He kept his eyes open and did some catching up. The phone lay on the small cupboard by the side of the bed and he propped a couple of pillows up against the headboard. One extremely comfy office. The call to his dad was surprisingly enjoyable. Jim Thorne hated Sundays, and his irascible commentary on everything from garden centres to 'God-botherers' had made Thorne laugh out loud several times. They'd agreed to have a night out the following week.
Thorne had arranged to meet Phil Hendricks the day after next but this was a less enjoyable prospect. The pathologist had sounded distant and edgy. The call had taken less than a minute. Thorne wondered what Hendricks wanted to see him about. He was pretty sure it had nothing to do with tickets for Spurs-Arsenal. Then he'd rung Anne.
She'd been having breakfast with Rachel. The two of them were planning to spend the day together and she told Thorne she'd ring back. Within fifteen minutes she was on her way over. Rachel had not seemed too disappointed at the change of plan, and by the time she was climbing back into bed with her mobile phone, her mother was climbing into bed with Tom Thorne.
After making up for lost time they'd dozed for a while but now, surrounded by discarded bits of newspaper, they lay in a bed dotted with toast crumbs and smelling of sex. And began to talk.
It was a conversation of a very different nature from the one they'd had nearly a month earlier, on the night Thorne had gone round for dinner; the night he'd been attacked and drugged in his own home. Then, certainly as far as he had been concerned, there had been a lot of lying. There had been the lies implicit in the flirting and the lies behind his questions about Jeremy Bishop.
There was so much he hadn't told her. So many lies by omission.
Now they talked easily, and truthfully. Two people the wrong side of forty with little reason to puff up achievements or suck in stomachs. They spoke about David and Rachel and Jan and the Lecturer. Divorces with children versus divorces without. About her grade-seven piano and the work she'd done on her house and the cups she'd won for tennis before she went to university. About how much he hated poncy tea and brown bread, and how he'd been quite a useful footballer until he'd started putting on weight. '
About how often she'd saved a life and how many times he'd fired a gun.
They talked about how utterly unsuited they were, and laughed, and then made love again.
For a few hours on a damp Sunday afternoon at the fag end of September, the case that had changed both their lives – that would twist and warp their lives, and those of others, even more before it was over – might not have existed.
Then a woman picked up a phone in Edinburgh and changed everything.
He'd enjoyed his Sundays in the past. They had been a vital part of the process. It had been the day when he'd selected several of his early ones. He'd watched Christine on a Sunday – she'd had friends round. And Susan – at home alone in front of an old film. Even after he'd stopped working in other houses, Sunday was still a day to take stock. To plan. Today, he didn't like what he saw. It was all going to shit. He could feel himself on the edge of a depression that he knew would be crippling if he let it take hold. The days after Helen had been hard but he'd seen a light at the end of it all. The knowledge that success was possible. That the capacity to achieve success was within him. And the days after Alison. A happiness he hadn't known before or since.
Today he saw no light ahead. The doubt was taking hold of every part of him and starting to squeeze out the joy and the hope.
It was more than just his own failure, of course. Thorne was failing as well, or at the very least not being allowed to succeed.
Without Thorne there was really no point.
All his channels of information were clear. The news, the rumour, the word. None of it good. He'd made it all so easy for them and they'd screwed it up. They'd missed every marker he'd left so carefully in their path. He sat and stared at the pristine white wall. Whatever happened, however it worked itself out, he would always have Alison. She would always be a testament to him and his work. The other part of it, the other half of it, might not work out exactly as planned but that was not his fault. That was the result of involving others. There were ways of achieving a similar end on his own.
The punishment was not going to fit the crime, but he would see it meted out nevertheless.
It wasn't over, not yet, but he was starting to feel weary. Twelve days before, with Margaret Byrne's body cooling where he'd left it and his car effortlessly trailing the night bus carrying Leonie Holden towards him, he'd felt bright and invincible. Today, he wasn't sure he'd even be able to drag himself out of doors.
Even though, later, he would have to.
They were laughing about his taste in music. The track was 'Delia's Gone', which involved Johnny Cash tying his girlfriend to a chair and shooting her. a couple of times, essentially because she was 'devilish'. Thorne couldn't see the problem.
Then the phone rang. 'Tom? It's Sally Byrne.'
Thorne laughed. 'Hi, Sally. Elvis is fine. He's destroying the place but he's fine.'
Anne, who hadn't met the cat yet, threw him an odd look from the other side of the bed. He grinned at her over his shoulder, shaking his head. Don't worry about it. She picked up a newspaper and snuggled down to read.
'It's not actually about the cat, Tom.'
Thorne began to sit up slowly. He could feel the smallest of sensations, a tingle, a burning, an excitement, building between his shoulder-blades. 'I'm listening, Sally.'
'It's just something a bit odd and I probably should have spoken to the Irish officer. What's his name?'
'Tughan.' Go on…
'Well, I've been going through Mum's things, you know sorting stuff out for the charity shop or whatever, and I was looking through her jewelry and I found a man's ring.'
Thorne was already out of bed and wandering into the living room, trying to pull on a dressing-gown.
'Tom?'
'Sorry. Which jewelry are we talking about?'
'This is what I'm saying, it's the stuff you lot took away. The scene-of-crime people. They let me have it all back after the funeral, said they didn't need it any more. I don't know where they found this ring, on the floor with the rest of the stuff, I suppose, and they obviously thought it belonged to my mum, but it doesn't.'
'It's definitely a man's?'
'Definitely. It's plain gold. Looks like a wedding ring.'
'Not your dad's?'
'Are you kidding? That bastard would never have worn a wedding ring. Might have spoiled his chances of pulling.'
Thorne was starting to miss what Sally Byrne was saying. A melody was pouring into his brain and filling every corner of it. A classical melody. Mournful and haunting. He couldn't remember what it was called. Something German. But he could remember where he'd heard it. And he could remember a rhythm, a tempo, marked out by the clicking of a wedding ring against a gearstick.
'I mean, I'm sure it's nothing, Tom, but…'
When Thorne came back into the bedroom a few minutes later, Anne knew in a heartbeat that something had changed. He was trying to sound casual. He asked if she wanted tea.
She got up and began to dress.
Whatever it was that had actually happened wasn't important. She knew that murder and suspicion were back in the room with them and she needed to leave. They moved around each other awkwardly now, embarrassed, and they froze for half a second as each caught the other's reflection in the long wardrobe mirror.
Thorne saw something like accusation and hated himself for wanting her to leave so that he could ring Dave Holland.
Anne saw the excitement that was running through Thorne like voltage.
She saw a hunger in him.