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client. Thinking through their conversation on her journey back south of the river, she had decided he’d been pleasant enough, if a little condescending. No, more than pleasant, but he had made his scepticism and his distaste perfectly obvious, so she had not been holding out much hope.
    A text message had been waiting for her when she came out of Victoria Tube Station: ‘ Like I thought. Not much we can do with this. Good luck with Donna. ’
    She was halfway through a reply, trying to word a jokey comment about Thorne’s broken photocopier, when she changed her mind and erased what she had typed.
    Luck was hardly likely to help her, Anna decided. She could not imagine where it might come from and how it would turn things around. It would not prevent her having to make the phone call she was dreading; giving back the money she’d been paid in advance and admitting to her client – her only client – that she had run out of ideas.
    Downstairs, housemate and housemate’s stupid boyfriend had put on some music. Anna turned up the volume on the TV. She flopped back down on the bed, muttered a barrage of swear-words and slapped her palms repeatedly into the softness of the duvet.
    I’ve got more important things to worry about , Thorne had said. Well, she hadn’t. She needed the money and she needed something to get her blood pumping a little faster. Whatever Tom Thorne thought about her, Donna Langford had nowhere to turn and she was even more desperate than Anna had guessed when she’d first laid eyes on her.
    There was something about Thorne, too; something that told her she could not quite write him off. She had seen it in his face when she’d challenged him, when she’d told him she thought he might be interested. When she had shamelessly done her very best to sound disappointed.
    She sat up and reached for the remote. Smiling now, thinking about her poor put-upon father. He was a man who could always be relied upon for a decent homily, whether one was needed or not.
    If you want something doing, gift horses and the price of politeness. Always wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident, that sort of thing.
    You make your own luck . . .
    Â 
    â€˜He’s got a point,’ Louise Porter said.
    â€˜Yeah, right.’ Thorne had told her about Russell Brigstocke’s joke: the kidnaps and the country music.
    Louise held out her wine glass and Thorne topped it up. ‘It’s a wonder I don’t throw you out.’
    â€˜It’s my flat.’
    â€˜I’m fully expecting the Pope to make me a saint.’
    â€˜I think that only happens once you’re dead.’
    â€˜See? Everything Russell said is true and you’re a smartarse.’
    They had spent more evenings together recently, at Thorne’s place or occasionally at Louise’s in Pimlico, than was usually the case. Louise’s team on the Kidnap Unit was less busy than it had been in a long time and Thorne had not caught a murder that necessitated too much overtime. Certainly nothing as all-consuming as the Andrea Keane inquiry.
    He had picked up a takeaway en route from Hendon, ignoring the Bengal Lancer – his usual port of call – and opting instead to try a new Greek place a little further south on the Kentish Town Road. The food had been fine, but looking down at what was left of his chicken souvlaki, Thorne wished he had not been so adventurous.
    It wasn’t like him, after all.
    They drank their wine and a silence grew between them, while Louise flicked through the Evening Standard and Thorne watched the ten o’clock news. It was comfortable enough, as it should have been, more than two years into their relationship. But since Louise had lost a baby the year before, Thorne had found it hard to take anything for granted.
    An equilibrium had returned, but it felt precarious.
    Often, it seemed to Thorne, they moved too cautiously around one another,