Free Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham Page A

Anne before. Always go for the two types of men the ones that spark something off in their brains or the ones that get it going in their knickers. A man who does both? Forget it. I think it's fairly obvious which category her exfal s into. Time to ring in the changes. So the copper's luck's in, if you ask me. I reckon I might have to stick to the brainboxesfrom now on. Tim just sat by the bed this morning and held my hand. He doesn't even bother talking to me any more.
    FIVE

    Thorne sat perched on the edge of Tughan's desk in the open-plan operations room. As Tughan's hands manoeuvred his mouse and flew across his keyboard, Thorne could almost see the Irishman's back stiffen. He knew he was annoying him.
    'Isn't there something you should be doing, Tom?' Phil Hendricks had worked through the night, and even before Keable had settled down to coffee and croissants with the chief superintendent, Thorne had received the intbrmation he'd wanted. Helen Doyle had been heavily drugged with Midazolam and had died as a result of a stroke. In spite of the body's location and the apparent break with his routine, there was no doubt that she had been the kil er's fifth victim. That was pretty much al they knew, other than that Forensics had gathered some fibres from Helen Doyle's skirt and blouse[ Thorne got straight on the phone.
    'Any joy on these fibres?'
    'Give us a bloody chance.'
    'Al right, just give me your best bloody guess, then.' 'Carpet fibres, probably from the boot of the car.' 'Can you get a make?'
    'Where do you think this is? Quantico?'
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    'Where?'
    'Forget it. Look, we'l get on to it. Something to match
    it to would help...'
    The change in the pattern bothered Thorne, but they were left trying to answer the same questions. How had he talked his way into these women's houses and perhaps, in Helen Doyle's case, talked her into getting into his car? Helen Doyle's body, like that of Alison Wil etts and Susan Carlish, was unmarked yet ful of drink and drugs. The tranquil iser had to have been administered with alcohol. But how? Had the kil er been watching Helen al night and spiked her drink before she left the pub? That would have been difficult - she was with a large group of friends and, besides, to have got the timing of it right would have been near impossible. How could he have known exactly when the drug would start to take effect? It was stil the best guess, so Thorne had set about rounding up as many people as possible who had been in the Marlborough at the time. This, on top of the general canvassing along Helen's route home, meant that they were going to need every extra body that Frank Keable could deliver. If he could deliver. Thorne was hopeful of finding somebody who'd seen Helen after she'd left the pub. He stil couldn't fathom why the kil er was being so brazen but it made him more optimistic than he'd felt in a long time.
    'Is there something I can tielp you with?'
    Tughan smiled a lot but his eyes were like something on
    a plate. He was as skinny as a whippet and fiercely intel igent, with a voice that could cut through squad-room banter like a scalpel. It was always TUghan's thin lips Thorne imagined whispering into the mouthpiece whenever some lunatic phoned Scotland Yard with a coded
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    warning. It wasn't that Thorne didn't appreciate what Tughan was capable of or what he brought to the investigation: Thorne could just about find his way into a file, if he had to, but he couldn't type to save his life and always tbund himself strangely hypnotised by the screensavers. When new evidence came in, Tughan was the man to make sense of it with his col ation programmes and file finders. Thorne knew that if they'd had a Nick Tughan fifteen years earlier instead of a thousand manil a folders.., if they'd had a Holmes computer system instead of an antiquated card index, then Calvert might not have done what he did.
    'Hey, Tommy, bugger the Calvert case, what about our