think I saw a decent-looking pub a mile or so back.'
'Oh, OK.' Anna sounded a little disappointed. As though she wanted to maintain the momentum they had generated; to hold on to the unfamiliar rush for fear it would dissipate.
'I think you need to calm down,' Thorne said. 'Besides which, this is going to be an awkward conversation. Best not to have it on an empty stomach.'
EIGHTEEN
Thorne's dislike of the typical English country pub was as fierce as the one he harboured for trendy bars. Thankfully, though, there were no horse-brasses in evidence, nor any wizened old buggers with their own tankards, and the place did not fall completely silent when they walked into the saloon bar.
They sat at a round, copper-topped table with a bottle of sparkling water, two bags of crisps and a couple of yesterday's baguettes. At the bar, the landlord and two middle-aged women were watching A Place in the Sun on a small television mounted high in the corner.
'People must lie to you all the time,' Anna said.
They had been talking about the woman they would shortly be visiting ever since leaving the Munros' house.
'To be fair,' Thorne said, 'she couldn't really give a dishonest answer to a question we never asked her.'
'You know what I mean.'
'She just didn't mention it.'
'A lie by omission, then. She must have known it was relevant.'
'Let's just see what she's got to say.'
'I'll know if she's lying again,' Anna said. 'I'm good at spotting it.'
'I'm listening,' Thorne said.
She leaned towards him. 'It's all about body language and the smallest changes in expression. Like that TV show, the one with the actor from Reservoir Dogs… God, I'm so rubbish at names. Anyway, he helps the police by letting them know when someone's lying, but it's a curse as well as a gift, because he can also tell when the people he loves are lying.' She swallowed. 'And that's not always.. . a good thing.' She reached for a beer mat and began methodically tearing it into tiny pieces. 'Are you good at telling?'
'I thought I was once.' Thorne puffed out his cheeks. 'But I've made enough mistakes to be a bit more careful now.'
'As long as you learn from them, right?'
'People lie for pretty basic reasons,' he said. 'They're scared or nervous or they've got something to hide. Sometimes they lie to spare somebody's pain, or at least that's what they tell themselves they're doing.' He looked past her, up at the television. 'We all do it dozens of times a day, most of us. Some people lie even when they've got no reason to, because they just can't help themselves. Each time they do it and don't get caught, it's a little victory. It's what gets them through the day, I suppose. Then, there are the ones whose lies are a little more serious.'
On the screen, an elderly couple was being shown around a farm-house in Tuscany or Carcassonne or somewhere. Louise watched the show whenever she got the chance, but Thorne had never seen anyone actually buy one of the places they were shown. 'They're just in it for a free holiday,' he told Louise. She said she didn't care and told him to shut up.
'Are you thinking about that man who got off?' Anna asked. 'The one who killed the girl. Chambers?'
'He didn't kill her,' Thorne said. 'Not in the eyes of the law.'
'But you think he did.'
'I don't want to get into it.' With no beer mat of his own to tear up, Thorne leaned forward and swept crumbs from the table on to his plate.
'I lied to you,' Anna said.
'When?'
'In the car, outside Donna's place. I told you I was upset about her and Ellie, but it was really all about me and my mother.'
'You had words,' Thorne said. 'You told me. After you left your job.'
'It was more serious than that.' She smiled, reddened a little. 'You see, there you go, another lie. The truth is that we haven't spoken since. Not for a year and a half.'
'Blimey.'
'It's always been tricky with me and my mum.'
'What about your father?'
'He's fine about it now, or at least says he is. We talk once a week, something like that, but whenever I call, she refuses to come to the phone.'
'It sounds like she's the one who's behaving like a child, so why are you feeling guilty?'
Anna didn't argue. 'Listen, I know she's being melodramatic and that she should be supporting me, but it's complicated. She drinks, OK, and I don't think what I'm doing is helping matters.'
'How bad is it?'
'It was getting better. That's the point. But I think my… change of career kind of set her back a bit. And now my dad's not coping very well.'
Thorne poured out the last of the water. 'What you said before, about knowing when people are lying…'
She nodded, knowing that he'd worked it out. 'Mum was really good at it, but I learned to read the signs. I knew that she'd had four glasses when she said she'd had just the one, I knew where she was hiding the empty bottles, all the usual stuff. So, you know, I'm not exactly like the bloke in that TV show, but I can spot a porky more often than not.'
'I'll bear that in mind.'
'Where did you get the scar?'
She pointed. Thorne reached up and traced a finger along the straight, white line that ran across the bottom of his chin.
'I'll know if you're bullshitting, remember,' she said.
'It was a woman with a knife a few years back,' Thorne said. 'Or a man wearing a signet ring who punched me when I tried to arrest his brother. Or I ran into a coffee table when I was five.'
She narrowed her eyes. 'Knife,' she said. 'I'm right, aren't I?'
'You had a one-in-three chance.'
'I should also tell you that it makes me a very good liar.' She sat back, folded her arms. 'And a shit-hot poker player.'
'You kidding?'
'It saved me having to work behind a bar when I was at college.'
Thorne nodded, genuinely impressed. She was certainly naive, this girl, and gobby and over- exuberant.
But she kept on surprising him.
The look on Kate's face when she opened the door gave Thorne the impression that she knew, or at least had a good idea, why he and Anna had come. She certainly did not appear overly shocked when he told her.
The three of them were in the living room and each tensed at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Donna came in drying her hair. Nobody had bothered to sit down.
'What?' she said.
Thorne ran through it all again for Donna's benefit. Then he turned back to her girlfriend. 'Julian Munro saw the tattoo, Kate,' he said. 'Not in any great detail, though I'm not convinced the name would have rung any bells with him anyway.'
'It rang quite a bell with us, though,' Anna said.
