Death Message Read Free Page B

things to the freshest of faces, he knew that the man he was looking for was older than that.
    He could hear DS Samir Karim and DC Andy Stone working at a desk behind him; although 'working' in this instance meant talking about the WPC at Colindale nick that Stone had finally persuaded to come out for a drink. Thorne logged out of the bulletin, spoke without turning round. 'It's obviously a positive discrimination thing.'
    'What is?' Stone asked.
    'Colindale. Taking on these blind WPCs.'
    Karim was still laughing when he and Stone arrived at Thorne's shoulder.
    'Heard about your secret admirer,' Stone said. 'Most people just send flowers.'
    Karim began to straighten papers on the desk. 'It'll probably turn out to be nothing.'
    'Right, you get sent all sorts of shit on your phone these days. I get loads of unsolicited stuff every week. Upgrades, ringtones, whatever. Games . . .'
    Thorne looked up at Stone, spoke as though the DC were as terminally stupid as his comment had made him appear. 'And do many of these come with pictures of corpses attached?'
    'I'm just saying.'
    Karim and Stone stood rocking on their heels, like third-rate cabaret performers who had forgotten whose turn it was to speak next. They made for an unlikely-looking double-act: Stone, tall, dark and well tailored; Karim, silver-haired and thickset beneath a badly fitting jacket, like a PE teacher togged up for parents' evening. Thorne had time for them both, although Karim, in his capacity as office manager, could be an old woman when he wanted to be, and Stone was not the most conscientious of coppers. A year or so earlier, a young trainee detective with whom he was partnered had been stabbed to death. Though no blame had been formally attributed, there were some who thought that guilt was the least that Andy Stone should have suffered.
    'Can't you two find somebody else to annoy?' Thorne said.
    Once they'd drifted away, he walked through the narrow corridor that encircled the Incident Room and into the small, ill-appointed office he shared with DI Yvonne Kitson. He spent ten minutes filing assorted memos and newsletters under 'W' for 'Wastepaper Basket' and flicked distractedly through the most recent copy of The Job , looking for pictures of anyone he knew.
    He was staring at a photo of Detective Sergeant Dave Holland receiving a trophy at some sort of Met sports event when the man himself appeared in the doorway. Incredulous, Thorne quickly finished reading the short article while Holland walked across and took the chair behind Kitson's desk.
    ' Table-tennis ?' Thorne said, waving the magazine.
    Holland shrugged, unable to keep a smile from his face in response to the grin that was plastered across Thorne's. 'Fastest ball game in the world,' he said.
    'No it isn't.'
    Holland waited.
    ' Jai alai ,' Thorne said.
    'Jai what ?'
    'Also called pelota, with recorded speeds of up to one hundred and eighty miles an hour. A golf ball's quicker as well. A hundred and seventy-odd off the tee.'
    'The fact that you know this shit is deeply scary,' Holland said.
    'The old man.'
    Holland nodded, getting it.
    Thorne's father had become obsessed with trivia - with lists, and quizzes about lists - in the months leading up to his death. These had become increasingly bizarre and his desire to talk about them more passionate, as the Alzheimer's had torn and tangled more of the circuits in his brain; had come to define him.
    The world's fastest ball games. Top five celebrity suicides. Heaviest internal organs. All manner of random rubbish . . .
    Jim Thorne. Killed when flames had torn through his home while he slept. A simple house-fire that any loving son - any son who had taken the necessary time and trouble - should have known was an accident waiting to happen.
    Or perhaps something else entirely.
    A murder, orchestrated as a message to Thorne himself, altogether more direct than the one preoccupying him at that moment.
    One or the other. Toss a coin. Wide awake and sweating