'What impression did you get when you spoke to her?' Thorne asked.
'She sounded like she meant it. She was upset…'
'Turning it on, d'you reckon?'
'No, I don't think so. Sounded genuine enough…'
'Where's the husband?'
'Roger Noble died in 1990. Heart attack…'
Thorne thought about this for a second or two, then turned to Brigstocke. 'Well, I reckon we'd better have a word with her then.'
Brigstocke nodded. 'Where is she, Dave?'
'She lives in Romford, but she's coming into town tomorrow. Likes to do her shopping in the West End, she says…'
Thorne pulled a face. 'Oh does she…?'
'I've arranged to meet her at ten-thirty.'
Brigstocke took off his glasses, pulled a crumpled tissue from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat from the frames. 'Well done, Dave. You'd better go over all this with DS Karim as soon as you can. He'll need to reassign, issue fresh actions…'
'Sir…' Holland opened the door and stepped out.
'Yvonne, can you get across this as well? We might have a bit more luck finding Mark Foley and his sister, now we know that they changed their names…'
Kitson, who had said nothing, nodded and took a step towards the door.
'This is looking good, you know?' Brigstocke said. 'Be great to give the Detective Chief Superintendent some positive news…'
Thorne couldn't help himself. 'Tell him I thought he looked smashing on the telly the other night…'
Brigstocke clearly couldn't be arsed to pull him on it. 'Right, a pint later to celebrate?'
'Fuck all to celebrate,' Thorne said. I'll be there anyway, though…'
'Yvonne?'
Kitson shook her head. 'Too much to do.' She turned and stepped through the door, barking back at Brigstocke as she walked away towards the Incident Room, 'Got to change a million and one data searches from "Foley" to "Noble"…'
Brigstocke looked over at Thorne. 'What's got up her arse?'
'Don't ask me…'
'Maybe you should have a word…'
Thorne's mobile rang. He glanced at the screen and saw who was calling. He told Brigstocke he'd check back with him later and stepped out into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind him.
'Are we still on for Saturday?' Eve said.
'I hope so.'
'Right. Dinner somewhere and back to your place.'
'Sounds good. Fuck, you know what I still haven't done?'
'Who cares? You've got a sofa, haven't you?'
He had work to do, professionally and for his other, more personal project. Not that he considered the killing to be personal, not in terms of the self.
No, not really, and not to him anyway.
What he did to those animals in those hotel rooms wasn't actually about him, or for him. He'd always denied that, when it had come up, and he would continue to deny it. He was happy to do it, more than happy to put the line around their necks and pull, but if it had only been about him, it wouldn't be happening.
He was just a weapon…
Strangely, he felt that he put more of himself into his day job. More of him had passed into what he did, by the time he'd finished working 295 on something, than it had watching any of those fuckers plead then die. True, paying the mortgage meant being responsible to people, and what he did, even when he did it well, was rarely of any benefit to him personally, but he always felt part of it afterwards. The work usually had his fingerprints on it somewhere.
He laughed at that, and carried on working. His job was hotting up suddenly: stuff was coming in and he was really earning his money. He had less time now to get the other things organised, but actually there was very little that had to be done, and certainly no need to panic. It was all pretty much sorted.
Bar a few t's to cross and the odd i to dot, the final killing had been arranged.
TWENTY-THREE
Thorne looked unconvinced. 'I've never interviewed anybody in the same place I buy my pants.'
'There's a first time for everything,' Holland said. They carried the coffees across to where Irene Noble was sitting waiting for them, flanked already – though the place had been open only half an hour or so – by large Marks amp; Spencer shopping bags. The cafe was a relatively new addition to the large store on Oxford Street, wedged into a corner of the ladies' clothing section and half filled with shoppers who'd obviously made as early a start as Irene Noble. As Thorne squeezed behind the table next to Holland, he glanced around at the dozen or so women getting their breath, ready to start again. Scattered around were one or two bored-looking men, grateful for the chance to sit down and not be asked their opinion for a few minutes.
Irene Noble took a small, plastic container of sweeteners from her bag. She pressed the top, dropped a tiny tablet into tier latt6, and raised her eyebrows at Dave Holland. 'They probably think I'm your mother,' she said.
She was pretty well preserved for a woman who had to be sixty or so, though Thorne thought that she was trying a bit too hard. The hair was a little too blond and brittle, the fire-engine-red lipstick applied a touch too thickly. To Thorne, it seemed that this stage was probably the one that came right before giving up altogether. Before mentioning your age to strangers, and always wearing an overcoat, and not giving a toss any more…
'Tell us about Mark and Sarah, Mrs. Noble.'
She thought for a moment, smiling briefly before taking a sip of coffee. 'Roger used to joke about it and say that we lost them in the move. You know, like a tea-chest going missing.' She saw the reaction on Thorne's face and shook her head. 'It wasn't a nasty joke, it was affectionate. That was just his way. Something to make me laugh if I was crying, you understand? I did a lot of crying after it happened…'
'This was just after you adopted the children?' Holland said.
'The beginning of 1984. We'd had them four years or so by then. We had a few problems, course we did, but then things got on an even keel.'
It was clear to Thorne that her 4eoice was affected somewhat. A 'telephone' voice. Thorne remembered that his mother had used to do the same thing. Airs and graces for the benefit of doctors, teachers, policemen…
'There were problems before, weren't there?' Holland said. 'With the previous sets of foster parents.'
'Right, and they gave up on the children straight away. It was only Roger and I who stuck with it. We knew that it was just something we had to get through. They were very disturbed children and, God only knows, they had every right to be.'
'What sort of problems?' Thorne said.
She paused for a few seconds before answering. 'Behavioural problems. Adjusting, you know? Roger and I thought we'd got it under control. Obviously we were wrong.' She reached for a teaspoon and stared down into her coffee cup as she stirred. 'Behavioural.' She said the word again, as if it were a medical term. Thorne glanced sideways at Holland who gave him a small shrug in return.
'So you decided to adopt them?' Holland asked. Mrs. Noble nodded. 'How did the kids feel about that?'
She looked at Holland as though he'd asked a very silly question.
'They'd lost their real parents and been let down by every set of foster parents they'd had since. They were delighted that we were going to be a real family, and so were we. Roger and I had always wanted children. We might have missed out on nappies with those two, but we had plenty of sleepless nights, I can tell you…'
'I can believe it,' Thorne said.
'And plenty after they disappeared. Plenty…'
'How did they disappear?'
She pushed her cup to one side, laid one liver-spotted hand across the other. 'We moved on the Saturday morning and it was the usual chaos, you know? Boxes everywhere and removal men sliding about because there was snow on the ground. We told the kids they could sort their own stuff out, so they just got on with it. Shut themselves away upstairs…'