every chance I might actually have stopped ageing! I'll be walking out of here a slim and sexy shadow of my former self. There's one very tasty male nurse. Probably gay, but fit as fuck. If Tim's not careful l might have to start looking elsewhere.
NINE
When he woke up he was still angry. The previous night's amateur dramatics had been hugely disappointing. And where the hell was Thorne? At least it confirmed what he'd suspected for a while – that the rigorous, high-priority investigation had got precisely nowhere. Perhaps they'd have the car by now, or a slightly better description, but it was still painfully slow. There wasn't even a sniff of the number plate. It was stolen, of course, but come on! It was nearly a fortnight since he'd given them Helen's body to play with and they were still begging for the help of the general public.
Useless wankers.
Thorne. Nowhere to be seen when he should have been grabbing his bit of televisual glory. He hadn't believed for a second that Thorne had still been recovering. No, there was something afoot among the jolly coppers for sure. This was unforeseen but easily dealt with. If all that his thuggish theatrics and beautifully arch little note had done was cause the boys in blue to have some sort of queeny tantrum, then he'd just have to find another way to chivvy them along, wouldn't he?
It was about time anyway. Maniacs were supposed to speed up as the frenzy took hold, weren't they? They'd expect nothing less. He'd considered livening things up a little. Perhaps a gay man or an old person next time. No… that would be bound to confuse them and he didn't want them confused. All things considered, he was ready for another bash. Keen as mustard to try, try, try again. He'd tried kicking Thorne in the shins. It was time to aim for the heart.
Thorne looked around the pub. Businessmen in shirtsleeves using a basket of scampi or a microwaved chili con carne as an excuse to sink a couple of pints at lunchtime. It was probably as good a place as any. Informants didn't like to meet too close to home and as it was, of all the people upstairs in the Lamb and Flag, Thorne looked the most likely villain. He was comfortable with that. He knew he looked.., useful. It hadn't done him any harm by and large, though he would've liked to be taller. A surly Australian barman emptied the ashtray Thorne wasn't using. 'Are you eating, mate? We need the table.'
Thorne opened his wallet. 'I'll have another mineral water.' He made sure his identification was visible. With a tut the barman wiped the table and went to fetch Thorne's drink.
The Perrier was the one thing slightly at odds with the image he knew he was presenting, but the booze was, as yet, strictly confined to Little IKEA. Besides, he could do with getting straight back to work afterwards. He didn't think rolling in bladdered on his first day would go down too well.
The meeting with Frank Keable the day before hadn't been as prickly as he'd expected. Keable had wanted him to stay on the investigation, but for none of the right reasons. He talked about the integrity of the case, whatever that was, and how he could ill afford to lose an officer with Thorne's outstanding record. As far as the notes and the attack on Thorne, which Keable assured him was being viewed as an attempted murder, were concerned, Keable was predictably vague. He was adamant that this facet of the case would be monitored closely, but Thorne could sense a real fear on Keable's part that, were he to leave, Keable himself might become the object of the killer's bizarre attention.
Thorne knew that this was never going to happen. The simple truth was that, if Thorne left, Keable was terrified of the press getting hold of it and understandably he did not relish explaining to the detective superintendent why one of his senior officers was jumping ship. Thorne had told him to put it down to a clash with Tughan. Or him. Anything he liked.
Keable asked him to reconsider. Thorne had looked into the bored brown eyes of the Exmoor stag and stood his ground.
By lunchtime he'd been transferred back to the Serious Crime Group (West) out of Hendon, effective from nine o'clock the following morning.
He hoped things were a little clearer than when he'd left.
The Met was in a serious state of flux. Not only was it now under the direct auspices of the GLA and Mayor Livingstone, it was also undergoing major operational restructuring. NHS red tape was impressive, but it didn't even come close.
The old area system had gone. Five areas of London (NW, NE, SW, SE and Central), each with its own Major Incident Team (AMIT), which had in turn replaced the Area Major Incident Pools (AMIP's) and all now superseded by three Serious Crime Groups (East, West, South) encompassing all existing OCU's as well as the old Organised Crime Department, the Fraud Squad and the Firearms Unit.
The result? Hundreds of officers without a clue what was happening. Or indeed, why. The official line was that the new SCG's were supposed to be more proactive. The Met would no longer sit back and wait for crime to happen.
It was a good theory.
But you couldn't anticipate the likes of Jeremy Bishop. As the DI on Team 3 out of Beck House in Hendon, Thorne had landed on his feet. He'd worked with DCI Russell Brigstocke for six months at Serious Crime and he knew that, barring-anything major going down, Brigstocke wouldn't kick up a fuss should Thorne be unavailable from time to time.
Like since nine o'clock that morning.
'Kodak!'
If Thorne looked useful, the man in his early forties nodding and strolling over to join him was positively indispensable. Six feet four and built like a barn, with bleached blond hair, a nose-ring and, today, a bright yellow puffa jacket. But it wasn't all good news. Dennis Bethell's voice could start a fight at a hundred yards. It was a spilt pint waiting to happen.
'Can I get you one, Mr. Thorne?'
Thorne always smiled the first time he heard the incongruous, high-pitched squeak. Whoever was responsible for these things had screwed up big-time or else had a great sense of humour. Somewhere there was an extremely irate cartoon mouse who sounded like Frank Bruno. He pointed to his water. 'No, I'm fine.'
Bethell nodded for about ten seconds.
Thorne emptied his glass as the barman finally brought over a new one and took the money. Bethell, if anything, was even bigger than the last time he'd seen him.
'Steroids give you cancer, you know, Kodak.'
'Bollocks,' squeaked Bethell. 'They make you infertile. Anyway, this all right for you, Mr. Thorne? I know it's a bit busy, but coming up West is handy for me. I do a lot of business round here.'
'Course you do, Kodak…'
As porno merchants went, Dennis Bethell was among the least unpleasant. For twenty years Thorne had monitored his career with interest. He was purveyor of everything from soft-focus glamour snaps for car magazines to the more brightly lit and clinical stuff for those publications a little harder to reach. In the eighties his top quality cumshot work had been much in demand, and his occasional foray into blackmail had caused the abrupt termination of at least one prominent political career. Dennis was old school. In an age where hard-core videos were a tenner and any mug punter with a PC could watch dwarfs doing it with donkeys at the drop of a hat, or the click of a mouse, he was still a firm believer in the power, the truth, of the single still photograph. Deep down, Thorne admired the filthy piece of pond life.
'This boozer used to be the Bucket of Blood you know.'
Thorne did know. Two hundred and fifty years earlier this had been a brawler's pub. Whores and cutthroats doing business and slicing each other up for pennies while Hogarth sat in the corner jotting it all down and doing sketches. Thorne looked around him. He couldn't help but wonder if he might not have felt a little more at home.
'Business going well, then, is it?'
Bethell was lighting a Silk Cut. 'Oh, not too shabby. I've got a website, you know…'
