TT13 Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne watched the crowd begin to disperse as soon as the doors had closed. The lamps were switched off. Journalists and cameramen climbed into vans or headed away quickly in search of the nearest pub.

  The old man and his dog walked past him. ‘Told you,’ the old man said. ‘Bloody waste of time.’

  Thorne turned and moved off in the other direction and found himself walking alongside one of the reporters who had been firing questions at him earlier, when he had left the house in which Linda and her family were holed up. The man had a recorder slung over his shoulder. He detached the microphone as he walked, wound the lead around it and shoved it into a rucksack.

  He nodded to Thorne. ‘What did you make of that?’

  Thorne could not be certain that he had been recognised. The reporter did not seem to be paying a great deal of attention to him, professional or otherwise, and to all intents and purposes he was simply making conversation.

  Thorne had nothing to say, one way or the other.

  ‘Like the man said, you’ve got to stay hopeful, right?’ The reporter heaved his rucksack on to his shoulder. ‘That’s the line most of tomorrow’s papers are going to be taking, anyway. That’s the big headline.’ He raised a hand as if to write it in the air. ‘Keep hoping …’

  Thorne jogged across the road and away in the other direction.

  Walking towards the supermarket, where he’d left the car, he was thinking about those flowers propped against the gates of St Mary’s school, some of the messages he’d seen.

  Words that had faded, or run in the rain.

  PRAYING FOR YOU.

  ALL OUR THOUGHTS WHEREVER YOU ARE.

  OUR LITTLE ANGELS.

  The implication was clear enough, and sobering.

  Hope was all well and good.

  THIRTEEN

  Helen said, ‘We didn’t exactly have a lot of choice.’

  Thorne grimaced. ‘I’m starting to miss that hotel. Will we have our own bathroom?’

  ‘You’re welcome to sleep in the bloody car.’

  With help from her sister, Helen had arranged to stay with a woman called Paula Hitchman, who lived on the outskirts of town, close to where housing gave way to farm and field. Paula had gone to the same school as Helen and Linda, but was two years younger, and though Helen vaguely remembered her, it was Jenny that she had been friends with. On the phone that morning, an enthusiastic Paula had said that she and her boyfriend would be working late, but that Helen and Thorne were welcome to get there whenever they fancied and make themselves at home. She told Helen that she would leave a key for them.

  ‘Good of her,’ Helen said. ‘Considering it was Jenny she was mates with.’

  ‘Your sister had friends?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘She was nicer when she was a kid.’

  ‘I should hope so.’

  ‘We were close, believe it or not.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘You get older, don’t you?’ Helen looked at her feet. ‘You grow apart.’

  They had decided to get something to eat first. Helen didn’t much like the look of the Punjab Palace, so with little other choice they had parked near the abbey and were walking back towards the Magpie’s Nest to check out the ‘extensive’ menu it seemed so proud of.

  ‘Still sounds like it might be a bit awkward, though,’ Thorne said. ‘If you don’t really know this woman.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ Helen stopped at the entrance to the abbey, stared through the archway.

  ‘You want to go in?’ Thorne asked.

  It was almost six o’clock and bar a distant light near the visitors’ centre, the building and surrounding grounds were in darkness. Helen shook her head and carried on towards the pub.

  ‘Does she know you’re a copper? Paula?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Helen said. ‘Probably.’ She stopped outside the pub and looked at the same chalkboard Thorne had seen earlier. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe she thinks she’s going to get all the gossip.’

  ‘Maybe she’s just being nice.’

  Thorne pushed the door open, let Helen go past, then followed her into the pub. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said.

  The fabric of the building might well have been centuries old, but the interior had been gutted and the refit was far from sympathetic. A bar clad in polished pine and bog-standard pub furniture; the small dining room and snug brightly lit. One whitewashed wall was home to an arrangement of stuffed fish with engraved plaques beneath, the collection sandwiched between a hand-drawn sign advertising various pub events and a poster listing televised Premiership fixtures.

  Thorne and Helen weaved their way through the crowd of drinkers to the dining area and sat at one of the four melamine-topped tables. The room smelled faintly of bleach and a Simply Red track was drifting from a speaker high up on the opposite wall.

  ‘You sure about that Indian?’ Thorne whispered.

  The only other people eating were a family of four: mum, dad and two young children, who began bickering loudly as soon as Thorne and Helen sat down.

  ‘I’m too hungry to care,’ Helen said.

  Thorne wasn’t arguing. There was a top note of cooking fat just discernible above the smell of bleach and the music could usefully have been employed in a Dignitas waiting room, but he had eaten nothing but a few biscuits since breakfast.

  One of the children at the next table let out a piercing scream. The mother caught Thorne’s eye and mouthed a ‘sorry’. The father turned and glared until Thorne looked away.

  Thorne snatched up a menu; images of hearts and flowers at the top. With only a lone, semi-deflated balloon hovering halfway up the wall in the far corner, he guessed that the landlord was displaying a degree of sensitivity similar to that shown by the owner of the party shop; that he had scaled back the celebratory paraphernalia. It had clearly been too late to do anything about the special ‘Menu for Lovers’. One quick look told Thorne that the pictures of hearts and flowers were the only things about it that were in any way special.

  They each ordered steak and chips, a pint of Guinness.

  The food was delivered with merciful speed and, as Simply Red gave way to Adele and then Mumford and Sons, Thorne and Helen put it all away in fifteen minutes, without a great deal in the way of conversation. The couple, whose kids were now both screaming, looked relieved when Thorne and Helen took what was left of their drinks and walked back towards the relative conviviality of the small bar.

  ‘Told you we should have gone to the curry house,’ Helen said.

  ‘What?’

  She grinned at Thorne’s outraged expression and pushed him into the crowd.

  They were lucky enough to bag a small table in the corner, but within a few minutes of sitting down, they were joined by a man in jeans and a denim shirt, who had clearly been drinking a little longer than they had. He stood with his thighs pressed against the edge of their table until they finally looked up.

  ‘Helen …?’ The man grinned and raised his glass.

  Helen stared for a few seconds, then her eyes widened in recognition. ‘Pete?’

  ‘Pete’ immediately sat down without being invited, squeezing in next to Thorne. After a few awkward exchanges, it became clear that this was yet another person Helen had been at school with.

  ‘First girl I kissed,’ he said, looking pleased with himself. He turned to Thorne. ‘No offence, mate.’

  Thorne raised his hands: none taken. He sat, listening for a few minutes with a fixed smile, until they began talking about old teachers, at which point he necked what was left of his pint and announced that he was going to the bar. ‘Before you two start talking about whatever it was you got up to behind the bike sheds.’ He asked if anyone wanted a drink, but neither took him up on his offer, which was lucky as he had no intention of coming straight back. Standing up, he caught a look from Helen that suggested she was not altogether thrilled at being left alone with her first love. Thorne looked back, making it clear that it was a
bit late. He could hardly just sit down again, could he? His glass empty …

  Making his way towards the bar, Thorne took a closer look at the arrangement of stuffed fish proudly displayed on the wall. The various plaques told him that there were carp, perch and rainbow trout, all of them caught within the last fifteen years, with the most recent caught just a few weeks before. Thorne had never seen the allure of fishing and was even less convinced about stuffing them. Wasn’t a photograph enough? Looking at the poster further along, he was rather more interested to see that the pub would be showing the Spurs v Manchester City game in a couple of nights. He wondered if he and Helen would still be here then. He sincerely hoped not.

  He found a vacant stool at one end of the bar and waved his empty glass.

  The man behind the bar poured him a fresh pint of Guinness. He took Thorne’s money, brought him his change, but seemed happy enough to hang around. As Thorne took a sip, the barman stuck out a damp hand and introduced himself as Trevor Hare. ‘It’s my name above the door,’ he said as Thorne shook his hand. He nodded at a woman with bleached-blonde hair who was busy pouring wine at the other end of the bar. ‘And that’s my wife, Jacqui.’

  He was mid-to-late fifties, with glasses and grey hair cropped close to the scalp. There was a little fat on him, but he still looked like he wouldn’t have too much trouble ejecting difficult customers, if it came to it.

  Hare leaned into his bar and lowered his voice. ‘You a copper, then?’

  There seemed little point in asking the landlord where he had got his information from. What had Helen said about this being a difficult place to keep secrets?

  Thorne nodded. Said, ‘And you used to be.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Hare said. ‘Is it that easy to spot?’

  Thorne had made an educated guess, but he was right about these things more often than he was wrong. It was a certain … watchfulness he could usually pick up on, though of course pub landlords tended to have much the same look.

  ‘What is it with ex-coppers running pubs?’

  Hare laughed. ‘I reckon I’m in a minority these days. Most of them end up in private security, or else they’re technical advisers for films and TV shows.’

  ‘If they are,’ Thorne said, ‘they’re doing a terrible job.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ll give you “pub”.’ Hare stood up straight, mock-offended. ‘The Magpie’s Nest is actually a hotel, strictly speaking. Well … we’ve got four rooms upstairs.’

  ‘Must be hard work,’ Thorne said.

  ‘You’re telling me, but every one of them’s occupied at the moment, so we’re not complaining.’

  Thorne grunted, drank. Someone else doing well out of what had happened. Counting the takings, while two sets of parents cried themselves to sleep.

  ‘Coppers in most of them, as it goes. Not enough room in town for them all.’

  ‘Yeah, we had trouble,’ Thorne said. He turned to look across at the corner table. Helen’s old boyfriend was laughing at something and Helen seemed happy enough about it.

  A man a few feet away had clearly been eavesdropping on the conversation with Hare. He leaned forward and spoke along the bar. ‘I heard a whisper about tents.’

  Hare took an empty glass from a customer and began to pull a pint. ‘Tents?’

  The man nodded. ‘Well, it’s all right for the ones that live local, or in Tamworth maybe, but plenty of us live a fair old distance away.’

  Us. One of those coppers putting money in Trevor Hare’s pocket.

  ‘I mean, all the man-hours we’re losing bussing bodies in every shift, some bright spark came up with the idea of putting everybody up in tents. Dozens of them, I heard. Those big flash ones.’

  ‘Be like bloody Glastonbury,’ Hare said.

  ‘It’s the weather worries me.’

  Hare handed over the customer’s beer, went to the till and back. ‘Never going to happen,’ he said.

  As Hare leaned across to speak to Thorne again, a small cheer went up and Thorne turned to see a man in a shapeless tweed trilby and muddy Barbour jacket coming through the door. He was thin-faced, the veins visible on his nose and cheeks. Watching him talk softly to the collie at his side, Thorne thought that he could be anywhere between fifty and seventy.

  ‘Here we go,’ Hare said.

  As the man got closer to the bar, the dog snaking slowly between people’s legs, several of those nearby began grunting and squealing like pigs. There was a good deal of laughter, but the man looked less than amused. When he got to the bar he quietly said, ‘Very bloody funny.’ Then, ‘Pint of best.’

  Hare said, ‘Evening, Bob,’ and began pulling the beer. He winked at Thorne. ‘Bob was in here a few weeks back, shouting about how someone had come on to his farm in the middle of the night and nicked one of his piglets.’ There was another burst of comedy grunting from a few of those near the bar. ‘Accusing all and bloody sundry, weren’t you, Bob?’

  The farmer took his beer, handed over an assortment of coins. ‘Well, some bastard took it, didn’t they?’

  ‘Gave me the third degree for a start,’ Hare said to Thorne. ‘Checking to see if I had spare ribs on the menu.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m still watching you.’ The laughter started up again, a few more grunts and snuffles, as the farmer took his dog and his drink to a table in the corner.

  ‘Local character,’ Hare said. ‘No harm in him really.’

  ‘Every pub’s got one,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Oh, we’ve got more than one.’ Hare wiped down the bar, tossed a few empty bottles into a plastic bin, then came back to Thorne. ‘So, you up from London then?’ He nodded towards the table where Helen was still talking to Pete. ‘You and your wife?’ He added a question mark to the final word. He saw Thorne hesitate. ‘Partner?’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Thorne said. ‘She grew up here. I’m just a spare part really.’

  ‘Not sure I believe that,’ Hare said.

  From his table, the farmer suddenly shouted out, raising his glass in mock salute. ‘Plenty of pigs in here, mind you …’

  There were a few jeers and sarcastic whistles as Hare came around his bar, shouting, ‘Oi, keep it shut, if you want another drink.’ He shook his head and rolled his eyes at Thorne, before pushing his way through the crowd of drinkers and starting to gather up empties from several of the tables.

  Thorne could see what the farmer meant.

  If retired police officers were easy to spot, those still on the Job might just as well have been wearing badges. There were five or maybe six he would have bet a week’s wages on. Some were almost certainly staying in bedrooms upstairs, but the place felt like it was a regular haunt for the local coppers too, who would always gravitate to a boozer run by one of their own.

  Thorne looked towards Helen’s table but couldn’t see it clearly. He craned his head and saw that Hare had stopped off at the farmer’s table to make a fuss of the dog. The animal was wagging its tail and lifting its head towards the landlord’s hand. Looking around, he fancied that he’d spotted three or four journalists too. He took a drink, then turned back to the bar, exchanging an innocuous nod with one of those he had seen at the press briefing.

  Reporters with big ears and coppers with pints in their hands.

  They might just as well have added INFORMATION to that chalkboard outside.

  As Hare moved past him and walked back behind the bar, Thorne said, ‘So, what do you reckon then? Bates …’

  Hare thought about it, looking pleased to be asked his opinion. ‘Always nice enough with me,’ he said. ‘Drinks in here a couple of nights a week, has something to eat, whatever. Never any problem.’

  Thorne watched him lift up the bar gun and squirt what looked like lemonade into a glass.

  ‘Nice enough family too. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Rarely is, though,’ Thorne said. ‘People who do this don’t tend to advertise the fact.’

  ‘Fair point.’

  ‘Always the nice
st person in the pub, right?’

  ‘Tell you what I do think.’ Hare leaned a little closer, as well aware of who some of his customers were as Thorne was. ‘I don’t believe they’ve got enough to hold him.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘So, that girl was in his car, nobody’s arguing with that. Let’s say the first one was in his car as well. Let’s say they find DNA from both of them.’ He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t prove a fat lot, not when you weigh it all up. We’ve had Poppy and Jessica in our car.’ He nodded towards his wife. ‘Our boy goes to St Mary’s and you’re forever giving somebody a lift somewhere. Same goes for lots of people round here if you ask me.’

  ‘Different if they find blood though,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yeah, obviously, but what if they don’t? I went to the police and said all this, told them we’d had both those kids in our car. I had a good chat with Tim Cornish. Well, you’ve got to do your bit, haven’t you.’

  Thorne wondered how Cornish had reacted to being told that his evidence was not going to mean a great deal. ‘I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘Just saying.’ Hare downed his drink and smacked his lips. ‘Unless they’ve got something else we don’t know about, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Steve Bates back in here tomorrow night, with a pint in his hand.’

  Thorne was suddenly aware that Helen was standing next to him. He looked past her and saw that her old schoolfriend was now standing with a group of his mates. He was leaning close to say something and they were all staring at Helen.

  ‘Ready when you are,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’ Thorne raised his glass to show her that he still had a third of a pint left. ‘You OK?’

  Before Helen could answer, Hare was leaning towards her. ‘Sorry about this bloody weather.’ He reached to give his wife a squeeze as she passed behind him. ‘Probably spoiled your home-coming a bit.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Helen said. ‘We didn’t really come here for that.’

  ‘We’ve been luckier than some, mind you.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Haven’t we, love?’ She nodded and Hare smacked his hand down on to the bar. ‘Touch wood.’

  ‘Never gets flooded here though,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t remember it, anyway.’