Buried

an inch or more of ash dropped on to the rug. She didn’t bend to brush it up.

‘Well, some heads are obviously still up arses,’ Mullen said. He was smiling but angry. ‘A long way up.’

‘Why didn’t you give us Freestone’s name when we asked you for the “grudge” list?’ Porter said.

‘God knows. I probably should have done, thinking about it. But I was hardly thinking straight, was I?’

‘What kind of threats did he make against you?’ Thorne walked across the rug and sat on the sofa.

‘The usual. He was “going to get me”. I was “going to be sorry”. Stuff you’ve heard a dozen times. I was certainly no more worried about him than I was about the others on that list.’

‘No?’

‘What about them? Cotterill and Quinn? Have you eliminated them?’

Thorne and Porter had not heard back from Holland and his partner, nor from Heeney and Stone. ‘Not as yet.’

‘There you are, then. So why are you wasting so much time and energy on a pointless prick like Freestone?’

‘Just trying to move forward,’ Thorne said.

‘Jesus…’

Porter opened her mouth to speak.

‘Do you think this man kidnapped Luke?’ The question came from Maggie Mullen.

All heads turned towards her.

‘No, of course he doesn’t.’ Mullen stood and moved behind the sofa, looked hard at Thorne. ‘Not unless he’s one chromosome short of a special parking permit.’

Porter cleared her throat, but again failed to follow it up with anything. Thorne could feel Mullen’s fingers digging into the back of the sofa behind him.

Mrs Mullen leaned down to stub out her cigarette, then looked up, smiling. ‘Let’s have some coffee,’ she said. ‘Who wants one?’

‘I already offered,’ Mullen snapped.

‘Well, what about a glass of wine, then? Have you finished that bottle you opened when we had dinner?’

The colour was rising in Mullen’s face. ‘For God’s sake, don’t be so stupid. I put it back in the-’

‘Don’t talk to me like that.’ Her voice was jagged, but her expression, and the finger she pointed, were fixed and severe. ‘Like I’m a piece of shit.’

A few moments later, when Maggie Mullen flipped open the top of the cigarette packet again, Thorne dragged his eyes away and tried to find Porter’s, but she was concentrating hard on those dragons and bridges.

More like embarrassment…

ELEVEN

The privileged few taking advantage of the Friday night lock-in at the Royal Oak were much the same as any other gathering of social, semi-serious or hardcore drinkers, save for there being one or two more women, fewer black and Asian faces, and the fact that the vast majority were carrying warrant cards.The Oak was an unofficial social club for anyone working at Colindale Station, or up the road at the Peel Centre, and though not a particularly attractive or friendly boozer, it had the advantage of being close, which was deemed more important than smiles or quiz nights. It also happened to be among those pubs less likely than some to be raided for after-hours drinking.

Thorne and Porter stared briefly into their own bit of space over pints of Guinness and lager-top. Letting the beer work at some of the rougher edges. Giving the tiredness elbow room.

‘You reckon Mullen drinks that much normally?’ Porter asked.

Thorne shook his head and swallowed. ‘No idea. Same with her and the fags. Can’t blame either of them for needing a bit of help, though, considering.’

By the time they had got back to Becke House from the Mullens’ place, written up the work, been taken through a debrief and discussed the following day, it was after midnight. It was shaping up into an eighteen- or nineteen- hour tour, door to door, and though most of the team would be on again before the sun was up, the majority had decided that unwinding over a beer or two was worth an hour’s sleep.

For Thorne, it hadn’t been a tricky decision.

‘Yeah, I suppose it’s fair enough,’ Porter said. ‘If it was one of my kids, I’d be shooting up smack by now.’

‘How many have you got?’

Porter shook her head. ‘Oh, I haven’t. I was just saying…’

Holland stopped on his way to the bar, already a little ahead of them. They turned down his offer of a drink, happy to take things a bit slower, and to avoid getting involved in big rounds. Holland was sitting at an adjacent table, trading sick jokes with Sam Karim and Andy Stone. Heeney, Parsons, and some others sat a few feet away, on the other side of the fruit machine. Despite the operational insistence on cooperation, the Kidnap and Murder teams were keeping themselves to themselves now that they were off the clock.

‘We should try and give the Mullens a wide berth tomorrow,’ Thorne suggested. ‘Once he sees the paper, he’ll go fucking ballistic.’

‘I’m happy to stay well clear of that.’ Porter took a drink. ‘Kenny Parsons will be back there first thing, so we’ll get the highlights from him later.’

‘Mullen will be straight on the phone to Jesmond, or somebody else he used to play golf with and then your bloke’s going to get it in the neck.’

‘Hignett’s got some support on this.’

‘Fine. Let the brass fight it out. We’ll make ourselves scarce.’

Despite what Thorne had told Tony and Maggie Mullen a few hours before, the possibility that Luke Mullen was not being held against his will but had gone into hiding after killing his kidnappers was yet to be fully disregarded. Owing to the somewhat unusual turn that the case had taken, a decision had been taken partially to lift the press embargo and run a story the following day about Luke’s disappearance.

It would not be front page.

It would not be scary stuff about children vanishing.

It would be a small story, about a teenage boy who’d gone missing after school, with a photo and an appeal to anyone with information as to his whereabouts to come forward. With an appeal to the boy himself, should he be reading the story, to do the same.

‘You can’t really blame Hignett.’

‘Can I still think he’s an arsehole?’

‘He’s just covering his bases,’ Porter said. ‘It’s a straightforward appeal for witnesses; plus there’s a message for the kid if he’s just hiding out somewhere, afraid to come home. Until we get evidence confirming that someone’s taken him, Hignett’s shit scared about ignoring the other possibility. It could seriously bite him in the bollocks if it turns out to be what happened.’

‘It isn’t what happened.’

‘We can afford to be that sure. The DCI has to be more cautious, consider the unlikely scenarios as well. He’s safe that way.’

‘Safe, until the kidnapper sees tomorrow’s paper and sends us a few of Luke Mullen’s fingers wrapped up in it.’

Porter stared at him, her open mouth eventually creasing into a grin as she snorted in comic derision. Thorne was unable to maintain the over-earnest expression and laughed along with her. They drank, worked their way through four packets of crisps between them, and Thorne realised that Porter was probably right. As far as the newspaper coverage went, what Hignett was doing made political sense; and besides, apart from backing out of one dead end after another, there wasn’t a fat lot else they could do.

Harry Cotterill had been on his way back from a booze cruise, his Transit stuffed with cheap Belgian lager, when Conrad Allen and Amanda Tickell were being carved up. No one had yet managed to track down Philip Quinn, but his girlfriend swore blind he was somewhere in Newcastle. She’d been pissed off enough with him to tell the