the first person to visit him in years.’
‘That’s what people do,’ said Thorpe. ‘Visit old friends. If you’re really nice to me, I’ll even visit you in prison, when you get sent down for harassing innocent citizens.’
‘That’s very kind of you. I’m sure it would make it all worthwhile. If I ever found an innocent citizen to harass.’
‘Ha, ha.’
‘Mansell Quinn,’ said Cooper, ‘what was the purpose of your visit to him in prison?’
‘To say “hi”. To see how he was keeping. To take him a birthday present. For God’s sake, I hadn’t seen the bloke for years.’
‘OK,’ said Fry. ‘You went the first time to say “hi”. You saw how he was. So what about the second visit? Was his birthday present the wrong size? Maybe he wanted you to change it for him?’
‘Get lost.’
‘You see, Mr Thorpe, we think that your friend Mansell Quinn asked you to do something for him.’
Thorpe began to cough, and suddenly looked weaker.
‘And what if he did?’
‘We think that you gave him some addresses.’
‘There was no harm in that.’
‘No harm?’
‘Well, no.’
Cooper looked at Fry, who raised her shoulders in a gesture that said: ‘He’s nuts’ or possibly, ‘Don’t ask me, I can’t make sense of this either.’
Thorpe was watching their faces. He was starting to look puzzled, too.
‘It was only some addresses, so that Mansell could get ready for coming out. He said the prison and the probation wouldn’t give him any information.’
253
‘Mr Thorpe, where have you been living for the past few days?’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
He was even more confused now. Cautiously, Thorpe looked from Fry to Cooper, sensing that there was something he didn’t know. Something bad. The anxiety was plain on his face. And they could hear the wheezing in his chest as his breathing grew laboured.
‘I told him,’ he said. ‘I told Mansell that people who’ve made a new life should be left alone and allowed to get on with it.’
‘He didn’t take much notice, then.’
‘What’s happened?’ said Thorpe.
Fry didn’t answer the question directly. ‘Mr Thorpe, did you give Mansell Quinn his wife’s new address?’
‘OK, I did.’
‘And are you telling us that you don’t know why Quinn wanted her address?’
Thorpe stared at Fry, slowly trying to work out the implications. ‘Rebecca? What’s happened to her?’
‘Rebecca Lowe is dead, Mr Thorpe. She was killed.’
Thorpe shook his head, denying the conclusion he’d come to.
‘Who killed her?’
But no one answered that. And the question hung in the air of the interview room like the sound of William Thorpe’s breathing as he gasped to force oxygen into his damaged lungs.
Several drunks had been brought into the custody suite an hour before. They were waiting for the doctor to examine them for any medical problems, or for injuries they might have sustained while being arrested. A pool of urine was running under the door of one of the cells into the passage. One of the drunks either couldn’t find the lavatory, or was doing it deliberately. Till have to translate for the doctor when she arrives, too,’ said the custody sergeant.
254
I
‘Why? Are the drunks foreign?’
‘No, but the doctor we have on duty today is a bit middle aged and middle class, if you know what I mean. If a prisoner is under twenty-five, she has no idea what they’re on about, even when they’re sober. Especially if they start telling her the street names for the drugs they’re on.’
Cooper could hear the doctor now, talking to a prisoner. Her voice was loud enough to carry down the passage.
‘Are you injecting? Which part of your body are you using?’
‘Here.’
‘Your groin. That’s your groin you’re pointing at. Well, I can see why you’re not using your arms any more. There’s nothing left of them, is there?’
The custody sergeant gave a despairing shrug that involved his whole body.
‘We haven’t been able to find any accommodation for your Mr Thorpe,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many places round
