no one’s expecting me back. The kids are at a friend’s.”
Despite the weather, Parliament Square was thick with people, and cars were taking an age to get around it. Hendricks had definitely chosen the tourist route.
“Did he never have a job?”
“He had all sorts of jobs, but they were all shit.
Couldn’t even hold on to them. He’d get into a fight at work or just stop turning up. Then he’d be off on one of his walkabouts.” She shrugged, stared out of the window at the crowds under umbrellas outside
Westminster Abbey.
“Was there any kind of trigger for Chris’s illness?
You said he’d been like it for ages…”
“I wouldn’t call it an illness, exactly. He just gets depressed, you know?”
“It’s an illness.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I just wondered if there’d been a single event that might have sparked him off? A breakup with someone. A death in the family…”
“I don’t think so.”
“Nothing you can think of?”
“All of them things happen to everybody, don’t they?”
“Yes, but we all have a different brain chemistry.” “He’s always had mates and girlfriends and all that, and a lot of the time he’s as happy as anyone is, but for ages now he’s just been liable to go off on one. I don’t know why. I don’t know what causes it. I just want to find him and keep a better eye on him this time. I want to get him some help.”
She was starting to get worked up again, and
Hendricks could hear in her voice that tears weren’t far away. He thought it was odd, considering how much she clearly cared for her brother, that she seemed to know so little about what was wrong with him. She was vague about the whats and the whens, but then denial tended to do that. He sensed that she blamed herself, that she somehow felt guilty for what had happened, for what might have happened, to her brother. He wished that there was something he could do to help her. He thought about the tattoo, about what Kitson had said back at the hospital. If Chris Jago was dead-and his sister had obviously thought that was possible-Hendricks thought there might be something he could do to help find him. But first he needed to go home, or back to his office at the hospital…
She was staring at him. “Can I ask you, are you gay?” she said.
Hendricks was stunned at her directness. He took a second, then barked out a laugh. “Yes, I am.” He was struck by a possibility. “Was Chris?”
“God, no,” she said. “I’ve got a mate at work who is, and you’re a lot like him. It doesn’t bother me, though.”
They drove on, making small talk until the traffic began to thin out at the top end of the Tottenham
Court Road. Hendricks checked the clock on the dash. “It’ll be close, but I think we’ll make it,” he said.
Next to him, Susan Jago clutched the handles of her bag a little bit tighter.
Chloe Holland took half a dozen unsteady steps toward her father, and banged her head against the top of his leg. “Dada…”
Holland picked up his daughter and carried her over to the sofa in the corner of the living room.
“Come on then, chicken. A quick cuddle before bed…”
His girlfriend, Sophie Wagstaffe, stood in the doorway. “Don’t get her too excited, Dave.”
He thought about saying something about how any excitement round the place would be welcome, but he bit his tongue. Its absence was almost certainly down to him. Yes, they were both tired at the end of the day, and fractious, but he was also bringing the frustration of the case home with him. His mood flung a coarse, heavy blanket across everything. He couldn’t blame Sophie for being thoroughly fed up.
The little girl pointed to her favorite video, lying on the carpet in front of the VCR. “Arnee,” she said.
“Barney, yes. Good girl…”
His daughter would be a year old in a couple of days.
Chloe had been conceived just in time to stop his relationship with Sophie from falling apart completely. Pregnancy changed the emphasis of everything. The stupid affair he’d had became a weapon that was wielded only rarely, and most of the conversations that took place in raised voices became about the Job. Did he not think that perhaps now he should find something a bit safer? Something that paid a bit more, maybe, before he became completely institutionalized?
Once Chloe had been around for a while, once they’d got over the heart-stopping, joyous shell shock of it, they discussed their future again, though now nobody had the energy to do a lot of shouting. Or to do a lot of anything else. The flat they’d shared for years in Elephant and Castle was far too small, no question, so they talked about moving; about getting out of London altogether. They’d decided that Holland should sit the sergeant’s exam, but the increase in pay had been more than canceled out by a greater caseload. With Sophie back teaching again, and child care to be paid for, they were no better off. Any move in the short term was out of the question.
“Come on, Dave.”
“All right…”
“I need to change her and get her down.”
“Just give me a minute…”
The tiredness never seemed to ease up. Just as Chloe had started to sleep that bit longer, he’d been required to do longer tours of duty. His new seniority, together with the seriousness of this particular case, meant that sixteen- and eighteen-hour shifts were becoming increasingly common. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to hug his baby girl tight to his chest, close his eyes, and stay where he was until the morning.
“Dave, please.”
That was what was really going on, he thought, when couples stayed together because of the children. The truth was that they were just too exhausted to leave.
It wasn’t that bad, of course. He knew that actually he could count himself lucky that Sophie hadn’t walked out on him. It was amazing that she hadn’t packed a bag and done a bunk with someone. Some teacher maybe, same as Tom Thorne’s missus. Creative-writing lecturer that had been, years back. Jesus…
Holland opened his eyes as he felt Chloe being lifted from him.
“Right, okay then. I need to make a call anyway…”
He watched as Sophie gathered stuff up: the necessary books and an armful of soft toys. He waved his daughter good night as Sophie carried her through into the bedroom. If only they could get away, he thought. Just the two of them. Leave the baby with grandparents, then head off somewhere to laze around and fuck each other’s brains out in the sunshine. He’d see what he could manage when the case had cooled down a little.
Holland crossed to the door and pushed it shut. He took out his mobile, scrolled through for the number, and dialed. He needed peace and quiet to make this call, but he also needed the privacy. He couldn’t tell Sophie anything about Thorne working undercover.
Though she’d only met him a couple of times, Sophie had never been a fan of Tom Thorne. She’d decided early on that he would be a bad influence on Holland and had tried, without much success, to make as much obvious to Holland himself. She was not, though, the type to kick anyone too hard when they were down, and had hardly mentioned Thorne’s name since she’d heard about the death of his father, and the problems he’d had since. As far as she knew, Thorne had been taken off the squad and given something a little less taxing to do.
Holland waited for an answer, smiling at a memory of Sophie badgering him one night when he’d been cooking dinner. It had been just before the second part of his sergeant’s exam, when candidates were faced with hypothetical problems to solve. “Let the bugger really help you for a change,” she’d said. “If you get stuck, just think about what Tom Thorne would do, then make sure you do the exact opposite…”
“Sir?”
There was a grunt at the other end of the line.
“Can you talk?”
Another grunt, but definitely in the affirmative.
Holland told Thorne about Susan Jago having failed to identify the body of the first victim. The reaction had
