Sleepyhead

TWENTY-FIVE

Thorne hadn't been able to make good on his promise of a box. Hendricks wasn't pleased, but they were showing the game on Sky anyway, and he agreed to settle for half a dozen cans of cheap lager and a home delivery from the Bengal Lancer.

There had been no great making up, no moment of acceptance or forgiveness. Hendricks called as soon as he heard what happened and they'd talked for a while. It was all that was needed.

Nearly a month now.

When James Bishop died on the operating table, Thorne had blamed himself. Then the post-mortem revealed the drug, and he knew that, even if he'd reacted quicker, the outcome would have been the same. Warfarin. A drug prescribed to treat certain 'heart and lung disorders and, ironically, used to prevent strokes. An anticoagulant. A drug that prevents the blood clotting,

They couldn't be certain but they guessed he'd been taking it for at least a couple of weeks. Had he been planning it all along? Or had he been taking the drug just in case it ever came down to it? Down to him and his father and a scalpel.

They'd never know for sure.

They'd never know for sure, though Thorne felt pretty certain that Bishop had been the one who'd gone to the press. Leaking the story to free up the channels of information. Once a few decent holes had been torn in the veil of secrecy, he was able to learn so much more about what was happening on the case. The pipeline that fed Bishop information had been a complex one, running back and forth, in many directions and at different speeds from Thorne himself, via Jeremy Bishop, Anne and, of course, Rachel, who James had been seeing for some time. She never re-sat her exams.

Anne wasn't sure when Rachel would go back to school or when she herself would go back to work. That's what she'd said a few weeks ago. Thorne had spoken to her frequently in the days following that night in Bishop's attic, but not since. He thought about her a lot, but never without wondering if his stupidity had somehow contributed to what had happened. Had he been responsible for Anne and Rachel being in that attic?

One of many unanswerable questions with which he liked to torture himself.

It wasn't as if he'd done anything that night to make Anne feel inclined to think better of him. There had been no heroics. Just those who died, and those who nearly did. Perhaps one day she'd call. It needed to come from her. He knew it would take a while for the bruises he couldn't see to fade, but he was starting to feel better. He had got it wrong, and he knew he would do so again. It was a comforting thought. He had been wonderfully, horribly wrong, and in truth, it felt as though a curse had been lifted. Fucking-up might just have saved him.

And Helen and Susan and Christine and Madeleine and Leonie? The girls had gone rather quiet. Thorne knew this wasn't because they were 'at peace' or 'avenged' or anything like that. He didn't believe in that sort of crap. He was pretty sure that the silence was only temporary. They would make enough noise when the time came. Them, or others like them.

Right this minute, they just didn't have anything to say. He watched, confused for a few seconds, as Hendricks jumped from the settee and began to dance around the living room. He glanced at the TV in time to catch the replay. Arsenal had scored. Three more points out of the window and another nail in this season's coffin. Just one more thing to which Tom Thorne was resigned.