He'd seen comedians on TV talking about how women could hold a hundred thoughts in their heads at one time and juggle an assortment of tasks, while men were incapable of doing even two things at once. Wanking and maneuvering a mouge was about as much as a man could manage.
Even though he knew it was nonsense, he still found the joke funny. Even as he sat working and planning the next killing… Multi-tasking was something of a specialty, had to be, and even though the slightly more socially unacceptable stuff he did was the more exciting, he actually enjoyed the day job too. He took pride in what he did. Of course, he couldn't have done the other things without it.
The next killing…
He didn't know for certain yet if the next would also be the last, but in a lot of ways it made sense. It would round things off very nicely. This one would be different in many ways of course, more symbolic than the others, but certainly no less enjoyable for it. A date had yet to be set, but that was the final detail. The victim had been selected weeks ago. In fact, he'd pretty much selected himself.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time… Thorne thought about the Restorative Justice Conference he'd sat through weeks earlier. He remembered Darren Ellis and the squeak of his shiny, white training shoes. He pictured the face of the old man who'd been sitting more or less where he was now… Opposite him, in the Interview Room at Kentish Town station, sat a boy who Thorne knew to be seventeen, but, apart from the unexcited eyes, the rest of him might have belonged to any skinny-arsed fourth-former. Noel Mullen was stealing cars to order while others his age had been nicking pens and pick 'n' mix from Woolworth's. By the time his contemporaries were sneaking into pubs and feeling up girls, Noel had already acquired a decent-sized drugs habit and a growing reputation with the police in North-west London. There was a room that should have had his name on the door, in the young offenders' institute that at one time had welcomed both his elder brothers. " He still looked as if his mum should be washing his underpants and pouring the milk on his Rice Krispies…
'Why did you shit in my bed?' Thorne said.
The boy did a pretty good job of looking unutterably bored, but there was a jerkiness to the seemingly casual roll of the head, a tremor at the ends of the fingers. Thorne wondered how long it had been since he'd had a fix. Maybe not since he'd failed to sell Thorne's CDs, to turn Cash into cash and score with it…
'Come on, Noel…'
'What's the fucking point? You going to put in a good word for me, are you? Speak up for me in court?'
'No chance.'
'So why should I bother talking to you?'
Thorne leaned back and folded his arms. 'Listen, break into places,
Noel, by all means. It's your job, after all. Break in and trash them a bit if you have to, while you're looking for the decent stuff, the gear that's going to score you the best deal. I can understand that, I really can.
'Not just the posh places, either. Don't just do the rich bastards who you might, might have a legitimate reason to enjoy turning over. No, why not rob from your own? Dump on your doorstep. Do the ordinary, working idiots who live on your own estate, on the poxy estate that you've already done your best to make that little bit worse than it would have been anyway, by pissing in the lift and leaving dirty needles all over what passes for a playground. Smash your neighbour's door in and see how high a black and white TV can get you. Or some cheap jewellery. Fuck it, any good stuff, the widescreens and the DVDs, will have been rented anyway, so who cares? Stupid fuckers aren't insured, that's not your fault, is it…?'
'Jesus, have you finished?'
'Do it and feel nothing. See something and take it, because all that matters is what you might be able to get for it. Feel fuck all…'
'You're wasting your…"
'Feel luck all. Then see how you feel when one day one of your mates needs some cash and puts his foot through your mother's window. Size-nine Nikes tramping around your mum's living room, and going through her drawers. And maybe your mate's a little bit wired, a little bit over the edge, and maybe your mother's lying there in bed at the time…'
'It's because you're a copper.'
Thorne stopped, took a breath and waited.
'That's why I took a shit on your bed, all right?'
It made sense. Thorne wasn't so poor a detective that he hadn't considered the possibility that his flat had been targeted. That was the problem with Neighbourhood Watch. You didn't always know which neighbours were watching…
'How did you know?' Thorne asked.
'I didn't, not before I got in there. There was a photo that had fallen down behind one of your speakers. You, in your fucking PC Plod outfit…'
Mullen leaned back and folded his arms as Thorne had done. He looked at him, as he might look at a stereo or a VCR, evaluating it, working out whether it was worth taking.
'Your hair was darker then,' Mullen said. 'And you weren't such a fat cunt.'
Thorne nodded. He remembered the photo, had wondered where it had gone. It wasn't a picture he was hugely fond of, but still, Mullen's response when he'd seen it a few weeks earlier had been a bit harsh.
'So, you take one look at an old photo and decide to use my bed as a crapper, that about right?'
Mullen grinned, starting to enjoy himself. His teeth were browning where they met the gums. 'Yeah, more or less…'
'You cocky little strip of piss…'
Thorne's movement, and the scrape of his chair across the floor, caused Mullen to jerk back and stiffen, momentarily defensive. He appeared to recover his confidence just as quickly.
'Look, it was nothing personal.'
'And it won't be personal when I come round there, knock you over and shit in your mouth, fair enough? I'm a copper and you're a burglar. Right, Noel? Clearly there's certain things we have to do. '
Mullen's expression was closer to pity than boredom. 'You're not going to do anything.'
Other than strike a few poses to try to make himself feel better, there was nothing that Thorne could do. He wondered if the old man he'd seen sitting opposite Darren Ellis had felt as useless.
'Are you sorry, Noel?'
'Am I what?'
'Sorry. Are you sorry?'
'Yeah. I'm sorry I got fucking caught.'
Thorne's smile was genuine. A certain warped faith had been restored by Mullen's honesty. Perhaps, faced with a few years' hard time, he would learn a trick or two, learn how to turn it on in the same way that Darren Ellis had. For now, there was something heartening about Mullen's answer. Something reassuring about the fact that he really and truly didn't give a toss.
There was a moment when Thorne almost liked him. The moment passed, and for a minute and more, Thorne stared into Mullen's unexcited eyes until the boy jumped up, moved quickly across the room and began banging on the door. Stone took the call, held the receiver out towards Holland. 'For you…'
As Holland walked across their small office, Stone put his hand over the receiver. 'She sounds sexy as well.'
Holland said nothing and took the phone. He'd pretty much learned to put up with Stone's arrogance, but he still got impatient with the smirks and the shrugs and the knowing looks that actually knew fuck all. Mind you, these days, he got impatient with a lot of things.
'DC Holland.'
'This is Joanne Lesser…'
'Oh, hello, Joanne.' Holland looked up to see Stone rolling his eyes and mouthing her name. Holland casually stuck up a finger.
'No luck on the actual files yet,' she said. 'I did leave a message yesterday. About some of them being moved?'
'OK. I didn't see that, but…'
'Don't worry, I'm still working on it. I found out something else, though.'
'Right…' Holland picked up a pen, began to doodle as he listened.
'A colleague on the team here reckons that the old index cards, from years back, are all piled up down in our cellar. I'll try and dig them out, presuming they haven't all gone rotten…'
'Do you think the cards for Mark and Sarah Foley will be down there?'
'That's why I rang. I don't see why not. There's probably not much information, they're just small cards, you know? The proper files are probably six inches thick…'
'What's on them?' Holland glanced up to see Stone staring across at him, interested.
'Usually just the basic stuff,' Lesser said. 'Case number, DOB's, placement dates and names of carers…'
Holland stopped doodling, wrote down 'names amp; dates'. 'That sounds great, Joanne. Really helpful…'
I'll call you when I've got the information then, shall I?'
'Can you e-mail it? Probably safer…'
When he thanked her again for her trouble, he could almost hear the blushing.
'Sounded good,' Stone said, after Holland had hung up.
'Reckons she can get us a list of all the kids' foster parents,' Holland explained. 'The dates they were placed in care…'
Stone looked thoughtful. 'Is she going to carry on looking for the full files?'
'Probably no stopping her, but I reckon these names and dates are as much as we're going to need.'
'Let me know when you get them,' Stone said. I'll give you a hand on it.'
Holland leaned back, stretched. 'Shouldn't be much to do. I think I can manage it on my own…'
'Please yourself.' Stone looked back to his computer screen, began to type.
Holland knew that it had been a fairly petty moment of self-assertion. More so, considering that he didn't really consider it to be a worthwhile line of inquiry in the first place. Thorne had got a bee in his bonnet about it, so Holland would do what needed doing, but he couldn't help thinking that they were almost certainly wasting their time. He didn't see how knowing where Mark and Sarah Foley had been twenty-five years ago was going to help them find out where they were now.
Thorne stepped out of the tube station on to Kentish Town Road. He turned for home, walking down in the direction of Camden, and the police station in which he'd encountered Noel Mullen nearly twelve hours before.
He thought about what the boy had said…
'I'm sorry I got fucking caught' .. and wondered if he'd ever make the killer of Remfry, Welch, Southern and Charlie Dodd sorry. He had a feeling that if he did catch him, it would be just about the only thing the killer would be sorry about.
Thorne was vacillating, standing on the pavement outside the Bengal Lancer, when his phone beeped. He listened to the message, then pressed the hash button to call Eve straight back. The apology wasn't the first thing he said but it was "pretty close.
'I'm sorry…'
'For what?'
'Lots of things. Not calling, for starters.'
'I know you've been bus).'
The owner of the restaurant, a man who knew Thorne very well, saw him through the window. He started waving, beckoning him inside. Thorne waved back, mouthing and pointing at the phone.
'Where are you?' Eve asked.
'Just heading home, trying to decide what to do about dinner.'
'Stressful day?'
Maybe she'd heard it in his voice. He laughed. 'I'm thinking about chucking it all in, becoming a florist.'
'Bloom and Thorne sounds good…'
'Actually, no, I don't think I could stand the early mornings.'
'You lazy bastard…'
And the sights, the sounds, the smells of Thorne's dream came straight back to him. He shivered, though it was warm enough to be walking around with his jacket thrown across his arm…
'Tom?'
'Sorry…' He blinked the pictures away. 'You said something about Saturday. In your message…'
'I know you're probably working late.'
'No, I'm not, for once. I'm signed out for most of the day. Unless something comes up.' An urgent meeting, a new lead, another body. 'So, should be fine…'
'It's not a big deal, but it's Denise's birthday, so her and me and Ben are going to be in the pub Saturday night. That's it, really. Just come along if you fancy it.'
'What, a double date?'
'No. I just thought you might prefer it. No pressure…'
'Pressure?'
'Well, you have been sort of… blowing hot and cold…'
'Sorry…'
There was a pause. Thorne caught sight of the owner again, throwing up his hands. He heard Eve move the receiver from one ear to the other.
'Look, I'm sorry too,' she said. 'I didn't want to get into this on e phone. Let's just have a drink on Saturday. Take it from there.'
"
'That sounds good. I'll have something to show you as well.'
Thorne enjoyed listening to the laugh that he hadn't heard in a while. He pictured the gap in the teeth. 'Cut out the dirty talk,' she said. 'And go and get something to eat…'
A few minutes later, ten minutes since he'd first arrived outside the restaurant, and Thorne was still trying to decide what to do. There was stuff in the fridge he could eat. Should eat… He pushed open the door, the smell of the Indian food just too good to resist. His friend, the owner, had already opened a bottle of Kingfisher.