Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Be the obvious thing,’ Cornish said. ‘It’s flowing so fast in some places, they’d be gone like that.’ He clicked his fingers and sat back. ‘In terms of getting rid of bodies, weather like this is pretty useful.’

  ‘You would have thought one of them might have turned up by now though,’ Thorne said. ‘Even if it’s fifty miles away.’

  Cornish looked at him, rolled his e-cig between thumb and first finger. ‘You would have thought.’

  ‘So, what’s Bates saying?’ Interesting as it was to learn about e-cigarettes and the logistic headaches that went with searching in bad weather, this was what Thorne had come to find out.

  Cornish would have known that too, but appeared to have little problem with it. ‘He’s given us a written statement,’ he said.

  ‘Saying?’

  ‘Saying he picked Poppy up when she was heading to Tamworth on a night out and took her as far as the bus stop three miles out of town. About half past six, he reckons, though he can’t be sure. We’ve checked and the bus she would have been waiting for stopped there at six forty-seven. She wasn’t there to get on it. So, he doesn’t deny picking her up . . . well, he can’t really, there were too many people saw him do it. He wasn’t exactly hard to find.’

  ‘Why was she going to Tamworth?’

  ‘She was going to a bar. Meeting a boy.’

  ‘Really?’ Husbands, wives, lovers; always people worth looking at.

  ‘It wasn’t a serious thing, not according to any of her mates. Just someone she’d got off with a couple of times.’

  ‘He’s in the clear, I take it.’

  Cornish nodded. ‘He waited for her, then went to the bar anyway. Plenty of people can verify he was there all night. So, that leaves Mr Bates, right at the top of a list of one.’

  ‘What about the first girl?’

  ‘Says he never picked her up, so we’re obviously keen on finding something in his crappy little car. A spot of blood, a strand of the girl’s hair, whatever. They’re pulling out the stops, top priority, all that, so I’m hoping to get some good news later tonight or first thing in the morning.’ He hit the e-cig again. ‘I get that, I’m charging him.’

  ‘If not?’

  ‘I’m probably charging him anyway. We’ve got enough.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’ Thorne saw Cornish glance at his watch. ‘Listen, I’ll get out of your way . . . ’

  ‘Bloody nasty,’ Cornish said. He puffed out his cheeks. ‘That business on the island.’

  Thorne took a second or two to respond, tried not to look quite as taken unaware as he was. ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Seriously. You OK?’

  The physical injuries Thorne had sustained on Bardsey Island were not life-threatening. A patch-up at a local hospital and a couple of sessions in the dentist’s chair had been all that was needed. He knew Cornish was not talking about that.

  He stood up, blinked away an unwelcome image. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ Cornish stood up too.

  ‘I like your suit,’ Thorne said, keen to take the conversation elsewhere.

  Cornish glanced down, as if he’d been unaware he was wearing it. He nodded and pointed at Thorne, the e-cigarette still held between his fingers. ‘Well, clearly you flash boys in the Met can get away with not making quite as much effort.’

  Thorne shrugged. He was wearing jeans and Timberlands, a brown leather jacket over a thick sweater, that dirty Hank Williams T-shirt underneath. ‘I’m on holiday.’

  ‘Oh yeah, course you are. I forgot.’ Cornish smiled. ‘You and your girlfriend. Detective Sergeant Weeks works on a child abuse investigation team, that right?’

  Thorne blinked again, said nothing. Cornish had not got that information from the newspapers.

  ‘You should make the most of your free time,’ Cornish said. ‘I mean, obviously the weather’s a bit grim, but there’s still plenty to see around here.’ His eyes widened at an idea. ‘Actually, there’s a fantastic model village in Shuttington if you’re interested.’

  ‘Not sure that’s my thing,’ Thorne said.

  Cornish laughed. ‘Yeah, well it’s under a foot of water at the moment anyway. Like a real village has been hit by a giant tidal wave or something. Bloody freaky, actually. Seriously though, head off from Polesford in any direction, get well away from the flooding obviously, there’s some gorgeous countryside. Good as anywhere.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Thorne put his hands in his pockets and took a step towards the door.

  Cornish came around his desk, his hand outstretched. ‘Stay in touch though, whatever,’ he said.

  He looked as though he meant it.

  EIGHT

  They thought it was all about sex, they always did.

  The fact that both girls had been nice to look at was important of course, but not for the reason the police thought. Hard for your average copper to see that, he knew very well. To lift their head out of the gutter.

  In the car, both of them had been talkative, happy to rabbit on about all sorts; at least they were up until that moment when he’d slowed down and turned off the main road. Quiet as mice once he’d pulled over and switched the engine off. The look on their faces right then, that was what it was really about. Right then, of course, the girls thought it was all about sex too. Bracing themselves for it, like there weren’t any men around who could possibly have anything else in mind.

  Men, obviously, always men.

  That’s who the police would have been looking for from the off and it made sense, statistically if for no other reason. There was always the odd one of these when a woman was involved, or sometimes a woman helping a man, but they could be fairly confident they were after a bloke. The father was usually the first one they cast a beady eye over. Course it was. Too many times in the past when dads had blubbed away for the cameras, voices breaking as they stared out and begged for the safe return of their precious darlings, knowing full well they were safely tucked away in the loft or pushing up daisies on the allotment. Had to be sure that wasn’t likely to happen, didn’t they? So, the dad would have to be eliminated before anyone else was looked at.

  It was probably how this one had gone, he reckoned. At least until the second girl, when witnesses had come forward, the ones who’d seen Poppy getting into the car. All change then, of course, once they had a description, a few letters from a registration plate. Just coppering by numbers from that point. Then it would be about the tech stuff: the search for fingerprints and DNA, the trawling through computer files, all of that.

  Sex would come up again then, more than likely. The things they discovered. Skeletons more likely to be found on a hard drive than in a cupboard these days.

  He wasn’t going to deny that it was there in the mix.

  He’d certainly felt something, turning to look at those girls, as they’d tried to shift back towards the passenger door. Coming down the steps to the first one, pushing the food towards her, whispering in the dark. The worst thing about what was happening now was having to leave the second girl; being unable to visit. How would she be feeling, stuck there on her own?

  What would she think of him?

  He sits and works everything through and wonders how much Cornish has actually got already. He thinks back, imagining what it would be like to be one of the coppers on the case. He takes each of those steps through the investigation since that first, frantic call from Jessica Toms’ parents.

  House to house, alibis checked, that nice close look at mum and dad.

  Then there are the questions; the suggestions and the setting of traps. The words of wisdom from the duty solicitor.

  Last of all, he asks himself if there’s enough to bring a charge if those boys in the lab come up empty-handed for some reason. All hypothetical of course, but he would never have done any of this without a good deal of thought. />
  He’s not worried.

  He knows what they’ll find in the car.

  NINE

  Linda had been upstairs with her kids for fifteen minutes. Charli had not returned, Danny had not shown his face at all, and finally, the music that had been the soundtrack to conversation downstairs for the last couple of hours had been turned off. Helen guessed that Linda was trying to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

  Helen stood, drinking tea in the kitchen with Sophie Carson and one of the uniformed officers, a much shorter woman whose name was Gallagher. With little else to do, the second PC had stayed in the living room to watch Countdown.

  ‘I reckon she’s dead to the world up there by now,’ Carson said. ‘I saw some tranquillisers.’

  ‘You can hardly blame her,’ Gallagher said. A harsh Scottish accent belied the woman’s round, soft face, the smattering of freckles.

  Helen nodded, thinking: Saw them or found them?

  It didn’t much matter. Helen knew that Carson and the other family liaison officers were doing a job that went far beyond the dispensing of tea and sympathy. That stuff was important, obviously, but primarily they were there as investigators. They were in the house to observe the way the family worked, in the hope that something they saw might indirectly help the inquiry. On a basic level, they were looking for signs of disharmony, anything which might suggest that the crimes under investigation had their root in something that was happening at home. It was established practice. It was crucial to establish anything his wife might know, or suspect, and studying the family would help them draw a clearer picture of the kind of man Stephen Bates was.

  The same went for the children.

  As someone whose job it was to catch those who abused children, Helen knew very well what else Carson and the others were on the lookout for. In a case of this nature, where the victims were children, it was important to keep a watchful eye on Bates’ own; for any indication that the crimes for which he had been arrested might not be the first he had committed.

  It was delicate and complex work. The immediate family of anyone arrested in these circumstances was unlikely to be behaving normally. Charli and Danny Bates would be traumatised, and that could manifest itself in moods or actions similar to those displayed by the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

  It took training and experience to see the difference.

  ‘I wonder if she was on them before,’ Carson said.

  Helen said, ‘What?’

  ‘The tablets.’

  Gallagher nodded, as though this might be significant.

  Though it would all have changed once the second girl had gone missing, Helen knew equally well that for the first few days after Poppy Johnston had disappeared, the police would have been watching her parents equally closely. That was the way it worked. You watched and you asked yourself simple questions. How were things at home? Had the girl any reason to go missing and was it something she had done before?

  Was she from a ‘good family’?

  Helen knew that, though they might use the excuse of statistics or simple experience, there were some coppers for whom it came down to prejudice, pure and simple. If they were looking for the missing child of Surrey stockbrokers with nice cars in the drive, those investigating would usually be more concerned than if the child’s parents had blue-collar jobs or claimed benefits.

  It was a largely unspoken protocol and one which always made Helen uncomfortable.

  ‘What if she was?’ Helen asked. ‘I know plenty of people who need a happy pill or three to get through the day.’

  Carson said, ‘True,’ and sipped her tea. ‘More than a few coppers, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I think I’ll stick with a large gin and tonic,’ Gallagher said.

  Helen laughed along, thinking about the bottle of Diazepam at the back of the cupboard next to her bed, the few tablets that were still left. She had taken the drug twice: once in the months after Alfie had been born and Paul buried, and later, for a few weeks following the armed siege during which she had been held hostage. An incident which had left her with a repeat prescription and a new partner in Tom Thorne.

  She sometimes thought the two things complemented one another pretty well.

  ‘You come back here a lot then?’ Carson asked.

  Helen shook her head. ‘First time in a while.’

  ‘No family left?’

  ‘Not here.’

  They all looked up automatically at a creaking from above them; the noise of someone turning over in bed.

  ‘Must be weird,’ Gallagher said. ‘Seeing Linda again after so long.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Helen said. ‘Circumstances don’t exactly help.’

  ‘What was she like at school?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . we were all a bit wild, I suppose. Growing up in a place like this, there’s not a fat lot to do except drink as much as possible and chase lads. I seem to remember she did plenty of that.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’ Carson asked.

  ‘More than Linda did, probably.’ Helen wrapped fingers around her mug, remembering. ‘Listening to grunge in somebody’s bedroom. Sneaking into some pub or other, dressed like a tramp with a bottle of cider in my pocket.’

  Gallagher looked at Carson. ‘What’s grunge?’

  Carson was younger than Helen, but even she looked askance at Gallagher’s question. ‘Bloody hell, maybe you should be upstairs with Charli, chilling to a bit of trance or whatever the hell that was.’ She rolled her eyes at Helen, said, ‘So, what’s your mate doing? Thorne.’

  It sounded an innocent enough question and Helen decided it was probably best not to let Carson know that Thorne was more than just a mate. ‘No idea,’ she said. Helen was not sure where Thorne was, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t sightseeing.

  There was another noise from upstairs. If Linda was asleep, it did not sound as if it was remotely peaceful.

  ‘How long should we let her sleep for?’ Gallagher asked.

  The question was aimed at Carson, but Helen took it upon herself to answer. ‘Long as possible,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a statement at five o’clock. She’ll want to be up for that.’

  ‘I’ll wake her just before then,’ Helen said.

  Carson leaned back against one of the worktops. ‘Nothing earth-shattering, I don’t suppose. Not heard anything that makes me think her old man’s copping to anything.’

  ‘You’re presuming there’s something to cop to.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t had forensics back yet, but I wouldn’t bet against it.’ She looked at Helen, saw something she didn’t appear to like. ‘You weren’t here when we nicked him.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘You get a sense, don’t you? Somebody’s innocent, they react like they are.’

  Helen pretended to consider the theory for a moment or two. ‘I’ve nicked people who’ve been abusing kids for donkey’s years. Aggressive, predatory paedophiles. Then you turn up on their doorsteps and it’s like you’re arresting Mother Teresa.’

  Carson wasn’t having it. ‘Bates didn’t exactly look shocked, that’s all I’m saying.’ She glanced at the ceiling. ‘Neither did she, come to that.’

  ‘Well, we know he had the girl in his car, and he must know he’d been seen, so maybe he was expecting the knock.’

  ‘Looked like more than that to me,’ Carson said.

  Helen carried her mug across to the sink and rinsed it out. She let the water run longer than was necessary and stared out through the back window. The heavy rain had petered out into drizzle. The beds were bare, but neatly enough laid out; the lawn overgrown and muddy in patches, but more or less squared away. The weather wasn’t doing the garden any favours, but whoever had lived here, though they had clearly been unable to keep up their mortgage payments, had taken care of it.


  ‘Do they ever cop to it?’ Gallagher asked. ‘Straight away, I mean, before there’s a lot of evidence.’

  ‘God, yeah,’ Carson said. She was clearly someone who enjoyed bestowing the benefit of her experience on others. ‘Some of them are proud as punch. Can’t wait to spill their guts.’

  Gallagher nodded slowly. ‘Oh yeah, I suppose. The ones who enjoy it.’

  ‘You worked on anything like this before?’ Helen asked the PC.

  Carson stared at her. ‘You want to see her CV?’

  ‘Only asking,’ Helen said.

  ‘Look, you might have rank on both of us, but as far as I understand it you’re only here as a friend of Linda’s, right?’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘Right. It’s just that I’m not quite sure why you’re suddenly quizzing officers about their job experience.’ Carson smiled, quick and thin, her point made. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘I’m just making conversation,’ Helen said.

  Gallagher shrugged, the freckles disappearing as she reddened slightly. ‘I’m usually with the victims,’ she said. ‘Family that have lost someone or whatever. It’s different being with the suspect’s family, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not dealing with grief.’

  Helen remembered the look on Linda’s face when she had said that her husband was innocent. Helen did not know if it was true and she suspected that Linda didn’t either. She could still feel those fingers digging in, nails bitten down to the quick.

  Helen looked at Carson, then at Gallagher. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You are.’

  TEN

  Thorne was not sightseeing exactly, but he wanted to see what the police had to say at the daily press statement and, with half an hour to kill before then, he decided to take another look around the centre of town. There were streets he hadn’t got to yet. He wanted to get the feel of the place and see if he could locate any of those nice bits Helen had mentioned.

  ‘Make the most of your free time,’ Cornish had said.