TT13 Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Doesn’t smell right.’

  Hendricks laughed. ‘If it’s half as bad as you say it was, I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Come on, Phil …’

  Not very deep, the SOCO had said. Not very hard to find. Thorne imagined that yapping terrier scampering back to its master with the dead teenager’s liquefied flesh smeared around its muzzle.

  ‘All right.’ Hendricks let out a long-suffering sigh Thorne had heard plenty of times before. ‘Let me get this banker pancake out of the way and I’ll have a think about it.’

  ‘Cheers, mate.’

  ‘And listen, I hope Helen’s doing a bit better.’

  Thorne said, ‘Thanks,’ and started the car.

  ‘Give her my love, all right?’

  They met at a small Italian place on a square near the main shopping centre. Shoppers moved between the predictable selection of chain bakeries, charity shops and fast food outlets, eating their lunch on the move or squeezed on to benches. Teenagers stood around smoking, talking on the phone; a few leaning against the plinth of a large statue at the centre of the square. A seated woman, eyes cast down, pensive-looking.

  ‘George Eliot,’ Helen said, as they waited for drinks. ‘She was born here.’

  Thorne lowered his menu and looked across at the statue.

  ‘Not a bloke,’ Helen said.

  ‘Yeah, I thought the skirt was a bit of a giveaway.’

  ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Liar,’ Helen said. She seemed in a good mood; certainly by comparison with the night before. Thorne had arrived at the restaurant ten minutes before her and been happy to see the look on her face when she walked in and spotted him at a table in the corner.

  When bottles of Peroni had been delivered and food ordered, Thorne said, ‘All right, smartarse, did you know Walter Raleigh was a poet?’

  ‘He the one that stuck his cloak over a puddle?’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no then.’

  ‘So, how the hell did you know?’

  Thorne laughed and told her about his encounter with Polesford’s resident poet.

  ‘Sounds like a bit of a knob,’ Helen said. She told Thorne that there were always characters like Shelley in a small town, that she remembered a couple from when she was a teenager. ‘Like to make out they’re a bit brighter than everyone else, a bit mysterious or something. Swanning around with books under their arm and trying to cop off with stupid girls who think it’s exotic.’

  ‘Like Ian Brady,’ Thorne said. He remembered reading that the moors murderer had swept Myra Hindley off her feet in much the same way. A long, dark coat and his nose in a book.

  ‘You should watch what you order next time you’re in that pub,’ Helen said. ‘He might be a poisoner.’

  Thorne added Tabasco to the spiciest pizza the restaurant had to offer and Helen had linguini with clams. Halfway through, they ordered more beer.

  ‘Bates didn’t even look at her,’ Helen said. ‘In court. Linda stared at him all the way through, but he didn’t look across. Not once.’

  ‘Ashamed?’

  ‘Best I can come up with.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Well, she was all right on the way there, you know, because she was going to see him. She wasn’t quite so chirpy afterwards.’

  ‘Did she say much?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I told her I’d see her back at the house.’ She lifted her beer. ‘I needed a bit of a break, to be honest.’

  Thorne had made the mistake of adding the hot sauce without tasting the pizza first. The peppers were a little more potent than he had been expecting. Helen rolled her eyes as he quickly poured water from the jug on the table.

  ‘You think she believes him?’ he asked.

  Helen shrugged. ‘I can only go on what she’s told me.’

  ‘I know what she says, but she’s got to put on a brave face, hasn’t she? For you and all the other coppers swarming all over the place. For her kids.’

  ‘She talked about being in denial.’

  Thorne nodded, chewed.

  ‘Only because it’s what she thought I was thinking.’

  ‘So, is she?’

  ‘Look, she’s not stupid. She knows he lied about having the girls in the car, but right now, if I had to put money on it, I’d say she genuinely doesn’t think he killed anyone.’

  Thorne wiped his hands and drank some more water. He said, ‘I read the transcript of her interview with Cornish.’

  Helen opened her mouth, closed it again. ‘You read the file?’

  He had told her he was going back to the station that morning, but Helen had not asked him why. She had been distracted, getting ready to go and collect Linda for the trip to the magistrates’ court and Thorne had not been altogether sure that she had even taken it in. ‘What did you think I was going there for?’

  Helen still looked shocked and confused. ‘I don’t know. I thought you were probably just making a nuisance of yourself because you hadn’t got anything better to do. Sounds like I was bang on. Jesus, Tom …’

  ‘I saw the pictures of the body,’ Thorne said. ‘I saw everything. I’ve been talking to people.’

  ‘Do you not think this is hard enough?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You can never let it go, can you?’ She folded her arms, furious. ‘Poking around in all the misery. Like you know better all the time, while some of us are trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘Helen—’

  ‘You can be such a wanker sometimes—’

  ‘Just let me tell you.’

  Helen shook her head, pushed her plate away. Listened.

  Thorne went over it again, much the same way as he had for Phil Hendricks. The body and the state of it. The dogs. The timings.

  When Thorne had said his piece, Helen thought about it, or pretended to. ‘What about everything else? The evidence they’ve got.’

  ‘I can’t explain it.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘But this is something, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s pissing in the wind, that’s what it is.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  Helen laughed, just once and narrowed her eyes. ‘Please don’t say you’re doing this for me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘Because if this is some sort of belated Valentine’s Day present, I’d rather have had some shitty chocolates—’

  ‘Listen.’ Thorne had not meant to raise his voice, but he was aware of people on the next table turning to look. ‘No, I haven’t got an explanation for a lot of it. For most of it … but even if something’s only a little bit wrong, it’s still wrong, isn’t it? If it doesn’t add up, you do the sums again. That’s all.’ He leaned towards her, lowered his voice still further. ‘Linda Bates believes that her husband didn’t take those girls, didn’t kill Jessica Toms, OK?’

  Helen waited, her face showing nothing.

  ‘Well, I happen to think she’s right.’

  *

  Walking back towards the car, Thorne said, ‘Phil says hello, by the way.’

  ‘When did you speak to him?’

  ‘After I left the station. I was running all this by him. The body.’

  ‘I bet he said the same thing I did.’

  ‘More or less.’

  The teenagers at the statue had moved on and been replaced by a small gathering of Nuneaton Goths eating pasties. George Eliot did not seem overly concerned.

  ‘Best not say anything to Linda. Not just yet, anyway.’

  Helen stopped and turned to him. ‘What exactly do you think I’m likely to say to her?’

  ‘Just in case you were.’

  ‘“No need to worry, because my smartarse boyfriend thinks there’s something a bit iffy about that body they’ve found. Oh, I know your old man’s DNA was found in the grave and the girl’s DNA was found all over his car, but trust me, it’s all going to be fine”. Come on, s
eriously …’

  Thorne had stopped listening. ‘Shit …’

  Helen turned and followed Thorne’s eyeline to the rack of newspapers on display outside the newsagent behind her.

  The most prominent tabloid. Stephen Bates in his wedding suit. A banner headline: CHARGED.

  And a sidebar with a photograph above it.

  Thorne and Helen.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  She dreams about her brother’s boat, and she knows it’s a dream, because this time she’s aboard it.

  The water is rough, drenching her; cascading over the brightly coloured bow as the boat tries to avoid weeds and logs, empty cans and plastic bags. She can see her brother on the bank, but he can’t hear her when she shouts, urging him to bring the boat back to shore. She sees a huge wave approaching and tries desperately to steady herself, but the chain makes it impossible. She closes her eyes, but the water rises up like a fist and punches her over the side.

  She is falling for a long time.

  Her eyes are open as she sinks fast and takes in the first mouthful of water. She can see the man who took her, his face getting smaller, shimmering at the surface. He calls and stretches out a hand, but she is already too deep to reach, already swallowing again. Something cold brushes against her leg and she knows other things are coming for her.

  When she opens her eyes, the side of her face is in the water, pressed against the rough concrete. It is an effort to raise her head, the weight of it, but when she finally manages to sit up, she feels the icy water running down her neck, the trickle inside her shirt. She thinks about what’s in it, this water she sips and pisses; the rotting pieces, dissolved now and drying on her skin.

  She stares into the blackness.

  She shivers, she screams, and the time passes.

  Sometimes, she imagines she can see things in the dark, ragged shapes that loom and then retreat, but she knows they aren’t really there, so she is not scared of them. It’s the stink, and the sound from what’s stinking that frightens her. The buzz, the scratch-scrabble, the snick and flutter of teeth and wings. She knows the flies that tickle her face and the beetles and the rats are only there because there is food and somewhere to lay eggs. Because something has died and because something else will be dead very soon.

  She imagines she’s already stinking of death too.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Linda switched the television off as soon as she got back to the house. She checked to see how Charli and Danny were, wept for a while in the bathroom, then went back downstairs. She moved from room to room, unable to settle, then began rooting aimlessly through the cupboards. In a plastic bag she found a few CDs that the previous occupants had left behind and smiled when she came across a nineties compilation. She put the CD on and stood listening to the first song. She was happy that she could remember the lyrics. In the kitchen, she exchanged a few words with Gallagher and the other uniformed PC, then brought a bottle of wine back into the living room.

  She was halfway through it when Helen arrived.

  ‘Want me to get you one?’ Linda held up her glass.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Helen said. She sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘I had a couple with lunch.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Not bad. Some Italian place Tom found.’

  ‘He all right?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s good,’ Helen said. She was still thinking about what Thorne had told her in the restaurant. Bodies lying undiscovered for too long. Sums that needed doing again.

  Linda nodded towards the stereo. ‘Remember this?’

  ‘Course,’ Helen said. She listened for a while. R.E.M.: ‘Man On The Moon’. ‘I think it was playing when Colin Sharples tried to feel me up at a school disco.’

  Linda laughed. ‘I let him feel me up. It was Whitney Houston, though, if I remember.’ She sang along quietly with a couple of lines from the R.E.M. track, hummed when the words were indistinct.

  ‘I never knew what that bit was either,’ Helen said. ‘Somebody wrestling?’

  Linda took a mouthful of wine, then let her head fall back. ‘Steve’s lost weight,’ she said.

  ‘Really? It’s only been a couple of days.’

  ‘That suit was hanging off him.’

  Helen knew that Bates’ clothes would have been seized immediately after his arrest, that any suit he owned would have been bagged up for forensics. ‘They’ll have given him that to wear,’ she said. ‘There’s always a box of clothes knocking about in the station.’

  ‘Must have belonged to a darts player,’ Linda said. ‘He looked pale as well.’

  ‘He won’t have been getting a lot of sleep.’

  ‘Probably because they’ve not let him, right?’ Linda looked at Helen. ‘That’s what you lot do, isn’t it? Drag them into interview rooms in the middle of the night, so they can’t think straight.’

  ‘Nobody gets dragged anywhere,’ Helen said. ‘And if a suspect was tired, their solicitor would be all over us. We do have rules.’

  They said nothing for a few seconds as the R.E.M. track faded out. They both groaned when it was replaced by Right Said Fred singing ‘Deeply Dippy’.

  ‘Sorry.’ Linda held up her glass. ‘I wasn’t having a go, honest. He just looked awful, that’s all. It was hard … seeing him.’

  ‘I know.’

  They both looked to the door when it opened suddenly. Sophie Carson put her head round.

  ‘Everyone doing OK in here?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Helen said.

  ‘What are you listening to?’ Helen knew that the DS was doing her job, that ears were still being kept open, but for a moment or two Sophie Carson just looked like a woman who was miffed at being excluded from a girlie chat.

  ‘What’s happening outside?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Usual.’ Carson stepped into the room, straightened her jacket. ‘There’s probably a dozen uniforms out there now, trying to keep it all under control.’

  ‘Stupid,’ Linda said.

  ‘Yeah, well that’s the thing,’ Carson said. ‘A lot of those officers would be a damn sight more use to everyone looking for Poppy Johnston.’

  ‘Hey,’ Helen said. Carson had been staring at Linda. ‘It’s not her fault.’

  ‘I never said it was.’

  ‘That’s how it sounded.’

  ‘I’m just saying … if it gets any worse we might need to think about moving you.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Linda said. ‘I’m not under arrest, so you can’t make me.’ She turned to Helen. ‘They can’t, right?’

  ‘It would be for your own safety,’ Carson said. ‘You and the kids.’

  ‘Why are we not safe?’ Linda looked towards the window. ‘You’re not thinking of inviting any of them in, are you?’

  Helen was pleased to see Carson at a loss for a comeback. Suddenly a memory rose up from nowhere of an argument Helen had witnessed between Linda and one of their teachers at school.

  They would both have been twelve, thirteen maybe. They had been given the results of a comprehension test in English; a passage about a gypsy camp. One of the questions had been about the gypsies cooking hedgehogs and the question was about why they baked the animals in clay. Linda had demanded to know why her answer had been marked wrong. ‘They bake them in clay so the spines get pulled out,’ she had insisted. The teacher had shaken his head and handed Linda’s exercise book back to her. ‘But it doesn’t say that anywhere in the passage, does it?’ Linda had said that she knew that was the reason, that it didn’t matter if it said so in the passage or not. The teacher would not listen and told her he was docking her another mark for arguing. Walking back to her desk, Linda had tossed her exercise book out of the window.

  That was when Helen had decided that Linda was clever and liked a fight; that she would be fun to hang around with.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he look at me?’ Linda asked when Carson had left. ‘Steve.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Helen said.

  ‘Yes you
do. Or you think you do.’

  ‘I’ve seen people in the dock do all sorts of strange things.’

  ‘Guilty conscience, right?’

  ‘Linda—’

  ‘It’s OK, really.’ Linda smiled. ‘Why should you think anything different from the rest of them? If I was at home watching all this on the telly, reading about it in the papers every day, I’m sure I’d think exactly the same thing.’ She leaned forward for the bottle and poured what was left into her glass. ‘Funny how your attitude changes when you’re on the other side of it. The way you judge people, I mean, all that “no smoke without fire” shit. Well, you know now, right?’

  Helen looked at her.

  Linda reached behind the cushion to the side of her and took out a folded-up copy of a tabloid. She unfolded it and smoothed it out on her lap, stared down at the front page; the picture of Thorne and Helen. ‘They were reading this in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Carson and the rest.’

  ‘I bet they were,’ Helen said.

  ‘It says all sorts of things in here about your boyfriend.’

  ‘I read it.’

  ‘Stuff he’s been accused of in the past.’

  ‘Look which paper you’re reading,’ Helen said.

  ‘Says he might have been responsible for a man’s death, on some island.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, you’re bound to say that, aren’t you?’

  ‘Listen, I know him, all right?’ Helen kept her tone good and even. ‘Whatever it says in that rag, I don’t believe Tom did anything wrong.’

  Linda nodded. She folded up the paper and slid it back behind the cushion. She said, ‘Well, now you know how I feel.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  The Police Control Unit was even busier than the last time Thorne had been there. A press conference was scheduled for six o’clock and with the parents of Poppy Johnston due to make a direct television appeal for the first time, there was a good deal of activity. While camera positions were being chosen, seats laid out and a small stage prepared, very different arrangements were being made at the other end of the Memorial Hall.

  With not much more than an hour’s light left, the last search team of the day had been assembled and would shortly be sent out to look for Poppy Johnston. Twenty or more locals were being briefed, along with twice that many uniformed officers. While maps were consulted and instructions given, Thorne noticed that several officers had dogs with them. He still found it impossible to believe that no similarly equipped search team had scoured those woods many days before Jessica Toms’ body was eventually discovered. Despite Hendricks’ misgivings, Thorne knew what cadaver dogs were capable of; how unlikely they would be to miss a stinking corpse less than two feet below ground.