Thorne had stretched out on the sofa by now, the phone pressed to his ear, the other hand reaching down to rub Elvis's belly. 'Are you ever going to get to the point, Kodak?'
'Well, this is it. Your bit of good luck. I scanned the photo into my computer, blew it up big time, OK? You can do all sorts of stuff if the quality of the original's decent enough, yeah?' Thorne would have said it was impossible, but Bethell's voice was actually getting that little bit higher as he got more excited. 'So, I pixelated the bastard, zoomed in, and then I could suddenly see what that brown smudge was. I recognised it, see.'
'Recognised it?'
'It's a burn mark, like a scorch on the white backcloth. I recognised it 'cause I was there when it happened. I was shooting a threesome nine months back and some silly tart, done a couple of pills too many, knocks over a big lamp. Fucking whole lot could have gone up, but all it did was leave this big burn mark up the roller. I remembered the shape of it. Tight fucker that runs the place never bothered to replace it…'
By now Thorne was sitting up. 'Tight fucker's name and address would be good.'
'Charles Dodd. Charlie, really, but he insists on Charles. Likes to pretend he's posh, even 'though the cunt comes from Canvey Island…'
'Kodak…'
'The place is above a fishmonger's on Brewer Street.'
Thorne knew the shop. 'Right, listen…'
'You'll have to wait a few days I'm afraid, Mr. Thorne. He's in Europe. I checked.'
Thorne was thinking it through. Should he wait? Could he get a warrant and turn the place over while Dodd was away…?
'I think I did a pretty good job, Mr. Thorne,' Bethell said. 'What d'you reckon?'
'I want to know the second he's back…'
Now, three days since that conversation, Thorne watched Dennis Bethell in the bookshop on the other side of the street. He was browsing through the remaindered art books, though some of his own, slightly racier stuff was almost certainly on sale downstairs.
Thorne moved to cross the road and was bumped roughly by a man coming fast, from his left. Thorne's response was typically British. 'Sorry,' he said. The other man grunted, raised a hand and carried on walking.
Bethell was waving at him now from inside the bookshop. Thorne nodded towards the other end of the street and began walking. Bethell put down a coffee-table book of nude freak-show photographs, squeezed out of the shop doorway, and followed. Welch laughed as he strolled away up Wardour Street. He'd learned a few things during the years he'd spent in various institutions. Never say sorry was one. How to recognise a copper was another…
Since his release he'd spent a lot of the time just walking around. The hostel was depressing, and he'd really enjoyed being out and about. The weather was amazing; a couple of days out in the open and he'd already got a bit of colour back. If he looked better, less prison pale, he thought that the women who were walking about, wearing next to nothing, looked gorgeous. Seriously horny. Fuck it, if this was global warming then who gave a toss about the ozone layer?
There were windows all along the street with adverts in each for a new film. Welch stopped and looked at a couple that he liked the sound of. Maybe when his dole money came through he might spend a couple of afternoons catching up. He'd enjoyed the cinema before he'd gone inside, tried to see most of the stuff that came out, providing it wasn't too arty.
He'd been to the pictures the night before he was arrested of course. The Blair Witch Project. She'd been all over him then, snuggling up in the scary bits, hand on his knee all the way through. Well up for it, she was. He could read the signals. It was only later that the bitch decided to change her mind. To fuck him around.
To this day, it amazed him that they could do that. Take a bloke all the way there, get him worked up, get him so as his bollocks felt like they'd explode and then just turn around and casually announce that they didn't feel like it. That it was too much too soon, or some such crap. He'd decided that it was crap, that she just didn't want him to think she was a slag. That all she needed was a little persuasion… He'd been gobsmacked when the police had come knocking the next afternoon. Couldn't fucking believe it. He was still shaking his head while they were taking the swabs.
He could see that the male copper, the detective sergeant, thought it was rubbish, that they were all wasting their time. When he'd told them how randy the silly bitch had been in the cinema, he was nodding, for fuck's sake. He could see exactly what had been going on. The woman officer was different, though; she'd had it in for him straightaway.
'Good at reading signals, are you?' she'd said. Her expression blank, the spools on the tape squeaking as they turned in the recorder. 'Tell me what I'm thinking right now…'
'That you'd fancy me if you weren't a dyke?'
Looking into the window, he saw himself smile, remembering her face when he'd said it. The smile faded a little when he recalled the look on the same face eight months later; the grin from the other side of the courtroom as he was taken down.
He moved on to the next window. There was a poster advertising the new Bruce Willis blockbuster. Some new missile and Bruce's cheeky smile and a tasty blonde with fake tits. Maybe next week, the week after, whenever he started getting the dole cheques, he might go and see it. He couldn't afford it just yet. The discharge grant wasn't going to stretch much further and besides, he'd need a fair bit tomorrow night, to pay for the hotel.
'You sure he's in there?'
'He's in there, Mr. Thorne. Got back from Holland yesterday. Went over to pick up a few bits and pieces.'
Thorne nodded. Flowers weren't the only thing that came across from Holland in vans…
They were standing across the road from the fishmonger's, the flashing neon sign above Raymond's Revue Bar reflected in the shop window. The reds and blues dancing across the shiny heads of salmon, herring and turbot. Next to it, a narrow brown door. Bethell forced his hands into the pockets of tight leather trousers. Shifted his weight from one expensive training shoe to the other.
'Right, I'll get out of your way then, shall I?'
Thorne reached for his wallet, wondering if the tightness of Bethell's trousers might have something to do with the height of his voice. He counted out fifty in tenners. Bethell took it and handed over an envelope in return.
'There's your photo back…'
Thorne took a step into the road, turned and held up the envelope.
'I'd better not see this popping up on the Internet, all right?'
Bethell laughed. A series of shrill peeps. 'I didn't know you visited those sorts of sites…' Thorne was already starting to cross. 'Listen, you won't mention my name, will you…?'
Thorne stopped to let a car pass, spoke without turning. 'Oh, so I can't say, "Dennis sent me, then?'.
'Relax, Kodak. Your reputation will remain squeaky clean. No pun intended…'
Thorne pressed the button on the grimy, white intercom and stepped back. He glanced up at an unmoving grey curtain, and right, into the black eye of a large, ugly-looking fish he couldn't put a name to. The shop front was original, the tiling that edged the window ornate, but the prices and stock were firmly in line with the twenty-first-century trendiness of the location. Swordfish steaks at a river a pop, and not a whelk to be seen…
'Yes…?"
'Mr. Dodd? I was wondering if I could talk to you about renting some studio time…?
Thorne could hear suspicion in every crackle of the speaker. He looked back at the ugly fish, found himself raising his eyebrows. What d'you reckon?
He was buzzed up.
Charlie Dodd stood at the top of a narrow, carpetless stairway. He was in his fifties with thin lips and a comb-over. He smiled, barring the way and trying to make it look like a welcome.
By the time Thorne had reached the top of the stairs, warrant card in hand, the smile had become a grimace.