replaced by a more optimistic orange, and there was even the odd pair of floral curtains, but it was still a hospital. He had spent the previous night failing to sleep through a cacophony of rattling trolleys, humming floor polishers and anonymous screeching. He would have felt only slightly less miserable in a private room with cable television, intravenous red wine and dancing girls.
Anne reached across towards his head. 'Can I?' Thorne lowered his head and she gently traced a finger along the stitches. 'They'd be happier if you stayed another night. I know you don't like hospitals but concussion is unpredictable.., and when you've been shot full of Midazolam on top of it…'
'He wasn't very gentle about that either. I've got a bruise the size of a cricket ball on my arse. He could have tried the champagne – I might have gone for it, state I was in.
'Perhaps you're not his type.' The filthy laugh… Thorne finished tying his laces and stared straight ahead. 'Oh, he'll find out exactly what type I am.'
Anne looked away briefly at nothing in particular. She was starting to get a pretty good idea herself. 'He gave you a big dose, Tom. It can't have been.., pleasant.'
'It wasn't.'
'It might sound strange but that's exactly why we use it. Midazolam fries your short-term memory and detaches you from reality. You go into a dream state. We can stitch up a ten-year-old while they stare at a blank wall and look at the lovely pictures.'
'Mine weren't particularly lovely.' He turned to look at her and tried his best to smile. 'How's Jeremy?'
She tried to look stern, but couldn't manage it. 'He's fine. He seemed rather concerned when I told him what had happened, considering that you two didn't really seem to hit it off.'
'He got home all right, then?'
She stared at him. He knew he was pushing it. He was being stupid and she was anything but. 'I mean, if he was half as pissed as I was, he might have had trouble.' The chuckle was forced and he knew she could see it. There was only one other way to go. He reached across and took her hand. 'I don't suppose we did hit it off, but the two of you were involved at one time.'
'It was twenty-five years ago.'
'Still, I'm hardly likely to invite him down the pub', am I?'
She squeezed his hand and smiled. They said nothing.
Not telling the truth wasn't the same as lying and he would be jealous of Bishop if he didn't feel something a whole lot stronger. Better that she thought it was jealousy. Much better.
Thorne blinked slowly and held his breath. The smell.., and creaking mattresses, and squeaky shoes, and the uncomfortable smile on the faces of people at bedsides. Was it the same smile he'd given his mother all those times he'd sat by her bed and squeezed her hand and looked into her milky blue eyes and tried to figure out where the fuck she'd gone?
'Tom…'
The curtains moved again and Dave Holland appeared. Thorne let go of Anne's hand. 'My taxi's here…'
Anne stood up and moved towards the curtain. Before she turned, Thorne saw her smile at Holland and put her hand on his arm. What the hell was that about? Look after the poor old bugger?
'Give me a ring, Tom.'
She left and Thorne stared hard at Holland. He looked for the smirk but didn't see it. He couldn't see a notebook either. His vision obviously wasn't back to normal yet. As they walked towards the car Thorne could feel the chill in the air. August had finally thrown in the towel and now there would be bad weather coming. He preferred it that way if he was honest. He was happier in an overcoat. A security blanket that covered a multitude of sins. The warm night when he'd stepped out of that taxi, pissed and singing, seemed a long way away. If it hadn't been for the wine he'd guzzled while he and Anne had flirted and talked about Jimi Hendrix and failed marriages, he knew that the whole, hideous thing would be over by now. He might even have been what's laughably called a hero. If he hadn't beer pissed he might have seen it coming. He might have turned round a second earlier and he'd have had him. He might, a the very least, have avoided the blow. But the man in the balaclava with the iron bar and the needle had had a distinct advantage, of course.
He'd known Thorne was pissed, hadn't he?
Holland held the car door open but Thorne didn't resent it. They pulled out on to Highgate Hill.
'Have you got any food in? I had a quick look and couldn't see much.'
'Are you inviting yourself round for a meal, Holland?'
'Do you want to stop somewhere? There's a Budgens on the way, isn't there?'
'You can get me a sandwich when we get to the office.'
'Sir?'
Holland looked across at Thorne whose head lay against the car window, his eyes half shut. He'd been wrong about the Weeble. He looked distinctly wobbly.
'There's not much happening at the moment, to be honest. The DCI said it would be best…
'Office.'
Holland put his foot down.
He'd stood at a bus stop and watched as Thorne and the young DC had climbed into the car and driven away. Thorne had been in hospital less than thirty-six hours. He was impressed.
So, now what?
Things would pick up a bit, wouldn't they? Thorne would be on the warpath for sure. They'd all have taken it personally, he knew that. That was the copper's way. Once you involve one of their own, watch out! Like a piss- poor bunch of Masonic East-Enders. Thorne wasn't one of their own, though, was he? He'd hate that idea. He was getting to know the man, little by little, but he knew that for sure. He just needed to get him riled up a little, that was all.
The bus came, and he stood back and watched as people with no place to go hopped on and off, all of them pale and in pain. He turned away in disgust and started to walk down towards the underground station at Archway.
They'd probably see what he'd done to Thorne as a warning. Let them. Thorne would know it was something.., other than that. He'd know a challenge when he saw one. When he felt one. He'd been personally involved since the first time he'd laid those big brown eyes on Alison. The sentimental idiot had felt sorry for her, hadn't he? He couldn't see beyond the machines. He couldn't smell the freedom. And he really cared about the dead ones. Oh, he really minded about those.
All in all it had worked out quite well and the business with Anne was a lovely bonus.
He stopped to look through the window of a bathroom shop. Mock antique mixer taps and other such shit. Baths with seats in and handles for the old and infirm. Stupid.
He thought about Thorne's tiny flat. There was the home of a lonely man for sure. No, not a home. Neat and tidy, though, he'd give him that – apart from the empty wine bottles. He knew he'd have the edge on him that night on the doorstep. If Thorne had been sober he wouldn't have fancied his chances.
It was starting to get cold. He pulled down his hat and moved towards the entrance to the tube. Now he wanted some progress. He'd shaken things up for sure and they had to have come up with something. And let the profilers or whatever those over-qualified ponces called themselves, talk about a 'cry for help' or a 'desire to be stopped', if that's what paid their mortgages. Not that Thorne would have any time for psychobabble, he was pretty sure of that. And now that he knew what it felt like, now he knew how those women had felt before he'd laid hands on them, he'd be committed.
He'd known kids like Thorne at school. They just needed to be provoked and there'd be no containing them. Mad kids who would throw a desk out of the window or kill squirrels in the playground if you pushed them a bit if you punched the right buttons. Thorne was no different. And now he'd kicked him in the shins. He'd rabbit punched him. Now Thorne wouldn't stop.
A tall skinny woman with a pushchair beat him to the ticket machine. He stared at the back of her slender neck as she fumbled for change in her cheap plastic purse and stared at the station names as if they were printed in Chinese. Single mother, probably. The poor cow wrung out and desperate for a little comfort. Forty fags a day and a couple of Valium to numb the pain and get her through the afternoons.
He thought about any woman he saw now. He considered them all. He could see what each of them needed. Every one was.., feasible.
