From the Dead tt-9

by Mark Billingham

  'Listen… we really need to talk about what we're going to do,' Brand said. 'That police liaison officer – Murray… she's been getting far too cosy with Andy Boyle and it's starting to look like they've got some serious ammunition to use on Grover, you know? Organising something at Wakefield is obviously going to be trickier now that Howard Cook's gone, but-'

  Langford cut him off. 'Of course, I would have been happy to put you up here, but I don't think that's a clever idea.'

  Brand took a few seconds, and Langford saw frustration on his face that was every bit as obvious as the sweat patches under his arms. He had few doubts now about what was happening; fewer still that disposing of Brand would be even easier than getting rid of Candela had been.

  Another one he would happily handle himself.

  'The hotel's fine, honestly.'

  Laughing, Langford nodded towards the house. 'Some of the locals are already wondering what I'm doing shacked up with a girl who's young enough to be my daughter. Last thing I need is them thinking I'm on the bloody turn!' He laughed again, louder. 'So, we probably shouldn't spend too much time together.'

  'No.'

  'Especially now that we've got the Met's finest running around the place.'

  FORTY-FIVE

  Especially now that we've got the Met's finest running around the place.

  In the van, Thorne bristled slightly. For a second or two, he thought Langford had worked it all out and was cheerfully taking the piss. Thought the last remark had been meant specifically for him. He glanced at Samarez and Boyle, and could see that they were thinking much the same thing.

  'So, what do you want to do?' Thorne asked.

  'Not much we can do,' Samarez said.

  'We sit it out, then.'

  'Right.' Boyle lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and flapped it, revealing a generous roll of pallid beer-gut in his efforts to cool down. 'Let's see if Langford gives us what we want before we roast to death.'

  Brand had arrived at the villa in a taxi driven by a Guardia Civil officer, but Thorne and the others had been in position well in advance of that. By now, they had been there almost two hours, and the inside of the van was baking and airless. As an observer, Boyle had seen no reason to wear anything even remotely formal, but Thorne had felt unable to dress quite so casually for this sort of operation. He was sweating in khakis and a short-sleeved shirt, sucking in warm air that tasted of sweat, while Samarez, who was wearing a similar outfit, did not look a great deal happier.

  'Perhaps we could just arrest him,' Samarez suggested. 'Confront him with what Brand has told us.'

  'Arrest him for what?'

  'We can come up with something.'

  'He knows that Brand isn't a reliable witness,' Thorne said. 'And anyway, whatever Brand might say, he knows we've got nothing concrete to tie him into any of the big stuff.'

  They listened for another few minutes. Again Brand said how worried he was about what was happening back at home, that he needed Langford to tell him what to do. Langford ignored him, refusing to bite and began talking about some film he'd seen. Told Brand he had to get the DVD out when he got home.

  'I think we're stuffed,' Boyle said. 'He hasn't even admitted knowing who Grover is and we haven't got him within a million miles of the Anna Carpenter killing.'

  'All we need is one slip,' Samarez said.

  Thorne drank deeply from a bottle of water that was already warm. His shirt was pasted to his back and he was starting to catch the smell of his own sweat.

  One slip…

  You're not much of a detective, are you?

  The first words Anna ever said to him.

  A radio squawked and Samarez reached for the handset next to the speaker. He talked in Spanish for a few seconds, then told the others, 'There's a car coming.'

  They waited, watching the gates, knowing that any vehicle passing the Guardia Civil car positioned down the hill could only be on its way to the Langford villa. After a minute or so, a white VW Golf pulled up outside the gates.

  'I know that car,' Thorne said.

  He recognised the driver, too, but could not get a clear view of the woman sitting next to him. Then the passenger door opened. The woman got out and walked up to the gates.

  'Donna…'

  Samarez looked confused. 'The wife?'

  'What's she doing here?' Boyle asked.

  They heard a faint buzzing through the speaker: the microphone picking up the noise of Donna ringing the bell. Langford said, 'Won't be a minute,' then there was nothing but Brand's breathing.

  Thorne realised now that the man watching him had been working for Donna. She had clearly hired herself another detective. He had probably been watching Samarez and Fraser, too. Then, as soon as he had found Langford's villa, he had fed the information back to his client.

  'Oh, Jesus,' Thorne said. 'She's here for her daughter.'

  There was a minute of muffled conversation, then silence until Langford returned to the pool and Donna climbed back into the car.

  'It's my ex-wife,' Langford told Brand. 'Why am I so popular all of a sudden?'

  ' What? '

  Thorne watched as the gates begin to swing slowly open.

  'You'd best make yourself scarce, Gary,' Langford said. 'She might recognise you. You wouldn't want that, right?'

  'What the hell does she want?'

  'Well, I don't think she's popped by for tea and biscuits, do you?'

  In the van, they could hear the rasp of Brand's breathing and the sharp scrape of his chair against the tiles. As he walked away from the pool and moved inside the house, Brand whispered into the microphone, 'This is all going tits up.'

  'You're telling me,' Boyle said.

  The Golf was disappearing from view, heading up the driveway, when Langford shouted Ellie's name somewhere in the house. Thorne moved quickly towards the rear of the van.

  'Where are you going?' Samarez asked.

  Thorne was already opening the doors. 'This could all get very nasty very quickly,' he said.

  'What about Brand?'

  'I don't care.' Thorne jumped down on to the path, talking fast. 'Langford's not exactly predictable right now, and if Donna's come for Ellie, I can't see him just handing her over, can you?'

  'We do not have enough,' Samarez said.

  Boyle shook his head. 'We don't have anything.'

  'Keep listening,' Thorne said, slamming one of the doors. 'He might get careless now that he's got something else to worry about.'

  He slammed the other door before Boyle or Samarez could argue and sprinted towards the gates. He stopped momentarily when he reached them, to check that the Golf was out of sight, then slipped through just before they closed with a clang.

  He waited for ten seconds, fifteen, his hands on his knees, panting. His mouth was dry and the spit he sucked up tasted coppery.

  Like he was waiting to face a bull.

  Then, still breathless, Thorne began jogging uphill towards the house.

  FORTY-SIX

  It took Thorne three or four minutes to reach the house, but it felt like a lot longer. The Golf was parked outside, and though Thorne would have loved to tell the man in the driver's seat precisely what he thought of him, there wasn't time. He settled for a hard stare and the satisfying look of panic on the private detective's face as he walked past the car.

  The door to the villa was open and Thorne could hear shouting from inside. He stepped into a large, vaulted lobby. There were acres of white marble, potted palms whose leaves almost brushed the glass roof and a staircase that swept up and around to his right. He walked beneath it, his breathing and heart-rate finally beginning to slow a little, and followed a tiled corridor towards the far side of the villa, towards the screams of rage and frustration that echoed off the tastefully decorated walls.

  'Well, you've wasted your fucking time…'

  'Christ, what's he done?'

  'What's he done?'

  'Please…'

  'You really are a stupi
d bitch, aren't you?'

  Just before the corridor ended, Thorne passed a room whose door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and saw Gary Brand, sitting and flicking through a newspaper as though it were a doctor's waiting room. Brand looked up, alarmed, and opened his mouth to say something.

  Thorne put a finger to his lips as a glass shattered somewhere near by.

  'You've lost it, love.'

  'Just tell her to go…'

  Brand tried to stand up, but Thorne pushed him back into his seat. Told him quietly but firmly to shut his mouth and stay where he was. Then he stepped back into the corridor, took another few paces and peered around the corner.

  'You heard what she said.'

  'I'm not going anywhere.'

  'Maybe I should call the police…'

  Thorne was now at the entrance to a large, open-plan seating area. There was a pool table and a white piano beyond the L-shaped sofa. On the far side was what looked like a well-stocked bar, with rows of bottles in gleaming optics and vintage movie posters framed on the wall above.

  The Dirty Dozen. Where Eagles Dare. The Italian Job.

  The room led directly out, through an open pair of sliding doors, to the pool, and from where he was standing, Thorne had a clear view of the action.

  Langford was sitting on the edge of a sunlounger, with Ellie standing behind him. A few feet away, on the other side of a glass-topped table, Donna stood, her fists clenched at her side and her eyes fixed on her daughter's right hand, which was resting on Langford's shoulder.

  'I was struggling not to laugh out loud,' Langford said, 'when that copper accused me of "taking" her.' He glanced up at Ellie. 'She couldn't wait to get over here, could you, love?'

  'I dreamed about it.' Ellie squeezed her father's shoulder, but spat the words across at her mother. 'Just had to wait until I was eighteen, so nobody would bother looking too hard.'

  'For ten years, you were all I thought about,' Donna said.

  'Oh, I thought about you, too. Only not quite in the same way.'

  'That last day I saw you, before the trial, you cried and cried and begged them not to take me away.' Donna's voice was weak and cracked. 'You wouldn't let go of my arm.'

  'I was a kid,' Ellie said. 'I was stupid.'

  'No…'

  'I didn't know what you'd done. What you'd tried to do. I didn't know what a vicious cow you were, did I?'

  'But I did it for you.'

  'You tried to kill my father!'

  'For us.'

  'You didn't think about me, how I would feel.'

  'That was all I thought about, I swear. All those years…'

  'Funny,' Langford said. 'I thought you were too busy becoming a rug-muncher to give a shit.'

  Even from his vantage point twenty feet away, Thorne could see the hatred etched into Donna's face.

  'When did you contact her?' she asked.

  Langford thought about it. 'About eighteen months after I got here, once I was settled. I got word to her, had a few friends keep an eye out, passed on some money whenever she needed it. We started making plans for you to come out here fairly early on, didn't we, love?'

  Ellie nodded.

  Donna was shaking her head as though trying to make sense of what she was hearing. 'I don't understand,' she said. When she looked across at Ellie, it was as if Donna herself had become the child. 'I don't understand…'

  Thorne had seen and heard enough. He stepped into the open and watched as Langford spotted the movement, focused on him… then smiled.

  'I thought you must be knocking about somewhere,' Langford said.

  Donna and Ellie both stared at Thorne – the daughter looking straight through him, the mother ashen.

  Langford held out his arms. 'Come and join our happy family reunion.'

  Thorne walked on to the pool deck and across to Donna.

  'Careful of the broken glass,' Langford said. He nodded towards the green shards at the edge of the pool, the remains of a beer bottle. 'My ex has been playing up.'

  'I don't understand,' Donna said again. 'What about the photos? Somebody sent me those photographs…'

  'You're even more stupid than I thought,' Ellie snapped.

  Thorne had already worked it out, but it took Donna a few seconds.

  'You?'

  Langford looked up at his daughter. ' What?'

  'I was going to explain-'

  ' You sent the pictures?'

  Ellie nodded, opened her mouth again to speak.

  'Have you any idea what you've done?' He pushed her hand away from his shoulder. 'How much fucking trouble you've caused. How much you've cost me?'

  'What trouble might that be, Alan?' Thorne asked.

  Langford turned slowly and glared at him. He said nothing, but the blood that had rushed to his face was clear enough, even through the tan.

  Donna was still looking at her daughter. 'Why?'

  Ellie sniffed, spoke as though she were telling someone the time. 'Because I wanted you to know that you'd been sitting in prison for killing someone who wasn't dead. I wanted you to see what a great life he was living while yours had turned to shit. I wanted you to suffer .'

  It was clear that Ellie Langford had got her wish. Donna took a faltering step forward but then had to lean down and hold on to the table to keep from falling.

  Thorne moved forward and laid a hand on her arm. Said, 'I think it's time to go.'

  'Yeah, look after yourself, Mum,' Ellie said.

  Thorne stared at her, saw the sarcastic sneer replaced by the same sullen pout he had seen in the photographs of Ellie as a young teenager.

  She cocked her head. 'What?' A challenge.

  Donna gently removed Thorne's hand from her arm. She still seemed bewildered, disoriented. 'But the photos were posted in London.'

  'Jesus, I've still got friends in London.' Ellie nodded dismissively at Thorne. 'I would have thought PC Plod could have worked that one out.'

  'But it was like you'd been… taken. You just vanished.'

  'Nice clean start,' Langford said. He was trying to sound calm, but was obviously still shaken by Ellie's admission. 'Best way. Same thing I did.'

  'Plus, he didn't want anyone sniffing around over here,' Thorne said. 'That's why her passport was left behind, why he got her out of the country on the quiet.'

  Langford smirked. 'What? Are you going to do me for people smuggling?'

  'If I have to.'

  'Bring it on,' Langford said, aggressive suddenly. 'Sounds like fun.'

  'Why didn't you at least tell your foster parents you were all right?' Thorne asked.

  The girl seemed more concerned with a few stray hairs that had been loosened by the breeze than with the devastation she was casually wreaking.

  Thorne tried to keep the disgust from his voice, not wanting to give her the satisfaction. 'Have you any idea what they've been going through?'

  Ellie shrugged. 'Not that it's any of your business, but I would have told Maggie and Julian eventually.' She spoke their names mockingly, like a bad comedian taking the piss. 'They'll survive, don't worry. They've got their precious Sam, anyway. I was always going to be second best once he came along.'

  Now Thorne could see the extent to which this pretty, dark-haired teenager was dead inside. Cold and hard as stone. Sending the pictures had been only part of it. Not letting the Munros know she was alive and well had all been in the cause of torturing her mother, and she had been happy for Donna to believe that she was dead. Thorne watched her tuck her hair behind her ears and realised that, although Ellie Langford had inherited her mother's looks, all the things that defined her had come from her father.

  Donna was staring at the floor, muttering.

  'You'll have to speak up, love,' Langford said.

  'You've no idea,' Donna said. She raised her head and looked at her daughter. Pleading. 'What it was like with him. The things he did, the things he made me do, the way he made me feel. What was I supposed to do?'

  'God, here w
e go,' Langford said.

  Donna lurched towards Ellie, and for a second panic replaced boredom on the girl's face. 'He did this,' Donna screamed. She reached out to show the flash of pink, puckered skin across the back of her hand. 'Look at what he did to me…'

  Ellie had already recovered herself. She shrugged. 'That routine didn't work in court, so don't try it on me, OK?'

  Donna let her arm drop and turned her head to stare across the pool. She looked hollowed out and hopeless.

  Thorne took a step towards her. 'Come on now, Donna.'

  She didn't move.

  'Christ, she won't take a hint, will she?' The girl's voice was raised suddenly, shrill and contemptuous. 'It's not like I didn't make it clear enough when I spoke to her "girlfriend".' The distaste was obvious. 'I told her I never wanted to see the bitch again, that I'd happily let her die in prison. I told her I didn't even have a mother.'

  There were a few seconds of silence then, save for the sound of the pool cleaner sucking its way across the bottom of the pool, ticking and slurping at the end of its long hose. Donna finally turned away from her daughter and began to walk slowly towards the sliding doors, listing slightly as though she were a little drunk.

  'I need a drink,' she said. 'Some water…'

  Thorne watched her disappear inside, sympathy fighting for space with guilt now that he finally understood what Kate had kept from her

  … and why. It had been a small lie – a simple and tender not-telling – to protect the thing that Donna cherished more than anything else.

  He knew better than most that love could cause as much damage and death as hate ever did.

  'So, what do we do now?' Langford asked. 'You fancy a dip, Mr Thorne?'

  Thorne said nothing. He would not rise to Langford's bait, and besides, he was too busy wondering if the people-smuggling charge might provide some sort of starting point. If there was anything he could feasibly nick the daughter for.

  'I wonder where your mate Gary's got to,' Langford said. 'Still skulking around inside somewhere in case Donna sees him, I suppose. Not that it really matters much any more.' He watched Ellie as she calmly lay down on an adjacent sunbed, then pointed to his ears. 'Hear anything interesting, by the way?'