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FIFTY-NINE

Every instinct told Thorne that he should be heading straight for the nearest bed – which was his own – and collapsing into it.

He needed to see Helen, though. After he and almost everyone else there with a warrant card had gone charging out of Brigstocke’s garden, she had left several messages, the concern in her voice a little more apparent each time she’d called.

He rang to let her know he was on his way, so she was up and waiting for him when he eventually got to Tulse Hill just before eleven o’clock. There was tea and there was toast. There was a nice, long cuddle which she correctly guessed he needed even more.

Thorne settled down and told her what had happened; the highlights at least, from the moment he’d approached Brightwell on the street outside the safe house to the final look they’d exchanged as Thorne had left the interview room.

He accepted her words of congratulation – one (ex) copper to another – with rather better grace than he’d received Tanner’s.

He parroted a few of the job-well-done speeches that Tanner, Holland and even Walker had trotted out, and tried to hide his lack of excitement at how things had panned out a little better than he had an hour or so earlier.

The fact that Helen immediately began trying to cheer him up was enough to tell him he hadn’t made a very good job of it.

‘Well, Phil was very chuffed that you all buggered off,’ she said.

‘Course he was,’ Thorne said. ‘More burnt sausages for him.’

‘It was like Man v. Food.’

They both laughed, but Hendricks had left several messages of his own after Thorne had outlined his theory about the arsenic and gone tearing across to Edgware.

Don’t touch Anything! If you do, it’ll probably cause no more than minor irritation and changes to skin pigmentation, but benign arsenical keratoses CAN turn malignant .

Then:

Seriously, mate, be careful .

And:

On a cheerier note, these chicken wings are fucking awesome .

‘Some good news,’ Helen said.

‘Tell me.’

‘It sounds like the Counter Corruption Unit might finally be getting their act together.’

Thorne waited, though the crinkle around Helen’s eyes told him that there was a joke coming; an actual joke as opposed to what the CCU did all the time . Didn’t do.

‘They took some swift and decisive action against an officer in East London last week.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘They demoted him after discovering that he’d sold a pair of Met Police-issue trousers on eBay.’ She saw the look of disbelief on Thorne’s face and shook her head. ‘Seriously.’

‘Nice to know they’ve got their priorities sorted out,’ Thorne said.

‘Well, it’s certainly restored my faith.’ Helen slid across the sofa, picked toast crumbs from the front of Thorne’s shirt and leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘The man you’re after thinks he’s untouchable,’ she said. ‘That he’s got enough power to keep getting away with what he’s doing.’

‘It looks like he’s right.’

‘For now, maybe. But they’re always the ones that slip up.’

Thorne thought about it for a minute or so. ‘It shouldn’t be like that, though. We shouldn’t have to sit around and wait for his sort to make a mistake.’

‘You’ve hardly been sitting around.’

‘That’s what it feels like,’ Thorne said.

‘It feels like he’s been running rings round us, and I don’t understand how he’s done it.

Fine, so thanks to Brightwell, some of the people who might have been able to testify against him are out of the picture now, but there have to be others, right?

Others he’s protecting.’ He looked at Helen. ‘Don’t you think?’

She nodded. ‘Even if there isn’t anyone you can identify right now, there will be.’

‘Because he’ll do it again, you mean?’

‘Rapists don’t stop, whether they’re wearing uniforms or not, and if someone gets their kicks from enabling them, they won’t stop either. You just need keep your ear to the ground and find one copper who’s willing to give him up.’

Thorne said, ‘Yeah . . . ’ but his eyes were beginning to close.

‘Come on, you need to get some sleep.’ Helen stood up and waited, smiling at the groan as Thorne hauled himself to his feet.

‘And remember what Walker said. Brightwell wouldn’t be in custody at all if it wasn’t for you.

’ She saw the face Thorne pulled at the mention of Walker’s name, sighed and pulled one of her own. ‘For God’s sake, Tom, take the win.’

Looking back later, Thorne would remember that it had all begun with a phone call from Russell Brigstocke in the early hours and that, just over a fortnight later, it had ended – the Brightwell part of it at least – in very much the same way.

It was just shy of four in the morning this time, but the DCI’s tone was every bit as serious. A weight in the short silence after Brigstocke said his name that told Thorne there was nothing good coming.

‘Tom . . . look, there’s no point going round the houses here.’

‘OK . . . ’

‘Alex Brightwell was found dead in his cell half an hour ago.’

‘ What? ’ Thorne sat up. Now, as then, he felt Helen stir next to him, though she did not wake.

‘Was found unresponsive in his cell, I should say. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.’

‘Jesus, Russell. How?’

‘You know as much as I do.’

Thorne climbed out of bed and began feeling for his clothes.

‘So, he killed himself?’ He staggered back against the bed, trying to step into his trousers.

Helen moaned quietly and asked what the matter was, still half asleep.

‘It’ll all be on camera anyway, right, so I suppose it’ll be pretty obvious—’

‘I’ll see you there,’ Brigstocke said.