'You've never said a word about family, or girlfriends.'
Hendricks laughed harshly. Thorne looked at him. 'What?'
'I'm gay, you dickhead. Queer as fuck. OK?'
For reasons he couldn't quite explain, Thorne blushed deeply.
Half a minute passed. He looked up from his tea. 'Why the hell not tell me then? Worried I'd think you fancied me?'
Hendricks laughed again but neither of them was finding anything funny. 'I couldn't tell you. Not… you. Everybody else knows.'
'What? Why didn't they say something, then?'
'Not at work: Hendricks's voice was raised. Thorne stared past him, ashamed, to the woman behind the counter who smiled at nothing in particular. 'I mean everybody I care about. My family, my real friends… Christ, it's fairly obvious to most people. What do I look like, for fuck's sake? You're so… shielded. You couldn't see it because it doesn't affect you. You've got blinkers on and I'm fucking sick of it!'
Anne had slammed down the phone and smoked three cigarettes, one after the other. Now she felt nauseous as well as furious. She marched towards the coffee machine in main reception, going over and over it…
She'd called Thorne on his mobile, and although she had no idea where he was or what he was doing, it was obviously putting him in an awful mood.
Now he'd passed it on to her.
They hadn't spoken since Sunday. She'd known then that something important was happening on the case and this feeling had distilled into something else when she'd seen him on the televised press conference. Something like dread.
She could sense something coming. She could feel the chill, as if a vast shadow were beginning to creep over them. Over all of them – herself Thorne, Jeremy. She'd reached for the phone needing some reassurance, a tender word. She'd wanted to give those things to him too, knowing that he might need them.
And all she'd got was a diatribe. He'd told her, no… he'd ordered her to stay away from Jeremy Bishop. He assured her it was for her own protection, not that he really believed that she'd be in any physical danger. It was just… best. Best, he'd said. He explained how he'd tried to keep off the whole subject until now to spare her feelings and to avoid a possible conflict of interests, but now things were coming to a head so he'd decided to get everything out in the open.
Bollocks!
He'd avoided the subject until he'd got into her knickers and now he was laying down the law. She was having none of it and had told him so in no uncertain terms. The coffee machine was repeatedly rejecting a twenty pence piece. She carried on putting in the coin, picking it out and putting it in again.
Things had got pretty heated, especially when she'd heard the tell-tale sound of a can being opened. Wherever he was, he was drinking. This, bearing in mind the supposed gravity of what he was telling her – the seriousness of the situation he was trying to make her aware of annoyed her beyond belief. How fucking dare he?
Then he'd asked her if she could come over tonight. She smashed the heel of her hand against the front of the coffee machine…
It was then that she'd hung up.
Giving up on the coffee, Anne turned and walked back towards the ITU. She had a good mind to go round to Jeremy's tonight. She wouldn't, of course. She'd spend the evening at home with Rachel, if she was in, and drink too much wine and watch something mind-numbing on television, and wonder what Tom Thorne was doing.
And try to keep warm as the shadow grew larger. The last time he'd stood on this spot, his face had been hidden and his fist wrapped around the end of an iron bar. Today he had an altogether more subtle message to deliver. He'd rung several times to ensure that the flat was empty, having taken care to withhold his number. He'd smiled each time he'd punched in 141. It was, of course, a trick that Thorne must himself have been familiar with. Things could not have been going better. The excitement of the procedure, the surge he felt rushing through him, had been replaced by something else, now that he'd admitted to himself that he might never enjoy another success. A different kind of enjoyment, fuelled by a very different purpose.
The enjoyment of the game with Thorne.
The game had been a part of it all from the beginning. A vital part of it. It had gone cheek by jowl with – he smiled – his more hands-on work. It had complemented it, cast a light upon it, put it beautifully into context. And he had played the game extremely well.
As he moved towards the front door, he wondered if, secretly, Thorne was enjoying it too. He suspected he probably was. There was something in the man's eyes. He looked around casually and knocked on the door. Just a man of the world paying a visit to a friend. Nobody in? A note would do the trick…
He removed a gloved hand from his trouser pocket and reached into his jacket for the envelope. Yes, a different kind of enjoyment. It was not wrapping fingers around a pulsing artery, but he enjoyed its.., delicacy nevertheless. Popping open a letterbox provided a different kind of thrill from that he garnered when feeling an ordinary life float away under his touch. But, in context, a thrill nevertheless. The end of the game was in sight.
One way or another, this will all be over soon… He was enjoying it so much, it was almost a shame to let Thorne win.
The car park was starting to empty. Thorne decided it was time to leave. He'd now been sitting in his car for over four hours, during which time he'd drunk six cans of supermarket-strength lager.
He'd never felt more sober.
After his meeting with Phil Hendricks he'd wandered back towards the car in something of a daze. He'd popped into the supermarket to pick up the beer, read the paper, and then sat, listening to the radio, drinking, and mulling over what his friend had said. Friend? Had he got any friends?
He knew that Hendricks was right. Everything he'd said was spot on. So he'd thought about it for a while, let one can of beer quickly become four, then turned a bad day into a fucking awful one by deciding to ring Anne.
Where had the caution of the day before gone? He'd decided then that it was probably wise to steer clear of any confrontation until the case had broken. So why, in God's name, had he rung her and told her to stay away from Bishop?
There had been something almost boastful about it.
Some part of him had wanted to flaunt this.., victory. It was becoming about something more than cracking a case and stopping a killer. It was starting to feel like defeating a killer. Like besting a rival. He'd as good as picked up the phone and said, 'Stand back, this isn't going to be pretty.'
It was proprietorial.
He wanted her to know how good he was. How right he'd been.
She told him she thought he was pathetic. Fucking pathetic.
He'd hurled his phone into the back of the car, turned up the radio and polished off the last two cans. Now it was dark outside. The supermarket would be closing soon. The security guard who patrolled the underground car park was starting to give him decidedly dirty looks and mutter into his radio.
Thorne realised that he was starving. Six cans of lager was all that had passed his lips since breakfast. He knew he should leave the car where it was and head for the tube. He was only one stop away from home. Christ, he could walk home in about ten minutes.
Thorne started the engine, pulled out of the car park and pointed the Mondeo south, away from home, and towards the centre of town.
Nobody could say I wasn't comfortable. That's the word hospitals always use, isn't it? When you ring up to ask after someone. They're 'comfortable'. Like they're lying there on feather pillows being massaged or something. Well, I'm certainly comfortable with my state-of-the-art mattress and my remote-control bed and my telly and my magazine holder. Comfortable.
And all I really want to do is scream until my throat is raw. I want to scream and yell and, maybe it's asking a bit much, but I'd like to punch somebody in the face as hard as I can and smash a few things up as well, if that's all right. Break things. Mirrors. Glass things. Feel blood on my knuckles, anything… Do I sound frustrated? Well, I am. Frustrated. So. FUCKING. FRUSTRATED!
