The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham Page B

seriously fanciable, no question about it and being propositioned by anyone was nice, was a buzz. She was older than Helen, he guessed, probably early forties, but still a fair few years younger than he was. When he’d asked for her to join the operation as crime scene manager, Thorne had remembered exactly who she was and what she looked like and that he’d flirted with her a little when they’d first met. No point pretending he hadn’t. Something about the way she’d spoken to him on the landing had suggested there would be no strings attached, no awkwardness afterwards.
    Just a bit of fun while they were away.
    ‘I called Phil,’ Thorne said. The change of subject sounded jarring, even to him.
    Phil Hendricks. Thorne’s closest friend. A man whose shaved head, tattoos and body piercings made him look more like the lead singer in a death-metal band than the skilled and respected pathologist he was. Someone who remained fiercely loyal to Thorne, though that loyalty had been regularly tested, and who was usually first with a joke, despite his sadness at an unfulfilled desire to be a father.
    ‘When?’
    ‘Just before I called you. He wasn’t answering, so I left a message.’
    ‘Oh, I think I know why he was busy,’ Helen said.
    The truth was, Thorne had called Hendricks because he’d wanted to tell him about what had happened with Wendy Markham. Brag a little. They’d have laughed about it, joked about what might have been and Hendricks would have pretended to be shocked that Thorne had passed up a golden opportunity. Ultimately though, his friend would have been pleased, impressed that Thorne had done the right thing. Having grown close to one another in recent months, Helen was now Hendricks’ friend too.
    Thorne was pleased about it, even if that triangle had proved to be a tricky one in the past. In a previous relationship, his best friend and his then-girlfriend had regularly taken great delight in ganging up on him.
    The silence between them growing dangerously long, Thorne asked himself why he wasn’t telling Helen about the business with Wendy Markham. Would it not have earned him an inestimable number of Brownie points? Wouldn’t it be proof positive that he was not the kind to play away when the chance presented itself? It was frustrating, but the fact was that he and Helen had not even been together six months and he could not be sure
how
she would react. She might well have been delighted, at his honesty and of course at the decision he had made. She would probably have laughed and made some crack about Markham being ‘blind’ or ‘desperate’ but would she then be spending the next few days imagining the worst? Would it actually do more harm than good in the long run?
    Thorne could not see any point in chancing it.
    ‘What did you mean, about Phil being busy?’
    ‘I think he’s got a new boyfriend,’ Helen said.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I called him a few hours ago and some bloke answered.’
    ‘Bloody hell, he can’t keep it in his pants, can he?’
    ‘Told me Phil was in the shower. Said it like he was about to go and join him. He sounded a bit giggly, you know, like he was pissed.’
    ‘Yeah, well he’d have to be to get off with that ugly bastard.’
    Helen laughed. ‘You ask me, there’s a new tattoo on the cards.’
    Though he was rapidly running out of space, Hendricks liked to commemorate each new sexual conquest with a trip to the tattoo parlour.
    ‘Oh well, good for him,’ Thorne said, thinking: Well, at least somebody’s getting his leg over. It made him even more determined to tell Hendricks about the shag that got away. ‘So how was your day?’
    ‘It was fine,’ Helen said.
    It was code, a game they played. Helen Weeks was a DS on a Child Abuse Investigation Team and, as such, dealt with more horror and suffering every day than the average hard-as-nails Murder Squad copper saw in a month. Most of the time she chose to keep it to herself, to keep it from anyone close