'Holland, it's DI Thorne…' Best not to be too matey. 'I hope I'm not keeping you from your homework.'
'Sorry, sir?'
' The Bill – I heard it in the background. It's not real, you know.'
Holland laughed. 'Yeah, but that one they all take the piss out of is an awful lot like DI Tughan.'
The joke told Thorne a great deal. Holland knew the way things stood. As it happened, Thorne also knew which character he was talking about – he was spot on. He had seriously underestimated this young man. 'Listen, obviously you know I'm back at Hendon now, but I'd still be interested in any developments on the case. Who's come in, by the way?'
'Roger Brewer. Scottish bloke – seems nice enough.'
Thorne hadn't heard of him. probably just as well. 'So, you know, anything comes up…
'I'll let you know straight away, sir.'
'Anything and everything, Holland… please.'
Rachel looked at her watch. He was only five minutes late but she didn't want to miss the trailers. She thought about the nutter who'd sat behind her on the bus from Muswell Hill and decided she'd get a cab back. She checked her purse. If she paid for her own ticket she'd need to ask him to lend her the money. Mum would be happier with a taxi anyway, although she'd wonder why Claire's dad hadn't given her a lift. He usually did after she'd been round there for the evening. Maybe she could say his car was in the garage. But she might see him driving around. Or talk to Claire's mother on the phone. She decided it was probably easier to ask the cab to stop somewhere away from the house. Too many lies weren't a good idea. She wasn't very good at it and she didn't like lying to her mum anyway. She'd just have to pray her mum didn't run into Claire in the next few days.
She was starting to get cold. She did up another button on her denim jacket and stared at the corner of the street, willing him to appear.
She wasn't really lying about him, after all. She just wasn't telling. There'd only be a row and it would be a damn sight bigger than the one they'd had the other night. These fucking tests that she didn't want to take were the problem. It was so unfair that the time when you started to get serious with people was the same time you had so-called important exams.
Were the two of them serious? It felt like it. They hadn't slept together yet, but not because she hadn't wanted to. It was him. He didn't seem in any hurry. He was obviously waiting for the right time. He was being nice and sensitive because he'd obviously already done it and she hadn't, and he didn't want her to feel like he was putting her under any pressure if she didn't want to…
Rachel knew that this would be the big thing with her mother. His experience. The thing that would send her mum ballistic…
Her hand flew to her hair as she saw him coming round the corner. He waved and started to jog towards her. He was really fit. In good condition. Claire would be so jealous. But Mum would not be impressed at all.
Not with him being so much older.
A blackboard! For fuck's sake. Anne brought in a brochure one day with these computers that they were developing in America that you can work with your eyelid or something. They can virtually tell what you're thinking, like something in a film. I've got a mobile phone which predicts what letters you're going to type in when you're sending somebody a text message. Bloody useful, actually, when your spelling is as bad as mine. That cost PS29.99 as far as I can remember. And I get a poxy blackboard. Everyone goes on about the cuts in the NHS but this is really taking the piss, isn't it?
And there I was thinking that maybe they might be able to fix up some system so I could read or watch the telly. Nothing too fancy, just a few mirrors and stuff so that I wouldn't have to lie here all day staring at the piece of plaster that's about to fall off the manky grey ceiling up there. Well, there's no chance of that, I suppose. All these machines are probably on their last legs as well. The big one on the left is definitely making a few dodgy noises. I hope they give the nurses enough change to feed the meter. I wouldn't want to pop off in the middle of the night because somebody didn't have a fifty-pence piece. I know this isn't Anne's fault and I know that you only ever think about these things when you're on the receiving end of it and everything. But still…
I was pretty chuffed with myself actually, when it came down to all the alphabet business. We just need to Sort out a system so I can tell Anne to go back instead of forward. Otherwise it's sodding interminable. I'm sure she'll work it out.
That doctor she had with her was a right clever sod, mind you, working out that I'd blinked too early. I just had to gorier it. If I'd waited and then not been able to blink in time and missed the letter I really wanted, the whole thing would have been cocked up. Id've ended up spelling out the Czechoslovakian for chemist or something.
I suppose I should be grateful to that doctor if he was the one who sorted me out when I first came in. I do remember his face looking down at me. I remember him telling me to wake up, but I just drifted away. Before that I can only remember bits and pieces. Bits and pieces of a voice. Not the words. Not yet. Just the sound. Smooth and gentle like Dr Bishop. And there I was, worried that my mobile phone was going to give me cancer…
TEN
Thorne got off the train at Clapham Junction. He came out of the station, checked his A-Z and began to walk up Lavender Hill. The house was only ten minutes' walk away. He was knackered after five. Carrying the briefcase didn't help.
Not that there was anything in it.
He'd spent precisely an hour at Beck House that morning, not listening as Brigstocke brought him up to speed on a caseload of assorted rapes and robberies-with-menace. He'd picked up the address of a security guard who needed questioning and headed straight for Hendon Central station. He'd have to find time to fit in the interview before he went to Queen Square. Well, he'd see a bit of London today anyway.
He didn't know this part of the city very well but you'd've had to be blind not to see that it was affluent. Wine bars on every corner, delicatessens, restaurants and, of course, more estate agents than you could shake a shitty stick at. Out of curiosity he stopped briefly to peer into a window. An oily looking article with bad skin and a widow's peak smiled at him from behind a computer terminal. Thorne looked away and took in a few of the details on a revolving display in the window. Kentish Town wasn't cheap but he could have bought a big two-bedroom place with a garden there for the price of a toilet cubicle in leafy Battersea. His breath back, he started plodding on up the hill. He was already panting again when his phone rang. The squeak was unmistakable. 'Bethell here, Mr. Thorne.'
'I know. Are they ready?'
'Oh… you recognised my voice, eh?' Bethell laughed. Thorne had to hold the phone away from his ear. Half the dogs in the area were probably rushing towards him already.
'How did it go, Kodak?'
'Could have gone better, as it goes…'
Fucking idiot. He should have brought a camera and done it himself.
'Listen, Bethell…'
'Don't worry, Mr. Thorne, I got the photos. Good ones too. tie was standing on his doorstep pissing about with a hanging basket. What's this bloke do anyway? Some sort of businessman, is he?'
'Why could it have gone better?' Bethell said nothing. 'It could have gone better, you said.'
He could hear Bethell take a long drag on a cigarette.
'Yeah, nothing that I couldn't handle, but after he'd gone back inside this other bloke pulls up outside and when he gets out of his car he looks around and, I don't know, maybe the sun was glinting off the lens or something but he saw me anyway.'
'What was he like?'
'I don't know – tall, in his early twenties, I suppose. Bit of a student type, I reckon – you know, a bit grungy.'
The son. Popping round to borrow a few quid, if what Anne had said was true.
'What did he say?'
