Working the two shifts suited her. It was an early start, but she was finished mid-morning and not on again until teatime, so she had her days to herself.
Fiona waved as, further up the corridor, she saw one of the other girls coming out of a room, dumping dirty towels into the laundry hamper. She parked her own trolley, began loading soap and shampoo into a small basket. The smell was familiar from the mountain of stuff she now had in her own bathroom at home.
The seven-to-ten bedroom shift was the hardest. She'd been amazed these last couple of weeks to see just what pigs some people lived like when they weren't at home. She hadn't had any really bad ones yet – no used condoms, or what have you – but still, some people behaved like animals. Equally weird were the rooms that barely looked lived-in at all. Towels neatly folded and beds made. These were the sort of people, Fiona supposed, who tidied their houses before their cleaners came round. Either way, as she moved around the bedrooms, replenishing toiletries and coffee sachets, smoothing sheets and checking mini bars, she tried to get inside the heads of these people whom she rarely ever met. She tried to flesh out lives she could only guess at by the labels. strangers' shoes, the smells in their bathrooms and the paperbacks by the sides of their beds.
It was all good practice, she reckoned, for being an actress. If she ever got the chance. Two Bs and a C. Two Bs and a C… She slid the plastic pass-key into the lock and shoved open a bedroom door.
A lot of murders went unsolved, but compared to the clean-up rates for burglary, Thorne reckoned that he, and others like him, were doing pretty bloody well.
'For fuck's sake, Chris, it's been nearly three weeks. You must know most of the likely lads in the area…'
On the other end of the phone, Chris Barratt laughed like a drain. It sounded to Thorne as if this conversation was making the Kentish Town crime-desk sergeant's day.
'You're not a punter, Tom,' Barratt said. 'You know what it's like. This early on a Saturday morning, you want to count yourself lucky there was anybody here to answer the bleeding phone…'
Thorne knew how stretched things were in many areas. Violent street-crime was, quite rightly, being targeted, and uniformed manpower was being taken away from such everyday London trivialities as common housebreaking. He was aware that because he was on the job, they were probably making twice the effort they would normally be making to lay hands on whoever had turned his flat over. He also knew that twice nothing was pretty much fuck all.
'Three weeks, though, Chris…'
'We found your car.'
'Yeah, and got nothing off it…'
'It was burnt out…'
'Only on the inside.'
The Mondeo had been found on an estate behind Euston Station. The inside had been torched, the wheels nicked and the words POLICE WANKERS spray-painted or the roof. Yet more cause for amusement around the Incident Room at Beck House…
'What about fences?' Thorne asked. 'The bastard should have got something for my CD system…'
'Duh! We never thought about that…'
Thorne sighed. He took the gum he'd been chewing out of his mouth and lobbed it out of the open window. 'Sorry, Chris. Any kind of fucking result would be good at the minute, you know?'
'You're sorted with the insurance, aren't you?' Barratt said.
'Yeah, fine.' Thorne was still waiting for the money to come through, car and contents, but there was no reason why it shouldn't…
'So are you really that bothered?'
A clammy Saturday morning. Working up a sweat in slow motion. The arse-end of a week that felt like a tight space he was too big to squeeze through.
'Yes, I'm bothered,' Thorne said. 'So should you be. And when you eventually catch the little toe-rag who used my bedroom as a khazi, he's going to be very fucking bothered…'
A guest in a smart suit hurried past her towards the lift. Fiona said good morning and put the back of a rubber-gloved hand across her mouth to stifle a yawn. She moved up the corridor towards the next bedroom, thinking about what she might do later on. The early evening shift was usually a bit of a doddle. A chance to flirt with her favourite waiter as she cleaned the tables in the bar, or to gossip with the girls in reception while she hoovered. A couple of times she'd managed to finish all her jobs double-quick and find a quiet corner, somewhere out of sight, where she could sit and open a book. If she wasn't too knackered, she might go out for a couple of drinks, catch up with some of her mates. Maybe she could slip away from work a few minutes early…
No such luck the evening before. There was a dose of summer flu going around and the place was short- staffed. She'd had to do the whole of main reception herself and was just thinking she might finely be able to get away when she'd been roped into lending a hand up in the Conference Room, laying the table for a Saturday- morning business breakfast the following day.
She'd wheeled the trolley laden with cutlery and table linen into the lift and pressed the button for the top floor. Just as the doors were closing, a couple had stepped in. She was attractive, wearing a smart skirt and silk blouse. He was very attractive, and dressed a little more casually. On the first floor, the woman got out. They hadn't been a couple after all. As the doors closed, the man turned to her and smiled. Feeling herself redden, Fiona looked down and began to count the knives and forks.
The bell rang as the lift reached the top floor and she straightened her wheels, nudged them towards the door. The man took a step forward to hold the door for her. He gave her another smile as she pushed the trolley out, the cutlery clattering noisily as she moved past him.
A few feet up the corridor, she'd turned and looked at him, a little confused that he hadn't stepped out of the lift himself. Just as the doors began to shut, the man in the leather biker's jacket had caught her 'looking at him. He turned his palms upwards and shook his head at his own stupidity.
'Miles away. Missed my floor…'
There were times when investigations seemed shrouded in darkness.
When the light, no matter the season or time of day, seemed to have faded away in those rooms where a case was worked, where progress in catching a killer was discussed and evaluated. For those groping around in the dark, there was always the frustrating feeling that if someone could just point a torch in the right direction, something important would be revealed. Then the shadows would shorten and slip away, but nobody knew where to shine the light. The day was getting off to a slow start, but Brigstocke seemed in no mood to crack the whip. It was fine with Thorne. He sensed that an extra ten minutes or so spent sitting around together, talking about nothing much for a while before they got down to it, might do everybody some good.
Might shorten a few shadows…
They sat on and around three different desks in the Incident Room. The coffees and teas were being eked out. Magazines and papers were being flicked through, space stared into, clocks glanced at.
'Anybody have a decent Friday night?' Thorne said. Nobody seemed awfully keen on answering one way or the other. Thorne laughed. 'Fuck me, what a bunch of party animals!' He turned to look at Stone. 'Come on, Andy, you're young and single…'
Stone looked up, but only for a second. 'Too knackered…'
Holland laughed. 'You big girl…'
'You won't be laughing once your missus sprogs,' Brigstocke said.
'Right.' Kitson walked across to the recently installed water cooler.
'You should be making the most of your Friday nights, Dave. Soon be a thing of the past…'
Holland grunted, turned his attention back to the sports page of the Daily Mirror. Thorne craned his head to look at the headline. The latest on a story that Spurs were about to sign some temperamental Italian midfielder.
'What about the rest of the weekend, then?' Thorne threw the question open to any of them. 'Any plans?'
The reaction – a lot of non-committal shrugging – was much the same as before. Thorne began to think that his own social life, such as it was, looked pretty bloody exciting by comparison. Mind you, it had picked up a lot lately…
'Sundays in the Brigstocke household are sacred and unchanging.'
The DCI picked up his briefcase, moved away in the direction of his office. 'Dog-walking, laundry, the
