The Burning Girl-4 by Mark Billingham Page B

desire for brutal vengeance. Thorne glanced at Moloney and Stephen Ryan. Both had their heads down.
    "I have no bloody idea who it is," Ryan repeated. "That's what you're supposed to be finding out."
    Tughan tugged at the material of his trousers, crossed one leg over the other. "Has anybody else remembered anything? An employee, maybe .. .?"
    It was 'employee' that made Thorne smile this time. If Ryan spotted it, he didn't react. He shook his head, and for fifteen seconds they sat in silence.
    "What about these leads you mentioned?" Stephen Ryan looked at Thorne like he was a shit-stain trodden into a white shag pile
    "Thank you," Thorne said. "We'd almost forgotten. Does the name Izzigil mean anything at al ?"
    Shaking heads and upturned palms. Stephen Ryan ran a hand across his closely cropped black hair.
    "Are you sure?"
    "Is this now a formal interview?" Moloney asked. "We should get the brief in here, Mr. Ryan."
    Ryan raised a hand. "You did say this was just a chat, Mr. Tughan."
    "Nothing sinister," Tughan said.
    Thorne nodded, paused. "So, that's a definite "no" on Izzigil, then?" He nodded to Tughan, who reached into his briefcase and took out a couple of ten-by-eights.
    "What about these?" Tughan asked.
    Thorne pushed aside the papers and magazines, took the pictures from Tughan and dropped them on to the table. "Does anybody recognise these two?"
    Sighs from Stephen Ryan and Marcus Moloney as they leaned forward. Bil y Ryan picked up one of the pictures, a stil from CCTV footage on Green Lanes, taken nearly three weeks earlier: a fuzzy shot of two boys running; two boys they presumed to have been running away from Muslum Izzigil's video shop, having just hurled a four-foot metal bin through the window.
    "Look like any pair of herberts up to no good," Ryan said. "Ten a fucking penny. Marcus?"
    Moloney shook his head.
    Stephen Ryan looked over at Thorne, eyes wide. "Is it Ant and
    Dec?" He cackled at his joke, turning to share it with Moloney.
    Tughan gathered up the pictures and pushed himself up from the sofa. "We'l get out of your way, then .. ."
    Moloney and Stephen Ryan stayed where they were as Bil y Ryan showed Tughan and Thorne out. The receptionist gave Thorne a hard look as he passed. Thorne winked at him.
    Ryan stopped at the door. "What this arse hole doing, the cutting, you know? It's not on. I've been in business a long time, I've seen some shocking stuff."
    "I bet you have," Thorne said.
    Ryan didn't hear the dig, or chose to ignore it. He shook his head, looking thoroughly disgusted. "Fucking "X-Man" .. ."
    It didn't surprise Thorne that Ryan knew exactly what it was that the kil er did to his victims. Three of them had been found by Ryan's own men, after al . The nickname, though, was something else something that, as far as Thorne was aware, had been confined to Becke House. Obviously, Ryan was a man with plenty of contacts, and Thorne was not naive enough to believe that they wouldn't include a few who were eager to top up a Metropolitan Police salary.
    Thorne asked the question as if it were an afterthought. "What does the name Gordon Rooker mean to you, Mr. Ryan?"
    There was a reaction, no question. Fleeting and impossible to define. Anger, fear, shock, amazement? It could have been any one of them.
    "Another arse hole Ryan said, eventual y. "And one who I haven't had to think about for a very long time."
    The three of them stood, saying nothing, the smel of aftershave overpowering close-up, until Ryan turned and walked quickly back towards his office.
    The light had been dimming when they'd arrived. Now it had gone altogether. Turning the corner into the unlit side-street, Thorne was disappointed to see that the Rover didn't at least have a window broken.
    "Who's Gordon Rooker?" Tughan asked.
    "Just a name that came up. I was barking up the wrong tree .. ."
    Tughan gave him a long look. He pressed a button on his keyring to unlock the car, walked round to open the driver's door. "Listen, it's