Sleepyhead

Rebecca Bishop worked in the department of orthopedic surgery. Sitting opposite them on moulded green plastic chairs, in a corridor just off a waiting area, her manner left Thorne in no doubt as to the strength of the confidence gene in this particular family. 'I'll give you half an hour. After that, I'm assisting at a riveting lecture on the biomechanics of fracture repair. You're welcome to attend.'

She smiled coldly. Aside from the dark, frizzy hair and slightly elongated chin, Rebecca had the features of her father and brother. She was a handsome woman, as they were handsome men. Handsome but not pretty. There was nothing soft about her. Thorne wondered where the influence of Sarah Bishop was to be found. Had she been soft?

Or pretty?

Maybe he'd ask Jeremy one day, when they had time to talk. In an interview room perhaps.

Thorne opened his mouth to reply but Rebecca Bishop had her own agenda. 'You could start by telling me why they've sent the man my father believes is responsible for harassing him to talk to me about it.'

Thorne flicked his eyes to Holland. He got back the facial equivalent of a shrug.

'Nobody is harassing your father, Dr Bishop. Nobody we are aware of anyway. The very fact that I've come down here myself should assure you that we're taking his allegations seriously.'

'I'm pleased to hear it.'

'But you must understand we do have other priorities.'

She got up and walked across to scrutinise a notice board.

'Like catching Champagne Charlie? I've been reading all about it.'

Holland was content to play the ebullient sidekick.

'Don't believe everything you read in the papers, Dr Bishop.'

She looked at Holland, and Thorne thought he spotted 270 the merest hint of a blush. Did she fancy him? So much the better. He tried to catch Holland's eye but couldn't. Rebecca Bishop turned and stared at Thorne, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of a baggy brown cardigan.

'And is my father a suspect, Inspector Thorne?'

Lying was never pleasant, but it was easy. 'No, of course not. He was questioned routinely and eliminated from the inquiry.'

She looked at him hard. He felt nothing. Doctors kept patients in the dark. Ditto policemen and members of the public.

Holland took over. 'Can we talk about this harassment business? Exactly what is happening, as you understand it?'

She sat down. 'I went over all this on the phone.'

Holland took out a notebook on cue. Thorne had to admire the timing. She sighed and carried on. 'Right, well, Dad's been getting these phone calls… Oh, and there was somebody taking photos outside his house, but it's mainly the phone calls.'

'Your dad told you about this?'

'No, my brother James rang me. Dad's really upset and angry, and James thought I ought to know what was going on. To add another professional voice of complaint, I suppose. James and I don't exactly chat every day, so I guessed it was something important when I got his message.'

She began to chew intently at a fingernail. Thorne noticed that they were all bitten to the quick, some raw and bloody.

It was time to dig a little. 'So you and James are not… close?'

She looked up and he could see her considering a reply, and whether to give it. Was this territory she felt safe bringing strangers into? Maybe it was Holland's smile that did the trick.

'We're not a hugely close family. You must know most of this…'

They looked at her as if they didn't "know anything at all.

'James and I aren't best friends, no. Dad and I don't get on either, if you must know, but that doesn't mean I want to see him upset.'

Holland nodded, full of understanding. 'Of course not.'

She began to speak slowly, but with a detectable relish.

'James and Dad like to think they're close, but really there's a lot of denial flying about. They fell out a bit a few years ago when James went off the rails a little, and now he just sees the old man as a glorified bank manager who's there to dole out cars and deposits on flats, so that good old James can fuck up anything he turns his hand to and not really worry about it.'

Thorne stirred the pot a little. 'I'm sure he does worry about it.'

'Oh, yeah, you've had the pleasure of meeting James, he told me. Christ, how bitter do I sound?' She tried to laugh, but it caught at the back of her throat.

Thorne's voice was quiet, measured. 'And how does your dad feel?'

'Guilty.' An instinctive answer. Word association. Thorne willed his face to show nothing Let her carry on dishing the family dirt.

'Guilty that Mum was off her face on tranquilisers and he was too pissed to drive. Guilty that he put her on the fucking tranquilisers in the first place. Guilty that he screwed up both his kids. Guilty that he didn't die instead of her. We're big on guilt, the Bishops. But Jeremy's the top man.'

Tranquilisers. That made a lot of sense. Was the Midazolam doing to his victims in a few short minutes what the tranquilisers had done to his wife over a number of years? Was all this about something as prosaic as revenge? No, not revenge exactly but… Thorne didn't know what.

Almost as soon as he'd thought it, he knew that it was too simplistic and, in a strange way, too poetic. The answer to this case wouldn't lie in everyday motives tied up in Christmas cracker psychology.

But he was getting under the skin of Jeremy Bishop. He gazed across at Bishop's daughter. She looked exhausted. She had been saying something she had not articulated for a while, or so it seemed to Thorne. She was speaking as if he and Holland weren't there. He needed, gently, to remind her that they were.

'And what about you, Rebecca? What are you guilty about?'

She looked at Thorne as if he was mad. Wasn't it obvious?

'That I wasn't in the car.'

While Tom Thorne was questioning Rebecca Bishop, a hundred miles away, her father, was having lunch with the woman who, at least in theory, was sleeping with him. He'd rung the night before. Anne had grabbed at the phone, hoping it might be Thorne, and was more than a little thrown when she'd heard Jeremy's voice. They'd agreed to meet. A pasta place in Clerkenwell, more or less midway between Queen Square and the Royal London. The hug was perhaps a little forced but the wine soon relaxed them and the conversation flowed easily enough. They talked about work. Stressful – hard to go home and relax. Tiring – when was it anything else? He was starting to think about a change of direction; she was intrigued. She was disappointed and upset about Alison's setback; he was sympathetic.

They talked about children. Was she expecting too much of Rachel? Was she too pushy? He told her not to give herself a hard time over it. He'd always expected the best from Rebecca and James and almost certainly had been too pushy. He was proud of Rebecca, and maybe James would work out soon what he wanted.

She told him he should be proud of both of them. Then a silence, which was just the right side of awkward, when Bishop broke it. 'Did you not phone because your boyfriend told you not to?'

Anne lit a cigarette, her third since they had finished the meal. 'You didn't call me either.'

'I was worried it might be awkward. I've read the papers and clearly I can't be a suspect any more, but he still seems to have something of a… problem with me.'

She flicked non-existent ash into the ashtray. 'I haven't spoken to Tom in over a week.' Bishop raised an eyebrow. More nervous ash-flicking. 'We've never really talked about you, anyway, Jeremy. Best to keep the personal and the professional separate.'

Bishop leaned forward and smil6d, interlocking long, slender fingers and resting his chin on them. He stared deep into her eyes. 'I do understand all that, Jimmy, and I know this is hard for you. But what do you really think?'

She held the eye-contact and tried with all her heart and soul to imagine this man the way Tom Thorne did. She couldn't do it. 'Jeremy, I don't…'