Mark Billingham - Death Message

Later, he had taken steps that led to a man Zarif had agreed to protect being murdered. Then, a month after that, Thorne’s father had died in a fire at his home.

Thorne had gone through that conversation with Arkan Zarif many times since. Recalled every smile, every shift of those powerful shoulders.

‘I take my business very seriously,’ Zarif had said.

Thorne had failed to protect his father, even though he’d known the old man could not look after himself properly. So he had lived with the terrible knowledge that his father’s death had been his fault, whether the fire had been accidental or not.

Just the mention of Zarif’s name in the interview room had been enough. His mouth had gone dry in a second, and he could taste the sick rising up into his throat. Not knowing what had happened to his father had been bad enough, but whenever Thorne had fantasised about discovering the truth, he had never been able to decide what it was he hoped to find.

Now, he walked around his furniture and waited for whatever was coming. If Kemal was right, Arkan Zarif had destroyed another family; had indirectly wreaked the havoc of grief among many more people. Thorne felt he might finally have been gifted a chance to tie up at least one loose end.

But it was closer to dread than excitement.

Brooks called just before ten o’clock.

‘It’s finished,’ he said.

Thorne knew at once what Brooks meant. The officer he had spoken to earlier that day had made the wrong decision. Or at least had not made the right one quickly enough. Thorne felt no more than if he’d just been told it was going to rain the next day. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t finished.’

‘I’m tired. I don’t care.’

‘You need to listen,’ Thorne said. ‘You still believe me when I tell you that nobody is listening to these calls, don’t you? That there’s no trace.’

Brooks finally sighed, as though it hurt to push out the breath. ‘I believe you.’

‘Good.’ Thorne sat down. ‘Because this might take a while…’

Thorne could have made the journey to Green Lanes in his sleep. He’d sat in his car and watched Zarif’s restaurant enough times to be familiar with the routine; to know what times people tended to come and go. He knew where to park so that his car would not be seen, and how to get round to the alleyway that ran along the back of all the businesses in the small parade of shops near Manor House Tube station.

It was just after eleven o’clock.

The service entrance to Zarif’s restaurant was no more than a small yard off the dimly lit alleyway. Thorne knew which one it was. He could see the grey plastic wheelie-bins from the end of the alley. He had stood in the same spot several times and watched the old man, or occasionally his wife or daughter, bringing out the leftovers at the end of the night, dumping bottles in the recycling buckets, as the ovens cooled down inside, and the last customers were ushered out of the front door.

Thorne knew that this usually happened before eleven-thirty, or a little later on a Saturday. Within the next half-hour, most of the clearing up would have been done. Zarif’s wife and daughter would be on their way back to the grand and gated family home in Woodford, leaving the boss to sit quietly alone, as he did every night, with a glass of wine or a strong Turkish coffee.

Contented and complacent. Thinking about the day’s takings from the restaurant. From his other, more profitable businesses.

From the end of the alleyway, Thorne watched a skinny cat creep along the top of one of the gates. The animal probably knew just as well as he did when the bins got filled. It had just begun to clean itself when a car alarm started to scream on the main road, and it jumped down and out of sight.

A minute or so later, Thorne saw another figure emerge from a pool of shadow, a few feet from where the cat had been. He knew that the man could see him; that the street-lamp behind cast enough light to make his small wave visible.

The man raised a hand in return, then disappeared as quickly as the cat had done. Thorne stood for another minute, then walked back round to his car to wait.

Forty-five minutes later, he was listening to drops of water falling on to the roof of the BMW from the trees above as he continued to stare across the road.

Watching as customers left, then the single waitress. Figures still moving around inside.

The restaurant was set back on a wide pavement, between an estate agent’s and the minicab office. This was another of the family’s firms, run by Arkan’s eldest son, but Thorne knew all three sons’ habits as well as he did their father’s. If Memet or his two younger brothers were in there, Thorne knew that they would be ensconced in the back room by now, deep into a high-stakes card game with associates.

He was fairly sure he could get into the restaurant unseen. If all went well, there would be no reason for anyone other than the two people who mattered to know he’d been there.

At around a quarter to twelve, Thorne watched as a dark Mercedes pulled up. Five minutes later, Sema Zarif and her mother, a woman Thorne had never met, hurried out of the restaurant and were driven away. He watched, and remembered what Louise had said: wondering why more of those who had lost loved ones to violence were not driven to it themselves. He could not recall exactly how many times he’d sat where he was now and come close to it himself. To running across the road, and in, and at Arkan Zarif. Taking whatever came to hand: a bottle; a glass; one of those knives of which Zarif was so proud.

‘I choose all the meat,’ he had told Thorne once.

Thorne remembered the smile. The shift of those shoulders.

He waited another ten minutes to be sure, then got out of the car.

The area wasn’t one he fancied moving into, so Thorne didn’t bother checking out any properties as he moved past the estate agent’s; walking quickly, keeping close to the window.

When he reached the restaurant and looked inside, he was alarmed to see that Arkan Zarif was staring straight at him, as though he’d been waiting for Thorne to appear. After a second or two, he realised that it was just a trick of the light. Saw that Zarif was actually staring off into space.

Thorne let his breath settle; put his face to the glass and knocked.

Zarif stood up and moved towards the window, curious. Thorne saw the eyes narrow; then, after five or ten seconds, watched them widen as recognition washed across the old man’s face.

Thorne felt anger flare in his chest at not being recognised immediately.

Zarif moved to the door and unlocked it. He was smiling when he beckoned Thorne inside, looking at his watch. ‘You must be very hungry,’ he said.

It wasn’t a big place: half a dozen tables, now with chairs tucked in close, and a couple of booths. The assortment of lanterns that dangled from the polished pine ceiling – glass, metal and ceramic – had all been turned out, and the only light came from a lamp behind the small bar, or drifted up from the bottom of the stairs that curled down to the kitchen in the far corner.

Zarif walked slowly back to one of those booths, where he had a bottle waiting and a drink on the go. He squeezed in behind the table and slid across the brown vinyl seat. There was low-level music coming from speakers above the bar: a woman singing, pipes and tablas. A zither, maybe…

Thorne sat opposite. He spread his legs, so that his feet would not come into contact with Zarif’s beneath the table.

‘No food,’ Zarif said. ‘We’re closed for the night.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

He’d put on a little weight since Thorne had last seen him, but still seemed bulky rather than fat. He was round-shouldered and had stooped as he’d walked. He wore a white shirt, stretched across his gut and tucked into grey trousers. The sleeves were rolled up, black and grey hairs sprouting above the neck of a white vest where the buttons were open.