'Are you all right, love?'
In the bathroom, Chamberlain raised her head as she heard footsteps on the stairs. They stopped, and she heard Jack call out her name. There'd been a few days, a couple of weeks earlier, when she'd begun to feel like a copper again; when she went in with Thorne to see Gordon Rooker; when the two of them had confronted Billy Ryan outside his arcade. Then, once they'd begun to deal with Rooker, she'd been eased gently aside, and it had felt as bad as when she'd handed in her warrant card seven years before. It was only to be expected, of course. Friday night round at the flat in Kentish Town Thorne showing her the CCTV footage had been a favour and nothing else. She knew that there weren't likely to be any more.
She dropped slowly to her knees and reached into the cupboard under the sink for the cleanser and a cloth.
If anybody else was going to sort things out for Jessica Clarke, she'd be happy for it to be Tom Thorne. But she didn't want anybody else to do it… The footsteps on the stairs started again, and grew closer. She held the dry cloth under the tap for a few seconds, told herself to start worrying about dead bookies and stop being so bloody ridiculous.
The knock came, softly, as she squeezed a thick line of pale yellow cleanser around the rim of the bath.
'Are you all right, love?'
14 March 1986
Taking over a year out of school is really starting to cause a few problems. Now that Ali and Manda and the rest have moved up, I'm stuck with people who are younger than me that I didn't really know before. I can talk to most of the girls in my own year about everything. About the ops and the grafts and all the rest of it. But I only see them in the playground at lunchtime, and some of them are already a bit distant because they're one year higher up the school and are acting like they're one year older or something.
The girls in my class are trying too hard. I think that's basically the problem. I know bloody well they've been spoken to about what to say and what not to say. I also happen to know that someone from the hospital came to the school to see the teachers the week before I came back, and some of them are better at appearing natural about it than others.
My new class teacher is pretty cool, though.
There are a couple of girls I think are OK in the new class, but a lot of the time I can't stand most of them. Maybe I'm being unfair because I know it's a bit awkward. I remember feeling a bit strange around a girl in junior school who had a harelip. I can remember trying not to ignore her, then gabbling when I spoke to her and going red. Actually, with some of the girls it's really hard to tell the difference between fear and shyness. There's a few, though, who are just going way over the top in trying to be my new best friend and a couple are just ignorant bitches.
Maybe things will settle down a bit in time.
Shit Moment of the Day
Hearing it go quiet when I took my shirt off before PE. Magic Moment of the Day.
Mum thinking she was being subtle when an advert for the Nightmare on Elm Street video came on, and she stood in front of the TV so I wouldn't see Freddy Krueger's face.
FOURTEEN
The elegant row of substantial Victorian houses would not have been out of place in Holland Park or Notting Hill, when, in point of fact, it was part of a conservation area in the middle of Finchley. The sunlight could easily have belonged to a warm August day, but the temperature was in single figures, and the first day of spring was still a fortnight away. The man on the green enjoying the afternoon with his dog might have been a pillar of the community. As it was, he was anything but.
Walking towards him, watching him smile as the Jack Russell ran and slid and jumped at his knees, Thorne doubted that Billy Ryan enjoyed as uncomplicated and loving a relationship with any other living creature.
'I'm surprised,' Thorne said. I'd've thought a Rottweiler or a Doberman. Maybe a pit-bull.'
Ryan didn't look overly concerned to see him. 'I've got nothing to prove. I don't have an undersized cock to compensate for. And I like small dogs.'
Thorne watched Ryan shake his head and wave to someone behind him. He turned to see his friend the receptionist climbing back into a Jeep parked at the other side of the green. Thorne gave the man a jaunty salute but got nothing very friendly back.
'Afternoon off, Mr. Ryan?'
'Perk of being the boss.' He smiled, adjusting the frames of his lightly tinted sunglasses. 'I reckon I've earned it.'
'Right.'
Ryan bent to take a slobber-covered ball from the dog, who growled and wrestled until it was torn from his mouth. Ryan faked throwing the ball in one direction, then threw it in the other. Once the dog had started chasing it, Ryan walked slowly after him. Thorne moved alongside him, nodding towards the car. 'Is he all you've got?'
'How d'you mean?'
'I'm sure he's tooled up and all that, but even so. Surely you must think you're a target now, Billy.'
Ryan was wearing a long black cashmere coat over a red wool scarf. He pulled the scarf a little tighter to his neck. 'Now?' he said.
'After Moloney.'
Ryan gave him a sideways look, but turned away again before Thorne could even begin to read anything into it. 'That was a shame,' he said.
'A shame how he died? A shame that he was killed? Or a shame that he was a copper?'
'Pick one.'
'You didn't send a wreath,' Thorne said. Moloney had been buried quietly the weekend before. His wife had refused the full Police Service funeral that had been offered.
Ryan shrugged, expressionless. 'Shitty way to go, I'll grant you. Not exactly a hero's death. But he did rather put himself in the firing line, wouldn't you say?'
'Who did the firing, do you reckon?'
'I'm not doing your job for you.'
The dog had returned with the ball. Ryan hurled it away again and carried on walking.
'Puts you in a tricky position though,' Thorne said. 'There's obviously a need to strike back, or at least be seen to strike back…'
'Strike back against who?'
'… when, actually, retaliation would be pretty bloody ironic.'
'Let's pretend you're not talking bollocks for a second.'
'Yes, let's.'
'Why would it be ironic?' The soft brogue had hardened suddenly. The end of the word bitten off and spat, as Ryan stopped and turned. Reflected in the lenses of Ryan's aviators, Thorne could see the expanse of green at his back, and the tiny figure of the dog racing towards them. Because it was you who had him killed, you murdering prick. 'Because he was a police officer, obviously,' Thorne said. This time, Ryan snatched the ball from the dog and stuffed it into his pocket. The terrier yapped a couple of times and then wandered off, its nose to the ground. He wasn't the only one on the scent of something.
'You didn't answer my question,' Thorne said.
'Which one?'
'About you being a target for the Zarif brothers.'
'The who brothers?
'You seem very relaxed, which is strange, considering you were bleating about protection the other day.'
'I've never bleated in my fucking life, and I was talking about my family.'
'My mistake.'
