From the Dead by Mark Billingham

did to mark the acquisition of a new boyfriend, but he was keen to show off his latest tattoo: a scattering of small red stars on his right shoulder.
    â€˜Looks like designer acne,’ Thorne said.
    Hendricks was chewing, so just stuck up a finger.
    â€˜Didn’t fancy the “Sodomy” tat then?’ Louise asked.
    A few months earlier, a City-based chaplain had made headlines by saying that gay men should be ‘marked’ with government health warnings, like cigarette packets. His suggestion that they have ‘Sodomy Can Seriously Damage Your Health’ tattooed across their buttocks had caused predictable outrage and eventually forced the priest into hiding. ‘I’m going to hunt the God-bothering little gobshite down,’ Hendricks had said at the time. ‘Damage his health.’
    Now, he shook his head and grinned. ‘Decided against it in the end,’ he said. ‘Mainly because I couldn’t fit all those words across my perfectly tight little arse.’
    Louise laughed and said that she would have had no trouble. In a decent-sized font. In capital letters.
    Thorne talked about his trip to Wakefield, about Monahan’s refusal to admit that the body in the Jag had not been Alan Langford’s. About the need to prove that Monahan was being paid to keep quiet.
    â€˜If he’s not going to cough, I don’t see what else you can do.’ Louise poured herself and Thorne more wine. ‘You’re only likely to get anywhere by following the money.’
    â€˜That won’t get us very far though, will it?’
    â€˜Sorry, but you’re not going to get it on a plate, darling.’
    Ten years earlier, Hendricks had carried out the post-mortem on the body that had been found in Epping Forest. What had been left of it. ‘You could always exhume the remains,’ he said. ‘There might be the odd blackened molar knocking around in the ashes. But even dental won’t help unless you’ve got some idea who the victim was.’
    â€˜Which we haven’t.’
    â€˜So, you’re pretty much stuffed, mate. As long shots go, it’s right up there with Tottenham getting a top-four finish.’
    â€˜Shouldn’t you be heading home?’ Thorne said.
    They finished eating, opened another bottle and a couple more cans. Thorne put on a new CD of stripped-down Willie Nelson recordings and Hendricks told him that it sounded as though someone was slowly feeding a cat through a mangle. Thorne pointed out that, as usual, Hendricks had now slagged off both his football team and his taste in music, and asked to be reminded exactly why Hendricks considered himself to be a friend. Hendricks said it was less about being a ‘friend’ and more to do with being the only person Thorne did not actually sleep with who was willing to put up with him.
    Louise started gathering the plates, scraping at the leftovers. ‘Who did you go up to Wakefield with today?’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜Boys’ day out with Dave Holland, was it?’
    Thorne looked for something other than simple curiosity in her face and felt blood move inexplicably to his own. He hesitated, began rubbing at a mark his glass had left on the table. ‘Actually, I took that private detective with me,’ he said. ‘The one who popped round here the other night. Had to take her, in the end.’
    â€˜The girl?’
    Thorne shrugged, pulled a face that he hoped would say, ‘Ridiculous, I know,’ and explained: ‘Jesmond thinks we need to keep her on side, make sure she doesn’t go blabbing to the papers about the fact that we screwed up with the Langford case.’ He knew he was talking too fast, sounded as though he were lying. ‘Pain in the arse, as it turned out, just like I told Jesmond it would be, but there we are. I got well and truly lumbered. What can I tell you?’
    â€˜You don’t have to tell me anything,’