Their Little Secret

by Mark Billingham

  She called him Conrad and he called her Sarah.

  That first night together, when they’d told each other so much, he’d confessed that Conrad was, in fact, the name on his birth certificate. Even if it was one he hadn’t used for as long as he could remember. Even though nobody, save for schoolfriends or close relatives – of which luckily there were very few – would ever think to call him that.

  ‘I don’t know why I told you,’ he’d said. ‘That very first day in the coffee shop.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘Even back then,’ he’d stroked her arm, ‘I think I must have known you were more than just another mark.’

  She’d told him her real name too, of course, but he’d been about as fond of it as she was. So, they’d decided to stick with Sarah. He dug out old ‘Sarah’ songs by Bob Dylan and Thin Lizzy, another one by Hall and Oates that they both loved and which she would sometimes catch him singing when he thought he could not be overheard. He sang the name she had chosen for herself, while she scribbled his in her diary or on random scraps of paper, like a teenager inking a boyfriend’s initials on a pencil case.

  ‘What?’

  She turned from the bed to see him standing in the doorway and sucked in a fast breath. He was wearing old jeans and a T-shirt, a ratty pair of slippers she’d laughed at when he’d dug them out from his suitcase, and even so, the punch of pleasure staggered her. As if she hadn’t seen him for days.

  His being there changed the way the air moved in the room; charged it.

  ‘I need you to help me choose a top,’ she said. ‘For the school pick-up.’

  ‘Really?’ He stepped across to the bed and looked down. ‘I don’t know … they’re both nice.’

  She leaned into him, playful. ‘Come on.’

  ‘You don’t need me to choose.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Always.’

  ‘Really?’ He grinned, like a little boy praised for being a good one.

  ‘Even if I’m somewhere and you’re not there, it feels better that I’m wearing something I know you like …’

  It’s the way it had been since that night, from the first moment she’d felt him inside her. She thought about him all the time, obviously, thought about little else, but she wanted him there, part of him at least, wherever she was and whatever she was doing. She needed that sense of Conrad always being with her, because anything else felt like grief.

  Mad, they’d both said. Ridiculous. They were still saying it …

  Falling, that’s how something like this was always described – she fell for him, they fell for each other – and if there was a better word, she couldn’t think of it. Certainly, not for them, the incredible speed of it. However long someone was falling for and whatever waited for them when the fall was over, it was always fast.

  Two weeks, more or less, that’s all it had been. A glance at the next table in that coffee shop and all of a sudden here he was, sharing her bed, sharing everything. The decisions had been made quickly and easily, in bed or afterwards, laughing and giddy with it. Yes, of course he should move in, because there was no point wasting money on hotels, however cheap they actually were. As far his … occupation went, there was no good reason why he shouldn’t carry on, if that’s what he wanted. They would need the money it would bring in, and in any case, they both thought it was important that two people, however much they were a couple, maintained their own interests, held on to their own … individuality.

  She would never deny him that.

  ‘You know what it’s going to mean?’ he had asked her.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘And you’re OK with that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘With me seeing other women?’

  ‘Seeing them, yes.’ Her hands on him in the early hours, whispering. ‘Look, I know there are things you’ll have to do. I know there are certain things you’ll need to say to them if everything’s going to pan out the way you want … the way we want. I know that you’ll have to take them out somewhere nice and spend time with them, and obviously I know you’ll have to sleep with them and pretend that you’re enjoying it, because it’s part of the job. But trust me, love, I’m more than OK with that. I’m always going to know exactly what you’re doing and, while you’re busy doing it, I’ll be lying here in bed all on my own, thinking about it. Where your fingers are, where your mouth is …’

  He’d nodded. ‘A job, Sarah, that’s all.’

  ‘A man needs a job, my love. Needs something to feel good about when he gets home. Anyway, I’ll have my hands full with Jamie, won’t I?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I mean, being a mum’s a full-time job.’

  ‘I’m not arguing.’

  They had taken a few rather more sensible decisions, too. These days, in bed, they were getting through those condoms in the drawer. Yes, they had both got a little carried away that first time, but Conrad didn’t think they should be taking unnecessary risks quite this soon.

  ‘Whatever you think,’ she’d said. ‘Anyway, I’m really not sure how Jamie would react to a baby brother or sister.’

  ‘Yeah, that can be tricky,’ he’d said.

  There were so many reasons to love him already, so many reasons why she knew, with absolute certainty, how very much he loved her. Top of the list though, if she had to pick one, was the simple fact that he had never asked her about Jamie, had never questioned it.

  Not once.

  If what Conrad had done for her on that beach had not been enough to prove it beyond a doubt – which of course it was – she knew that he loved her, that he was hers, because of that.

  Now, Sarah pushed the two blouses to one side and sat down on the bed.

  ‘Tell me about some of them,’ she said. ‘The women.’

  Conrad stared at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to know everything about you, what you’ve done.’

  So, he sat down next to her and told her all about the fifty-two-year-old woman in Leicester who had believed he was a doctor and had given him twenty-five thousand pounds to fight a malicious malpractice suit. The young widow in Bolton who had handed over her life savings to fund a film he was never going to make. The woman in Glasgow who couldn’t wait to pay for the operation his dying daughter needed.

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ she said.

  ‘You just need the right stuff, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Documents that look convincing. A couple of pictures in your wallet of a little girl with cancer, letters from lawyers, whatever. That film one was a piece of cake. I just printed out some screenplay I found online and mocked up a couple of letters from agents and actors. I even showed her one from Benedict Cumberbatch, agreeing to play the lead.’

  She shook her head, impressed. ‘So, what devious schemes had you got lined up for me?’

  ‘There weren’t any.’

  ‘You must have had some idea.’

  ‘I thought about it for like, five minutes,’ he said. ‘But I told you, it wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t think of you as … that. The same way I saw them, you know?’

  She felt him stiffen a little next to her and, seeing his expression darken suddenly, she reached to take his hand. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. The last one was a bit … weird, that’s all. The one I was seeing before I met you. This woman in Tufnell Park.’

  ‘Blimey, that’s not a million miles away.’ She smiled. ‘Might be a bit awkward if we ever bump into her.’

  ‘Not much chance of that. She killed herself after I left.’

  Sarah said nothing for several seconds, then began to laugh. She saw him turn to stare at her and the laughter became uncontrollable. Towards the end, she put her hand across her mouth and giggled into it.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, when she’d finished.

  ‘Sorry … it was the look on your face, that’s all.’

  He stood up and leaned back against the bedroom wall. She stared at him but he was
looking away and those few moments when she was unable to tell what he was thinking were almost unbearable.

  She said his name.

  He looked at her.

  ‘Right … are you concentrating, because I’m going to be late for pick-up, so we really need to decide.’ She gathered up the two blouses and held them towards him. ‘I’m going to try both of these on one more time, and you have to choose.’ She set the tops down again and slowly began to unbutton the blouse she was wearing.

  Three buttons down, she raised her dark eyes to him, and suddenly everything was fine again, because now it was perfectly obvious what he was thinking.

  ‘I don’t want to be late …’

  He stepped towards her. Said, ‘Take everything off.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Thorne caught an early train from St Pancras, and by ten o’clock he was standing on a damp and dull stretch of beach, his face screwed up against the wind as he stared down at the spot where a seventeen-year-old boy had been battered to death almost a fortnight earlier.

  Colin Hatter took a few steps away and pointed back towards the promenade. ‘Can’t be seen from up there,’ he said. ‘Perfect, if you’re after somewhere to sneak off for a quick shag.’

  ‘Or if you’re looking for a place to murder someone,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yeah, that too.’ The Kent DI was older than he’d sounded on the phone, late forties probably, but he clearly took steps to keep himself fit and a nicely tailored suit emphasised the results.

  Thorne shoved his hands deep into the pockets of a brown leather jacket that had seen better days. ‘So, it was probably planned.’

  ‘Whatever it was,’ Hatter said. ‘Got as much physical evidence as we’re likely to get and we’re still none the wiser as to what actually happened.’

  Thorne knew that, at the same time of day nearly two weeks before, much of Margate beach would have been cordoned off. Onlookers with nothing better to do would have huddled together behind the tape like extras in a crime drama, mobile phones held aloft, while emergency vehicles were pulling up on the promenade and a forensic tent was erected over the spot on which he and Hatter were now standing.

  It was a somewhat less populated scene this morning.

  A couple of dog walkers had drifted past them in opposite directions, while an old man with a metal detector was sweeping the sand twenty yards or so away. A somewhat shorter distance offshore, only the red cap and flailing arms of a swimmer were visible, as he or she ploughed through rough water that was the colour of stewed tea and just about as inviting. Shivering a little at the sight of them, Thorne decided that, man or woman, they were almost certainly certifiable.

  ‘Time of death was somewhere between eleven and twelve on the Friday night,’ Hatter said. ‘Poor bugger was lying here until the beach cleaners came on first thing the next morning. Whoever killed him had covered the body with sand, but it wasn’t really like they were trying to hide it.’

  ‘They wanted it to be found.’

  ‘Well, they weren’t that bothered, put it that way.’ Hatter bent to free one of several jagged rocks that were embedded in the sand nearby. Having decided that it was not quite the right size, he chose another one and weighed it in his hand. ‘A bit smaller than this,’ he said. ‘The one that was used.’ He pointed. ‘Just lobbed away over there, afterwards.’

  ‘Tell me about this woman,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Not much to tell.’ Hatter lobbed his own rock away.

  ‘Yeah, you said.’

  Hatter wiped the sand from his palm and clapped him on the shoulder; colleagues now, mates. ‘Don’t worry, I can show you when we get back to the station. The CCTV …’

  The old man with the metal detector was a lot closer now and, as they passed him on their way back towards Hatter’s car, he took off his headphones and said, ‘Lad was killed over there, couple of weeks back.’

  Hatter reached for the lanyard around his neck, his ID flapping in the wind. ‘We know.’

  The old man nodded and tapped his nose, as though their identities were a secret he was agreeing to keep. ‘Got it.’

  ‘Any joy?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Usual rubbish,’ the man said. ‘Bottle tops and old ring-pulls. You never give up though, do you?’ He put his headphones back on and spoke a little too loudly as he began sweeping again. ‘We just turn up every day hoping we get lucky.’

  Trudging up the concrete ramp to the promenade, Hatter said, ‘Silly bastards.’

  ‘Them or us?’ Thorne said.

  Folkestone, where the Major Crime team was based and the incident room had been established, was thirty miles or so down the coast. It should have been no more than an hour’s drive, but even out of season the traffic in Margate was barely moving and, ten minutes after getting into the shiny new Astra, they were still crawling through the centre of town.

  ‘You been here before?’ Hatter asked.

  ‘A couple of times when I was a kid,’ Thorne said. ‘Wasn’t quite as flashy, back then.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all changed round here, mate.’

  ‘You local then?’

  ‘No, but I’ve seen it happen, last couple of years. Dreamland, the new art gallery, all that … and loads of Londoners coming down here and buying up the houses while they’re still cheap. You know what they call this place now?’ Hatter didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Shoreditch-on-Sea.’

  ‘Really?’ The East-End hipster enclave was not a part of London Thorne was particularly fond of. It was all a little … full of itself for his liking. ‘Dirty’ burgers, whatever they were, and shops knocking out overpriced vintage tat that was probably meant to be ironic. A few too many gastropubs serving parsnip dust or garlic foam and more artisan bakeries than you could shake a shiitake mushroom at. ‘God help you.’

  ‘That artist woman lives here as well. The one who did the bed.’

  Thorne looked at him.

  ‘You know, the one who won all those prizes for her bed. Jizzy sheets and johnnies all over the floor.’

  Thorne nodded because he knew what the man was talking about, though he couldn’t remember the artist’s name. What he could remember was how he’d felt a few weeks before, standing in that studio in Holloway, looking at Ella Fulton’s photographs. Flailing around, like that swimmer. Art, generally, was not something he was ever comfortable giving an opinion about, but it was definitely the modern stuff – beds and bricks and pickled sharks – that left him most confused. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said.

  The traffic eased as they were finally able to turn away from the sea and head inland. Hatter put his foot down, the first chance he got.

  ‘So, you reckon this bloke’s a conman, then?’

  ‘I don’t reckon anything,’ Thorne said. ‘I know he is. I told you on the phone. He did a number on a woman called Philippa Goodwin, got seventy-five grand out of her.’

  Hatter pulled out to overtake a lorry. ‘So, how come you were looking at him? Fraud isn’t really an MIT job, is it?’

  ‘She killed herself afterwards,’ Thorne said.

  Hatter was getting rather too close to the car in front of the lorry. ‘OK, but even so …’

  If the DNA match about which Hatter was so excited turned out to be genuine, Thorne guessed that this would probably be the last time he would be asked to explain himself. To justify his interest in Patrick Jennings. He thought about what the old man on the beach had said, and about how, so often in Thorne’s line of work, getting lucky meant a body turning up.

  ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m psychic.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  In an incident room somewhat brighter and cleaner than the one he was used to, Thorne was escorted to a desk and Hatter dragged a spare chair across. He logged in to his computer and called up the necessary file with a few practised clicks.

  He said, ‘Here we go …’

  Thorne leaned in to study the grainy black and white footage; a doorway, brightened by a streetlamp and a pavement wh
ich appeared oddly shiny, perhaps because of the light or simply because it was wet. The time-code on the bottom of the screen read 04/02, 22.41 and a figure was moving at the edge of the frame. Smoking, a head covered by a baseball cap and nodding, Thorne assumed, in time to the music coming from inside the bar.

  ‘That’s the woman,’ Hatter said. ‘Hard to be sure from this angle, but you get a better look in a minute.’

  Thorne kept watching.

  People moved in and out of frame as they left the bar or entered it, their eyes blazing white just for an instant, as they glanced in the direction of the camera.

  ‘Here he comes …’

  A boy stepped out from the bar. He took a swig from the bottle he was carrying, then leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.

  ‘That’s Kevin Deane,’ Hatter said. ‘Poor bastard’s last fag.’

  22.44. The figure in the baseball cap walked across to Deane and now, viewed side-on, Thorne could see that it was a woman. Slight enough to have been a boy perhaps, but not moving like one. She and Deane talked for a couple of minutes, certainly appearing to get on well enough, before she turned, her face remaining hidden from the camera, and walked away. The boy stayed where he was for half a minute, peered briefly back into the bar, then hurried out of shot in the same direction.

  Hatter leaned in and called up another file. ‘Right, we pick them up again a few minutes later, just briefly … here.’

  Another camera, this one a good deal further away. Cars moved, blurry through the shot, a group of lads with bags of chips or burgers. The woman in the cap crossed the main road heading towards the beach, Kevin Deane a few seconds behind her, before both left the frame.

  ‘That’s the lot.’ Hatter shut the file down.

  Thorne sat back. ‘So, Kevin Deane and our mystery woman go down to the beach …’

  ‘Right, and we know they have sex,’ Hatter said. ‘We got her DNA from Kevin Deane’s body.’

  ‘No match on that though?’