He thought about Thorne's tiny flat. There was the home of a lonely man for sure. No, not a home. Neat and tidy, though, he'd give him that – apart from the empty wine bottles. He knew he'd have the edge on him that night on the doorstep. If Thorne had been sober he wouldn't have fancied his chances.
It was starting to get cold. He pulled down his hat and moved towards the entrance to the tube. Now he wanted some progress. He'd shaken things up for sure and they had to have come up with something. And let the profilers or whatever those over-qualified ponces called themselves, talk about a 'cry for help' or a 'desire to be stopped', if that's what paid their mortgages. Not that Thorne would have any time for psychobabble, he was pretty sure of that. And now that he knew what it felt like, now he knew how those women had felt before he'd laid hands on them, he'd be committed.
He'd known kids like Thorne at school. They just needed to be provoked and there'd be no containing them. Mad kids who would throw a desk out of the window or kill squirrels in the playground if you pushed them a bit if you punched the right buttons. Thorne was no different. And now he'd kicked him in the shins. He'd rabbit punched him. Now Thorne wouldn't stop.
A tall skinny woman with a pushchair beat him to the ticket machine. He stared at the back of her slender neck as she fumbled for change in her cheap plastic purse and stared at the station names as if they were printed in Chinese. Single mother, probably. The poor cow wrung out and desperate for a little comfort. Forty fags a day and a couple of Valium to numb the pain and get her through the afternoons.
He thought about any woman he saw now. He considered them all. He could see what each of them needed. Every one was.., feasible.
'Good to have you back, Tom.'
Tughan's thin lips arranged themselves into what might pass as a smile. Thorne thought he looked like a gargoyle. Holland made himself scarce and Thorne settled into a chair opposite his fellow DI. The comments of other officers were acknowledged with a nod and a lighthearted comment, and some of the smiles were undoubtedly sincere, but there were other faces he was less pleased to see again.
'How's the head, Tommy? Now you know how it feels, mate.,.
His calendar girls.
Yes, he knew what it felt like to have the power over your own body taken away. He'd been out of control so many times that it was almost familiar, but that loss went hand in hand with a warm, sleepy feeling that the booze threw in for good measure. The wine came with a little something special to ease the pain of smashed furniture or grazed knuckles. But the drug had taken him to places he never wanted to see again.
"He took away everything we had, Tommy…'
'I wanted to struggle…'
'We all did…'
'… to fight for my life, Tommy:
Tughan's mouth was moving but the sound was coming from a long way away.
Christine. Susan. Madeleine. And Helen. Drugged into oblivion and confronted by a monster. He'd confronted nothing but ghosts. The memories of ghosts. He thought about Alison. He needed to see her. He was still around and he wanted her to know that. He was still around only because that had been what the fucker wanted. He'd realised that straight away and hated the fucker for having the power to spare him. He'd chosen to give him his life.
He had made a mistake.
'He should have killed me:
'Don't say that, Tommy. Who would we have left to talk to?'
'Tom? Are you feeling all right? You shouldn't have come in.'
Thorne turned his eyes from the wall. He stood up and walked around the desk, catching Holland's eye as he put his hand on Nick Tughan's shoulder. 'Not caught him yet, then, Nick?'
Tughan laughed. Nails on a blackboard. I'll leave that to you, Tom. You're the one with the instincts, aren't you?'
Thorne stiffened. 'The one with experience.' He spoke the word as if he were naming a child molester. 'We're just getting on with the job, following leads. One or two of them yours, as a matter of fact.'
'Tom… '
Keable was speaking from the doorway of his office. Thorne looked up and he retreated, the invitation to join him unmistakable.
'I'll catch up with you later, Nick. Why don't you email me what you've got?'
Thorne walked across to Keable's office. He could hear Holland and one of the other DC's laughing as he went. Business as usual. But not for him.
Anne wanted to talk to Alison. Her workload meant that it was becoming increasingly difficult to spend a significant amount of time with her every day and they had stuff to catch up on.
He joined her a second or two after she stepped into the lift.
'David.'
'On the way up to see your locked-in case, I suppose. Any developments?'
'Do you care?'
He pressed the button and the doors started to close. There really wasn't a great deal to look at as a tactic to avoid what was sure to be an unpleasant encounter. She wondered instead if it was possible to escape from a lift using a trap-door in the roof as she had seen people do so often in films.
'I was sorry to hear about the attack on your policeman friend.'
They'd certainly done it in The Towering Inferno.
'Just after your cosy dinner trois with Jeremy, wasn't it?'
And Hannibal Lecter did it in Silence of the Lambs. Just after he'd cut that man's face off. Hmm.
'Anne?'
'Yes, it was, and no, you're not sorry, you're just a twat.'
The lift reached the second floor and Anne stepped out the moment the doors opened. Higgins stood preventing them from closing. 'Hanging around with police officers is obviously doing marvels for your vocabulary, Anne.'
'You're awfully well informed about what I'm up to, David. Using our daughter as a spy is rather pathetic, though.'
'Oh, I thought you two had no secrets?'
Not usually, but maybe it was time that changed. She'd need to talk to Rachel. He was now wearing that hideous smirk she remembered him reserving for tiny triumphs or the expectation of dutiful sex. She smiled at him, feeling nothing but pity.
'Why are you here, David?'
'Just because we're divorcing doesn't mean that I'm not interested in your life. I am.'
She stepped towards him. Did she see him actually flinch? 'There was an Oprah or a Ricki Lake recently about divorcing couples, did you catch it? This woman said that it was only when she was divorcing Duane or Marion or whoever, that she realised how much she loved him. It's weird, because all it's making me realise is how much I wanted to divorce you in the first place.'
The smirk had gone and she could see that the quiff was beginning to wilt slightly, but she could still feel the sharp tingle of the slap in a parked car, and picture the look in his eye after he'd spat at her in an Italian restaurant. Now he tried hard to look world-weary, but just looked old.
'You've become bitter, Anne.'
'And your hair is utterly ridiculous. I'm busy, David.'
The lift doors moved to close again, and Higgins was finding it hard to retain his balance. 'Aren't you at all interested in my life, Anne? What I'm doing?'
He was getting rusty – dollying up the ball like that. She couldn't wait to smash it home. 'OK, David. Are you still fucking that radiotherapist?'
She heard the doors closing as she walked away up the corridor. She knew that he'd never be certain if she'd heard his pathetic parting 'Give my love to Jeremy,' but it didn't matter either way.
She couldn't wait to tell Alison.
'Sit down, Tom.'
Thorne moved to take the uncomfortable brown plastic seat so generously offered. 'Fuck, this sounds a bit serious. Am I going to get a bollocking for being whacked over the head and pumped full of shit?'
'Why are you here, Tom? Do you think we can't manage without you?'