Page 22

TWENTY-ONE

Tracking the delivery on her phone, Helen announced that the pizza they’d ordered was five minutes away. Thorne laid out plates on the kitchen table and they both looked up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

‘Shit,’ Helen said.

‘Looks like there’s going to be three of us.’

‘Oh, well.’ Helen fetched a roll of kitchen towel from the worktop.

‘Good idea,’ Thorne said. ‘He is messy.’

‘I know, bless him.’ Helen crammed an imaginary slice of pizza into her mouth and chewed noisily. ‘There’ll be more of it on his face than there is on his plate.’

‘I can hear you,’ Hendricks said, ambling into the kitchen and making straight for the fridge.

‘It’s why we were talking so loudly,’ Thorne said.

Helen checked her phone again. ‘Pizza’s nearly here, by the way.’

‘Great, because I’m starving, but more importantly did you remember to ask for extra sausage?’

‘I doubt they can actually fit any more meat on to it.’

‘Well, they’re obviously not trying hard enough.’

‘You any idea what that stuff’s doing to your arteries?’

‘If only there was a doctor around we could ask.’ Hendricks brought two beers across to the table. He handed one to Thorne and opened his own as he sat down. ‘I’m wiped out, mate.’

‘You were up there ages,’ Thorne said.

‘Yeah, he wanted a story and he’ll be too old for them soon. What was I supposed to do?’

Helen came across to join them and poured herself a glass of wine. ‘Was it James and the Giant Peach ? I probably know that bloody book by heart now.’

Hendricks shook his head. ‘Alfie was adamant that he wanted something a bit more challenging, so I told him one of mine.’ He leaned, grinning, towards Thorne.

‘That brilliant one about the body they found tangled in fishing nets in the Gulf of Mexico. Soon as they popped the poor bastard on the slab, there were live shrimp and loads of little crabs crawling out of his mouth and nose.’ He laughed and took a swig of beer. ‘Alfie thought it was hilarious.’

‘I’m too scared to ask if you’re making that up,’ Helen said.

‘On my life,’ Hendricks said. ‘One of the crabs pinched the pathologist’s glove.’

‘No, I meant that you actually told that story to my son.’

The doorbell spared Hendricks any further questioning. ‘I’ll get that,’ he said, jumping up and snatching a knife from the table on his way to the door.

‘What’s that for?’ Thorne asked.

‘Well, obviously I’m hoping that’s our pizza, but if it’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, I may not be responsible for my actions . . . ’

While they ate, Helen talked a little about her day at Citizens Advice: a shift on the helpline dealing with calls from those anxious about benefits, immigration status and, most commonly of all, the misery of spiralling costs and crushing debt.

It was a day she would be only too happy to forget, but she was well aware that for others it had been significantly worse.

As someone who’d only too recently been a copper herself, she knew what the death of a fellow officer meant.

Another fellow officer.

‘It’s horrible,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if there was ever a chance she’d come out of it, but . . . ’

‘It was always unlikely.’ Hendricks had not performed the post-mortem on Catherine Holloway himself, but he’d spoken to the pathologist who had earlier in the day. ‘She never stopped bleeding internally. All the major organs were damaged beyond repair. Just a matter of time, really.’

‘That’s five then,’ Helen said. ‘If it was the same bloke who killed Adam Callaghan.’

‘It was the same bloke,’ Thorne said. ‘And I’m not sure he’s finished either, so if the operation we’re trying to put together with Emily Mead doesn’t work out, God knows where this could all end up.

’ He had not stopped thinking about his conversation with the uniformed officer at the Callaghan scene.

The suggestion that he and some of his colleagues were ready and prepared to fight back, that they would refuse to be the enemy.

Bring it on . . .

Police officers taking collective action was nothing new.

It was less than two years since more than a hundred Met firearms officers had stepped down from their duties and handed in their weapons, in protest after one of their number had been charged with murder.

Taking what was effectively strike action was one thing, though.

What that PC in Hendon Park had been hinting at smacked of something altogether more sinister.

‘Well, if you reckon it’s rapey coppers he’s after, it sounds like he’s got a fair few to choose from,’ Hendricks said.

‘It’s starting to look that way.’

‘Come on,’ Helen said. ‘It’s not like there are that many.’

‘That’s not what you were saying the other night,’ Thorne said. ‘You were making out like it was some kind of epidemic.’

Helen looked annoyed. ‘That’s a stupid exaggeration of what I said.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ Thorne said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Look, don’t get me wrong. It’s unacceptable that there are any police officers who would abuse their power, or that a single woman should become a victim of it.’ She looked at them both. ‘But surely there are still more good coppers than bad ones?’

‘Like you said, though, one’s too many.’

‘This bloke clearly had some personal issue with Tully, right?’ Hendricks said.

Thorne nodded, chewing. ‘Because Tully was a rapist.’

‘I don’t want to sound like Russell—’ Helen said.

‘Yeah, I know, but we’ll get the proof eventually.’

Hendricks clearly had a point to make. ‘He didn’t have any axe to grind with Callaghan, though, did he?’

‘Not as far as we know.’

‘No, but Emily Mead did. This LoveMyBro nutcase killed Callaghan because she told him Callaghan was a rapist. So it’s starting to look a bit like it’s some kind of crusade or whatever. I mean, when you think about what’s been happening, there are people who might think he’s a bit of a hero.’

‘Tell that to Catherine Holloway’s family,’ Thorne said.

‘Yeah, course, I was only saying—’

‘And the families of Kazia Bobak and Asim Hussain.’

Hendricks just nodded and reached for another slice of pizza, and after a few seconds Thorne did the same.

If Callaghan and Tully had done the things he believed they had, while he would still much rather have seen them tried and put away for it, Thorne was not going to pretend he was hugely sorry two bad coppers were dead.

It wouldn’t stop him trying to catch their killer, though.

For the families of the good ones.

Dave Holland sat on the edge of the bath in his underwear, while his wife took the antiseptic ointment from the cupboard.

‘I’m sure it’s fine now,’ he said.

Pippa slowly removed the plaster she’d put on herself two nights before and lifted the dressing that covered the graze on his palm.

‘It’s looking a lot better.’ She took the dressing off then leaned down to examine his hand more closely.

‘We can leave the dressing off now and let the air get to it. It was definitely starting to get infected, though.’

‘I think I was very brave,’ Holland said.

‘ Very brave, and also a bit stupid.’

‘Can’t we just focus on the brave thing?’

‘I mean, climbing over bloody fences?’ She began gently rubbing the ointment onto the wound, rolling her eyes when Holland winced.

‘I went back,’ he said.

‘Went back where?’

‘To the place Daniel Sadler got access to the railway line. Only I don’t think that is how he got access.’

Holland’s wife worked as a civilian staff member on a homicide investigation team based in Islington and they had already discussed his concerns about the Daniel Sadler suicide several times. ‘Go on, then.’ She laughed when Holland sucked in a breath and yanked his hand away. ‘ So brave!’

He told her how hilarious she was, then reluctantly let her carry on.

‘I wanted to have another look in daylight,’ he said.

‘So I went back and walked around a bit and I found part of the fence that had been bent and pulled away. He could easily have got in through there and then up the slope to the tracks.’

‘There you go, then.’

‘Or . . . he could have been taken in through there.’

Pippa stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

‘There were a lot of footprints on that slope,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know that doesn’t prove anything, because chances are kids have been up there. Kids love messing about on railway lines, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’

‘Well, I did,’ Holland said. ‘Squashing pennies on the tracks, you know, or playing dare if there was a train coming. Like I say, it’s probably nothing to get worked up about.’

‘You are, though,’ Pippa said. ‘I can tell.’

‘It doesn’t feel kosher, that’s all.’

‘So, talk to your guvnor.’

‘He’s on it,’ Holland said. ‘But I’m not sure an iffy suicide is high on his list of priorities right now. With everything that’s going on.’

Pippa grinned. ‘I tell you something else that’s going on . . . ’

‘Is it that time?’

‘Yep, I’m about to start ovulating, so the fertility window is officially open.’

Now, Holland grinned. ‘The fertile window of opportunity.’

‘Time to get about your business, detective inspector.’ She took his wrists and pulled him to his feet, putting the tube of ointment back in the cupboard on their way out of the bathroom. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to take any weight on your hands.’