Death Message Read Online Free Page B

immediately pictured bad skin and overlarge ears, a tie with egg stains and a vast collection of porn. 'I can't make changes to the settings, d'you see?'
    'Sorry, no.'
    'The phone has been submitted to us as evidence.'
    'No, it hasn't,' Thorne had said. 'The picture is the evidence.'
    'And the picture is on the phone. I can't tamper with the phone.'
    'It's just setting up a simple divert on my personal calls. How's that tampering?'
    'All I'm permitted to do is extract and enlarge the photograph, which is what we've been requested to do. I've got it in writing.'
    'I'm sure you have, but this is just about common sense, right? If I get sent a videotape with footage of a murder on it, and I watch it, it doesn't mean I can't change the settings on my video recorder, does it?'
    'We're not talking about what you do,' Dawson had said. 'There are set procedures here.'
    Thorne's favourite word. It could only get worse from this point.
    'We have to remain sensitive to the integrity of evidence.' It had sounded like Dawson was reading from a printed card. 'We need to be aware of any forensic issues.'
    'There aren't any forensic issues,' Thorne had said. He had done his best to sound joky, but it was a tall order. 'It's my phone. It's not like you'll be smudging the killer's fingerprints, is it?'
    There had been a pause. 'All I'm permitted to do--'
    'This is fucking ridiculous.'
    'Bad language isn't going to help anybody.'
    It had helped Thorne immensely. 'Who else can I speak to?' Waiting for an answer, he had pictured Dawson leaning casually against a workbench, with a Rubik's cube and an erection.
    'I'm guessing that your senior officer needs to make an official request to my shift manager.'
    'It's a very thin line,' Thorne had said.
    'What is?'
    'Between loving your job and bending over while it fucks you up the arse . . .'
    Thorne had only given Brigstocke the edited highlights of the conversation when he'd spoken to him. Though his new phone still hadn't rung yet, he presumed that the DCI had got straight on to Dawson's boss to authorise the divert, and Thorne sat trying to choose one of several dozen equally irritating ringtones while he waited.
    'Don't use any of those hip-hop ones,' Kitson said. 'People will think you're having a mid-life crisis.'
    Thorne looked up. He hadn't heard her come in.
    'You can download them now, you know,' she said. 'You could get some Hank Williams, or Johnny Cash.'
    '"Ringtone of Fire",' Thorne suggested. He watched as his fellow DI ordered her desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper. When she said his new phone looked flash, he passed it across to her and explained the hassle he'd gone through buying it, while she scrolled through some of its features. Though Kitson had heard the jungle-drum version of the photo-on-the-phone story, Thorne talked her through the true sequence of events: the message in the early hours; the picture of a dead man.
    'It's the same as when people show you their holiday snaps,' Kitson said.
    'Like a souvenir, you mean?'
    'Only up to a point. They're really saying: "Look how well off and wonderful we are. Look at where we've been."'
    'You think he's bragging?' Thorne said. He blinked, saw the black inside the open mouth, the wet mess behind the ear. Spoke as much to himself as to Kitson: '"Look what I've done" . . .'
    She nodded, handing back the phone. 'I still don't see why you needed to get this. Why didn't they just send the SIM card to the lab?'
    'Don't ask me.' Thorne did not want to explain that he hadn't known how to swap over his contact numbers. Or the fact that he was rather enjoying his tasty new phone.
    'You could have got a prepay SIM card and put it in your old handset.'
    Thorne shrugged, stared down at the phone. 'Yeah, well, I'll know next time.'
    'Anything from the lab yet?'
    'Nothing useful,' Thorne said. 'Tell me about this knife.'
    It was, according to Kitson, a bog-standard, six-inch kitchen knife, fished from a litter bin in a park opposite