Buried-6 Read Free Page B

though.’
    ‘I keep thinking I’m missing it al . Doing this . . .’
    Thorne guessed there was little point in asking about Hol and’s girlfriend. Sophie was not exactly Thorne’s greatest fan. He knew very wel that his name was far more likely to be shouted than spoken in the smal flat Hol and and Sophie shared in Elephant & Castle; that he might wel have caused a fair number of the arguments in the first place.
    The BMW final y hit thirty again on Park Lane. From here, they would continue down to Victoria, then cut across to St James’s and the Yard.
    Hol and turned to Thorne as they slowed at Hyde Park Corner. ‘Oh, by the way, Sophie told me to say “hel o”,’ he said.
    Thorne nodded, and nosed the car into the stream of traffic that was rushing around the roundabout.
    This was not his favourite place.
    It was here that he’d spent a few hideous weeks the year before; perhaps the most miserable he’d ever endured. Back then, when he’d been taken off the team, and given what was euphemistical y cal ed ‘gardening leave’, Thorne had known very wel that he wasn’t being himself, that he hadn’t been coping since the death of his father. But hearing it from the likes of Trevor Jesmond had been something else; being told he was ‘dead wood’ and casual y wafted away like a bad smel . It was the undercover job that had thankful y provided a means of escape, and the subsequent weeks spent sleeping on the streets had been infinitely preferable to those he’d spent stewing in a windowless cupboard at New Scotland Yard.
    As they walked towards the entrance, Thorne scowled at a group of tourists taking photographs of each other in front of the famous revolving sign.
    ‘What did you do when you were here?’ Hol and asked.
    Thorne took out his warrant card and showed it to one of the officers on duty at the door. ‘I tried to work out how many bottles would constitute a fatal dose of Tippex . . .’
    Kidnapping and Specialist Investigations was one of a number of SO units based in Central 3000, a huge, open-plan office that took up half of the fifth floor. Each unit’s area was colour-coded, its territory marked out by a rectangular flag suspended from the low ceiling: the Tactical Firearms Unit was black; the Surveil ance Unit was green; the Kidnap Unit was red. Elsewhere, other colours indicated the presence of the Technical Support and Intel igence units, either of which could make use of an enormous bank of TV monitors, each one able to tap into any CCTV camera in the metropolitan area or broadcast live pictures directly from any Met helicopter.
    Thorne and Hol and took it al in. ‘And we were wondering why we couldn’t afford a new kettle at our place,’ Hol and said.
    A short, dark-haired woman rose from a desk in the red area and introduced herself as DI Louise Porter. Hol and ran the kettle line past her during the minute or two of smal talk.
    He looked pleased that she seemed to find it funny. Thorne was impressed with the effort she put in to pretending.
    Porter quickly ran through the set-up of the team, one of three on the unit. It was a more or less standard structure. She was one of two DIs heading things up, with a dozen or so other officers, al working to a detective chief inspector. ‘DCI Hignett told me to apologise for not being here to meet you himself,’ Porter said, ‘but he’l catch up with you later. And it’s three DIs now, of course.’ She nodded towards Thorne. ‘Thanks for mucking in.’
    ‘No problem,’ Thorne said.
    ‘Not that you had any choice though, right?’
    ‘None at al .’
    ‘Sorry about that, but we can always do with the help.’ She glanced down. ‘Are you OK?’
    Thorne stopped moving from foot to foot, realised that he was grimacing. ‘Dodgy back,’ he said. ‘Must have twisted something.’ The truth was that he’d been suffering badly for some time, the pain down his left leg far worse after any period spent sitting in a car or, God forbid, at