Brigstocke had held up his hands. "I don't see how it can."
"Let's just remind Ryan that we haven't forgotten him," Thorne had suggested. "Stir things up a bit." Now, days later, sitting in his office with Yvonne Kitson, Thorne was still smiling about what Tughan had said next: "That's what you're good at, isn't it, Tom? Stirring things up. You're a spoon on legs." Kitson spun her chair around to face him. "Is Brigstocke winning the argument, d'you reckon?"
"Russell gives as good as he gets," Thorne said, 'but he needs a prod every now and again. I reminded him that he was a DCI as well, and he got a bit shirty." Kitson laughed. "I think he might just go over Tughan's head."
Thorne looked across at Kitson and suddenly remembered a moment sitting in the same office with her the year before. He'd been watching her eat her lunch, staring as she took her sandwiches from the Tupperware container and unwrapped the foil. He'd thought she had everything under control.
Thorne's stomach growled. Karim was bringing him back a cheese roll from the pub. Surely even the Oak's culinary wizard couldn't fuck that up.
"What are you doing for lunch, Yvonne?"
Before she could answer, there was a knock, and Holland put his head round the door. He came in, followed by Andy Stone, and together they gave Thorne a rundown on the morning's session at Park Royal. Thorne looked at the pictures stills from the tape they'd shown Rooker laid out on his desk in front of him. "Well, I think we can safely discount the wife, the daughter and the auntie," he said. Holland pulled a face. "I'm not being funny, but couldn't any one of them have been passing messages between Rooker and somebody else?" Thorne was not known as the belt-and-braces type. In this case, though, it was better to play it safe. "Right, sod it," he said. "With the exception of the old lady, have a word with all of them." As he and Holland were leaving, Stone turned back with a grin. "Are you sure you don't want us to check the old woman out? She looks pretty dodgy to me."
Thorne nodded. "Right. The gap between perception and reality." He looked innocently at Stone. "I'm sure some of the great philosophers have got plenty to say on the subject, Andy." Holland fought back a laugh as he quickly stepped out of the room. Stone looked blank as he turned and followed him, leaving Thorne unsure as to whether or not he'd cottoned on.
"What was all that about?" Kitson asked. Thorne was still grinning, highly pleased with himself. "Just something Holland told me about Andy Stone and his winning ways with the opposite sex."
"Right. He's a bit of a shagger, isn't he?"
"Apparently. I never seem to meet any, but if some people are to be believed, women are falling over themselves to jump into bed with coppers all of a sudden."
It took Thorne a second to realise what he'd said, and who he'd said it to. When he looked across at Kitson, the colour had already reached her face.
"Sorry, Yvonne."
"Don't be stupid."
He nodded. Stupid was exactly how he felt. "How is everything?"
"Oh, you know. Shitty." She smiled and spun her chair towards her desk.
"How're the kids doing?"
The chair came slowly back around again. She obviously wanted to talk.
"The eldest's been playing up a bit at school. It's hard to know whether it's anything to do with what's been happening, but I still manage to convince myself that it is. I try and tell myself not to be so bloody stupid and guilty all the time. Then one of them bangs their head, or twists an ankle playing football, and it feels like it's my fault."
The phone on Thorne's desk rang, and Kitson stopped talking. It was the security officer at the gatehouse. He told Thorne that somebody had driven up to the barrier and was asking to see him. In point of fact, the woman so the duty officer had explained had not come to see him specifically. He just happened to be the highest-ranking member of Team 3 in the building at the time. It was a piece of luck, both good and bad, that Thorne would reflect on for a long time afterwards.
The woman stood as he came down the stairs into the small reception area. Thorne nodded to the officer on the desk and walked across to her. She was in her mid-thirties, he guessed, and tallish, certainly as tall as he was. Her hair was the colour of the cork pin-board on the wall behind his desk, her complexion as pale as the wall itself. She wore smart grey trousers with a matching jacket, and, for no good reason, Thorne wondered if she might be a tax inspector.
"Did you find a parking space?" he asked. On second thoughts, he never imagined civil servants to be quite so attractive. She nodded and held out a hand, which Thorne took. "I'm Alison Kelly," she said.
Perhaps the stunned expression on Thorne's face looked a lot like ignorance. She repeated her name, then explained exactly who she was.
"Jessica Clarke was my best friend. I was the one she got mistaken for."
Thorne released her hand, slightly embarrassed at having held on to it for so long. She didn't seem overly bothered. "Sorry, I know who you are. I just wasn't expecting you to walk in, or to… I just wasn't expecting you."
"I probably should have called."
They looked at each other for a second or two. Thorne could feel the eyes of the duty officer on them.
"Right, then." What do you want? This would perhaps have been a little brusque, but it was all Thorne was thinking. Rather than ask the question, though, he looked around, as if searching for a place where they could talk in private. "I'm sure I can find us somewhere where we can chat, or whatever." He pointed to the exit. "Unless you'd rather go for a walk or something?" She shook her head. "It's bloody freezing out there."
"Spring's not far away."
"Thank God."
Becke House was an operational HQ, as opposed to a fully functioning station, and, as such, it had no permanent interview suite. There was a small room to the right of the reception desk that was occasionally used in emergencies, or to store booze whenever a party was thrown. A table and chairs, a couple of rickety cupboards. Thorne opened the door, checked that the room was unoccupied and beckoned Alison Kelly inside.
"I'll see if I can organise some tea," he said.
She moved past him and sat down, then began speaking before he'd closed the door. "Here's what I know," she said. Her voice was deep and unaccented. Just the right side of posh. "You're not getting anywhere trying to find the man who squirted lighter fluid all over that girl in Swiss Cottage ten days ago." She paused.
Thorne walked across to the table and sat down. "I'm not quite sure what you're expecting me to say to that."
"Three days before that happened, somebody tried to kill the man who's in prison for burning Jess, by stabbing him in the gut with a sharpened paintbrush. It's pretty obvious that there's a connection. Something's going on."
"Do you mind me asking how you know all these things?" She gave a small shake of her head. More as if she couldn't be bothered to answer than as if she was actually refusing. Then she continued to demonstrate just how much she did know. "Even if you weren't aware that the man who did the stabbing owed Billy Ryan a load of money, you'd have to be an idiot not to work out who was behind it." She tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. "Ryan was clearly responsible."
"Clearly," echoed Thorne.
"He wanted Rooker killed for the obvious reasons." The obvious reasons. Thorne was relieved to discover that she didn't know absolutely everything.
"Though why he should choose now to get revenge for what Rooker did twenty years ago is anybody's guess."
Thorne was disturbed and excited by the bizarre and abrupt conversation. He felt oddly afraid of this woman. Her attitude fascinated him, and pissed him off.
"You said, "the man who's in prison for burning Jess". That's a bit odd, don't you think? You didn't say, "the man who burned Jess". It just seems a strange way of putting it."