She reached into a small leather rucksack, pulled out a packet of Silk Cut. She offered it to Thorne. 'Want one?'
'No, I don't, thanks.' This wasn't strictly true. Fifteen and more years he'd been off the fags, and he still wanted one… She lit up, took a long drag. Drew the smoke down deep and let it out slowly with a low hum of contentment. 'It's your birthday a week today, isn't it?'
'You've got a good memory,' he said. He puffed out his cheeks.
'Mine's getting worse the older I get.' He pulled a mock-sulky face.
'Thanks for reminding me about that, by the way…'
A spark flared briefly inside his head then fizzled and died. There was something he was trying to remember, something he knew was important to the case. It was something he'd read. Or maybe something he hadn't read.
He brought his eyes back to Eve and saw that she was speaking. Saying something he couldn't hear. 'Sorry, what…?'
She leaned across the table. 'Be a nice birthday present to yourself if you solved your case, wouldn't it?'
Thorne nodded slowly, smiled. 'Well, I had promised myself some She flicked ash from her cigarette, rubbed the tip around the edge of the ashtray. 'You don't like talking about your job, do you?'
He looked at her for a few seconds before answering. 'There's things I can't talk about, especially with you being involved. The stuff I can talk about just isn't very exciting…'
'And you think I'd be as bored as you were when I showed you round the market…?'
'I wasn't bored.'
'Do the criminals you interview lie as badly as you do?'
Thorne laughed. 'I wish.'
She stubbed out her cigarette, leaned back in her chair and looked at him. 'I'm interested. In what you do.'
He remembered the way he'd felt talking to her in the tea-room. How it had seemed like a long time since he'd spoken to a woman like that. It was a hell of a lot longer since he'd talked about the job.
'Murder cases go cold very quickly…'
'So you need to catch the killer straightaway?'
Thorne nodded. 'If you're going to get a result it tends to happen in the first few days. It's been a fortnight already…'
'You never know…'
'I do, unfortunately.'
She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. 'I need to go and get rid of some of that tea…'
While she was in the toilet, Thorne stared out of the steamy window. The cafe was in a side street between Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane. From where he was sitting, Thorne could see the rush-hour traffic moving slowly across Vauxhall Bridge. Cars carrying their occupants north towards Victoria and Piccadilly, or south to Camberwell and Clapham. Towards shops and offices and warehouses where they would moan and joke about another bloody Monday and then not spend it failing to catch a killer.
It was a close call, but Thorne would not have swapped places with them.
Eve rejoined him. Above them, a train rumbled by on its way into Waterloo. She had to raise her voice. 'I forgot to ask,' she said, 'how's the plant?'
'Sorry?'
'The aloe vera plant…'
Thorne blinked, remembering the vision that had greeted him on stumbling bleary-eyed into the living room at five o'clock that morning. Elvis, squatting awkwardly atop the small metal bucket. Keeping his belly low to avoid the spikes. Looking Thorne straight in the eye as he pissed happily into the white pebbles…
'It's doing fine,' Thorne said.
Thorne's phone rang.
'Where are you?' Brigstocke said. 'We've got Gribbin…'
'I'm on my way in…'
'When I say "got him" I just mean we know where he is, all right?
We've got to go and get him. Holland's waiting on your doorstep…'
'Tell him I'll be back home in half an hour…'
'Where the hell are you?'
Thorne looked across at Eve who smiled and shrugged. 'I've been jogging…'
What does a child-sex offender look like?
Thorne knew this to be a pointless question. Pointless because, truthfully, it was unanswerable. It was also extremely dangerous.
And yet, people had been taught to believe that they knew the answer. That they should stick their hands up and shout it out. It was always an answer that came too late though, wasn't it? After the damage had been done and the children had been hurt. After the man had been caught and that first, fuzzy photo had appeared on the front of the newspapers. Then, it was as though everything that people already knew had been confirmed. Of course! It was so bloody obvious, wasn't it? That was what one of those men looked like. Knew it all along…
If it was so obvious, if the evil that these men did was written clearly across their faces for all to see, then why did they live next door and go undetected? If you could see it in the bastards' eyes, then why did they pass by unnoticed on the streets? Why did they teach your kids? Why were you married to one?
Because, as Thorne knew all too well, you couldn't see it, no matter how much you wished that you could or how hard you looked. Nobody looked like a child-sex offender. Everybody did. Thorne looked like on. And Russell Brigstocke. And Yvonne Kitson…
What Ray Gribbin did not look like was the popular perception of a child-sex offender. He was not your typical, tabloid, kiddie-fiddler. He did not have bad skin or lank, greasy hair. He did not wear thick glasses, carry a bag of boiled sweets or wear a dirty anorak. As well as the misshapen nose that Douglas Remfry had claimed responsibility for, Gribbin had a shaved head, cold eyes and a smile that said 'fuck right off'. He was a child-sex offender who looked like an armed robber. Whatever the hell an armed robber looked like…. Thorne put the photo together with the other paperwork he had been studying, and handed the lot across to where Stone and Holland were sitting in the back seat. Stone looked at the photo. 'Christ, he's not what I expected,' he said.
Thorne said nothing, stared out of the passenger window. Brigstocke flashed the lights and put his foot down. The car in front of them pulled across to let the unmarked Volvo pass. 'I know what you mean,' he said. 'Looks like the sort who might bear a grudge, though, doesn't he?'
Thorne couldn't argue with that. He watched, slightly dizzy, as the fields of rape and wheat that bordered the M4 flew past at ninety miles an hour. He made himself belch; the reading had made him feel a little sick…
Brigstocke spoke up to get everybody's attention. 'Right, you should all have had a chance to look at the notes by the time we get there…'
Thorne wound down his window an inch. Brigstocke glanced across at him, carried on. 'This is a bit of a kick-bollock scramble but we didn't have a lot of choice. We're doing this in a hurry but let's all make sure we do it right, shall we?' There were grunts from the two in the back. Thorne turned to look at him. 'Gribbin's got a history of violence and if Remfry's story is to be believed, that's the only time Gribbin's come off worse. He's been picked up with knives on him before, so we're taking no chances…'
Stone leaned forward, an arm on each headrest, and his face pushed between the seats. 'How many going in?…
'Probably be the four of us, plus a couple of the local boys…'
Stone nodded, carried on speed-reading the notes.
'Watch out for the woman as well,' Brigstocke said. 'Sandra Cook's got plenty of form. Drug abuse, theft, prostitution. She did three months in Holloway for taking half a DC's face off with her nails…'
Holland shuffled forward. If Brigstocke had so much as touched the brakes, Holland would have smashed into the back of his head.
'Patricia Cook's the woman who called up about Gribbin, right?'