and Thorne watched the ten o'clock news. It was comfortable enough, as it should have been, more than two years into their relationship. But since Louise had lost a baby the year before, Thorne had found it hard to take anything for granted.
An equilibrium had returned, but it felt precarious.
Often, it seemed to Thorne, they moved too cautiously around one another, circling their loss like wild animals. Curious, but wary. She got angry if she felt that he was treating her differently, and he would overcompensate, storming around the flat and taking out his bad day, his foul mood, his grief on her.
It was difficult.
The mildest of disagreements, a furious row, a fuck…
Sometimes it felt wrong to Thorne how easily one could lead to the next, and that any of them was really about a hundred different things. He had tried to explain it to Phil Hendricks – his closest friend and a good one to Louise, too – one night in front of Sky Sports.
'I bet the row lasts longer,' Hendricks had said.
'I just can't bear the thought of her in pain,' Thorne had said, at which point Hendricks had stopped joking.
'Tom?'
Thorne looked over and saw that Louise was watching him over the top of her paper.
'There's no point worrying about it,' she said. She laid down the paper and reached for the cat, curled up next to her on the sofa. 'There's nothing you can do, unless you fancy trying to nobble a couple of jurors.'
Thorne sighed, nodded. He knew she was right, but it wasn't helping. 'A couple of them are no older than Andrea was,' he said.
'So?'
'So, you worry they can't make a… mature decision.'
''Mature' meaning 'guilty'.'
'That they won't see what Chambers is really like.'
'You want to raise the legal age for jury service? To what – twenty-one? Forty?'
'I'm just saying.'
'You don't think an eighteen-year-old knows exactly what the likes of Adam Chambers is capable of?' She jabbed a finger at her Standard. 'Kids half that age are doing worse things every day of the week. Knifing each other for an iPhone.'
Thorne shook his head.
'Come on, you've dealt with enough of them.'
'Not the same,' Thorne said. 'You're right… but most of the time there's a reason at least. I'm not justifying it, course I'm not, but it's not the same as what Chambers did to Andrea Keane.'
'You don't know what he did.'
'They don't enjoy it.'
Louise picked up her paper again, read for a minute, then asked Thorne if he'd remembered to put the leftover souvlaki in tin-foil. He was on his way to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
Louise asked the question with a look. Thorne shrugged a 'no idea' and moved towards the door.
'Look, I know I should have called, so I'm sorry if it's a bit late…'
Thorne's flat was on the ground floor, but the entrance to the building was half a dozen steps up from the street. He peered down at his visitor from the edge of the half-open door, his expression making it abundantly clear that he was cold and less than delighted to see her.
'How did you get my address?'
She smiled. 'I'm a detective.'
Thorne waited.
'I've got a friend who works for the DVLA.'
' Used to,' Thorne said. 'She just lost her job.'
'Oh come on-'
'What do you want, Anna?'
She climbed a couple of steps, then leaned towards Thorne and held out a hand. He took the piece of paper she was brandishing.
'It's Donna's address.'
'Haven't we been through this?'
'Just go and see her,' Anna said. 'Please.'
'There's no point.' Thorne rubbed at his bare forearms, shook his head. 'Look, I don't want to see her and I very much doubt she'd be too keen on seeing me.'
'I phoned her. She knows I've spoken to you.'
'So, phone her again. Tell her I'm not coming.'
'Just go round there for half an hour.' Anna took another step up towards the door. 'That's all I'm asking. If you still feel like it's a waste of time, fair enough.'
'I will.'
'Meaning you'll go, right?'
'I thought you were just misguided this morning,' Thorne said. 'Now I think you're misguided and pushy.' He looked down at the slip of paper. An address in Seven Sisters.
'You got changed.'
Thorne looked up. 'What?'
'This morning,' Anna said, pointing, 'you looked like you couldn't wait to get out of that suit.'
Thorne suddenly felt rather self-conscious in his rattiest jeans, socks and T-shirt; even more so when he sensed Louise at his shoulder. He opened the door a little wider, so that she and Anna could see each other, made the introductions.
'I'm really sorry to disturb you,' Anna said. 'I'm just being pushy.'
'It's OK,' Louise said, not really getting it. 'And you're welcome to come in, you know. I might go to bed, but if the pair of you have got stuff to talk about…'
Anna mumbled a thank-you and looked at her feet.
'It's fine,' Thorne said. 'We're about done.'
FIVE
For a few uncomfortable seconds, before reaching into his pocket for his warrant card, Thorne could only stare at the woman who had opened the door. She had short, bottle-blonde hair and a blank expression, her face thin and hard in spite of the bronze foundation and dark brown eyes.
Thorne was trying to keep the reaction from his face, the amazement that Donna Langford could have changed quite so much, when a second woman appeared from a doorway a few feet down the hall. Realising his mistake, Thorne nodded his recognition and she did the same. She said, 'It's OK,' and the woman at the door stepped back, her face finally softened by a sly smile, to let Thorne inside.
'You haven't changed much.' Donna said.
The flat was in the middle of a two-storey block on a busy road between the stations at Seven Sisters and South Tottenham. There were ornamental plastic animals – rabbits, turtles, herons – lined up along the path to the door and scattered around a front garden almost completely cast into shadow by a giant satellite dish. The orthodox Jewish community of Stamford Hill lay half a mile away, with the up-and-coming middle-class enclave of Stoke Newington a few minutes further south, but Donna Langford was living in one of the few areas in London where you could still buy a place for less than six figures and the pound shops outnumbered the Starbucks.
As comedowns went, it was steeper than most.
Donna introduced the blonde woman as Kate and asked Thorne if he wanted tea. While Kate went to the kitchen to fetch the drinks, Donna led Thorne into a smoky living room. As Thorne took it in – a small leather sofa and matching armchair, a plasma TV that all but filled the wall above the gas fire – Donna sat down and reached
