THIRTY-SIX

The Police Control Unit was even busier than the last time Thorne had been there. A press conference was scheduled for six o’clock and with the parents of Poppy Johnston due to make a direct television appeal for the first time, there was a good deal of activity. While camera positions were being chosen, seats laid out and a small stage prepared, very different arrangements were being made at the other end of the Memorial Hall.

With not much more than an hour’s light left, the last search team of the day had been assembled and would shortly be sent out to look for Poppy Johnston. Twenty or more locals were being briefed, along with twice that many uniformed officers. While maps were consulted and instructions given, Thorne noticed that several officers had dogs with them. He still found it impossible to believe that no similarly equipped search team had scoured those woods many days before Jessica Toms’ body was eventually discovered. Despite Hendricks’ misgivings, Thorne knew what cadaver dogs were capable of; how unlikely they would be to miss a stinking corpse less than two feet below ground.

‘You coming with us then, detective?’ Thorne turned to see the PC he had spoken to in the pub the night before; the one he had been so rude to on his first day. The officer was wearing walking boots and wet-weather gear together with an expression that suggested he was rather pleased with himself. ‘Fancy getting your hands dirty?’

‘I’d be happy to,’ Thorne said.

‘Really?’

‘But I need to be at the press conference.’

‘Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.’

Thorne studied him. ‘You got something to say to me?’

‘Just thinking you might want to hear what Poppy Johnston’s mum and dad have got to say.’

‘Because . . . ?’

‘Because it might make you rethink some of that sympathy for the bastard that took their daughter.’

‘I’ve got no sympathy for whoever took their daughter.’

The search team began to head out. The PC stood his ground, while colleagues and members of the public pushed past him, funnelling through the main doors and out on to the street.

‘That’s good to hear,’ the PC said. ‘I mean, sympathy’s not what you expect, is it?’

‘Depends who it’s for.’

‘Not from someone on the job.’

Thorne started to see where this was going.

‘I mean, you wouldn’t have sympathy, I don’t know . . . for someone who’d cost a prison officer his life. You know, just as an example. I’m damn sure I wouldn’t.’

Thorne stared down at the officer’s walking boots, well-worn brown leather, red laces. He was very hot suddenly as he struggled to think of something to say. By the time he’d managed to string enough invective together, the PC was moving away; falling in with his colleagues and leaving the hall without a backward glance.

Thorne muttered the words anyway.

He walked slowly to the far end of the hall, weaving between the men and women who were putting out the chairs in nice, neat rows. He stood and watched as two officers at the back of the platform carefully erected the banner bearing the logo of the Warwickshire police: a bear and a ragged staff.

You know, just as an example . . .

Thorne had not been particularly surprised at the PC’s reaction. He had clocked the looks he was getting from the moment he set foot in the hall. He could easily imagine the laugh that Cornish and his cronies were enjoying at Nuneaton station.

A major result and to top it all, just look at that know-it-all wanker from the Met splashed all over the front page. All those skeletons rattling out of his closet. Icing on the cake.

When Thorne’s phone rang a few minutes later and he saw the caller’s name, he wondered simply what had taken him so long.

He was not given the chance to ask the question.

‘Well done!’ DCI Russell Brigstocke got straight to the point, as usual. ‘What’s next? You going to get your tits out on page three?’

‘Thought you read the grown-up papers,’ Thorne said.

‘Couldn’t bloody avoid it, could I?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘It’s up on the noticeboard, for Pete’s sake.’

‘Before you kick off, none of this is my doing, all right?’

‘It never is, is it?’

‘I’m just here keeping Helen company.’

‘I know exactly what you’re doing. I read it in the paper, remember.’

‘What could I do?’

‘You could avoid sodding journalists for a start.’

‘You want me to start punching photographers, like some arsey film star?’

‘I want you to be doing what you told me you’d be doing. Eating cream cakes or looking at castles or something.’

‘This wasn’t what I had in mind either.’

‘You should have known they’d go digging,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Snuffling for dirt like pigs looking for truffles. Where you’re concerned, the dirt isn’t very hard to find, is it?’

‘There’s nothing in there I can’t defend,’ Thorne said. ‘Nothing you can’t defend either.’ He stood aside as two officers carried a table past. ‘Right, Russell?’

Brigstocke took a few seconds. Said, ‘Look, I’m not getting into that now.’ His voice was indistinct suddenly and Thorne guessed that he was eating. ‘I’ve been talking to Warwickshire.’

‘What, the whole county?’

‘Can you hear me laughing, Tom?’

Thorne said nothing.

‘I suppose that wasn’t your fault either, marching in there like the big “I am” and pissing everybody off.’

It gave Thorne some small degree of satisfaction to learn that his instincts about Tim ‘keep in touch’ Cornish had been right. The sort of copper he was. A flash suit and a winning smile; unwilling to call you a twat to your face then picking the phone up to bitch to his superiors the minute you’ve gone. ‘He said I could look at the file. What’s the big deal?’

‘Why would you even ask?’

‘There’s not exactly a lot to do round here.’

‘You need to shut up now, and stop being a smartarse, OK?’

Thorne listened.

‘I mean . . . for God’s sake, you’re telling me you’re just there to keep Helen company, so why are you sticking your nose in where it isn’t wanted—?’

‘What’s the harm?’

‘Where someone’s very likely to cut it off, and you know what, I don’t think I’d blame them.’

‘This Bates thing isn’t solid,’ Thorne said.

‘Oh, I know.’ There was more chewing. ‘Some crap about dogs and bodies, and to tell you the truth, I really don’t care.’

‘Not even if they’ve got the wrong man in custody.’

‘Not even then.’

‘So you don’t want me to tell you?’

‘I couldn’t give a toss if you think Jack the Ripper killed that girl,’ Brigstocke said, ‘and Shergar helped him bury the body. Not when I’m the mug getting it in the neck from the Chief Superintendent of Warwickshire Constabulary because I can’t control my officers.’

‘Come on.’

‘I’m serious, Tom.’ And Brigstocke’s voice, low suddenly and heavy with threat, left Thorne in little doubt that he meant it.

‘All right.’

‘This is the kind of thing people lose jobs over. Especially people like you.’ There was a pause. ‘Tom?’

‘What?’

‘Stay out of the local boys’ way, got it?’

Thorne grunted a ‘yes’.

‘And if you can persuade Helen, I’d suggest the pair of you piss off back to the Cotswolds at the first opportunity.’

Thorne looked up at the banner, now fully erected behind a long table; the logo a foot high against the white canvas. He pictured the bear in an expensive suit, puffing on an e-cigarette, turning to show its teeth before snapping.

Thorne remembered reading somewhere that if you were attacked by a particular sort of bear, the best thing to do was run. There was another sort, however, where that was exactly the wrong thing to do; when the best strategy was to play dead.

He could never remember which was which.