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SIXTY-SEVEN

Two weeks earlier, there had been another funeral.

Thorne had still not recovered sufficiently from his injuries to attend, but he knew that then, as now, there had been a good deal of Met Police pageantry on display.

All the bells and whistles laid on. There had been a far larger attendance that day, but that was only because three officers were being laid to rest; three coffins removed simultaneously from shiny hearses and carried slowly towards the crematorium.

Coffins containing the bodies of Kazia Bobak, Asim Hussein and Catherine Holloway.

Today, there was just the one.

Thorne could only stand – with some difficulty – and watch as Dave Holland’s coffin made its final journey.

He had very much wanted to be one of those bearing it, but the lingering pain in his ribs, not to mention the crutches, made it impossible.

Phil Hendricks had taken his place, alongside Holland’s brother, and father and three of his oldest friends.

Standing next to Nicola Tanner, Thorne looked on as the procession moved through an honour guard of constables, all of them stock-still in their dress uniforms. Buttons gleaming and white gloves pristine.

As the coffin passed him, Thorne stared at the Met Police flag draped across it, the enormous wreath sent by the Brass and the card that read In Memory of Our Fallen Colleague . And the hat.

There was always a stupid fucking hat.

He wasn’t even sure it was Holland’s hat, though he’d certainly have worn one like it at some point in his career.

It was the hat that set Thorne off . . .

The bearers finally came to a halt at the crematorium doors and waited, a little awkwardly, for the Deputy Chief Constable – in his own dress uniform complete with braid and medals – to step forward and give the salute.

There was half a minute of silence.

Then they all went inside.

The humanist celebrant – a smiley, middle-aged woman named Bryony – had been Pippa’s choice, to the mild disappointment of her in-laws.

She said that Holland would not have wanted a religious ceremony, would have wanted as little fuss as possible in fact, though they had never actually discussed any arrangements in detail.

‘I know we should have,’ she’d told Thorne.

‘Considering the Job and everything. But you don’t, do you?

’ She’d been half-smiling as Thorne had passed her a tissue.

‘Because it feels like you’re tempting fate . . . ’

Bryony explained that although there would be no hymns or prayers, the beliefs of all those gathered would be respected as they said farewell to David Anthony Holland.

Anthony . Thorne had not known that.

She talked about Holland’s career and his family.

She stressed how devoted he’d been to his wife and daughter and, smiling broadly, described the affection and esteem in which he was held by his friends and colleagues.

She said a lot more after that, as did Holland’s brother and one of his friends from school, but Thorne was struggling to take it all in above the noise in his head; to cope with the nerves as he sat clutching Helen’s hand and waited for his turn to speak.

‘I’d like to invite you all to take just a few minutes for quiet reflection . . . ’

Thorne straightened as the celebrant introduced a song that Pippa had chosen because it was one of her husband’s favourites.

Thank you for the days . . .

It was a song Thorne loved, too, though he was surprised to learn that Holland had been a Kinks fan.

They’d talked about country, Holland gently taking the piss while Thorne banged on about Hank Williams or Johnny Cash, but they’d never talked about the music Holland liked.

Something else Thorne hadn’t known or taken the trouble to find out.

Holland’s brother read a poem after that. It wasn’t one Thorne recognised, but he couldn’t help but be slightly irritated by the final line which he thought was mawkish, not to say inaccurate.

‘I was not there, I did not die.’

I know you died, Dave. I was sitting next to you . . .

Then Thorne heard the celebrant say his name and felt Helen squeeze his hand.

He grabbed the chair in front and used it to haul himself, a little clumsily to his feet.

Helen leaned close and offered to help him get to the podium, but Thorne shook his head.

When he eventually reached the front, the celebrant took his arm and guided him up, but now Thorne didn’t mind the helping hand, relieved at having managed to make it without going arse over tit.

At least I’d have given you a good laugh .

He stood his crutches up against the lectern then leaned on it, hoping it would support his weight.

It felt a little rickety, but he didn’t have a lot of choice.

Thorne stared out for a few seconds at the sombre assembly of black suits and blue uniforms and, as he opened his mouth, he wondered why he hadn’t listened to Helen when she’d urged him to write it down.

He told himself it would be fine, because what he wanted to say wasn’t going to take long.

‘When you lose someone suddenly . . . actually, even if you’ve been expecting it, you end up thinking about all those things you never talked about.

You can’t help but wish you’d made more of an effort when you still had the chance, but most of the time people just don’t.

We should talk to each other more about important stuff .

. . because we’re rubbish at it.’ He looked across to where a group of male PCs were sitting; Hendricks in the row behind them with Liam and Greg Hobbs.

‘Blokes especially, I think.’ He watched Hendricks lower his head while Liam nodded next to him.

‘There are so many things I never talked to Dave about and I’m always going to regret that.

I missed out . . . and I know that now, because talking to his friends and family these last few days, there was so much more to him than just the copper I was lucky enough to work with.

’ He glanced down at Holland’s wife, at his parents who simply looked pale and shellshocked.

‘Most of you here today already know that, obviously, and I feel very sorry – very stupid – because I found out too late . . . ’

Thorne talked for a few minutes more, echoing the celebrant’s words about how much Holland had loved Pippa and doted on Chloe, the high regard in which he was held by his colleagues.

The fine officer he was and the even finer one he’d have gone on to be.

He spoke about how he would never forget the look of determination and commitment on Dave’s face right before the accident and how much that said about him.

He made a joke about the terrible haircut he’d had when they first met.

‘I worked with Dave for a while,’ he said, ‘and then for a long time I didn’t. It wasn’t until he came back to London and we started working together again that I realised quite how much I’d missed him. As a colleague and as a friend.’

He was almost done, feeling pleased with himself that he’d managed to get through it, when he felt his eyes began to fill. He reached out for one of his crutches.

‘Now I have to miss him every day.’

As everyone milled around outside the crematorium, a few smoking much-needed cigarettes and all grateful that the rain had held off, Thorne and Helen made their way over to where Tanner was standing with Hendricks and Liam.

Tanner reached over to rub his arm. ‘That was very nice. What you said in there.’

‘Was it all right?’ Thorne leaned on his crutches. ‘I should have thought about it a bit more.’

Hendricks stepped forward to pull Thorne into a hug. ‘Yeah, it was.’ He was smiling when he finally stepped away again to take his boyfriend’s hand. ‘You big soppy bastard.’

‘Cheers,’ Thorne said.

They chatted for a few minutes: about how nice the ceremony had been; who would be travelling with who to the Oak to get hammered and how it might be sensible to grab some food on the way.

They talked about the sales rep who had been running late for a meeting, who had walked away from the crash with no more than a few cuts and bruises and would soon be standing trial for causing death by dangerous driving.

In hushed voices they talked just a little about the man Thorne and Holland had been on their way to see when the accident had happened and whose whereabouts remained unknown.

A manhunt that was now being run, nominally at least, by the DPS.

‘Do you think there are any more?’ Tanner asked. ‘Like him.’

‘I’d be amazed if there weren’t.’ Thorne turned and spotted Pippa talking to Holland’s parents. ‘I don’t really want to think about it. Not today, anyway.’

He told Helen he wouldn’t be long.

Pippa saw Thorne coming and walked to meet him. She held out her arms once he’d got to her, and the hug was no less tricky to manage than the one he’d received from Phil Hendricks; crutches dangling on either side of her while she held him upright.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Don’t be daft.’

She smiled. ‘I’d really like to see that haircut you were on about.’

‘Oh, yeah. His Hugh Grant phase.’

‘He never really showed me any photos from back then.’ Her smile became a cod grimace and she held up her fingers, crossing them as though warding off evil. ‘The “Sophie years” . . . ’

‘I’ll see if I can dig one out,’ Thorne said. ‘So . . . how’re you doing?’

‘Well, it’s all phenomenally shit, obviously .

. . but I’ve had to spend most of the day making sure everyone else is all right, you know?

So, far too busy to fall apart.’ She turned to look back across the neatly cut lawn at Holland’s mother and father, who were already walking slowly towards the car park. ‘Worse for them, I reckon.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Thorne said.

‘No, it is.’ She turned back to him. ‘We aren’t supposed to bury our children.’

Thorne said nothing, thinking about the unborn child he and his then girlfriend had lost fifteen years earlier. It had been hard, but it wasn’t . . . this.

‘We were trying for one.’ Pippa was staring at her shoes. ‘A baby, I mean.’

‘Right . . . ’ As always, Thorne’s expression gave him away.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’

Thorne saw little point in denying it. ‘I was glad he told me,’ he said. ‘Flattered, I suppose.’

She smiled again and shook her head. ‘I swear, if he was here, I’d bloody well kill him. I told him not to say a word to anyone.’

‘I don’t think normally he would have,’ Thorne said. ‘It was just about . . . having something nice to talk about at a really bad time.’

‘OK, well, in that case I might think about forgiving him.’

‘He was excited. Talking about names and all that—’

No, it hadn’t been Thorne who had raised the subject, but even so, he knew straight away that it had been a very stupid thing to say. Stupid and insensitive. He watched her fight to keep her emotions in check, sensing that it was a battle she really needed to lose.

Pippa Holland began to sob.

*

They were working their way slowly along the seemingly endless line of wreaths – Thorne beginning to tire a little, while Helen leaned down to read out the messages on the cards – when Thorne felt his mobile vibrate in the pocket of his jacket.

He could not have explained how, but he knew who was calling.

Without a word to Helen, he limped away until he could not be overheard, struggling to fish out the phone as he went. He could see that the number was withheld.

He leaned against a corner of the crematorium and answered the call.

‘Tom . . . ?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I just—’

‘Do you know where I am?’ Thorne waited, but not for very long. ‘Do you have any idea what’s happening today?’

‘You can’t put that down to me. It was an accident—’

‘Oh yes I fucking can, because it is down to you.’

‘Fine, if that makes you feel better.’

‘ Better ?’ Smashing the phone against the wall would have made Thorne feel an awful lot better, but he didn’t. ‘I asked you what you wanted.’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘I mean, I hope I’m wrong, obviously, but I doubt you’re calling to tell me you’re handing yourself in.’

‘I . . . no, I can’t do that.’

‘Of course you can’t, because you’re a fucking coward. Actually, that’s not even the worst thing you are, not by a long way.’ Thorne lowered his voice and hissed his disgust into the handset. ‘I’m not even sure there’s a name for what you are.’

‘You need to understand that I’m not well . . . my mental health—’

‘ Rapist . Let’s go with that for a kick-off, shall we?’

‘I never raped anyone.’

‘Course you didn’t, same as you never killed anyone. You just helped other people do those things while you got off on making them happen.’

‘Will you at least let me try and explain?’

‘I don’t want your piss-poor explanations, because there aren’t any.’

‘But you know me, Tom.’

‘I thought I did,’ Thorne said. ‘I know you now, though.’

There was silence for a while. From where he was standing, Thorne could see the next funeral cortège approaching. He watched the hearse turn in at the entrance.

‘So, what now? How do we . . . ?’

‘Move forward? Well, how about you do the honourable thing? Maybe you could pay a visit to that viaduct you chucked your kiddy-fiddling courier off.’

‘That wasn’t me—’

‘You’re pathetic.’ Thorne was making no effort to keep his voice down any more, spittle flying on to the screen. ‘You don’t deserve to live.’

‘Tom, listen—’

Thorne hung up and watched the hearse draw closer.

He felt numb and helpless. Beaten. Only an idiot believed that life was fair, but he could not recall it being quite so capricious or desperately cruel.

A good officer, a good man, reduced to a few wisps of smoke from a crematorium chimney, while another – as bad as any he had ever come across – was still breathing and free to try and justify his unspeakable actions.

He leaned against the wall for few minutes, until the scream inside his head had died down a fraction.

When he hobbled back round the corner, Nicola Tanner was waiting for him.

‘I heard you shouting.’ She pointed to the phone Thorne was still struggling to stuff back into his pocket. ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’

Thorne nodded and began heading back to where he’d left Helen.

‘Nothing that’s going to help us, I’m guessing?’

‘No.’

Tanner stepped over to walk alongside him. ‘Don’t worry, Tom.’

‘I’m not worried.’

‘However long it takes, we’ll get him.’

‘You’ll have to do it on your own.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m sorry, Nic.’

Tanner slowed, then stopped, but Thorne kept on moving. He saw Helen waiting for him, the flicker of concern on her face as she raised a hand to wave. He planted his crutches, drove himself forward and spoke again without turning round.

To himself as much as anybody else.

‘I’m done,’ Tom Thorne said.