He had overreacted, he knew that. He should never have raised his hands, how stupid was that? He would apologise to the bloke, sort things out, send over a good bottle of single malt in the morning.
It wasn't as if nobody ever called him by his real name any more, or that he didn't occasionally hear it whispered in a bar. What did he expect? OK, it hadn't been what he'd called himself for ten years, and the face and hair weren't exactly the same, but 'Alan Langford' was still basically the bloke he saw when he looked in the mirror.
Only the name was dead.
Still, everyone close to him knew how it worked, same as those who had been here a while. They knew there were coppers and friends of coppers all over this stretch of coast like flies on a turd, and stupid things like the name you used could draw attention. Could end up getting you pinched. But a few faces occasionally got careless. Older types from the London days who turned gobby after a drink or two; or recent arrivals who were mooching about, looking to make the right contacts.
Tonight, it had been one of the older boys. A bloke he'd done some business with in the seventies. No harm in him, just a slip of the tongue, and the look on his face when he realised what he'd said was priceless. But still, he'd needed telling.
A week ago, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did. A quiet word would have done it. Now though, with the business back home, with these photographs and everything else, he had every right to feel a bit jumpier than he would be otherwise.
To feel cornered.
Below him, lights drifted across the water as a couple of boats emerged from around the headland and moved into the bay. Night fishermen, probably, nets bulging with squid and sardines.
All this grief because of a photograph. Jesus…
He could just make out the music drifting up from his favourite club on the seafront, the bass-line anyway, like a racing heartbeat. He knew there'd be a few of those in the place tonight – sweaty punters revved up on coke and ecstasy. Soft-top Mercs and Bentleys parked outside and high-quality Russian hookers lined up around the dance floor.
He poured out what was left of the wine and lobbed the empty bottle into the swimming pool.
He was a long way from Hackney.
There had not been too much traffic on the way back from Victoria, and Thorne was home before ten o'clock. Louise had already gone to bed. He thought he had come in quietly enough, but standing in the kitchen, necking water from the bottle, he heard her call out from the bedroom.
He got undressed in the dark.
'I just conked out in front of the TV,' she said. 'Couldn't keep my eyes open.'
'It doesn't matter.'
'I can smell Guinness.'
He got into bed and turned on to his side. Said, 'I had a couple in the Oak with Russell.'
Had Thorne been asked there and then why he was lying, he could not have explained it. The night before, when Louise had asked about his first trip to Wakefield, he had felt as though he were lying when he was being truthful. Now, lying felt a lot less problematic than being honest.
He told himself that he was protecting her. That she was oversensitive at the moment, had been since the miscarriage.
He knew it was nonsense.
He did not want an argument, it was probably as simple as that. Yes, Louise was more easily hurt these days, was prone to see offence where there was none intended, but so was he. He was still raw, and he was not up to a fight.
Louise rolled over and her arm moved across his leg. 'How many did you have?'
'Only a couple,' Thorne said.
'That's very responsible.'
'I was driving.'
'How early are you in tomorrow?'
Her fingers dropped to his groin and her breath was hot as she moaned softly into his shoulder. He had more or less stopped thinking about Anna Carpenter when he turned to her.
TWELVE
Thorne picked up Anna near Victoria Coach Station and they drove north, along Whitehall and around Trafalgar Square, across the Euston Road, up into Camden and beyond.
He did not bother warning her this time or issuing ground rules that he guessed she would break anyway. He was rather less cautious about this interview than he had been about the one in Wakefield Prison, on top of which he now thought she'd probably had a point the night before. He might well get more out of Donna Langford with Anna along for the ride.
Presuming there was anything to get.
They didn't talk much in the car. Thorne content to listen to the radio and Anna appearing to get the message. Waiting to cross the Holloway Road, Thorne slipped a CD into the player; a vintage bluegrass compilation. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe…
'Oh, I love this sort of stuff,' Anna said.
Thorne nudged the volume up as he accelerated away from the lights.
'My dad used to have loads of these records.'
He glanced across and was pleased to see that she did not appear to be taking the piss; nodding her head in time to the music and smacking out the rhythm on her knees. She had made all the right noises when she had first seen the BMW, too; something Thorne was not accustomed to. Certainly not from work colleagues, most of whom delighted in describing the 1975, pulsar-yellow CSi as the 'rusty banana' or a 'puke-coloured death-trap'. Anna told Thorne she thought it was 'cool'. He told her she had very good taste, but couldn't help wondering if she had held secret meetings with Holland or Hendricks, and had been comprehensively briefed on the best ways to wind him up.
'My mum hates it, though,' Anna said, smiling. She was still tapping along to the beat of the upright bass, the scratchy melody of the fiddle, and the syncopation, so delicately picked out on the resonator guitar.
'This Weary Heart' by the Stanley Brothers, honey-sweet and hell-dark, as the car turned off the Seven Sisters Road and slowed.
'Most people do,' Thorne said. 'I think it's one of the reasons I like it so much.'
Donna Langford did not seem overly keen on letting Thorne and Anna inside when they arrived. She was already pulling her coat on when she opened the door and stepped out quickly. 'Kate's got the right hump this morning,' she said.
Thorne and Anna exchanged a look as Donna marched past them down the path.
'It's a nice day. Let's go to the park.'
The day, though bright and sunny, was hardly warm, while the park, a five-minute walk from Donna's block, turned out to be a scrubby patch of green and brown no bigger than a couple of tennis courts. There was a pair of rusted swings and a set of goalposts without a net. A fire had scorched what might once have been a penalty area, and there was a collection of discarded cans and bottles scattered among the long grass behind.
The three of them squeezed on to a metal bench.
'What was your first thought?' Thorne asked. 'Back when you saw that first picture of Alan.'
A few leaves skittered half-heartedly at their feet, and for the few seconds before Donna answered they all watched as a battered Nissan Micra raced down the small road that ran behind the goalposts.
'I thought it was typical,' Donna said, laughing. 'Once I'd got over the shock, I mean. I started wondering why I hadn't thought he was alive before. Why I ever thought I'd actually managed to get rid of him.'
'Why 'typical'?'
'Alan never did anything by halves,' she said. 'He planned things out, thought them through, you know?'
