From the Dead (2010)

by Mark Billingham

Samarez told him that they would not have too long to wait for the fingerprint match. 'Candela met up with Mackenzie in a nightclub last night. She told him she had a headache and left early with Mackenzie's champagne glass in her handbag. So, with luck . . .'

  'I hope she was careful.'

  'She is not stupid.'

  'Neither is Langford,' Thorne said.

  They talked for a few minutes about how the inquiry might best be taken forward, both skirting around the fact that until there was some new information, either in Spain or from the UK, it was likely to go precisely nowhere. Samarez said that he was busy on other cases for the rest of the day, and that Fraser had called in sick. He asked Thorne what he was planning to do and Thorne said he had no idea.

  'You should get up to Ronda,' Samarez said. 'It's really very nice.'

  'So I hear.'

  'It might do you good to relax for a few hours.'

  Coming from Samarez, the suggestion seemed less like an attempt to get Thorne out of the way than it had done from Fraser. Thorne wondered if Samarez might be right. There was nothing else that could usefully be done while they were waiting for Forensics to lift a print off the glass Candela Bernal had provided. To scan the results and send them through to London for comparison. A trip would certainly kill some time and might help take his mind off Langford for a while.

  Off Anna Carpenter and Andrea Keane.

  'I'll see how I feel,' he said.

  He left the hotel and found a cafe. He drank two cups of milky coffee and made short work of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and chorizo. Then he walked down towards the commercial area of the village to collect his hire car.

  The enthusiasm in Thorne's voice had been clear enough when he had called the previous afternoon. His voice always rose a little higher when he was fired up and he talked faster. Everything he had suggested made sense, and Holland and Kitson had gone about their task with all the dedication they could muster. But Holland could not help but feel that increased hope would only lead, in the end, to increased disappointment.

  That penalty kick he was destined to fluff had just become even more important.

  Going back as far as Thorne had requested had eventually yielded another eight candidates. Having made certain that each one was still missing, Holland and Kitson had arrived at work that morning to begin the laborious process of contacting the next of kin, making appointments, and arranging wherever possible for DNA samples to be collected. As with the list they had worked through in February, most of the stories were simple yet terrible. The reasons why these individuals might have vanished without a trace, for the holes left in other people's lives.

  Drugs. Abuse. Mental illness.

  Or nothing at all.

  A case that fell firmly into the last category caught Holland's eye halfway through the morning. Just for a moment or two, it made him feel as though he might have his penalty-taking boots on after all. Having talked to Brigstocke, he and Kitson decided they would not tell Thorne until they were sure there was really something to get excited about. But everyone agreed that it looked promising; that they should focus all their attention on this case.

  Find out who was in that Jag, Dave. He's the key to all this.

  It seemed to Holland as if it had risen up from the stack of files like a card from one of Brigstocke's magic decks.

  The car was stifling and smelled plasticky when Thorne picked it up, but once the air con had been running for ten minutes, the drive up into the hills was pleasant enough, although the concentration it demanded left little time to take in the scenery. It was a far steeper climb than the one up to Mijas, with alarming drops on his left-hand side and more than a few hairy corners. Thorne was amazed to see signs warning of snow on the road, which were not only incongruous, considering the hot weather, but made him wonder how in hell any driver managed the climb - and worse yet, the descent - in freezing conditions. Chuck in the risk of rock falls and the occasional wandering goat, he thought, and it would be astonishing if anyone made it up or down in one piece.

  It took him the best part of an hour to reach Ronda, and within a few minutes of parking the car and starting to walk towards the centre of the 'white town', he was out of breath. He stopped and looked down from one of the bridges into the canyon on which the town was perched, carved out by the river which now divided it in two. He took a minute. The view was undeniably spectacular, and he was content to put the breathlessness down to the fact that he was several thousand feet above sea-level, rather than blaming the several pounds he could do with dropping.

  The big breakfast might have been a mistake, he thought.

  He picked up a map from a tourist information office and followed it past rows of small shops and quirky museums to the historic bullring that Fraser had mentioned. There were far fewer visitors around than there had been in Mijas, but Thorne put that down to the feria. This town had a different atmosphere, too, something almost reverential, and it was certainly quieter.

  He paid his four euros and walked through a turnstile into the empty bullring. The sandy floor sloped very gradually up towards the centre and was harder than he had expected. A couple was taking photos on the far side, and more people were moving in the stands, but despite their presence, and the late morning sun overhead, the place felt strangely cold and spooky. Resonant of a past that made Thorne uncomfortable. He found himself wondering how many animals had died there . . . and how many men. How much blood had soaked into the floor beneath his feet over two hundred and fifty years.

  Standing in the centre of the ring, looking towards a pair of scarred, white, wooden gates, it was easy to imagine the heat and the roar of a frenzied crowd. Thorne could almost taste the adrenalin, coppery in the mouths of those waiting to face the bulls. He tried to gauge the distance between the centre and the edge, asked himself if he would make it, should he ever find himself running from a charging bull. He still fancied himself as reasonably quick if he needed to be, in short bursts at any rate.

  He decided he would not even get halfway.

  He spent a few minutes walking around the bullring's museum, taking no more than a passing interest in the old photographs and mounted bulls' heads. He looked briefly at the antique suits of lights displayed behind glass and wondered why vintage clothes always seemed so small, before walking across to a bar on the edge of the main square.

  He waved to attract a waiter's attention and was ignored.

  On the table, he laid out a handful of leaflets for some of the town's other attractions. There was certainly no shortage of museums, but each exhibition seemed more gruesome, more bloodthirsty, than the last.

  A history of hunting.

  Torture during the Spanish Inquisition.

  Five hundred years of capital punishment.

  Looking at pictures of some of the exhibits, Thorne was not sure that Ronda was quite as 'nice' as everyone kept telling him.

  It was hotter now, and Thorne turned again to look for the waiter. The bar was busy and he cast an eye across the customers, half expecting to see the man with the newspaper he had spotted twice already. But when he heard a chair being scraped back, he spun around to see an even more familiar figure.

  Thorne could only watch as Alan Langford dropped casually into the seat opposite.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  'You mind?' Langford raised a hand, and within a few seconds a waiter was at the table. Langford looked at Thorne. 'What do you want?'

  Thorne said nothing.

  I want to drive a glass so far into your face that it won't matter what you call yourself, because nobody will ever recognise you again. I want to twist and push and feel the flesh shredding and I want to hear you scream. I want you to say my name, same as she did . . .

  'I fancy a beer,' Langford said. 'Not one of those poxy little ones, either.' He ordered two beers in Spanish, then sat back to look at Thorne, shaking his head and smiling, as though they were two old friends who had fallen out over something so trivial that neither of
them could even remember it properly.

  I want your blood to wash away hers.

  When the beers arrived, Langford put away half of his in one gulp, then sat back again and began methodically peeling the label from the bottle. 'There's nothing for you here,' he said. 'You need to know that.'

  Thorne reached for his own bottle. He had no desire to drink with this man, but suddenly his mouth was dry and his tongue felt sticky. He hoped the beer might steady the tremble in his legs and help him fight the urge to do exactly what he had just imagined doing.

  'You're here,' he said.

  'Right. I'm here minding my own business.'

  'And we all know what that is.'

  'Listen, I don't know what you think you know, but the only thing you're getting in Spain is sunburn. So all I'm saying is, why don't you just toddle off home and save us all a lot of trouble?'

  Langford's hair was greyer than it had looked in the photographs, and too much sun had left his face lined and leathery. Despite the bravado, Thorne could also see that he was anything but relaxed. The smile showed only teeth that were too big for his mouth, and too white.

  'For someone who's minding his own business, you seem awfully worried,' Thorne said.

  'I'm irritated.'

  'Well, I must be doing something right.'

  The teeth flashed again. 'It's a lot of trouble to go to, though, don't you think? To come all the way out here, costing the taxpayer God knows how much, to check up on a retired businessman.'

  'You're not exactly retired, though, are you? And I'm doing more than checking up.'

  Langford puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled slowly. 'A man finds out his wife is planning to have him killed, so he thinks it might be a good idea to start again somewhere else. End of story. I can't see the Crown Prosecution Service getting very excited about that a decade down the line, can you?'

  'They're pretty keen on people who leave bodies behind.'

  'Well, course they are, but I wouldn't know anything about that.'

  'You don't know how a man came to be burned to a crisp in your car?'

  'I thought you'd caught the man who did that,' Langford said. 'Isn't he in prison?'

  'He was,' Thorne said. 'Until he got carved up in his cell a few months ago.'

  'Dangerous places, prisons.'

  'Then the prison officer who colluded in his murder got hit by a car.'

  'Nasty.'

  'Very. But you wouldn't know anything about that either, right?'

  'I'm a bit out of touch over here,' Langford said. 'Unless it's in the sports pages . . .'

  His hand dropped to his waist, reaching idly beneath the white linen shirt to scratch. Thorne caught a glimpse of the scar Donna had mentioned, pale against the brown belly.

  'Retirement must get a bit boring, though, surely?' Thorne said. 'How much golf can you play, how many laps of your pool can you do?'

  'You sound jealous, mate.'

  'It's perfectly understandable, that's all I'm saying. Wanting to keep your hand in, I mean.'

  'I just want a nice, quiet life.'

  'Course you do, but sometimes things need doing to keep it nice and quiet.'

  Langford was still picking at the label from his beer bottle, rolling the pieces into balls between his fingers and dropping them into the ashtray. He shook his head and his eyes drifted away, as though he had momentarily lost the thread of the conversation.

  Four or five skinny, feral cats were sniffing around near the tables, yowling for food then fighting over any scraps thrown their way. Langford held out a hand towards one, made kissing noises in an effort to draw it towards him, then gave up. He turned back to Thorne, said, 'Little buggers are more suspicious than you are.' Then, 'What were we talking about?'

  'Howard Cook and Paul Monahan.'

  Another shake of the head.

  'Names not ringing a bell, Alan?'

  'David.'

  'Well?'

  'Sorry,' Langford said. 'Are they footballers?' He leaned back and finished his beer, snapped his fingers as if he'd just remembered exactly what they were discussing. 'Hang on, what about that body in the car you were talking about?' Keeping his eyes on Thorne, he held up the empty bottle to let the waiter know he wanted another beer. 'I'm guessing you still don't have a name for that one.'

  'We're working on it.'

  'Best of British.'

  'Thanks.'

  'I mean it.'

  'You'll be the first to know how we get on, don't worry.'

  A couple at the next table got up to leave and Langford leaned across to grab one of their plates. He picked up the pieces of fat and gristle that had been left and tossed them one by one towards the cats. They immediately began rushing for every morsel, hissing at one another whenever they managed to grab a piece.

  'What about Anna Carpenter?' Thorne asked.

  'What about her?'

  'You know her name, then?'

  Langford narrowed his eyes, as though the name were familiar but would not quite come to him. As though he had almost placed the woman, then lost her. Finally, he shook his head again, defeated. 'No idea,' he said. 'She's not that tennis player, is she?'

  I could end this now, Thorne thought. End all of this and go home. I could reach across the table and use that dirty knife.

  End it.

  This fucking stupid game.

  My fucking stupid career.

  'You know, I keep hearing from everyone how good you are at planning things out,' Thorne said. 'Weighing up the risks. Donna told me--'

  'You don't want to believe anything that stupid bitch tells you.'

  'Well, that's just it, because I think she's wrong. I think they're all giving you way too much credit, because you make plenty of mistakes. You certainly made one when you took Ellie.'

  'You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?'

  'I've seen photos of her.'

  'Have you?'

  'And you made a big mistake with the girl. With Anna Carpenter.'

  If Thorne's words - the way he said them - had any effect, it was well hidden. Langford did not so much as blink. Thorne slowly let his fists unclench beneath the table, but he could not bear to let Langford walk away from this thinking that he had won.

  That he had scored any points at all.

  'Oh, and you're not really on the ball when it comes to hiring staff, either,' Thorne said.

  Langford sniffed. 'Really?'

  'Really,' Thorne said. 'Whoever you had watching me made a shit job of not being spotted.'

  'Well, thanks for the advice, but at the risk of repeating myself, you don't know what you're talking about.'

  'Right.'

  'Seriously.' Langford shook his head. 'I don't need to watch you.'

  Thorne tried not to look shocked, because, for the first time since Langford had sat down, Thorne believed he was telling the truth. He stood up quickly and stepped away from the table. He watched the cats scatter, then turned back to Langford. 'You were wrong, by the way,' he said. 'I'm more than suspicious. I know exactly how dangerous you are.'

  Langford looked at him for a while. He smiled and raised his hands in mock-surrender, then waved one of them dismissively. 'Listen, don't worry about the bill, I'll sort it out.'

  Thorne moved quickly back to the table. He gathered up the tourist leaflets and tossed them into Langford's lap. 'Try a couple of these exhibitions if you've got some free time,' he said. 'Though I'm guessing they might be a little tame for you.'

  Before Thorne was halfway back to the car, Samarez called. 'I've got the information you wanted,' he said.

  'Right.' For a few seconds, Thorne had trouble recalling what he'd asked Samarez to do.

  'I checked Langford's phone records, and there is a match for one of those dates and names you gave me.' He told Thorne which one. 'Same day every year for the last few years. Very clever of you, Tom.'

  Thorne mumbled a 'thanks' for the information and the compliment, although he was still f
inding it hard to think straight, still reeling from the conversation with Langford.

  Then, as if to show how clever he was, Samarez said, 'So, did the two of you have a pleasant chat?'

  'What?'

  Samarez laughed. 'He is still under surveillance, so obviously he was seen talking to you.'

  It made sense, though if the Guardia Civil had been aware that Langford was in Ronda, or on his way there, Thorne wondered why Samarez had not seen fit to warn him. 'OK . . .'