Kate's hand moved to her neck, to the elaborate lettering that curled below the collar of her shirt. She nodded. 'It was boiling that day,' she said. 'I remember the two of us sitting there sweating in that cafe and I had this stupid little vest on…'
Donna was just standing there, the towel dangling from her fist, the anger building to the point where it looked as though she might use it to strangle the woman she loved. 'You saw Ellie? Why the hell didn't you say anything? Why did you think it was any of your business?' She shouted, furiously spitting out the questions one on top of the other, while Kate turned her face away and tried desperately to interject. ' Why did you see her? Christ, why am I only hearing about this now?'
'I'm sorry.'
'All that rubbish the other day, you swearing blind you were on my side. I was right, wasn't I? About you being jealous. Were you trying to warn her off?'
'No-'
'Did you tell her I didn't want to see her?'
'God, no. Why would I want to do that?'
'How the hell should I know? Because you're sick in the head?'
'You should try and calm down,' Thorne said.
Donna wheeled around. 'You can piss off as well. I can see how much you're enjoying this.'
'Don't be stupid.'
Donna turned to Anna, jabbing a finger in Thorne's direction. 'He fucking loves it, look at him.'
'Why did you go to see Ellie, Kate?' Thorne asked.
Kate stepped back until her calves were pressing against the sofa, then she dropped on to it. 'Look, it was stupid,' she said. 'I knew that. But I also knew how much you were looking forward to seeing her. So when I got out, I just wanted to… I don't know, pave the way or something. See if I could help.'
'What did she say?' Anna asked.
'What the hell did you say?' Donna marched across and stood above Kate; glaring down, demanding answers. 'What did you say to my daughter? 'You don't know me, but I've been shagging your mother in prison for the last few years'?'
'I told her I was a friend.'
'Some fucking friend,' Donna said.
Kate looked up at Thorne. 'It didn't go very well, OK? Like I said, it was stupid and I don't really know what I was expecting.'
'You didn't hit it off, then?' he asked.
'I just freaked her out, I think.'
'Julian Munro said you were arguing.'
'It was a bad time for her, that's all. She was waiting for her exam results and was all stressed out about it. She got upset, and.. . Look, it was just bad timing, OK?'
'That was the last time you saw her?'
Kate nodded.
'You never saw Ellie Langford again after that meeting in the cafe in Cobham?'
'No, that was it,' Kate said. 'It was only a few weeks later that she went missing.'
Donna suddenly swung the towel violently, slapping it hard against the cushion next to Kate, who flinched when it came down. 'I cried on your shoulder. When you came to visit, the day after I'd heard about Ellie disappearing. I cried like a baby and you just sat there. You'd seen her, and you just sat there and said nothing.'
'You know why I'm asking, Kate,' Thorne said. 'Why I have to ask?'
Anna looked at him, her lack of understanding obvious. Thorne continued to stare at Kate.
'The girl you killed was about the same age as Ellie, wasn't she?'
Kate's eyes met Thorne's, something desperate in them now. 'You can't be serious.'
'That was a case of bad timing too, wasn't it?'
'You're out of order.'
'Someone else who didn't react the way you were expecting.'
'It was nearly twenty years ago.'
'What were you and Ellie arguing about?'
Kate looked up at Donna, leaned towards her and clutched at the wet towel as though her life depended on it. 'Don, you're not taking any of this shit seriously, are you? You're not listening to this, right? Ellie just disappeared, I swear.' She pulled on the towel, but Donna stood firm, her knuckles as white as the cotton, her eyes fixed on the floor. 'Tell them, will you? Tell them this is out of order, Don, for Christ's sake…'*
'She killed someone?'
Thorne nodded, walking quickly away from the front door that Donna had slammed behind them. 'Like she said, we're talking almost twenty years ago. She was only a teenager.'
'Who was it?' Anna asked.
'A girl she was in love with who was already involved with someone else.' Thorne had looked up Katharine Mary Campbell's record after his first visit to Donna's flat. 'Kate hit her more than twenty times with a lump hammer.'
'Jesus…'
They could still hear the shouting from inside the house as they reached the car.
'So, what do you reckon?' Thorne asked. 'Is she lying?'
'God knows,' Anna said. 'Ever since this whole thing kicked off, I've started to think that almost everybody's lying about something.'
Thorne opened the car door. ' Now you're starting to think like a detective,' he said.
NINETEEN
Thorne and Louise walked down into Camden and mooched around the market, as busy as any other Sunday morning, despite the near-freezing temperature and the threat of rain. Although Louise still spent an evening or two a week at her own flat in Pimlico, they had been talking vaguely about doing up Thorne's place a bit and she was on the lookout for decorating and design ideas.
'Something a bit more colourful,' she'd said. 'Something funky.'
As it was, nothing caught her eye and anything approaching a purpose was quickly forgotten. They trudged around aimlessly for the best part of two hours while Thorne moaned about being cold, ate freshly made doughnuts from a stall near Dingwalls, then walked up towards Chalk Farm to meet Phil Hendricks for lunch.
As close as he and Hendricks were, a few months ago Thorne might have resented his friend's presence – the intrusion on a few precious hours alone with his girlfriend. He could not recall which of them had made this particular arrangement, but it hardly mattered. He did not feel the same way any more and seriously doubted that Louise did, either.
They ate mussels and chips at Belgo and drank bizarrely named Belgian lagers: Satan Gold, Slag and a sickly concoction called Mongozo Banana, which Louise could not finish. Hendricks was happy to help her out. He thought it was hilarious that some of the most lethal-sounding ales were brewed by Trappist monks.
'I bet they've got plenty to say after a few pints of that,' he said, dipping a chip into a pot of mayonnaise. 'They must at least manage 'I love you, you're my best mate.''
'Or be able to ask where the nearest kebab shop is,' Thorne said.
'Trust me, they get up to all sorts inside those monasteries with gallons of free beer knocking around. Maybe they can't speak because their mouths are full…'
Hendricks was on fine form and the three of them laughed a lot. He talked about some of his fellow pathologists – 'humourless morons' – and the boyfriend situation – 'deader than the buggers on my slab'. He seemed to sense that Thorne and Louise were desperate for the company and the entertainment, that both were going through stressful periods at work and that things weren't a whole lot better at home.
