Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne raised a clenched fist. ‘Right on, Comrade!’

  ‘Not funny.’

  Thorne considered a remark about someone getting out of the wrong side of the bed that morning, but thought better of it. It was not just because he feared it might sound obtuse or insensitive, when Helen had so recently been standing at her mother’s grave. Thorne could see that her mood was not one she would be easily shaken out of or questioned about. He realised that he had been second-guessing her reaction to things ever since they’d arrived in Polesford.

  He started the car again and asked how far away the pub was.

  A few miles later, they were back on the road they would normally have reached within fifteen minutes of leaving Polesford. A mile or so further on, Thorne glanced at a sign by a narrow turning and slowed.

  ‘What?’ Helen asked.

  Thorne backed the car up and pointed to the sign.

  PRETTY PIGS POOL.

  ‘Where have I seen that before?’

  ‘No idea,’ Helen said.

  Thorne stared at the words, black paint against a flaking white board, but could not remember why the name was familiar. ‘What’s with the whole pig thing, anyway?’ They had already passed a pub called the Three Pigs. He had seen a variety of pig-related paraphernalia for sale on market stalls in town, there was a collection of ceramic pigs behind the bar in the Magpie’s Nest and pig-shaped condiments in the café.

  ‘Area’s famous for it,’ Helen said. ‘There’s loads of pig farms around here. Polesford sausages are a speciality.’

  Thorne remembered the farmer who had come into the pub the night before, the story about his stolen piglet, and now he remembered where he had seen the name on the sign. It was on one of the plaques on the wall of the Magpie’s Nest, inscribed below some stuffed fish or other. He said as much to Helen, and she said, ‘OK.’

  He looked through the gate to the water beyond: a group of large ponds bordered by grassland with woods along one side and stretching away into the far distance. The land around the pool nearest him appeared to be under water, but not by a great deal. Water was running down on to the road, sloshing into a drain by the side of the car, but it was no more than an inch or so deep on the flat.

  ‘They fishing pools, then?’ There was no sign of any anglers, but Thorne seriously doubted that conditions made it possible.

  Helen nodded. ‘Loads of birds and whatever as well. Formed by mining subsidence after the war . . . ’

  Thorne tried not to stare at her. Her voice was flat. She looked pale and uncomfortable and he wondered again if she was coming down with something. ‘Do you fancy a walk?’

  She looked at him as though he had suggested they strip naked and go for a swim. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Thorne opened the car door. ‘Work up an appetite for these decent portions you’ve been promising me. Maybe a few of those famous sausages.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like it.’

  ‘There’s wellies in the boot.’

  ‘Let’s just go to the pub.’ There was a half-smile when she looked at him, but it might just as well have been plastered on to the face of one of Trevor Hare’s stuffed fish.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Thorne closed the door. He had no desire whatsoever to go tramping across waterlogged fields, but had thought it might do Helen some good. She was the one forever banging on about how much she enjoyed walking, that she would like to do more of it. He knew she had secretly packed walking boots, despite their agreement.

  ‘Maybe later on,’ she said.

  Thorne grunted and put the car into gear. Yes, he was growing increasingly concerned about her, about the moods and reactions that were so out of character, but holding his tongue and walking on eggshells did not come easily to him. The truth was that he was irritated at having his attempt to cheer her up thrown back in his face.

  ‘I should probably just have gone back to London,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you told me you wanted to come back here. I said I thought it was a stupid idea and you said I didn’t have to come, remember? That I should just go home, hang around with Phil for a while.’ His hands were tight around the steering wheel. ‘Starting to think I should have bloody well listened.’

  As he pulled away, Helen said, ‘You never listen.’

  Thorne swore under his breath and reached for the radio.

  At the same time, an unmarked car driven by DC Sophie Carson was on the road to Polesford. Linda Bates sat staring straight ahead, a uniformed officer next to her on the back seat. Linda started slightly, sucked in a breath when the officer’s radio crackled into life.

  Carson glanced at her rear-view mirror. ‘You all right?’

  Linda nodded. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  Next to her, the officer murmured into his radio. He told the Police Control Unit at Polesford that he, DC Carson and the witness were about ten minutes away. He smiled when the woman at the other end let him know that she would have the kettle on.

  ‘I know that was hard on you,’ Carson said. ‘In the interview room.’

  ‘Because you and your boss made it hard.’

  ‘We’ve got a job to do.’

  ‘Right.’

  Carson took a mint from a packet on the front seat, then lifted it up and offered it to Linda. Linda shook her head then watched the uniformed cop reach forward quickly to take one.

  ‘You trying to be nice again, now?’

  ‘I’m not trying to be anything,’ Carson said.

  ‘You certainly didn’t have to try being a bitch in that interview room,’ Linda said. ‘All came very naturally.’

  ‘Sorry that’s what you think.’

  ‘Now it’s back to being all touchy-feely, I suppose. Nice copper and nasty copper all wrapped up in one.’ She was aware of the uniformed copper’s eyes on her. She did not want to turn to look at him, but felt certain there was a smirk there, or close to it. ‘Keeping me on my toes, right? Hoping I might let my guard down or some shit.’

  Carson looked in the mirror again. ‘What is it you want, Linda?’

  Linda closed her eyes. She said, ‘Right now, I want you to get me home to my kids.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  There is barely a breath of wind and the boat moves easily through the water. It’s brand new, red with yellow sails. A clipper, is that what it’s called? She watches it for a few minutes, then gets distracted by a pair of dragonflies dancing together a few feet away. She watches them swoop then rise up and drift towards her brother. He doesn’t pay them any attention, eyes fixed firmly on the toggles of his remote control; tip of his tongue protruding, deep in concentration. Each time he looks up to watch his boat, his face cracks into a grin, matching the one their dad is wearing, standing next to him. Her father has a hand on her brother’s shoulder, muttering instructions, shouting encouragement. Somewhere nearby, Mum is taking sandwiches from Tupperware containers, pouring orange squash into paper cups. Her mother had been sitting under a tree, but suddenly she seems to have vanished.

  She calls her mother’s name as her father gives more instructions and the small clipper artfully navigates a tangle of weed.

  She has no idea why she has woken thinking about dragonflies and toy boats. A memory, distorted. Perhaps she had been dreaming and it has taken a while for the images to resurface. On waking a few minutes before, she had been able to think about little besides the weight she could feel on her legs. Something shifting, sopping; the rat that scuttled away through the water as soon as she started to sit up.

  Her eyes are stinging and she struggles to swallow.

  The tape around her mouth has come away a little at one side and she lowers her face to the floor to slurp at the shallow puddle.

  The water tastes rusty, rank.

  She thinks it’s daytime, but it’s n
o more than a guess. Impossible to tell, in darkness. Sometimes she drifts off and it’s hard to know how long she’s been asleep for, but stretching out her legs she feels as though she’s had a good few hours this time. The third day, is it? She wishes she wore a watch instead of relying on her stupid phone.

  Her phone . . .

  She makes a noise behind the tape, excited. Surely her phone could help. They can trace people through them, can’t they? The signal they give off or whatever it is. The satellite. Then she remembers that he had taken her bag before he’d left, shining a torch inside, rifling through it as he’d climbed back up the stone stairs. He’ll have found her phone and got rid of it, won’t he? He’s clearly not stupid.

  Or maybe he is. Maybe people like him aren’t like the killers you see on TV, the weird-looking ones in those programmes her nan likes so much. They’re always so clever in films and TV shows, always one step ahead, taunting the police or whatever.

  Is that what he’s doing?

  Is that why she’s still alive and he hasn’t come back?

  Maybe he’s told the police that he’s holding her somewhere, that he wants something in return for telling them where. Money or something.

  She sucks in a breath through her nose, the meaty smell along with it, and she knows that if that’s what he’s up to, then it didn’t work last time. They didn’t pay up and he let the last one die.

  She’ll do whatever he wants, she knows that now. If he has just been staying away because he’s waiting for the fight to go out of her then he’s waited long enough.

  He’s won, she wants so much to tell him that.

  She screams, the noise deadened by the tape slick with her spit.

  She thrashes the chain against the metal pipe until there is no strength left in her arm.

  She has no strength left anywhere and she starts to think that’s what real hunger actually is. Not like when you fancy a bacon sandwich or a bag of chips. Hunger that feels as if you’re all but dead. So weak that you can’t think straight. As good as empty, like the needle in the red on the dashboard of her dad’s car.

  She remembers that there was an energy bar in her bag, too, and chewing gum.

  She leans back against the ridged pipe and contorts her face, pushing at the tape with her tongue. She tries to remember all the words to the songs on the last Arctic Monkeys album, but she quickly gets muddled, struggles to get even halfway through the first track.

  She closes her eyes and tries hard to think about nothing. Not food or her soft bed. Not the dead thing that’s floating nearby. Not tails like worms, claws and teeth.

  It was blue, she remembers, not red.

  Her brother’s model boat.

  Blue with yellow sails.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘They showed me these photographs,’ Linda said. ‘Of the body. Jess’s body. Why on earth would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Helen said, lied . . .

  They were in Linda’s bedroom, side by side on the edge of the bed. The curtains were still drawn, noise from the crowd on the street below leaking in from outside; chat and clamour, the occasional shout.

  ‘They were disgusting,’ Linda said. ‘Made me feel ill.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why though?’

  Helen did not know what to say. That it was a stunt, a trick? That they were trying to get a reaction? That they wanted to make her feel disgusted enough to give up her husband? She did not know what to say because she had done the same thing herself many times. Pictures of battered children passed across the table in an interview room as though they were holiday snaps. A bruise big enough to cover a baby’s face, a tiny body dotted with cigarette burns. Fresh, scabbed . . .

  Pictures designed to elicit horror, guilt, a confession.

  ‘It’s their job,’ Helen said.

  ‘I’m getting sick of hearing that.’ Linda looked ready to spit. ‘It’s what that cow downstairs said. Her excuse for talking to me like I’m a piece of dirt. Like I’m trying to hide something.’

  ‘They’re just trying to find out if you know something you don’t know you know. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘None of this makes any sense.’

  ‘Sometimes people don’t think a bit of information’s important when actually it can be crucial, you know? Something they heard somebody say. Something they saw that they’d almost forgotten about.’

  Linda shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’ She kicked off her shoes then moved to lean back against the headboard; stretched to rub her feet. ‘Look, I know they think Steve took those girls. Killed that girl. I’m not daft.’

  ‘I know you’re not—’

  Linda grunted a laugh. ‘They kept on telling me that, telling me how clever they thought I was. Like only someone who was thick as shit could possibly believe he hadn’t done it.’ She grimaced, as though there was a bad taste in her mouth. ‘“We know you’re very bright, Linda”.’ She looked at Helen. ‘I don’t need a copper to tell me that.’

  Helen said, ‘Course you don’t.’ She had done that, too. Flattered when necessary, even if the individual on the receiving end was barely one notch above pond-life. Anything to strengthen a case, to secure a prosecution, to make a child safe.

  ‘They told me all sorts of things,’ Linda said. ‘About DNA results, stuff they’d found on Steve’s computer.’ She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. She leaned forward and gripped her toes through her tights, pulled them back.

  ‘Do you want to tell me . . . ?’

  ‘DNA in Steve’s car, from the girl.’

  ‘Right.’ Happy enough to talk about that part, at least.

  ‘Which apparently proves he’s a liar, because he told them she’d never been in his car. And obviously if he’s a liar then he’s a murderer as well, right? What kind of bollocks is that?’

  ‘They won’t make a case based just on that,’ Helen said. ‘Not on a single lie. It gives them a good reason to take a closer look at everything, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying though.’ Linda sat up a little straighter. ‘They base everything around that and ignore the fact that there’s so many ways those results could be wrong.’

  ‘The DNA?’

  Linda held out a thumb, counting. ‘Simple cock-up, for a start. Some idiot gets the wrong . . . I don’t know, test tube, right? Labels it wrong.’ A finger. ‘Or . . . say it did come from the girl, but it doesn’t mean what they think it means.’

  Helen waited.

  ‘Her DNA could have been in the car even if she wasn’t. What if her DNA was from something on one of her friends? A hair or something.’

  ‘Did they say it was a hair?’

  ‘They didn’t tell me, but that’s what it usually is, right?’

  Helen moved her head; not a nod, but close enough. A hair, only one of many possibilities. Sweat, spit, skin . . .

  Blood, the obvious one.

  ‘A hair stuck to a jacket on a mate of hers, say. Caught on a zip or a button. You know what it’s like, hair gets bloody everywhere.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘These teenage girls going around arm in arm, always hugging each other, you know, like we used to?’

  Helen nodded, struggled to remember. Drunken embraces at the end of a night, cheap wine on their breaths; tears from one or the other over some boy, comfort cuddles . . .

  ‘I can see that happening. That could so easily happen. A friend of hers, a relative or something.’

  ‘Feasibly,’ Helen said.

  ‘I bet I’ve got Charli’s DNA all over me.’ Linda held out her arms, stared at them as though her daughter’s cells might somehow make themselves visible for her; glitter like diamond dust among the freckles and soft hairs. ‘Danny’s, an’ all.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  �
��Yeah, right?’

  Helen stood up and walked across to the window.

  ‘They just don’t even consider that,’ Linda said. ‘Whatever fits in with their theories, that’s all they’re interested in. That’s how innocent people get banged up.’ She watched as Helen pulled at the edge of a curtain and looked out. ‘How many?’

  ‘Twenty-five or thirty,’ Helen said. ‘Maybe a few more.’

  ‘Journalists?’

  ‘Yeah, a few.’ Alongside the predictable crop of mobile phones, raised and pointed, a couple of more expensive cameras brandished or slung around necks.

  ‘How many pictures of a front door can anyone need?’

  Helen turned. ‘You want me to get you anything?’

  ‘I think I might have a lie-down for ten minutes.’

  ‘OK.’

  Before Helen had reached the door, Linda said, ‘You think I’m in denial or something, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think I’m stupid and I’m kidding myself about Steve. Ignoring what’s staring me and everyone else in the face, right?’

  ‘Please don’t get upset.’ Helen walked back to the bed and sat down again.

  ‘You need to believe me, Hel. There’s no way on God’s earth he did what they’re saying. Everything they reckon they’ve got on him, there’s good reasons for all of it, and if those coppers do their jobs properly they’ll work that out eventually. They’ve got to, right?’ She leaned back again, blew out a breath that wheezed in her chest. ‘No way. There is just no way . . . ’

  ‘You should sleep,’ Helen said. ‘Like you said.’

  ‘Hel?’ Linda looked at her, reached for her hand. No need to ask the question.

  Outside, somebody shouted, ‘They should nick the lot of you,’ already convinced, desperate for a police van to bang on. Downstairs, Helen could hear the tinny report of a radio from the kitchen.