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FORTY-TWO

Thorne stopped at the garage on his way home.

He filled up, helped himself to a selection of three-for-two ready meals and drove to Kentish Town.

An evening with Helen – not to mention a night – was very tempting, but sometimes heading back to his own place was just .

. . simpler. Helen’s flat in Tulse Hill was an hour’s drive on from his own, longer even if there was heavy traffic, not to mention the extra time it would put on his journey into work the following morning.

He called her once he’d polished off his risotto.

She told him Alfie would be disappointed that he wasn’t coming over, which Thorne was both happy and sad to hear. She said she’d had an interesting day ‘advising citizens’ and, while he didn’t much fancy going into details, Thorne said he’d had an interesting day, too.

‘You still pleased with the way things are going, then?’ he asked.

‘Doing this, you mean?’

‘Yeah, and . . . chucking in the Job.’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ Helen said. ‘Why?’

‘Nothing. Dave was asking, that’s all.’

‘I don’t miss it, Tom. I really don’t.’

Thorne said that he was happy to hear it, though he still wasn’t entirely convinced.

When the call was done, he put on a George Jones and Tammy Wynette album and grabbed a beer from the fridge, because that’s what George would have wanted.

Later, he sat nursing another through the second half of a dreary Everton versus Bournemouth game, the highpoint of which was a studs-up tackle followed by five minutes of handbags and a flurry of yellow cards.

Actually, it could well have been the game of the season, but Thorne’s mind was elsewhere.

Brigstocke had not been in the office when he and Holland had got back, but he’d managed to catch up with Tanner and, after they’d put their heads together for half an hour, he’d found himself thinking about evidence and little else.

The men it had cleared and those it implicated.

He was already convinced that forensic evidence in the Siobhan Brady case had somehow been tampered with, so it was hardly a big leap to conclude that whoever had been responsible was also capable of simply destroying evidence when it suited them.

Thorne knew – or thought he knew – where to start digging for evidence of his own, but with the person passing information to Brightwell still unidentified and the leak yet to be plugged, he wasn’t confident he’d be able to get what he needed alone.

Not knowing who he was able to trust, he couldn’t find the right person to answer the questions he wanted to ask.

But he thought he knew a man who could.

‘What are you wearing?’ Hendricks asked when he picked up.

‘Not now, mate—’

‘My money’s on your old tracksuit bottoms and that faded Hank Williams T-shirt. God, that’s so hot.’

‘You done?’

Hendricks began to pant and moan. ‘I will be in a minute.’

‘I need a favour,’ Thorne said.

‘I know I’m going to kick myself, but go on, then.’

‘Do you know the Fin-Cel lab in St Albans?’

‘Yeah. I’ve sent stuff to them, tox and tissue samples whatever, but I’ve never been there.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Thorne said. ‘Do you know anyone who might have been working there three years ago?’

There were a few seconds of background noise on the line – traffic, music from somewhere – while Hendricks thought about it. ‘Well, know might be putting it a bit strongly, but as it happens, I did cop off with one of the lab techs there a few times.’

Thorne grinned at his piece of good fortune. ‘Course you did.’

‘Right before I met Liam, actually—’

‘Could you get in touch with him, see if he’ll talk to me?’

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Hendricks said. ‘But why don’t I just send you his number and you can talk to him yourself?’

‘Because I don’t want to take any chances.

’ Thorne explained that the investigation looked to have been compromised and that he needed to be sure he would be asking questions of someone he could trust. He might well be being over-cautious, but it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that those who had taken steps to engineer or destroy damning forensic evidence had done so with the help of someone working at the labs themselves.

Someone on hand to switch samples, say, or casually turn off a freezer.

‘Ah . . . best be a bit careful, then,’ Hendricks said.

‘So, can you contact him or not?’

‘Leave it with me, mate.’

‘Cheers,’ Thorne said. ‘Scotch eggs are on me next time we’re in the Spread Eagle.’

‘No worries. I’m always up for a Secret Squirrel kind of caper.’

‘And don’t let on what I want to talk to him about.’

‘Got it.’

‘Or anyone else, come to that.’

‘Nothing on Twitter, then?’

‘I mean it, Phil.’

‘You think I’m daft?’

‘No, but it’s not like you’re famous for your discretion, is it?’

‘Cheeky bastard.’ Hendricks sniffed. ‘Fair point, mind you.’

Twenty minutes later, Thorne was in bed and struggling to sleep.

Unable to get comfortable, a draught coming from somewhere.

A George Jones song was running through his head, the mournful soundtrack to a series of images, remembered or imagined: Mandy Brightwell leaning on her stick and telling him about that snake; sugar and a sprinkling of something else around Catherine Holloway’s mouth, right before she licked it away; Alex Brightwell, several steps ahead and laughing at them all dicking around in Whittington Park.

Priya Kulkarni.

Siobhan Brady.

Emily Mead.

A man watching and whispering from the shadows . . .

His last fully formed thought was that even the thinnest slice of good luck never hurt.

That it could make all the difference, that in the end it might even save lives.

He was, of course, well aware of his best friend’s inability – when Hendricks was single, obviously – to resist anything with a pulse and a penis, but it had never come in quite this handy before.