her son Smart. Not one. It was strange, but not the end of the world. Thorne had been unconvinced, in light of what Palmer had said, that a fifteen-year-old picture would have been a lot of use anyway. Holland asked the teacher where he could find the nearest toilet and excused himself.
Cookson wore a moleskin jacket, button-down shirt and chinos. Thorne thought he looked rather preppy. The sound of expensive American loafers kissing the polished floor echoed as Cookson led him up a flight of stairs and down a long, straight corridor. It was a far cry from the lumbering sadists in corduroy jackets or tracksuits that Thorne remembered.
Cookson stared through the window into every classroom they passed. They were looking for Ken Bowles, a math teacher, and the only member of staff who'd been here in the early eighties, at the same time as Palmer and Nicklin.
Thorne wondered why so few teachers from that time were still here. It wasn't much more than fifteen years, after all.
'Teachers used to stick around a lot longer in one place,' Cookson said, 'but not any more. It's easy to… stagnate, and money's always an issue. This is a good school. If you've done a couple of years here, there's a fair chance you can double your money in the private sector. The place up the road poaches a few every couple of years…'
Thorne was leading the way. He looked into the next classroom, saw an old man with tufty white hair, sitting at a desk and staring out of the window. 'What about you?'
'Been tempted, but.., well, I'm still here. Seven years this year, and I'm' already one of the old farts.' Cookson looked past Thorne into the classroom. 'Yep… here we go…'
He knocked on the door, pushed it and held it open for Thorne. 'I'll maybe see you later then…'
Sarah McEvoy took another swig from the bottle on her desk. She'd already got through a couple of bottles, but the water couldn't get rid of the dry mouth or the sour taste at the back of her throat any better than the cigarettes could.
She was still feeling guilty, having harked at a DC five minutes before. She was taking it out on a junior officer, as it had already been taken out on her. She'd arrived late, feeling rough, and a bollocking from Brigstocke had done nothing to help her feel better. The bad mood was being passed around the investigation like a virus, while the man who'd caused it was off at some school chasing ghosts. They should all have been on a high since Palmer had fallen into their laps, but that would have been far too easy for Tom Thorne. It was as if he had some aversion to a morale that was anything except down in the fucking dust. As if every minute that passed without catching the second killer was their fault. As if he wanted to see shame etched onto the face of every officer and a hair shirt hanging in every locker. While he was content to let a murderer walk about, breathing the same air as normal people.
She screwed her eyes tight shut; tried to calm herself down a little. She knew that Thorne was only doing what he believed was right. She'd been feeling edgier by the day since the holiday. A couple of long, long days trapped in her parents' house in Mill Hill. Like she gave a toss about Chanukah anyway, with her tedious brother and his dull-as-ditchwater family. She had been desperate to get out, needing to be among strangers.
She'd found all the strangers she'd needed over New Year. The faces, strobed in white or lit up by the flashing reds and greens, had been reassuringly unfamiliar and the nights had become longer and louder, and altogether fucking fantastic, and suddenly – not in terms of the time, but in terms of her realising it – suddenly, dragging herself into work in the morning… some mornings, had become painful.
And Thorne and Brigstocke didn't fucking well like her anyway. The pair of them, commenting on her clothes and the way she looked, which she knew damn well they would never have done if she didn't have tits. She reached for the water bottle and unscrewed the cap. Her mobile rang.
'McEvoy.'
'It's Holland…'
She took a mouthful of water while she waited for Holland to say what it was he wanted, but he didn't. She listened to the hiss on the line, swallowed, and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt.
'What?'
Another few seconds of hiss. 'Nothing urgent. Just touching base.' Touching base?
'What cop show did you see that in?'
'Sorry?'
'Forget it. Just being a snarky cow. Where's Thorne?'
'Trying to track down Nicklin's old teacher…'
As McEvoy listened, the DC she'd shouted at earlier walked past her desk. McEvoy smiled – an attempt at an apology. The DC gave her nothing back. 'You sound all echoey.'
'I'm in the toilets,' Holland said. 'Nice to see that posh kids piss on the floor as well.'
'They're not that posh, are they?'
'I didn't see many of them playing football in the playground.'
'Yeah, but not like… Biscuit Game posh.'
'Eh…?'
McEvoy laughed. 'I'll tell you later.'
'That's one thing they'll miss out on though,' Holland said. 'Being an all boys school…'
'What?'
'The sheer, unbridled pleasure of running into the girls' toilets and screaming your head off.'
McEvoy remembered the very same thing happening at her school. She suddenly pictured herself, twelve going on twenty-five, shaking her head in disgust as she listened to the whoops and cheers of half a dozen testosterone-crazed, adolescent boys. She grinned at the memory. This phone call was doing her a lot of good. 'Why did you do that anyway? I could never work it out.'
'I think it was a genetic thing. Marking your territory or something…'
McEvoy glanced up. On the other side of the incident room she could see Brigstocke talking to Steve Norman. Brigstocke looked across at her, then Norman. Weasely little fucker. She wondered whether they'd heard her laughing. She took another sip of water, her mouth still sticky. 'So, anything of interest?'
'Not really, you?'
'Nothing. Derek bloody Lickwood's been on the phone again, demanding to know what's going on. He reckons he's being kept in the dark, keeps threatening to come over and make trouble. Why should I have to deal with him?'
'Short straw. Lovell was his case so we've got to work with him. The boss reckons you'd be better at it than he would…' McEvoy grunted.
'What about Palmer?'
'At work.' She said no more than that, but there was an edge to her voice. The unspoken bit was obvious. At work, totting up figures and drinking coffee, when he should be sitting against a rough stone wall listening to keys turning in locks; his knees pulled tight against his chest, his heart thumping, his belt and shoelaces taken away. She would never criticise Thorne to Holland. Besides, she knew, somewhere, that her judgment was perhaps a little off these days. Her thinking was maybe a bit extreme…
'Right,' Holland said. 'Do you want to grab a beer later?'
She looked across at Brigstocke. He and Norman were still deep in conversation. 'I've never been propositioned by a man in a toilet before.' She could hear Holland blush. 'I'm joking Holland.'
'Yeah…'
She murmured huskily into the phone. 'I've been propositioned by men in toilets loads of times.'
Holland didn't laugh.
McEvoy puffed out her cheeks, blew out the air noisily. She reached for the bottle of water. It was empty. 'Listen, Dave.. '
'I just meant.., a beer. That's all.'
She tried not to snap at him, but couldn't help herself. 'I know.'
'If they were in my class it's because they had a particular aptitude for mathematics, but I don't remember either one of them covering himself in glory.'
Thorne nodded patiently. Ken Bowles didn't seem to remember a great deal about anything. He knew that teaching was a stressful profession but Bowles could not possibly be as old as he looked. He had hair the colour of
