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co-ordinated; volunteers organised, or more likely dissuaded, since their usefulness was often outweighed by their capacity to unwittingly destroy evidence. It was where locals would come to pass on information or share tittle-tattle, helping themselves to free tea and biscuits while they did so, and it was usually where the media gathered for any official press briefings.
    Thorne wandered inside.
    He had often heard stories about journalists who had returned from war zones, only to find themselves unable to handle the ordinariness of normal life and desperate to go back. There was, it seemed, a powerful craving for the rush that went with danger. It was a drug, pure and simple. Thorne would not describe his own feelings in quite those terms, but just sensing the excitement, the urgency around a major investigation such as this one, had already got those endorphins kicking in.
    Driving from that twee hotel, he had told himself that he was doing no more than keeping Helen company, that this was nothing to do with him. It wasn’t just a matter of jurisdiction either. He was supposed to be on holiday; a much-needed one since the events on Bardsey Island a few months before. He was rather better at kidding others than he was himself. That slow drive around the market square had been enough, and now the chatter in this place, the smell of stewed tea and damp uniforms, had got his blood pumping a little faster. It was a long way from a Major Incident Room back at home, but that buzz was universal. The urge to poke around and to get a taste of it all was as strong as a drowning man’s impulse to push himself towards the surface.
    Thorne simply could not help himself.
    A uniformed officer, stocky and red-faced, stepped in front of him and asked if he needed any help.
    ‘Can you tell me where they’re holding Stephen Bates?’ Thorne asked.
    The young PC sighed. ‘Move along, would you, sir?’
    It was Thorne’s turn to sigh as he took out his warrant card.
    ‘Oh. Sorry, sir.’ An altogether different ‘sir’. He stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. ‘He’s at Nuneaton, far as I know.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Thorne was about to walk away, when it suddenly dawned on the PC that any detective involved in the investigation would surely have known the answer to the question Thorne had asked.
    ‘Can I see your warrant card again, sir?’
    Thorne fished for it, held it close to the officer’s face.
    ‘Since when were the Met involved with this?’
    ‘I’m just here to advise,’ Thorne said.
    ‘Right.’ The PC looked dubious.
    ‘Look, I know the guv’nor, all right?’
    ‘And he would be …?’
    Thorne tried his best to look merely exasperated, while he racked his brains trying to remember the name of the senior detective he had heard talking on the radio. It came to him. ‘I’m a mate of Tim Cornish’s.’
    ‘Fair enough.’
    ‘Happy?’ The copper nodded and stepped away. ‘Good lad,’ Thorne said. ‘Now go and help some old people across the road or something …’
    Walking back to his car, Thorne began to feel guilty about the way he had spoken to the young constable. He had long ago resigned himself to the person the Job could so easily turn him into; the side-effects of that buzz. The impatience, the intolerance, the capacity to behave like a major-league arsehole.
    He pulled out of the car park, turned the music up good and loud and tried to forget about it.

FIVE
    Linda’s daughter was sixteen and called Charli. ‘That’s how she prefers to spell it,’ Linda had explained, shrugging: a power less parent. The girl was taller than her mother and a little heavier, and unlike Linda, her hair was cut short and she wore a lot of make-up. She had not spoken, other than to murmur a small ‘hello’ when Linda had introduced her and, after several minutes staring into space, she got up and walked out of the room without a word. Helen could hear one of the officers in the hallway asking the girl if