Death Message (17 page)

'What do you say?'

'I think he's just fucking us around.'

Brigstocke nodded, like he was thinking about it. 'I was really just asking how you were, by the way.'

'Sorry?'

'When I asked how you were doing. It's possible to talk about something other than the job for five minutes.'

Thorne laughed. 'Have you been talking to Louise?'

Not getting it, Brigstocke smiled anyway, and Thorne could see that he was in a better mood than he had been since the DPS had come calling. But still, there was no invitation to reciprocate and ask how Brigstocke was doing. Or to enquire as to the nature of the Regulation Nine he had been served.

Thorne had known Russell Brigstocke for years. Had met his wife and kids, had eaten at their house. It suddenly didn't seem to count for very much.

'Right.' Brigstocke dragged round a chair. 'This Skinner business. These allegations...' Thorne waited. 'I just think we need to be careful. Prison testimony can be iffy at the best of times.'

'I know-'

'Remember what sort of a headcase we're dealing with here.'

'I'm hardly likely to forget,' Thorne said. 'But everything Nicklin told me made sense. It may turn out to be nothing, but Marcus Brooks certainly thinks Skinner and somebody else set him up for murder six years ago. He's sure enough to want them dead for it, so, even if he's wrong, it's got to be worth looking into.'

Brigstocke took off his glasses, yanked out a corner of his shirt and rubbed at the lenses. 'I
know
Paul Skinner, Tom.'

Thorne blinked. He watched as Brigstocke tucked in his shirt and replaced his glasses, wondering what he meant.

I know him well enough to be sure that he isn't bent?

I know him and right now it would be hugely embarrassing for me if he
did turn out to be bent?

I know him, so do me a favour and drop it...

Thorne decided it was as good a time as any for grasping nettles. 'Has this got anything to do with the DPS coming in to see you on Friday?'

It might have been the fact that the lenses had just been cleaned, but Brigstocke's eyes seemed to brighten behind them. He sat up straighter. His voice was low and dangerous. 'Why the fuck should it?'

'Russell...'

'And why would you think for one minute that it would?'

Thorne could do little but bluster and bluff and try to limit the damage. He said that it was a perfectly innocent question, that he'd been worried by Brigstocke's mood, and there was really nothing more to it. That he was there if Brigstocke wanted to talk about anything, anything at all.

'You should go whichever way you want on this,' Brigstocke said eventually. 'You're the one getting these messages. You were drawn into this, and I suppose you're giving the case a certain... impetus. As far as Skinner goes...' He trailed off, his head dropping, fingers picking at what might have been a loose thread on his trouser leg.

For a few minutes after that, they proved Brigstocke's point and talked about something other than the case, the awkwardness dissipating slightly over the first few laughs. A story about a mutual ex-colleague; kids; a recent episode of
The Bill
. Thorne dug out the copy of
The Job
he'd stashed and they shared a joke at the expense of Holland and his table-tennis trophy.

It finished on about the best terms Thorne could have hoped for. But when Brigstocke was leaving, Thorne stopped him at the door. 'I'm still not sure what you're telling me, Russell.'

Brigstocke sounded resigned as much as anything else. 'When has me telling you anything ever made the slightest bit of fucking difference?'

Not wanting to spend too long thinking about it - worrying about friendship and favours and the sickly smell of burning bridges - Thorne didn't wait more than a couple of minutes after Brigstocke had left before putting in the call to Albany Street police station.

He put on his most efficient voice, and tried not to laugh as he asked to be put through to Human Resources. He chatted for a minute or two with the civilian administrative officer. He gave his name and warrant-card details, a fax number and email address, then asked for the Personal Information Management System record on Detective Inspector Paul Skinner. He paid a visit to the canteen while the admin officer accessed the PIMS file. The information he'd requested was spewing from the fax machine in the Incident Room before he'd finished his coffee.

Thorne cast an eye across the pages.

Three sheets detailing every posting held by Paul Skinner in nearly thirty years as a police officer: dates and locations; contributions to significant operations; courses attended and qualifications gained. When he had spoken to Thorne the previous morning, Skinner's memory had not let him down: he had been a DS on the Flying Squad at the time of Marcus Brooks' arrest for murder in 2000. He had worked on a variety of borough units prior to that, as well as with the AMIP East Murder Squad, and he had subsequently spent time on a stolen vehicle unit in addition to three years as part of a team attached to the Drugs Squad, concentrating on European trafficking.

There were no suspensions and Skinner had never been the subject of any complaint. He had, by contrast, received two commendations, including one for bravery during the arrest of a notorious armed robbery firm.

Thorne was interested to see that Skinner had twice passed what the DPS called 'integrity tests'. These could range from the absurdly simple - a tempting quantity of cash or drugs left in an abandoned vehicle - to more complex set-ups involving dozens of officers over a period of months. Most of the time, unless the subject failed, they would never even know they'd been tested at all. Though the Anti-Corruption Group tried to be as inventive as possible, the received wisdom was that a bent copper clever enough to get away with it for a while could spot an integrity test a mile away.

To his knowledge, Thorne had never been tested, and he couldn't say with certainty that he'd pass when they finally got around to him. With a pint or two inside him, he'd tell anyone who gave a toss that they were testing for the wrong thing: it wasn't about pocketing a few quid if it came your way; it was a question of lines, always had been. Where you drew yours, relative to where the fuckers you were after drew theirs. Whether those lines grew closer together as experience chipped away at you. And whether you stepped across it for the right reasons, with your eyes open, or drifted to the wrong side without even knowing it.

He read through the report once more, his frustration growing with every page. Brooks had been set up by two officers, so in order for this information to be of any use, Thorne would need to cross-reference it with a PIMS report on somebody else. He was fairly certain that Skinner would have worked at some point with Richard Rawlings; and he knew he'd worked with Russell Brigstocke for that matter. But at this point, it was all useless information. Over such a long and varied career, Skinner would have worked closely with hundreds of officers and, even if Thorne did have likely names, he quickly realised that he would gain nothing definitive. The man with whom Skinner had set up Brooks needn't have been a close colleague. He could just as easily have been someone who drank in the same pub. Someone Skinner had met at a party. Someone he had played table-tennis with...

Thorne let out a long, slow breath.

He had to presume that this unknown man, both men, were dangerous. They had framed Marcus Brooks for murder, but Skinner and his partner-in-crime may have done considerably worse than that.

Somebody had killed Simon Tipper, after all.

The longer Thorne stared at the information in front of him, the more pointless it became. He had no real idea where to attack it from; what else he would need to make the task easier. There were days when he felt ill equipped to deal with regular police work, but he couldn't even begin to think like a DPS officer. He was not sure if he should feel frustrated or relieved.

When Yvonne Kitson strolled in, Thorne pushed the PIMS report to one side.

'Thought you were booked out,' she said.

'Couldn't keep away.'

A nod, like she knew what he meant. 'My other half's got his mates round to watch the rugby, and the kids are being little bastards at the moment. What's your excuse?'

'Louise is working. You know.'

'How's it going?'

Thorne remembered the exchange with Brigstocke an hour or so before. With the exception of that conversation, and Thorne's request for Paul Skinner's records, Kitson knew as much about the Brooks investigation as he did. So he presumed she wasn't asking about the case; that her enquiry was more personal.

'It's good,' he said. He wondered if Louise was still pissed off with him. Still
as
pissed off with him. 'It's great...'

Kitson seemed pleased.

Thorne watched her sort through some papers on her desk and begin reading. 'They still got you riding two horses with one arse?'

She looked up, sour-faced suddenly. 'This is the only chance I've had to even think about the Sedat murder in days.'

'And?'

'I think I should've stayed at home.'

'Your mystery woman not called back?'

'We've blagged five minutes on Tuesday night's Crimewatch,' Kitson said. 'See what we can do to persuade her.'

'You doing it yourself?'

'They couldn't get anyone else.'

'Well, providing there's no football on, and they're not repeating
Animal Hospital
or Watercolour Challenge, I'll be watching...'

For an hour or so, they swapped Crimewatch stories, their own and other people's. They moaned about the perpetually tanned presenter: the nauseating simper as he told viewers to 'sleep tight'; the reminder that their chances of becoming a victim of violent crime were minuscule. Kitson said she'd like to drag the smug bugger round the Incident Room; maybe take him to a post-mortem and watch that take the colour off his face.

Thorne thought a good hard slap would do the job just as well.

The day dimmed quickly outside: Hendon a glinting patchwork beyond the glass, and headlights brightening on the cars that crept away from Brent Cross or north towards the M1. But Thorne could not summon up the energy to head home. To call Louise and continue the argument. By the end of the day, he and Kitson had decided to grab an early dinner, and they were tossing up between the Royal Oak and the nearest Chinese when Thorne got a call from the main security gate to say that he had a visitor.

Brian could be an arsehole in the wrong mood, and he wouldn't let Tony Blair in without seeing an ID, but he'd watched every kind of copper from cadet to commander pass under his barrier, and he could usually be relied on when it came to a thumbnail sketch.

'He's DPS,' Brian said.

'Oh, great. You sure?'

'Twenty quid says he's from the Dark Side.'

Thorne knew better than to take the bet. 'From Colindale, you reckon?'

'Nah, he's not local. His overcoat was too nice.'

'You're wasted on the gate, Brian.'

'He says he'll wait for you at reception...'

'We're popular suddenly,' Kitson said, when Thorne hung up. 'Maybe it's the same lot who were in here the other day with the DCI.'

Thorne told her that Brian hadn't thought so. 'He's keen though, whoever he is. Five o'clock on a Sunday.'

'Somebody else as job-pissed as we are. Or with nobody who wants to spend a Sunday with him.'

Thorne said he'd be as quick as he could. He grabbed his coat and told Kitson to pick somewhere they could eat when he got back.

He took the stairs, the smell of the new carpet assaulting him again, taking him back to that uncertain moment somewhere in his childhood.

Adding to the apprehension.

Talking to police officers, ordinary citizens would often be overcome with feelings of guilt, however innocuous the reason for the conversation. It was much the same for the police officers themselves when talking to those representing the Directorate of Professional Standards.

Racking his brain, Thorne trudged towards the ground floor of Becke House. Wondering exactly what it was that he had done.

They walked in the dark, across the parade square, through the HGV testing area and slowly around the track that bordered the athletics arena.

'This seemed a hell of a lot bigger when I was a cadet.'

'When was that?' Thorne asked.

'I left here eighteen years ago.'

It didn't tell Thorne precisely how old Detective Sergeant Adrian Nunn was, but it reinforced his initial impression that he was somewhere in his late thirties.

'You?' Nunn asked.

'A
lot
longer...'

Five minutes before, in those few moments between stepping into the reception area at Becke House and shaking hands, Thorne's assessment of his visitor had been much the same as his friend's at the gate.

Neither of them had lost their touch.

The Anti-Corruption Group dealt only with the most serious crimes involving Met officers, and Nunn's introduction of himself as one of their dread number meant that this was no simple disciplinary matter. He wasn't there because some idiot had filed an iffy expenses claim. Someone had fucked up on a grand scale; shaking hands, Thorne could only pray that it wasn't him.

Whatever the reason for his visit, Nunn did seem to be smiling an awful lot.

'I thought it would be best to wait down here.' He'd walked towards the door; an invitation to follow him outside. 'People tend to jump to conclusions. Start imagining all sorts.'

'It wouldn't be anything they haven't imagined before,' Thorne had said. Watching Nunn step outside, he'd seen that Brian had been right about the coat as well.

'It's all a lot different now though, right?'