the best pulpo a feira on the south coast.
'I'm just showing off,' Brigstocke said, pleased with himself. 'Been a long time since I did a decent bit of donkey-work.'
' Pulpo what?'
Brigstocke pulled a face. 'Some sort of octopus…'
Thorne shook his head. 'But this only tells us where Langford was that day,' he said. 'He might live a hundred miles from there.'
'It's somewhere to start, though.' Brigstocke was standing behind Thorne, looking over his shoulder, staring down at the information sheet. 'It's all been passed on to the relevant lot at SOCA. You've got a meeting with them at three o'clock.'
'Here or there?'
'There.'
'Good,' Thorne said. 'They provide a better class of biscuit.'
Brigstocke pointed at the sheet. 'Actually, they seemed to think this was a bloody good start. Better than the information you got off your mate Brand, at any rate. None of those names led anywhere.'
'This truly is some of the finest police work it's ever been my privilege to witness, Russell,' Thorne said, waving the piece of paper. 'Seriously, I really don't know how you're ever going to top it.'
'Yeah, all right.'
'Maybe you can pull a few coins out of your backside or something
…'
Brigstocke wandered over to his desk. 'How come you're so bloody chirpy all of a sudden? You looked like shit when you came in.'
'Early start.'
'Taking out your bad mood on that new girl.'
'She's good,' Thorne said.
'Glad you think so. Because, providing you haven't scared her off already, we might get to keep her when this is all over.'
'I'll have a word,' Thorne said. 'Show her my charming, funny side. I think she's a bit in love with me already, to be honest.'
'You might want to calm down a bit first…'
In the quarter of an hour since the briefing had ended, Thorne had necked three cups of strong coffee and he was feeling good and buzzy. Just before going in to see Brigstocke he had found two minutes to text Andy Boyle. To thank him for his hospitality, to rave once again about the stew, and, most importantly, to suggest a new acronym to try out on his boss. A specialist unit for the investigation of contract murders.
Tactical Operations, Tasking And Logistics of Covert Organised Criminal Killings.
Or TOTAL COCK.
'Try and hold on to that good mood for a while longer, will you?' Brigstocke said. 'I had half an hour on the phone with our beloved chief superintendent this morning.'
The buzz began to wear off fast. 'I'm all ears,' Thorne said.
'Jesmond is making this a high priority now, which is why getting more resources is not a problem. He's fired up.'
'Oh, God help us.'
'With certain high-profile cases having gone against us recently, he wants to make sure this one turns out the right way.' Brigstocke ploughed on, talking over Thorne's attempts to interrupt, using his fingers to form quotation marks. 'He told me he wants us to 'bounce back'. That 'not getting a result isn't an option' any more. Something like that.'
'What happened to keeping this 'low key'?' Thorne mimicked the use of air quotes.
'All gone out of the window now a prison officer's been killed. He reckons the media's going to be all over it… and he's probably right.'
'Can't we quietly let the media know that Cook was on the take?'
'Do we have proof of that yet?'
'Come on, Russell…'
'Jesmond also seems to think putting that information in the press might tip Langford off that we're on to him.'
Thorne didn't know whether to laugh, cry or bang his head against the wall. So he settled for raising his voice. 'I think the fact that Langford has had two men killed in the last week might indicate that he already knows, don't you?'
Brigstocke raised a hand to make it clear that he agreed, but he did not appreciate being shouted at. Thorne mumbled an apology.
'What's happening with Anna Carpenter?' Brigstocke asked.
'What do you mean, 'happening'?'
The hand was raised in warning again. 'Since things have got a bit more… serious, Jesmond is even more keen that we try to keep a lid on the mistakes we made ten years ago.'
'Which 'mistakes'?'
'We've been through this, Tom,' Brigstocke said. 'I'm just telling you that he wants us to cooperate fully with anyone who has access to that information. Donna Langford, Miss Carpenter…'
'Still afraid they'll go running to the papers?'
'Nobody likes bad press, do they?'
However the case turned out, Thorne had no idea what Donna Langford might do down the line, and he found it hard to believe that Anna would ever sell the story. 'I've already spoken to Donna,' he said. 'Told her to tell Anna she doesn't want her involved any more.'
'Because…?'
'Because I don't want her involved any more. This has gone way beyond spying on unfaithful husbands.'
Brigstocke nodded. 'No room for amateurs.'
'Plenty of those around already.'
'OK, well, I'm just passing on what Jesmond said. I'll leave you to think about the best way to handle it.'
Thorne said he would, though in truth he had been thinking of little else all day
Back in his office, Thorne tried hard to clear his desk and caught up with Yvonne Kitson. She asked what he thought of the new girl and he told her about the evening he'd spent at Andy Boyle's place. Just as he was thinking of heading out for his meeting at SOCA, a call from Julian Munro was put through.
For a moment or two, Thorne thought that Munro might have remembered something; that he was calling with some vital, new piece of information.
'I just wanted to see how things were going,' Munro said. 'See if you'd made any progress, you know?'
Thorne raised his eyebrows at Kitson. 'Obviously, we'll let you know if there's any news, sir, but you need to know we're doing everything we can.'
'OK,' Munro said. 'Thanks.' Then he cleared his throat. 'So, what would you say are the chances? I mean, do you think…?'
'I'm hopeful,' Thorne said.
He would not normally have come out with something so optimistic. You always tried to keep things upbeat with the relatives, of course, but it made sense to keep your powder dry as much as possible. Generally, it was no more advisable to say, 'Don't worry, she is definitely alive,' than it would be to draw a finger across your throat and mutter darkly, 'Brown bread, mate, no question about it.'
I'm hopeful…
And he was. It had already struck Thorne that he was not thinking as much about Ellie Langford as he might otherwise have expected. Not with an eighteen-year-old girl missing, her foster parents bereft, the birth mother distraught. In fact, he was still thinking far more about Andrea Keane, a girl he had long since given up for dead.
