Bloodline by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page B

glanced at the images on the computer screen. He nudged at his glasses. ‘Holland told me about that. What are the bloody chances?’ He pushed his fingers through what had once been a pretty impressive quiff, but was now getting decidedly thin.
    â€˜Yeah.’ Thorne knew that his own appearance had changed just as much. There was still more grey hair on one side than the other, but a lot more of it everywhere. He logged out of the website, Garvey’s face giving way to a blue screen and a Met Police logo: the reassuring words ‘Working Together for a Safer London’.
    â€˜Thirty-six hours into this one already, Tom,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Where are we?’
    The DCI could interpret Tom Thorne’s expressions and his curt body language as well as anyone. He recognised the twitch in the shoulder that meant ‘Nowhere.’ The puff of the cheeks that said, ‘Barring our killer handing himself in, you won’t be standing outside Colindale station making triumphant announcements to the press anytime soon.’
    â€˜What’s happening with the FSS?’ Thorne asked.
    The Forensic Science Service lab in Victoria was busy examining all the trace evidence gathered from the crime scene: hairs, fibres, fingerprints. They were analysing the bloodstain pattern in the hope of creating an accurate reconstruction of the crime. They were trying to identify the fragment of celluloid found clutched in Emily Walker’s hand.
    â€˜I’m chasing,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Same as I always am. Tomorrow, with a following wind, but more likely Sunday.’
    â€˜What about the E-fit?’
    â€˜Have you seen it?’
    Thorne nodded. The curtain-twitching neighbour had clearly not witnessed as much, or in as much detail, as he had first claimed. ‘I’m not holding my breath,’ he said.
    â€˜Right. I don’t think it’s going to help us a great deal either, but what do I know? Jesmond wanted it out there on the hurry-up, so it’s out. It’s in the Standard today, and some of the nationals. London Tonight , too.’
    Brigstocke was every bit as transparent as Thorne himself, and Thorne caught the roll of the eyes that translated as, ‘Waste of fucking time.’ Of course, Superintendent Trevor Jesmond would want the E-fit distributed as widely as possible, to show that his team were making progress. It did not seem to concern him as much as it should - with a picture of the killer that looked as though it had been drawn by a chimpanzee - that precious time and manpower would now be wasted taking, logging and filing hundreds of pointless calls, mental or plain misguided, proclaiming that the person the police were looking for was everyone from the man next door to Johnny Depp.
    The superintendent’s overriding concern was always how he came across on screen or in print. He would be doing his bit to camera outside Colindale station later that day. He would dispense the simple, shocking facts, emphasising the brutality and the horror of what had been done to Emily Walker and letting it be known that any steps necessary would be taken to bring her killer to justice.
    Thorne had to give the man his due. He couldn’t catch a council-tax dodger if his life depended on it, but he did righteous indignation pretty damn well.
    â€˜It’s someone she knew,’ Thorne said. ‘Someone who’d been watching. She’d seen him around, spoken to him, whatever.’
    Brigstocke nodded. ‘Let’s get bodies into every shop she went to regularly, the nearest supermarket, the gym she visited. Let’s take a good hard look at friends and workmmates. Interview all the neighbours again.’
    â€˜Phil reckons he came prepared.’ Thorne picked up the post-mortem report that Hendricks had delivered the previous afternoon, flicked through it. ‘I’ve got a feeling he’d been “preparing” for a