Lazybones

TWENTY-FIVE

'Not just spoken on the phone either,' Holland said. 'I'm not sure about the others, but I think Southern might have met her.'

They were gathered in Brigstocke's office, prior to a hastily arranged team briefing. Eighteen hectic hours since Thorne had put it together. Since he'd worked out that there was a her…

'Go on, Dave,' Brigstocke said.

'I interviewed Southern's ex-girlfriend…'

Thorne remembered reading the statement. 'Right. They split up not long before he was killed, didn't they?'

'That's just it. She said that the main reason she dumped him was that she'd heard about some other woman, thought he'd been two timing her. Somebody told her that Southern had been bragging about it in the pub. Telling his mates he'd picked up this fantastic bit of stuff. Actually…'

'What?' '

'I need to look at the statement, but I think Southern supposedly told his mates that she had more or less picked him up.'

Thorne looked past Holland, down to Brigstocke's desk, at the series of black and white photographs laid out in two lines across it.

'Jane Foley,' he said.

'Who is she; really?' Kitson said.

Could be anybody,' Thorne said. 'We can't discount any possibility. A model he hired, or a hooker. The killer could have used her for the pictures, paid her to make the calls to Remfry and Welch. Bunged her a bit extra to pick up Howard Southern…'

Brigstocke was gathering his notes together. He didn't believe what Thorne was suggesting any more than Thorne himself did. 'No, it's Sarah. The sister. Got to be…'

'Using her mother's name,' Thorne said.

'This is all about the mother,' Holland said. 'It's all about Jane.'

Thorne moved towards the desk, correcting Holland as he passed him. 'It's all about a family…'

'Which means nothing's straightforward,' Brigstocke said. 'Which means it's a damn sight more fucked up and impossible to fathom than we can even begin to imagine.'

Thorne was thinking out loud as much as anything. 'I'm beginning to imagine it,' he said. 'Families can do damage.'

'Are we about done?' Kitson asked, suddenly. She moved towards the door without waiting for an answer. 'I've got a couple of things to do before the briefing starts.'

'I think so. Everybody clear?' Brigstocke looked at his watch and then at Thorne. The face of the watch was a whole lot easier to read.

'Right, we'll start in five minutes then…'

The 'missed-call' message had been scribbled on a memo sheet and left on Holland's desk. He screwed the paper up into his fist as he began to dial the number.

'Mrs. Noble? This is Detective Constable Holland. Thanks very much for getting back to me.' He'd meant to chase her up at the end of the day yesterday, but after Thorne's moment of revelation, things had gone haywire…

'I'm afraid I didn't get your message until quite late,' she said. 'And I didn't know whether or not to call you at home.'

'It would have been fine,' Holland said. He probably wouldn't have heard the phone anyway over the sound of the argument he'd been having with Sophie.

'I will get these photos back, won't I?'

'Definitely. We'll take care of them, I promise.'

'You'll need to give me a little bit of time to put my hands on them. They're in the cellar, I think. Actually, it might be the loft, but I'll find them…'

Holland looked over his shoulder. The Incident Room was filling up. There were doubtless still a dozen or more smokers outside somewhere, getting their last lungful of nicotine for an hour or two, but most available seats and areas of bare desktop were already taken.

'So what do you think? A day or two?'

'Oh yes, I should think so. I've picked up such a lot of old rubbish over the years, mind you…'

'Once you've got the photos, when can we come and pick them up?'

'I beg your pardon?'

Holland asked the question again, raising his voice above the growing level of hubbub around him.

'Any time you like,' she answered. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

Thorne was alone in Brigstocke's office. There were only five minutes until the briefing was due to begin. Brigstocke, who would kick things off, was already in the Incident Room. After he'd said his piece, it would be down to Thorne.

He stood before the gallery of pictures on Brigstocke's desk. A series of images carefully designed to tempt and tease. To offer while at the same time giving absolutely nothing away… Thorne could not be sure if the woman in the photographs was Sarah Foley. It didn't really matter. She was there and yet she was absent. In most of the shots she was kneeling, her head bowed, or else artfully shadowed. Thorne picked each picture up in turn, studied it, waited in vain for it to tell him something that it had managed, thus far, to keep to itself.

Aside from the powerful, disconcerting message the photos sent to his groin, Thorne saw nothing new.

Even physically, though the promise of submission was constant, little was revealed. In some of the photos the woman looked to have dark hair, while in others it seemed more fair. In two of them the hair definitely looked blond, but it could easily have been a wig. The body itself appeared to change, depending on how it was posed and lit. It was alternately lissom and muscular, its position making it impossible to accurately judge the height, or even the build of the woman to whom it belonged.

Sarah Foley, if it was her, had not been captured. Thorne looked at his watch. Another minute and he'd need to get out there. His job was to gee them up, to give the team enough to carry it into the home straight.

The next few days they'd work their arses oft; and none more so than him. They'd be going back, as always, checking what they had in light of the new lead, but all the time there was forward momentum. He could already sense it, the hunger that increases when it smells the meal, a collective ticking in the blood. The investigation was picking up speed quickly, starting to race. From this point on, Thorne would make bloody sure nothing else got away from him. Still, barring an actual arrest, by the weekend he'd be ready for a break. Saturday night with Eve and Sunday with his old man. He allowed himself a smile. If everything went well on Saturday night, he'd probably be making something of a late start the following morning. Thorne was guessing that by knocking-off time on Saturday, he'd need something to divert him. There were other parts of him, better parts, that needed exercising, and he wasn't just talking about sex. It would be good to feel the fizz of it with Eve, the flush and the promise of it. The scary thrill and the wonderful release. He was also looking forward to spending a few hours with his father. He needed to feel that lurch, that welling up of whatever it was his old man could suck into Thorne's chest without trying…

Karim appeared in the doorway, gave him a look.

'On my way, Sam,' Thorne said.

He would speak with real passion to the officers who were waiting for him. He wanted to catch this killer more than ever now, and he wanted to spread that desire around like a disease. He wanted to engineer that heady feeling of desperation and confidence that could sometimes make things happen all by itself.

But he would take care to hold the other feeling inside, the one that had begun to come and go, and cause something to jump and scuttle behind his ribs…

Yes, they were moving quickly. They were suddenly tearing along, they were up for it. But Thorne couldn't help but feel as if something was moving, equally as fast and with just as much determination, towards them. There was going to be a collision, but he didn't know when, or from which direction.

He wouldn't see it coming.

Thorne gathered up the photos from the desk, slipped them into a folder and walked towards the Incident Room.