There's stuff I want to say, to talk about and I've got less chance of doing it now than I had even a week ago. Now that I'm wired up to this superannuated fucking accordion again. Since I found out why I'm the way I am, since I was told that somebody planned this, I've been trying to remember. Trying so hard to remember. Something that might help. Anything that might help them get the bastard. Now there's some stuff in my head that I know isn't a dream or anything I've imagined. I don't know whether it will help. It'll help me for sure.
It's memory and it's fighting to come out.
Memory about what happened after the hen party. It's not so much pictures as words. Actually, not even words. It's sounds. I'm hearing words but it's like they're being spoken to me under water. They're distorted and I can't quite make them out but I can guess the sense of them. I can make out the tone. Soon I'm going to work out exactly what the words are. They're the words he said while he was doing it. The man who put me in here.
NINETEEN
A quarter to midnight and Tower Records was heaving. Dozens of late-night shoppers mingled with those who were just there to listen to the music or read the magazines or kill time.
The young man behind the till didn't even look up.
'Yeah can 'elp you?'
'Yes, I'd like to pay for these, please,' said Thorne, 'and there's a Waylon Jennings import I'd like to order.'
James Bishop reddened furiously. 'What the fuck do you want? I shouldn't even be talking to you.'
Thorne dumped three CDs on to the counter in front of Bishop and fumbled for his wallet. He stared at Bishop until, with a face clouded by resentment, he began picking up the CDs, removing the security tags and running them through the till. He wouldn't look at Thorne, but instead glanced nervously towards his colleagues, thrusting the CDs clumsily into a plastic bag, trying to get it all over as quickly as possible.
Thorne leaned on the counter, waving his credit card.
'What's the matter? Don't want your workmates knowing you've got a friend who buys Kris Kristofferson albums? I did want to get the new Fatboy Slim single but you've sold out.'
Bishop took the credit card, swiped it, and glared at Thorne. 'You're not my friend. You're just a wanker!'
'I don't suppose it's worth asking for the staff discount?'
'Fuck you.'
Thorne shook his head sadly. 'I knew I should have gone to Our Price…'
An assistant with a silver spike through his lower lip ambled over. 'Is everything all right, Jim?'
Bishop thrust the plastic bag at Thorne. 'It's fine.' He looked over Thorne's shoulder to the girl waiting behind him. 'Yeah can 'elp you?'
Thorne didn't move. 'When does your shift finish?'
The girl behind him tutted impatiently. Bishop looked at him with a defiant half-smile. He glanced at the enormous blue G-Shock on his wrist. 'Fifteen minutes. And?'
Thorne pointed towards the door. 'And I'll see you in Dunkin' Donuts. I'd recommend the cinnamon, but it's entirely up to you…'
Twenty minutes later, Thorne was just finishing his second coffee and his fourth doughnut when James Bishop strolled in and sat down next to him. He was wearing a red Puffa jacket and the same black woolly hat he'd been wearing in the shop. Thorne took another doughnut and pushed the box towards him. Bishop pushed it back. 'Suit yourself,' Thorne said. Bishop stared at him. 'I've not eaten all day. Do you want coffee?'
Bishop shook his head. Again the strange half-smile.
'So what is it, then? Do you want to know if my dad's flipped out yet, is that it? If you keeping him awake half the night with stupid phone calls is affecting his work? Maybe costing someone their life? Pretty fucking irresponsible, wouldn't you say?'
Thorne stared at him for a few seconds, chewing. 'So has he?'
'Has he what?'
'Flipped out.'
'Jesus…' Bishop took out a packet of Marlboro.
Thorne's eyes drifted away to the left and Bishop followed them to the no-smoking sign on the wall. He threw the packet on to the table.
'He's pissed off that you're doing it and even more pissed off that you're getting away with it. None of us are going to let it go, you know. Whatever happens, we'll keep making a fuss until you're back in fucking uniform.'
Thorne considered, for a second or two, the uncomplicated life of the wooden top. Domestics. D and D. Traffic. He wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.
'None of the things that you and your father are accusing me of is against the law, James.'
'Don't hide behind the law, that's pathetic. Especially when you've got no respect for it.'
'I respect the important bits of it.'
'You're not a copper, Thorne, you're a stalker.'
Thorne took a napkin and slowly wiped the sugar from around his mouth. 'I'm just doing my job, James.'
Bishop was agitated. Had been since he'd walked in. Chewing his nails one second, drumming his fingers on the table the next. One part of his body always moving or twitching. Feet kicking, arms stretching. He was jittery. Thorne wondered if he had a drug problem. He didn't find it hard to believe. If he did it was almost certainly funded by his father. Maybe the doctor prescribed something…
Another very good reason for wanting to protect him.
'Your sister thinks that you only pretend to be close to your father so that you can keep sponging off him.'
'She's a silly cunt.' Spitting the words out. Thorne was shocked, but did his best not to show it.
'You do fairly well out of him, though?'
'Look, he gave me a car and he helped with the deposit on my flat, all right?' Thorne shrugged. 'This is nothing to do with money. He's upset and that makes me upset, it's as simple as that. He's my father.'
'So he's not capable of… wickedness?' Thorne had no idea why he'd used that particular word. While he was wondering where it had come from, James Bishop was staring at him as if he'd just dropped down to earth from another planet.
'He's my father.
'So you protect him at all costs?'
'Against the likes of you, yeah.., using the law to act out a vendetta because he happens to have treated some woman who got attacked by the man you're after and because you're shagging somebody he once had a thing with. I'll protect him against that.'
'It's my job to get at the truth, and if that upsets people sometimes, then that's tough.'
Bishop scoffed. 'Christ, you really think you're a hard man, don't you? Part misunderstood copper and part vigilante. I'd call you a dinosaur but they had bigger brains…' He stood up and turned to go.
Thorne stopped him. 'So what sort of copper would you be, James? What do you think it should be about?'
Bishop turned and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. He sniffed, pursing lips that were the same as his father's. Thorne could see the small boy hiding just beneath the arrogant posturing. 'What about justice?'
Bishop sneered. 'I had the stupid idea that was fairly fucking important.'
Thorne pictured a young girl, in a bed with a pale pink quilt, trapped inside a body growing frail and flabby from lack of use. He pictured a face, the features partly shadowed, staring down at him from the second floor of a large house. Now he stared back, hard, at those same perfect features, set in the younger face of the man to whom they'd been passed on. 'Oh, it is, James. Very important…'
Thorne followed him to the door. 'Can I drop you anywhere?'
