The Burning Girl-4 by Mark Billingham Page B

into a sauna very quickly. Keen to get some air, Thorne stepped towards the front door, just as another person pushed through the curtain. This one was dressed from head to foot in black himself.
    "What happened to you last night?" Hendricks asked.
    Thorne sighed. He'd completely forgotten to cal and tel Hendricks he'd be stopping over at his old man's. "I'l tel you later .. ."
    "Is everything al right?"
    "Yeah, fine .. . just my dad."
    "Is he OK?"
    "He's a pain in the arse .. ."
    "I stayed up. You should have cal ed."
    "Oh, that's sweet." It was Tughan's voice. The DCI was standing over the bodies of Muslum and Hanya Izzigil, a mock-sweet smile on his face. "No, real y, it's very touching that he's worried about you .. ."
    Thorne was stil spitting blood ten minutes later when Hol and joined him on the pavement outside the shop.
    "If ever there was an incentive to solve a case .. ."
    "Right," Thorne said. "Get shot of the slippery bugger."
    "Mind you, he had a point. It was touching .. ."
    Thorne turned, ready to let off some steam, but the broad grin on
    Hol and's face softened the scowl on his own. He let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the shop window. "You look rough, Dave .. ."
    Thorne had seen DC Dave Hol and do a lot of growing up in recent years, no more so than since his daughter had been born. The floppy blond hair had been cut shorter recently, which put a couple of years on him, and the lines around his eyes had added a few more. Thorne knew that very few coppers stayed fresh-faced for long. Those that did were lucky or lazy, and Hol and was neither of those things. He'd saved Thorne's life the year before, and the circumstances the dark, depraved intimacies which the pair of them had witnessed and experienced had rarely been talked about since the resulting court case.
    "I'm utterly knackered," Hol and said.
    Thorne looked at the gingerish stubble dotted across the pale and slightly sunken cheeks. Maybe the change in him was due to responsibility as much as experience. A few years ago, and particularly during his girlfriend's pregnancy, Hol and hadn't shown a great deal of either.
    "Is it the baby?"
    "Actual y, it's Sophie," Hol and said. "It's probably hormones or something, but she's at me three or four times a night demanding sex."
    "What?"
    "Of course it's the baby! Have you had a sense-of-humour bypass?"
    "I didn't get a lot of sleep myself. I was staying at my dad's place."
    "Sorry, I forgot. How's he doing?"
    "I reckon he'l be the death of me before he manages to kil himself."
    On the other side of the road, a smal crowd had gathered to stare at the comings and goings at Izzigil's video shop. The cafe from which Constable Terry had run to see what al the screaming was about had now become a convenient vantage-point. The owner was cheerful y scurrying around, serving coffee and pastries to those who wanted to sit outside and gawp.
    Hol and took out a packet of ten Silk Cut. He scrounged a light from a woman walking past with a push chair
    "How long's that been going on?" Thorne asked, nodding towards the cigarette. He hadn't smoked in a long time, but would stil happily have kil ed for one.
    "Since the baby, I suppose. It was fags or heroin."
    "Wel , you're in the right place for that...."
    North of Finsbury Park, Green Lanes straightened into a strut of what had become known as the Harringay Ladder. Looking at the bustle around its shops and businesses at that moment, it was easy to see the area for what it was: one of the busiest and certainly one of the most racial y diverse areas of the city. Of course, that did not explain the presence of armed police on its streets. A fierce gun-battle in those same streets six months earlier had left three men dead, and shown the other side of the area only too clearly. Harringay was home to a number of gangs operating within the Turkish community. According to figures from the National Criminal Intel igence Service, they were in control of over