though I have never actually appeared in The Bill, a woman who was drunk told me I looked a bit like the bloke who plays DI Burnside…'
Manning and Collins had looked at each other and then pissed themselves.
'So, how did it finish up?' Holland asked. They were approaching the pub where, doubtless, Serious Crime was still busy inside, pursuing various lines of enquiry.
Thorne wasn't certain what would happen next, but for a change he had decided to think positive. 'I'm not exactly off the hook, but I don't reckon they're sorting me out a uniform just yet.'
Holland stopped and nodded across the road towards the pub. 'Are we going back in?'
Thorne kept on walking, shouted back over his shoulder. 'You can do what you like, Holland, I'm going to go and pick the car up. I thought I'd go and see how McEvoy's getting on. Find out if her mother's any better…'
At three thirty, they pulled up outside Sarah McEvoy's flat in Wembley.
Thorne got out of the car and walked up the steps to the front door. He turned and looked at Holland who was still sitting in the passenger seat, staring forwards. 'Come on, Dave…' Holland got out while Thorne rang the bell. He arrived next to him as Thorne rang again. Nothing.
Thorne took a step back, peered to his left at the dark blue curtains drawn across the bay window. 'Is that her flat?' He'd picked McEvoy up outside the place on a few occasions, dropped her off on a couple more, but he'd never been inside.
Holland's answer was non-committal. 'Maybe she's in bed,' he said. Thorne shrugged, thrust his hands into his jacket pockets and trudged back down towards the car.
Holland watched Thorne moving away, wrestling with it, knowing how easy it would be to jog gently down the steps after him. His voice when he spoke was louder than he'd intended it to be – more urgent.
'I think we should go in…'
Thorne turned, twirling the car keys around a finger. 'I don't think I want the Funny Firm doing me for breaking and entering as well, Dave…'
'I've got a key,' Holland said.
Thorne came up the steps two at a time and took hold of the arm that was already reaching forward to push a key into the lock.