'You're the one who needs help, Jeremy. I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you right now.'
Jesus… Jesus… Jesus…
I thought he was never going to get it.
I thought maybe it would be important, you know, because I'd heard it when I woke up as well as when he was doing it to That same word.
I thought it was probably significant and as soon as I heard Thorne outside the door I knew I wanted to try to tell him, but I hadn't expected him to shoot out of here quite like that. Like shit off a shiny shovel, my old man would have said. He was obviously still worked up after punching Anne's old man.
Like a blow-up doll with a pulse. What a fucking charmer. I hope Thorne knocked his teeth down his throat. So it has to be that doctor who brought me round. The anaesthetist who came in here with Anne a couple of times is Champagne Fucking Charlie. The one who's her friend. The one Thorne had the photo of. He obviously suspected him all along.
How can you be a doctor and do… this?
Jesus, though, I thought that was going to take for ever. That's the best I've ever done. Anne would have been dead proud, I reckon. I was fucking spot on.
Blinking for England. I said I would, didn't I?
It was so hard, though.
Now I really am sleepy…
TWENTY-THREE
Dave Holland stared at the film Sophie had rented, not taking in a single word. He pushed bits of cold lasagna round his plate, not really hungry.
Thinking about Tom Thorne.
He hadn't been there that morning when Thorne had stormed out of the office at Edgware Road. He was still trying to bring himself round after the night before when he'd drunk far too much trying to forget about Helen Doyle's parents. They'd made quite a night of it, him and Thorne. Even though he'd been pissed, and asleep some of the time, he could remember a lot of what Thorne had been saying. Lying on the settee late into the night, eyes closed, head spinning, while Thorne talked about blood and voices. Things Dave Holland wouldn't forget in a long time. Now nobody seemed to know where Thorne was, or even if he'd be back at all.
Those who had been there, this morning and seen the state of the DI as he'd walked into the lift, Staggered, somebody had said, had been only too keen to pass on the details when Holland eventually got into work. 'You'll be interested in this…' they said sarcastically. It seemed that a line of inquiry, developed by Detective Inspector Thorne, had now been officially discredited.
It sounded like he'd had the shit kicked out of him. Holland had gone quietly back to work. Every half an hour or so since, he'd checked his mobile, looking for a message.
Suddenly he noticed that the picture on the TV screen was frozen. Paused. He turned to see Sophie, the remote in her hand, talking to him. Was there really any point in her going to the video shop? Or cooking dinner? Or bothering to talk to him?
He apologised and told her that he was still feeling a bit rough, the worse for wear after his drinking session with the lads last night. Sophie had a go at him, but secretly she didn't really mind. She didn't begrudge him a night out on the beer with the lads. As long as he didn't make a habit of it and had worked out which side his bread was buttered oil.
As long as he'd finally decided against throwing in his lot with that loser Thorne.
Anne was annoyed. She had a bag full of shopping – food for the dinner she was going to cook for Jeremy – it was pouring with rain, and she couldn't find a single parking spot on his street. She eventually squeezed into a tight space round the corner and ran back, doing her best to avoid the rapidly growing puddles.
She was amazed to see him sitting in the car outside the house.
She tapped quickly on the glass and laughed as he jumped. The electric window on the Volvo slid down and she leaned in. 'What are you doing sitting out here?'
'Just thinking about things. Waiting for you.' The rain was blowing in through the open window on to his face.
Anne grimaced, confused. 'It's a lot warmer in the house.' He said nothing, staring blankly forward through a windscreen running with rainwater. Anne moved the handles of the plastic shopping-bag round in her hand. It was starting to get heavy. 'Are you coming inside?'
'Can you get in here first? Please, Anne, I need to talk to you about something. Just for a minute.'
Anne wanted to go into the house. She was wet, and very cold. She wanted a cup of tea or, even better, a large glass of wine before she got started on dinner. Still, he seemed upset about something. She hurried round to the passenger side and, dropping the shopping bag on to the floor at her feet, got into the car.
It was nice and warm: the heater had obviously been on for a while. He didn't look at her. She began to think something was seriously wrong.
'Is everything all right? Has something happened?'
He didn't answer and instinctively she began to look around her. Was the answer to whatever was going on here with them in the car? There was something on the back seat, covered with a tartan picnic blanket. She looked at him. 'What's…?'
Instinctively she knew that she wasn't going to get an answer and, with a grunt of effort, she lifted herself off her seat, reached across into the back of the car and pulled off the blanket.
She gasped.
She didn't even feel the needle slip into her arm. Thorne tried to stay calm. The rain had slowed up the traffic as per usual and it had taken an infuriating twenty-five minutes just to get the half a mile or so from Queen Square to Waterloo Bridge. Now it had eased off a little and the Mondeo was testing every speed camera it passed as Thorne pushed the car south, through the spray towards Battersea.
The clock on the dashboard said eight forty-five and Merle Haggard was complaining about being let down by the bottle as Thorne drove past St Thomas's Hospital. He thought about a pathologist whose skill, whose observation, whose curiosity, months before, had started it all. He might be working late at this very minute, in one of those lit offices, those bright white squares that Thorne could see as he drove past. Getting tired now, probably, as he stared down into a microscope, then excitement mounting as he spotted some inconsistency, some curious detail that might change the lives of hundreds of people for ever. He didn't know whether, if he ever met that man, he should thank him or spit in his face. What was certain was that, without him, he would not be on his way right now to confront a killer. He had no idea what might really happen between him and Bishop. Confront him, yes, and what else? Arrest him? Intimidate him? Hurt him?
Thorne would know when he got there.
He hit the brakes too late and too hard approaching the big traffic lights at Vauxhall Bridge. The car skidded a little before stopping, the squeal of tires attracting the attention of the evening's traffic-light cabaret. Those cleaning windscreens in return for a few coins and a great deal of abuse had now been replaced, bizarrely, by street entertainers. One such, wearing a large, multicoloured jester's hat and juggling three balls, stepped jauntily through the rain towards Thorne's car with a broad grin.
The juggler took one look at Thorne's face and backed away again quickly, dropping balls as he went. The light, reflected in the puddles of oil and water, turned from red to green, and the Mondeo sped away.
The lights were with him along Nine Elms Lane and Battersea Park Road. He turned left on amber at the Latchmere pub, put his foot down all the way to Lavender Hill, and a few minutes later was turning almost casually into Jeremy Bishop's quiet road.
He turned down the music and began to breathe deeply. There were cars parked along both sides of the street and Thorne drove slowly, looking for a parking spot. The rain was heavier now, and even with the wipers on double speed he had to lean forward, and squint hard through the windscreen to see anything at all.
Suddenly, fifty yards ahead, lights came on and dazzled him as a large dark car pulled out and accelerated. Thorne's first thought was that he'd got a parking space, but a second later he could see that he was in trouble.
