Instead, he asked, ‘How do you know Mr Thorne?’
‘It’s a long story,’ she said.
Akhtar shrugged. ‘I don’t think either of us is going anywhere for a little while, at least.’
‘My partner died, just over a year ago. Just before Alfie was born.’
‘Ah,’ Akhtar said, nodding. ‘I had wondered why I never saw the baby’s father. I would never have asked, of course.’
Helen swallowed, took a few seconds. ‘Paul was… killed, and it was Thorne’s job to find out what happened.’
‘Like this, then?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘So, did he?’
‘Well, actually I found out the truth myself.’ Helen shook her head, still not quite able to believe, a year on from it, that she had done the things she had. Taken such stupid risks. Putting herself close to gangs and killers like a kid poking at a wasps’ nest and tearing around like a lunatic while eight months pregnant with Alfie.
She had felt proud of herself though, in the end, and vindicated because she knew how proud Paul would have been. It had helped her cope with the grief, and the guilt.
‘Well, perhaps I should be asking you to find out what happened to Amin,’ Akhtar said, grinning. ‘And Thorne should be sitting where you are.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Helen said.
Akhtar stood up and flicked the kettle on. There was a lightness to his movements suddenly, as he reached for mugs and spoons. A squareness in his shoulders. ‘Yesterday, when he suggested swapping places with you? That told me something very important about the kind of man he is. Told me he was the right man… ’
Helen suddenly remembered talking to Thorne a year before, at Paul’s funeral. He had looked uncomfortable in a stiff collar and tie and had told her he was going to be a father. ‘One on the way,’ he had said. ‘Not as far gone as yours but… on the way.’ So just a couple of months, but that meant Thorne would have a baby of his own now.
Yet still he had offered to take her place.
When it came, Helen drank her tea and ate the biscuits that were given with it, feeling anything but proud. Because she knew that she would not have done the same.
THIRTY-SIX
With an insight gained solely from episodes of The Young Ones, Thorne still imagined that most students lived in glorious and chaotic squalor, with Che Guevara posters covering up the damp patches on the walls, washing-up growing mouldy in the sink and a note stuck to the fridge saying, ‘Don’t eat my yoghurt!’ It was an out-of-date stereotype, but comforting. It served to water down the envy Thorne felt for those less than half his age, with three years free to enjoy a plethora of sex and freedom from responsibility. It eased his regret at never having been one of them himself.
Rahim Jaffer’s flat would have made most people envious.
Jaffer lived a stone’s throw from the Old Vic theatre, on the ground floor of a converted warehouse just off The Cut in Waterloo. After a curt exchange over the intercom system and a short staring match on the doorstep, Jaffer had shown Thorne into a sitting room that would not have disgraced an up-market design magazine.
‘Nice,’ Thorne said.
Jaffer said nothing.
The white walls were broken up with rows of framed black-and-white photographs; portraits of people who, with the exception of Marlon Brando and Imran Khan, Thorne did not recognise. A lamp at the tip of a thin metal arc reached fifteen feet into the room from a marble block in the corner and hung above a coffee table shaped like a strand of DNA. Some Japanese designer, Thorne thought, though he could not remember the name. He was sure that nothing in the place had come in a flat-pack, and when he saw that all the electrical appliances were Bang amp; Olufsen – the TV, the stereo, even the absurdly shaped telephone – he remembered what Holland had told him about Peter Allen’s flat, though he could not imagine that it was quite as tastefully done as this.
He sat down in a chrome and leather armchair that had clearly been bought for looks rather than comfort and watched as Rahim lounged on the matching sofa. The boy was wearing the same clothes Thorne had seen earlier in the day, though he had since dispensed with socks and the trainers had been replaced with soft red moccasins.
‘You feeling better yet, Rahim?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I spoke to your tutor.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Well, for some reason you weren’t answering your mobile,’ Thorne said. ‘So I tried the university. She was very helpful, actually. Told me you’d been feeling unwell. That you’d gone home early.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That must have come on suddenly.’ Thorne shifted his position to try and get comfortable, then gave up. ‘Not long after we spoke, wasn’t it?’
‘Some kind of virus,’ Rahim said.
Thorne nodded then turned towards the stereo. ‘What was that you were listening to before?’ Rahim had turned the music off as soon as he’d shown Thorne in.
‘You wouldn’t know it.’
‘Probably not,’ Thorne said. ‘Didn’t sound like my kind of thing.’
Rahim just looked at him. Thorne could see that he was nervous but nevertheless unwilling to make casual conversation. Bright enough to know that Thorne was not there for that.
‘You like music then? Go to a lot of clubs and stuff?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Not really.’
‘Sure?’
Rahim sat forward, said, ‘What’s this about?’ but it was clear from his expression that he already knew.
‘You were arrested as part of a raid on the Crystal Rose in Brewer Street five months ago,’ Thorne said. ‘Cautioned for possession of cocaine.’
The boy was probably aiming for something like insouciance, but he could not control the nervous reflex. That soft red moccasin tapping fast against the floor. ‘So?’
‘So, were you there for the music?’
‘It’s a nice club,’ Rahim said. ‘I just went out with some friends.’
Thorne leaned forward, happy to see that Rahim leaned that little bit further away as he did so. ‘I don’t give a toss about the drugs,’ he said. It was no longer a conversation, no longer casual. ‘What’s interesting is that it wasn’t even the drug squad that made the raid. It was actually part of a vice operation. They’d been tipped off that certain individuals were using the Crystal Rose as somewhere they could go to pick up underage boys.’ He waited, but Rahim just stared at the floor, both his feet now working together against the stripped and varnished boards. ‘I’m talking fourteen-or fifteen-year-olds here,’ Thorne said. ‘You understand? Nothing disgusting enough to get the “dirty paedo” brigade too hot under the collar, but, unfortunately for some of the customers, illegal enough to do time for, and these are the kind of men who really can’t risk a quiet stroll around the alleyways off Piccadilly Circus in the early hours. Professional types, you know what I’m saying, Rahim? Respectable. I mean, who in their right mind wants to risk getting ripped off, or having their head kicked in by some junkie, when all he wants is a quick hand-job from someone with nice smooth hands?
‘So, somewhere like that club you were in… well, it’s a godsend, don’t you reckon? The perfect place to find what they’re looking for without any hassles. A few drinks and a slow dance, and no need for money to change hands until they’re safely back in their nice comfy “bachelor” pads or hotel rooms. Then the really sad ones can kid themselves that whoever they’ve brought home with them actually wants to be there. They can do what the hell they like then and take their time about it. They can relax and take off their business suits… and fuck teenage boys like you to their hearts’ content.’
Rahim eventually raised his eyes from the floor. Now, he looked as unwell as he had previously been pretending to be.
‘You remember what we talked about earlier,’ Thorne said. ‘So, bearing in mind that I’m pushed for time and that it’s Amin I’m really interested in… I was wondering what you might be able to tell me about that.’