Scaredy cat by Mark Billingham Page B

as easily.
    It wasn't fair. She felt that her behaviour was being judged. Maybe right now, Thorne was telling somebody else, Holland probably, how.., hard she was. There was no middle ground as a woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hard, or emotionally unstable. Actually, hard-faced was a favourite with female colleagues. Usually followed by bitch or cow. She was sure that Tom Thorne wouldn't be crying about anything. As it was, there had been quite a few times lately when she'd woken up and been pretty sure that she had been crying. She could never be positive of course, however puffy she looked, or fucked up she felt. She certainly wasn't going to ask whoever she might have woken up next to, for the details. Conversation of any sort, by that point, would be kept to a bare minimum in an effort to get rid of them as fast as possible.
    She knew what those at work who guessed at her domestic arrangements would make of them. For this reason she did her best to ensure that it stayed as guesswork only. She wasn't frigid, so there was only one other option wasn't there? It was a small jump for a small brain from 'sexually active' to 'sexually active with superior officers'. There were still those who suspected that any woman rising through the ranks, did so on her back.
    Right. Lying on her back and staring at that glass ceiling... It was nobody's business and it was her choice. A regular boyfriend was nice in theory and a bonus at parties, but in her experience it rarely meant regular sex, and she needed that. She needed to feel wanted, and if that occasionally meant used then that was fine, because it cut both ways.
    All the time she was checking to see what was on TV and thinking about what she might eat, she knew perfectly well that she'd end up going out. She'd been thinking about it all the way back on the train. Staring at her own reflection in the blackness of the carriage window, smoking cigarettes down to the filter and wishing the hours away. She might even walk there. It was only fifteen minutes away. Following the path of the railway line all the way from Wembley Park to Harlesden.
    She'd need to get changed first though. The people she was going to see, like those on the train earlier, almost certainly had no idea what she did for a living, but she didn't want to take any chances. In the single pool of light from a desktop lamp, Thorne sat, trying to keep his mind on death, but distracted constantly by an image that was full of life. Much as he tried to concentrate on Ruth Murray's postmortem report, he couldn't stop the animated features of Charlie Garner from intruding: staring up at him from beneath the gurney, or peeking around the mortuary door.
    He had finally worked out what it was that had disturbed him so much when Charlie had looked up at him in that sitting room only a few hours before. He'd seen it instantly, but it took a while before he understood exactly what it was he'd been looking at when he stared into that child's eyes. There, in that face, in those shining brown saucers beneath long lashes, Thorne had seen doubt.
    My mummy's asleep...
    The smile had been broad and beautiful, but in those eyes had been the tiniest flicker of something like uncertainty. The smile hopeful, but the eyes betraying a knowledge Charlie Garner didn't even know he had. Who could blame him? Now, that child could never be really certain about anything ever again. It was too harsh a lesson and learned too early.
    And each time Thorne saw that face, the flicker of doubt grew stronger...
    When the phone on the desk rang, Thorne started a little, and on glancing at the page in front of him, realised he'd been staring at the phrase blood-spotted conjunctivae for the past half an hour.
    'DI Thorne...'
    'It's Phil. Have you read it?'
    'It's right in front of me. I've... had loads of stuff to wade through.'
    'How was Birmingham?'
    Thorne exhaled and leaned back in his