Free Bloodline by Mark Billingham Page B

face down and I was lying across the bed, naked but with the sheet covering the things she didn’t need to see. I knew she’d stopped, was taking it all in, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, work out what had happened. It was really hard to stay still, to control my breathing as much as I needed to.
    I heard her say her brother’s name and ‘Oh my God’ a few times. Whisper it.
    She went to her brother first and touched him, his shoulder or arm. I heard her breath catch and she started to cry and, when I knew she was looking down at me, I opened my eyes.
    Bang! Like a dead man coming back to life.
    I stared straight up into her baby blues, all wet and big as saucers. She opened her mouth to scream then, sucked in a nice big breath, but my hand was on her neck quick enough to squeeze and stop it.
    By the time I was out of the bedroom the tea was cold and I didn’t take more than a bite or two of the toast. I was enjoying the thought of them getting all worked up about DNA from the spit and teeth marks in the toast, all that.
    None of it will matter in the end.

SEVEN
    Like all other officers, Thorne was told not to leave important documentation in plain view when he was away from the office. Ancillary staff were instructed not to interfere with workstations while cleaning. However, as neither party adhered particularly closely to best practice, Thorne spent the first half hour of his Monday morning at Becke House searching for several vital scraps of barely intelligible scribble, then carefully reorganising his desktop into the shambolic clutter of paper that passed for a filing system, albeit one that collapsed if someone left a window open.
    Or shut the door too quickly.
    â€˜Shit!’
    â€˜Sorry,’ Kitson said. She walked to her desk, smiling as she watched Thorne bend down to pick up the papers that had been blown to the floor. ‘I don’t know, maybe if you used staples or paperclips?’ She eased off her jacket and dropped her handbag, then continued as though addressing a young child or a very stupid dog. ‘Or went completely crazy and typed things up. On. Your. Computer.’
    Thorne groaned as he straightened up and again as he dropped back into his chair. ‘You’re a bloody genius,’ he said.
    â€˜It’s just common sense.’ Kitson took the lid from the takeaway coffee she had brought in with her, spooned the froth into her mouth. ‘Unfortunately, most men aren’t exactly blessed with too much of that.’
    â€˜Oh, right,’ Thorne said. ‘Are we talking about me or Ian?’ The name was as much as Thorne knew about the boyfriend Kitson had been seeing for several months, but after her much-discussed fall from grace, he could hardly blame her for keeping her private life as private as possible. ‘Poor sod screwed up over the weekend, did he?’ Her smile told Thorne he was right on the money.
    â€˜I’m just saying, if women ran things . . .’
    â€˜Be better, would it?’
    â€˜. . . the world wouldn’t be in such bloody chaos.’
    â€˜Except once a month,’ Thorne said. ‘When things would go extremely tits up.’
    Kitson’s smile widened around the plastic spoon. ‘How was your Sunday, smart-arse?’
    Thorne had spent most of the previous day alone, which had suited him well enough. Louise had driven down to see her parents in Sussex and although Thorne got on perfectly well with both of them, she hadn’t bothered to ask if he wanted to come along. If Hendricks was right, and Louise had told her mum about the pregnancy, she probably preferred to be on her own when she broke the news that there no longer was one.
    He had not seen the need to ask.
    He had made himself a toasted ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, then watched Spurs grind out a piss-poor goalless draw against Manchester City. Louise got home just before he had the chance to be bored all over again