From the Dead (2010)

by Mark Billingham

  'Who are you?'

  'Man U, mate, who else?'

  'You're a Londoner.'

  Fraser nodded, as though that were perfectly acceptable. 'Still the team to beat,' he said.

  Thorne blinked, remembered the rain coming down as he and Anna had walked back from the river. When she had revealed her affiliation and sung Wayne Rooney's praises, laughing as Thorne grew increasingly exasperated.

  'You're just jealous because your lot never win anything.'

  'At least the people who support "my lot" live in the city where they play.'

  'Right. We are definitely going to the next Man United - Spurs game. A tenner says we stuff you.'

  'Only another five minutes,' Fraser said.

  The climb had not felt particularly steep, but looking to his right as they swept around a corner, Thorne could see the sea far below them. The landscape fell away gently towards it on either side, rocky and dotted with trees then getting greener, dip by dip, as it neared the coast. They passed several signs warning of bulls in the road and then finally Thorne saw a field of them. Eight or nine: big and black and looking well capable of breaking through the fence and taking on a Punto.

  'So, whose ashes are scattered in Mijas, then?' Thorne asked.

  'Come again?'

  'The Milk Tray man? That bloke off the Mr Muscle adverts?'

  'That's funny,' Fraser said. He laughed, but it sounded like something he'd learned.

  In reply, Thorne's modest snort of laughter was genuine enough, as he imagined Fraser being casually tossed into the air by one of the bulls they had just driven past. The wraparound sunglasses stomped into the ground and the beads flying off his ponce's necklace.

  Ole . . .

  The main road was closed just before it entered Mijas, and a police officer on a motorbike waved them towards a diversion that ran downhill and around, into the newer part of town. Thorne asked what was going on and Fraser said that he had no idea. With all available parking space taken by a fleet of tourist coaches, they had little choice but to leave the car in a grim-looking multi-storey. Then Thorne followed Fraser back towards the cluster of white buildings high above them. He hauled his suitcase up a long, steep flight of steps and through a warren of cobbled streets until they finally emerged into the main square.

  'Nice, right?' Fraser said.

  Thorne just nodded, happy to stand and take the place in for a minute or two. He was sweating again and needed the time to catch his breath. A large, covered food market took up most of the square, and crowds were flocking up and down row after row of stalls selling fruit and vegetables, fish, dried meats and cheeses. A large and equally crowded bar ran down one side and those not shopping seemed content to stand around, talking and drinking. A few were dancing unselfconsciously to what sounded like live music, though Thorne could see no sign of the musicians.

  'Market day,' Fraser said, as though Thorne needed an explanation. 'That's a bit of luck.'

  Thorne looked at him.

  'I don't know, you might want a bit of fruit for your room or something . . .'

  Despite the number of coaches they had seen down by the car park, Thorne couldn't hear any language being spoken but Spanish. One or two people were pointing cameras, but they had not passed any tacky souvenir shops and the place felt nothing like a standard tourist trap. No football shirts were being worn either, so Thorne guessed there were not too many Brits around and regardless of what he'd said to Fraser on the way up, he was not unhappy about it.

  The ones he was interested in had not come to Spain to buy castanets and get sunburned.

  'We should get you sorted, mate.'

  Though Thorne thought it had come a little late, he accepted Fraser's offer to take the suitcase and followed him, the wheels clattering across the cobbles as they walked through the crowds, around the square and up another short flight of steps at the far corner. Fifty yards or so on, after three or four tight turnings, Fraser stopped at a pair of dark wooden doors behind a trellis wound with ivy and bougainvillea. He pushed at the door and shook his head. Said, 'Don't worry.'

  Thorne watched as Fraser pressed a button on the intercom then leaned down to begin a conversation in Spanish with the woman on the other end. Thorne heard his name mentioned several times.

  When Fraser had finished, he looked up. 'Siesta time.' He winked. 'Spanish yoga. Don't worry, though.' There was a buzz from the intercom and Fraser pushed open the door.

  Thorne followed him into a tiny and dimly lit reception area with the outline of a staircase beyond. The place was deserted and Thorne's voice echoed slightly when he spoke. 'Where are they?' he asked.

  'Not the faintest idea, but it's fine. Here you go . . .'

  An envelope with Thorne's name and a room number written across it lay waiting on the reception desk. Thorne shook it and felt a key rattle inside. He nodded and stepped towards the stairs. An automatic light came on.

  'You should do what the locals do,' Fraser said. 'Try and get your head down for a couple of hours.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Oh, I need to get back to the office. Tell them I got you here in one piece.'

  'Expecting snipers, were we?'

  Fraser looked at his watch. 'Three hours. How's that?' Without waiting for Thorne to answer, he backed away to the front door and said, 'So, I'll pick you up at half seven.'

  Thorne took a few steps up, then lowered his case and turned. 'What about the villains?' he asked. 'Do they bother with siesta time? When in Rome, all that?'

  'Yeah, I should imagine,' Fraser said. 'But they probably sleep with one eye open . . .'

  The room was on the third floor, with further lights coming on as Thorne climbed higher. It was fairly basic: two single beds pushed together, a small bathroom, a portable TV, metal shutters over full-length windows and a balcony not quite big enough to step on to. Thorne reckoned it was good enough, or at least was not in the right frame of mind to care.

  He opened the shutters, then unpacked quickly and was surprised to find a mini-bar in the cupboard beneath the TV. With beer only three euros a pop, his mood improved a little. He opened a bottle and checked for new messages on his phone.

  Nothing.

  He set the handset's alarm for 6.15 p.m., then showered. It was the usual hotel dribble, but it was hot and it felt good to wash the dried sweat away. Afterwards, he wrapped a towel around his waist, turned up the air conditioning and lay down on the bed. He rolled on to his side and looked across at the grey net curtain moving gently back and forth at the window.

  Next thing he knew, he was scrabbling across the bed to answer his phone.

  'Hello? Hello?'

  Thorne looked at the small screen, struggling to focus. It was not a call. It was six-fifteen and all he had done was switch off the alarm.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Twenty minutes later than promised, Fraser arrived to pick Thorne up with a plain-clothes Guardia Civil officer named Samarez in tow. The Spaniard mumbled a greeting, then hung back a little as they walked away from the hotel, his expression non-committal as Fraser explained that the two of them had been working together for the last few months. That Samarez was 'a top bloke' and 'a good copper' but most importantly 'a right laugh, once you get to know him'.

  'Something to look forward to,' Thorne said.

  Judging by his reaction, Samarez wasn't as good with languages as Fraser, just cocking his head a little when Thorne turned to look at him. He was taller than both Thorne and Fraser, with dark hair cut very short and a five o'clock shadow that suggested he probably needed to shave a couple of times a day. He did not look the sort who smiled a great deal, but perhaps that came from working with Fraser. Or perhaps, Thorne thought, he just had bad teeth.

  'There's some business to go through later,' Fraser said. 'But a bit of bonding wouldn't hurt, would it?'

  Thorne and Samarez shrugged in unison.

  'I reckon a few beers is a good idea if we're going to be working together. Thre
e fucking musketeers, yes?'

  They found a restaurant in a small square a few minutes' walk from the market place. Thorne ordered for himself this time, or at least made his choice known, then sat back as Fraser did the talking. He wondered if the waiter found Fraser's expansive mateyness as irritating as he did, and if the SOCA man spoke Spanish with a mockney accent.

  They were sitting close to a large pair of open doors, and Thorne was glad he had brought along a jacket. He pulled it on, looked around the dining room. 'Not very busy in here,' he said.

  It was gone eight-fifteen and the place was almost empty. Aside from a man with a newspaper a few tables away and an elderly couple talking in hushed voices near the kitchen, they had the restaurant to themselves.

  'The locals don't eat until much later,' Fraser said. 'Stupid, if you ask me. I mean, I know a lot of them had their heads down in the afternoon, but even so. Bad for the digestion, apart from anything else, not to mention putting the weight on.' He grinned and prodded at the small roll of fat falling across his belt. 'This is just a few too many San Miguels, mate, don't worry. Get that shifted easy enough.'

  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 botherin
g 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.