'Why not?'
Brigstocke blinked, reached for his drink. He hadn't got an answer. Thorne asked the only appropriate question. 'Another pint?'
Brigstocke finished off the one he was drinking, shook his head as he swallowed. Thorne reached behind for his jacket. It looked like he was going home.
'You're off the hook for the same reason they let you get on it, you know,' Brigstocke said. Thorne raised his eyebrows, asking the question.
'Fear. They were afraid of being wrong, afraid of fucking up. Now they're afraid of being seen to fuck up, which is a thousand times worse.'
Thorne stood and pulled on his jacket. Brigstocke stayed seated, his cigar down to nothing. 'They've got sod all to be afraid of. I'll be taking responsibility.',
Brigstocke ground out his nub-end. 'Oh, don't worry, you have.'
They both laughed, a little louder and longer than was necessary.
'What happened to being off the hook?'
'You are,' Brigstocke said. 'But it's only a matter of time until you're on it again…'
'A stay of execution.'
Brigstocke looked at him, smiling, not understanding the reference.
Thorne was already wondering how many more he would need to drink. How much before he would be able to wrap himself inside his duvet and crawl deep down into the darkness without seeing Ken Bowles, eyes open and swimming in blood, hands clawing at the carpet, bits of his own cerebellum beneath his fingernails. Without seeing Martin Palmer, huge and hunched against the white wall of a cell.
When the adverts came on – cheaply made sound bites for pension or blame-and-claim companies – he got up and went to make himself tea. The show wasn't very interesting tonight anyway, which was a shame. He'd been looking forward to the calls even more than usual. He'd had a pig of a day at work. It was a busy time: lots to do and he, as usual, the one to do most of it. It was his own fault if he was honest. He was something of a control freak. While he complained of the workload, he didn't trust anybody else to do it as efficiently as he would, so he got on with it himself.
He'd actually been glad of the extra work. He'd needed something to focus his mind a little for the past few days. He'd been struggling to adjust, to adapt to the new way of things.
Palmer was gone: it was just him again.
However much he'd wanted to be in control, to be the one to change things, he couldn't be too angry about what had happened. Palmer was always going to be taken out of circulation after this last murder, and that, after all, had been his choice. He had decided to kill Bowles. Just when he'd been getting into Thorne's little game, enjoying it even, it had become necessary to change direction and now he had to live with the repercussions.
Back on his own. He liked it like that, yes, but still, he'd have to find some other way now to up the ante. He couldn't bear to be bored, to be still. Stillness meant sinking, and he'd do anything to avoid that. He needed to find the next thing quickly, the something, the new thing, the bright spot on the horizon. He'd found it with Palmer, but now, with him out of the picture, he'd need to find some different way to jack up the rush a little. While he waited for inspiration, he got his head down at work.
Work, work, work, home, chat, dinner with Caz, and then an hour or two next to the radio with a bottle of wine, enjoying the wit and wisdom of the country's more opinionated insomniacs. Later, he might wake Caz up and luck her. Stick it in and move it around, while he closed his eyes and thought about Bowles's brain like undercooked porridge, or the nice neat hole in the student's head, or perhaps the way the woman with the little boy had stiffened when he put his hand over her mouth.
While the kettle boiled, he thought about Thorne. He wondered how the Detective Inspector relaxed after a tough day. After a tough few days. It couldn't get harder than a fresh body could it? The body of someone he'd connected with. How quickly did a man like Thorne get over that, especially when it was.., unnecessary?
Who did he talk to about those things? Family? Friends? He was suddenly hugely amused by the idea of turning on his radio and hearing Thorne himself phoning in.
' We're going to Tom in London, who has a problem. How can we help you Tom?'
Then that voice, recognisably London. A little rough around the edges, just like the man himself. Deep and impressive, certainly. Soothing or stentorian, depending on his mood, or the impression he was trying to create. Tonight though, the voice a little higher, nervous, a catch in it…
' Well, Bob, it's a bit embarrassing.'
' Tom, are you a first time caller?'
' Yes, I am, sorry…'
'Just relax, you're among friends.'
'The thing is, I was wondering if any of your listeners might be able to help me. I'm trying to catch a multiple murderer you see, and it isn't going at all well…'
He picked up his steaming mug of tea and carried it back into the sitting room, still chuckling to himself. On the radio, a new caller was broadcasting to the nation. Not Thorne of course, but he sounded equally interesting.
Leonard from Cheshire: 'This bloke who was battered last week, this teacher? They say on the news it was that pair, the ones who've been doing all these murders, but I reckon it was just some little bastard, pardon my French, what hadn't done his homework. I mean it could have been, couldn't it, you know what they're like now in some of these schools…?'
He was laughing so much, he had to hold on to his tea with both hands.
When Thorne arrived at work the next morning, the last thing he was mentally prepared for was a bust up with Steve Norman. The press officer, on the other hand, who was waiting for Thorne in his office, seemed well up for it.
'You've made us all look very stupid, Thorne.'
Thorne cocked his head and crossed to his desk, thinking, how hard can that be?
Norman followed him, standing at his shoulder as Thorne, without looking at them, picked up a pile of reports from his desk. 'Alienated most of your fellow officers already, now you're making a pretty good job of pissing the rest of us off as well.'
Thorne carried the sheaf of papers across to the window and began pretending to read them. He wasn't sure why Norman was here and why he was in such a bad mood, but he really wanted him to leave and guessed that it might be a good idea if when he did, it wasn't with a broken nose or any teeth missing.
He dropped the paperwork down onto the window ledge and turned to face him, trying his damnedest to look tired rather than angry. 'What's your problem, Norman?'
'No problem. I just wanted you to be aware just how much trouble you've caused. We worked our bollocks off, liaising with the press, getting close to the journos…'
'That must have been hard. All that expense account wine to get down your necks…'
Norman laughed in mock confusion. 'Sorry, don't you remember whose idea this was? An idea which, for the record, most of us thought was half-arsed at the time.' Thorne shrugged. He hadn't forgotten.
'Yeah, well this time it was people like me at the sharp end of it. You wanted false stories planted in the press, you needed a lie perpetrated and we did it. Brilliantly. Now, it's all gone tits up because you were wrong, and we've got to sort the mess out.'
'Let me get this straight,' Thorne said, starting to fray a little round the edges. 'You're shouting your mouth off, because basically, you've got to do your job.'
'I'm not…'
Thorne took a step closer to him. 'Well, why don't you shut up and go and do it?'
Norman showed no inclination to retreat. He raised a finger, jabbed it towards Thorne's chest. 'I will, and you'd better be bloody thankful that someone round here's good at their job. I might, might, just be able to put things right with the press. I might be able to get this operation out of the mess it's in with half a decent reputation left.' He turned away and strolled towards the door, stopped when he got there. 'When I say this operation, I'm not including you of course. You're already down the shitter and there's no way to get you out again…'
Thorne laughed, moved to the chair behind his desk. 'Listen Norman, I'm busy, and if you're just going to stand there stating the obvious…'
