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of mine.’
    ‘That’s nice for you,’ Thorne said.
    ‘He’s a good officer.’
    ‘I never said he wasn’t.’
    ‘Good. Besides, Paul isn’t one of mine, so no point coming crying to me with some sort of complaint.’
    ‘Nobody’s crying to anyone.’
    ‘Even better,’ Hackett said.
    ‘I just think that someone might want to take another look at it,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s all.’
    ‘Someone like me?’
    ‘It can’t hurt, can it?’
    Hackett sat back and reached to pat down sandy-coloured hair that was swept back from a widow’s peak. Fat-faced as he was, his head still appeared small by comparison with the rest of him. ‘I might be missing something here, but haven’t you already signed off on this?’
    ‘I didn’t have a lot of choice,’ Thorne said.
    ‘But you’re not happy.’
    Thorne paused, wanting to choose his words carefully. ‘I didn’t get the impression that it was being taken seriously.’
That
I
was being taken seriously
.
    ‘This would be the insulin bottle without a label,’ Hackett said. ‘And the fact that the old lady took her teeth out.’
    ‘Sir,’ Thorne said. That, and something else. A part of the picture that did not make sense, but which stubbornly refused to dislodge itself from the silt in Thorne’s mind and bob to the surface. ‘Look, I know it sounds a bit… thin.’
    ‘Thin? It’s bloody anorexic.’ Hackett shook his head. ‘You do know that the old man was a retired doctor, don’t you? I mean, there’s your insulin mystery solved.’
    ‘No,’ Thorne said. ‘I didn’t know that.’
    Hackett leaned forward. ‘Listen, if I’d been there, I would have done exactly the same as DI Binns and I wouldn’t have been nearly as reasonable about it. It’s not like we haven’t got enough genuine murders on the books right this minute.’
    ‘It didn’t feel right,’ Thorne said.
    Hackett laughed. ‘Oh Christ, are you talking about a “hunch”?’
    ‘No, sir—’
    ‘I’ve heard all sorts about you, mate, but nobody ever said you were one of those idiots.’
    ‘I’m not,’ Thorne said. Simple, measured. The truth.
    ‘So what, then?’ Hackett had stopped laughing. His face darkened and he suddenly looked in the mood for a scrap. ‘What does “right” mean, exactly, Inspector? Right, like the shit you pulled a few months back? Right, like forcing a civilian into the middle of an armed siege?’
    Thorne felt the blood move fast to his face. The case with Helen. When everything had fallen apart.
    ‘Oh, I know all about it,’ Hackett said. ‘I know that you messed up big time and that you cut one or two other corners that we won’t bother bringing up now, and that’s why you got bumped off the Murder Squad. It’s why you’re working downstairs on the other side of that bridge and hating every bloody minute of it.’ He leaned forward. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’
    ‘I’m hating every minute of
this
,’ Thorne said.
    Hackett smiled. ‘I know you’re hating it, because I know damn well that I’d hate it too. So, it strikes me you’ve only got two options.’
    ‘I’m guessing you’re going to tell me what they are.’
    The DCI pointed a fat pink finger. ‘You’re the one taking up
my
time, remember. So, stop being a smartarse and listen. You can get out. Nice and simple… chuck it in and open a pub, get yourself a hobby, whatever. Or, you can suck it up and do your job. Your choice. If you decide to stay on, you can start by remembering that when somebody kills themselves it’s not
actually
a murder, OK? You can stop playing detective.’
    Thorne stood up and said, ‘Thanks for your time.’
    Walking out through the incident room, he returned the stare of the man who had opened the door, but Thorne looked away first.
    He stopped halfway back across the bridge. He pressed his hands and then his head against the glass.
    Two options.

SIX
    ‘He made me feel like such a twat,’ Thorne said. He smacked his palm against the fridge