Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

And each time Thorne saw that face, the flicker of doubt grew stronger…

When the phone on the desk rang, Thorne started a little, and on glancing at the page in front of him, realised he'd been staring at the phrase blood-spotted conjunctivae for the past half an hour.

'DI Thorne…'

'It's Phil. Have you read it?'

'It's right in front of me. I've… had loads of stuff to wade through.'

'How was Birmingham?'

Thorne exhaled and leaned back in his chair. He should have gone home much earlier. Even with a smooth run back to Kentish Town, it would be ten o'clock by the time he got in. Another couple of hours to wind down meant getting to sleep late and waking up pissed off. Hendricks, by contrast, sounded relaxed. Thorne could picture him, legs up on a piece of sixties' black-leather furniture, some skinhead in the kitchen making them both dinner.

'That bad?' Hendricks asked.

'Sorry?'

'Birmingham. Doesn't matter, tell me tomorrow. Listen, bit of good news. Catch the bastard, we'll put him away. There was plenty of Ruth Murray's own tissue under her fingernails, but loads of his as well. Profile should come through some time tomorrow.'

It was very good news. Now he would at least drive home in a good mood. 'No need to test those teardrops you were so excited about then?'

Hendricks snorted. 'Nah, tell you the truth it were a fuck of a long shot. We might have had a chance if he'd worn contact lenses.'

Thorne was intrigued. 'This sounds good…'

'Obvious really. A foreign body in the eye would cause a certain amount of irritation so the tear fluid would probably have contained more cellular material. See? Even better if he'd cried out of his nose actually…'

'I don't want to know…'

'It's all academic now anyway.'

'No chance of a Nobel prize just yet then?'

'One day, mate.'

Thorne folded up the post-mortem report and started putting papers into his briefcase. 'Never mind, it told us something about him anyway…' There was no response. Thorne heard someone talking to Hendricks. He heard his friend's muffled voice answering, then heard the hand being taken off the mouthpiece.

'Sorry Tom, dinner's nearly ready.' Hendricks's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Got myself a cracker here, mate. Nice arse, and handy in the kitchen. Sorry, what were you on about?'

'The tears. I'm not sure exactly what they tell us about him, mind you.'

'Well, we know he was in a better mood than when he killed Carol Garner.'

Thorne stood up and closed his case. He might make it home by quarter to, with a following wind. 'Right…'

'No, I mean it. Go through the report, it's obvious. He must have calmed down or something. Maybe whatever the fucker was on had worn off. It's a very different attack. The hyoid is intact, there's only minimal damage to the cartilage…'

Then Thorne could feel the tingle. The small current running up the nape of his neck. Making him catch his breath. Almost sexy… Something that had been nagging at him was coming into focus, revealing itself. He sat down again, opened the case and pulled out the post-mortem report. 'Take me through this slowly can you, Phil?'

Opening the report now, tearing pages as he turns them too quickly, speed-reading, his breath getting shorter by the second as Hendricks turns their murder case into something altogether more disturbing.

'OK… externally, both bodies were much the same, Murray and Garner, but internally it's a different story. Ruth Murray died from a slower, more sustained pressure on the artery. Call it a slow, hard squeezing. Carol Garner was nothing like that. She had bruises on the back of her skull where he smacked her head on the floor as he was throttling her. That was.., frenzied. With Ruth Murray it was different. Maybe he'd got the anger out of his system. Maybe that's his pattern. You tell me mate…'

Then, Thorne knew. No, not his pattern…

The tears. A big man's tears on a body, outdoors. A body less damaged, wept upon. Elsewhere, a child in a house, nuzzling what was once the sweet-smelling neck of his mother, now bruised, and bloody, and broken inside. The wrapper from a chocolate bar, discarded… Was he taller than your Granddad?

And Charlie Garner slowly, defiantly, shaking his head.

'Phil, can I call you back…?'

Tired as he was, Holland had still not left. Thorne's expression, as he burst into the office next door, was enough to wake him up in a second.

'The stabbings.., tell me about the stabbings.' Thorne's voice low, measured, but with a scream of something – excitement maybe, or horror – lurking just beneath the surface.

'Sir…?'

Moving across the cramped office, talking quickly. 'Two women, both stabbed on the same day. July, I think you said.' Thorne nodded towards the computer, trying to stay calm. 'Call them up.'

Holland spun the chair round and began to type, trying to recall the details. 'One in Finchley, I think. The other one… much further south if I remember…'

The relevant documents appeared on his screen and Holland studied them for a second or two. 'Forest Hill, that's right…' He scrolled slowly through the document, shaking his head. 'No… no… it's not possible. He couldn't have done them both.'

Thorne nodded and glanced out of the window. His eye was taken by the sparks flying up from beneath a tube train passing below on its way south from Colindale; lolling heads in the brightly lit carriages, snaking away from him as the track curved round and out of sight.

'He didn't.'

Holland stared at him, waiting. Thorne stood stock still and spoke slowly, but Holland could see his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. 'The knives used might have been similar, might not, I don't know.., not sure it matters. The pattern and depth of the wounds though.., in all probability the number of wounds, on each of the victims, will be at odds with each other. The… character of the two attacks will be completely different.'

Holland turned back to his screen and typed again, calling up SOC and pathology reports as Thorne continued. 'One of the women will have died from multiple stab wounds. Vicious… indiscriminate… savage. The other, probably one single wound, to the heart, I would guess, or…

Holland spun round again. The look on his face told Thorne all he needed to know…

Brigstocke answered his mobile on the first ring.

'Russell Brigstocke…' The voice low, betraying annoyance.

'It's Tom…'

'DI Thorne…' Spoken for somebody else's benefit. The meeting with Detective Superintendent Jesmond had probably turned into dinner. So much the easier.

'We're onto something. Tell Jesmond. Call it a breakthrough, he'll like that.' He turned to share the moment with Holland but the DC was studying the documents on his screen intently. Trying to make sense of it all. 'Tell him it's one hell of a good news-bad news routine…'

'I'm listening,' Brigstocke said.

'I don't think we're looking for one man.'

Thorne expected a pause, and he got one. Then: 'Are you saying that these murders might not actually be connected?'

'No I'm not. They are connected, I'm certain of that.' Thorne knew the look that Brigstocke would be wearing. Contained excitement, like trying to hold a shit inside. He wondered what Jesmond, no doubt holding a large glass of red wine and studying his DCI's strange expression, would be making of it.

Brigstocke was starting to sound a little impatient. 'So, what is it? A new lead on the killer?'

Thorne kept it nice and simple. 'Killers, Russell. Plural. There's two of them.'

1985

It was a moment he would always remember. Karen sitting on the bank, pushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and Smart smiling, mouth full of chocolate as always, his dark eyes focusing on something in the distance, searching for it, seeking out the source of their next adventure.