FORTY-FOUR

Paula Hitchman pronounced herself delighted to have another person staying and her other half sounded equally enthusiastic. Jason Sweeney seemed especially taken with their newest guest and, once he’d thanked them both for the use of their sofa, Hendricks was certainly not shy and retiring. Within ten minutes, with cans of beer opened and sandwiches on the go, he had responded to repeated invitations and shown his hosts more tattoos and piercings than the waitress in the Magpie’s Nest had been privileged to see.

‘You like metal?’ Sweeney asked. ‘The music, I mean.’

‘I like stuff you can dance to,’ Hendricks said.

‘Seen a few people like you at gigs, that’s all. Suppose it’s more like dragons and stuff with them though. Eagles and skulls and that.’

Paula asked if there were any piercings in more ‘intimate’ regions. Hendricks winked and told her she might find out if she played her cards right.

Sweeney nodded, impressed. ‘Seriously hardcore, mate. Seriously.’

‘They reckon you can get addicted to it,’ Paula said.

‘I’m addicted to lots of things,’ Hendricks said.

Sweeney nudged Thorne, who was next to him on the sofa. ‘Not exactly Quincy, is he?’

Thorne said no and cradled his can and listened to the noises from the bathroom upstairs. Helen had announced that she was tired as soon as they had arrived, that she wanted a shower and an early night. It was the first thing she’d said since the three of them had set off from the pub. Walking to Paula’s front door, Hendricks had caught Thorne’s eye. A look that said, ‘I see what you mean . . . ’

‘Still, at least your patients can’t complain about what you look like,’ Sweeney said. ‘That what you call them, patients?’

‘Stiffs,’ Hendricks said. ‘Various categories thereof.’ He began to count off on his fingers. ‘Crispy critters . . . floaters . . . pavement pizzas. Had one of them just before I came here, matter of fact. Banker who forgot he couldn’t fly.’

‘Cause of death not too tricky then,’ Sweeney said.

‘Oh, I can do all that stuff in my sleep.’

Hendricks was showing off, or rather the Guinness was; a character he slipped into if an audience demanded it. No more than booze and bullshit. The truth was that Thorne had never known a pathologist with so much empathy for the bodies he worked with; one as willing and able to hear whatever secrets the dead could pass on.

‘I’m the corpse whisperer, me,’ Hendricks said, winking at Thorne.

‘I like that,’ Paula said. ‘That’s a good one.’

Thorne knew the real reason Hendricks had come. They were both hoping that Jessica Toms might have something to say to him.

‘Amazing though,’ Sweeney said, ‘the things you can do these days. The technology.’

‘I think it’s overrated,’ Hendricks said. ‘I still miss leeches, myself.’

Sweeney didn’t get the joke. ‘You can get results in minutes now, right?’ He looked at his girlfriend. ‘Did you know you can tell if a suspect’s been in a room just by getting a sample of the air? Just from the air, for Christ’s sake.’

Paula looked at Thorne. ‘You lot’ll be out of a job soon.’

‘No complaints from me,’ Thorne said.

‘Let me guess,’ Hendricks said. ‘You’re a big fan of CSI.’

‘God, he watches all those shows,’ Paula said. She nodded towards the drawer beneath the TV stand. ‘We’ve got all the box sets under there, anything with a few bodies in it, and he’s always got his nose in some gory book with dozens of murders. I like something a bit more literary myself.’

‘So, I like crime stories.’

‘Not so much fun when it happens on your doorstep though, is it.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Sweeney said.

Thorne thought that the taxi driver looked a little crestfallen. Disappointed by the terrible ordinariness of real murder.

He listened for a few minutes longer, then when the sandwiches appeared and demands were issued for a few more blood-soaked war stories, Thorne excused himself. He’d heard the shower being turned off ten minutes before.

‘Helen said anything about Linda Bates?’ Paula asked. ‘What she thinks about what her old man did?’

‘She hasn’t told me a thing,’ Thorne said.

Thorne had to reach out a hand to steady himself and piss straight. He hadn’t put away as much as Hendricks and he’d eaten before they’d really got stuck in, but he had never been the world’s best at holding his drink.

He flushed and closed the lid. He washed his face, then sat for a minute or two to try and clear his head.

It was the very technology Jason Sweeney was so enamoured of that would put Stephen Bates away. The sort that actually existed, anyway.

His DNA on a fag-end in a shallow grave.

The victim’s DNA all over his car.

Rock-solid evidence that showed Stephen Bates to be a liar, that proved a dead girl and a missing one had been where he insisted they had not.

Technology and good old-fashioned lies.

But technology didn’t always tell the truth either, because facts were just facts at the end of the day and that wasn’t gospel, was it? That wasn’t the be-all and the bloody end-all. Sums that needed adding up again.

Thorne stood up slowly, groaning. He should have stopped drinking half an hour earlier.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Hendricks was waiting on the landing. He stepped close to Thorne. Said, ‘It’s all about the bugs.’

‘What is?’

‘This body business.’ Hendricks nodded. ‘How long it was buried in the woods and how long it had been . . . a body. If there’s a difference. Trust me, mate, it’s all about the creepy-crawlies.’ He was wiggling his fingers, making suitably creepy-crawly-ish gestures and grinning.

‘Go to bed, Phil,’ Thorne said.

Hendricks leaned even closer, conspiratorial. ‘How can I?’ He spoke like someone who had learned to whisper in a helicopter. ‘Can’t get me head down until they decide it’s time for bed. I’m kipping in the front room, aren’t I?’

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ Thorne said.

Hendricks pushed past him into the bathroom, singing; something that had been playing in the pub. Thorne stepped quietly across the landing and into the bedroom.

The lights were off and Helen was already asleep, or pretending to be.