Page 2

TWO

Christopher Tully.

Asim Hussain.

Kazia Bobak.

Catherine Holloway?

Thorne stared at the names scrawled on the whiteboard; the felt-tip roll-call of the dead and dying.

The question mark was a handy, if morbid reminder that the final name on the list belonged to the woman who remained in a coma and was, as of now at least, a victim of attempted murder.

Thinking of little else at the time but how hungry he was, Thorne hadn’t clocked the ID tags on their stab vests, so couldn’t be certain, but he felt instinctively that Catherine was the one who’d done most of the talking in the street two nights ago.

Who had cheerfully brandished the empty gift box that dozens of her grieving colleagues were now working overtime to find.

The one whose half a stupid doughnut he’d coveted so much.

Russell Brigstocke stood up, took a breath and kicked things off. ‘Three murders and one attempted, but let’s make no mistake, this is one case, and it’s our case. I’ll be SIO on this and I want everyone in this room working it every minute that they have available.’

There were murmurs of assent, of determination.

Thorne was sitting next to Dave Holland towards the back of the incident room at Becke House.

In the seat immediately in front of him, DI Nicola Tanner sat alongside DS Dipak Chall and DC Charita Desai.

Every other seat was taken, including a good few extra ones that had been brought in from offices and corridors, and when Thorne glanced behind him he saw a row of grim-faced uniformed officers standing along the back wall, having requested permission to attend.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Brigstocke said, ‘I’m not saying that other cases will be pushed on to the back burner, because that would be unprofessional, but I’m sure most of you don’t need telling that, save for a killing spree in Brent Cross Shopping Centre that leaves at least a dozen dead, this case takes priority.

’ He sighed and took off his glasses. ‘I’ll be saying much the same thing to DCI Jeremy Walker from Wood Green any time now, when he bowls up shouting about how he needs to run this one because the victims were from his station.

When he—’ Brigstocke stopped when he saw Thorne getting to his feet.

‘Not happening,’ Thorne said. ‘I was running the Cresswell operation.’ His eyes were on the whiteboard behind Brigstocke’s head. ‘This happened on my watch.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Tom.’

Thorne sat down again. He wasn’t worried, because although he’d managed to twist Brigstocke’s arm once or twice over the years, they’d been working together a long time.

He knew better than anyone that when the DCI decided to dig his heels in, he wouldn’t be shifted, whichever station the person trying to shift him happened to be from.

‘It goes without saying that there’s no way to keep a lid on this,’ Brigstocke said.

‘In terms of the media, I mean. We won’t be releasing the precise manner of death, but everything else is online already like as not, and it’ll be all over the evening papers and on every front page tomorrow.

On balance, I don’t think that’s any bad thing. ’

‘Nice to have a more positive story for a change.’ A voice from the back of the room.

‘ What? ’ Brigstocke glared. ‘Positive?’

Thorne, along with everyone else, turned to stare at DC Stephen Pallister, a newish addition to the Major Investigation Team who had been transferred from somewhere south of the river a few months previously.

Pallister – skinny, balding, in his early forties – immediately began to redden.

‘No, not positive . . . that came out wrong. I just mean something that reflects a bit better on the force generally, that’s all.

Officers killed in the line of duty and not just another story about us dropping the ball. ’

‘Are you being serious?’ Thorne said.

‘I’m not saying it isn’t a tragedy, but—’

‘Maybe you’ve been smoking something.’

Nicola Tanner offered the man a thin smile. ‘By “dropping the ball” you mean Metropolitan Police officers being convicted of murder, or maybe a string of rapes? That the kind of bad press you’re talking about?’

Someone shouted, ‘Wanker.’ One of the uniforms leaning against the back wall.

Pallister raised his hands and spluttered, trying to formulate a response, before making the very wise decision to keep his mouth shut, largely because he couldn’t fit any more of his foot into it.

‘I think we should move on,’ Brigstocke said.

Half an hour later, sitting in Brigstocke’s office, the DCI said, ‘He had a point. Pallister . . . ’

Thorne just sniffed. He worked his tongue at something stuck between his teeth and continued to stare out of the window at a view of Hendon that never failed to make a grim day feel that little bit worse.

The congregation of cranes, severe against a grey sky; the arches of the RAF Museum like a sheet of corrugated cardboard beyond them and the pulsing ribbon of the M1 curling around and creeping north.

He’d said his piece back in the incident room, but he’d known what Pallister and now Brigstocke were getting at.

‘He could have put it a bit more sensitively maybe,’ Brigstocke said, ‘but I’m betting there’s people in the media office jumping up and down right now.’

Thorne finally nodded. ‘A good day to bury bad news, right?’

Brigstocke looked at him.

‘OK, I could have put that a bit more sensitively.’

However much certain elements might have wanted to, the Met was now under close public scrutiny having been unable to bury more than its fair share of seriously bad news.

One officer convicted of murder, another unmasked as a man responsible for almost fifty rapes and more than five hundred officers currently under investigation for domestic and/or sexual abuse.

The Casey report had concluded that the force was institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic, leaving coppers on the street with a worse rep than Premier League footballers.

The Met had been placed under Special Measures and senior police management talked of little else but how desperate they were to make changes and demonstrate improvement.

These efforts had certainly not been helped when, only a month previously, a PC named Craig Knowles had been sent down for twelve years; revealed to be only the latest in a horrifically long line of rapists with warrant cards.

The motto used on Met Police signage had never seemed more ridiculous. Working together for a safer London . Almost as ridiculous as the new recruitment advert Thorne had spotted on the tube a few days before. A career to take pride in .

Thorne couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt even remotely proud.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘Aside from early retirement, you mean?’

‘Yeah, well, we’re all thinking about that.’

‘I’m thinking someone’s got a grudge.’

Thorne shook his head. ‘That’s putting it mildly. I’ve got a grudge against the bloke next door because his cat keeps pissing against my bin, but I wouldn’t kill his entire family.’

‘A more general grudge against the police,’ Brigstocke said. ‘I mean, it’s possible it was only one of them the killer had it in for, but that’s quite a sobering thought.’

‘Right.’ Thorne wasn’t going to argue, even if he’d hunted down a number of individuals in his time quite capable of such a scattergun approach when it came to committing murder. ‘God forbid he’d try and kill four officers just because one of them had nicked him for an out-of-date tax disc.’

Brigstocke grimaced. ‘Obviously we’ll check out all the recent cases each of the victims was working on, see if anything jumps out at us, but let’s assume it’s something more general until proved otherwise. There are several . . . groups out there.’

‘Not the kind of groups you’d find on Facebook?’

‘Not really. The serious cop-haters tend to get together somewhere a bit less public.’

Thorne knew what Brigstocke was talking about.

During his last major investigation, Thorne had needed a degree of guidance in navigating certain corners of the Dark Web that were even more disturbing than most, so he knew exactly who to approach for help this time round.

‘There’s a good bloke at the DFU,’ he said.

‘Great. Let’s get Tanner briefed and she can handle that.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll get Holland to accumulate all the CCTV footage from the area around Cresswell’s place, and when he’s not doing that he can get the search for that doughnut box stepped up.

It might well be in a landfill by now and I seriously doubt our poisoner’s left us a nice handy fingerprint, but you never know. ’

Thorne held out his arms. ‘Are you telling me I can have the rest of the day off?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I might make it home in time for Loose Women .’

‘I’m telling you to shift your arse and get yourself down to Hornsey Mortuary.’

‘Course you are,’ Thorne said. ‘What was I thinking?’

Brigstocke was already up and on his way out. ‘Your mate Phil’s going to have an even busier day than the rest of us.’