From the Dead tt-9

by Mark Billingham

  Who wouldn't want that? Do whatever it took to protect it?

  He picked up the remote again, dimmed the lights and restarted the film.

  But he couldn't get his mind off that copper. The one who looked like he might enjoy a bit of digging…

  He looked at his watch. On the screen, Stan and Ollie lay asleep in bed, a feather floating back and forth between them as they snored in turn.

  The UK was one hour behind. Things should start happening soon enough.

  And with a bit of luck, that would be the end of it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Thorne had heard the voices and was already on his feet when Louise walked back into the living room with Anna Carpenter. Louise was smiling and saying something about a drink, but as soon as she caught Thorne's eye she stared good and hard. Said, 'Visitor.'

  'Right,' Thorne said.

  'I'll put the kettle on.'

  She walked towards the kitchen, her mouth set, the muscles working in her jaw. Thorne put a hand on her arm as she went past, hoped that her irritation was due to nothing more than having an important conversation interrupted.

  'This is obviously not a great time to be dropping in,' Anna said, trying to smile. She stood in the middle of the room, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She had not taken off her coat or put down her bag.

  'How did you get this address?' Thorne took a step towards her.

  'Look, I'm sorry-'

  'And don't tell me it was your mate at the DVLA…'

  'Your chief superintendent,' Anna said.

  ' What? '

  'He gave me his number last week and told me to call if I needed anything, so-'

  Thorne had already turned away and was moving towards the kitchen. He stuck his head around the door and told Louise not to bother with the coffee. When she opened her mouth to speak, he told her that he was sorry and that he would not be gone long. Then he lowered his voice and told her they could continue the conversation when he got back.

  He walked back into the living room and grabbed his leather jacket from the arm of a chair.

  Anna adjusted the strap of her shoulder-bag.

  'Let's go for a walk,' he said.

  Anna had to hurry a little to catch Thorne, then settled into step with him and did her best to keep up. 'Where are we going?'

  Thorne was unable to answer as he did not have the slightest idea.

  'OK, how about why?' She turned to look at him. 'I'm guessing you didn't want to shout at me in front of your girlfriend.'

  Again, Thorne said nothing, unwilling to think about his reasons for wanting to get out of the flat – wanting to get Anna out of the flat – for too long.

  'Sorry, I don't know her name,' Anna said.

  'Tell me about Jesmond.'

  As they walked, Anna told Thorne that his chief superintendent had called her the day after she had visited Thorne at Becke House. Jesmond had been extremely friendly, she said, and keen to let her know that he and his team would do whatever they could to assist her.

  'I'll bet he was keen,' Thorne said.

  Anna had been told she should not hesitate to contact him if there was any question she needed answering or anything he could do to help. She explained to Thorne that she had already been to his flat in Kentish Town earlier that night, and not knowing where else he might be, she had phoned Jesmond. He had called back a few minutes later and given her the address Thorne had signed out to for the evening. Anna said he'd been happy to help.

  Thorne swore and upped his pace.

  'I didn't know what else to do.'

  'Why didn't you just call me?'

  'I needed to talk to you in person,' she said. 'There's some things I need to say…'

  Thorne looked at her properly for the first time since they had left the flat. He saw the colour in her cheeks as they passed beneath a street lamp and watched her hitch up the strap of her shoulder-bag to prevent it slipping. He slowed down a little.

  She puffed out her cheeks and nodded, grateful.

  'Go on then,' Thorne said.

  She took a few seconds, shrugged, took a few more, then said, 'Just… sorry, really. I said a few things in the bar that were probably out of order. I mean, obviously I was fuming, but that's no excuse. That stuff about you being a fuck-up… I don't know what I'm talking about, so…'

  Thorne stared ahead.

  'And mostly you've been really great, which makes it even worse. You didn't have to take me along to see Monahan, or Donna, and I know I was a pain in the arse.' She waited. They were now little more than strolling. 'You can contradict me, you know.'

  'I can, but I'm not going to.'

  'Anyway… sorry for that. And…'

  Thorne nodded. 'I said a few things I didn't necessarily mean as well, so…'

  'It's OK, I know what you were trying to do,' she said.

  'Good.'

  'But that's the thing. Because what I'm most sorry about is that I'm not going to listen to you.'

  Thorne stopped. ' What? '

  'I've thought about it and I've decided to see it through.' She saw that Thorne was desperate to speak, so answered the question she knew he was about to ask. 'Because I need to stick at this. If I just walk away whenever things get tough, it's like admitting I was stupid to all those people who thought I was mad to get involved with this kind of thing in the first place. So, sorry, and thanks for being concerned, but I'm not quitting. I've already spoken to Donna.'

  'Oh, for God's sake…' Thorne started walking again.

  They passed the Chelsea College of Art and Design and then turned left towards the river. As they walked past buildings similar to Louise's, Thorne glanced down into the windows of the basement flats, caught glimpses of people eating or watching TV.

  'I always do that too,' Anna said. 'There's always the possibility you might see someone naked.'

  They crossed the road at Millbank and headed down into Riverside Walk Gardens. The light shining up on to the centrepiece sculpture spilled across the park's braided grass terraces and glinted off a row of metal benches just shy of the embankment wall. Thorne walked across to one, the slats still damp from a downpour an hour or so before. Anna handed him a wad of tissues. Thorne smiled and began wiping away the moisture.

  'What?'

  'I was just thinking about you in the park the other day,' Thorne said. 'Giving that bloke the tissues.'

  They sat.

  'I don't back away from a row.' Anna shrugged. 'Always been my problem.'

  Thorne nodded, said, 'Alan Langford's not just some bloke letting his dog crap on a footpath.'

  'I know that.'

  A woman jogged past, red-faced and panting, an iPod strapped to her belt.

  'Who's she kidding?' Anna asked.

  'Jesmond's just trying to keep you sweet, by the way.' Thorne turned to look at her. 'You need to know that. He's shitting himself in case you decide to go to the papers, tell someone how we screwed up the original inquiry.'

  'Why would I do that?'

  'He tends not to let common sense get in his way. Same as someone else I can think of.'

  'Am I going to get another lecture now?'

  Thorne took a few seconds, let the flash of anger and impatience fade a little. 'Is this about proving something to your mother? This refusal to do the sensible thing.'

  'No.' Anna looked away, watched the jogger run on the spot for a few seconds before turning and heading back the way she had come. 'Well, not just that.'

  'You don't need to prove anything.'

  'I know.'

  'To yourself or your mother. Or me.'

  'It's about feeling something. Making a difference or whatever. God, why do I always sound so wanky when I'm talking to you?'

  'Look, I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong – or stupid – for wanting any of that. It's probably what I wanted, once upon a time.'

  She looked at him. 'You told me you weren't… hardened. The other day, when-'

  'I'm not,'
Thorne said. 'Not that.'

  Anna waited.

  Thorne decided to try another tack. 'OK, forget how dangerous all this is. Forget that Langford has already had three people killed. At least three. Forget that he's clearly willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to the life he's carved out for himself. I've told you all that until I'm blue in the face and it's obviously not working.'

  Anna smiled. 'Fine. I've forgotten it already.'

  Thorne looked hard at her. Made sure she knew he was serious. 'Listen, whether you're trying to catch men who are cheating on their wives or trying to find Donna Langford's daughter, you're slopping around in other people's misery and you can't just wash it off. Do you understand?'

  She nodded.

  'When there's a murder, when there's someone out there I need to find, I have to switch off. I'm disgusted by it, by what's been done, but I can't afford to have feelings towards whoever it is I'm trying to catch. I can't afford to hate the person I'm after. I mean, I don't love him either, but I have to at least try and understand him. So I can get him. Afterwards, it's different…' His voice had dropped and he could see Anna straining to hear above the wind blowing across the water. He cleared his throat. 'Afterwards, in the interview room, across the courtroom or whatever, I'm… hateful.' He saw the confusion on Anna's face and shook his head. 'That's not the right word. I'm not sure if there is a word. I'm… full of hate…'

  He wrapped his fingers tight around the edge of the bench, then moved them away when he felt the small clods of dried chewing gum underneath.

  'There's a man called Adam Chambers. The case I was working on before.'

  'I know,' Anna said. 'I read up on it.'

  Thorne nodded. 'So. Just the thought of him out there, or Langford, or a dozen others who are walking around because they got lucky or someone screwed up. I imagine them sitting in the pub, watching TV like the people in those flats we passed, sleeping. I remember the things they did and I'm full of it. Full to the fucking brim with hate.' He conjured a half-smile, then an unconvincing laugh to go with it. 'And I hate it.'

  They both stared ahead for half a minute, legs stretched out in front of them, hands pushed into jacket pockets. The temperature was dropping and there was more rain in the air.

  'Look, I'm not saying I want to be your shadow or anything,' Anna said.

  'That's a relief.'

  She moved a little closer to him. 'Seriously, I'm not expecting an access-all-areas pass and a promise that I can be there when you make an arrest.'

  'Good, because you wouldn't get it.'

  'Just keep me informed, OK?'

  Thorne turned to her. He could see that this was as big a concession as she was prepared to make.

  'I'd rather hear what's going on from you than from Jesmond.'

  'Fair enough,' Thorne said.

  'I've got a feeling I wouldn't get the full story from your boss. He sounds a bit slimy.'

  Thorne said, 'More than a bit,' and looked out at the river. In one way at least she showed remarkably good judgement. But he still felt uneasy about the situation.

  Perhaps he was just unused to giving so much of himself away.

  He stared at the shifting, black water, at the lights moving slowly in both directions under Vauxhall Bridge, and for the second time that day, he wondered if life would be easier aboard one of those boats. He could turn his face to the wind and empty his mind of all this. The notion was just as incongruous as it had been earlier, staring down from the briefing room at SOCA, not least because Thorne was anything but a natural when it came to the water. He had first learned that as an eight-year-old on a mackerel-fishing trip with his father, when he had thrown up ten minutes out of Brixham harbour. Since then, anything but a millpond would have his guts churning, make him crave solid earth beneath his feet. Yet he still loved the idea of boats, of drifting away on one, however disappointing the reality always proved to be.

  Like so many other things in his life, it was a good idea on paper.

  He let his head fall back, felt the first spatters of drizzle on his face, but it was not unpleasant.

  'We should probably go,' Anna said.

  'Right.'

  'I should let you get back to… Sorry, I still don't know her name.'

  Like so many other things…

  'Louise,' Thorne said.

  Walking back, they talked easily, taking their time as the streets narrowed and grew quieter. They argued about football when it emerged that Anna was a closet Match of the Day viewer. Like far too many Londoners, she was a Manchester United supporter, but Thorne tried not to take it too hard.

  'Could be worse,' he told her. 'Could have been Chelsea.'

  Their pace slowed even further when they reached Louise's road, walking back towards the flat at a fraction of the speed they had left it.

  'Sorry for being such a nightmare,' she said.

  'I'll get over it,' Thorne said.

  Halfway along the street, a pizza-delivery scooter beetled past, its engine whining like a swarm of angry wasps.

  'Bloody hairdryer on wheels.' Thorne spoke without thinking. It was something his father used to say.

  Anna laughed. 'Pizza sounds good, though. My stomach thinks my throat's been cut.'

  The rain was coming down far heavier now, and they were no more than half a minute from Louise's flat. Thorne thought about asking her inside and cooking her something. 'Do you want me to call you a cab?' he asked.

  'It's fine. I can jump on the tube.'

  Thorne watched the scooter reach the end of the road, turn around and start moving back the way it had come. He reached out instinctively towards Anna. 'You sure?' He kept one eye on the scooter. He had presumed that the driver could not find the right address, but there was no attempt to look for house numbers.

  'Honestly, it's not a problem.'

  Thorne felt a tingle build and spread at the nape of his neck. 'Let's get inside.'

  The scooter slowed, wobbling a little as it edged towards the pavement; as Thorne moved his hand to the small of Anna's back and pushed.

  ' What? ' she said.

  The man on the scooter, his face obscured by a blacked-out visor, was now steering with one hand, and without needing to see what was in the hand that was hidden by the fuel tank, Thorne urged Anna forward. ' Move! '

  The rider raised the gun and Anna shouted, took hold of Thorne's arm and told him to watch out. Thorne half shoved, half dragged her the last few feet until they were level with the low railings that ran along the front of the building, Louise's door was still ten feet below them as the first shot was fired.

  Just a pop, no louder than the scooter backfiring.

  Anna said, 'Christ,' then spoke Thorne's name as the scooter accelerated, a few more seconds of wasp-whine, until it was all but level with them. There was no time to move those last few feet to where the steps wound down from the pavement and, in the end, Thorne could do nothing but push himself against her; pressing her back against the railings, feeling the tremble take hold in his arms and legs, and the rain running down his neck.

  He heard his own name screamed again as he turned to see the gun come up a second time.

  PART THREE

  COAST OF LEAD

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  A few minutes before beginning its descent into Malaga, the plane hit a patch of clear-air turbulence and dropped suddenly. Thorne sat back hard and opened his eyes, aware from the look on the face of the woman next to him that his gasp had been audible. He felt embarrassed, knowing – because he'd read it somewhere – that such fraction-of-a-second drops were actually of no more than a few feet and were insignificant in the scheme of things.

  He mouthed a 'sorry' and smiled at the woman. She nodded and went back to her magazine.

  Thorne closed his eyes again and waited for it to get a little less bumpy. Although he knew well enough that the sick feeling, the wet and peppery knot in his stomach, had nothing to do with turbulence. He had not been asleep, but the images
and snatches of remembered conversation might easily have been fragments of a nightmare.

  Eight weeks since the shooting.

  Before the man on the scooter could fire again, Thorne and Anna had gone crashing together over the metal railings and down hard on to the steps. He felt a searing pain in his shoulder, guessing as he struggled to move that his collarbone had gone and dimly aware of the engine noise, the high-pitched drone as the scooter accelerated away. Aware of Anna moaning beside him, the cold, wet step against his face, Louise opening the door and screaming when she saw the blood.

  Eight weeks…

  Two since the funeral.

  Thorne had felt stared at; observed, at the very least. Inside the church, in the grounds outside, and most of all afterwards, at the Carpenters' house in Wimbledon. It was probably all in his head and certainly nobody had said anything. None of those with every right to do a damn sight more than stare at the copper who had spent two weeks with his arm in a sling while the girl beaming out at them from the order of service had bled to death in the back of an ambulance.

  I don't back away from a row. Always been my problem.

  One person who did stare was Frank Anderson, recognising Thorne as the man who had stood in his office with a cock-and-bull story about a skirt-chasing girlfriend. But even Anderson resisted the temptation to say anything, while Thorne, in turn, fought the urge to say a few of the things he had been bottling up. All the same, he imagined it, standing in the church and staring at the dandruff speckling Frank Anderson's collar. He imagined taking a handful of the man's hair, ramming his face down into the pew and demanding an explanation for the way he had treated Anna. For the things he had made her do.

  Do you know how much she hated it, you spineless little twat? How it made her feel? Have you got the slightest idea?