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"Sod you, then," Thorne said.

He padded into his bedroom with his tea, his shoes and his music, and closed the door behind him.

It was a sudden change in the light, no more than that. Carol Chamberlain saw it reflected in the dressing-table mirror as she sat taking her make-up off. She'd washed most of it off earlier, rubbing cold water into her face in the toilets at the Italian restaurant. Trying to stop the dizziness and to bring back a little colour to her cheeks.

Jack was moving around downstairs. Locking up, pulling out plugs. Keeping them safe.

She sat in her night-dress and stared hard at herself. It was time to sort her hair out, and maybe shift a few pounds though, at fifty-six, that was a damn sight harder than it used to be. She could try to get back to how she was when they'd taken the job away from her: her fighting weight', Jack called it.

Leaning closer towards the mirror, cream smeared across her fingers, she saw the light change. A glow pink at first, then orange that crept through a gap in the curtains and lit up the room behind her. She opened her mouth to call out Jack's name, then closed it and pushed back her chair. As she walked towards the window, she saw the glow reaching up and illuminating the bare branches of the copper beech at the end of the drive. She knew more or less what she was going to see when she reached the far side of the room and looked out. She wondered if he'd be there. She hoped that he would be. He was already looking up when she pulled back the curtains, standing motionless next to the car, the can of lighter fluid white against his gloved hand. Waiting for her.

For a few long, still seconds they stared at each other. The flames were not spectacular, and the light danced only across the dark material of the man's anorak. The blaze never threatened to break up the shadow, blue-black beneath the hood that was pulled tight around his head.

The fire was already beginning to spread across the Volvo's bonnet. It drifted down around its edges, into its mouldings, where the lighter fluid had run and dripped. Still, the words, sprayed in fuel and spelled out now in flame, were clear enough.

I burned her.

Carol heard locks being thrown back downstairs, and saw the man's head turn suddenly towards the front door. He took a step away from the car, then looked up at Carol for another moment or two before he turned and ran. She had seen nothing, could see nothing of his face, but she knew very well that he had been smiling at her.

A few seconds later, Jack burst out of the front door in his vest. He ran, arms raised and mouth gaping, on to the front lawn. Carol half-saw him turn to look up, at the same moment she moved away from the window and back into the heart of the room.

FIVE

Thorne had never conducted an interview alongside Carol Chamberlain before and, although this was in no sense official, he still felt slightly odd, sitting there next to her, waiting for Rooker to be brought in. He looked around the small, square room and imagined himself, for no good reason he could think of, as a father, sitting with his wife. He remembered the sobbing black woman he'd seen on his last visit. He pictured himself and Chamberlain as anxious parents waiting for their son to be marched in.

The door opened and an officer led Rooker into the room. He looked angry about something until he saw Chamberlain; then, a broad smile appeared.

"Hello, sexpot," he said.

Thorne opened his mouth to speak, but Chamberlain beat him to it. There was an edge to her voice that Thorne could not recall hearing before.

"One more out-of-order remark and I'll come round this table and tear off what little you've got left between your legs that hasn't already withered away. Fair enough, Gordon?"

Rooker's smile wobbled a little, but it was back in place as he pulled back his chair and plonked himself down at the table. The officer moved towards the door. "Give us a shout when you've finished," he said.

"Thanks," Thorne said, looking up. "I thought you'd retired, Bill." The officer opened the door, turned back to Thorne. "Got a year or two left yet." He nodded towards Rooker. "Feels like I've been in here as long as this cunt." He quickly looked across to Chamberlain, reddening slightly. "Sorry, I didn't."

Chamberlain held up a hand. "Don't apologise. That sounds about right to me."

Rooker cackled. The officer stepped out of the room, letting the door swing shut, hard, behind him.

"This is getting to be a habit," Rooker said. He produced a tobacco tin from behind the green bib and removed the lid. "Twice in a week, Mr. Thorne. I don't have family who come as often as that." He teased out the strands of tobacco, laid them carefully into a Rizla and rolled it pin-thin. "Nothing like as often as that…"

In fact, it had been just over a week since Thorne had first encountered Gordon Rooker. And seven days since Carol Chamberlain had stared down from her bedroom window at the man who was claiming Gordon Rooker's crime as his own.

Rooker lit his roll-up. He picked a piece of tobacco from his tongue and looked across at Chamberlain. "I thought you'd retired," he said.

"That's right."

"Living out in the sticks with a houseful of cats, listening to The Archers."

"What do you know about where I live?" Rooker turned to Thorne. "If she's not on the job any more, what are we doing here?"

By 'here', Rooker meant the Legal Visits Room. It was normally reserved for confidential interviews, for meetings with police officers or solicitors, for official business. Thorne was content to keep things unofficial… for now. He had seen no real reason to go to Brigstocke and certainly not to Tughan. The connection between Rooker and Billy Ryan was twenty years old and tenuous at best to the SO7 inquiry, and he'd promised Carol Chamberlain that he'd try to sort things out on his own time. He'd discreetly pulled a few strings and called in a favour or two to ensure that he, Chamberlain and Gordon Rooker could discuss one or two things in private.

"What we talked about a week ago," Thorne said, 'it's escalated." Rooker looked, or tried to look, serious. "That's a shame."

"Yes, it is."

"I told you last time."

"I'll forget the rubbish you told me last time and pretend we're starting from scratch, OK? This has to be down to some fuck wit you've done time with, or somebody who's written to you. You told me all about some of the letters you get, right?"

"Right."

"So, any bright ideas, Gordon?"

Rooker took three quick drags. He held the smoke in and let it out very slowly on a sigh. "I've got to have some sort of protection," he said.

Thorne laughed. "What?

"Word got around after you were here last time." Thorne shrugged. He'd obviously opted for privacy a little too late.

"You've not exactly been popular for quite a while now, Gordon. Talking to a copper isn't going to make much difference."

"You'd be surprised."

Chamberlain's voice was quieter than when she'd spoken before, but the edge had sharpened. "If you've got something to say, Rooker, you'd best say it."

Another drag. "I want this parole. I really need it to go my way this time."

"And?" Thorne stared blankly across the table at Rooker. "Not a lot we can do about that'

"Bollocks. It's down to the Home Office. You can get it done if you want to."