The Burning Girl-4 Read Online Free PDF

which brand of fuel was used .. ."
    "It's someone Rooker spent time with inside, then. Rooker's told him to wind you up when he's got out."
    She shook her head. "There's no reason for Rooker to send anyone after me. He confessed, remember. Anyway, Rooker bloody wel liked me."
    "He had a relationship with you. You were the one who interviewed him. Which is why you 're the one being targeted now, and not whoever the SIO was."
    "I think it's just because I'm next in line. The DCI on the case left the force wel before I did. He emigrated to New Zealand ten years ago. He'd be a damn sight harder to track down than I was."
    It made sense, but Thorne had one other suggestion. "Or maybe, whoever it is knows that you were .. . affected by what happened to Jessica."
    She looked up at him, concerned. "How would anyone know that? How do you know .. .?"
    They walked on in silence for fifty yards or so before Thorne spoke again. "Are you worried that you put the wrong man away, Carol? Is that what this is about?"
    "No, it isn't. Gordon Rooker burned Jessica Clarke. I know he did."
    They didn't speak again until they reached the station.
    Halfway across the concourse she stopped and turned to him. "There's no need to bother waiting. I've got quarter of an hour until the next train back."
    "It's fine. I don't mind."
    "Get back to work. I like to potter about a bit anyway. I'l buy a magazine, get myself sorted. I'm a fussy old bat like that."
    "You're not fussy."
    She leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. "Cheeky sod."

    Thorne sighed and broke their embrace. "I don't quite know what you expect me to do about this, Carol. There's nothing I can do official y that anybody else couldn't."
    "I don't want you to do anything official y."
    He saw then, despite the light-hearted tone and the banter of a few moments before, just how rattled she real y was. The very last thing she wanted was to let the powers-that-be see it, too. He couldn't believe that they'd take her off the Cold Case Unit, but there were plenty who thought the Met should not be using people who'd be better off queuing up in the post office.
    "Right," Thorne said eventual y. "But it's OK for me to waste my time."
    Chamberlain pul ed a large handbag on to her smal shoulder and turned on her heels. "Something like that.. ."
    Thorne watched her disappear inside WH Smith.
    Walking back towards the underground, he thought about scars that you hid, and those that you showed off. Scars bad enough to make you jump off a car-park.
    THREE
    These rooms always had one thing in common. The size might vary, the style was usual y governed by age, and the decor was dependent on the whim of budgets or the inclination of the top brass. But they invariably had the same smel . Chrome and tinted glass or flaking orange plasterboard. Freezing or overheated. Intimate or anything but. Whatever the place was like, that smel would tel you where you were with a sack over your head. Thorne could sniff it up and name its constituent parts like a connoisseur: stale cigarette smoke, sweat and desperation.
    He looked around. This one had a bit of everything a fresh coat of magnolia, the fumes charged up by the heat coming off radiators a foot thick. There was a snazzy new system of coloured chairs. Blue for visitors, red for inmates .. .
    Most chairs were occupied, but a few red ones remained vacant. A black woman in the next row but one glanced across at him. The seat opposite her was empty. She smiled nervously, her eyes crinkling behind thick glasses, and then looked away before Thorne had a chance to smile back. He watched the woman beam as a young man her son, Thorne guessed swaggered towards her. The man grinned, then checked himself slightly, looked around to see if anyone had noticed him drop his guard.
    Thorne checked his watch: just before ten. He needed to get this over with as quickly as possible and get back to the office. He'd cal ed DC Dave Hol and earlier, on his way west across London, towards