‘Nobody else, as far as I know.’
Thorne leaned down and turned off the radio. ‘This was why we agreed we wouldn’t say anything. In case this happened.’
‘Shit,’ Hendricks said. ‘Tell me.’
When Thorne had finished, Hendricks began telling him that these things usually happened for good reasons, that it was better now than later on. Thorne stopped him. Told him he’d heard it all already from the woman who’d done the scan and that it hadn’t helped too much then, either.
Thorne saw Hendricks’ face and apologised. ‘I just didn’t know what to say to her, you know?’
‘Nothing much you can say.’
‘Need to give it time, I suppose,’ Thorne said.
‘Tell her to call me whenever she likes,’ Hendricks said. ‘You know, if she wants to talk about it.’
Thorne nodded. ‘She will.’
‘You, too.’ He waited until Thorne looked over. ‘All right?’
They sat in silence for a minute. There was still plenty of activity at the front of the house – vehicles coming and going every few minutes. Half a dozen spectators were crowded on the opposite side of the road, despite the best efforts of the uniforms to keep them away.
Thorne let out an empty laugh and smacked his hand against the steering wheel. ‘I told Lou I was going to get rid of this,’ he said.
‘Your precious Beemer?’ Hendricks said. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a major concession.’
Thorne’s 1971, ‘Pulsar’-yellow BMW had been a cause of much amusement to many of his colleagues for a long time. Thorne called it ‘vintage’. Dave Holland said that was just a euphemism for ‘knackered old rust-bucket’.
‘Promised I’d get something a bit more practical,’ Thorne said. He tugged at the collar of his jacket. ‘A family car, you know?’
Hendricks smiled. ‘You should still get rid of it,’ he said.
‘We’ll see.’
Hendricks pointed to the front door, to the metal trolley that was emerging through it, being lifted down the step. ‘Here we go…’
They got out of the car and walked slowly across to the rear of the mortuary van. Hendricks talked quietly to one of the mortuary assistants, ran through arrangements for the following morning. Thorne watched as the trolley was raised on its concertina legs and the black body-bag was eased slowly into the vehicle.
Emily Walker.
Thorne glanced towards the onlookers: a teenager in a baseball cap shuffling his feet; an old woman, open- mouthed.
Not viable.
THREE
Louise called from a payphone in the Whittington at a little after 8 a.m., just as Thorne was on his way out of the door. He felt slightly guilty at having slept so well, and did not need to ask how her night had been.
She sounded more angry than upset. ‘They haven’t done it yet.’
‘What?’ Thorne dropped his bag then marched back into the sitting room, like he was searching for something to kick.
‘There was some cock-up the first time it was scheduled, then they thought it would be late last night, so they told me there was no point in me going home.’
‘So when?’
‘Any time now.’ There was some shouting near by. She lowered her voice. ‘I just want it done.’
‘I know,’ Thorne said.
‘I’m bloody starving, apart from anything else.’
‘Well, I can tell you where I’m off to this morning, if you like,’ Thorne said. ‘That should kill your appetite for a while.’
‘Sorry, I meant to ask,’ Louise said. ‘Was it a bad one?’
Thorne told her all about Emily Walker. As a detective inspector with the Kidnap Investigation Unit, Louise Porter was pretty much unshockable. Sometimes, she and Thorne talked about violent death and the threat of it as easily as other couples talked about bad days at the office. But there were some aspects of the Job that neither wanted to bring home, and while there was often black comedy to be shared in the grisliest of stories, they tended to spare each other the truly grim details.
Thorne did not hold back on this occasion.
When he had finished, Louise said, ‘I know what you’re doing, and there’s really no need.’
‘No need for what?’ Thorne asked.
‘To remind me there’s people worse off than I am.’
Two hours later, as unobtrusively as possible, Thorne reached into his pocket, took out his phone, and checked to make sure that it was switched to SILENT.
‘I think we’re ready.’
There were times when you really didn’t want a mobile going off.
The mortuary assistant drew back the sheet and invited Emily Walker’s husband to step forward.
‘Are you able to identify the body as that of your wife, Emily Anne Walker?’
The man nodded once and turned away.
‘Can you say it, please?’
‘Yes. That’s my wife.’
‘Thank you.’
The man was already at the door of the viewing suite, waiting to be let out. It was customary, after the formal identification, to invite the next of kin – should they so wish – to stay with their loved one for a while, but Thorne could see that there was little point on this occasion. Suffocation could do as much damage to a face as a blunt instrument. He couldn’t blame George Walker for preferring to remember his wife as she had been when she was alive. Presuming, of course, that he wasn’t the one responsible for her death.
Thorne watched Walker being led down the corridor by two uniformed officers – a man and a woman. He saw the slump of the man’s shoulders, the arm of the female officer sliding around them, and remembered something Holland had said the day before: ‘I’ve got no bloody idea what’s happening inside their heads…’
As if on cue, Dave Holland came strolling around the corner, looking surprisingly perky for someone about to attend a post-mortem. He joined Thorne just as Walker was turning on to the staircase and heading slowly up towards the street.
‘I know you said you wanted him in later for a chat,’ Holland said. ‘But I reckon we can leave it a while.’
‘Oh, you do?’
‘He’s still all over the shop, and we should really let him have a bit of time with his family.’
It was at such moments that Thorne wished he had to ability to raise one eyebrow, like Roger Moore. He had to settle for sarcasm. ‘I’m listening, Sergeant.’
Holland smiled. ‘We got a result with the curtain-twitchers.’
‘Let’s have it.’
‘Old bloke across the road claims he saw someone coming out of there an hour or so before Emily’s husband got home.’
‘And he’s sure it wasn’t Emily’s husband.’
‘Positive. He knows George Walker by sight. The bloke he saw had a much narrower build, he says. Different colour hair, too.’
‘You got him knocking us up an E-fit?’
Holland nodded. ‘Gets the husband off the hook, you ask me.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Thorne said. ‘But it’s a fair point. We’ll have him in tomorrow.’
