‘It wasn’t until I went upstairs . . . ’

  Tanner heard the woman’s voice crack and watched her head drop, so she raised a hand to let the officers in the corridor know that she and Thorne were about done. Thorne pushed his chair back and grimaced at the scraping noise while Tanner was saying something about ongoing support and counselling services. He let her get on with it because she was so much better at that stuff than he was.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said, when Tanner had finished. ‘Please don’t hesitate.’

  Thorne wasn’t surprised that Andrea Sumner had once again chosen not to mention the opened wine bottle and those two dirty glasses that the first officers on the scene had discovered in the sitting room. She might not have noticed them, but Thorne was fairly certain that she had. A bottle and two glasses that had been carefully bagged up and boxed by CSIs and which Thorne was damn sure had not been there when Andrea had left the house two days earlier.

  It would be hard enough coming to terms with the fact that her husband had been killed. How he had been killed. She would not want to spend too much time wondering what had happened to that early night.

  The road had been sealed off at both ends and crime scene tape strung across it on either side of the Sumner house. There were half a dozen emergency vehicles parked in the middle of the road or up on the pavements and a good many onlookers were being kept politely at a distance. As he waited for coffee at the Met Police branded drinks wagon, Thorne saw one woman, who had found herself a nice little gap between cars and coppers, reach out to touch the tape and nod, satisfied.

  When he and Tanner stepped away, coffees in hand, Thorne noticed a woman waving at him from the garden of the house opposite. He walked across and asked if he could help.

  The woman peered at the lanyard around Thorne’s neck. ‘Is everything OK with Richard and Andrea?’

  She would find out soon enough anyway. Police could instruct the street’s occupants to stay inside temporarily, but could hardly insist that curtains were drawn or windows blacked out. They would see the body bag being removed from the house.

  ‘Not really,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Oh God,’ the woman said. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘So you know them, then?’

  ‘Well, yes, they’re neighbours. I mean . . . not well. Just a few words in the street every so often, popping over there for a drink at Christmas, that kind of thing.’ Then, ‘Oh, God,’ again.

  ‘Did you see Richard yesterday evening?’

  ‘Not to talk to, no.’

  ‘Any comings and goings?’

  The woman took a few seconds, as though she was thinking about it, though Thorne guessed that she simply didn’t want to appear over-eager. ‘I saw his car pulling off the drive . . . I don’t know, about seven, half seven? Then I heard him come back later on, maybe a couple of hours after that. Well, I actually heard his garage door opening. He’s got one of those remote things for it and the door’s really bloody noisy.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you the last time he used it, because him and Andrea usually just park in the drive, but when I heard the noise and looked out last night, I saw him driving into the garage. Maybe he wanted to work on the car or something.’

  Thorne already had a fair idea of why Richard Sumner had parked the car out of sight, but said, ‘Yes, maybe.’ The car was still in the garage, of course, and Thorne had already seen that there was a door at the rear of it that opened directly into the Sumners’ garden. He thanked the woman for her help and walked back across the road to join Tanner. He told her what the neighbour had seen, what he thought the implications of it were.

  ‘Where would we be without curtain twitchers?’ Tanner said.

  ‘Yeah.’ They would be starting a full house-to-house as soon as possible, but it was useful to have information like this good and early.

  They stood in silence for half a minute or so, sipping their coffees.

  ‘So, a woman, you reckon?’

  Thorne looked at her. There might have been a time when, despite knowing full well that women could be every bit as homicidal as men, a degree of violence such as the one they were now confronted with might at least have given the average detective . . . pause for thought. Thorne remembered the last case of multiple murder he and Tanner had worked on together; the woman at the centre of it.

  He said, ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘Doesn’t have to be a woman, of course,’ Tanner said. ‘Maybe Mr Sumner had a different kind of secret life.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘We might find out when we talk to the wife again.’

  Thorne poured what was left of his coffee into the gutter, thinking about what was likely to be an extremely awkward conversation. ‘That’s going to be fun.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s going to be a barrel of laughs for her either.’

  Thorne turned at a wave from the Sumners’ front door. A signal that they were ready to bring out the victim’s body. ‘Fair point,’ he said.

  TWO

  He called Melita on the drive home to Kentish Town.

  ‘I’m going back to the flat,’ he said.

  ‘Really? OK . . . ’ The plan made that morning had been for him to spend the night at her place in Crouch End. She sounded disappointed.

  ‘We caught a nasty one and it’s going to be pretty full on for the next few days,’ Thorne said. ‘Blanket clearance on overtime, all the usual. It’s obviously an early start tomorrow, so it makes sense—’

  ‘It’s not a problem, Tom.’

  ‘Thought I should try and get an early night.’ At least he meant it, although, with so much to think about, the angry static in his head that was refusing to quieten, Thorne was already doubtful that he’d actually get the sleep he needed.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Can I call you when I get home?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘I should probably fill you in anyway, because I wouldn’t be surprised if Russell asks you to come in on it. If things don’t pan out.’

  ‘Oh,’ Melita said. ‘One of those.’

  The timer had been set for the heating to come on for a couple of hours early evening, but the flat already felt chilly by the time Thorne got back, so he turned it on again. He stuck a ready meal in the microwave. He opened the post he’d missed that morning, then binned it. He took a can of lager from the fridge, carried his ‘Luxury Chinese chicken chow mein’ through into the living room and scrolled idly back and forth through the sports channels as he ate. Deciding against golf and tennis and ignoring Formula One – even though it might have helped him sleep – he stopped to stare at what was allegedly a sporting offering from the US, featuring men with beards throwing hand axes at a wooden target.

  He said, ‘Christ,’ but watched it anyway.

  ‘Have you eaten something?’ Melita asked, when he called her.

  Thorne told her that he had. He sat back, cradling his lager, and explained how grateful he was that the supermarket had specified in its labelling that his chicken chow mein was ‘Chinese’. Up until then, he had stupidly thought it was a staple of French cuisine.

  Melita laughed. ‘It’s a shame you couldn’t come over,’ she said. ‘I made a curry.’

  ‘Will it keep? I mean, having said that, it might be a couple of days.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m perfectly capable of eating the whole thing myself.’

  Thorne was well aware how much his girlfriend enjoyed her food, how much of it she could put away. Not that anyone would know it from looking at her, which was definitely something he enjoyed.

  ‘She’s so far out of your league it’s ridiculous,’ Phil Hendricks had told him numerous times. ‘If this was the first round of the FA cup, she’d be Arsenal, obviously, and you’d be . . . ’

  ‘Yeah, I know, Wigan Athletic or whoever. You’re hilarious.’

  ‘I was thinking more like one of them teams halfway up the Evo-Stik League, mate. Grantham Town, maybe, or Witton Albion.’

  For the first time in many hours, Thorne managed something like a smile thinking about it. The journeymen of Witton Albion had been holding their own against a younger, fitter Arsenal for a little over a year now, due in large part, Thorne reckoned, to the decision early on against moving in together, but rather to maintain their own places. To alternate home and away fixtures. Each had given the other a front door key, but neither had felt the need to make use of it, as yet.

  Thorne’s ‘home turf’ was the ground-floor flat he’d bought more than twenty years ago. He’d lived there on and off ever since, the off being a period when he’d rented it out while in a long-term relationship with a fellow officer called Helen Weeks. When that had gone the same way as the long-term relationship preceding it and the marriage that had run its course before that, Thorne had found himself back in Kentish Town, mightily relieved that he’d never sold the place.

  He felt very happy – yes, and lucky – to be spending quality time with Dr Melita Perera, but was equally happy to have a space that was all his; where he was as comfortable as he was ever likely to get and where, when he needed it, he could find some time alone.

  Even if he wasn’t always the best company.

  He told Melita about the crime scene in Gospel Oak.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ she said. ‘There’s no chance it was a torture–robbery thing?’

  ‘Wife says there’s nothing missing.’

  ‘Maybe they just wanted information . . . financial details. Maybe their bank account’s been emptied.’

  Thorne was not sure if anyone had checked and he would make sure it was done, but he doubted Richard Sumner had been butchered for his PIN number. He told Melita about the wine and the dirty glasses. ‘Certainly seems like whoever was in that house with the victim had been invited.’

  ‘Welcomed, for sure.’

  ‘Woman, it looks like.’

  ‘Well, actually that’s very much not what it looks like,’ Melita said. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, of course, but the degree of violence you’re describing would certainly make a female perpetrator unusual.’

  ‘Yeah, but you and I both know—’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, Tom. It’s . . . rare, that’s all.’

  Thorne glanced across at the now muted TV. In a thrilling development, they had moved the axe-chuckers’ targets several feet further back. He wondered if there was a version where the competitors were given blindfolds, or better yet threw the axes at each other. ‘So, what do you think about the ears?’

  ‘Trophies?’

  ‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’

  ‘Come on, it’s what you were thinking.’

  The static in his head turned itself up a notch; that thought and a dozen others, equally unwelcome, hissing and popping. He downed what was left of his lager and let out a long breath. ‘Anyway, how was your day?’

  She laughed. ‘Not to make you feel bad, but it was perfectly lovely. Just private patients today, so I didn’t even have to leave the flat.’

  ‘Jammy sod,’ Thorne said.

  When she wasn’t providing her services as a forensic psychiatrist to various police forces, or consulting at prisons and secure hospitals, Melita divided her time between private and NHS patients. The days spent seeing patients at home were what subsidised the rest of her work, and if Thorne had some concerns about her treating potentially dangerous clients at her flat, he’d learned to keep them to himself. He’d raised the subject once a few months before and it had not gone down well.

  ‘It’s my job.’ Melita had said it as though she was talking to a six-year-old. ‘Clients with certain . . . predilections, or a history of violence, just happen to be part of it.’

  ‘I know that.’ Thorne had immediately wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but he was already committed. ‘And that’s all well and good at a hospital where there’s security, but when they’re just walking into your flat—’

  ‘You think I should pick and choose a bit more?’

  ‘Well, vet them a bit, maybe.’

  ‘I do vet them, Tom, because I’m not an idiot and obviously I need to know exactly what I’ll be working with. If that happens to be someone you’d class as dangerous I will take that information on board and my approach to that client, personal and professional, will be adjusted as and when it needs to be. Fair enough?’ She’d stared at him for a few seconds after that, to be sure she’d made her point, then her expression had softened, just a little. ‘Besides which, look me in the eye and tell me that the dangerous people you go after, the really dangerous ones, aren’t always the most interesting.’

  Thorne had not been able to tell her any such thing.

  Now, Melita said, ‘I don’t think jammy’s the right word. Not after the hour I had to spend listening to a clinically depressed klismaphile.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Someone who is sexually aroused at the thought of giving or receiving enemas. This particular gentleman is a giver.’

  ‘Oh, I definitely think he’s picked the best option,’ Thorne said.

  Melita laughed, but Thorne knew she had encountered plenty of clients whose predilections were anything but amusing. She might not share Thorne’s taste in music – one of the reasons Phil Hendricks was so taken with her – and she was a damn sight tidier than he was, but they had rather more important stuff in common. When it came to the very worst things one human being could do to another, each had seen or heard about their fair share of horrors. Outside of those cases they’d worked on together, their deeper feelings about such things – the pictures inside their heads or the voices of those who had put them there – were not something they chose to discuss very often.

  Another very sensible decision.

  He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Melita had lost her temper for no obvious reason or even been in a shitty mood that wasn’t down to him for very long, so Thorne couldn’t help but wonder sometimes how much she held inside.

  How loud her static was.

  ‘I should let you go,’ she said. ‘So you can get to bed.’

  ‘Fair enough, but you know I’ll be thinking about you.’ Thorne lowered his voice. ‘About what I’m going to do, I mean, the next time I come over.’

  ‘Same,’ she said.

  He left it a few seconds. ‘You do know I’m talking about that curry in your fridge, right?’

  THREE

  Predictably, Andrea Sumner did not look like someone who’d had anything approaching a restful night. Her face was as pale and creased as old paper and the shadows that had spread like ink underneath her eyes were bruise-black.

  ‘Did you get any sleep at all?’ Tanner asked.

  It took her a second or two, as though she was responding via a video link from a distant country and they were fighting the delay. ‘My sister gave me some herbal sleeping tablets.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  The woman sat up a little straighter and tried to smile. It seemed suddenly to be an expression that was entirely unknown to her and she quickly abandoned the struggle. ‘Didn’t make a blind bit of difference.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said, though he was not surprised. A memory, unbidden and – as was so often the case in situations such as these – wholly inappropriate, barged into his head. He remembered when he’d been having trouble sleeping a couple of years before and Phil Hendricks, no stranger to insomnia himself, had suggested that he lie there and count up the number of people he’d slept with. In order, if possible. Hendricks had said it was way more fun than counting sheep and swore it had always done the trick for him. Thorne had given it a bash, but thirty seconds later, when he’d reached the end of the list, he had still been wide awake, as well as being vaguely depressed.

  Tanner leaned to pour out the water. ‘Thank you so much for coming in, especially so early. I know this is a terrible time, but it’s important that we get all the information we can, as fast as we can.’

  Andrea nodded. ‘OK.’

  It was a little after nine o’clock on Monday morning and they were seated in one of the informal interview suites at Colindale station. A dark brown sofa and matching armchairs were arranged around a low table. There were biscuits on a plate, a water jug and glasses. A box of tissues had been placed within easy reach. Unlike the formal interview facilities in a different part of the station, the chairs had cushions and the only unpleasant smell was down to cheap air-freshener. There was no panic-strip and the furniture wasn’t bolted to the floor. The interview was being video-recorded on the off chance that something said might later need to be produced in court, but when Thorne informed Andrea of the fact she just stared up at the camera for a few seconds and nodded, before turning back to him.

  ‘Do you know what happened?’ she asked.

  Now it was Thorne’s turn to take a few moments. She’d spoken matter-of-factly, as if they were here to discuss a tragic accident and he might set her mind at rest by saying, I’m afraid your husband had a heart attack at the wheel, or It looks like the brakes failed. What had happened to Richard Sumner was horribly obvious, but that wasn’t what she was asking. ‘It’s early days, I’m afraid.’

  ‘To Richard . . . what happened to Richard?’

  ‘I promise we’ll keep you informed every step of the way,’ Tanner said.

  Andrea grunted and began looking around the room, blinking slowly as she turned her head. She stared for several seconds at one wall after the other, at the chairs and then the table, as though searching for something, anything, that might give her the answers these two detectives were unable, or unwilling, to provide.

  ‘Andrea? Mrs Sumner . . . ?’

  The woman turned back to Tanner and sighed, ready for whatever was coming.