Part Four.

Finished Falling.

THIRTY-FIVE.

At first, so he told everyone later, he thought that Mackillop had simply got tired of waiting for him and b.u.g.g.e.red off . . .

By the time Andy Stone's taxi had finally worked its way through the Sat.u.r.day-afternoon traffic and reached the house where Asif Mahmoud lived, the Volvo was nowhere to be seen and Jason Mackillop wasn't answering his phone. Stone had visited the ground-floor flat. He'd been told by Mr. Mahmoud that though he hadn't seen any police officers, he had heard comings and goings. Someone had come into the house a short time earlier, then left again fairly soon afterward. Stone had immediately knocked at the other three flats in the building-including, of course, the one on the top floor-but had received no reply.

Confused and p.i.s.sed off, he had decided to head back to Becke House, so had made his way to the tube station. It wasn't until thirty minutes later, when he got above ground at Colindale, that the message had come through about Ryan Eales . . .

"How long d'you think Stone missed him by?" Thorne asked.

Holland was pulling sheets of paper from his case. He looked up. "Impossible to say for sure. It must have been pretty close, though. Hendricks has the time of death at somewhere between one-thirty and two-thirty . . ."

"I was calling Brigstocke just after two," Thorne said. "We should have moved faster. I should have moved faster."

When, after an hour, TDC Mackillop could still not be contacted, a team had been dispatched back to West Finchley. While the car-which was found in a side street behind Finchley Central Station- was being towed away, witnesses described seeing it parked outside the house on Rosedene Way. A woman who'd been walking her dog gave an accurate description of Mackillop, and a man who lived opposite gave a statement saying that he'd seen the driver of the car talking to someone on the street.

More officers had gathered, serious and uneasy, as the Sat.u.r.day began to dim. An armed unit was called into position. Residents were evacuated and the road was sealed off, before finally-five hours after he'd driven into Rosedene Way-the door to the top flat at number forty-eight was smashed open, and Jason Mackillop was found . . .

Thorne had never met the murdered trainee. He wasn't sure whether that made it easier or not to deal with his death, but it certainly made it easier to idealize him as a victim. Thorne didn't know if Mackillop had bad breath or a foul temper; if he fancied himself or was close to his family. He'd never seen him at work, or fallen out with him, or heard him talk about anything important. Thorne knew only that he was naive, and keen, and almost ridiculously young. This not knowing made Jason Mackillop less real than many victims. But it didn't mean that the dirty great slab of guilt that had been laid down on top of the others had any less weight.

"He shouldn't have gone in there on his own," Holland said.

Thorne looked wrung out by exhaustion and anger. "That doesn't help."

"It's all Andy Stone's got to hold on to . . ."

It was Monday afternoon; two days since Ryan Eales had murdered Jason Mackillop and fled. Police, continuing to investigate the killings of homeless men in and around the West End, had taken a room at the London Lift to conduct interviews, including one with a rough sleeper known only as Tom.

Thorne and Holland were catching up . . .

"He must have got out of there in one h.e.l.l of a hurry," Holland said. "No money in the place, but he seems to have left more or less everything else behind."

They were in a poky, self-contained office in one corner of the bigger, open-plan admin area: a small sofa and a chair; a desk with a grimy computer and several heaps of cardboard files. The day was gray outside the frosted gla.s.s of a thin window. Thorne took the sheets as they were handed to him. "He knew that after what he'd done it wouldn't much matter if we got hold of this stuff. And it's not like any of it gives us a name, is it?"

Holland pa.s.sed yet more paper across: photocopies of doc.u.mentation found during the search of Eales's flat. All indicated that although Eales had killed the other three men in his tank crew, as well as Radio Bob, Terry T, and the others, he'd actually been working with somebody else. Or rather, for somebody else . . .

The man behind the camera.

Thorne had been made aware of all this within hours of the entry into Eales's flat, but this was his first look at the material evidence. He flicked through the bank statements and credit-card slips as Holland talked.

"Half a dozen different accounts, in four different names, and he managed to empty all but one of them before he did his vanishing act. Major payments into one or other of his accounts within a few days of Jago's death, and Hadingham's 'suicide.' Money paid in after each killing."

"All in cash?"

"All in cash, and completely untraceable to anybody. He was well paid for what he did."

"He was very good at it," Thorne said.

Holland dug out another piece of paper from his case and held it out. "And very good at not being caught . . ."

Thorne took the sheet and began to read.

"I meant to tell you about this," Holland said. "Then, when everything kicked off on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, you know, I thought it could wait." He pointed. "That's how they got away with it. Remember, we were talking about what they did with the bodies of the Iraqi soldiers? When we went to Taunton they told us about these war diaries, and at the time I didn't think it was worth chasing up, because our boys would only have been mentioned if they'd been wounded or commended . . ."

Thorne saw where it was going. "You're s.h.i.tting me . . ."

"I just double-checked."

Thorne read the words aloud. " 'Callsign 40 from B-Troop, under the command of Corporal Ian Hadingham, engaged with and destroyed an enemy tank, killing all four on board . . .' "

"The Iraqi tank surrendered," Holland said, "or was captured or whatever. Then, after they'd shot them, Eales and the others just put the bodies back in the tank and blew the thing to s.h.i.t. Whether anybody ever found out or not . . ."

"They got commended?" Thorne looked as though he might be close to tears of one sort or another. "Christ on a bike . . ."

Holland was rummaging in his briefcase again. "Something else that just came through. We finally got the transcript back from that lab in California: the techies who enhanced the sound on the video." He pa.s.sed across the sheaf of papers and closed his case.

Thorne took what was handed to him without really looking at it and placed it on the desk with the rest of the paperwork. He groped for the swivel chair behind him and slid clumsily onto it. "Another couple of loose ends tied up. It's all good, I suppose . . ."

"None of it gets us anywhere, though. Right?"

The silence that hung between them for the next few seconds was answer enough.

"So what's happening indoors?"

"Everyone's busy," Holland said. "Fired up, like you'd expect, you know, but . . ."

"Aimless," Thorne said.

"The Intel Unit's digging around. Hoping that the paper trail might throw up an address or something. Somewhere Eales might hole up."

Thorne was dismissive. "He's long gone."

And Holland didn't argue. He suspected that the bra.s.s had already taken the decision to scale down surveillance at all ports and airports.

The fact was that Mackillop's death and Eales's flight had torn the guts out of the investigation, and everyone knew it. It might, in other circ.u.mstances, have been what united the team and drove it on with renewed vigor, but this was more coffin nail than spur. Though they wanted Eales more badly than ever, they had to accept that, for the time being at least, they weren't likely to find him. And, despite what they now knew, there was little chance, without Eales, of ever catching the man who'd bankrolled at least half a dozen killings over a year or more. Overstretched budgets were always important factors, as were limited resources and time constraints, but once a team lost the appet.i.te for it, everything else became secondary.

"What did Brigstocke say?" Holland asked. He had a pretty good idea, of course, and wondered if he was overstepping the mark by asking. But he guessed correctly that Thorne had long since forgotten, or stopped caring, where such marks were.

"He was 'officially' telling me that the undercover operation was to be wound down. That I should go home and have a bath . . ."

Thorne was obviously making light of it, but Holland wasn't sure whether to smile or not. "When?"

"I'll stay out another night, I think."

"Okay . . ."

"There's a few people I need to say good-bye to."

"Then what?"

"Then a decent curry, a good night's sleep, probably a very p.i.s.sed-off cat . . ."

"That's not what I meant," Holland said.

Thorne smiled. "I know it isn't."

Brigstocke had called the evening before, when the dust kicked up by Mackillop's murder had begun to settle. He'd made it clear that he was brooking no argument as far as pulling Thorne off the street was concerned, so Thorne didn't waste any time by initiating one. Eales had gone. There would be no more killings. There was no longer any point. When it came to exactly what Thorne would be returning to, Brigstocke was a little less dogmatic. It may just have been that the decision had yet to be taken. But it was equally likely that Brigstocke had simply fought shy of delivering one blow on top of another.

As things stood, if it was to be a continuance of his gardening leave, Thorne would give in to it without much of a fuss. The thought of going back to the team, back to how things had been before, unnerved him. He felt as though he'd lost his way during some long-distance endurance event; as if he were staggering, miles off the pace, in the wrong direction. He couldn't do anything else until he'd completed the course, however laughable his finishing time was.

He knew he couldn't really compete, but he needed to cross the line . . .

" 'I don't know' is the simple answer," Thorne said. "I don't know what they want. I don't really know what I want."

Holland filled the pause that followed by reaching for his coat. "Do you think Eales spoke to whoever's paying him before he left? Warned him?"

"Maybe, but I don't think he had a great deal to warn him about." Thorne gestured toward the papers on the desk. "There's nothing there that incriminates anybody. I think Eales knows how to keep his mouth shut. How to keep secrets."

"Probably a good idea. Considering how many people died because one greedy f.u.c.ker couldn't."

Thorne eased his chair round slowly, one way and then the other. "We set so much store in trying to get hold of Eales, thinking that he'd tell us the name of the man behind the camera. I'm not actually sure it would have done us any good."

"You don't think he'd have given him up?"

"Eales is still a soldier," Thorne said. "Name, rank, and serial number, right?"

Holland picked up his case and crossed to the door. "Are you sticking around here for a bit? I need to get back . . ."

Thorne grunted; he didn't look like he was ready to go anywhere.

Holland recalled walking through the cafe on his way up and seeing the addict Thorne had been spending so much time with. The boy had been sitting with his girlfriend, whose name Holland had never learned. Holland thought about what Thorne had said earlier; wondered how difficult he might find it to say some of those good-byes. "Your mate Spike's downstairs . . ."

Thorne nodded, like he already knew. "We're supposed to be playing pool."

"We can have a game sometime if you want," Holland said. He hovered at the doorway. "Later in the week, maybe. That pub round the corner from your place has got a table, hasn't it?"

"I'll give you a call, Dave," Thorne said. "When I've got myself sorted."

He sat for a few minutes after Holland had left and let his mind drift. Sadly, however hard he tried, it wouldn't drift quite far enough.

For want of anything else to do, he reached for the doc.u.ments scattered across the desk and began to thumb through them. It always came down to paper in the end. Filed and boxed up in the General Registry. And it felt as though this case was heading that way pretty b.l.o.o.d.y quickly; not cold exactly, but as good as. The case, such as it was, would be handed over to the Homicide Task Force, or perhaps the brand-new, FBI-style Serious and Organised Crime a.s.sociation. These were the proactive units responsible for tracking down and charging prime suspects who had gone missing. Thorne felt fairly sure that Eales was already abroad; that he would not make himself easy to find. The world was becoming smaller all the time, but it was still plenty big enough . . .

He stared down at the bank statements; at the payments into each one, representing a man Ryan Eales had killed. He looked at the amounts and was unable to stop a part of his brain making the perverse calculations: fifteen hundred pounds per kick delivered; something like that . . .

He thought back to the case he'd been working on the previous spring: to the hunt for another man who'd chosen murder as his profession; bookended by two fires, twenty years apart. A young girl dead, and an old man. Now here was Thorne, sitting in the old man's coat and gnawing at the decisions he'd taken. At the series of judgments, considered and otherwise; from one burning to another.

He pulled the Gulf War transcript to the front and glanced down at it. The printed dialogue and descriptions were horribly effective prompts. His mind called up the a.s.sociated images from the videotape in an instant as he read: the groupings of the men, and the rain striking the sand like black candle wax, and luminous horror like a cat's eye in the darkness.

A soldier waving papers taken from the Iraqi prisoners. No sign of what was to come. "We are keeping these." (LOUDER) "Do you understand?"

While decisions-including that which would determine his own future-were being made, Thorne wondered if the Met had taken one to hand the tape over to the army. He wondered, too, in spite of all the bickering between the Met and the RMP that would surely follow, if the army themselves would be very surprised. Had Eales and his fellow crewmen effectively covered their tracks in 1991?

"Where D'you Get It?"

"Say Again?"

(Louder) "Where D'you Get It?"

"This?" (Soldier Holds Up Bacon Strips) "I Brought It With Me."

Or was that commendation in the war diary little more than an exercise in sweeping s.h.i.t under the carpet?

"That Reminds Me, I Could Kill A Fry-up . . ."

"That Stuff f.u.c.king Stinks, Ian . . ."

Thorne read the next line . . .

And stared, breathless, at the page. At five words, spoken out of vision. A phrase that told him everything.

He knew who the man behind the camera was.

Thorne shut his eyes and pressed himself back in the chair, thrown by the excitement and the terror of being suddenly and completely without doubt. It was a sensation he'd almost forgotten: the sickness and the surge of knowing.

Then, quick and painful as a low punch, Thorne knew something else: that the man who had paid Ryan Eales to commit murder would walk away from it as surely as Eales himself had so far managed to do. Certain as he was of the man's ident.i.ty, and of what he had done, Thorne knew that there was no way on G.o.d's earth that he could prove it.

Five minutes, perhaps ten, pa.s.sed as Thorne weighed it up.

He stared into the thought, into the white-hot heart of it, until at last he began to make a few decisions. Each would be dependent on the decisions of others, but as Thorne stood and gathered his things together he felt as energized as he had in a long while. He might yet fail to cross it, but now at least he had a b.l.o.o.d.y good idea where the finishing line was.

He came out of the office and descended quickly toward the lower-ground floor. If Spike was still there, the two of them could chat while they played pool. They would have plenty to talk about.

Thorne had decided that if he was going to get off the streets, he needed to come clean . . . in every possible sense. He was going to tell Spike everything.