are one or the other. They prefer it if we don’t mix.”
Thorne shook his head. “Why?”
“Stands to reason, when you think about it. The older ones’ve picked up every bad habit going, haven’t they? You take somebody fresh on the streets. After a couple of weeks knocking about with someone who’s been around awhile, he’ll be a pisshead or he’ll be selling his arse or whatever.”
It made sense, Thorne thought, but only up to a point. “Yeah, but look at us two. I’ve got twentyodd years on you and you’re the one that’s been around.”
Spike laughed. Thorne listened to the breath rattling out of him and looked into the pinprick of light at the center of his shrunken pupils, and thought: You’re the one that’s picked up the bad habit.. .
Thorne had seen it the previous night: the glow from a streetlamp catching a sheen of sweat across Spike’s forehead, heightening the waxy pallor of his skin. This morning, it was obvious that he’d not long got his fix. Thorne knew that without it he’d have no chance of getting any sleep.
“Can you not get a hostel place?”
“Not really bothered at the moment. When I wake up covered in frost, like, I’ll be well up for it, no question, but I’m all right where I am just now. Been in plenty of hostels, but I’m not really cut out for ’em. I’m too… chaotic, and that’s a technical term. ‘Chaotic.’ I’m fine for a few days or a week, and then I fuck up, and end up back on the street, so…”
Spike’s speech had slowed dramatically, and his gaze had become fixed on a spot above Thorne and to the right of him. Slowly, he lowered his head and turned, and it was as though the eyes followed reluctantly, a second later. “I think… it’s bedtime,” he said.
Thorne shrugged. A junkie’s hours.
Spike slid his chair slowly away from the table, though he showed no sign of getting up from it. On the other side of the room voices were raised briefly, but by the time Thorne looked across, whatever had kicked off seemed to have died down again. “Maybe see you back here lunchtime.” “Maybe,” Thorne said.
“Had enough yet?” Brendan Maxwell asked.
Thorne ignored the sarcasm. “Tell me about Spike,” he said.
As soon as the breakfast rush had started to die down, Thorne had wandered out. Holland had told him earlier that Phil Hendricks would be coming in, and Thorne was keen to see him. He’d headed surreptitiously toward the offices. The admin area was on the far side of the top floor and Maxwell had given him the four-digit staff code to get through each of the doors. There were coded locks on every door in the place.
With the open-plan arrangement of offices offering little privacy, Thorne, Maxwell, and Hendricks had gathered in a small meeting room at the back of the building. If anyone wandered in, it would look like a caseworker/client conference of some sort, but Thorne wasn’t planning to hang around very long, anyway. It was just a quick catch-up.
Maxwell was perched on the edge of a table next to Hendricks. “He’s not quite twenty-five, so Spike’s not one of mine yet, but I couldn’t tell you anything even if he was.”
Hendricks looked sideways at his boyfriend. To Thorne, it seemed like a look that was asking Maxwell to lighten up a little. To bend the rules.
“Come on, Phil,” Maxwell said. “You know how it works.” He turned back to Thorne. “Look, I had a long chat with your boss about this. There are major confidentiality issues that have to be considered.”
“Fair enough,” Thorne said. Brigstocke had made the position very clear to him. Unless he had good reason to think it would directly aid the investigation, Thorne would be given no personal information about other rough sleepers.
“It’s just the way we do things. I’ve had Samaritans on the phone trying to trace someone on behalf of parents. People who just want to know if their kid’s alive or dead. The person they’re looking for might be downstairs drinking tea, but I can’t say anything. I can’t tell them because maybe they’re the reason why the kid’s on the street in the first place, you know?”
“Just talk to this kid if you’re interested,” Hendricks said.
Maxwell nodded his agreement, leaned gently against his partner. “Spike’s not shy, I can tell you that much. You’ll get his life story if he’s in the mood to tell you.”
For a few moments nobody said anything. Hendricks and Maxwell were usually a demonstrative couple physically, but Thorne sensed that, at that moment, Hendricks was a little uncomfortable with Maxwell’s arm resting on his shoulder.
There had been periods in the past when the relationship between the three of them had become somewhat complex. Thorne thought that Maxwell could, on occasion, be jealous of the platonic relationship he shared with Hendricks. At other times, after a beer or three, Thorne was not beyond wondering if it was he himself who was the jealous one. Right that minute, he was too tired to think much about anything at all. He took a moment. He knew that if he was going to last the course, this was a level of tiredness he was going to have to get used to pretty bloody quickly.
“So, what’s happening?” he asked Hendricks. Having spoken to Holland, he was practically up to speed, but Hendricks’s take on things, as the civilian member of the team, was always worth getting. “Anything I should know?”
Hendricks looked thoughtful, then began listing the headlines. “Brigstocke’s talking to a profiler. They’re recanvassing the area where Paddy Hayes was attacked. Everyone’s waiting around for the next body to show up, to be honest. Oh, and Spurs lost three-one at Aston Villa last night.”
“Cheers…”
There was a knock and a man stepped smartly into the room. He was somewhere in his late forties with neatly combed brown hair and glasses. He wore jeans that were a fraction too tight and a blue blazer over a checked shirt.
The man took in the scene quickly, then addressed himself to Maxwell. “Sorry, Brendan. Can I have a word when you’ve got a minute?”
Maxwell pushed himself away from the table, but before he could say anything, the man was already on his way out.
“Bollocks,” Maxwell muttered.
Hendricks leaned toward Thorne, spoke in a theatrical whisper. “Brendan’s new boss.”
Maxwell looked none too pleased. “He’s not my boss. He’s just the arsehole who controls our budget.” He walked to the door, stopped, and turned back to Thorne. “I was wrong about it taking a couple of weeks, by the way. You look pretty rough already…”
Thorne watched him leave. There’d been a smile on Maxwell’s face, but it hadn’t taken all the edge off the comment.
“Don’t worry about it.” Hendricks rubbed his palm rapidly back and forth across his shaved head. “He’s just in a shitty mood because he isn’t getting on with…” He pointed at the door.
Thorne nodded. “The arsehole. He sounded pretty posh.”
“Horribly posh. There’s a big consortium running all the outreach stuff now, and they want people with more of a business background. Brendan and a few of the others can’t even fill in a claim form for their expenses, so this bloke’s been shaking things up. There’s a bit of tension.” Hendricks was clearly struck by something hugely funny. “It’s like Brendan’s you, and this new bloke’s Trevor Jesmond.”
Thorne scowled. “Then Brendan has my deepest sympathy.”
“Actually, this new bloke’s not quite as bad as Jesmond.”
“That would be going some…”
“Stupid bugger had some high-powered banking job before this. Jetting all round the world for multinationals, oil companies, whatever, and he chucks it all in. Takes a massive pay cut to come and work for the care services…”
“Bloody do-gooder.”
“Mind you, you could be a paperboy and you’d still be taking a pay cut…”
Thorne stretched, yawned noisily. “I’d better get back out there. I’m sure you must have things that need cutting up.”
“I’ll find something.”
“Brendan told me you think I’m mad,” Thorne said.
