Free Lazy Bones by Mark Billingham

they wheeled their trol eys around the place. He liked stopping them, asking them to lift the lids; making his selections.
    Thorne had had to explain the system to Bethel , who'd been sitting in a corner looking very confused when he got there. He was twenty minutes late, but Bethel hadn't been difficult to find. He was six feet
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    three with the build of a WWF wrestler, spiky peroxide hair and a great deal of gold jewel ery. Spotting him in a restaurant where the clientele was almost entirely Chinese was not exactly taxing.
    Today, Bethel was wearing camouflage combats and a bright blue T-shirt stretched across his enormous chest, bearing the slogan BITCH.
    'Shark's fin soup and al that, fine. Duck's feet? That's horrible...'
    'Relax, Kodak,' Thorne had said. He smiled at the old woman as she lifted another bamboo lid. 'I'l order for you...'
    They'd chatted for a while, Thorne putting his man at ease but also enjoying the to and fro of it. He was comfortable in these places, around the likes of Dennis Bethel .
    Thorne popped a wafer-wrapped prawn into his mouth and slid the photograph of Jane Foley across the table. Bethel wiped soy sauce from his fingers with a napkin and picked it up..
    'Nice,' he said. 'Very nice...'
    Thorne knew that Bethel would be talking about the picture itself. The composition, the lighting. As a hardened pornographer, he was way past appreciation of the models themselves. 'I knew you'd like it,' Thorne said. 'I do. It's very tasty. Who took it?'
    'Wel , do you know what, Kodak? I said to myself that if anybody could find out for me, it would be you...'
    A bit more chat. Business, Bethel said, was booming. Though the dotcom filth merchants had once threatened the likes of him, Bethel was delighted to report that his work was more in demand than ever. Thumbnails from his legendary 1983 'Barnyard' series of pictures were being eagerly downloaded, having acquired almost legendary status among smut surfers...
    Dennis Bethel 's high-quality wank-mag work had been getting men off for about as long as Thorne had been on the job. From slightly saucy to graphic glamour spreads, Bethel was a dab hand at anything that involved a lens and nipples. He was harmless enough and had
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    been a reliable snout for a good many years. Thorne had come to regard him as one of the city's great eccentrics. A pumped-up East End vaudevil ian with a hair-trigger temper, a talent for making girls
    take their clothes off and his own catchphrase, 'Nothing with children. 'So, come on, then,' Thorne said. 'Is it professional or not?'
    Bethel peered at the image, held it up to the light, sucked his teeth. 'Yeah, maybe...'
    'Not good enough, Kodak.' Thorne raised a finger to attract the attention of the woman behind the smal bar. He held up his empty bottle of Tsing Tao, ordering another.
    'It's complicated,' Bethel said. 'These days there's a huge market for professional y taken stuff that's made to look like it was snapped by an amateur. Like it's a picture of someone's girlfriend. See what I mean?
    The whole readers' wives thing. Especial y with this sort of stuff.' 'What sort of stuff?.'
    'This S & M stuff. Handcuffs and whips and chains. Fetishism.' Bethel held up the picture which Thorne had looked at a hundred and more times. He looked at it again. This one had been taken from above, the woman flat on her face, hands bound behind her back.
    The hood tied at the bottom this time, like a noose.
    'You ever do this sort of thing?' Thorne asked.
    By now Bethel had a mouthful of minced crab dumpling. He answered cautiously, as if he thought the question was meant to catch him out somehow. 'Yeah, I have done. Plenty of these pervy mags around. My stuff's better than this, though...'
    'Natural y. Listen, if this is a professional job, can you find out who took it?'
    'I could ask around, I suppose, but...'
    'What about where the film was developed?'
    'Waste of time. Unless the bloke's a moron, he'd have done it himself. Digital