Mark Billingham - The Burning Girl

"Right, that's what I mean."

The sick feeling that came with thinking he shouldn't have said anything was, for Thorne, becoming horribly familiar. "Don't forget that it's only temporary, though, or that I can get pissed off very quickly, all right?" He was smiling as he spoke, but hoped that the seriousness beneath was clear enough. He knew that Holland thought he was every bit as much of a fucking idiot as Carol Chamberlain had, but he didn't want to hear it again.

Holland weighed it up and did what Thorne had repeatedly failed to do. He kept his mouth shut.

Thorne spent most of the drive back from the Elephant and Castle thinking about Alison Kelly. Bizarrely, it had not occurred to him until now, but he began to worry about whether she would say anything to anyone. He began to ask himself what might happen if she did. If she were to mention to her solicitor the conversation with a certain detective inspector, they would certainly recommend that she go public with the information. After all, it could only strengthen a diminished-responsibility plea. Wasn't it reasonable to conclude that the balance of a person's mind might be disturbed after they'd just been told that their ex-husband had tried to have them burned to death when they were fourteen years old? That he'd been responsible for setting fire to her best friend? Wouldn't that make most people go ever so slightly round the twist?

Mutterings from the public gallery and nodding heads among the jury.

Why on earth should the accused have believed such an outlandish tale?

Well, Your Honour, she was told it by one of the police officers who was investigating her ex-husband. Told it, as a matter of fact, in that very police officer's bed.

Gasps all around the courtroom.

In reality, Thorne had no idea what would happen to him were the truth to get out. He certainly felt in his gut that there would be some form of action taken against him, that he should probably resign before that could happen. Another part of him was unsure exactly what rule he'd broken. Maybe there were guidelines in that manual he'd never bothered to read. He could hardly go to Russell Brigstocke and ask. The more he thought about it, the simpler it became. Would she tell anyone? Would Alison Kelly, either alone or on the advice of others, sacrifice him in return for a lower sentence, or even a nice cushy number in a hospital?

He thought, as he drove across Waterloo Bridge, that she might well. Going around Russell Square, he decided that she probably wouldn't. By the time Thorne pulled up outside his flat, the only thing he knew for certain was that he would not blame her if she did. All thoughts of Alison Kelly flew from his mind as he approached his front door, then stopped dead with his keys in his hand. He stared at the scarred paintwork and pictured the face of Memet Zarif, the water running slowly through the heavy, dark brows. He stared at the gashes in the woodwork, at the ridges and clinging splinters picked out by the glow from the nearby streetlamp. He felt again the chill at his neck, and knew that Memet had made a decision. When wishes were not enough, action needed to be taken.

Thorne stared at his front door; at the ragged "X' carved deep into it.

Thorne was dragging the car around and flooring it back towards the main road within a minute, spitting his fury out loud at the windscreen as he drove. His heart was dancing like a maniac in his chest, his breathing as rapid as the baby's he'd been watching only an hour before.

It was important to try to stay calm, to get where he was going in one piece. He had to hold on to his anger, to save it up and channel it against Memet Zarif when he finally got hold of the fucker. He shouted in frustration and stamped on the brake, his cry drowning out the squeal as the wheels locked and the BMW stopped at the lights with a lurch. He watched his knuckles whiten around the wheel as he waited for red to turn to green.

Watching a taxi drive past. Feeling his chest straining against the seat-belt over and over. Listening to the leather move against the nylon, the spastic thumping of his heartbeat.. The realisation was sharp and sudden, like a slap, and Thorne felt the stinging certainty spread and settle across him. Slowly, he leaned forward and flicked on his hazard lights, oblivious to the cars snarling round him and through the traffic lights.

A taxi.. a minicab.

He recalled the face he'd barely registered that morning behind the wheel of a black Omega the driver outside Zarif's place on Green Lanes who'd asked if he needed a cab. He remembered where he'd seen that face before.

Thorne waited until the lights had changed again, turned the car around and cruised slowly back towards his flat.

Why was this man driving a cab for Memet Zarif? Would he still be working this late in the day? It was certainly worth a try. Thorne's mind was racing every bit as fast as it had been before, adrenalin fizzing through his system, but now a calmness was making its presence felt, too, flowing through him where it was needed. The calmness of decision, of purpose.

He was dialing the number before the BMW had come to a standstill outside the flat. He listened to the call going through as he stepped out on to the pavement.

The phlegm-hawker who answered was no more polite on the phone than he had been in person.

"Car service."

"I need a cab from Kentish Town as soon as you can," Thorne said.

"What's the address?"

"Listen, I need a nice one, a good-looking motor, you know? I've got to impress someone. You got a Merc or anything like that?"

"No mate, nothing like that."

Thorne leaned back against his car. "You must have something nice. A Scorpio, an Omega, that kind of thing. I don't mind paying a bit over the odds."

"We've got a couple of Omegas." The man sounded like he resented every syllable of the conversation.

"Yeah, that's great. One of those. Which driver is it?"

"What's the difference?"

Was there a hint of suspicion in the question? Thorne decided it was probably just a natural sourness. "I had one of your lot a couple of weeks ago and he wouldn't shut up."

Thorne was told the driver's name and felt the buzz kick in. "That's perfect," he said.

"What's your address, mate?"

Thorne stared at the "X' on his front door. There was no way he was going to give them an address they would clearly be all too familiar with. The very last thing he wanted was for the driver to know who he was picking up. He named a shop on the Kentish Town Road, told the dispatcher he'd be waiting outside.

"Fifteen minutes, mate."

Thorne was already on his way.

The fifteen minutes was closer to twenty-five, but the time passed quickly. Thorne had plenty to think about. He couldn't be certain that when the driver had spoken to him that morning outside the minicab office, he hadn't done so knowing exactly who he was. Thorne could only hope that the man he was now waiting for had simply been touting for business, and that he'd just been viewed as a potential customer. When the Omega pulled up, Thorne looked hard at the driver. He saw nothing that looked like dissemblance.

Thorne climbed into the back of the car, knowing full well that he'd been wrong about these things before.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

It was the one thing Thorne hadn't considered. "Hampstead Garden Suburb," he said. It was a couple of miles away from them, beyond Highgate. Thorne was hoping it was far enough away, that he'd have got what he needed well before they arrived.

The driver grunted as he steered the Omega into the traffic heading north along the Kentish Town Road.

They drove for five minutes or more in complete silence. Perhaps the dispatcher had mentioned that the customer was not fond of chit-chat. Perhaps the driver had nothing to say. Either way, it suited Thorne perfectly. It gave him a little time to gather his thoughts. He'd recognised Wayne Brookhouse had finally remembered his face from the CCTV tape of Gordon Rooker's visitors. He remembered Stone and Holland laying out the black-and-white stills on his desk. Brookhouse, if that was his real name, wasn't wearing the glasses any more and his hair was longer now than it had been when he'd last visited Rooker. He was supposed to be the daughter's boyfriend, wasn't he? Or ex-boyfriend, maybe.