Bishop was standing in the very middle of the room. He was busy. He raised his head and smiled at Thorne a little sadly.
Thorne was staring at the girl's eyes, bulging as she fought the movements of his fingers on her neck with every ounce of strength she had and without the slightest success. The drug that was coursing through Rachel Higgins had made her limbs as useless and uncooperative as they would become permanently, if the procedure Bishop was about to perform was successful.
From his left Thorne heard a grunt. He turned. Anne lay motionless against the wall, her eyes wide open, drool spilling from her mouth, the Midazolam doing its work on her too, so that she could do nothing but stare helplessly at the hands working on her daughter.
The voice brought Thorne's head whipping back round. Bishop was caressing the back of the girl's neck.
'Hello, Tom. Come to spoil our party, have you?'
Thorne stood completely still, staring at Bishop. Not wanting to move and Spock him. Unable to move even if he'd wanted to. His mouth utterly dry. Voice no better than a whisper.
'Hello, James…'
There would be a hundred difficult questions to come, and a complex knot of motivation and psychosis to unravel eventually, but just for a few seconds, in the stark and horrifying tableau in front of him, Thorne saw it all perfectly. Just briefly, for a heartbeat or two, there was clarity, and he knew exactly what and why and who. He saw how he'd been manipulated, how he'd been used. How James Bishop had played him and prodded him and nudged him, exploiting his weak spots and playing to his strengths. How he'd been completely right and horribly wrong. Why Margaret Byrne died and why she might still be alive, were it not for him. How he'd been led by the fucking nose.
Outclassed.
James Bishop was naked from the waist up. Crisscrossing his stomach were half a dozen straight pink puckered scars, like giant worms beneath his skin. Knife wounds, Thorne thought. Self-inflicted.
Anne: '… he was a bit screwed up about it: Rebecca: '… James went off the rails a little: The scars were the least remarkable thing. The short hair was graying. Spray on dye was the easiest explanation.
'Tried being an actor. Anything that pays the rent: He was wearing identical glasses and it was easy to see it, even here in a brightly lit room from a few feet away. At night, outside with only the light from a streetlamp, or no light at all, nobody could be blamed for seeing a man ten years older than he really was.
It was Thorne who had seen Jeremy Bishop.
Thorne looked at Rachel and at Anne. 'What's the point of this, though, James? What's this got to do with anything?'
Bishop chuckled. Wasn't it obvious? 'Well, as you've so brilliantly failed in your efforts to arrest and convict the wrong man…'
'Your father.'
'My father, yes. I'm having to finish things off a little quicker. With a little less subtlety. It isn't what I wanted but it will have the desired effect.'
'Which is?'
Bishop shook his head. 'You're really not the man I thought you were, are you, Tom?'
'I could say the same for you, James…'
'Anne's daughter becoming one of her own patients is pretty tidy, though, isn't it? He may not even be able to live with that.' He was running his thumbs-slowly up and down the base of Rachel's skull. 'Mind you, he's lived with himself long enough…'
Thorne's eyes didn't move from the long, thin fingers. From the hands encased in the tight surgical gloves. Skilled hands.
James in his flat. Cocky, immature and so easy to read. 'I wasted a couple of years at college, yeah. I'm not the ivory tower type.
The question Thorne had never thought to ask. Four stupid little words.
What did you study?
It was important to keep him talking…
'Is that all this has been about, James? Hurting your father? Getting your own back?'
Bishop glared at him. The mask of civility slipping.
'Don't be fucking stupid, Thorne. All this is about?' He looked disgusted at the suggestion. Then his voice softened and changed, becoming almost gentle, concerned, yet with the strength that came from conviction. 'This is about aiming for something like perfection. It's about taking something flawed and weak and rotten and removing the need for it. Eliminating the reliance on it. Letting the brain, which is the only part that's worth anything at all, flourish without the handicap of the body. It's about freedom.'
Thorne threw a quick look to Anne. A look to tell her it would be all right. He put his hands in his pockets, trying to appear relaxed as he turned slowly back to Bishop. Casual, enquiring. 'The frailty of the human body. Something your father taught you?'
'One of many things…' The voice had changed again. Casual, disinterested.
'And framing him for it?'
Bishop removed a hand from Rachel's head and ran it slowly across the noughts and crosses scar tissue on his stomach. The other hand stayed where it was, kneading the muscles at the back of her neck. Thorne considered running at him – he could be on him in a second. But a second was all Bishop would need to hurt Rachel. Instead Thorne offered him an answer to the question: 'Killing two birds with one stone.'
'Close enough. Except for the killing bit, obviously. Not very appropriate.'
Thorne disagreed. 'You did plenty of killing, James.'
Bishop shrugged.
A weapon would even things up a little. Thorne's eyes flashed to the instrument trolley, to the gleaming tools lined up in a row. Clamps, forceps, a scalpel.
Bishop caught the look. 'Please don't compromise this procedure, Thorne.' He smiled, glancing at the scalpel. 'I think I could reach it before you.'
Thorne nodded slowly. He could feel Anne's eyes on him. Begging.
Bishop stroked the muscle at the base of Rachel's skull.
'The sternocleidomastoid, Tom. Are you familiar with it?'
Thorne was familiar enough. He knew what Bishop was looking for. Feeling for. 'Why the attack on me, though, James? I still don't really understand that.'
'I knew you'd think it was my father. I knew you'd be sure. It was easy. Your relationship with Anne came in very handy. Perhaps your dick clouded your judgment a little. You were so easy to ginger Up, Tom, so easy to goad.'
Thorne winced a little at the truth of it: seizing hungrily on every clue Bishop had dropped in front of him; clutching at every straw that had been so deliberately scattered in his path – the drugs, the timing of the killings, the car…
'The Volvo?'
'The old man swears by them. When he bought his new one I persuaded him to let me have the cast-off. I gave him a hundred pounds for it, I think, which is obviously less than he'd have got part-ex from a garage but, well.., he is my father.'
That was the key, Thorne realised. Nobody knew Jeremy Bishop better. His son knew his movements, his whereabouts, the words he used. He knew everything his father knew about Alison, about the case. He knew how to steal his wedding ring.
'Sorry it didn't work out with the ring, James. Forensically compromised, I'm afraid.'
'These things happen. I'm sorry about the Byrne woman. I'm sorry about all the ones who died, sincerely I am, but I've told you that, haven't I? Of course, she would not have needed to die were you not planning to go charging in there waving your stupid photographs. Have you thought about that, Tom?'
James in his flat. Seeing Margaret Byrne's address on a piece of paper next to the phone…
Thorne had got it so completely wrong. Margaret Byrne hadn't died because she could identify Jeremy Bishop. She had died precisely because she could say for certain that Jeremy Bishop wasn't the killer.
