The Burning Girl-4 Read Free

station on to Kentish Town Road. He wasn't feeling much better by the time he kicked the door of his flat shut behind him. But his mood would not stay black for long.
    From the living room, a voice was suddenly raised, sul en and wounded, above the noise of the television: "What bloody time d'you cal this?"
    Thorne dropped his bag, took four steps down the hal and turned to see Phil Hendricks stretched out on the sofa. The pathologist was tal er, skinnier and, at thirty-three, ten years younger than Thorne. He was wearing black, as always jeans and a V-neck sweater with the usual assortment of rings, spikes and studs through most of the available space on and around his face. There were other piercings elsewhere, but Thorne wanted to know as little about those as possible.
    Hendricks pointed the remote and flicked off the television. "Dinner wil be utterly ruined." He was normal y about as camp as an armoured car, so the joky attempt at being queeny in his flat Mancunian accent made Thorne smile al the more.
    "Right," Thorne said. "Like you can even boil an egg."
    "Wel , it would have been ruined."
    "What are we having, anyway?"
    Hendricks swung his feet down to the floor and rubbed a hand back and forth across his closely shaved skul . "Menu's next to the phone." He waved a hand towards the smal table in the corner. "I'm having the usual, plus an extra mushroom bhaji."
    Thorne shrugged off his jacket and carried it back out into the hal . He came back in, bent to turn down the radiator, carried a dirty mug through to the kitchen. He picked up Hendricks'
    biker boots from in front of the sofa and carried them out into the hal .
    Then he picked up the phone and cal ed the Bengal Lancer .. .
    Hendricks had been sleeping on Thorne's sofa-bed since just after Christmas, when the col ection of mushrooms growing in his own place had reached monstrous proportions. The builders and damp-proofers were supposed to be there for less than a week, but as with al such estimates the reality hadn't quite matched up. Thorne was stil unsure why Hendricks hadn't just moved in with his current boyfriend, Brendan he stil spent a couple of nights a week there as it was. Thorne's best guess was that, with a relationship as on and off as theirs, even a temporary move would have been somewhat risky.
    He and Hendricks were a little cramped in Thorne's smal flat, but Thorne had to admit that he enjoyed the company. They discussed, ful y and frankly, the relative merits of Spurs and Arsenal. They argued about Thorne's consuming love of country music. They bickered about Thorne's sudden and uncharacteristic passion for tidiness.
    While they were waiting for the curry to arrive, Thorne put on a Lucinda Wil iams album. He and Hendricks argued about it for a while, and then they began to talk about other things .. .
    "Mickey Clayton died as a result of gunshot wounds to the head," Hendricks said.
    Thorne peered across at him over the top of his beer can. "I'm guessing that wasn't one of your trickier ones. What with most of his head plastered al over the wal s when we found him."
    Hendricks pul ed a face. "The ful report should be on your desk tomorrow afternoon."
    "Thanks, Phil." He enjoyed taking the piss, but, aside from being just about his closest friend, Hendricks was the best pathologist Thorne had ever worked with. Contrary to appearances, and despite the sarcasm and the off-colour jokes, there was no one better at understanding the dead. Hendricks listened as they whispered their secrets, translating them from the mysterious language of the slab.
    "Did you get the bul et?" Thorne asked. The kil er had used a nine-mil imetre weapon; what was left of the bul ets had been found near the previous victims, or stil inside what was left of their skul s .. .
    "You won't need a match to tel you it's the same kil er."
    "The X?" It had been obvious when the body had been discovered the previous morning. The nylon shirt hoiked up to the back of the neck, the