‘Who is he?’ Akhtar asked.
There was no easy way to say it. ‘I don’t know,’ Thorne said. ‘But he is scared because we’re getting close to him. He’s scared, Javed.’
Though Pascoe had been unsure as to how Akhtar would react, Thorne had expected something approaching pleasure at the news. But when Akhtar spoke again, there was little sign of it.
‘Who was killed?’
‘Another boy from Barndale,’ Thorne said.
‘A friend of Amin’s?’
‘No, not a friend. I think he was the boy that attacked Amin.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Someone paid this boy to attack Amin, because they wanted to make sure he ended up in the hospital wing. That was where they planned to kill him, so they could make it look like suicide.’
‘That’s what I said, didn’t I?’ There was anger creeping into Akhtar’s voice. ‘I said that to the police over and over again and I told everybody at the bloody inquest. I kept saying that my son would never have taken his own life.’
‘Yes, that’s what you said.’
‘And you see what happens? You see?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now another boy is dead because nobody would listen.’
‘That boy is dead because the man responsible was worried he could identify him.’
There was another long pause.
‘So, if this boy is dead, how are you going to identify him?’
‘I’m waiting for more information,’ Thorne said.
‘Waiting.’ There was a snort of derision. ‘There’s been far too much waiting.’
‘I know that sounds a bit vague, but I’m hopeful.’ Even as he said it, Thorne realised that he was often guilty of confusing ‘hopeful’ with ‘desperate’. ‘OK, Javed? We’re nearly there.’
Akhtar did not reply. Thorne exchanged a long look with Donnelly while they listened to the hiss and crackle from the speakers, something muttered which was impossible to make out clearly, Helen coughing.
‘Helen?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘You heard all that?’
‘Yes, I heard. I hope you get the information you need.’
‘It’s going to be over soon, OK?’
‘Thank you.’
‘So, what are you drinking?’ Thorne asked. ‘I’ll have a bottle waiting.’
‘Right now, I’d settle for paint-stripper,’ Helen said.
Then Akhtar’s voice. Louder, as though he’d suddenly moved closer to the phone. ‘Don’t start planning your celebrations just yet, Mr Thorne. You have to find this man first. Then you have to catch him.’
The line went dead.
Thorne removed the headset and looked at Pascoe. ‘All right?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ she said.
Chivers nodded towards the monitors. ‘She’s every bit as good as you said she was. Weeks.’ He looked back to Thorne. ‘I reckon she could really help us.’
‘Help us how?’ Thorne asked.
‘With information,’ Chivers said. ‘Once the tech boys have done their stuff, if we can somehow let her know that we’re listening in, she might be able to send us messages.’ He looked to Donnelly. ‘We can slip it into a call or whatever. “TSU’s set up” or something. She’ll know what that means and maybe she can find a way to let us know where Akhtar is when the time comes. What might be waiting for us on the other side of that door if we need to go in.’
Donnelly nodded. Said, ‘Makes sense.’
Thorne turned to Pascoe.
She was looking at the floor again.
FORTY-FIVE
Though she could not know it, Helen had been every bit as surprised as Thorne that Javed had not reacted more positively to what he had been told. To hearing about Thorne’s progress. He had quickly grown irritable on discovering that he had been proved right and that he might soon know the name of the man who had murdered his son. When the call was over, he had spent a few minutes stalking back and forth between the shop and the storeroom, muttering to himself angrily. He had waved his arms around and slapped himself on the side of the head. Then, he had suddenly fallen silent and become morose.
Inconsolable.
As though he had just remembered something terrible.
Helen had said, ‘Good news,’ and ‘Sounds like you got what you wanted,’ but he had ignored her. She had asked for water and he had snapped at her, saying that he was not her bloody servant. Then he had brought it to her without a word.
Over the last twenty-four hours, she had begun to feel as though she understood this man who was holding her. That she could adjust to his reactions, handle things. She had not felt the need to keep pushing for sympathy or pity, to remind him that she was the mother of a small child, and when they had talked, really talked to one another, as they had only an hour before, there were moments when Helen might almost have been able to forget where they were. Now, watching him slumped in the chair with his eyes closed and the blood pulsing at his temple, she realised that she needed to sharpen up and remember exactly who and what she was.
What they both were.
Hostage and hostage taker.
She was well aware that her own emotions had been all over the place too, but reminded herself that she was not threatening to kill anyone. Yes, Akhtar had been genuinely horrified at Mitchell’s death, but Helen also remembered the sound of him smashing things up next door and she could not forget the hatred on his face when he had turned round in the shop two days before and pointed that gun at them. She recalled those moments of dark rage and the keening sobs from the next room, the tenderness then the paranoia.
Like lights going on and off.
And the fear that had begun to fold away its wings fluttered back to life in her gut, as Helen asked herself if those running the operation outside were getting as nervous as she was.
FORTY-SIX
I’m waiting for more information.
Thorne waited, and as the time passed and no other useful option presented itself, the waiting sucked the energy from him as efficiently as any physical exertion. Sapped him. He sat at the trestle table in the school hall and stared, unmoving, at the monitors, feeling heavier and more useless by the minute.
More desperate than hopeful.
Donnelly was sitting outside in the newly arrived Technical Support vehicle, poring over plans of the building; discussing the thicknesses of walls, the locations of gas and water pipes and electrical cabling. Chivers was in the playground, talking through a variety of scenarios with key members of his firearms team. Thorne did not know where Sue Pascoe had gone.
Once the Technical Support officers had been busy for a few hours there might be other pictures to look at, but for now Thorne could do little but stare at that single, fixed image of the front of Akhtar’s shop.
He stared, and began to drift.
For a few dizzying moments, despite the urgency, the tension that was clearly still ticking in all those around him, Thorne found his mind starting to wander. Staring at the monitor, there was something soporific about the picture: the occasional flicker across the image; the blurred swirls of dark graffiti against the grey shutters.
PAKI still the only word he could make out.
Akhtar’s words: Amin could come to us with anything.
In that vague and comforting way that the past got wrapped up and presented to oneself, Thorne had always considered his own relationship with his parents to be reasonably open and honest, but just a few seconds of serious reflection was all it took to tear that wrapping away and reveal the truth.
Unvarnished and ugly.
Thorne had not told his mother and father he wanted to join the police force, not until it was too late anyway, when he was no more than a few days away from traipsing off to Hendon. He had not told them that he did not want to go to university. That he had no wish to take whatever exams he would need to become a lawyer or an accountant, or any of those other professions he knew would make Jim and Maureen Thorne so proud.