“Only moderately.”
“I didn’t see what else we could do. Still don’t.”
Hendricks opened the door. “I’m not worried about the investigation…”
They both turned at the sound of rain blowing against the window, exchanged the comically worldweary look of a practiced double act.
“Brendan really doesn’t approve of this,” Thorne said. The silence told him that this was something Hendricks didn’t need to be told; that this was an issue he and Brendan had probably argued about. “Listen, I know how seriously Brendan takes his job, and I know that all he cares about is getting his clients off the streets. So tell him this when you two kiss and make up later on…”
“Before or after?”
“I’m serious, Phil. Remind him why we’re doing this again, will you? Tell him that there’s someone else out there who wants to get rough sleepers off the street, and this fucker’s got his own way of doing it…”
By lunchtime, the London Lift’s cafe area was busy again. The tables had been pushed closer together and somewhere between thirty and forty people sat eating, or queuing for food at the counter.
Thorne carried a plate of stew across to a table and got stuck in.
Around him were a few faces he recognized. He exchanged nods with one or two people he’d run into during the course of the day so far: an old man he’d walked the length of the Strand with; a Glaswegian with a woolly Chelsea hat and no teeth; a scowling, stick-thin Welshman who’d become aggressive when he’d thought Thorne was stealing his begging pitch, and had then turned scarily affectionate once Thorne had explained that he was doing no such thing. On the opposite side of the room, Thorne saw Spike, sitting with his back to him with his arm around the shoulders of an equally skinny girl.
Again, it was quieter than it might have been. By far the loudest noise came from a big, white-haired man at the other end of the table from Thorne. The man beamed and frowned-pushing a spoon distractedly through his food-far more intent on the two-way conversation he was having with himself on an invisible radio. Every half a minute or so he would hiss, imitating the sound of static, before delivering his message. Then, a few seconds later, he would move his hand, switch the “radio” to the other ear, and give himself an answer.
“This is London calling the president,” he said.
Spike went to the counter to collect his pudding. On the way back to his table he saw Thorne and shouted a hello. Thorne briefly waved a spoon, then carried on eating. The stew was thick with pearl barley and the gravy was tasteless, but at?1.25 for two courses, he had little cause for complaint.
Once he’d finished eating, Spike walked over, hand in hand with the girl, to where Thorne was sitting.
“This is Caroline,” he said. “Caz.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Tom…”
The girl had red-rimmed eyes and hair like sticky strands of dark toffee. She wore a faded rugby shirt under a zip-up top and multicolored beads and thin leather bracelets around her wrists.
“Spike and me are engaged,” she said.
Spike and his girlfriend sat and talked to Thorne while he finished his lunch. They told him about the time when they were asleep and they’d been sprayed with graffiti, and how another time they’d been pissed on by a gang of teenage boys. About how Caroline had once been propositioned by a woman off the telly and told her to go and fuck herself. About the flat they were planning to move into together once they had a bit of luck.
“It’s well fucking overdue, you know?”
“I do know,” Thorne said.
Spike did most of the talking. Thorne figured that this was about as close to normal as the boy ever got: a few hours of balance, of numbness between being wasted and needy. It was a window of opportunity that Thorne knew would get smaller and smaller as time went on.
“Everyone deserves a bit of luck, don’t they?”
When Caroline did speak, it was in a low mumble. Her voice had the flat vowels and slightly nasal tone of the West Midlands, but Thorne could hear a stronger influence.
Smack had an accent of its own.
There was a sudden, loud hiss from the other end of the table. The big man was receiving another message. Thorne stared at his red face and fat, flapping hands.
“That’s Radio Bob,” Spike said. He leaned in and shouted. “Oi, Bob. Say hello, you cunt…”
A pair of small dark eyes blinked and swiveled and settled on Thorne. “Houston, we have a problem,” Radio Bob said.
Spike sniffed and pointed to a man sitting on an adjacent table. “And that’s Moony,” he said. “He knew Paddy as well.”
“Did he?”
Spike shouted, beckoned over a skinny character with a sparse, gingery beard. His straw-colored thatch hid the clumps of dandruff far better than the vast lapels of his dirty brown sports jacket.
“This is Tom,” Spike said.
Moony fiddled with the top of what looked like the plastic Coke bottle he had jammed into his pocket. Cooking sherry was Thorne’s best guess. It was certainly a long time since the bottle had seen anything as benign as Coca-Cola.
“Give me a minute or two,” Moony said, sitting. The voice was high and light; effete, even. “Just one minute, and I’ll tell you what you do. I’ll tell you what you did, I should really say. In your previous life. I’m never wrong, never. I’ve got a knack for it…”
Thorne spooned stew into his mouth, grunted a marginal interest.
Spike hauled Caroline to her feet and moved toward the counter. “I’m going to get some tea.” He screwed up his face, put on a posh voice, and brayed, “Perhaps a crumpet, if they have such a thing.”
Moony watched them go, expressionless, stroking the neck of his bottle.
Thorne wondered if Moony was a surname or a nickname, but knew better than to ask. If the latter, then its origin was not obvious. Haggard and pockmarked, he certainly didn’t have a moonface. Maybe he was partial to showing people his arse when he’d had a few too many. If so, a sighting might well be in the cards, judging by the state of him. By the stink of him.
“You knew this poor bastard that was half kicked to death, then?” Thorne spoke without looking up from his dish. “Haynes, was it?”
“Hayes, right. Paddy Hayes. I knew Paddy well enough, certainly. On a life-support machine, according to the television, but we all know that means ‘vegetable,’ don’t we?”
“Right.” Thorne had spoken to Holland about Paddy Hayes first thing that morning. There was no change. None was expected.
“Not that he can think anything now, of course, but if he could, I wonder if he’d still think that everything happened for a reason. I wonder if he’d still be on good terms with Him upstairs. I wonder if he’d be all forgiving.” He scoffed, pointed a finger heavenward. “Mysterious ways, my arse.”
Thorne folded a slice of tacky white bread in half and began to mop up the last of his stew.
“I knew the second victim, too, you know.”
Raymond Mannion. Found fourteen days after the first victim. Killed three streets away. Thorne looked up, but just for a second, doing his best not to appear overly interested.
“Ray and I talked a great deal,” Moony said. “A great deal.”
Thorne pushed a dollop of soggy bread into his mouth and wondered who it was that Moony reminded him of. He realized that it was Steve Norman, the press officer. Moony had that same self-importance that Norman had been full of when he’d introduced Thorne to his friend from Sky. He was enjoying himself.
“What did you talk about?” Thorne asked.
“When you’ve got as much time to talk as we had, you tend to cover the entire spectrum. He was drugfucked, so there were occasions when he couldn’t string a sentence together, but we discussed most things at one time or another.”
“Did you talk to him on the night he was killed?”
“ Hours before he was killed, mate. Just hours before.”
“Christ.”
Moony lowered his voice. “Which is how I know he was scared.”
