Anne squeezed his hand, feeling like a doctor. She thought quickly of Alison. 'You were right when you thought it was an aberration. You finding them was just a coincidence. A horrible coincidence…'
Thorne had no more to say. The tiredness that had been clutching at him all day now had a firm grip and he didn't feel like struggling any more. He craved unconsciousness, a blackness that would see everything he'd remembered and described put back where it belonged. The rusty bolts slammed back into place.
He closed his eyes and let it come.
Anne had kept it together while Thorne was telling his story, willing her face to show nothing, but now she let the tears come. Thinking about the little girls. Thinking about her own daughter's tiny white feet.
It was easy to see what drove this man. What had created this obsession with.., knowing. She hoped in time that he would see his feelings for Jeremy as no more than phantoms. Distorted echoes of a past horror. She hoped they could all move on.
She would be there to help him.
She shivered slightly. The shadow was still moving across them and its chill gathered at her shoulder. She laid her head on Thorne's chest which, within a few moments, began to rise and fall regularly, in sleep. The pictures are still fuzzy but the words are clearer now. Like watching a film I've seen before, but since the last time I saw it my eyesight's gone funny and it's all a bit jumpy. We're in the kitchen. Me and him.
I tell him to put his bag down anywhere and I'm still swigging the champagne and asking him if he wants a cup of coffee or a beer or something. He says nice things about the flat. I grab a can of beer that Tim's left in the fridge. He opens it and I'm still talking about the party. about the wankers in the club. Blokes on the sniff. He's sympathetic, saying he knows what men are like, and that I can hardly blame them, can I?
Music comes in for a few seconds as I turn the radio on, and then some static as I try to tune it in to something good, and then I give up.
He says he needs to make a phone call and he does, but I can't hear him saying anything. He's just muttering quietly. I'm still rattling on but I can barely make out what I'm saying now. Just gabbling. Something about starting to feel a bit sick but I don't think he's really listening. I'm apologising for being so out of it. He must think I'm really fucking sad, slumped on the kitchen floor, leaning against a cupboard, hardly able to speak. Not at all, he says, and I can hear him unzipping his bag. Rummaging inside. There's nothing wrong with having a good time, he says. Going for it. Fucking right I tell him, but that's not how it comes out of my mouth.
I can hear my shoes squeak across the tiles as he drags me to the other side of the kitchen. My earrings and my necklace clinking as he drops them into a dish.
The groaning noise is me.
I sound like I can't actually speak at all. Can't. Like a baby. Or an old person with no teeth in, and half their brain gone. I'm trying to say something but it's just a noise. He's telling me to be quiet. Telling me not to bother trying. His hands are on me now and he's describing everything he's doing. Telling me not to worry and to trust him. Talking me through it. He tells me the names of muscles when he touches them.
Stupid names. Medical.
He catches his breath and then he's quiet for a while. A couple of minutes.
And I can't hear myself saying a single thing about it. Not a word of complaint, just the drip, drip, drip of my dribble as it spills out of my mouth and plops on to the tiles in front of me. I can make a sort of gargling sound.
There's a couple of grunts but now the sound starts to fade as I begin to slip away from everything.
Then something important. The last thing I can hear. Three words, echoey and strange as if they're from a long way away. Like he's whispering them to me from the end of a long pipe, like my friend saying hello down the vacuum-cleaner tube when we were kids.
I need to tell this, I think.
He says goodnight. Night-night…
It's almost silly, what he says. Sweet-sounding and gentle. A word I've heard again since.
A word I heard when I woke up and was like this. A word that says pretty much everything about what I am.
TWENTY-TWO
When Thorne woke up it was already dark. He looked at his watch. Just after seven o'clock. He'd been out of it for two and a half hours.
He had no way of knowing it, but two hours more and it would all be over.
Anne had gone. He got up off the settee to make himself coffee and saw the note on the mantelpiece. Tom, I hope you're feeling better. I know how hard it was for you to tell me.
You mustn't be afraid to be wrong.
I hope you don't mind but I'm going to see Jeremy tonight to tell him that everything's all right. I think he deserves to feel better too.
Call me later.
Anne. X
He made himself the coffee and read the note again. He was feeling better and it was more than just the couple of hours'sleep. Talking about what had happened all those years ago had left him feeling cleaner. Purged was probably putting it a little strongly but, considering that his case had gone to shit, he had no friends and he was headed for all manner of trouble with his superiors, he might have felt much worse. Tom Thorne was resigned.
It wasn't so much that he'd been afraid to be wrong. He hadn't even considered it. Now he had to do a lot more than consider it. He had to live with it.
Anne was going to see Bishop to tell him that he was out of the frame. That was fair enough. He'd never really been in the frame, if truth were told. Only in Thorne's thick, thick head. It was time to face a few harsh realities. Anne was doing a good thing. Bishop deserved to know what was going on. He deserved to know how things stood. He was not the only one.
Thorne picked up the phone and dialed Anne's number. Maybe he could catch her before she left. Rachel answered almost immediately, sounding out of breath, annoyed and distinctly teenage.
'Hi, Rachel, it's Tom Thorne. Can I speak to your mother?'
'No.'
'Right…'
'She's not here. You've just missed her.'
'She's on her way to Battersea, is she?'
Her tone changed from impatience to something more strident. 'Yeah. She's gone to tell Jeremy he's not public enemy number one any more. About time as well, if you ask me.'
Thorne said nothing. Anne had told her. It didn't matter now anyway.
'How long ago did she-'
'I don't know. She's going shopping first, I think. She's cooking him dinner.'
'Listen, Rachel'
She cut him off. 'Look, I've got to go, I'm going to be late. Call her on the mobile or try her later at Jeremy's. Have you got the number?'
Thorne assured her that he had, then realised she was being sarcastic.
He tried Anne's mobile number but couldn't get connected. Maybe she had it switched off. She wouldn't have a signal anyway if she was on the tube. Then he remembered that she was on call and guessed that she'd probably be driving. He had her bleeper number somewhere… He picked up his jacket. He'd do what Rachel had suggested and get her later at Bishop's. This time he wouldn't have to withhold his number. how late Alison Willetts could receive visitors. He was wearing one of the crisp white shirts he knew she liked so much. He'd stared at himself in the full-length mirror as he slowly did up the buttons. Watching the scars disappear beneath the spotless white cotton. Now he looked at his watch as the car cruised sedately north across Blackfriars Bridge. He was going to be a little late. She would be on time as always.
She was very, very keen.
He was meeting her outside the Green Man as usual. It was a bit of a slog to drive all the way across the river just to turn round and drive back south again, but he'd rather do it this way than let her get on the tube or bus. He wanted to be in control of things. If she was late or missed a bus or something it could throw the timing of everything off.