Buried-6 Read Online Free PDF

you’re a lot older than you look or you retired early,’ he said.
    Mul en seemed taken aback for a second, but his tone was friendly enough as he led the three of them into a gloomy hal way. ‘Can’t you be both?’
    ‘It’s certainly what I’m aiming for,’ Porter said, hanging up her coat.
    ‘You’re right, though. I did bow out early,’ Mul en said. He looked Thorne up and down. ‘What are you? Forty-seven, forty-eight?’
    Thorne tried not to react. ‘I’m forty-five in a few months.’
    ‘Right, wel , I’l be fifty this year, and I know I’d look a damn sight older than that if I’d stayed in the job. You know what it’s like. I was starting to forget what Maggie and the kids looked like.’
    Thorne nodded. There hadn’t been anyone to forget for a fair few years, but he understood what Mul en meant wel enough.
    ‘I’d managed to squirrel a bit away, and it seemed as good a time as any. I fancied a move and Maggie was pretty keen for me to get out. She even got used to having me under her feet after a while.’
    On cue, Maggie Mul en came down the stairs, with every one of the fifty-odd years Thorne guessed were behind her, showing on her face. The lines had become cracks. The freshly applied make-up had done precious little for eyes that were puffy and red-rimmed. ‘I was catching up on some sleep,’ she said.
    It was Hol and who prevented the pause becoming a silence. He nodded towards Mul en, picking up the thread of the previous exchange. ‘It’s what politicians always say, isn’t it?’
    Mul en looked at him. ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Whenever they leave the job, for whatever reason, they say they want to spend more time with their family.’
    They stood around a little awkwardly, almost as though they were not the parents of a kidnapped child and those entrusted with finding him; as though they were waiting politely for someone to announce that dinner was served.
    Now, in the living room, something of that odd formality lingered, not helped by the seating arrangements. It was a large room and the sofas and chairs had been positioned around a rectangular, Chinese-style rug. Thorne and Porter sat on a cream leather sofa with Mul en and his wife fifteen or more feet away on uncomfortable-looking armchairs, which were themselves a fair distance from each other. There was music playing somewhere upstairs, and noise too from the kitchen, where Hol and and DC Kenny Parsons – the on-duty family liaison officer – had gone to make coffee.
    Thorne looked out of the French windows at the garden. It was enormous compared with the postage-stamp-sized plots that graced most London properties. He turned back to Mrs Mul en. ‘I can see why you moved here. I wouldn’t fancy mowing it, mind you.’
    It was Tony Mul en that responded. ‘This place was a compromise, real y. I was al for upping sticks completely and getting out into the country, but Maggie didn’t real y want to leave London. It feels like you’re in the country here, but you’ve got High Barnet tube a few minutes away, or you’re twenty minutes from King’s Cross on the overground.’
    Thorne made the right noises, thinking: This is a world away from King’s Cross.
    ‘And the schools,’ Maggie Mul en said. ‘We moved because of the schools.’
    Then, with that one meaningful word, the terrible reason for them al being there was final y in the room with them, and the smal talk was wel and truly done with.
    Tony Mul en slapped his palms against his legs, the noise causing his wife to start slightly. ‘We know it’s not bad news, thank God, but I presume that there isn’t any good news, either.’
    Porter edged forward on the sofa. ‘We’re doing everything we can, but—’
    ‘Don’t.’ Mul en raised a hand. ‘I’m real y not interested in the pat speeches. I know the game, remember. So let’s not waste anyone’s time, al right, Louise?’
    Thorne could see that Porter was more than a little irked at the familiarity, but he