He was just a copper, at least in theory.
Cracks in armour? Jesus…
He imagined himself briefly as a boxer, unable to fuck before a big fight. It was a ludicrous analogy, but the pictures in his head amused him so much that he was still smiling five minutes later when his date arrived. There were times when it seemed that a woman deprived of the power of speech was the only person Anne Coburn could really talk to.
Sitting alone in the hospital canteen and pushing a tasteless bit of salad around a paper plate, she contemplated her failings as a professional. The sessions with Alison were going well, but Anne knew that if she wasn't careful there was a danger that they would become fully fledged therapy sessions.
And not for Alison.
Alison was having problems with her boyfriend and things were coming to a head, yet Anne had spent the large part of their last session together bitching about her own problems.
Problems with her daughter. And her ex-husband. And her lover.
Things with Rachel were not getting any better. At least they were talking but they weren't saying anything. There was an element of walking on eggshells on both their parts, the two of them well aware that the smallest comment could blow up into a major row. It was the work she wasn't doing for the resits and the early nights she wasn't getting and the truth she almost certainly wasn't telling. It was, Anne had begun to suspect – no, to be certain the boy she was seeing.
Anne had brought it UP once, casually, but Rachel's reaction, tight-mouthed and defiant, had left her in no doubt that the subject was off limits. It was so stupid. Anne would have no problems with a boyfriend. Why should she? There had been boyfriends before. It was just the timing that was so bloody silly. Important exams were only weeks away and Rachel was in danger of making a mess of everything and Anne couldn't do a thing about it. Rachel was stubborn, like her father, and now he wasn't speaking to Anne either. Relations between her and David had been distinctly frosty, bordering on downright venomous, for a while, but since she'd told him about Thorne, things had worsened rapidly. He'd seemingly broken off communication altogether, and at a time when a united front, as far as Rachel was concerned, would have been a nice idea.
What was so strange was that he'd seemed to know about the relationship with Thorne even before it happened. She thought back to the confrontation in the lift. He had been making comments about it even then. That was why she'd told him. She wasn't trying to score points well, maybe just one or two – but his suspicion was already providing him with ample bile to spit in her direction, so why not simply congratulate him on his prescience? But since she'd confirmed her involvement.., was it an involvement?.., with Thorne, he'd turned really nasty. Steve Clark walked past and smiled, and she smiled back and wondered if part of this business with Rachel might not have something to do with Thorne as well. Was Rachel jealous? Anne had made an effort to talk to her about Thorne. Since the big flare-up a few weeks earlier she'd tried to be more open. She'd told Rachel about the case and about her connection with it. She'd left out some of the more grisly details and skirted around Jeremy's… involvement, as much for her own peace of mind as anything. She'd kept her up-to-date with Alison's progress and, in general, had made a real effort to build bridges. But perhaps she hadn't explained to Rachel how she felt about Thorne.
Anne pushed away the plate of untouched salad and decided that it was because she hadn't actually worked it out herself.
She stood up and moved quickly to the rear of the canteen and out through the swing doors to the fire escape, where she lit a cigarette and took in the view of large steel bins and heaps of polystyrene packaging.
Thorne…
He seemed fairly central to all her problematic relationships. Not least the one with Jeremy Bishop.
She'd barely spoken to Jeremy since the night she and Thorne had ended up in bed. This… cooling off had been her decision, but she sensed that he was keeping his distance as well. She couldn't deny the possibility that Jeremy was jealous, and that an element of that jealousy might be sexual, but she also suspected that he was becoming involved with somebody himself. He'd made one or two typically oblique comments in the days before they'd stopped seeing each other. He'd seemed distracted and by something other than work. She hoped that it was a woman. She wished Jeremy happy as much as she wished anything.
She missed him.
But she wouldn't pick up the phone. She'd known this man for more than twenty-five years and despite the stupidity of Thorne's suspicions, to do so would have felt vaguely disloyal to the man she'd known for five minutes. She resented having her loyalty tested. To anybody and by anybody. And why the hell-wasn't Thorne calling anyway?
He'd rung to tell her there had been some sort of serious development on the case. Serious, to her, had sounded like another word for 'death', and two days later she'd read all about it. Then the other stuff. No mention of Alison, thank heavens, but plenty of gory grist to the media mill. The press blackout that Thorne had seemed so anxious about early on was well and truly ended. Outraged leader columns and pictures of five dead women.
She'd stopped looking at the newspapers now. She was living with enough sickness already.
Anne didn't want any involvement in this hideous case bar the one she had already through Alison. She didn't want to know anything else.
Until they caught him.
Thorne and Holland had walked down to the pond next to the park's southernmost exit. They leaned against the railings and talked, occasionally needing to raise their voices above the shouts from the children's playground only a few feet away. A father smoked and read a paper, while two children tried unsuccessfully to clamber up a slide and a third stood on a swing, demanding to be looked at. While Holland stared out across the water, Thorne watched a large brown rat scuttling about in the dust beneath the low hedge that skirted the pond. There were always a few here, on the lookout for badly thrown bits of bread and Thorne was always excited to spot one. It wasn't a beautiful creature, but while Holland's eye was taken by the variety of ducks and geese on display, Thorne's was naturally drawn to the rat. The scavenger, the chancer, the survivor. The villain.
This city could have no more perfect symbol.
'I hadn't got you pegged for a messenger boy, Holland.'
Holland could feel the redness rising up his neck as he turned to look at him. 'That's because I'm not, sir.'
Thorne instantly regretted his tone. It had been an attempt at dark humour but had just sounded sarcastic.
Holland was already past it. 'DCI Keable thought that we might run into each other, that's all. He had tried to phone you himself…'
Thorne nodded. Lots of people had tried to phone him. Letting Holland convey this somewhat bizarre offer was a shrewd move. Frank Keable was not the most inspired or inspiring of officers, but he knew what was going on around him. He could read the troops. He always got a sense of the currents within an operation, which went way beyond who had the hump or who might fancy who. The rat was standing on its hind legs now, sniffing at a litter-bin attached to the railings. Thorne looked across at Holland. 'So, what do you think?'
Holland smiled, part of him flattered at being asked but the greater part well aware that his opinion would probably be worth less than nothing. 'I think it's a good offer, as a matter of fact. Sounds to me like you'll be pretty much a free agent and as long as you don't get into too much trouble…'
'Or mention Jeremy Bishop?'
Holland saw no point in sugaring the pill. 'It could be a lot worse.'
Thorne knew that he was right. Keable had hinted at disciplinary action after the discovery of Margaret Byrne's body, but with that and the Leonie Holden killing, castigating a rogue detective inspector with an overactive imagination had become something of a low priority. That's what Keable had said anyway. Either that or he'd had his own reasons for not wanting to make it official just yet and was giving himself time to think of exactly what best to do with Thorne. Either way, at the end of it all there was probably no more than a wrist-slapping in it.
Holland hadn't told him everything.
'They know about the fibres from Bishop's car boot.'
'Fuck.' Thorne kicked at the ground, the dust and grit sending the rat darting momentarily for cover. Somebody in Forensics with a very big mouth. That would explain the call from Hendricks. He needed to talk to him.
