The Dying Hours Read Free Page A

across to flick on the kettle. ‘Some idiot fancied a party and thought it would be a good idea to put the address on Facebook. Three hundred people trying to crash one of the flats on the Kidbourne.’
    ‘Sounds like fun.’
    ‘It was once we sent a couple of dogs in.’ Thorne reached up to grab a mug. ‘Cleared the place faster than a Phil Collins single.’
    Helen laughed and tore into her toast.
    ‘Nicked half a dozen for affray.’ He touched his face again as he poured the hot water. ‘Plus the lad that did this.’
    ‘Nice.’ Helen chewed. ‘Other headlines?’
    Thorne shrugged. ‘A few break-ins.’ He mashed the teabag against the side of the mug and thought through some of the reports he’d signed off on at the end of the shift. ‘A three-way knife fight come chucking-out time at the White Lion. Two kids trying to smash up the KFC with baseball bats, because
apparently
they got beans when they asked for coleslaw…’
    ‘Fair enough,’ Helen said, stepping out into the hall.
    ‘A bus driver assaulted with a machete after he told a woman to stop pissing on his bus—’
    ‘What, the
woman
had the machete?’ Helen reappeared in the doorway, one arm inside a long down coat.
    ‘Obviously,’ Thorne said. ‘A shiny new Volvo driven straight into the front of a house on the High Road when someone tried to nick it. The normal quota of pissheads, the usual domestic argy-bargy. Oh, and a bit of dogging in the car park behind Comet.’
    ‘Well, no harm treating yourself after a long night, is there?’
    He dropped the used teabag into the bin. ‘I was only looking, honestly!’
    ‘Nice easy shift, then?’
    Thorne turned. He cradled the mug as he watched Helen check that everything she needed for work was in her bag, then hang the bag with everything Alfie would need over the handles of the pushchair. ‘There were a couple of bodies as well,’ he said. ‘An old couple, dead in bed.’
    Helen looked up. ‘A couple? What, they killed themselves?’
    Alfie wandered across to the cupboards next to Thorne, began opening and shutting one of them, enjoying the noise.
    ‘Probably,’ Thorne said.
    ‘
Probably?
’
    Thorne could not quite read her expression. Concern? Suspicion? They still did not know one another quite well enough yet. ‘It’s fine,’ he said.
    ‘Sure?’
    ‘I had a bit of a run-in with some DI about it, that’s all.’
    ‘Doesn’t sound like you.’
    Thorne smiled. He knew when she was being sarcastic well enough. ‘Tosser wouldn’t give the necessary
authorisation
.’ He took a mouthful of tea to wash away the taste of the word. The memory of his altercation with Binns.
    ‘Listen, I need to get going…’ Helen moved over to collect her son. She lifted him up and plonked him down in the pushchair, began fastening the straps.
    ‘Why don’t I take him?’ Thorne asked. He stepped across, took the small woollen hat from Helen’s hand and put it on the boy’s head. Once or twice, when Helen had been running very late, Thorne had walked her eighteen-month-old son down to the childminder’s. He enjoyed the time he and Alfie spent together, but the shift patterns meant there was precious little of it. Precious little with his mother, come to that.
    Ships in the night, especially when Thorne was on the graveyard shift.
    ‘It’s fine,’ Helen said. She kissed him and straightened her son’s hat. ‘You get to bed.’
    ‘It’s no trouble.’
    ‘’Nana,’ Alfie shouted.
    Helen said, ‘When we get to Janine’s,’ and pushed her son out towards the front door. ‘I’ll call you…’
    ‘Have a good one,’ Thorne said.
    After a few seconds she reappeared, buttoning her coat, while from the hallway Alfie continued to demand a second breakfast. ‘We can talk about this later if you want,’ she said. ‘OK?’
    ‘Nothing to talk about,’ Thorne said. He turned around to occupy himself, wiping away the ring his mug had left on the worktop, then putting the milk back in