Buried-6
shelf supported by house-bricks, Bowie and Deep Purple gatefolds spread out across its Perspex lid and leaning against its speakers. Books and piles of magazines were strewn across an old dining table, carried up from downstairs to be used as a desk: Melody Maker , New Musical Express , Shoot! , Jaws , Chariots of the Gods , a couple of tattered Sven Hassel paperbacks. A Jil y Johnson calendar and a Woolworth’s dartboard on the wal next to the window . . .
    Thorne blinked and looked again at these newer wal s. Smooth and orchid pale.
    There were reproductions of ancient maps, architectural blueprints with elaborate French cal igraphy, posters for exhibitions at the V & A and Tate Modern. Some had been mounted in simple clip-frames while others were stuck to the wal with Blu-Tack. Standing in the centre of a very different bedroom from the one that had once been his own, Thorne decided that what Parsons had said the day before was about right: Luke Mul en was hardly a typical sixteen-year-old.
    He walked across to the metal and glass workstation, surprised to see an Arsenal diary on top of the papers stacked to one side. He reached for it, curious, and somewhat relieved that the boy – though clearly misguided in his choice of team – had at least one passion with which Thorne was able to identify. He flicked through the first few pages, saw immediately that it was no more than a homework diary.
    There was a rectangular patch of dust on the glass, where Luke’s laptop had sat. The tech boys were stil working on the hard drive, digging around for anything that might have been wel hidden by anyone who knew what they were doing. But from what they’d been able to establish thus far, there was no significant email correspondence, nothing on any computerised diary to suggest that Luke had been planning to go anywhere. He hadn’t spent time in chat rooms, and it didn’t appear that he’d struck up a recent relationship with anyone online.
    Little more had been gleaned from the details of his mobile-phone activity. The phone itself had been in Luke’s possession when he’d gone missing, so it had not been possible to check his contacts list, but records of cal s and text messages provided by the phone company had yet to reveal anything that looked important. Luke had cal ed his sister more than anybody else.
    Thorne stared at the dust, at the shape of it, marking the absence of something, and found himself holding his breath. He imagined a young, alert mind racing, and fighting hard as the drug took hold, as eyelids dropped and thoughts slipped into the wet. Sopping and inky-black . . .
    He pul ed down the sleeve of his jacket, gripped it between fingers and palm and leaned down to wipe away the marks from the glass.
    ‘You won’t find him in here.’
    Thorne turned to see Juliet Mul en standing in the doorway of her brother’s room. He slapped the grey dust marks from his sleeve. ‘Actual y, I’ve found quite a lot of him,’ he said.
    The girl rol ed her eyes and walked past him into the room, clearly unimpressed, and unwil ing to discuss anything as tedious as an abstract concept. She leaned back against a wal and slid slowly down it until she was sitting on the grey carpet. ‘So . . . ?’
    Thorne looked around, then back at Juliet. ‘Wel , Luke was certainly tidy.’
    ‘Nothing gets past you, does it?’
    ‘I am a detective.’
    ‘Can you prove that?’
    ‘I’ve taken exams.’
    ‘They must have lowered the pass rate.’
    She wasn’t smiling, but Thorne sensed that behind the studied air of boredom and irritation, it was a struggle not to; that she was enjoying the banter. Her hair was long, the same charcoal as the make-up around her eyes and the hooded top she wore over baggy jeans. Skateboarder chic, Thorne thought it might be cal ed. Or grunge, or something. He thought about asking her, then decided it wasn’t such a great idea.
    ‘What was on the video?’ she said suddenly.
    It took Thorne a

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