Thorne shook his head.
Four nights. Many bottles of wine…
The baby had begun to grizzle a little and Helen drew him close. Thorne moved gradually across to close the gap and found himself enjoying the feel of the small warm body against his own. The hand that flopped on to his arm or the swaddled foot that dug into his ribs. ‘He’s got a decent kick on him,’ Thorne said. ‘We could do with him at Spurs.’ He turned on to his side and looked at Helen. ‘Did Paul support a team?’
Helen’s turn to shake her head.
They lay in silence for a while, but Alfie refused to settle and began to cry again. Helen said that three in a bed was a stupid idea. That she was happy to take the baby back to the spare room, so that Thorne could try and get to sleep.
‘Stay here,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s not like I’ve got anything to get up for, is it?’
‘What do you think they’ll do?’ Helen asked.
Thorne knew that the DPS had plenty of options. ‘Depends how public they want to be about it,’ he said. ‘I could always save them the trouble and knock it on the head.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘It’s good to think about doing something else every now and again,’ he said. ‘Don’t you reckon? Something nice and simple and boring.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Apparently, there’s a newsagent’s for sale just up the road.’
Helen began to giggle, and when she lifted her leg across his, Thorne reached over the baby to stroke her neck. ‘Let me take him next door,’ she said. ‘I can get him off in ten minutes and come back.’
Thorne nodded, grinning. ‘Then you can get me off,’ he said.
That was when Alfie chose to start kicking him again.