Mark Billingham - Bloodline

‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know exactly what happened,’ Hendricks said. ‘How he got the girl in there, whether he was hiding. But this time he brought two plastic bags with him.’

‘Two bags, but just one blunt instrument,’ Thorne said. They had found a heavy glass bowl by the side of the bed. There was hardened candle-wax in the bottom of it and what looked like brain-matter and dried blood caked across the underside. ‘He plans things carefully and he thinks on his feet.’

Hendricks nodded. ‘He’s good at this.’

A waitress came over and asked if they would like more drinks. Hendricks said that he was fine, but Thorne ordered another coffee, happy enough to sit there for a while.

‘What does he do for twelve hours?’ he asked.

‘What does who do?’

‘Our man, after he’s killed the boy.’

‘Maybe he sleeps,’ Hendricks said. ‘Reads a book. Has a wank.’ He shrugged. ‘I know what it looks like inside these nutters’ heads, but don’t ask me what goes on in there.’

Thorne leaned back in his chair. ‘Has a wank?’

Hendricks grinned. ‘A lot of these are sexual, right?’

Some were, certainly, but Thorne had already decided that these killings were not sexually motivated, and not only because of a lack of evidence. A violent death was never treated as something ordinary, but when it was about sex or revenge or money, there could at least be some level of understanding. When it was about none of these things was when it got scary.

And Thorne was starting to feel afraid.

They both started at the sudden banging on the window, turned and saw a drunk who had tottered past once already, pressing his big red face against the glass. Thorne looked away but Hendricks began to smile and waved at the man. The waitress, who was hovering at a nearby table, apologised and moved towards the door, but the drunk, having blown one final kiss at his new best friend, was already lurching away along the pavement.

Thorne stared across the table.

Hendricks grinned and turned up his palms. ‘Like I said, empathy…’

There was another knock at the window, and this time Thorne turned to see Dave Holland on his way in. Thorne tried to finish his coffee quickly as Holland reached the table. ‘They bringing them out, then?’

‘No, but you might want to get back over there anyway,’ Holland said. ‘Martin Macken’s arrived and he’s kicking up a fuss.’ He looked at the coffee in Thorne’s hand as though he could have done with a strong one himself. ‘The father.’

The road had been sealed off to traffic, causing considerable congestion in the surrounding streets, which was exacerbated by drivers slowing down at either end of the road to rubberneck. Had there been a match at the Emirates Stadium, a huge area of north London could easily have been reduced to gridlock.

Outside the Mackens’ flat the street was nose-to-tail with police and CSI vehicles, so the blue Saab driven by the family liaison officer had pulled up opposite, between the generator lorry and a small catering van dispensing sandwiches and hot drinks.

Thorne figured that the Saab was the car he was looking for, as that was where the noise was coming from. As he and the others neared it, he could see a young, plain-clothes officer and several others in uniforms trying to mollify a man who was screaming and fighting to get across the road.

The man he guessed was Martin Macken.

Twenty feet from the car, Thorne took Hendricks to one side and told him to get back inside the flat and delay the removal of the bodies. As Hendricks walked quickly across the road, Thorne introduced himself to Martin Macken and said how sorry he was.

Macken could not possibly have heard over the terrible noise he was making and, after trying again, Thorne could do no more than stand by and wait for him to draw breath or drop dead with the effort. The man was fifty or so and had clearly looked after himself, but now he was coming apart in front of Thorne’s eyes. Hair that would normally have been kept neatly swept back was flying back and forth across his face as he raged and the tendons were rigid in his neck. His lips were thin and white, spittle-flecked. His eyes darted, wild and bloodshot, as he strained towards the house opposite and howled for his children.

‘Please, Mr Macken…’

Suddenly, he seemed distracted by movement at the front door and stopped struggling. Thorne gave the nod and moved forward, while the officers, each of whom had been staring at his own shoes while using the minimum of force to restrain the man, stepped back.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Thorne, Mr Macken.’

Red-faced and breathing heavily, Macken pointed at the figure moving to the front door of the house where his children had lived. ‘Who’s that?’

Thorne swallowed as he watched Hendricks disappear inside. That’s the man who’ll be cutting up your children in the morning. ‘It’s just one of the team, sir. Everyone’s doing all that they can.’

Macken’s gaze moved to the first-floor windows, a moan rising from the back of his throat. The men in uniform tensed, as though he might try to rush across the road at any moment. When it became clear that he would not, the liaison officer, a Scottish DS named Adam Strang, moved up to Thorne’s shoulder.

‘I tried to tell him to stay where he was,’ Strang said, ‘That we wouldn’t need him until tomorrow, but he wasn’t having any of it. He just marched out of the house and went and sat in the back of the car. I had to go back in and switch the lights off…’

Thorne nodded his understanding and took another step closer to Macken. ‘Why don’t you get back in the car, sir?’

Without taking his eyes from the window, Macken shook his head.

‘Don’t you think you’d be better off at home?’

‘I want to see my kids.’ The man’s voice was low and hoarse, well-educated.

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible just yet.’ Thorne put a hand on his arm. ‘Why not let us take you back to…’ He looked around.

‘ Kingston,’ Strang said.

‘Someone can stay with you and… your wife, is it?’ From the corner of his eye, Thorne saw Strang shaking his head, but it was too late.

Macken snapped his head round and stared hard at Thorne. His mouth fell open as though a dreadful image had suddenly been recalled and there was something desperate in his eyes; a plea, a prayer. ‘Not after Liz,’ he said. ‘Not after what happened to Elizabeth.’

Thorne looked at Strang.

‘Mr Macken’s wife, I think, sir.’ Strang lowered his voice. ‘He’s been banging on about this all the way from Kingston.’

‘Jesus, no. Jesus, Jesus…’

‘Is your wife all right, Mr Macken?’

‘Partner, not wife. We never saw the need to get married.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Liz was killed,’ Macken said, simple and sad. ‘Fifteen years ago. Murdered, like her children.’

Thorne had felt it begin as soon as he’d asked the question and seen the look on Macken’s face. The tingle, feathering the skin at the nape of his neck, starting to spread before Macken had even finished speaking.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Holland mutter, ‘Bloody hell-fire. ’

The fact that they had never married explained why ‘Macken’ had not registered with Thorne earlier in the day; the children’s surname taken from their father and not shared with their dead mother. Now, he remembered the seven names on the list of Raymond Garvey’s victims: ‘Elizabeth O’Connor’ had been third from the top.

Thorne spoke her killer’s name quietly, and could only watch as Martin Macken’s face collapsed in on itself and he fell back, moaning, against the side of the car. ‘Jesus… Jesus… Jesus…’