He pointed the Volvo towards the West End and leaned back in his seat, feeling as good as he had in a long time.
He'd accomplished so much with skill and rage. Like I said, some days are a lot better than others… This is the first joke I'm going to tell, 4nne. There's this really tasty and sexy young potato and she's walking home from the disco one night, after a top night out with her best friends the parsnip and the runner bean, when she's attacked by this mad carrot. The carrot does all sorts of horrible stuff to her and she winds up in hospital. All her skin's been peeled off and she's been all mashed up and she's just lying there and the only thing that's undamaged are her eyes. The eyes of this potato. So the next day this potato's boyfriend, who's a tall, good-looking Swede, comes to the hospital and talks to the doctor and, with tears in his eye, he says, 'What are her chances, Doc?' The doctor looks down at the poor, sad potato lying in the bed and says to him, 'I'm sorry.., but she's going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life:
THIRTEEN
Brigstocke had presumed it was a hangover. 'Sleep it off' was not the traditional response to somebody phoning in sick but Thorne couldn't really argue. Brigstocke had worked with him before and it was a reasonable assumption. It wouldn't be too long before his patience gave out, though, and he went higher up. Thorne knew he didn't have much time. He didn't think he'd need much. One look at the good weather had made up his mind. He decided to take the Thames link over ground from Kentish Town to Tulse Hill. It was direct, and an attractive alternative to sitting in the car for as long as it might otherwise take him to drive to Birmingham, or getting tense and sweaty on the underground. He'd never seen the attraction of the tube. For Thorne it inevitably meant the Northern line – interestingly the line of choice for most people who chose to jump in front of a tube train. He guessed that they were probably choosing to think of others in their own moment of deepest despair. If you're going to fuck up commuters, then why not fuck up those to whom chaos and delay are barely noticeable any more?
Thorne had decided long ago that, should he ever feel the need, he would be a handful of pills, bottle of red wine, lie on the bed and drift away to Hank Williams kind of bloke. Anything else was just showing off. Though it had to be said, a gun in the mouth looked good on some people.
He looked out of the window as the train rumbled across the Blackfriars rail bridge. If it was a different world south of the river, it was one with its own dividing line. South-west was definitely the more gentrified, Clapham and Richmond and, of course, Battersea. There were nice areas of South-east London he was fond of Greenwich and Blackheath – but, on the whole, that part of the city! I was as close as London got to a war-zone. Southeast…London didn't need coppers, it needed United Nations peacekeepers. At that very minute in Bermondsey and New Cross there were characters propping up bars in dodgy boozers that would have made Slobodan Milosevic shit himself.
He opened his case and looked at the pictures again.
They looked like stills captured in any undercover police I operation. A career opportunity for Bethell should he ever decide to hang up his dirty mac for good. Bishop was photogenic.
Thorne had known he would be, though when the smile he wore in company was absent, the face was considerably harder, severe even.
Thorne went through the pictures one by one. There was the photo of James walking back towards the house after the confrontation with Bethell. He was glancing back over his shoulder, trying to look tough. He hadn't imagined it. Thorne wondered if he had a girlfriend. Probably some horsy type called Charlotte, who called herself Charlie, wore black and hung about in Camden Lock on a Sunday afternoon popping pills. He was looking for the best photo – the one in which Bishop was looking virtually straight at the camera. Perhaps he'd heard Bethell moving about or caught a glimpse of bleached hair bobbing about in the bushes. The photo wasn't there and Thorne realised where he'd left it. The phone call he'd taken in Alison's room had thrown him so completely that he'd all but forgotten why he was there in the first place. Maybe a nurse had found it and thrown it away. Unlikely. Anne had almost certainly come across it by now, which meant that he'd have some explaining to do. By then, of course, it would all have been worth it and she'd realise he'd been right. Who was he kidding? Right or wrong, the deceit involved would probably ensure that what had happened between them two nights earlier would turn out to have been a one-night stand.
The old man next to him had been pretending to be reading his newspaper but had been sneaking furtive looks at the photos on Thorne's lap at every opportunity. Maybe he thought Thorne was some kind of spy or sleazy paparazzo. Maybe he thought Thorne had killed his Princess. Either way he was becoming annoying. Thorne turned one of the photos round and held it up so that the old man could have a good look. He quickly glanced back down at his newspaper. Thorne leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, 'It's all right, he's a doctor.'
The old man didn't look up from his paper for the rest of the journey.
Margaret Byrne's house was a five-minute walk from the station. He didn't know the area well but it seemed amazingly calm and suburban, considering that Brixton was two minutes away. Thorne had been on the streets there in 1981. He had never felt so hated. He and many fellow officers had comforted themselves with the thought that it was no more than police bashing. An excuse to torch some flash cars and nick a few TVs. Events since then had made him realise he'd been wrong. And Stephen Lawrence had changed everything.
Thorne rang the doorbell and waited. The curtains in the front bay windows were drawn. The bedroom, he guessed. He looked at his watch; he was ten minutes or so late. He rang the doorbell again. He looked around in the hope of seeing a woman hurrying up the road, having popped out to grab a pint of milk, but saw only a woman in the house opposite, eyeing him suspiciously. He eyed her back. Thorne pressed himself against the window and peered through a small crack in the green curtains but the room was dark. He turned to see the woman across the road still staring at him. He began to feel uneasy.
'Calm down, Tommy. She's probably just nodded off or something:
'Oh Jesus, not nor,.'
There was a small passage on the right-hand side of the house all but blocked by a couple of black plastic dustbins. Thorne climbed over them and walked slowly down the passageway. The high gate at the end was locked. He dropped his case over the gate and trudged back to grab one of the bins, having decided that the Neighbourhood Watch co-coordinator over the road would probably have caged the police by now anyway.
He tried to lower himself down as far as possible on the other side of the fence but the drop to the patio on the other side still made his teeth jar. The small garden was neat and tidy. There were blouses and slacks hanging on a washing-line.
The back door had been forced open.
He knew he should unlock the gate and get back to the front of the house. He should phone for backup. He knew the phone was staying in his pocket.
The rush was instant, and breathtaking. There was fear too, pumping round his body, tightening his fists and loosening his bowels. This was the fight-flight reflex at its most basic.
Fight or flight. It was never going to be any contest. Thorne felt his skin slipping off and falling to the ground like an old overcoat. He felt his nerve-endings vibrate, raw and bloody, his senses painfully heightened. The wind in the trees was a cacophony. A face in a faraway window, an oncoming juggernaut. He could taste the air. Tinfoil on a filling.
There was no theatrical creak as he pushed open the door and tensed every muscle. He stepped into a small kitchen. The surfaces were spotless, a tea-towel folded over a chair, washing-up stacked neatly on the draining-board. Thorne fought the impulse to reach for the breadknife and stood still, trying to control his breathing. To his left was an open door that he could see led on to the living room. He moved soundlessly across the linoleum and scanned the room. It was empty. The brown carpet looked new but was presumably the first stage of improvements – the suite was saggy and threadbare. Thorne hurried across the room, took a deep breath and opened the door at the far end. He was in a dimly lit hall just inside the front door. There were two more rooms opposite him. The one on the right nearest the front door had to be the bedroom; the other, he guessed, a toilet.
It was worth a try. 'Mrs. Byrne?'
