‘They’re nothing like each other physically,’ he said. Brigstocke turned and the two detectives stood in the semi-dark, staring at the screen. ‘So, if we’re looking for a connection, it’s not like he’s got a type.’
‘If it’s the same killer,’ Brigstocke said.
‘You think it might not be?’
‘I’m just saying we don’t know for sure.’
‘Come on, Russell, look at them…’
Brigstocke gave it a few more moments, then turned away, walked across the room and switched the lights back on. ‘The forensics report came in,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had a chance to go through it properly, but they’re confirming that the celluloid fragment is a piece cut out from an X-ray.’ He continued before Thorne could ask the obvious question. ‘No, they don’t know what it is either, but there are some very decent prints on it and they’re not Emily’s. We’ve got DNA, too. Some hairs on her sweater. Might not be the killer’s, of course, but we’ve eliminated the husband, so if our sample matches the one from Catherine Burke…’
‘They’ll match,’ Thorne said.
‘Sounds like you’re counting on it.’
‘He’s got plans, this bloke,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s probably the only way we’re going to catch him.’
‘As long as we do.’
Thorne leaned back against the wall and stared at the dozens of empty chairs. Already the men and women who had just left them would be settling down at computers and picking up phones; doing everything that could reasonably be done. But Thorne was beginning to sense that real progress was going to depend on the man they were after giving them something more to work with.
‘I might be wrong,’ Thorne said. ‘It might be piss-easy. One look at the stuff these Leicester boys have got and everything could get sorted.’
‘Christ, I hope so,’ Brigstocke said.
Thorne hoped so too, but he could not shake the feeling that this was one of those cases where a break would mean another body.
SIX
Thorne picked up a takeaway from the Bengal Lancer on his way home. He hadn’t bothered phoning ahead with the order, had looked forward to the cold bottle of Kingfisher, the complimentary poppadoms and the chat with the manager while he was waiting.
Louise was slumped in front of some celebrity ice-skating programme when he got back. She seemed happy enough, a fair way into a bottle of red wine.
‘Every cloud,’ she said. She raised her glass as though she were toasting something. ‘Nice to have a drink again.’
Thorne went through to the kitchen, began dishing up the food. He shouted through to the living room, ‘You should,’ then pushed the empty cartons down into the bin.
When he turned round, Louise was standing in the doorway. ‘Should what?’
‘Should… have a drink… if you want. Relax a bit.’
‘Get pissed, you mean?’
Thorne licked sauce off his fingers, stared at her. ‘I didn’t mean anything, Lou…’
She walked back into the living room and, after a moment, he followed her with the plates. They sat on the floor with their backs against the sofa, eating off their laps. Thorne poured himself what was left of the wine; a little over half a glass.
‘Whoever killed the woman in Finchley,’ he said. ‘Looks like he’s done it before.’
Louise chewed for a few more seconds. ‘That Garvey thing you told me about?’
‘Well, that girl, yeah. She’s not his first.’
‘Shit…’
‘Right, all I need.’
She shrugged, swallowed. ‘Might be exactly what you need.’
The food was as good as always: rogan josh and a creamy mutter paneer; mushroom bhaji, pilau rice and a peshwari nan to share. Louise ate quickly, helping herself to the lion’s share of the bread. Almost done, she moved her fork slowly through the last few grains of yellow rice. ‘Sounds like you’re going to be busy.’
Thorne glanced across, searching in vain for something in her face that might give him a clue as to how she felt about it. He hedged his bets. ‘It’s a hell of a big team, so we’ll have to see.’
‘OK…’
‘Listen, shall I open some more wine?’
‘I really don’t mind.’
Thorne looked again and saw nothing to contradict what she’d said. He carried the plates back to the kitchen and fetched another bottle. They settled down on the sofa and watched TV in silence for a few minutes, Louise laughing more readily than Thorne when a former glamour model went sprawling on the ice. Once the show had finished, Thorne flicked through the channels, finally settling on a repeat of The Wild Geese, a film he had always loved. They watched Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris charging about in the African bush, the three just about believable as ageing mercenaries.
‘I talked to Phil,’ Thorne said. ‘I meant to say.’
‘Did you tell him what happened?’
‘I didn’t have to.’ Thorne waited to see if she would pick up on it, say something about having confided in Hendricks about the pregnancy. ‘He said you should call him, you know, if you want to talk.’
‘I spoke to him last night,’ she said.
‘Oh, right.’
‘He was really sweet.’
On the television, Harris was begging Burton to shoot him before he was hacked to death by the enemy, but the shouting and gunfire were little more than background noise.
‘Why did you tell him you were pregnant?’ Thorne asked. ‘I thought we’d agreed to keep it a secret.’
Louise stared into her glass. ‘I knew he’d be chuffed.’
‘We decided we wouldn’t, though, just in case this happened.’
‘Right, well, it has happened, OK? So arguing about whether I should or shouldn’t have told anyone is a bit pointless now, don’t you think?’ She shuffled along the sofa, a foot or so away from him, and lowered her voice. ‘Christ, it’s not like Phil’s going to run around announcing it.’
There were a few grains of rice and some crumbs on the carpet. Thorne inched away in the other direction and started picking them up, collecting them in his palm.
‘I honestly wouldn’t have minded if you’d told anyone,’ Louise said.
‘I did think about it.’
‘Who would you have told?’
Thorne smiled. ‘Probably Phil.’
They moved back to each other and Thorne asked if she’d mind if he turned off the TV and put a CD on. Normally she might have rolled her eyes and insisted that it was one of hers, or repeated a joke she’d heard from Holland or Hendricks about Thorne’s dubious taste in music. Tonight she was happy enough to nod and stretch out. Thorne put on a Gram Parsons anthology and returned to the sofa, lifted up Louise’s legs and slid in underneath. They listened to ‘Hearts on Fire’ and ‘Brass Buttons’, poured out what was left of the wine.
‘So, what did Phil say?’
‘Stuff you’d expect, really,’ Louise said. ‘How there’s usually a good reason for these things and how the body knows what it’s doing. Knows when there’s something wrong.’ She took a healthy slurp of wine and was struggling suddenly to keep a straight face.
‘What?’
‘He said it might well have been because the baby was going to look like you.’ She was laughing now. ‘That a miscarriage was the preferred option.’
