‘OK. For how long were the pair of you sneaking into the stationery cupboard for a quick one?’
Sandra smiled, reddening a little. ‘There was a hotel room once in a while. The odd weekend away.’
Chamberlain waited.
‘Six months or so, I suppose, on and off. Until he met my younger sister.’ She smiled again, cold this time, then took a drink. ‘ Frances.’
‘He started seeing your sister?’
Another shrug. ‘She was prettier than me.’
‘Malcolm Reece said something about a baby.’
If Sandra heard what Chamberlain had said, she chose to ignore it. ‘They kept their affair even quieter than me and Ray did,’ she said. ‘I only found out by accident and, to be honest, I didn’t really want to know too much about it. I was jealous, I suppose, and pissed off with my sister. We didn’t talk to each other for quite a while.’
Chamberlain said she could understand.
‘I even gave Malcolm Reece a bunk-up once or twice, stupid cow that I was. Trying to get my own back at Ray, I suppose.’
‘So, what about this baby?’
‘Not mine,’ Sandra said.
‘Your sister’s?’
Sandra took her time, then nodded. ‘A little boy. Frances and Ray had already broken up for a while by that time. I think Ray’s wife was starting to cotton on.’
Chamberlain grunted agreement. She remembered Jenny Duggan telling her she’d always known about Garvey’s other women.
‘Took her long enough, mind you.’ Sandra drained her glass. ‘You OK?’
Chamberlain stared at Sandra Phipps, suddenly stunned by the echo of a coin dropping hard. ‘ Frances?’
Sandra nodded again, and seemed to be wondering what had taken Chamberlain quite so long. ‘Frances Walsh. The stupid thing is, we never really made up properly.’
Chamberlain blinked, pictured the pages of notes she’d been studying on the train: a list of Anthony Garvey’s victims and a list of the women, long since murdered, who had given birth to them. ‘Frances Walsh was Ray Garvey’s third victim,’ she said.
Sandra shook her head. ‘First victim. They found her third, but she was the first to be killed.’ She leaned forward and picked up the wine bottle. ‘You sure you don’t want one of these?’
Chamberlain shook her head.
Sandra said, ‘Suit yourself,’ and began to top up her glass.
Hendricks breathed heavily for a few seconds then spoke, nice and slowly, in the huskiest voice he could muster. ‘What are you wearing?’
‘You must be really bored.’
‘Bloody hell, how much more miserable could you sound?’
‘Give me another hour or so,’ Thorne said.
When the lack of progress on a case cast heavy shadows across every brick, rippled black in each pane of its dirty glass, Becke House could quickly turn a good mood bad and a bad mood ugly. Thorne had been more than halfway there, sitting in his office and trying in vain to recapture a little of the morning’s optimism, when Hendricks had called.
‘Fancy a beer or six later?’
‘Tricky,’ Hendricks said. ‘I’m in Gothenburg.’
‘Right. Shit.’ Thorne had completely forgotten about his friend’s seminar. Analysis of something or other.
‘You had your chance, mate.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Well, I’d been hoping for wall-to-wall Vikings and bars full of men who look like Freddie Ljungberg.’
‘I was talking about the seminar.’
‘Equally disappointing.’
‘So, these men…’
‘More like Freddie Krueger.’
Thorne laughed, remembering the last time he had done so, and thought about describing his conversation with Louise that morning, perhaps even telling Hendricks about the one he’d had with Carol Chamberlain the night before.
He never got the chance.
‘I’m guessing there’s no joy on Garvey, then?’
‘Well, he hasn’t killed anyone else, not as far as we know, anyway, so it’s not like things are any worse.’
‘I was thinking about the one in the canal.’
‘Walsh?’
‘Right. Remember you asked me why I thought he’d attacked him from the front? Why it was so much more brutal?’
‘You said something about him getting cocky or angry.’ Thorne tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder, began sorting through the mass of unread paper on his desk. ‘Being in a hurry, maybe.’
‘Maybe.’
Thorne heard something in the silence. ‘What?’
‘What if he wasn’t in a hurry?’ Hendricks asked. ‘What if he deliberately took the trouble to make the victim unrecognisable? There’s still been no formal ID, has there?’
‘No, but-’
‘Can we get a DNA sample from that aunt, do you think? Make sure.’
‘We know who he is, Phil. The stuff in his pocket?’
‘Who the hell carries an old driving licence around? An old letter?’
‘Maybe someone who’s off his face on God knows what and is trying to hang on to who he was.’ Thorne balled up a sheaf of papers he no longer needed, tossed it at the waste-paper bin. Missed. ‘Walsh was virtually living on the street, as far as we can tell.’
‘I was thinking about that, too,’ Hendricks said. ‘The drugs that showed up in the body weren’t what I’d expected.’
Thorne told Hendricks to hang on while he found the relevant file on his computer and called up the toxicology report. He opened the document, said, ‘OK.’
‘I mean, where does the average dosser get hold of antidepressants?’
Thorne looked through the report. Alcohol had been found – beer and whisky – and a partially digested final meal, chips and a pie of some description. He scrolled down and studied the list of drugs, traces of which had been found in Simon Walsh’s body. Diazepam, Prozac, Wellbutrin. ‘You can get hold of anything,’ Thorne said.
‘Isn’t it normally smack and Special Brew?’
‘There comes a time when you’ll take whatever you can get your hands on, mate.’ Thorne remembered the boy called Spike, his eyes glazing over and starting to close even before the needle had slipped from his vein and clattered to the pavement. ‘I remember one bloke who got off shooting up cider.’
There was a pause, then Hendricks said, ‘Sorry. Spending too much time sitting in hotel rooms thinking.’
‘Just thinking?’
‘Well, I have to admit you get a better class of porn on the in-room movie system.’
Thorne laughed again and glanced up to see Sam Karim standing in the doorway. Karim asked if Thorne was speaking to Hendricks, then if he could have a quick word.
‘Hang on, Sam wants you…’
Thorne handed over the receiver and rose from his desk. He thought about Simon Walsh’s face, what had been left of it. Listened as Karim asked Hendricks if he’d seen a moose yet, and if he would mind bringing him back some duty-free cigarettes.
Fowler was drunk.
He struggled to focus, swiping wildly at the ash that dropped from his cigarette on to the table, as he told
