The Burning Girl-4 Read Online Free PDF Page B

HMP Park Royal ... "I need you to cover for me," he'd said. "Tel Tughan I'm off seeing a snout, or that I'm fol owing up a hunch, or whatever. You know, some
    "copper" bol ocks .. ."
    "Do I get to know what you're real y doing?"
    "I'm doing someone a favour. I should be back by lunchtime if the traffic's al right, so .. ."
    "Are you driving} When did you get the car back?"
    Thorne knew what was coming. He was stupid to have let it slip. "I got it back late yesterday," he'd said.
    The car in question, a pulsar-yel ow BMW, was thirty years old, and Thorne had parted with a good deal of money for it the year before. Thorne thought it was a classic. Others preferred the term 'antique'. Hol and, in particular, never missed an opportunity to take the piss, having maintained from the moment he'd seen it that the car was a big mistake. He'd gone to town when it had spectacularly failed its MOT and disappeared into the garage a fortnight earlier.
    "How much?" Hol and had asked, gleeful.
    Thorne had cursed as he'd caught a red light. He'd yanked up the hand brake "It's an old car, al right? The parts are expensive." Not only were they expensive, but there seemed to be a great many of them. Thorne couldn't remember them al , but he could recal the growing feeling of despair as they were cheerful y reeled off to him. For al Thorne knew about what was going on under the bonnet, the mechanic might just as wel have been speaking Serbo-Croat.
    "Five hundred?" Hol and had said. "More?"
    "Listen, she's old, but she's stil gorgeous. Like one of those actresses that's knocking on, but stil tasty, you know?" As the car was a BMW, Thorne had tried to come up with a German actress who would fit the bil . He had failed. Felicity Kendal, he'd said as he pul ed away from the lights. Yeah, that'l do.
    "She?" Hol and had sounded hugely amused.
    "She's like Felicity Kendal."
    "People who cal their car "she" are one step away from a pair of string-back driving gloves and a pipe .. ."
    At the noise of the chair opposite him being scraped backwards, Thorne looked up and saw Gordon Rooker dropping on to the red seat. Thorne had never seen a picture, or been given a description, but there was no mistaking him.
    "Anyone sitting here?" asked Rooker, a gold tooth evident as he smiled.
    He was sixty, give or take a year or two, and tal . His face was thin and freshly shaved. The skin hung, leathery and loose, from his neck, and a ful head of white hair had yel owed above the forehead with a lifetime's fags.
    Thorne nodded towards the green bib that Rooker wore, that al the prisoners wore on top of the regulation blue sweatshirts. "Very fetching," he said.
    "We've al got to wear these now," Rooker said. "A few places have had them for ages, but a lot of governors, including the one here, thought they were demeaning to the prisoners, which is al very splendid and progressive of them. Then a lifer in Gartree swaps places with his twin brother when nobody's looking and walks out through the front door. So, now it has to be obvious who's the prisoner and who isn't, and we al have to dress like prize prats when we have visitors. You think I'm making this up, don't you?"
    The voice was expressive and lively. The voice of a pub philosopher or comedian, nicely weathered by decades on forty rol -ups a day. While Rooker was speaking, Thorne had taken out his warrant card. He slid it across the table. Rooker didn't bother to look at it.
    "What do you want, Mr. Thorne?" He held up a hand. "No, don't bother, let's just have a natter. I'm sure you'l get round to it eventual y."
    "I'm a friend of Carol Chamberlain."
    Rooker narrowed his eyes.
    "She'd've been Carol Manley when you knew her .. ."
    The gold tooth came slowly into view again. "Did that woman ever make commissioner? I always reckoned she had it in her."
    Thorne shook his head. "She was a DCI when she retired. That was seven or eight years ago."

    "She was a decent sort, you know?" Rooker looked away, remembering