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to manual asphyxia.’
    There’s people worse off than I am.
    Towards the end, with organs weighed and fluids collected, Thorne asked about time of death. When it came to finding a prime suspect, it often turned out to be the most important factor.
    â€˜Late afternoon,’ Hendricks said. ‘Best I can do.’
    â€˜Before five?’ Holland asked.
    â€˜Between three and four probably, but I’m not swearing to it right now.’
    â€˜That fits.’ Holland scribbled something down. ‘Husband claims to have arrived home a little after five o’clock.’
    â€˜He out of the picture, then?’
    â€˜ Nobody’s out of the picture,’ Thorne said.
    â€˜OK.’
    Thorne saw the expression on Hendricks’ face, and on Holland’s as he looked up from his notebook. ‘Sorry . . .’
    He’d been looking at the stainless-steel dishes that now contained Emily Walker’s major organs and thinking that she’d finally shifted those few extra pounds she’d been so worried about. His eyes had come to rest on her feet, bloated and pale; on the red nail varnish and the star above her ankle. When he’d spoken, he’d snapped without meaning to, the words sounding snide and spiky.
    Holland looked at Hendricks, stage-whispered conspiratorially: ‘Wrong side of the bed.’
    Thorne could feel himself growing edgier by the minute. He told himself to calm down, but it didn’t work, and walking out with Holland ten minutes later, he found it hard to control his breathing and the flush of it in his face. Sometimes, he felt fired-up coming out of a post-mortem, confused or just depressed more often than not, but he could not remember the last time he’d felt quite so bloody angry.
    He had been turning his phone back on before he was out of the post-mortem room and by the time he emerged through the mortuary’s main entrance on to Avondale Road, he could see that he had three missed calls from Louise. He told Holland he’d catch him up.
    It was the voice she used when she’d been crying. ‘They’ve still not done it.’
    â€˜Christ, you’re kidding!’
    â€˜I don’t know what to do,’ she said.
    He turned away, looking across the North Circular and avoiding the stares from a couple at the bus-stop who had heard him shout. ‘What did they say to you?’
    â€˜I can’t find anyone who can tell me what’s going on.’
    â€˜I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,’ Thorne said.
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    She burst into tears as soon as she caught sight of him, pushing through the doors at the far end of the ward. He shushed her gently, drew the curtains around the bed and sat down to hold her.
    â€˜I just want it . . . out of me,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’
    â€˜I know.’
    They heard the voice of the woman in the bed opposite coming from the other side of the curtain. ‘Is everything OK?’
    â€˜It’s fine,’ Thorne said.
    â€˜Do you want me to get someone?’
    Thorne leaned closer to Louise. ‘ I’m going to get someone.’
    He prowled the corridors for five minutes until he found a doctor on the next floor up and told him that something needed to be done. After shouting for a minute or so then refusing to budge while the doctor made a couple of calls, Thorne was back at Louise’s bedside with a soft-spoken, Scottish nurse. She made all the right noises, then admitted there was nothing she could do.
    â€˜Not good enough,’ Thorne said.
    â€˜I’m sorry, but this is standard practice.’
    â€˜What is?’
    â€˜Your partner’s just been unlucky, I’m afraid.’ The nurse was flicking through the paperwork she’d brought with her. She waved it in Thorne’s direction. ‘Each time the procedure has been scheduled, another case has taken priority at the last minute. Just unlucky . . .’
    â€˜She was