“It’s news, so we’re covering it.”
“Bit below your weight, though, isn’t it?”
Ward stared over Norman’s head as he spoke, looking around as if he were taking in a breathtaking view. “We aren’t bombing the shit out of anybody at the moment, thank God, so I’m just here giving the lads on the crew a bit of moral support. Keeping an eye on one or two of the newer guys.”
There was a bit of chuckling, then a pause. Thorne felt like he should say something to justify his presence. “What is it you do, then, Alan?”
Norman took great pride in answering for Ward. “Alan’s a TV reporter. He’s normally working in places a little more dangerous than Colindale.”
“Tottenham?” Thorne asked.
Ward laughed and started to speak, but again Norman was in there first. “Bosnia, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland.” Norman listed the names with great pride, and Thorne realized that he was showing off, like a kid with a new bike. That, however close a friend Ward actually was, Norman got off on knowing him.
Thorne looked at Ward and could see that he was embarrassed, that he and Norman were not really close friends at all. The glance Thorne got back, the discreet roll of the eyes, told him Ward thought Norman was every bit as much of a tit as he did. Thorne took an enormous liking to Alan Ward immediately.
Suddenly it was Thorne’s turn to feel embarrassed. “I thought you looked familiar,” he said. “I’ve just realized. I’ve seen you on the box, haven’t I?”
Norman looked like he would wet himself with excitement.
“Have you got Sky, then?” Ward said.
“I tend to use it for the football mostly, I’m ashamed to say.”
“Who are you, Arsenal?”
“God, no!”
At that moment, over Norman’s shoulder, Thorne saw Trevor Jesmond emerge. Jesmond looked across, froze, then quickly tried-as Thorne himself had done a few minutes earlier-to spin away without being spotted. Thorne raised a hand, horrified that he and Jesmond shared anything at all in common.
“Well then…” Norman said.
To the press officer’s obvious delight, Thorne said hasty good-byes. Ward shook his hand again, and gave him a business card. As Thorne walked away, the reporter said something he didn’t altogether catch about getting free tickets for matches.
He caught up with Jesmond just as the detective superintendent reached his car.
“Shouldn’t you be at Scotland Yard?”
“I was wondering if DCI Brigstocke had said anything to you, sir.”
Jesmond pressed a button on his key to unlock the car. He opened the Rover’s door and tossed his cap and briefcase onto the passenger seat.
“My sympathies for recent events are a matter of record…”
“Sir…”
“But if they have left you in an emotionally charged state, where you are not presently fit to work as a member of my team, what on earth makes you think you’d be able to function efficiently as an undercover officer?”
“I don’t think what I’m suggesting is… complicated,” Thorne said. “I think I’m perfectly able-”
Jesmond cut him off. “Or perhaps that’s it.” He blinked slowly. His lashes were sandy, all but lost against his dry skin. He might have been trying to appear knowing and thoughtful, but Thorne watched the thin lips set themselves into what looked to him like a smirk. “Perhaps your emotional state is precisely why you think you should be doing this. Perhaps it’s why you consider yourself suitable; why you consider this job suitable for you. Have I hit it on the head, Tom? Are you going to be dossing down in a hairshirt?”
Thorne could say nothing. He flicked his eyes away and watched the light slide off the chromed edge of the car’s indicators, catching the buttons of Jesmond’s immaculate uniform.
“Look, I’m not saying it’s a completely stupid idea,” Jesmond said. “You’ve certainly had stupider.”
Thorne smiled at the line, seeing the glimmer of possibility. “This one’s not even in the top ten,” he said.
“On the plus side, even if you screw it up, I can’t see that we have a great deal to lose.”
“I can’t see there’s anything to lose.”
“Give me a day or two, yes?” Jesmond stepped between Thorne and the car door. “It won’t be solely my decision anyway. I’ll have to talk to SO10.”
“I really think we can get something out of this,” Thorne said.
“Like I said, a day or two.”
“We can get it quickly as well. There’s no need for a long lead-up time, we just do it.” He stared at Jesmond, trying hard to look relaxed even as his stomach jumped and knotted. “Come on, you’ve seen some of these down-and-outs. Staggering around, ranting at the world with a can of cheap lager in their hand. You know me well enough. How hard can that possibly be?”
FIVE
The mood of the cafe owner had obviously not improved as he cleared away the plates. Holland had eaten toast before he’d left home, but had done his best with a bacon sandwich. Thorne had made short work of the fullest of full English breakfasts.
“The eggs were hard,” Thorne said.
“So? You ate them, didn’t you? If you don’t like the place, you can fuck off.”
“We’ll have two more mugs of tea.”
The owner trudged back behind his counter. The place was a lot busier now, and he had more to do, so it was difficult to tell whether he had any intention of ever bringing the tea as requested.
“Can you find something to arrest him for?” Thorne said. “Being fat and miserable in a built-up area, maybe?”
“I’m not sure who he hates more, coppers or tramps. We’re obviously not doing much for his ambience.”
Thorne stared hard across the room. “Fuck him. It’s hardly the Ritz, is it?”
“I picked up a couple of papers on my way here,” Holland said. He reached down for his bag, dug out a stack of newspapers, and dropped them on the table. “Our picture of Victim One’s on virtually every front page today.”
Thorne pulled a couple of the papers toward him. “TV?”
Holland nodded. “All the national TV news broadcasts as well. Both ends of London Tonight. It’s pretty comprehensive…”
Thorne stared down at the Mirror, at the Independent, into a pair of eyes that had been generated by a software program, but nonetheless had the power to find his own, and hold them. Victim One was long-haired and bearded. His flat, black-and-white features were fine, the line of jaw and cheekbones perhaps a little extreme to be lifelike. But the eyes, like the heavy bags beneath them, looked real enough. Dark, narrow, and demanding to be recognized. It was a face that said, Know me.
“What do you think?” Holland asked.
Thorne looked at the text that accompanied the pictures. The crucial facts rehashed: a brutal reminder of just how much was known about this man’s death when nothing at all was known about the life that had been stolen from him.
Then the reproduction of the tattoo. The vital collection of letters found on the victim’s shoulder. It had been hoped early on-as Brigstocke had told Thorne in the pub-that this might help identify the body, but that hope had proved as temporary as the tattoo itself was permanent.
AB- S.O.F.A.
