Mark Billingham - The Burning Girl

"When did he leave, Wayne?"

"A while ago. A few weeks after he did the last one. After the copper."

Moloney.

So, Thorne had been wrong about Billy Ryan having Marcus Moloney killed. It had been Memet Zarif who had ordered the killing, without realising he was targeting an undercover officer. The murder of Moloney had, in Thorne's mind, been one more thing Ryan had paid for with his own death. One more thing that had justified Thorne telling Alison Kelly what he'd told her. Now, Thorne had to take Moloney's death off that list, but it didn't make much difference. There were still plenty of things Billy Ryan had needed to pay for… "If he's gone," Thorne said, 'who put the "X" on my door?"

"It could have been anyone." The sweat left a stain on Thorne's sheets when Brookhouse turned his head. "It was just to put the shits up you a bit, that's all."

"Who ordered the killings?" Chamberlain asked. "Was it Memet?" Brookhouse shook his head.

"Is that a "no"?" Chamberlain moved the iron to her left hand, shook out the right for a few seconds, then moved it back. "Or a "no comment"?"

Thorne steadied himself as Brookhouse's knees jerked up into his backside. He rode out the struggle, thinking about the dead and about those who had taken money to arrange their deaths. Those for whom knives and guns were the tools of their trade: the butcher who had murdered Mickey Clayton, Marcus Moloney and the others; the man who had shot Muslum and Hanya Izzigil; whoever who had gunned down Francis Cullen and the two still unidentified immigrants who had been dragged from the back of his lorry and had tried to run for their lives. Page

The men who'd got away with it.

Like a man whose tools had been a naked flame, and a can of lighter fuel.

Thorne looked at Brookhouse, wondering just how close he might have got to Gordon Rooker. Rooker probably trusted him a damn sight more than he'd ever trust a police officer. Thorne asked himself how much Rooker might have had to reveal, how much he'd had to give up before his arrangements with Memet Zarif were finalised. It couldn't hurt to ask.

"Who burned Jessica Clarke, Wayne?"

Thorne saw something flicker, just for a second, in Brookhouse's eyes. A spark of something, that he immediately did his best to hide, like a small boy caught stealing and jamming the booty far down into his pocket. Thorne glanced at Chamberlain and knew immediately that she'd seen it, too.

"You know, don't you?" she said.

Thorne watched as Chamberlain let the iron fall a little further. He could see the tendons stretching on the inside of her forearm as she took the weight of it, the concentration on her face as she moved it, as slowly as she could.

"You won't." Brookhouse said.

Thorne watched, compelled, as Chamberlain reached down and turned the dial on the iron to its highest setting. A drop of water fell from it on to Brookhouse's chest. He flinched as if it were boiling.

"You're imagining the pain as something quick," Chamberlain said. "A moment of agony as I press the iron down and then release it. Just a second or two of hissing and then it's over, right? OK, I want you to think about how it would be if I let the iron go. If I just left it sitting there on your chest. Sizzling on your chest, Wayne. How long do you think it would take to start sinking in?" When Brookhouse took his eyes from the iron and looked at Chamberlain's face he started to talk. "Jesus, how fucking thick are you people?

There was no other man. There was only me, pretending to be him."

"Pretending to be the man who really burned Jessica?"

"Him. Rooker. Rooker was the man."

And Thorne could see it: bright as a flame and certain as a scar. In the walk and in the fucking wink of him, and in the cunt's fingers moving through his greasy, yellow hair. In the tongue that slid across a gold tooth and in that sly smile before Gordon Rooker bent to snap the lid from his tobacco tin… Thorne had known from the moment he'd recognised Brookhouse that Rooker had been lying. But not about this. It was obvious that Brookhouse couldn't have burned Jessica, but Thorne had never presumed that the man making the calls the man on Chamberlain's front lawn had been the real attacker. He'd always thought that there was someone else, and that Rooker had probably known who he was.

"Tom?"

Everything had been built upon the belief, his belief that Rooker had been innocent. Wasn't it him that had put the pressure on Rooker in the first place, forced him to admit that he wasn't the one?

Chamberlain had raised the iron and stood looking at him, waiting for something. Guidance, perhaps.

The vast, dreadful stone of his own stupidity crashed onto the floor of Thorne's gut. Its weight exactly equaled the elation of knowing, of finally getting the name. He felt hollow and bloated; cancelled out.

Almost every single thing that Rooker had told them was true. He'd only changed one, tiny fact. When Billy Ryan had asked him to kill Alison Kelly, he'd said yes.

"He was perfect."

Chamberlain still hadn't got it. "What?" Rooker had almost certainly been involved in the earlier attempt to get rid of Kevin Kelly. Billy Ryan, as Kelly's number two, had a very good reason to want Rooker dead. It made him the ideal choice to carry out a contract on Kelly's daughter.

"Maybe Ryan offered to lift a contract he had out on Rooker," Thorne said. "In return for Rooker doing him one small favour." Chamberlain looked unconvinced, but it didn't really matter either way. What was beyond dispute was Rooker's fear of Billy Ryan, a fear based on the knowledge that Ryan did not forgive those who fucked up. It had driven Rooker to confess, to condemn himself to prison and to a life spent with only the fear itself for company. It grew with every attack, with every beating in the showers, until it dictated everything Rooker did. Fear was what drove him. It was what eventually gave shape to a scheme that might protect him when he finally came to start life again outside prison.

Which he would be doing just a few days from now. Thorne decided that Brookhouse could kick as much as he wanted. He swung his legs around and slid off the bed. "What's Rooker's arrangement with Memet Zarif?"

Again something flashed in Brookhouse's eyes. This time, there was no mistaking genuine terror.

"A lot more scared of Memet than he is of us," Chamberlain said. Thorne watched Brookhouse's eyes dart to meet his own. He saw the tears begin. He saw the hope that their meaning might not be understood. Thorne began to suspect that he may have been wrong about which of the Zarif brothers was pulling the strings.

"Not Memet?" Thorne asked.

There was a moan which seemed to come from Brookhouse's belly as he started to thrash around on the bed.

"Hassan?"

Thorne repeated the name, raising his voice over the noise Brookhouse was making to blank him out. There was still no response. Thorne nodded to Chamberlain, who moved the iron back into position. "Who is it, Wayne?"

As the iron descended again towards his chest, Brookhouse gradually began to grow still. The sobbing died away, his body stiffened and his eyes closed tight shut. It was clear that he was waiting for the pain, that he was prepared for it.

Something. someone frightened him a lot more. Chamberlain held the iron an inch above his chest. Thorne watched the skin begin to redden, saw the translucent edges of blisters gaining definition.

"Looks like you're happy to let us get on with this, Wayne," Thorne said. "Maybe we should just go down to the station. You might be less happy about going to prison for attempted murder." Brookhouse gasped out his words on snatched breaths. "The girl at the bus stop was just for show. So the deal would happen. I was never going to do it."

"It's not much of a defence."