Free Bloodline-9 by Mark Billingham Page A

the spit and teeth marks in the toast, al that.
    None of it wil matter in the end.

    SEVEN
    Like al other officers, Thorne was told not to leave important documentation in plain view when he was away from the office. Ancil ary 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 intel igible scribble, then careful y reorganising his desktop into the shambolic clutter of paper that passed for a filing system, albeit one that col apsed if someone left a window open.
    Or shut the door too quickly.
    ‘Shit!’
    ‘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.
    ‘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.’
    ‘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 fal 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.
    ‘I’m just saying, if women ran things . . .’
    ‘Be better, would it?’
    ‘. . . the world wouldn’t be in such bloody chaos.’
    ‘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 wel enough. Louise had driven down to see her parents in Sussex and although Thorne got on perfectly wel 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 goal ess draw against Manchester City. Louise got home just before he had the chance to be bored al over again by Match of the Day 2 and they spent what was left of the evening arguing about when she was going back to work.
    She had rung her office from the hospital that first afternoon, tel ing them she had a stomach bug, and had decided that four days off sick was more than enough. Thorne disagreed, said he thought she needed longer. Louise told him that it was her body and her decision to make, that she felt as fine as she was ever fucking-wel going to, and that she was going back first thing on Monday.
    Thorne had left an hour earlier than usual this morning, to beat the traffic and to avoid a repeat of the argument. He looked up at the clock on the wal above Kitson’s desk. Louise would be getting to Scotland Yard, where the Kidnap Unit was based, around now.
    ‘ My body, my decision . . .’
    He dropped his eyes, nodded at Kitson. ‘My Sunday was pretty quiet,’ he said.
    Once the team had gathered for the morning briefing, it quickly became apparent that others connected to the twin inquiries had been considerably busier than Tom Thorne over the previous thirty-six hours.
    ‘We’ve been able to match the DNA sample gathered from