Mark Billingham - Lazybones

Half an hour in to a fairly dull game, and Thorne was wondering why he'd made the effort…

It had been more than a decade since Spurs had been involved in a Charity Shield, but Thorne and his father had been to the last few. They'd seen the goalless draw against Arsenal in '91, and the consecutive games in '81 and '82, after Cup Final wins on the bounce. The first big game he'd ever gone to had been the Charity Shield in 1967. The trip to Wembley, an extra seventh-birthday present after Spurs had beaten Chelsea 2-1 and won the FA Cup. Thorne could still remember the roar, and his amazement at the sight of all that green, as his old man had led him up the steps towards their seats. He always loved that first sight of the grass, all the years they went to matches together after that, emerging into the noise and the light as they climbed up into the stand at White Hart Lane. He wondered if his father had watched today's game. He'd doubtless have an opinion on it if he had.

Thorne made the call, and listened to twenty minutes of jokes without punch lines.

Carol Chamberlain put down the newspaper when Thorne came back to the table with the coffees.

'It's not great,' she said.

Thorne glanced at the latest lurid headline, spooned the froth from his coffee. It's not my problem.'

Despite the best efforts of Trevor Jesmond and those above him, the media had got hold of the story a fortnight or so earlier, after the Southern killing. It hadn't quite been the tabloid frenzy that Brigstocke had predicted, but it was pretty basic stuff. One paper had printed pictures of zippered rapist masks with red crosses through them, underneath the headline Three Down'. Another had gathered testimony from half a dozen rape victims and run it alongside quotes like Give This Man A Medal' and The Only Good Rapist Is A Dead One'…

Monday morning's batch of stories involved complaints from those campaigning for the rights and integration of ex-prisoners. There were demands that more be done to catch the killer, accusations that the Met was dragging its feet. Only the night before, Thorne had watched a heated debate on London Live between representatives of rape-crisis organisations, their counterparts from prisoners'-rights pressure groups, and senior police officers. The Assistant Commissioner, flanked by a scary female Commander and a sweating Trevor Jesmond, had reminded one lobby that the murder victims had themselves been raped, while assuring the other that everything possible was being done.

Thorne had turned the programme off around the time Jesmond began to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights, blathering about two wrongs not making a right…

'Your superiors might decide to make it your problem,' Chamberlain said.

Thorne smiled. 'Is that what you used to do?'

'Of course. I did "Passing the Buck" seminars at Hendon…'

They were sitting at a table in the shade, outside the small vegetarian caf in the middle of Highgate Woods. It was all a bit organic and right-on for Thorne's taste, but Carol had wanted to eat outside somewhere and it had seemed as good a place as any.

The poncy bread was hideously overpriced, but it was all on expenses…

Carol Chamberlain's cold case had been taken away from her as soon as it had become hot again. She'd had no choice in the matter and was already working hard on something else. Still, Thorne knew how much they owed her and considered it the least he could do to keep her up to speed. More than that, he actually enjoyed their discussions, finding Chamberlain to be an incredibly useful sounding-board. They'd met up or talked on the phone a few times now, since she'd first barged into his office. They gossiped, and bitched and bounced ideas around…

'At least they haven't made the connection with the Foley killing,' she said. 'They don't know about Mark and Sarah yet.'

Thorne reached across for the paper and flipped it over. He scanned the football stories on the back page. 'It's only a matter of time.'

'It could be good, of course.'

'How?'

'It might be the way to find them.'

'Or frighten them away for good…'

Once coffee was finished and pudding decided against, Chamberlain stood, and began piling up their plates. 'Let's take the long way back to the cars.' She rubbed her stomach. 'Walk some of this off…'

'She was asking for you, Dave…'

Having fetched him from his office, and pointed to the woman in question, Karim left Holland in the doorway of the Incident Room. Stone appeared silently at Holland's shoulder, and they stared across at where Joanne Lesser sat in a chair by the window.

'Mmmm,' Stone groaned. 'Soul food…'

Holland nodded, turned to him. 'Racist and sexist in two words. That's bloody good going even for you, Andy…'

'Fuck off.' '

'Blimey, you're on cracking form; mate…'

'Seriously, she's bloody tasty, though. You're a right jammy sod.'

Holland looked at him. 'Well she's obviously up for it. First she's on the phone, now she's come in to see you personally…'

Holland led the way across the Incident Room, Lesser standing eagerly as he and Stone approached. He was sure that what Stone had been suggesting was only in his own, sexually skewed imagination. Still, for more than just the obvious reasons, he hoped that Joanne Lesser had something important to say.

Five minutes later, they sat, the three points of a small triangle, in Holland and Stone's office. Plastic cups of tea on the edges of desks…

'The dates have been bothering me,' Lesser said.

'The dates of the foster placements?' Holland began sheafing through the notes on his lap.

'It's slightly different now, but back then we'd have ceased to monitor a placement once the child had turned sixteen. From then on, they were no longer deemed to be the responsibility of social services…'

'Right.' Holland was still searching.

'I double-checked the information on the index cards – you know, the information that I sent to you – and it doesn't quite make sense.'

'What doesn't?' Stone said.

'The last recorded monitoring date was February 1984. That would have been a home visit, most probably. At least a phone call…'

Holland had found the page he was looking for. He ran his finger down the list, stopped at the date Lesser had mentioned. 'Mr. and Mrs. Noble'. The Nobles should have been back from their holidays by now. He'd left a message, but they hadn't got back to him… Lesser leaned forward on her chair, looking from Stone to Holland as she spoke. 'I checked the children's dates of birth, just to be on the safe side, but there's still a problem.'

Holland looked at the dates. He turned the page, looking for something else, and when he'd found it, he saw the anomaly. 'They weren't old enough,' he said..

Lesser nodded, the blush beginning around her throat. Holland could almost have blushed himself. This was something he should have seen, would have seen if he'd been giving it the proper attention. He'd been half-arsed, hadn't considered it important enough. He should have let Stone give him a hand when it had been offered. Now, Stone was the one sitting there, probably enjoying every minute of it, as simple, evident facts were spelt out for Holland by a member of the public…

'1984?' Stone said. 'So, the kids would have been…'

'Fifteen and thirteen,' Lesser said. 'Mark was almost sixteen, fair enough. If it had just been him I wouldn't have been concerned, but the little girl was nowhere near old enough for monitoring to stop. You can see why I thought it might be important…'

'What are the reasons you might stop monitoring a case?' Holland said.

'There's only two that I can think of. If a family moves away it would be handed over to a different area, or even a completely different county.'