The Dying Hours (16 page)

There were jokes, of course, there had to be. All part and parcel of the Job; the defence mechanism, the pressure valve, whatever you chose to call it. The Kidnap Unit had their fair share of comedians as did the Counter-Terrorist lot. The Homicide Command – naturally – and Serious and Organised, and there were probably even a few chuckles to be had every now and again in Wildlife Crime and Dog Support. On a Child Abuse Investigation Team though, for all the obvious reasons, there were more than most.

Laugh a bloody minute on a CAIT.

‘It’s the way we cope, isn’t it?’ One of Helen’s colleagues had been philosophising one night, after a few drinks too many. ‘You have a laugh and a bit of a giggle and it stops the really terrible stuff getting through, doesn’t it? Not all of it, I mean we’re only bloody human, right? But we try and see the funny side, so we only get the damage in small doses, so hopefully we don’t get damaged ourselves. It’s a bit like homeopathy, I reckon…’

It had sounded a bit like bollocks to Helen, though she’d said nothing.

Yes, you did whatever you could to keep certain things at arm’s length and that famous black humour helped some people deal with what they saw and heard every day. For others though, it was no more than a justification for filthy jokes; for remarks that would be wholly unacceptable in any other context.

Her own strategy was rather more straightforward.

Some days, she just went home and held on to Alfie that little bit tighter.

Still, she joined in, she laughed along when it was expected. Even more so since she’d come back to work. The last thing she wanted was to give those she worked with any more reason to believe that she had been affected by what had happened three months before.

It was a little harder than usual at the moment.

This morning, it was nothing she hadn’t heard before; just Gill Bellinger and a few of the others, sharing a joke at the drinks machine after the briefing. The one about the stingy paedophile asking kids to pay for the sweets. Last time Helen had heard it, the comedy paedophile had been Jewish, but Bellinger had clearly not wanted to offend DC Susan Cohen.

Helen watched Cohen laughing loudest of the lot and thought how strange it was, where people drew the line when it came to causing offence, or taking it. Clearly, her own laughter had not been quite convincing enough, because as soon as everyone had begun drifting back towards their desks, Bellinger wandered over and asked how she was.

‘Heard the joke before, that’s all,’ Helen said.

Bellinger grunted. ‘I need some new material.’

‘What about this two-year-old with half his bones broken?’ Helen nodded towards her computer screen. ‘Should be something in there.’

Bellinger blinked. Said, ‘Everything OK at home? Alfie all right?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘So, Tom then?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Gill.’

But Helen did. The problem was finding someone to whom she could talk. She had already arranged to go and see her father at the end of her shift, but she knew how that would turn out. She would bitch about Jenny for a while and he would be sympathetic and then they would end up talking about Paul. The two of them had always got on and her father had been something of an ally when everything had fallen apart and her younger sister had begun to stir things. With Paul gone though, Jenny had miraculously appeared to forget she had ever disliked him and cast her beady eyes around for another target, aside from Helen herself, obviously. Tom had been the natural choice. Helen guessed, even though her father had yet to meet Tom, that he would take her side, as he did on most things. Comforting as that would be, she would not be able to talk to him about the situation Tom had got himself into professionally.

Un
professionally…

There was probably only one person who would understand, who knew Tom well enough to talk frankly about what was happening. Helen had been considering it ever since the argument with Tom, but guessed that it would not prove to be the easiest of conversations. She might well be opening a can of worms, but with nowhere else to turn she just kept telling herself that Tom had already opened a far larger and more dangerous one.

She did not have the number on her phone.

As soon as Bellinger had gone, Helen went into her database and looked up the contact details for Hornsey Mortuary.

The Jacobson house was a detached Georgian property on one of the most exclusive roads in Blackheath; the ‘London village’ that had become an enclave of professionals and well-heeled media types and was one of the priciest areas in the south-east of the city. It was certainly a world away from Catford or Lewisham, just three miles up the road.

Eliot Place skirted the ‘black’ heath itself. It was thought by some to have been so-called in memory of the plague victims buried there, though the name was probably and somewhat more prosaically derived from the colour of the soil. There
were
bodies beneath it of course, as there were beneath most of London’s green spaces, but Thorne knew they were more likely those of the many killed in the battles and duels fought here or the highwaymen who had once roamed the heath and were sent to the gallows by the legal antecedents of Richard Jacobson QC.

Jacobson, who had once been a fresh-faced pupil barrister.

Thirty years before, when he was only twenty-two years old, when he’d been a lowly part of Terry Mercer’s defence team and done something for which he had never been forgiven.

Thorne parked around the corner. The early-morning rain had long since cleared and it was unseasonably warm enough for him to leave his jacket in the car. He walked half the length of Eliot Place and stood looking at the house from the other side of the road.

I really don’t want to put you off your breakfast
…⁠

The door to the double garage was closed, giving no hint of what had gone on behind it. A silver Audi was parked on the drive but there was little sign of life behind the mullioned windows upstairs or down. As Thorne crossed the road, a black and white cat jumped up from a flower bed on to the low wall that ran around the front lawn. It stretched, front paws then back, and sat watching his approach.

Thorne stifled a yawn and wiped his fingers across eyes that were scratchy and raw. In the end, he had only managed three hours’ sleep and the buzz he might otherwise have expected at the scene of the latest murder was only dimly felt in heavy limbs and a head filled with cotton wool. He reached out to stroke the cat. It mewed and lifted its chin.

‘Can I help you?’

Thorne looked across to see a woman standing near the Audi. She was in her mid-fifties, possibly a little older; full-figured, with dark hair cut just short of her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and what looked like a man’s striped shirt. She had definitely not emerged through the front door, so Thorne guessed that she had come from the back of the house; from the passageway that ran alongside the garage and probably led to a garden at the rear.

Thorne raised a hand and walked towards her. He reached into his pocket for his warrant card as he got closer.

‘You’re a bit early,’ she said.

Thorne had no idea what she was talking about. He said, ‘Sorry, I don’t think I’m who you’re expecting.’

‘You’re not here about Richard?’

‘Well, yes, but I just stopped by.’ Thorne introduced himself, told her he was with Uniform. She wiped her hands on the back of her jeans before she shook hands and Thorne wondered if she’d been gardening.

‘Susan Jacobson,’ she said.

‘I was just wondering if you’d like us to arrange for a patrol car to come by once or twice every evening,’ Thorne said. ‘Keep an eye on things.’

‘Really?’

‘It wouldn’t be a problem.’

‘What things?’

He could well understand that she might be perplexed at his offer, even a little annoyed. Stable doors, horses that had already bolted, all that. ‘Just to check that you’re OK, that’s all.’

The irritation that had been apparent behind the woman’s fixed smile washed itself from her face as the compulsion towards simple politeness kicked in. She nodded and said, ‘Yes, why not. Thanks.’

Thorne told her that he would arrange it.

They looked at each other for a few seconds, the cat trotting over to rub itself against the woman’s legs. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked. ‘Water or something, I mean.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t want you to think I’ve got a bottle of wine open before lunchtime.’

‘Water would be great,’ Thorne said.

Susan Jacobson led Thorne around the car and into the passageway that ran down the side of the garage. There was a large plastic water butt, black and green rubbish bins and recycling boxes; the utilitarian nature of the space balanced by the plants in a collection of old chimney pots and the hanging baskets attached to the wall every few feet.

There was a door into the garage halfway along. Susan Jacobson walked quickly past it, but Thorne stopped.

‘Would you mind if I had a look?’ he asked.

She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I’ll be in the garden,’ she said. She nodded at the door. ‘It’s open…’

There was a light switch just inside the door. Thorne waited for the strip lights to splutter and fizz into life, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Began breathing through his mouth.

The garage was huge. Cupboards lined one wall and freestanding metal shelving units were arranged almost ceiling high along another. The collection of mowers and old engines had been pushed back towards the edges and covered, but wooden handles protruded through the array of tarpaulins and slivers of rusty blade could be glimpsed through gashes in black bin-bags.

The smell was everywhere: fuel and cooked meat.

Beyond a light dusting of fingerprint powder on the metal shelves and around the door-frame, the Scenes of Crime team had left little evidence that they were ever there. No chalk lines, no fluttering remnants of crime-scene tape so beloved of TV shows. The only physical sign that anything had merited a police presence in the first place was the large scorch mark on the garage floor.

There was no clearly recognisable shape. It was ragged and uneven, some areas darker against the grey cement than others. Still, looking down as if he had been confronted with some oversized ink-blot test, Thorne could not help seeing the patterns of hopelessly flailing arms and of legs that kicked against the agony.

A black snow-angel.

Thorne took a deep breath – the taste of what lingered in the air no more pleasant than the smell – and looked around. The large boxes, the tarpaulins, those dark spaces between the rows of shelving. There were plenty of places to hide.

Ever since that first night in the Coopers’ bedroom, Thorne had been asking himself how Mercer got so close to his victims. How he got inside their houses and flats. The open door to the garage had confirmed his suspicion that these killings had been carefully planned, with plenty of time built in to watch and wait. To look for the times when his targets were at their most careless, to study the patterns of behaviour that made them vulnerable.

Fiona Daniels (70), Brian Gibbs (71) and the others.

Mercer had known that the elderly were that little bit more likely to be careless when it came to matters of security; that an opportunity would eventually present itself. Thorne guessed that one or two had simply opened their front door to him.

The side door to the Jacobsons’ garage was almost certainly locked at night, but Thorne was betting that Mercer had been well aware it was often left open during the day. That he had crept in many hours before the murder would be carried out, then settled down to wait. Such a possibility would not have been lost on the Murder Investigation Team of course, but they would need more than that. Knowing that someone else
could
have been in that garage when Richard Jacobson had set fire to himself was never going to be enough.

Thorne doubted that Terry Mercer had left them anything.

Susan Jacobson was sitting on a raised terrace with the promised glass of water. When Thorne joined her at the table she passed the glass to him and said, ‘I’ll redecorate in there, obviously. Haven’t had much time to think about it the last few days. Well, you know.’

‘All that stuff can wait,’ Thorne said.

‘God knows what I’m going to do with all those bloody machines of his. I don’t know which ones are valuable.’

‘What about a museum?’

She took a sip of water, thought about it. ‘Yes, I think he would have liked that.’ She stared out at the garden for a few seconds. ‘I think his brother should have all his old jazz records. I mean
I
certainly don’t want them and it’ll be nice to have a bit more room.’

Thorne nodded, drank. He’d seen this many times before; the need to plan, to think ahead, to stay busy. It was understandable, but he was not convinced it was altogether healthy in the long term. It was only putting off something that needed facing up to and getting through. He had done much the same thing when his father had died… when his father had
been killed
… and he had come to regret it. He had thrown himself back into work far too quickly, taken on more than he could manage, when he should have allowed himself the time to take it in. He’d heard a counsellor talk once about ‘owning’ your grief. Thorne had certainly never owned his.

‘Sod all wrong with wallowing,’ Hendricks had said, and as usual he had been right.

‘I can’t stand all that parping and noodling,’ Susan Jacobson said.

‘Sorry?’

She looked at Thorne. ‘Jazz…’

‘Oh, me neither,’ Thorne said.

He could not recall having seen a bigger garden in London. It sloped away from them, probably more than a hundred feet long and almost as wide, with tall trees – oaks, sycamores, a huge copper beech – shielding it on two sides and an old stone wall running along the third. The beds were wide and filled with flowers and the terrace was dotted with bay trees and box balls. ‘This is lovely,’ Thorne said. The lawn was neatly mown into stripes and he wondered how recently Richard Jacobson had used one of his precious machines on it. How long it would take for the stripes to fade.

‘Should probably get rid of that thing too.’ Susan Jacobson nodded towards the large trampoline, standing next to a rickety-looking shed in one of the corners. ‘While I’m sorting things out. I mean, the kids are too old to want to use it again and I spend my life clearing away the leaves and fox poo. The fox
cer
tainly
enjoys bouncing on it.’ She smiled. ‘I had a go myself last year after we had a party out here and put my back out for a month. Silly old mare…’

Her face crumpled suddenly and she looked down into her glass.

Thorne looked back towards the trampoline. Two squirrels were chattering and chasing each other through the tangle of branches above and there was music coming from a couple of gardens away.

‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re not CID or whatever it is, but…’

‘Sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I don’t know any more than you.’

‘They took loads of stuff away.’

‘All routine.’

‘They were in there for ages, scraping and putting things in bags. They must know something.’

‘What is it you’re hoping to hear?’ Thorne asked.

She looked at him.

‘Which would you rather it was?’ He inched his chair a little closer to her. ‘Would knowing one way or the other really make all this any less painful?’

Jacqui Gibbs had told him that knowing her father had not taken his own life had made her feel a little better. The difference was, he had felt able to tell her the truth. With a Murder Investigation Team already looking into her husband’s death, he could not tell Susan Jacobson what he believed. She would immediately pass it on, and then it would just be a question of whether he jumped before he was pushed. If Caroline Dunn would need to sort out that nice, comfy pillow for him at Gartree.

For reasons he knew were wholly selfish, Thorne wanted,
needed
to hear that knowing whether her husband had been murdered or had committed suicide was not going to make this woman feel any better.

That it would not make any difference.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, eventually. ‘How could anyone possibly answer that?’ She shook her head, turned to look out at the garden. ‘If Richard… did that to himself, at least I’ll know that’s what he wanted. That it was his choice. I’ll always wonder why though… and why on earth he chose to do it like that.’ She took a few seconds, swallowed. ‘If someone did that to him… all I can think about is how frightened he must have been and how long it… lasted.’ She turned back to look at Thorne. The colour had gone from her face and her eyes were wide and glassy. ‘I can’t answer that question,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know why you would ask me that question.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said. He finished his drink. He let the silence lengthen, hoping that it might become less awkward, but it didn’t. He stood up and said, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

He told her he would see himself out and, as he walked down past the garage towards the front of the house, he thought: Leave you to what, exactly?

To
what
?

As he emerged on to the sunlit drive, Thorne saw a car on the other side of the road. A BMW, its engine still running. Leaning against it, he recognised the unmistakable figure of DCI Neil Hackett.

Thorne stopped and stared across the road.

‘Come over and get in,’ Hackett shouted cheerily and beckoned Thorne towards him, squinting up at the sun and fanning his hand theatrically in front of his face. ‘The air-con’s running.’