of it, it would not have struck him as important.
Why would they need to check out the name of a woman who didn't really exist? Jane Foley was the made-up name of a made-up person, wasn't it? Jane Foley was a fantasy… Thorne knew very well that if they.., he… anyone had checked, made one simple phone call after they'd found Remfry's letters, that Ian Welch might still be alive. As might Howard Anthony Southern… The traffic had begun to move again. Holland yanked the gearstick down, took the car up into second. 'I wouldn't mind, but there's never a decent bloody pile-up at the end of it…'
The body of the third victim had been discovered, in a hotel in Roehampton, at around the same time as the woman from the Crinkey Squad had walked into Thorne's office and dropped her very welcome bombshell. She had still been there when the call came through and Thorne had invited her along to the murder scene. It had seemed the very least he could do.
In that hotel room, with SOCO's and pathologists and an honest-to goodness body, Thorne had thought that, even standing in the background as she was, Carol Chamberlain had looked as happy as a kid in a sweet factory…
In the days that followed, the investigation had begun to move forward in two distinct directions. While the latest victim was being processed, and the change in the pattern of the killings was being looked at, Thorne and those closest to him had begun to work on a new front. They would be chasing the major new lead that Carol Chamberlain had given them.
Holland steered the car into an ordinary-looking road lined with drab sixties houses, and spindly trees which didn't help a great deal.
They'd managed to snaffle one of the few team vehicles with air conditioning and the street felt like a sauna as they stepped out of the car. They pulled on their jackets, grimacing. As they walked towards Peter Foley's house, Thorne thought about leads. Why on earth did they talk about 'chasing' them? He wondered if it was because, no matter how inanimate they were, or how quick you thought you might be, some had a nasty habit of getting away from you.
Dennis Foley's younger brother, the only surviving relative of either Dennis or Jane they had yet been able to trace, was not the most gracious of hosts.
Thorne and Holland sat perched on the edge of stained velour armchairs, sweating inside jackets they had not been encouraged to take off. Opposite them on a matching sofa, Peter Foley sprawled in baggy shorts and a loud Hawaiian shirt, open to the waist. He clutched a can of cold lager which, when he wasn't drinking from it, he rolled back and forth across his skinny chest.
'You were, what, eleven years younger than Dennis?' Holland said. Foley swallowed a mouthful of beer. 'Right, I was the mistake.'
'So when it happened you'd have still been a student?'
He shook his head. 'Nope. Least you could do is get your facts right. I was twenty-two in seventy-six. I'd left college the year before…' His accent was pure Essex, the voice high, and a little wheezy.
'And you were doing what?' Thorne asked.
'I was doing fuck all. Bumming around, being a punk. I did a bit of roadying for The Clash at one point…'
Thorne had been a punk as well, though he was six years younger than Foley, who was pushing fifty. The man sitting opposite him certainly didn't look like he listened to 'White Riot' much any more. He was skinny, though his arms were well muscled; worked on, Thorne guessed, to better display the Gothic tattoos. His graying hair was tied back in a ponytail and the wispy beard teased into a point. From the look of him, and the copies of Kerrang! tossed under the coffee table, Thorne figured that Peter Foley was something of an ageing heavy metal fan.
'What do you think happened to Jane?' Thorne said. Foley lifted himself up, pulled a pack of Marlboros from his shorts pocket and sank back down again. 'What? You mean when Den…?'
'Before that. With Franklin.'
'Fucker raped her, didn't he.' It wasn't a question. He lit his cigarette.
'He'd have gone down for it as well if it wasn't for you fucking lot…'
Holland bridled a little, opened his mouth, but Thorne cut across him. 'What do you mean, Mr. Foley?' Thorne knew exactly what Foley meant and he knew that he was right. The force, back then, was not exactly famed for the sensitivity with which it treated rape victims.
'You get the transcripts of that trial, mate. Have a look at some of the things they said about Jane in court. Made her sound like a total slag. Especially that copper, talking about what she was wearing..-.'
'It was handled badly,' Thorne said. 'Back then a lot of rapists got off, simple as that. I'm sure you're right about what happened to Jane, about Franklin.'
Foley took a drag, then a drink, and leaned back, nodding. He looked across at Thorne, like he was re- evaluating him. Thorne glanced at Holland. Time to move on. As far as the interview went, they hadn't worked out a system – who would ask what, who was going to take the lead – they never did. Holland did the writing. That was about as far as it went.
'Did you know that Alan Franklin was dead?' Holland said. 'He died in 1996.'
Now it was Thorne's turn to do the evaluating. He studied Foley's face, trying to read the reaction. All he saw, or thought he saw, was momentary shock, and then delight.
'Fucking good,' Foley said. 'I hope it was painful.'
'It was. He was murdered.'
'Even better.: Who do I send a thank-you letter to?'
Thorne stood up and began to wander about. Foley was getting altogether too comfortable. Thorne was not considering the man to be a suspect, not at the moment anyway, but he always preferred his interviewees on the back foot…
'Why do you think he did it, Peter?' Thorne said. 'Why did Dennis kill her?' Foley stared back at him, sucked his teeth. He emptied the last of the lager into his mouth and crushed the can in his hand.
Thorne repeated the question. 'Why did your brother kill his wife?'
'How should I know?'
'Did he believe what they said about Jane in court?'
'I don't…'
'He must have thought about it at least…'
'Den thought about a lot of things.'
'Did he think his wife wag a slag?'
'Course he fucking didn't…'
'Maybe they had problems in bed afterwards..'
Foley leaned forward suddenly, dropped the empty can at his feet.
'Listen, Jane went weird afterwards, all right? She had a breakdown. She stopped going out, stopped talking to anyone, stopped doing anything at all. She was mates with this girl I was seeing at the time, you know, we all used to go out together, but after the trial, no… after the rape, she just wasn't there any more. Den pretended like everything was fine, but he was bottling it all up. He always did. So, when Franklin walked out of that court like Nelson fucking Mandela, like he'd been the victim…'
Thorne watched as Foley leaned back, Jell back on the sofa and began to spin one of the half-dozen silver rings on the fingers of his left hand.
'Look, I don't know what Den thought, all right? He said some mad stuff at the time, but he was all over the place. They make you doubt things, don't they? That was their job in that court, to make the jury doubt, and they did a bloody good job. I mean, you're supposed to trust the police, aren't you, to believe them…?'
Foley looked up and across at Holland, then turned to look at Thorne. For the first time he looked his age. Thorne looked at the cracks across Peter Foley's face, saw hard drugs in his past and perhaps even in his present.
'Something snapped,' Foley said, quietly.
For no good reason that he could think of, Thorne took a step across the room and bent to pick up the beer can from the floor. He put it down on a dusty, chrome and glass shelving unit next to the TV, then turned back to Foley.
'What happened to the children?'
'Sorry…?'
'Mark and Sarah. Your nephew and niece. What happened to them afterwards?'
