Lazybones

said nothing. He watched as Hendricks potted the last couple of stripes before putting the black down without any difficulty. 'What about if we start putting money on it? That might focus your thoughts a bit more…'

'Let's leave it,' Thorne said. 'I'll finish this pint, and I'm off home…'

Hendricks took his Guinness from the top of the cigarette machine and walked across to join Thorne at the bar. 'I still don't really see it,' he said. 'How could they not know? How could they not know something…?'

Thorne shook his head, his glass at his lips. Among other things, they had been talking about Irene Noble and Sheila Franklin. About two women of more or less the same age, married to men who they loved dearly, and who, now that they were widows, they remembered with tenderness and affection. Two men whose memories lived on, fondly preserved as precious things. Two men beloved… One a rapist and the other a child molester.

Thorne swallowed. 'Maybe it's an age thing. You know, a different generation.'

'That's crap,' Hendricks said. 'What about my mum and dad?'

Thorne had met them once, they ran a guest house in Salford. 'My old man couldn't so much as fart without my mum knowing about it…'

Thorne nodded. It was g fair point. 'Same with mine…'

'She knew what he was thinking, never mind doing.'

Hendricks reached into the top pocket of his denim jacket, took a Silk Cut from a packet of ten. Thorne was irritated, in the way that only an ex-smoker could be. Irritated by the fact that his friend could smoke one or two, then put the pack away for a week or more, until he fancied another one as a bit of a treat. Smoke, and enjoy it, and not need another one. A packet of ten, for crying out loud…

'Are they going to be told?' Hendricks asked. 'Those women? Is someone going to break the bad news about their dead hubbies?'

'No point yet. If we get a result they'll find out soon enough…'

Hendricks nodded and lit his cigarette. The curls of blue smoke drifted across to where a man and a woman were now playing pool. It hung in the light above the table.

'Maybe we only think we know what was going on with our parents,'

Thorne said. 'Maybe we only know as much or as little as they did.'

'I suppose…

'There's an old country song called 'Behind Closed Doors''…

'Bloody hell, here we go…'

'It's true though, isn't it? So much family stuff is mythology. Shit that just gets handed down, and you never know for sure what really happened and what's made up. Nobody ever thinks to sit you down and pass it on. The truth of it. Before you know it, your history becomes hearsay.' Thorne took a drink. He knew that at some point, he should have talked to his father. Found out more about his parents, and their parents. He knew that there wasn't much point now…

'Fuck me,' Hendricks said. 'All that's in one song?'

'You are such an arsehole…'

They stepped away from the bar to make room for a group of lads, finished their drinks standing by the door.

'Where does all this leave you with Mark Foley?' Hendricks said.

'He's still our prime suspect.'

'Whoever he might be…'

'Right, and wherever. But he's not making my life very easy.'

'He'll slip up. We'll nail him when he does…'

'I'm not talking about catching him.' Thorne was finding it hard to think about his murderer without picturing him as a fifteen-year-old child. He saw a boy protecting his sister, spiriting her away from a place where one, or perhaps both, of them was being abused. 'I'm still trying to decide exactly what he is.' Thorne turned to look at Hendricks. 'This whole thing's all arse-about-face, d'you know that, Phil? Mark Foley or Noble or whoever the fuck he is now is a killer and he's a victim.'

Hendricks shrugged. 'So?'

'So, there's a part of him that part of me doesn't really want to catch…'

Thorne walked Hendricks back towards the tube. Hendricks asked Thorne about Eve, joked when he heard about their hot date on Saturday, and moaned about his own eventful but ultimately bleak love-life.

Thorne wasn't paying an awful lot of attention. He was tired, imagining himself floating gently down on to his hillside, the bracken waving a welcome as he drew nearer to it. Jane Foley was suddenly there beside him, drifting to earth, and though he could not see her face clearly, he imagined the pain etched across it, for herself and for her children.

Thorne knew that when he and Jane Foley hit the ground, their bodies would travel right through the bracken and beyond. He knew that the hillside would collapse beneath their weight and that they would sink down, deep through earth and water and the rotten wood of old coffins. Down through powdery bone and further, into the blackness where there was no sound and the soil was packed tight around them.

TWENTY-FOUR

The telephone voice was even more pronounced on Irene Noble's answering-machine message. Holland waited for the beep, then spoke.

'This is Detective Constable Holland from the Serious Crime Group Yesterday, when myself and DI Thorne interviewed you, we forgot to ask about photographs of the children. We'd appreciate it if you might be able to lend us some pictures, which we will of course return whenever we finish with them. So, if you could get back to me as soon as possible on any of those numbers on the card we left you, I'd be very grateful. Many thanks…'

Holland put down the phone and looked up. From behind his desk on the other side of the office, Andy Stone was staring across at him.

'Photos of the Foley children?' Stone said.

'The DCI's still keen on getting them on the computer, ageing them up.'

Stone shook his head. 'Waste of time. Never looks anything like the kids when they eventually turn up.'

'If she's got photos from just before the children ran away, they'll be fifteen and thirteen. They can't have changed too much.'

'You'd be amazed, mate. Have you never bumped into someone you haven't seen for a few years and not recognised them? That's after a few years…'

'Holland thought about it and admitted that he had. He also knew, from the twin murder case he'd worked on with Thorne the year before, that if people wanted to change the way they looked, it wasn't actually that hard. Still, he reckoned that if the technology was there, there was no harm in using it.

Stone remained unconvinced. 'It's a pretty basic software program which digitally ages the photographs. At the end of the day, it's all guesswork and a lot of assumptions. How can you know if someone's hair's going to fall out, or if they're going to put on loads of weight or whatever?'

'I've seen some that looked pretty close,' Holland said. Stone shrugged, went back to what he was doing. 'Do we know she's got any photos at all?' he said, without 10)king up.

'Not for certain, no. Be a bit strange if she didn't, though. She was very fond of them…'

'You going to get somebody to go and pick them up?' Stone asked.

'Or shoot over there yourself?.'

'Hadn't really thought about it. I'll see what she says when she gets back to me, see when's a good time. You want to come along?'

'No…'

'She's single, but probably a bit old, even for you…'

'I'll give that one a miss, I think.'

'Suit yourself.' Holland noted down the time he'd made the call. Wednesday the 7th, 10.40 a.m. He'd give Irene Noble until the end of the day and call again. When Stone next started to speak, Holland looked across. Stone was leaning back in his chair, staring into space through narrowed eyes.