"Tom.?"
Thorne looked at Hendricks, raised his eyebrows. "Bloody hell, Carol, it's a bit late for you, isn't it?"
"I know, sorry. I couldn't sleep."
"You haven't had any more calls, have you?"
"No, nothing like that."
A huge lorry roared past and Thorne lost whatever Chamberlain said next. There was a pause while each of them waited for the other to say something.
"I just called to see how you were getting on."
"I'm OK, Carol."
"That's good."
"Everything's OK. The case is more or less where it was the last time I spoke to you, but it's coming together." He'd known straight away of course, that this was what she really wanted to know. "I'm sorry," he said. "I meant to call."
"Don't be daft. I know you must be busy. Listen, I'll leave you to it."
"How's Jack?"
"He's fine. It's fine, Tom."
Hendricks pointed to his watch: the last train was due in a few minutes.
Thorne nodded, picked up speed. "Why don't we meet up next week?" he said. "Come down and we'll go for lunch. I'll whack it on expenses."
"Sounds great. I'll speak to you next week, then."
"Take care, Carol. Phil says hello." She'd already gone.
At the station, they sat on a bench, waiting for the westbound train. On the other side of the tracks, three teenage boys drifted aimlessly up and down the platform.
"Sixteen grams on average, you said?"
Hendricks looked blank for a moment or two, then nodded.
"Yeah."
"That's for what? A man of medium height and weight?"
"Right. A woman of medium build would be around twelve grams, I suppose."
So, a child would be less, Thorne thought. Three quarters as much, maybe eight or nine grams. That didn't make sense, though, did it?
Thorne's head was starting to spin. Surely the soul of a child would weigh more. It's only as we grow older that we become corrupted, soulless.
Eight or nine grams.
Their train rumbled into the station. Thorne spoke over the noise of it, to himself as much as Hendricks.
"A handful of rice," he said. "Christ, no… less. A few grains
…"
TWENTY-ONE
3 November 1986
If another person leers at me and winks or says something moronic like 'you'll soon be legal', I might have to do something drastic. It's like they're really saying 'as soon as you're sixteen, you can have sex, you know, which is absolutely normal'. I feel like grabbing them by the wrists and saying, "Thanks a million, I hadn't realised that. All I need now is to find someone who's desperate enough and a big fucking bag to go over my head!
Why do people presume I'm interested?
Why do people always presume?
I've been frantic for days, wondering how to tell M amp; D that I'd rather die than go to this party they've been so busy planning for tomorrow. First birthday since the recovery, since the final op. It's like it's such a big deal and I know they just want me to have a good time and do normal things and I can't make them understand.
I don't want a party. I don't want the attention. The falseness of all that.
When I get angry they just fucking smile at me. They indulge me all the time and it makes me want to scream and smash something. While AH and the others would be getting grounded or whatever, I get treated with kid gloves.
Like all of me's scarred. Like none of me can be touched. I want to be shouted at and punished. I want to tell them to stick their party up their arses just to see them lose their tempers for once and tell me that the whole thing's off. Whenever I do start being a bitch, they just stare at each other and they have this look that kills me, as if they're thinking that this behaviour's acceptable and should be forgiven. You know, black clothes and black moods, like it's all perfectly normal for your average, horribly disfigured teenage girl. When I try to tell them how I feel about this birthday, I know they think it's just some trauma I'm having, some understandable reaction after everything I've been through, and that I don't really mean it. I do really mean it.
This party, just the thought of it, makes me sweat and makes me ache. Nobody has a clue. Even AH doesn't seem to get what I'm talking about. She keeps telling me that it'll be a laugh, that I'm just being a stroppy cow, and asking me if there's going to be any tasty men there.
I know M amp; D have probably spent a fortune on hiring the hall and the disco and everything, and I love them to death for doing it. If I thought for a second that I could get through it, I wouldn't be making a fuss. Watching my mates dance and drink and get off with people sounds great, but I know bloody well what would happen. I know that, eventually, someone would want to say something. I've imagined it for weeks now, ever since they told me. Ever since they announced that they wanted to throw a party and looked a bit upset when I told them to throw it as far away from me as possible. Sometimes I imagine it's Dad and other times it's one of my friends, usually AH. The music stops and there's this howl from the speakers as they grab the DJ's microphone. They start to make this speech. They say something about bravery and make some crap jokes and people pretend to find them funny. Then there's that awkward few seconds of silence that you get after a speech. Then they all start to clap and everyone stares.
Everyone. Stares.
And the pale half of my face, the smooth half, reddens until the blush becomes the colour of the scar. Both halves matching as I burn all over again.
Singing 'Happy Birthday', and Mum and Dad are hugging each other and a few of my mates are crying, and they're all watching me standing in a circle of light in the centre of the room, with looks on their faces like I'm six years old.
Like I'm special.
Thorne closed the diary, lay back and pressed it to his chest. He opened it again, took out the photograph he'd been using as a bookmark. Pictured her slipping away into the darkness on a bleak November night.
The music, a Wham track, fading behind her as she walks away from the hall, from the party, moving towards the lights of the town centre. Unmissed still. Her friends dancing, shouting to one another above the music while she climbs.
The smell of exhaust fumes and the sound of her shoes echoing off the grey concrete stairwells.
A voice of concern, the first few worried looks from her friends as, half a mile from them, she steps out into the cold. Into fresh air. The desperate rush of the black towards her. The night kissing both sides of her face as she tumbles through it…
Thorne jumped slightly when the phone rang, the sudden movement sending Elvis careering from the end of the bed. Thorne looked at the clock: 4.35. Brigstocke wasted no time on pleasantries. "We're getting reports of an incident at an address in Finchley." Thorne was already out of bed. "Ryan's place?" he said.
"Right. Uniform are on the scene, but there's some confusion. At least one person injured, by all accounts, but beyond that we don't know much."
"Zarif sent the X-Man after Ryan, you think?"
"You know as much as I do, mate."
Thorne was moving quickly around the bedroom, snatching up socks and underpants, grabbing at a shirt. "Are you on your way up there?"
"Tughan's got it," Brigstocke said, "but you live a lot nearer than he does, so I reckon you'll probably beat him to it."
"Cheers, Russell. I'll call you when I get there." Thorne moved into the living room to find that Hendricks was already sitting up in bed. Thorne told him what was happening.
"Want me to come along?" Hendricks asked. Thorne had gone into the kitchen. He came out shaking his head, gulping down a glass of water.
"You sure? I can be dressed in one minute." Thorne picked up his jacket, felt in the pockets for his keys. "No point. We don't know exactly what's happened yet," he said. "But I wouldn't bother going back to sleep, if I was you." The streets were all but deserted as Thorne drove up towards the Archway roundabout and turned north. He knew he might be over the limit to drive, but he felt clear-headed and focused. He was seeing the tail-lights early, anticipating the few cars that were coming at him from side-streets. Thinking a long way ahead. He chose the route through Highgate, avoiding the road that ran parallel, that would have taken him under Suicide Bridge. The iron footbridge that had long since replaced John Nash's viaduct the original "Archway' was the preferred jumping-off point for many of the city's depressed. Thorne did his best to avoid it when he could, unable to drive beneath it without unconsciously bracing himself for the impact of a body on the roof of the car.