Thorne was spotted hovering in the doorway, beckoned into the office and instructed to close the door.

As a man who normally kept well away on days such as this one, blithely wafting the stink of failure in the direction of others, Trevor Jesmond was the last person Thorne expected to see. Had the Chambers result gone the other way, of course, it would have been a different story. Jesmond would have been the first one cracking open the supermarket Cava and saying his finely honed piece to all and sundry.

Failure, though, did not touch the likes of Trevor Jesmond. Not in any sense.

Thorne walked towards the desk, nodding to Brigstocke, who was seated near the window, as he went. Even before he had sat down, Jesmond was shaking his head, then raising his arms in theatrical disbelief and giving it his best, matey ‘What can you do?’ expression.

‘No sense to it, Tom,’ he said. ‘No sense at all. Just chalk it up.’

Chalk it up? You pathetic, pussy-arsed tosser.

‘Right,’ Thorne said.

‘You did everything you could. You did a fantastic job.’

So, it’s my fault? thought Thorne. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Just put it behind you. Get back on the horse.’

Why are you here?

‘Now, obviously, I came in to gee the team up a bit in the wake of this Chambers fiasco, but seeing as I’m here . . .’

Here we go . . .

Jesmond leaned forward, leafing through the papers in front of him on the desk. He nodded towards Brigstocke, and Thorne noticed that the bald patch was that little bit bigger than last time; that even though there was less hair, the production of dandruff only seemed to have increased.

‘I’ve been talking to Russell about this Alan Langford thing.’

Thorne glanced at Brigstocke, whose barely perceptible shrug told Thorne everything he needed to know. DCI was a tricky rank; caught in an uncomfortable limbo between the lads and the brass. ‘Like a cock in a zip,’ Brigstocke had told Thorne once. ‘Up or down, it’s a world of pain.’

‘What thing are we talking about?’ Thorne asked.

‘No need to be arsey, Tom,’ Brigstocke said. ‘You’re not the only one around here in a bad mood.’

Jesmond waved away the DCI’s concerns. He had not stopped smiling. ‘The same thing that took you to Donna Langford’s this morning.’

Thorne watched Jesmond’s smile widen as he enjoyed his moment or two of triumph; watched him shake his head as though it meant nothing.

‘I checked the log,’ Jesmond said. ‘No big mystery. I saw the address you’d signed out to for the morning was the same as the one I’ve got in front of me.’ He picked up a sheaf of papers. ‘I started doing my homework yesterday, putting a small dossier together as soon as Russell had filled me in on this photo business.’ He straightened the papers, laid them down again. ‘So, what do we think, Tom? Is Alan Langford still alive and kicking?’

‘I reckon so,’ Thorne said. ‘Either that or he’s got a double.’ It was strange how saying it made Thorne realise that he’d known who the man was from the first moment he’d clapped eyes on the photo. That without quite understanding why, it had been easier to pretend otherwise. But having acknowledged the simple and seemingly harmless fact of it, he still felt as though denial might have been the safer option. As though he were no more than a step or two away from a terrible drop.

‘Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to panic,’ Jesmond said. ‘Russell?’

Brigstocke was cleaning his glasses. ‘No reason at all. There’s no way a miscarriage-of-justice suit would stick. I mean, regardless of whether the man she wanted dead was the man who actually died, Donna Langford did conspire to kill her husband. She’s certainly not denying that, so there’s no worries on that score.’

‘What about Monahan?’

‘Same thing,’ Brigstocke said. ‘We know he killed somebody, so I can’t see an appeal with any legs coming from that direction either.’

‘Looks like we can all sleep easy in our beds, then,’ Thorne said.

Jesmond missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it. ‘I’m not sure that’s quite true, Inspector. In the light of these developments, we have to look at the Langford inquiry again and it seems obvious to me that, in retrospect, we might have done one or two things differently.’

So, this one’s down to me as well, is it? Thorne thought. He cleared his throat. ‘Such as?’

‘Well, DNA and dental checks are the obvious ones.’

‘She identified him, for Christ’s sake!’ Thorne saw Brigstocke raise a hand in warning. He raised his own to make it clear that he was perfectly in control, that he was unlikely to throw himself across the desk and start throttling the chief superintendent just yet. ‘The body was the same height as Alan Langford and wore Alan Langford’s jewellery. And Alan Langford’s wife formally identified it.’

‘Even so—’

‘And if all that wasn’t enough, she knew it was him handcuffed to the wheel of that Jag because she had paid somebody to do it. Bearing that little lot in mind, sir, aside from the formality of the post-mortem, there seemed no reason to trouble the boys in the white coats.’

‘However it might have seemed, a belt-and-braces approach is always advisable. And it would certainly have paid off in this instance.’

Thorne could not suppress a grin, remembering something. ‘On top of which, I seem to recall a memo from yourself which was widely circulated at the time, implementing a Command-wide cost-cutting scheme.’

‘Hang on . . .’

Thorne leaned forward, enjoying it. ‘“Any non-essential procedures involving payment to external bodies or individual specialists must be carefully considered and if at all possible . . .” Blah blah blah, bullshit like that. With respect. Sir.’

Jesmond’s smile was long gone, although Thorne noticed one creeping across Brigstocke’s chops. ‘We need to cover ourselves.’

‘How?’ Thorne asked.

‘Take the case,’ Jesmond said. ‘Treat it as though you’ve just caught the Epping Forest Barbecue all over again. We desperately need to ID the body, and as there’s now every reason to believe that Alan Langford had something to do with the murder, we need to find him. What do you think the ex-Mrs Langford wants out of all this?’

Thorne told them about his conversation with Donna Langford, about the daughter that had gone missing and Donna’s belief that her ex-husband was responsible.

‘Well, that clearly needs to be another element of the inquiry,’ Jesmond said. ‘We need to keep her happy.’

‘Do we?’

‘She may not have a leg to stand on legally, but she might decide to make a few quid by selling her story. If she went to the press or wrote a book, we could be made to look like idiots.’

Thorne bit his tongue.

‘Let’s give her what she wants,’ Brigstocke said. ‘After all, it’s what we want too, near enough.’

Thorne had no real objection, at least not when it came to searching for Ellie Langford. Her mother’s concern was genuine. And it was not the first time Thorne had looked at photographs of a missing girl and found it hard to catch his breath for a few seconds. ‘OK, whatever,’ he said.

Jesmond nodded and grunted enthusiastically. ‘But let’s try to keep it all as low key as we can, all right? Make this a priority, but we don’t want any bulls in china shops.’

Thorne did not need telling which particular bull his superior officer was talking about. ‘What about Anna Carpenter?’ he asked. Jesmond glanced down at his papers. Clearly the homework had not been that thorough. ‘The private detective.’

‘Right.’ Jesmond thought for a few seconds. ‘She could embarrass us too, if she felt like talking to the papers.’ He looked over to Brigstocke, received a nod of agreement. ‘What does she want?’

‘This case,’ Thorne said. ‘Well, any case, I’m guessing, but she’s keen to do something.’

‘OK, let her get involved,’ Jesmond said. He saw Thorne open his mouth to object. ‘Or let her think she’s involved. Tell her she can shadow you?’

‘You’re joking, right?’

‘As long as she knows when to keep her mouth shut, it shouldn’t be a problem. Fair enough? Russell?’

‘I can’t see it doing any harm,’ Brigstocke said.

Thorne shook his head. ‘Yeah, well, you’re not the poor sod who’ll be stuck with her.’

Jesmond stood up, said that he needed to crack on. To get into the incident room and do whatever he could to build morale, bearing in mind what had happened. On his way out of the door, he told Brigstocke and Thorne that he was pleased they were all singing from the same hymn sheet.

‘What a racket that’s going to be,’ Thorne said.

It was wall-to-wall Job.

The clientele could equally well have been bikers, football fans or braying, pissed-up City boys. Friends, colleagues or strangers, it hardly mattered. Something in their shared experience, in the unspoken bonds between these men and women, caused feelings to run high and wild as bewilderment turned to anger and sorrows were drowned many times over in white wine, Stella and Jameson’s. Had it not been for the stronger smell coming from the toilets, the whiff of testosterone might have been overpowering, drifting above the pockets of aggression and self-pity as Thorne pushed his way to the bar. Walking back to the table with another Guinness for himself and lager-tops for Dave Holland and Yvonne Kitson, he was accosted several times by those keen to give vent to one emotion or another; to pass comment on the only topic of conversation in the room.

‘Bad luck, mate . . .’

‘Don’t worry, he’ll get what’s coming to him.’

‘Wankers!’

Thorne handed Holland and Kitson their drinks and sat down, wondering exactly who that last half-cut philosopher had been talking about. The members of the jury? Adam Chambers and his legal team? Thorne and his? Himself and every other copper in the pub for not making a better job of the case?

Whichever it was, Thorne wasn’t arguing.

‘Cheers,’ Holland said.

Thorne nodded and drank.

‘They’re like arseholes,’ Kitson said.

‘What are?’

‘Opinions.’

Holland swallowed. ‘Every bugger’s got one.’

Thorne looked from one to the other. ‘So, what’s yours?’

Thorne had spent a good deal of the morning with Russell Brigstocke, speculating as to what might have happened in that jury room, but he had yet to sit and talk things through with anyone else whose opinion he valued. He had tried to get hold of Louise, but she had been in and out of meetings all day and able to do no more than leave a message saying how sorry she was.

Kitson was a damn sight less cautious than she had once been when it came to speaking her mind; and Holland, though not quite the wide-eyed innocent he used to be, could still usually be counted upon to say what he thought.

‘It’s hard enough getting a conviction at the best of times,’ Holland said. ‘You’ve got the judge instructing the jury, banging on about reasonable doubt and the weight of evidence, all that.’

Kitson nodded. ‘So, when you haven’t got a body and there’s a brief who knows what he’s doing, you’re really up against it.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘We’re up against it.’

‘Nothing else you could have done,’ Holland said.

Thorne blinked slowly and imagined Adam Chambers celebrating, pissing it up the wall in some West End bar where there were far fewer police officers knocking around. He pictured the jubilant friends and family and supposed that, in a way, it was a let-off for them, too. There would be no need to lie to work colleagues or rewrite their personal histories. They would not have to duck difficult questions when journalists came knocking every year on Andrea Keane’s birthday, insisting that they must know something about what happened to her. Now they could happily let their own doubts about Adam Chambers’ innocence – and Thorne knew they had them – shrivel, until they seemed like something only dreamed or imagined.

‘We’ve just got to crack on,’ Kitson said.

‘Life’s too short, right?’ Thorne necked a third of his pint, swallowed back a belch. ‘But a lot shorter for some than it is for others.’ He thought about two eighteen-year-old girls. The memory of one sullied by injustice. A chance, perhaps, to find the other. And to make himself feel a damn sight better, to salve a conscience scarred by his failure to find the first.

The horse that Jesmond thought he should get back on.

They were joined by Sam Karim, who brought another round to the table just as Russell Brigstocke stood up and made a short speech. The DCI thanked everyone for their hard work, told the team they were the best he had ever worked with, and said that one day, if something new turned up, they might get another crack at it. There were cheers and some half-hearted applause, then the pub drank a toast to Andrea Keane.

‘God bless,’ Thorne said. It was the kind of thing a copper with a drink inside him came out with at such a moment. Even one without a religious bone in his body.

The Oak was hardly the sort of establishment to get done for after-hours drinking, but there was no more than fifteen minutes’ official drinking time left when Thorne spotted someone he knew walking out of the Gents’. Gary Brand had been a DS on the original Alan Langford inquiry; had sat in on a couple of the Paul Monahan interviews, if Thorne’s memory served him correctly. He had stayed in the Homicide Command for another eighteen months or so afterwards, until a vacancy for an inspector had come up elsewhere, and was now working south of the river, as far as Thorne could remember.

Thorne thought it might be an idea to run a few things past someone who had been part of the team ten years earlier. Moving through the crowd, he felt the drink starting to take hold. He took a few deep breaths. There was no way he was driving home, but that didn’t matter a great deal. He had spent the afternoon on the phone, making the necessary arrangements, and he would not be needing the car much, if at all, the following day.

Brand looked pleased to see him and immediately reached for his wallet. They made for the bar. Thorne took a half, though he knew it was already a little late for caution.

‘Hardly your local any more this, is it, Gary?’

Brand was a slim six-footer and a few years younger than Thorne. His light hair was cut close to the scalp and he wore the kind of thin, soft-leather jacket that Thorne thought looked better on a woman. ‘Well, obviously I know quite a few of the lads on the Chambers inquiry, and I’ve been following the case.’ He was originally from the West Midlands and it was still clear enough in the flattened vowels and the downward intonation at the end of each sentence. As a result, he often sounded despondent, even if he were in the best of moods. He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be tonight.’ He raised his glass, touched it to Thorne’s. ‘What an absolute shocker.’

‘We’ve had a few of those.’

‘Right enough.’

‘Talking of which . . .’

Thorne told Brand about the visit from Anna Carpenter and the photographs. About a case that had come back to life as miraculously as Alan Langford himself appeared to have done.

‘He was always a slippery sod,’ Brand said. ‘The type that enjoyed making the likes of you and me look stupid.’

‘The type to snatch his own daughter?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘And what about the photos?’

Brand told Thorne that he had no idea why they might have been sent to Donna. ‘So, what are you going to do?’

‘See if I can get anything out of Paul Monahan.’

‘Good luck,’ Brand said. ‘I don’t remember that animal being particularly talkative.’

‘Maybe he’s mellowed in prison,’ Thorne said. It was banter, no more than that. Thorne had checked Monahan’s record that afternoon and discovered that he had hardly been a model prisoner. His sentence had been increased twice since his original conviction.

‘Yeah, course he has.’

‘He might be one of those types that takes degrees and spends his spare time making quilts for Oxfam.’

‘My money’s on the gym and homemade tattoos,’ Brand said. ‘But let me know how you get on . . .’

They exchanged mobile numbers and Thorne went back to his table. Holland asked if he wanted another, but faced with a straight choice between heading home now or fighting for a taxi later with half of Homicide Command, Thorne decided to make a move. He said as few goodbyes as he could get away with and headed out to the car park, grateful for the cold against his face and the fresh air.

He called home on his way to Colindale Tube Station and heard his own voice on the machine. He guessed that Louise had gone to bed or back to her own flat, but he left a message anyway.

Then he called Anna Carpenter.

He was suddenly aware, as he heard the call connect, that it was probably way too late to be ringing, that he should have called on his way to the Oak, or just sent a text. Then again, a part of him was hoping that she would not answer, or if she didn’t, that she might not get the message he was about to leave.

When Anna’s voicemail cut in, Thorne spoke a little more slowly than he might otherwise have, careful not to slur. ‘This is Tom Thorne. Just calling to say, if you’re still up for this, meet me at eight o’clock tomorrow morning outside the WHSmith at King’s Cross Station. Bring your passport. And you might want to wear something that’s a bit more . . . severe or whatever.’