From the Dead (2010)

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne swallowed a mouthful of Guinness. 'Listen, like I said on the phone, I think you should probably step back from all this now.'

  'You never said that.'

  'It's what I was trying to say.'

  'But it's my case,' she said.

  'Not any more.'

  'Donna came to me and I told her I would help. I took it on, and I can't just walk away from it now because things have got a bit heavy.'

  'A bit?'

  She shrugged. 'I took it on.'

  'That was when it was just about a photograph,' Thorne said. 'Now it's a murder. A new murder.' He had already given her the headlines on the Monahan killing: the prime suspect from a few cell doors along, the missing murder weapon and the prison officer who was probably an accessory.

  'I still don't understand why Monahan was killed,' she said. 'I mean, we'd already talked to him and he didn't tell us anything.'

  'Langford didn't know that, though.' Thorne sat back, thinking out loud. 'Or even if he did, he didn't know what Monahan might decide to say further down the line, once he'd had a bit of time to weigh up his options. Monahan was the only person who could finger Langford for the murder ten years ago, or for conspiracy to murder at the very least. So, as soon as Langford found out he was on our radar again, he couldn't take that chance.'

  'He was getting rid of a potential witness.'

  'Right.'

  Anna nodded, taking it in. She leaned towards her wine glass, then stopped. 'But how did Langford know?' she asked. 'That we'd talked to Monahan, I mean.'

  'It's a very good question.' What had he said to Holland? A seriously good set of jungle drums . . .

  'Maybe Grover told him?'

  'Maybe.'

  'That would make sense, don't you think? Let's say Grover was his mole inside the prison, keeping an eye on Monahan for him. Grover tells Langford that we've been in to see Monahan . . .'

  'It's possible, but--'

  '. . . then Langford tells Grover to kill Monahan.'

  'It happened too fast, though.'

  'Like you said, he couldn't afford to take any chances.'

  Thorne was not convinced. 'The likes of Alan Langford try not to get too closely involved,' he said. 'There was probably a go-between. More than one, even.'

  'What about the bent prison guard, then? Cook?'

  'I reckon we'll find out soon enough,' Thorne said. He was in no hurry to head back up north and had been happy to delegate, to leave Howard Cook and Jeremy Grover to the less-than-tender mercies of his West Yorkshire counterpart. Much as he had taken a dislike to DI Andy Boyle, Thorne felt sure that when it came to putting the squeeze on, the Yorkshireman would make a decent job of it. He emptied his glass and caught the half-smile on Anna's face. 'What?'

  'This is good, isn't it?' She moved her hand backwards and forwards. 'The pair of us batting ideas around, trying to work stuff out.' She finished her own drink. 'It's what I thought it would be like all the time, being a detective.'

  Thorne went to fetch more drinks. He waited at the bar, wishing that the background music would fade a little further into the background and failing to catch the eye of a barmaid who was every bit as attractive as her male colleagues. He was finally served by one of the GQ boys and carried the drinks back to the table.

  'What you said before' - Thorne handed Anna her glass of Merlot - 'about what you thought it was going to be like. Sounds like you've been disappointed.'

  'I think I was just naive,' she said.

  'So, not the cleverest career move, then?'

  She told him about how unhappy she had been working at the bank. How fearful. Drifting towards a future that had seemed mapped out, the pressure of it becoming increasingly unbearable and nudging her towards a potentially dangerous depression every day. How a move as rash and off the wall as the one she had eventually made had come to feel in the end like the only option she had left. 'I never fitted in,' she said. 'Not really. Never said the right thing, wore the right thing, did the right thing.' She thought for a few seconds. 'Never have, if I'm being honest.' She looked down and rubbed at the edge of the table with a finger. 'Fitted in, I mean.'

  'It's overrated,' Thorne said.

  'The stupid thing is that, for a while, I really thought I'd landed on my feet. Frank Anderson said he needed someone like me, and I felt . . . vindicated, you know? I thought he meant someone enthusiastic, eager to learn the ropes, all that. Actually, he just wanted someone who could keep the agency records straight and nip to the off licence when he ran out of Scotch.' She took a sip of wine, then another. 'Plus, he knew there was decent money to be made if he could get into the honey-trap market, and he couldn't really provide the honey himself. '

  'Right . . .'

  'So, back on with the slap and the high heels again.' Anna's face was not quite as red as her wine, but there was not a great deal in it. 'Who would have thought anything could be less sexy than banking, eh?'

  Thorne laughed.

  'Not to mention making me feel even less good about what I was doing for a living.'

  'I gave up worrying about that a long time ago,' Thorne said.

  'So, yeah, I've been disappointed.' She tapped a finger against the rim of her glass, staring down at a fingernail that Thorne could see was chipped and bitten. 'But not as disappointed as some.' She looked up. 'My parents weren't exactly thrilled.'

  'You can see their point.'

  'They couldn't see mine, though.' Her tone was casual enough, but there was tension around her mouth. 'My mum especially. We had words.'

  Thorne struggled for something to say. He thought about some of the words he had exchanged with his father, both before and after the old man's death a few years earlier. He had learned since that the fire in which his father had died had not been accidental, that Jim Thorne had been targeted because of him.

  Thorne still woke up sometimes stinking of sweat, tasting the smoke.

  He looked across at Anna and thought about saying 'Sorry' or 'Be glad you've still got them.' In the end, though, he settled for an understanding nod and the safety of his beer glass.

  'I think I'll go and see Donna tomorrow,' he said.

  'OK, but I already told you what she told me.'

  'Right, but I need to pick up this latest photo. And I want to talk to her about Langford. I know she hasn't clapped eyes on him for ten years, but she still knows him better than anybody else.' He caught Anna's look. 'What?'

  'You sure about that?'

  It was a fair point. Donna Langford had not known too much about what her husband was thinking ten years earlier. She had not known that he had rumbled her, that he planned to fake his own death and skip off with everything, leaving her to rot in prison. She had not known he would come back years later and snatch their daughter. 'OK, but she's the closest thing I've got to him,' Thorne said.

  'Sounds like a plan, then.'

  'This is what being a detective's like, most of the time. Making it up as you go along.'

  'Can I come with you?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Donna trusts me.'

  'I told you, you need to back away.'

  'Yes, I know, but--'

  'Langford found out we'd been to see Monahan, so he'll also know we're talking to Donna.'

  'I'm not scared,' Anna said.

  Thorne could see that she meant it. 'Then you're stupid,' he said. 'And I need to get home . . .'

  When Thorne came out of the Gents' she was waiting for him, standing by the bar's main door, with her hands in her pockets. He offered to run her home, but she reminded him that her flat was only a five-minute walk away.

  'Good luck tomorrow,' she said. 'I mean obviously you'd get more out of Donna if I was there.'

  'Obviously.'

  'You wouldn't have to make up quite so much as you went along.'

  'You don't give up, do you?'

  She pushed open the door to the street and they both grimaced at the blast of cold air.

  'That's s
omething we've got in common,' she said. 'Isn't it?'

  ELEVEN

  He carried a bottle of decent wine out on to the balcony, sat and poured himself a glass, hoping it might help him relax.

  When he was younger, marauding around the pubs of Hackney and Dalston, playing the big man, booze always fired him up; made a bad temper worse and turned a minor niggle into something worth pulling a knife for. Once he'd got into his thirties, with a few quid and a reputation behind him, alcohol started to have the opposite effect. Now, much to his and everybody else's relief, a good drink was more likely to put the brakes on and calm him down. He guessed that was because he was smarter than he used to be. Or just older. Then again, it could be down to the quality of what he was drinking these days.

  Either way, it usually did the trick. And right now, he needed calming down.

  He drank a glass, then another, and felt his mood gradually begin to lift a little. He stared down towards the lights of the town a few miles below, and the bright slice of moon reflected in the sea beyond.

  Silly bastard, he was. Still playing the big man.

  He had overreacted, he knew that. He should never have raised his hands, how stupid was that? He would apologise to the bloke, sort things out, send over a good bottle of single malt in the morning.

  It wasn't as if nobody ever called him by his real name any more, or that he didn't occasionally hear it whispered in a bar. What did he expect? OK, it hadn't been what he'd called himself for ten years, and the face and hair weren't exactly the same, but 'Alan Langford' was still basically the bloke he saw when he looked in the mirror.

  Only the name was dead.

  Still, everyone close to him knew how it worked, same as those who had been here a while. They knew there were coppers and friends of coppers all over this stretch of coast like flies on a turd, and stupid things like the name you used could draw attention. Could end up getting you pinched. But a few faces occasionally got careless. Older types from the London days who turned gobby after a drink or two; or recent arrivals who were mooching about, looking to make the right contacts.

  Tonight, it had been one of the older boys. A bloke he'd done some business with in the seventies. No harm in him, just a slip of the tongue, and the look on his face when he realised what he'd said was priceless. But still, he'd needed telling.

  A week ago, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did. A quiet word would have done it. Now though, with the business back home, with these photographs and everything else, he had every right to feel a bit jumpier than he would be otherwise.

  To feel cornered.

  Below him, lights drifted across the water as a couple of boats emerged from around the headland and moved into the bay. Night fishermen, probably, nets bulging with squid and sardines.

  All this grief because of a photograph. Jesus . . .

  He could just make out the music drifting up from his favourite club on the seafront, the bass-line anyway, like a racing heartbeat. He knew there'd be a few of those in the place tonight - sweaty punters revved up on coke and ecstasy. Soft-top Mercs and Bentleys parked outside and high-quality Russian hookers lined up around the dance floor.

  He poured out what was left of the wine and lobbed the empty bottle into the swimming pool.

  He was a long way from Hackney.

  There had not been too much traffic on the way back from Victoria, and Thorne was home before ten o'clock. Louise had already gone to bed. He thought he had come in quietly enough, but standing in the kitchen, necking water from the bottle, he heard her call out from the bedroom.

  He got undressed in the dark.

  'I just conked out in front of the TV,' she said. 'Couldn't keep my eyes open.'

  'It doesn't matter.'

  'I can smell Guinness.'

  He got into bed and turned on to his side. Said, 'I had a couple in the Oak with Russell.'

  Had Thorne been asked there and then why he was lying, he could not have explained it. The night before, when Louise had asked about his first trip to Wakefield, he had felt as though he were lying when he was being truthful. Now, lying felt a lot less problematic than being honest.

  He told himself that he was protecting her. That she was oversensitive at the moment, had been since the miscarriage.

  He knew it was nonsense.

  He did not want an argument, it was probably as simple as that. Yes, Louise was more easily hurt these days, was prone to see offence where there was none intended, but so was he. He was still raw, and he was not up to a fight.

  Louise rolled over and her arm moved across his leg. 'How many did you have?'

  'Only a couple,' Thorne said.

  'That's very responsible.'

  'I was driving.'

  'How early are you in tomorrow?'

  Her fingers dropped to his groin and her breath was hot as she moaned softly into his shoulder. He had more or less stopped thinking about Anna Carpenter when he turned to her.

  TWELVE

  Thorne picked up Anna near Victoria Coach Station and they drove north, along Whitehall and around Trafalgar Square, across the Euston Road, up into Camden and beyond.

  He did not bother warning her this time or issuing ground rules that he guessed she would break anyway. He was rather less cautious about this interview than he had been about the one in Wakefield Prison, on top of which he now thought she'd probably had a point the night before. He might well get more out of Donna Langford with Anna along for the ride.

  Presuming there was anything to get.

  They didn't talk much in the car. Thorne content to listen to the radio and Anna appearing to get the message. Waiting to cross the Holloway Road, Thorne slipped a CD into the player; a vintage bluegrass compilation. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe . . .

  'Oh, I love this sort of stuff,' Anna said.

  Thorne nudged the volume up as he accelerated away from the lights.

  'My dad used to have loads of these records.'

  He glanced across and was pleased to see that she did not appear to be taking the piss; nodding her head in time to the music and smacking out the rhythm on her knees. She had made all the right noises when she had first seen the BMW, too; something Thorne was not accustomed to. Certainly not from work colleagues, most of whom delighted in describing the 1975, pulsar-yellow CSi as the 'rusty banana' or a 'puke-coloured death-trap'. Anna told Thorne she thought it was 'cool'. He told her she had very good taste, but couldn't help wondering if she had held secret meetings with Holland or Hendricks, and had been comprehensively briefed on the best ways to wind him up.

  'My mum hates it, though,' Anna said, smiling. She was still tapping along to the beat of the upright bass, the scratchy melody of the fiddle, and the syncopation, so delicately picked out on the resonator guitar.

  'This Weary Heart' by the Stanley Brothers, honey-sweet and hell-dark, as the car turned off the Seven Sisters Road and slowed.

  'Most people do,' Thorne said. 'I think it's one of the reasons I like it so much.'

  Donna Langford did not seem overly keen on letting Thorne and Anna inside when they arrived. She was already pulling her coat on when she opened the door and stepped out quickly. 'Kate's got the right hump this morning,' she said.

  Thorne and Anna exchanged a look as Donna marched past them down the path.

  'It's a nice day. Let's go to the park.'

  The day, though bright and sunny, was hardly warm, while the park, a five-minute walk from Donna's block, turned out to be a scrubby patch of green and brown no bigger than a couple of tennis courts. There was a pair of rusted swings and a set of goalposts without a net. A fire had scorched what might once have been a penalty area, and there was a collection of discarded cans and bottles scattered among the long grass behind.

  The three of them squeezed on to a metal bench.

  'What was your first thought?' Thorne asked. 'Back when you saw that first picture of Alan.'

  A few leaves skittered half-hearted
ly at their feet, and for the few seconds before Donna answered they all watched as a battered Nissan Micra raced down the small road that ran behind the goalposts.

  'I thought it was typical,' Donna said, laughing. 'Once I'd got over the shock, I mean. I started wondering why I hadn't thought he was alive before. Why I ever thought I'd actually managed to get rid of him.'

  'Why "typical"?'

  'Alan never did anything by halves,' she said. 'He planned things out, thought them through, you know?'