Thorne saw Clarke's expression start to darken when he didn't answer him instantly. He knew that the water was suddenly getting deep and that he shouldn't wade in any further. "I'm sorry, but I can't really go into."
Clarke held up his hands. He understood.
"I just wanted you to be clear about something," Thorne continued. "If Rooker comes out of prison, it's only so that the man who was behind what happened to your daughter can go in!
Clarke pondered this for a minute. He turned his chair towards the fire, held his hands towards it. Thorne thought that it had suddenly become a lot colder. He also thought: How can he stand to look into a fire? What does he see when he stares into the flames?
"You should have a picture of Jess," Clarke said, suddenly. The smallest of shivers crept across the nape of Thorne's neck. He felt as if the man opposite him had somehow known what he was thinking. He watched as Clarke got up and walked across to a pine chest in the corner of the room. Photos in assorted metal frames were scattered across the top.
"Right."
"A reminder."
Clarke picked up a small frame, began removing the clips that held the picture in place. "This is a good one." He removed the glass and took out the photograph. He waved it at him.
Thorne stood and moved across the room to take the picture from Clarke's outstretched hand. Clarke handed it over and stepped towards the door. "That's the "before". You need the "after" as well. I don't keep any out down here because they upset Isobel. That's the only reason."
He left the room. Thorne heard him running up the stairs, heard a door open and close.
You should have a picture of Jess.
Thorne thought about how Clarke had said it. As though it were a simple piece of good advice that would aid his well-being. You should check your cholesterol. You should keep up your pension payments. You should have a photo of my dead daughter.
Thorne knew that Clarke was well aware that this visit was not procedural. This was not part of any inquiry, and nor was the offer of the photograph. This was something Ian Clarke wanted Thorne to have. Thought he should have.
When he heard a door close upstairs, Thorne stepped out into the hallway and waited near the front door. Now seemed as good a time as any to be making a move.
Clarke jogged quickly down the stairs and pressed a small black book into Thorne's hands. "I thought you might want to look at her diary. It doesn't matter if you don't. Let me have it back either way when you've finished with it."
"Right, of course."
Clarke handed over the photo with a small nod. Thorne took it with barely a glance, afraid of staring. Of being seen to stare. When he looked back at Clarke, it was clear from the man's expression that this was a reaction he'd seen a hundred times before.
"There were gangsters at her funeral," he said. "Murderers and drug barons and men who get paid to hurt people. They came to show their respects after she'd killed herself." He spoke calmly, though the anger was clear enough, like something moving behind a muslin curtain.
"It was a gorgeous day when we buried her, a really stunning day. We all said how that was Jess's doing, because she loved the good weather so much, and then that lot turned up in dark suits and sunglasses like something out of Reservoir Dogs and ruined everything. Kevin Kelly and his tarty wife, and that other one who'd taken over. Ryan. A bunch of them. All standing there, sweating, with huge wreaths. One of them spelled out her name, for pity's sake. Hovering with tasteless fucking wreaths for my little girl, who'd died because her friend happened to be a gangster's daughter."
Thorne was finding it hard to look at him. Rubbing his thumbs across the shiny surface of the photo in his hands. Nodding when it felt as though he should.
"We worked our arses off to send Jess to that school, to raise the money for the fees. What did Kelly have to do? How many people did he have to kill or rob to send that little… to send his little girl to that school?"
Thorne saw a figure appear on the landing at the top of the stairs: a teenage girl with long, ash-blond hair.
Clarke turned when he saw Thorne raise his eyes. "Isobel." Thorne was unsure whether Clarke was talking to the girl or introducing her. He couldn't help but wonder how much she looked like her half-sister. He wanted to look at the photo to check, but the picture on top was of Jessica after her attack, and Thorne felt unable to move it, to slide the photo of her unscarred to the front…
"Hello," he said.
The girl tugged at a corner of her sweater, muttered a sullen greeting in return. Clarke gave Thorne a weary, parental shrug. "She's thirteen," he said by way of explanation. Then his face changed.
"She'll be fourteen in a couple of weeks." He reached past Thorne to open the front door.
Thorne toyed with some cod response about kids growing up too fast, but before he had a chance to make it, Clarke stepped in close and lowered his voice. "This man, whoever he is, attempted to murder Jess. You said that. You said it a couple of times, actually."
"Sorry, I don't."
"He didn't attempt to murder her, Mr. Thorne. He murdered her." Clarke looked Thorne in the eyes as he spoke.
Thorne instinctively looked away, but then, ashamed, forced himself to meet Clarke's eyes again.
"It took a couple of years for her to die, but he murdered her." There was little to say except 'goodbye', so they both said it, and let the front door close between them.
Thorne glanced back. Through the frosted squares of red, blue and green glass in the front door, he could make out the shape of Ian Clarke climbing slowly up the stairs towards his daughter. The crowd at the bus stop is just that at first: a crowd; massed, indistinguishable, and not just because of the quality of the film. A tight knot of people bunched on the pavement, bundled up against the cold weather or, in the case of the girls, huddled into a gang, a million things to talk about while they wait for the bus. There is no sound, but it isn't hard to imagine the screams, the shouts of anger and incomprehension.
The knot unravels in a moment, people wheeling or jumping away, revealing the man for the first time. An old woman points at him, pulls at the sleeve of the woman with the push chair standing next to her. Girls cling to one another, to blazers and bags, as the man, his face hidden inside the hood of a dark anorak, turns and jogs casually away up the street…
Hendricks appeared from the kitchen. "The food'll be ready in a couple of minutes," he said.
Thorne got off the sofa and ejected the tape from the VCR. While he was up, he grabbed the bottle of wine from the mantelpiece and refilled Carol Chamberlain's glass.
"Nothing from any other angles?" she said. Thorne shook his head as he swallowed from his own glass. "These are the best pictures we could get." CCTV footage seemed to play an increasingly large part in most investigations these days. Often, the cameras were no more than a deterrent, and a pretty unsuccessful one at that. The crack dealers on Coldharbour Lane and the heroin mules around Manor House knew exactly where they were and treated them with the same disdain they might accord a traffic warden. Most of the time, they would happily go about their business in full view of the camera, knowing just when to turn a head or angle a shoulder to avoid the incriminating shot, then wink at the lens when the deal was done. Once in a while, though, Thorne would find himself staring at more significant footage: grainy, black-and-white pictures of armed robbers, of killers, or, more disturbingly, of those about to become their victims.
In this case, a potential victim who got lucky.
"It doesn't make sense," Chamberlain said. "How did he ever think he'd get away with it? If, God forbid, he hadn't been rumbled. If that girl hadn't seen what he was doing with the lighter fluid and he'd managed to set her alight."