Mark Billingham - Buried

Hoolihan did not know Tony Mullen, and was unaware of any threats that might have been made against him by Grant Freestone. He was sure about one thing, though: ‘Freestone’s not a kidnapper.’

Thorne was consistently surprised by how ready people were to put criminals into boxes. Lazy or just unimaginative, it seemed strange to him. If a seemingly respectable doctor could be a serial killer in his spare time, why was it so difficult to conceive of a paedophile and suspected murderer kidnapping someone? ‘Did you know him?’ Thorne asked.

‘I never met him,’ Hoolihan said. ‘Though I hope to have that pleasure one day.’

‘I hope you do, too.’ Thorne marked down the man on the phone as one of those who hated to fail, but guessed that it was the result – or the lack of one – more than any sense of injustice that needled him. Points or passion; it usually came down to one or the other.

‘You could try talking to one of the people on Freestone’s MAPPA panel. They ought to have known the bastard. They watched him for six months after he came out, didn’t they?’

‘Thanks, I’ll do that.’

‘I can’t tell you who they were, mind you, except for the copper who was involved. I dug his name out before I called.’

Thorne reached into his jacket pocket and scribbled down the details on the back of a used Travelcard. ‘He’d have the names of the others on the panel, would he?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Hoolihan said. ‘We certainly didn’t have anything to do with them at the time. We just wanted to find Freestone. Once he’d buggered off, a bunch of social workers, or what have you, was no use to anyone. The whole thing was a waste of bloody time, if you want my honest opinion. Do-gooders who didn’t really do a fat lot of good!’

‘Why “do-gooders”?’

‘They decide to tell Sarah Hanley about Freestone. About what he’s like. They then tell Freestone what they’re going to do, so he goes marching round there, him and Hanley argue, and he throws the poor cow through a coffee table.’

‘You think it was the MAPPA panel’s fault that Sarah Hanley was killed?’

Hoolihan paused, unwilling perhaps to go quite that far. ‘The “PP” is supposed to stand for “Public Protection”…’

The chat didn’t last much longer, with both men keen to get on with their days. Afterwards, Thorne sat on one of the concrete bollards and made four phone calls trying to get hold of DCI Callum Roper. Once he’d tracked down his quarry, he made an appointment to see him later that morning. During their brief conversation he outlined the Mullen case, taking care to drop the names Hignett, Brigstocke and Jesmond, and to stress the urgency of the situation. He never mentioned Grant Freestone.

Then he began heading towards Westminster tube station, exchanging nods with an armed officer he knew by sight. He watched as a kid with a Mohican posed next to the officer while his mate took a photo. The copper smiled politely and put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. The kid grinned like an idiot and pointed towards the copper’s machine-gun. Thorne turned at the clatter of heels on the pavement behind him.

‘Hold on…’

Porter caught up, fell into step beside Thorne, and the two of them carried on walking. They had not spoken since the cursory exchanges the night before, at the crime scene.

‘You move pretty fast for a short-arse,’ she said.

They carried on in silence past Christchurch Gardens, originally part of St Margaret’s, Westminster and burial site of the seventeenth-century Irish adventurer Thomas ‘Colonel’ Blood, who stole the Crown Jewels. In point of fact, Blood was buried twice, his body having been dug up by those keen to make sure that he was really dead before being interred again. Thorne had known one or two villains himself, happily no longer walking around, who it might have been worth checking up on…

‘Thanks for speaking up at the briefing,’ he said.

‘About what?’

‘What you said about Luke. About him not being able to get in touch. It’s ridiculous, this idea that he killed anyone.’

‘I’m not sure what I think, if I’m honest.’

Thorne looked surprised, and wasn’t shy about letting her know just how sure he was. ‘It’s bollocks. Somebody’s holding him.’

‘Who?’

Thorne almost smiled. ‘I don’t have all the bloody answers.’

At the north end of Victoria Street the view improved, with the London Eye becoming visible through the grey, and the monstrous Department of Trade and Industry building giving way to the splendour of Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster beyond. It was not much after eight o’clock, and the weather still looked like it could turn at any moment, but there were already plenty of snap-happy visitors being led around on overpriced walking tours by guides waving umbrellas.

‘Why don’t we just keep going up to Embankment?’ Porter said. ‘We can get the Northern Line straight up to Colindale. You can give me the tourist bit round Becke House.’

Thorne stopped, waited for a chance to cross the road. ‘I’m not heading back there just yet. There’s bugger-all else to do, so I’m going to chase up this Freestone thing.’

‘Sounds reasonable.’

‘Talk to someone who knew him.’

Porter stepped back from the kerb as a lorry overtook a car on the inside. ‘Want some company?’

‘Why don’t I give you a shout a bit later?’ Thorne said.

‘OK.’ Porter looked like she had a lot more to say than that.

Thorne saw a gap in the traffic and stepped into it. ‘See where we both are after lunch?’

The rain had come again before he’d reached the other side of the road. He picked up speed as he turned towards the river and made for the tube station, feeling wetter, and more of a miserable shit, with every step.

If the fixtures and fittings at Central 3000 had made Thorne’s shared cupboard at Becke House feel shabby, DCI Callum Roper’s office on the twelfth floor of the Empress made it seem downright medieval.

Roper had read the look on Thorne’s face as he was shown in. ‘It’s only because we’re new,’ he’d said.

When it had been built in 1961, the Empress State Building – a thirty-storey tower block in Hammersmith – had been impressive enough to be named after a world-famous skyscraper across the Atlantic. Back then, its distinctive triangular footprint had seemed radical and interesting, but forty years on it had been in dire need of the eighty-million-pound refurbishment that had won several major awards and restored much of its former glory. Though not quite as swish as the glass-and-steel Ark just up the road, its fabulous new facilities had proved hugely popular, with almost half of the office space behind the shiny, blue, solar-controlled double glazing being snapped up by the Metropolitan Police Service.

Thorne had stood in the vast atrium, gazed around as his ID card was swiped at the first of three separate security checkpoints. He’d been a little depressed by the fact that a building a year younger than he was had needed such a comprehensive facelift. How long before his own frame and superstructure would be in need of serious attention? He’d taken back his wallet and felt a spasm of pain as he’d reached round to tuck it into his back pocket.

What do you mean ‘how long’?

Though he worked at a desk that Donald Trump might have killed for, Roper had chosen to lead Thorne to the other end of his office, where four oatmeal-coloured armchairs sat around a low, glass table. Roper pushed aside a green file, watched as a young woman with lipstick on her teeth laid down a tray of coffee, and biscuits wrapped in cellophane. ‘You know what coppers are like,’ he said. ‘This place’ll be a shit-hole inside a month.’