Trying to work out what he did want.
So I'm the one he got right? I'm a living and almost breathing testament to this bloke's.., skill?
While other women died.
Hearing the blood sizzle and hiss through the arteries. Steam coming off my skin.
Thorne sounded pretty confident about getting him. Something in his voice made me think that whoever did this is going to be sorry when Thorne gets hold of him. Said he was going to make him tell him why he'd done it. I'm not sure that knowing why's going to make me feel better, really. Getting him will, though. Thorne said he didn't know how much I could remember. Neither do I.
But if it's going to help catch this bastard, I'm going to fucking well find out.
EIGHTEEN
12 February 1999. His mother died.
3 September 1994. Jan left him for the first time. 18 June 1985. Calvert…
As Thorne drove towards Camden this Tuesday lunchtime, he had no idea that the following day, 2 October 2000, would be another date to add to the list. Perhaps the most significant day of them all. Days that he would choose to forget, but that he would have little choice about remembering.
Days that formed him. Long, long days. Painful days. Days that had taught him something about who he'd been up to that point, and dictated who he was going to be from that point on.
What he was going to be.
This day, the eve of it all, had not begun well and would only get worse. The ring had arrived from Edinburgh the night before and had gone straight to the forensic-science laboratory in Lambeth. Thorne was on the phone to Edgware Road first thing wanting an update on progress. There had been none, and was unlikely to be before the following day. All he'd received for his trouble had been another earful from Keable, who was getting very nervous. Jeremy Bishop had rung, demanding to know what was going on. James Bishop had done likewise. As yet, with Rebecca Bishop remaining silent, it looked as though Thorne and Holland had got away with the trip to Bristol. Thorne smiled to himself now, as he steered the car through Regent's Park, past the unfeasibly grand houses of diplomats and oil billionaires. He smiled at his cockiness with Keable, his bluff-calling, his fuck-you attitude with Tughan.
He knew that he was on safe ground. All of it, the calls, the carpet fibres, the visits to Bishop's house, would be forgotten as soon as Thorne had got what he was after. As soon as he'd proved that Jeremy Bishop was a multiple killer.
Then Keable would be too busy accepting the congratulations of the commander (who'd be smiling for the press and getting patted on the back by a thoroughly delighted commissioner) to worry about a few late-night phone calls. A slap on the wrist, perhaps. A word about procedure, probably. A warning about his methods at the very worst. As long as the vital evidence was collected cleanly, Thorne knew that he would get a conviction. He knew that the evidence was there. In Jeremy Bishop's house in Battersea. He just needed the warrant.
Thorne had passed a wry dull morning in what a football manager (the one at Spurs was still clinging on to his job) would call a free role. In practice, this meant answering the phone a lot, handing bits of paper to Nick Tughan, and resisting the temptation to drive down to the forensics lab and oversee the examination of Bishop's wedding ring himself. Being part of this ponderous machine again was hugely frustrating, but he was happy to do whatever was necessary. And it wasn't going to be for long.
In Camden, Thorne parked the car beneath the enormous Sainsbury's next to the canal. There was no charge for customers and buying a few cans of own-brand lager was a fair exchange for free parking in the middle of the day.
He walked up past the old TV-am building where a crowd of youngsters was gawping at the recording of a show for MTV inside a tiny glass-fronted studio in the car park. He stopped and watched for a few minutes. T, he presenters, a girl and a boy, were young and good-looking, and for a second he thought they might be the young couple he'd seen in Waterlow Park a few days before. Ignoring the strange looks from the teenagers around him, he watched them for a while, jigging and posturing in dumb show behind the glass. Then he ambled away, supposing that he probably knew more about the music they were introducing than they did and headed towards Parkway where he was meeting Hendricks.
The cafe was cheap and miserable, which Thorne far preferred to expensive and cheerful. It was a place where, over a number of years, the two of them had talked about work and football, while indulging their shared passion for fry-ups and stodgy puddings.
When Thorne arrived Hendricks was already there, nursing a cup of tea and looking somewhat less than pleased to see him. Thorne had news that he knew would cheer the miserable bugger up. He signaled to the woman behind the counter for a tea and slid into the booth, picked up a menu and started to read it. Wanting to make it sound casual.
'I think we've got him.' Hendricks looked up but without real interest. Thorne went on, 'I know we have, and as soon as we get the forensic tests done I can get a warrant and-'
'Save it, will you?'
Thorne put down the menu. What little appetite he had was vanishing rapidly.
'Well?' Thorne stared at Hendricks. The pathologist looked at his tea, carried on stirring it. 'You've obviously got something to say?'
Hendricks cleared his throat. He'd been rehearsing it.
'Did it not occur to you, even for a second, that when that slimy gobsworth in the forensics lab called up your boss to tell him that a pathologist had just happened to stroll in carrying a plastic bag with carpet fibres in it -'
'Phil, I was going to-'
'-that he might also be calling my boss as well? Did that not occur to you?'
'What happened?'
'Deep shit is what happened. Because I was stupid enough to do you a favour. And you didn't even have the courtesy to pick up the fucking phone to see what was going on.'
He'd meant to, more than once, and hadn't. 'I'm sorry, Phil, there was another killing and-'
'I know there was. I aid the PM, remember? And considering what the two of us do for a living I hardly think a body is much of a fucking excuse, do you?'
It wasn't, and Thorne knew it. Hendricks had every right to be angry, but to try to explain to him exactly what he'd been thinking.., feeling.., after Margaret Byrne's murder wouldn't have been easy.
'So what happened?'
'The wanker of a clinical director, who's been looking for an excuse anyway, 'cos I don't look like his idea of a pathologist, hauled me up in front of the chief executive and the personnel director.'
'Fuck…'
'Yeah, fuck is right. I was given a verbal warning about inappropriate behaviour and they're still talking about the fucking General Medical Council so don't try asking for any more favours, all right?'
Thorne's tea arrived and he took it gratefully, but Hendricks had no intention of letting him off the hook.
'You're completely self-obsessed, do you know that?'
Thorne tried to laugh but nothing came out. 'I'm not talking about this case, I mean all the time. You've got no fucking idea what's going on around you, have you?'
Thorne fixed a defiant smile on his face. 'Am I supposed to be answering these questions or is this a lecture?'
'I couldn't give a toss, I'm just telling you. I'm probably the nearest thing to a friend you've got and we talk about luck all.' Thorne started to speak but Hendricks cut him off. 'Football and work. That's it. Talking shop or talking shit. We play pool and eat pizza and have a joke and talk about sweet fuck all.'
Thorne decided he should fight his corner. 'Hang on a second. What about you? I spoke to you about Jan when we were splitting up, I know I did. You never confide in me about anything.'
'What would be the point?'
