Ryan returned what in some lights could be mistaken for a smile. He looked at Tughan, nodded at Thorne: "Where did you find this one?" Tughan glanced at Thorne as if he were wondering the same thing himself. "We'll make this quick, Mr. Ryan," he said. "We just wanted to check that nothing else has cropped up at your end since we last spoke."
"Cropped up?"
"Any other thoughts, you know? Theories about who might be… attacking your business."
"I told you last time, and every time before that."
"You might have thought of something since then. Heard something on the grapevine, maybe."
Ryan leaned back in his chair, spread his arms wide across the back of it. Thorne could see that his shoulders were powerful beneath the cashmere blazer, but, looking down, he was amazed at the daintiness of the feet. Ryan was supposed to have been a fair amateur boxer in his younger days but also, bizarrely, had something of a reputation as a ballroom dancer. Thorne stared at the small, highly polished loafers, at the oddly girlish, silk socks.
"I don't know who's doing this. I wish I did." Thorne had to admit that Ryan lied quite brilliantly. He even managed to plaster a sheen of emotion something like sadness on to his face, masking what was clearly nothing more noble than anger, and a desire for brutal vengeance. Thorne glanced at Moloney and Stephen Ryan. Both had their heads down.
"I have no bloody idea who it is," Ryan repeated. "That's what you're supposed to be finding out."
Tughan tugged at the material of his trousers, crossed one leg over the other. "Has anybody else remembered anything? An employee, maybe?"
It was 'employee' that made Thorne smile this time. If Ryan spotted it, he didn't react. He shook his head, and for fifteen seconds they sat in silence.
"What about these leads you mentioned?" Stephen Ryan looked at Thorne like he was a shit-stain trodden into a white shag pile.
"Thank you," Thorne said. "We'd almost forgotten. Does the name Izzigil mean anything at all?"
Shaking heads and upturned palms. Stephen Ryan ran a hand across his closely cropped black hair.
"Are you sure?"
"Is this now a formal interview?" Moloney asked. "We should get the brief in here, Mr. Ryan."
Ryan raised a hand. "You did say this was just a chat, Mr. Tughan."
"Nothing sinister," Tughan said.
Thorne nodded, paused. "So, that's a definite "no" on Izzigil, then?" He nodded to Tughan, who reached into his briefcase and took out a couple of ten-by-eights.
"What about these?" Tughan asked.
Thorne pushed aside the papers and magazines, took the pictures from Tughan and dropped them on to the table. "Does anybody recognise these two?"
Sighs from Stephen Ryan and Marcus Moloney as they leaned forward. Billy Ryan picked up one of the pictures, a still from CCTV footage on Green Lanes, taken nearly three weeks earlier: a fuzzy shot of two boys running; two boys they presumed to have been running away from Muslum Izzigil's video shop, having just hurled a four-foot metal bin through the window.
"Look like any pair of herberts up to no good," Ryan said. "Ten a fucking penny. Marcus?"
Moloney shook his head.
Stephen Ryan looked over at Thorne, eyes wide. "Is it Ant and Dec?" He cackled at his joke, turning to share it with Moloney. Tughan gathered up the pictures and pushed himself up from the sofa.
"We'll get out of your way, then." Moloney and Stephen Ryan stayed where they were as Billy Ryan showed Tughan and Thorne out. The receptionist gave Thorne a hard look as he passed. Thorne winked at him.
Ryan stopped at the door. "What this arse hole doing, the cutting, you know? It's not on. I've been in business a long time, I've seen some shocking stuff."
"I bet you have," Thorne said.
Ryan didn't hear the dig, or chose to ignore it. He shook his head, looking thoroughly disgusted. "Fucking "X-Man"." It didn't surprise Thorne that Ryan knew exactly what it was that the killer did to his victims. Three of them had been found by Ryan's own men, after all. The nickname, though, was something else something that, as far as Thorne was aware, had been confined to Becke House. Obviously, Ryan was a man with plenty of contacts, and Thorne was not naive enough to believe that they wouldn't include a few who were eager to top up a Metropolitan Police salary.
Thorne asked the question as if it were an afterthought. "What does the name Gordon Rooker mean to you, Mr. Ryan?" There was a reaction, no question. Fleeting and impossible to define. Anger, fear, shock, amazement? It could have been any one of them.
"Another arse hole Ryan said, eventually. "And one who I haven't had to think about for a very long time."
The three of them stood, saying nothing, the smell of aftershave overpowering close-up, until Ryan turned and walked quickly back towards his office.
The light had been dimming when they'd arrived. Now it had gone altogether. Turning the corner into the unlit side-street, Thorne was disappointed to see that the Rover didn't at least have a window broken.
"Who's Gordon Rooker?" Tughan asked.
"Just a name that came up. I was barking up the wrong tree." Tughan gave him a long look. He pressed a button on his key ring to unlock the car, walked round to open the driver's door. "Listen, it's almost five and I signed us both out for the rest of the day anyway. I'll drop you at home."
Thorne glanced through the window and saw the empty cassette box between the seats. The idea of a balding millionaire bleating about the homeless for another second was simply unbearable.
"I'll walk," he said.
SEVEN
Thorne cut up Royal College Street, where a faded plaque on a flaking patch of brickwork identified a house where Verlaine and Rimbaud had once lived. By the time he came out on to Kentish Town Road it had begun to drizzle, but he was still glad he'd refused Tughan's offer of a lift.
As Thorne walked past some of the tat tier businesses that fringed the main road, his thoughts returned to Billy Ryan. He wondered how many of the people who ran these pubs, saunas and internet cafes were connected to Ryan in some way or another. Most probably wouldn't even recognise the name, but the working lives of many, honest or not, would certainly be touched by Ryan at some stage.
He thought of those who looked up to Ryan. Those in the outer circles who would be looking to move towards the centre. Did those likely lads, keen to trade in their Timberland and Tommy Hilfiger for Armani, have a clue what they might be expected to do in return? Could they begin to guess at what the softly spoken ballroom dancer had once been might still be capable of?
"I've seen some shocking things."
Just before the turning into Prince of Wales Road, Thorne nipped into a small supermarket. He needed milk and wine, and wanted a paper to see what the Monday night match was on Sky Sports. Queuing at the till, he became aware of raised voices near the entrance and walked over. A uniformed security guard was guiding a woman of forty or so towards the doors, trying to move her out of the shop. He was not taking any nonsense, but there was still some warmth in his voice: "How often do we have to do this, love?"
"I'm sorry, I can't help it," the woman said. The security guard saw Thorne coming over and his eyes widened. We've got a right one here.
"Do you want a hand?" Even as Thorne said it, he hadn't quite decided who he was offering the help to.
Though the woman had three or four fat, plastic bags swinging from each hand, she was well dressed. "It's something I feel compelled to do," she said, revealing herself to be equally well spoken.
"What?" Thorne asked.
The security guard still had a hand squarely in the middle of the woman's back and was moving her ever closer to the door. "She pesters the other customers," he said.