Bloodline by Mark Billingham Page A

possibility of sex had now become remote.
    When would it be all right to talk about it? Just how much of a self-centred bastard was he being, even thinking about it?
    He looked over to the desk opposite, where Yvonne Kitson was working considerably harder than he was. She had been taken off a domestic murder that was all but done and dusted, and drafted in to bolster the top end of the team. Thorne was grateful to have her on board. Kitson was one of the best detectives they had, her achievements that much more impressive considering her circumstances, past and present. For several years she had been a single mum of two, her marriage having collapsed after a messy affair with a senior colleague that had also resulted in her formerly smooth progress through the ranks coming to a shuddering halt.
    She glanced up from her desk, saw Thorne looking. She dropped her eyes again, turned a page. ‘What?’
    Once, when neither had been laid for a while and it was debatable which was the more drunk, there had been the mildest of flirtations between the two of them, but they were long past that.
    â€˜Saturday,’ Thorne said.
    Kitson scoffed: ‘Never mind the bloody Tottenham game, or a morning under the duvet with Louise, or whatever you were thinking about missing. Some of us should be watching our sons playing rugby. I’ll have to be even more of a taxi service than I am already to make up for this.’
    For a few moments, Thorne thought about telling her what had happened to Louise, getting a female perspective on it. But he just smiled and went back to the reports in front of him.
    A minute later, a ball of paper bounced off his desktop and on to the floor. He bent to retrieve it and stared at Kitson. She shrugged, denying all knowledge.
    Thorne unwrapped what turned out to be a transcript of that morning’s calls to the Incident Room. The published E-fit had generated a good deal of attention, and while the Press Office was handling the understandable media interest, the team itself had to deal with any information from the public. Thorne and Brigstocke had clearly underestimated the extent to which the picture would inspire some of the city’s more community-minded nutcases.
    â€˜I wouldn’t mind coming in,’ Kitson said, pointing to the sheet of paper in Thorne’s hand, ‘if I didn’t have to spend all morning sorting through that shit.’
    â€˜Got to be done, though,’ Thorne said.
    They all knew it. Everyone on the team routinely joked about procedure and bitched about paper-pushing, and 99 per cent of the time, with a primary lead as shaky as their E-fit, nothing would come from this kind of work, but you had to double- and triple-check, just in case. Nobody wanted to be the one who missed the vital piece of information tucked away in a long list of crank calls. The clue hidden in the crap. In an age where the inquiry into the inquiry was commonplace, arse-covering had become second nature. It began before the victim was cold and would continue until the judge’s gavel came down.
    It didn’t stop the whingeing, though.
    â€˜Not a single name on there more than once,’ Kitson said.
    â€˜You’re wrong.’ Thorne ran his finger down the list, stopping to beckon Holland inside when he saw his face come around the door. ‘ Three different people phoned to let us know they think it looks like the bloke who runs the garage in EastEnders .’
    â€˜We should arrest him anyway,’ Kitson said. ‘For crimes against acting.’
    Thorne looked up at Holland.
    â€˜Had a call I think you might be interested in,’ Holland said.
    â€˜Don’t tell me. The killer looks like someone in Emmerdale .’
    Holland dropped a scrap of paper on to Thorne’s desk: a scribbled name and number. ‘He’s a DI in Leicester. Someone up there saw Jesmond on TV last night talking about the Walker murder and thought it sounded