Death Message

step towards Holland getting out of the Job altogether. He knew that his girlfriend was encouraging him to look at other options.

‘I think Sophie fancies going back to work,’ Holland said. He shrugged. ‘Nothing’s really been decided at the moment.’

Thorne couldn’t remember what it was that Sophie had done before she’d had Chloe. He didn’t bother to ask. ‘Be good if you didn’t go too far,’ he said.

Chloe brought the colouring book across to show her father. Thorne enjoyed the way Holland’s hand drifted to his daughter’s head, how the little girl’s arm slid easily around his neck as they looked at the picture together.

He felt envious.

‘Now I’m going to draw a shark,’ she said. ‘And me killing it.’ She scrawled for another few minutes, then dragged a small plastic chair across to the television and sat with the remote on her knees.

When Holland got up to fetch the keys to the BMW, he said: ‘What did Brooks sound like when you spoke to him?’

Thorne remembered the tiredness in the man’s voice, but knew that wasn’t what Holland was asking. ‘Like he didn’t care.’

‘About getting caught?’

‘About anything.’

‘That’s bad news.’

‘For someone,’ Thorne said.

Louise had still not got out of bed by the time Thorne got back, and they’d exchanged no more than a handful of words when she’d finally emerged just before eleven. Had the sofa been OK for his back? Fine. Did he fancy a cooked breakfast? That sounded great, if it wasn’t too much trouble. She’d taken tea back to the bedroom, come out dressed fifteen minutes later, and announced that she was going to the shop to get a few things.

‘I could have picked some stuff up when I went over to Dave’s,’ Thorne said, as she was heading out.

Louise closed the door. He didn’t know whether she’d heard him.

When Hendricks came out of the spare room a little later, he was wearing Thorne’s old dressing-gown and muttering about how good the bacon smelled. Thorne was relieved to see that he looked a little sheepish. Hendricks picked up one of the tabloid magazines, seeming content to hide behind it for a while, but instead he carried it through to the kitchen when Louise called him.

Thorne could hear them talking in whispers as he sat trying, and failing, to read the report of Spurs’ goalless draw at Manchester City. After ten minutes, he shouted through, asking Louise if she needed any help.

‘We’re fine,’ she said.

Bacon, sausage, eggs and beans; toast and fresh coffee. Sunlight washing the table and something innocuous on the radio in the kitchen. Thorne finished first and sat watching Louise and Hendricks eat; listened to them making small talk.

Try as he might, he couldn’t hold his tongue for very long. ‘Obviously, you both think you’ve got some right to be pissed off with me.’

They looked up as if they’d only just noticed he was there. ‘What do you think?’ Louise asked.

Thorne had lain awake most of the night, pondering how near he’d come to losing his closest friend. Had realised that he might have lost him anyway; that he might lose a good deal more. ‘I think we were lucky last night,’ he said. ‘I think we should be… thankful.’

‘I am,’ Louise said. ‘There’s a few other things I’m not so sure about.’ She met his stare, flicked her eyes to Hendricks and back again. ‘I’m guessing you’d rather talk about that later.’

Thorne shook his head, pushed his knife and fork closer together. ‘None of this is exactly straightforward, you know. This case.’

‘Never is with you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You can never take the easy road, can you? Everything has to be a fucking struggle. Like nothing’s worth doing unless it hurts. If you want to suffer, that’s fine, just don’t drag the rest of us down with you.’

Thorne pointed at Hendricks. ‘Christ, if it wasn’t for me…’

Hendricks looked at him, up for it. ‘What?’

‘If it wasn’t for you playing silly buggers, they might have caught this fucker by now,’ Louise said. ‘Last night would never have happened. How easy would that have been to live with?’ She stabbed at something in front of her, the fork squealing against the plate. ‘Would that have hurt enough for you?’

‘You think it was my fault?’ Hendricks asked.

‘I never said that,’ Thorne said.

‘You think I should have remembered?’

‘I was surprised, that’s all…’

‘It was a body I saw six years ago, OK? A PM I assisted on. Have you got any idea how many bodies I work on every week? If I ever did know the name, then I’d certainly forgotten it and I never knew the name of the bloke who was accused of killing him.’ Hendricks was getting worked up and Louise reached over to put a hand on his arm. ‘As it happens, when you’re elbows deep in somebody’s guts, it helps most of the time if you don’t think of them as a person, all right? If you forget that they’re called John or Anne or whatever. It makes it that much easier when you’re scrubbing them from under your nails afterwards and they’re wheeling the next one in…’

Thorne held up his hands. ‘Phil…’

‘Can you remember them all?’ Hendricks had tears in his eyes, and pushed at them, furious. ‘Every single body, and the name of every fucker responsible for them?’

Thorne thought about what Louise had said. Forgetting those things would have meant taking the easy road. He picked up his plate and carried it out to the kitchen.

Later, with Hendricks crashed out in front of the television, Thorne and Louise talked in the bedroom. There were no more histrionics. Louise’s tone was measured, reasonable. Thorne found it harder to deal with than the shouting.

‘You really think Phil’s got nothing to worry about?’

‘He’ll worry no matter what,’ Thorne said. ‘But Brooks told me he was moving on.’

‘Nice that you trust him so much.’

‘I never said that.’

‘OK, then. Let’s just say more than you trusted me.’ She smiled sarcastically at Thorne’s reaction; counted off on her fingers. ‘You thought it was for the best, you didn’t want to get me involved and you were trying to protect me. I thought I’d get those out of the way early, save you the trouble.’

‘All those things are true.’

‘Course they are.’

‘It’s not like I actually lied.’

Louise slapped the edge of the bed in mock frustration. ‘Fuck, I knew there was one I’d forgotten.’

Thorne felt cornered, because he was. He knew he had nowhere to hide. ‘I wanted to go to Brigstocke yesterday,’ he said. ‘You talked me out of it.’

‘When I saved your job, you mean? Yeah, that was very selfish of me.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Say whatever you like.’

‘“Sorry”? “Thank you”? What?’

Louise turned away and sat on the edge of the bed. She took a jar of hand-cream from the bedside table, began to rub it in. Thorne leaned back against the wall. He could hear the television from next door; classical music from the flat upstairs. He thought about how much he’d been looking forward to a day off.

‘Brooks say who he’d be moving on to?’

Thorne seized on the question greedily. Oh fuck, yes, he thought, let’s talk like coppers. ‘Whoever helped Paul