The car was partly responsible for his mood, but Thorne was feeling as genuinely relaxed as he had for quite some while. Eve and Denise came back with more beers and a bottle of wine, and having clearly geed themselves up at the bar, gently took the piss out of Holland, Thorne and Jameson, for no better reason than that they were blokes. The men, for all their protestations and denials, enjoyed every minute of it, Thorne especially relishing the sort of attention he hadn't enjoyed for a very long time. They talked about football and television and house prices. And inevitably, work.
'Come on then, Dave,' Denise said. 'Tell us about this nutter you're after, the one who was on Eve's answering machine...'
Eve tried to interrupt. 'Den...!' She turned to Thorne. 'Sorry...'
Thorne shrugged, not caring. 'It's fine.'
'Well, yes, he's a nutter,' Holland said. 'And yes, we're after him. Still after him.'
'He sounds twisted,' Jameson said. 'Fascinating, though...'
Denise leaned forward towards Holland. 'You know there's people like that around, course you do. When you've got a connection with one of them, though, however tenuous, it's freaky.'
'Don't worry,' Holland said. 'You're not his type.'
'I know. He hunts men, doesn't he? Men who've hurt women...'
There was a short but noticeably uncomfortable silence, which Denise broke as if it had never happened.
'People are always going to be fascinated by this sort of stuff though, aren't they? It's a bit ghoulish, I suppose, but it's a damn sight more interesting than computers...'
Thorne took this as the cue to retell, for Holland's benefit, his joke about what a PC 'going down' meant in their line of work. The others laughed graciously, and Denise and Ben carried on chatting to Holland about the job. Whether they liked him or were just trying to make sure he didn't feel like a gooseberry, it gave Thorne the chance to talk to Eve.
He bumped his chair up close to hers and leaned across.
'This was a good idea,' he said.
'You weren't sure though, were you?' She nodded towards Holland.
'So you brought reinforcements along...'
'Are you pissed off?.'
'I was an hour ago, yes. It's fine though.'
Thorne reached for his drink. 'I just wanted to show him the car...'
Eve gave him a long look. It was clear that she didn't quite believe him. 'So, apart from your case getting a bit more complicated, what happened between the night you came round for dinner and now?'
Thorne glanced down, swilled the beer around in his glass, said nothing.
'I thought you were really keen. You said as much.'
I was . . .'
'Even that night when you walked me back after we'd been in the pub you were a bit weird. Ever since you went to that wedding, in fact . . .'
Thorne bent his head and lowered his voice. 'Look, I just go a bit mental when it looks like things might get serious. I don't know what I want, and I start to get .... '
'Serious? We haven't even slept together yet...'
'That's exactly what I mean. It looked like we were going to. You know, it was on the cards, so maybe I just started backing away a bit.'
'All that bollocks with the new bed...'
'I suppose so.'
Eve turned to look at him. She waited a second or two until he raised his head and met her stare. 'So, what do you want now, Tom?'
A smile spread slowly across Thorne's face. He leaned over, his arm dropping down into the well of Eve's chair and slipping behind her waist. 'I want to go to a hotel...'
For a moment Eve looked shocked, but then she began to smile too.
'What, tonight?'
'Why not? Shop's shut tomorrow, isn't it? I've got a nice car outside...' ,
Eve looked across to where Denise and Jameson were still deep in conversation with Holland. 'God, it's a fantastic idea, but it's a bit awkward. It's Den's birthday...'
'Pretend it's mine.'
'I don't know, I can't just bugger off.'
'She won't mind.'
Eve grabbed Thorne's hand and squeezed. 'Let me see what I can do...'
An hour later, as they hovered outside, saying goodbyes, Eve took Thorne's arm and spun him around. 'I don't think tonight's a good idea.'
'Did you have a word with Denise?' He looked across to where Eve's flatmate was kissing Holland on both cheeks. Behind them, Jameson stood waiting, hands thrust into his pockets. Denise caught Thorne's eye and gave him an odd smile...
'Not that I'm exactly in any fit state,' Eve said. 'I'd already had a bottle of red wine before you propositioned me...'
Thorne grinned. 'Trust me, the more pissed you are, the better it'll seem.'
'What about next weekend? We could check into a nice hotel on the coast for a couple of nights.' She looked up at him and nodded slowly. It must have been clear from his expression. 'Right, I know...'
'Sorry. Until this case is over, I can't commit to anything like... Shit, a whole weekend away.., it just isn't going to happen.'
'It was a stupid idea...'
'It was a great idea. Let's go out one night next week. Saturday, or before . . .'
'Next Saturday's good.'
'Right...' They took a few steps along the pavement, away from the bar. 'Come on, it's still not too late. I'll swing for a really nice hotel, honestly. West End somewhere, full English breakfast...'
She put her hands around his neck and pulled him towards her. She whispered it in his ear before she kissed him softly on the cheek.
'Saturday...'
As they separated, Thorne glanced across at the others standing by the bar entrance, and saw a look of something like disgust pass across Ben Jameson's face. Turning, Thorne saw that Jameson was watching Keith come hurrying towards the group, cradling a plastic bag. Unable to hear quite what was said, Thorne watched as Keith delved into the bag and handed Denise something wrapped in red paper. Denise tore the package open and seemed delighted with what looked like a small, decorative box. She threw her arms round Keith's neck, then turned to show the present to Holland and Jameson.
Keith turned, red-faced, and looked across at where Eve was still standing, hand in hand with Thorne. She waved, and started to walk towards him. Holland sauntered the other way, towards Thorne, smiling at Eve as they passed. He seemed a little startled when Thorne dropped a hand on to his shoulder.
I'll run you home, Dave.'
Holland looked confused. He glanced over his shoulder, watched Eve join her friends. 'It's fine, really, I can get a cab...'
'There's no need.'
Thorne drove down Whitechapel Road, heading south towards Tower Bridge. He took it slowly, still getting used to the steering and the clutch but also enjoying it, wanting the journey to last. They were listening to Merle Haggard as they moved slowly into the one-way system around Aldgate.
'What was going on back there, then?' Holland said.
'Keith works in Eve's shop sometimes. I think he's a bit...'
'No, I mean bringing me along on your night out, like a spare prick at a wedding.' '
Thorne checked the rear-view mirror. 'I wanted to show you .the car.' He didn't believe it himself, any more than when he'd told Eve .the same thing earlier.
'Things all right with you and Eve?'
Thorne hesitated. Discussions like this one was shaping up to be weren't common between them, and where it might be going was impossible to predict. If Holland hadn't had a couple over the odds, he'd probably be saying nothing. Even socially, the difference in their ranks was rarely forgotten. The unspoken acceptance of the need to keep a certain distance was usually knocking about somewhere, moderating. Tonight, they were just two friends driving back from a bar, and Thorne decided to go with it.
I've been fucking her around to be honest, Dave.'
'What?'
'No, not like that. We haven't even...'
'Oh...'
'It's a long story, but basically she thinks I'm pissing her about,
and I am. One minute I'm up for it, the next I'm relieved when it isn't happening.'
For ten seconds or so before he spoke, Holland appeared to think about what Thorne had said. 'What's all that about, then?'
'I don't know...'
The truth was that Thorne didn't know, and if he was confused, then he could only wonder at what the hell might have been going through Eve's mind. The whole relationship felt somehow teenage. The ups and downs, the mixed messages...
There was nothing teenage, nothing confusing, about the short film that began to run suddenly in Thorne's head. He watched himself and Eve in the lift that carried them up towards their nice hotel room. They were all over each other, their mouths hungrily exploring necks and shoulders and their hands probing the areas beneath buckles and straps. Thorne gripped the wheel tighter, hearing the gulps for breath that came when the kissing stopped, and the moans when it began again. The bell as the lift door opened, ant the rustle of Eve's legs moving beneath her skirt as they all but ran towards their room. He saw himself push the card into the door, watched as the two of them stepped through and fumbled, giggling, for the light switch. There was a body on their bed. Prostrate and bleeding. The blue necklace, cheap and dreadful, biting deep into the neck... Thorne hit the brakes hard, squealing to a stop at a red light. Holland held his hand out, braced himself against the dashboard.
'Sorry,' Thorne said. 'Still getting the measure of it...'
They said nothing for a while, until the Tower of London loomed, spotlit ahead of them, and they moved slowly past it on to the bridge. Thorne nudged Holland's arm and nodded upriver. 'It's fucking great, isn't it?'
He loved crossing the Thames at night, never tiring of the spectacular views up and down the black river after dark. South to north across Waterloo Bridge was his favourite - to the left, the London Eye, and the dome of St Paul's away in the City to the east - but crossing virtually any bridge, in any direction, at this time was usually enough to lift Thorne's spirits. Tonight, Butler's Wharf squatted to their left, while down below to the right of them, HMS Belfast seemed set in sullied amber, the river around it coloured by the lights that ran along each bank.
Foul and fucked up and shitty as the place could be, it was a journey like this that Thorne would urge on anyone thinking about moving out of London...
'What about you and Sophie?' Thorne said. 'All geared up for it?'
Holland turned, smiling, but looking like he might throw up. 'I'm shitting myself, if you really want to know.'
'Fair enough, it's a scary business. I've not had one, but...'
'It's not just the baby. It's what the baby's going to mean.'
'Work wise, you mean?'
'It just feels like I'm being swept along, you know? Like I'm not in control of what I'm doing any more.' Thorne shook his head, opened his mouth to say something, but Holland ploughed on, growing louder and more animated as he spoke. 'Sophie says it's up to me what happens afterwards, but she's going to stay at home with the baby and I'll be the only one earning...'
'She'd rather you were doing something else?'
'Yeah, but she was like that before she was pregnant. I mean, she'd be delighted if I got out of the job, no question, but there's no pressure. I'm worried that I might be the one to start thinking I should find something else. Something a bit better paid, you know?'
'Something safer?'
Holland turned and looked at Thorne hard. 'Right.' He turned away again, stared out of the window at the flaking hoardings and car showrooms on the New Kent Road, moving past at almost exactly thirty miles per hour.
'I'm worried that I'll resent the baby,' Holland said. His head fell sideways against the window. 'For the choices it might force me to make...'
Thorne said nothing. He pressed a button on the sound system's control panel, searching through the CD until he found the track he was looking for. When the song began, he nudged up the volume. 'You should listen to this,' he said.
'What is it?'
'It's called "Mama Tried". It's about a man in prison...'
'That's what they're all about, isn't it?'
'It's really about growing up and accepting responsibility. It's about making the right choices...'
For a minute, Holland listened, or pretended to. By then they were coming up to the roundabout at the Elephant & Castle, his street just a little way beyond it. He shook his head suddenly, and laughed.
'Growing up? I'm not the one with the mid-life-crisis car...'
Thorne was starving by the time he got in. He stuck three pieces of bread under the grill while the video was rewinding. He'd managed to go the whole day without hearing the result of the match and was looking forward to watching it.
Half an hour in to a fairly dull game, and Thorne was wondering why he'd made the effort...
It had been more than a decade since Spurs had been involved in a Charity Shield, but Thorne and his father had been to the last few. They'd seen the goalless draw against Arsenal in '91, and the consecutive games in '81 and '82, after Cup Final wins on the bounce. The first big game he'd ever gone to had been the Charity Shield in 1967. The trip to Wembley, an extra seventh-birthday present after Spurs had beaten Chelsea 2-1 and won the FA Cup. Thorne could still remember the roar, and his amazement at the sight of all that green, as his old man had led him up the steps towards their seats. He always loved that first sight of the grass, all the years they went to matches together after that, emerging into the noise and the light as they climbed up into the stand at White Hart Lane. He wondered if his father had watched today's game. He'd doubtless have an opinion on it if he had.
Thorne made the call, and listened to twenty minutes of jokes without punch lines.
TWENTY-TWO
Carol Chamberlain put down the newspaper when Thorne came back to the table with the coffees.
'It's not great,' she said.
Thorne glanced at the latest lurid headline, spooned the froth from his coffee. It's not my problem.'
Despite the best efforts of Trevor Jesmond and those above him, the media had got hold of the story a fortnight or so earlier, after the Southern killing. It hadn't quite been the tabloid frenzy that Brigstocke had predicted, but it was pretty basic stuff. One paper had printed pictures of zippered rapist masks with red crosses through them, underneath the headline Three Down'. Another had gathered testimony from half a dozen rape victims and run it alongside quotes like Give This Man A Medal' and The Only Good Rapist Is A Dead One'...
Monday morning's batch of stories involved complaints from those campaigning for the rights and integration of ex-prisoners. There were demands that more be done to catch the killer, accusations that the Met was dragging its feet. Only the night before, Thorne had watched a heated debate on London Live between representatives of rape-crisis organisations, their counterparts from prisoners'-rights pressure groups, and senior police officers. The Assistant Commissioner, flanked by a scary female Commander and a sweating Trevor Jesmond, had reminded one lobby that the murder victims had themselves been raped, while assuring the other that everything possible was being done.
Thorne had turned the programme off around the time Jesmond began to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights, blathering about two wrongs not making a right...
'Your superiors might decide to make it your problem,' Chamberlain said.
Thorne smiled. 'Is that what you used to do?'
'Of course. I did "Passing the Buck" seminars at Hendon...'
They were sitting at a table in the shade, outside the small vegetarian caf in the middle of Highgate Woods. It was all a bit organic and right-on for Thorne's taste, but Carol had wanted to eat outside somewhere and it had seemed as good a place as any.
The poncy bread was hideously overpriced, but it was all on expenses...
Carol Chamberlain's cold case had been taken away from her as soon as it had become hot again. She'd had no choice in the matter and was already working hard on something else. Still, Thorne knew how m
uch they owed her and considered it the least he could do to keep her up to speed. More than that, he actually enjoyed their discussions, finding Chamberlain to be an incredibly useful sounding-board. They'd met up or talked on the phone a few times now, since she'd first barged into his office. They gossiped, and bitched and bounced ideas around...
'At least they haven't made the connection with the Foley killing,'
she said. 'They don't know about Mark and Sarah yet.'
Thorne reached across for the paper and flipped it over. He scanned the football stories on the back page. 'It's only a matter of time.'
'It could be good, of course.'
'How?'
'It might be the way to find them.'
'Or frighten them away for good...'
Once coffee was finished and pudding decided against, Chamberlain stood, and began piling up their plates. 'Let's take the long way back to the cars.' She rubbed her stomach. 'Walk some of this off...'
'She was asking for you, Dave...'
Having fetched him from his office, and pointed to the woman in question, Karim left Holland in the doorway of the Incident Room. Stone appeared silently at Holland's shoulder, and they stared across at where Joanne Lesser sat in a chair by the window.
'Mmmm,' Stone groaned. 'Soul food...'
Holland nodded, turned to him. 'Racist and sexist in two words. That's bloody good going even for you, Andy...'
'Fuck off.' '
'Blimey, you're on cracking form; mate...'
'Seriously, she's bloody tasty, though. You're a right jammy sod.'
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