From the Dead tt-9

by Mark Billingham

  Over a few more beers they talked, or at least Fraser did, about Job background and families. About the ups and downs of working away from home. For much of the time, Fraser spoke to Samarez in Spanish and Samarez nodded as he listened, his eyes on Thorne until he leaned in towards Fraser to say something himself.

  Still no sign of the man's teeth.

  Thorne was hungry as well as keen to crack on towards the business that needed to be done, so when his meal came he got stuck in quickly. Huevos estrellados con morcilla, chorizo y patatas. Thorne had recognised two out of the four ingredients, and the English translation on the menu had told him the rest.

  'All traditional Spanish ingredients,' Samarez said. 'But it's basically the big English breakfast you all seem so fond of.'

  Thorne looked up and stopped chewing for a few seconds. Until that moment he had presumed that Samarez spoke next to no English. He smiled, trying to mask his surprise, and swallowed. He said something about how they must have known he was coming, but now he found himself wondering what Fraser and Samarez had been talking about earlier.

  'Is it good?'

  Thorne said that it was.

  'Christ on a bike,' Fraser said. 'How many Spaniards go to London and order paella?'

  ' I do,' Samarez said. 'No offence, but it's sometimes difficult to find anything very good over there.'

  Despite the language thing, which was almost certainly nothing more sinister than a gentle wind-up, Thorne was starting to warm to his Guardia Civil colleague. There was a dryness he liked. It might have been wishful thinking, but Thorne also suspected that Samarez thought Fraser was as much of an idiot as he did.

  They all moved their chairs a little closer to the table when the coffees arrived. Lowered their voices. Samarez produced a large envelope from his briefcase and, once there was room, laid out a series of photographs for Thorne.

  An Alan Langford gallery.

  'So, it seems we are all interested in a man called David Mackenzie.' Samarez pointed to a couple of the pictures. 'Though we now understand he used to be called Alan Langford.'

  Thorne stared at the dozen or so shots: Langford/Mackenzie walking along a street with another man; smoking outside a restaurant; talking on the phone behind the wheel of a silver Range Rover. Most looked as though they had been taken with a long lens, some even from the air, above the grounds of a luxurious villa. Clearly, the operation in Spain ran to helicopter surveillance.

  'It's a nice place.' Samarez pointed at a photograph of Langford by his swimming pool. He lay on a sunlounger, two fingers raised lazily towards the photographer high above him. 'Up in the hills above Puerto Banus. One day I hope to see the inside.'

  Fraser laughed. 'We've not had an invitation as yet.'

  'You know how it works down here?' Samarez asked Thorne.

  Thorne did not need another version of the Costa del Crime primer he had been given twice already. He nodded and said, 'I can guess what he's up to.'

  'There's not much Mr Mackenzie isn't involved in,' Samarez said. 'Over the years, he's done very well for himself. He's made a lot of influential friends, and if he's made any enemies, they don't appear to have been around for very long.'

  Thorne raised an eyebrow, but Samarez shook his head.

  'We can prove nothing,' he said. 'We've had him under surveillance on and off for the last few years. We've been monitoring his mobile-phone calls, but it is clear he knows we're on to him, so he does all his business on a secure line that we have no access to.'

  'He's bound to slip up some time,' Thorne said.

  Samarez took a slurp of coffee and leaned further forward, towards Thorne. 'He is a cut above most of those in the same business, you understand?' A smile suddenly appeared, but it was cold, wolfish. 'This is a man who is seriously careful.'

  Something else Thorne did not need telling.

  'Bastard hasn't put a foot wrong,' Fraser said, 'and he never puts himself on the line. Always the silent partner, whatever the deal. Drugs, half a dozen clubs and restaurants between Marbella and Malaga, and he's got his paws into several of the big golf resorts and the gated communities, some of which are still being built.'

  'It's all very mysterious.' Samarez widened his eyes sarcastically. 'I don't know how he does it, but the building firms that get these contracts are never the most attractive bidders.'

  'Maybe he's just lucky,' Thorne said, equally facetious.

  Samarez shook his head. 'This is the one thing Mackenzie is definitely not, because he does not believe in luck. He does not commit himself until he's weighed everything up very carefully. It does not matter what kind of profit he stands to make, if it's a high-risk enterprise, he simply will not get involved.'

  Fraser nodded. 'I know for a fact that he's said "no" to bankrolling a couple of the armed-robbery firms over here because he knows they're not careful enough. He thinks a long way ahead, does Mr Mackenzie. Plays the long game, because he's seen plenty go down over the years that have taken the easy money and paid for it.' He waved over a waitress, asked for more coffee, then waited until the girl had left. 'Look, he definitely knows how to put the squeeze on if he has to, and there's obviously a good few people afraid of him, but the bottom line is, in terms of anything we can actually prove, he's clean as a whistle.'

  'This is your problem, Mr Thorne,' Samarez said.

  'One of them.'

  'Yes, of course. You need evidence that Mackenzie and Langford are one and the same man.'

  'Can't be too hard, can it?'

  Samarez gathered up the photographs and produced a second batch from his case. Four or five different women, some alone and others with Langford outside clubs or cosying up by the pool. 'He has a number of women he sees, but there is one semi-regular girlfriend.' He pointed to a photograph of a tall blonde woman in a red bikini. 'She is the one I think we can make use of for your purposes.'

  Thorne pulled a series of three photos across the table and stared down at them. Langford in a car with a different girl; young, dark-haired. The same girl getting out. Langford's hand in the small of the girl's back, guiding her towards the front door of the villa.

  'Tasty,' Fraser said.

  'This is his daughter,' Thorne said. 'This is Ellie.'

  Fraser shrugged, evidently not thinking it made any difference to his assessment.

  Samarez nodded. 'The mother hired a private detective to find her, yes? Miss… Carpenter?'

  'Anna,' Thorne said. He looked up, saw a small nod of understanding from Samarez, of sympathy. The Spaniard had clearly been comprehensively briefed.

  Fraser continued to stare at the photographs with more than professional interest, until Samarez cleared them away. Then he called for the bill. 'We going on somewhere else, then?'

  'Early start tomorrow,' Samarez said.

  'Tom?'

  Thorne shook his head without bothering to look up. He was thinking about the call he would be making to Donna first thing the next morning. Had things turned out differently, he would have been happy to let Anna make it. But, despite the twist in his gut caused by thinking about that, he was looking forward to giving Donna the news and confirming her suspicions that Ellie had been taken by Langford. The prospect of trying to answer her first question was not quite so pleasant, though.

  What would he say when she asked, as she surely would, what he was planning to do about it?

  'Looks like I'll be drinking on my own, then,' Fraser said.

  Thorne guessed that he was used to it.

  Back at the hotel, Thorne called Louise. She sounded as though she had just woken up. Thorne looked at his watch, saw that it was not yet 10.15, 9.15 in the UK, but he said sorry anyway, that he hadn't realised it was so late.

  'It's OK, I was waiting for you to call.'

  'What's up?'

  'I had to take Elvis to the vet.'

  'What's the matter with her?'

  'I don't know, but it's not good. She wouldn't even get up when I came in and she'd been horribly si
ck again. There was blood round her mouth as well, so…'

  'Shit.'

  'I've left her in overnight, but the vet didn't look very hopeful.' After a few moments' silence, she said, 'Are you still there?'

  'I'm sorry that you've been lumbered with this.'

  'It's fine. How was your day?'

  'You know. Long. Flying anywhere's a pain in the arse.'

  'I'll leave you to it, then,' she said. 'Those roaming charges are such a rip-off anyway.'

  They both knew that calls home were not covered by Met expenses, so it was a useful get-out when neither had a great deal to say. Thorne said he would phone the following day to find out how the cat was doing. Louise told him she'd sort things out, one way or another, and said goodnight.

  Thorne lay on the bed and searched for something to watch on TV, but the only thing in English was a BBC World financial report. Then he found a channel showing hardcore pornography, the screen divided into four quarters featuring a variety of clips to suit every taste. There was a quick-fire voiceover and a number for anyone who wanted to hire one of the movies, though try as he might, Thorne could not figure out why anyone would need to pay anything.

  He was too tired to take even the most perfunctory advantage of the free entertainment. But once the lights were off, he still found it a lot harder to sleep than he had just a few hours before.

  THIRTY-TWO

  For almost forty years, since its lavish opening, the well connected, the super rich and the showbiz elite had flocked to the marina complex at Puerto Banus. These days, the surrounding streets were more likely to be filled with pissed-up stags and hens than movie stars, and the hookers outnumbered the millionaires… just. But the marina itself remained as astounding a display of conspicuous wealth as Thorne had ever seen.

  Upwards of five hundred yachts were moored. Line after line of dazzling white Sunseekers, many with smaller boats attached or a brace of jet-skis, and a few the size of small cruise-ships, complete with helipads, gymnasiums and swimming pools.

  'How the other half lives,' Fraser said.

  ' Half? '

  They walked the length of the marina and back. Fraser pointed out the yacht belonging to the King of Saudi Arabia. Said, 'Bit over the top, though.'

  Thorne wondered what might constitute way over the top. A diamond-encrusted toilet-roll holder? Panda-skin cushions?

  The cars parked alongside were as high end as the shops that lined the surrounding streets. Though there seemed to be nowhere anyone could buy anything as basic as boating supplies, there was no shortage of designer outlets from where shoppers in need could pick up those essential four-figure handbags, five-figure stereo systems and sunglasses that cost more than Thorne's monthly mortgage repayment.

  The villas and apartments available in SuperSmart Homes reflected the lifestyles of those who would not need to bother with mortgages. Those who could probably pay with cash and would certainly appreciate being shown round a property by someone as beautifully refurbished and well-appointed as Candela Bernal.

  'I don't actually care if a woman's had her tits done,' Fraser said. 'Doesn't bother me.'

  'Thanks for sharing,' Thorne said.

  Sitting in a car across from the estate agent's where she was based, they were now waiting for Langford's girlfriend to arrive for work. Fraser held up the picture of a bikini-clad Candela Bernal he had been examining. 'I mean, people go on about plastic surgery, but it's no different from wearing glasses when you think about it.'

  Thorne thought about it.

  'I don't understand.' Samarez leaned forward from the back seat. 'Are you saying that if a woman has her breasts enlarged, it will improve her eyesight?'

  'No, don't be daft, I'm…' Fraser caught the look on Thorne's face and realised that Samarez was mocking him. 'Oh, piss off.'

  'You're going to need glasses if you're not careful.' Thorne snatched the picture and turned to continue looking across the street. SuperSmart Homes sat between Tod's and Versace. The window was filled with ads for the kind of place David Mackenzie lived in, that in another life he had lived in when he was still Alan Langford.

  That he once shared with the woman who had tried to have him killed.

  Thorne thought about his early morning call to Donna Langford. He had told her that he had seen Ellie, or at least pictures of her and that, as far as anyone could tell, she was fine. The news had not elicited quite the reaction Thorne had been expecting. The relief was there somewhere, but surprisingly muted, and the barrage of questions, of demands, had not been forthcoming.

  'She's fine, Donna,' Thorne had said again.

  Nothing for a few seconds. Then, 'No thanks to the likes of you. ..'

  'Well, I've not got a problem with plastic surgery,' Fraser said. 'That's all. I mean I desperately need a penis reduction, but if something needs doing, you-'

  'There she is,' Thorne said.

  'Half-past ten,' Fraser said, looking at his watch. 'Nice work if you can get it.'

  They watched as Candela Bernal stepped out of a white, soft-top Mini and stood on the pavement, pulling her long blonde hair back into a ponytail. She was somewhere in her early twenties and, for a moment or two, Thorne felt a tug of sympathy for her. For the life she had fallen into. For the trouble he knew was coming her way.

  Samarez had explained earlier that morning how they were planning to use David Mackenzie's girlfriend to establish his real identity. How her bad habits had given them what he hoped would be sufficient leverage to ensure her cooperation. 'I'm sure we can persuade her,' he had said.

  'She's going to be very scared.'

  Samarez agreed, but assured Thorne that she had plenty to lose either way. 'We have made the arrangements for tomorrow,' he had said.

  Now she was talking to a woman outside Tod's. Her smile reminded Thorne of someone else's, and he remembered why he was there.

  His sympathy quickly evaporated.

  Her conversation finished, Candela walked to SuperSmart Homes' door. A banner was hanging in the window beneath the agency's sign: Paraiso de los sentidos.

  Paradise for the senses.

  'Bloody hell, you're not kidding,' Fraser said. 'No wonder Langford's smiling in most of those pictures.'

  Samarez nodded, unable to argue.

  'One more reason to hate the fucker.'

  Thorne said nothing, simply watched as the girl disappeared inside.

  He had plenty of reasons already.

  'No pressure, Dave.'

  Langford looked up and smiled at the man who would be about ninety quid poorer any moment. 'Wanker.'

  You think this is pressure?

  He sniffed and bent over his ball again. He had three putts to win the match on the sixteenth.

  He needed only two.

  'Played, mate…'

  Langford shook his friend's hand and gratefully pocketed the hundred-euro note. He would get a decent bottle of something with it later at the club. Do some sniffing around while he was there.

  Get some feedback.

  The big step he had needed to take a couple of months earlier – needed rather than wanted – had gone seriously pear-shaped, and now the trouble had come a little closer to home. Now, it was all but knocking on his bloody door. Not that it would get that far, obviously, but to nip it in the bud, to regain some control over the situation, it would help at least to get the measure of the man who was making such a nuisance of himself.

  A man who seemed to enjoy chasing lost causes and now had a very good reason to be taking things personally.

  'Staying for a quick one?'

  His friend – a fat builder who was less adept at cutting corners on the golf course than he was where it really counted – hoisted his clubs on to the back of his buggy and climbed aboard.

  Langford climbed on to his. 'Can't do it,' he said. 'Got a lunch meeting.'

  They began to drive back towards the clubhouse.

  He had been monitoring developments back in the UK via the usual chann
els, so had known Thorne was coming for a week or so. Having another crack at him so soon after botching the last one was not a viable option, so he had been unable to do anything to stop him. Taking out a copper was not something anybody but an idiot did without a very good reason, and certainly not once the copper in question knew he was a target. It was not something you did at all, not unless you wanted it raining shit for the foreseeable future, so Langford had done some hard thinking before giving the nod. Prior to Thorne, he'd done it only once before, when it was the best option available to him. But for a businessman who was as careful and as far-sighted as he prided himself on being, it was the last of all last resorts.

  Now, thanks to some useless twat who couldn't shoot straight, he would have to think again. Reassess the situation; reorganise. Above all, he would need to stay calm.

  'That hundred euros,' the fat builder said. 'Double or quits. First one back to the clubhouse.'

  'Well, we already know you're not Tiger Woods,' Langford said. 'But now you think you're Lewis fucking Hamilton.'

  'Up to you, mate.'

  Langford put his foot down.

  They watched the estate agent's for a little over an hour before Candela Bernal re-emerged. Fraser started the car, ready to follow, but instead of heading for her Mini, the girl turned towards them, then walked all the way to the far end of the marina, across the road and on to the beach.

  'All right for some,' Fraser said. 'A cup of coffee, an hour gossiping with the other girls, then a quick dip before lunch.' All three climbed out of the Punto. 'I think I'm in the wrong job.'

  Thorne glanced at Samarez and told Fraser he couldn't disagree.

  As Samarez was due to be involved in the following day's business with Thorne, he drove his own car back to Malaga to ensure that everything was being set up properly. Thorne and Fraser followed Candela to the beach and took up a position in a bar thirty feet or so from the water's edge. Fraser ordered a bottle of water. 'Don't want any more of your dirty looks,' he said.