'Sylvia…' Robert Carpenter gently laid a hand on his wife's arm. She turned her head slowly to look at him, then abruptly moved away, staring intently at the platters of cheese and cold meat as she walked the length of the buffet table.
The two men watched her go, then Robert Carpenter turned back to Thorne. He looked down at his shoes for a few seconds then raised his eyes. 'It's hit her very hard,' he said.
'Of course,' Thorne said.
'I mean, obviously, it's hit all of us.'
Thorne could say nothing, aware of the inadequacy of the platitudes he might have been expected to trot out. Indeed, had trotted out in countless similar situations. Looking at Anna's father then, it struck him that, in recent years, the influence of American TV shows had crept into the language of condolence every bit as much as it had been felt elsewhere.
I'm sorry for your loss.
That final word set Thorne's teeth on edge. Surely it implied the possibility that, some day, whoever had been lost might be found. Keys were lost and mobile phones. Dogs and wallets and telephone numbers. Those wrenched from their families by violent death were gone – plain, simple and terrible, but they were anything but lost.
Thorne and the rest of those under Robert Carpenter's roof had gathered together to mourn Anna's absence.
'Did she tell you she was not her mother's favourite?' Robert asked suddenly.
'No,' Thorne said.
'She always thought that. The stupid thing is that she was.' He shook his head and lowered his voice still further. 'She really was. ..'
Thorne wondered what else Anna might have told him, given time.
'There's no news, I suppose?'
'I'm sorry?' Thorne said.
'Your colleagues have all been very good, keeping us informed and what have you. But I haven't heard anything for over a week, so…'
'We're doing everything we can.'
'Of course, I do understand that.'
Thorne had been at home for a fortnight following the shooting – compulsory leave in the wake of an incident involving a firearm, if not strictly merited by the severity of his injury. There would be counselling sessions too, a little further down the line, the thought of which filled Thorne with horror. Reminded him of a few other things that you could lose.
Your diary.
Your way, en route to the counsellor's office.
The will to live.
During those two weeks away from the office, Thorne had stayed in touch with the investigation: talking to Brigstocke, Holland and Kitson half a dozen times a day; phoning Gary Brand to see if any of his contacts had heard any whispers. Keeping on top of things. So, he was acutely aware of the lack of witnesses, the deafening silence in response to numerous appeals, the absence of any forensic evidence on the abandoned scooter. He was intimately acquainted with each brick wall and dead end in the search for the shooter.
'She told me about the case she was working on,' Robert said. 'This man everyone thought was dead.'
'Right.'
'She was excited about it. I told her how much I enjoyed seeing her like that.' He paused and the smile slid from his face. 'He did this, I suppose?'
Tried to kill you and killed my daughter instead.
Should have organised something a little more efficient than a gun fired at night from a moving scooter.
'We think so,' Thorne said. 'Or at least paid to have it done.'
Anna's father was studying his feet again, glancing up every few seconds towards others in the room. 'Well, I'd better…'
'Thank you,' Thorne said.
He was not sure what he was thanking the man for. For his hospitality? For not pushing him against the wall and screaming into his face with grief and fury?
For Anna?
Thorne spent another half an hour or so wandering between kitchen, sitting room and garden. He caught Rob and Angie looking at him and did his best to smile. He looked at the collection of family photographs on a dresser: Anna and her sister on holiday somewhere warm; the family at Anna's graduation; Anna and her mother, their postures and expressions almost identical. Reaching across the buffet table for more food he did not really want, he felt the ache in his collarbone. He felt it spread into his shoulder, and he felt again the weight of her as they lay together at the bottom of the stone steps.
Her breath bubbling and shallow against his chest and her blood leaking through his fingers.
He spoke to Robert Carpenter one more time that day, as goodbyes were being said at the front door. Anna's father was thanking people as they left, braced for the final litany of condolence, taking hands in his own. Thorne searched for the right words. He said he was glad he had come, mumbled something about how good the food had been, then found himself blurting out, 'She told me you liked bluegrass.'
Robert Carpenter smiled and nodded, then handed Thorne a handkerchief.
'The captain has turned on the seatbelt signs, so…'
Thorne stuffed his newspaper into the pocket and pressed his knees hard into the back of the seat in front to remind the selfish bastard in the row ahead of him to raise his seat into the upright position. The woman next to him said something, having clearly decided that with no more than a few minutes left before landing, it was safe enough to strike up a conversation.
'Sorry?'
'Holiday?'
'Not really,' Thorne said.
The woman nodded and said, 'Looks like you could do with one.'
Thorne closed his eyes again and did not open them until the plane's wheels screamed against the runway.
Standing at the luggage carousel, he felt the pulse in his collarbone again and pictured a bare-chested man raising up a beer glass. Smiling and squinting against the sun. Would that smile be summoned quite as easily now, Thorne wondered, after everything the man had done to keep his place in the sun?
Probably…
From the moment Thorne had returned to duty, he had badgered Brigstocke, had even gone cap in hand to Jesmond, begging for the go ahead to travel to Spain. Initially, there had been reluctance, with little more in the way of real evidence than there had been on the night Anna was killed. Three dead now. Four, including the unidentified body from ten years before. But still nothing to tie the man they all knew was responsible to any of the killings.
Eventually, Thorne had been given the nod; out of sympathy, as much as anything, he suspected. But it didn't matter. He would take whatever was on offer if it meant a chance to get up close and personal with Alan Langford. He would do whatever he could. He would find Langford and wait, rely on others back in London to furnish him with whatever was needed to bring the fucker back in chains.
'I hate to sound like the captain in Starsky and Hutch,' Brigstocke had said. 'But I can only give you a couple of weeks.'
Holland had driven Thorne to Luton Airport. 'We'll be busting a gut,' he had said. 'You know that.'
Pulling up outside the terminal, Thorne had said, 'Find out who was in that Jag, Dave. He's the key to all this.'
Thorne's suitcase came out early. He was happy to take it as a good omen.
He grabbed the case and wheeled it out quickly through the automatic doors, reached into his carry-on bag for sunglasses, and stepped into the late-April Spanish sunshine.
Full of hate.
TWENTY-NINE
Not so much 'shit-hot', Thorne decided, as 'lukewarm'.
Within a few minutes of meeting DI Peter – 'call me Pete' – Fraser, Thorne was convinced that the agent assigned by Silcox and Mullenger as his guide and liaison for the Spanish leg of the inquiry was probably not one of SOCA's finest.
'Welcome to the madhouse,' Fraser said as they walked towards the airport car park. He grinned and lowered his head, peered at Thorne over wraparound sunglasses. 'From what I've heard, you should slot in quite nicely.'