From the Dead (2010)

by Mark Billingham

  'I can't see it.'

  Thorne pulled Fraser across to the small table and pointed. 'He had a drink with her, OK? Or sat down and helped himself to one after he'd killed her.'

  'Jesus . . .'

  Thorne remembered the terror on the girl's face when they confronted her, and what she had said about cops and villains. The difficulty in telling one from the other. She had not been given much of a choice in the end, but she had still picked the wrong side. 'Make sure you get prints off that bottle,' he said. 'Match them with the ones from the glass Candela brought in.'

  'Doesn't matter if his prints are all over the place,' Fraser said. 'This is his girlfriend's flat.'

  'But he'd never been here, remember?'

  'Yeah, but the only person who can corroborate that is the girl and she's pavement pizza, so what's the point?'

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the balcony.

  'The Spanish are even more hard-arsed about this stuff than we are,' Fraser said. 'Some of the jokes.'

  'Just get the prints.' Thorne turned and began unzipping his bodysuit as he walked quickly towards the door.

  'Where are you off to?' Fraser asked, two steps behind him again.

  'A bit more sightseeing,' Thorne said.

  The villa was at the edge of one of the countless golf resorts that had been developed beneath the Sierra Blanca, and it was more exclusive than most. At the highest point of a winding road, Thorne could not see any neighbouring properties, and though he had not followed the perimeter fence for any distance, he guessed that there was a fair amount of land attached to it. Plenty for a man to stroll around and feel good about himself.

  However hard that might otherwise be.

  There were solid metal gates at the end of the driveway, and from what Thorne could remember from the helicopter pictures he had been shown, it was about a quarter of a mile from them to the house itself. Thorne could not see any security cameras, but he did not much care if he was seen anyway.

  He rang the bell and waited. Rang again, then stepped back and walked a few yards along the perimeter fence. Densely cultivated firs obscured the view, so he moved back to the gates, pushing the sweat out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. He pressed the bell one more time, then leaned down to the speaker that was built into a concrete post. He had no idea if anyone was listening.

  'You made another mistake, Alan,' he said. He could hear nothing but the low buzz of power lines overhead and the humming of cicadas. 'Your last one . . .'

  He turned at the sound of a vehicle approaching and watched a white VW Golf coming around the steep bend that led to the villa. The car slowed when the driver saw him, then stopped altogether. Thorne took a few casual steps and recognised the man he had seen watching him on his first two nights in Mijas. The man who may or may not be working for Alan Langford.

  Thorne and the driver looked at each other for ten seconds before Thorne began walking quickly towards the car. The gravel spat as the driver immediately threw the Golf into a three-point turn. Thorne started to run, but there was never any chance of him catching it. He made a mental note of the number plate and was repeating it to himself as the Golf disappeared around the corner and his phone rang.

  It was Holland.

  'How did it go in Nottingham, Dave?'

  'Chris Talbot is definitely our man,' Holland said. 'Was our man, whatever. But listen, there's a photo you need to see.' He told Thorne about the rugby picture, about the man whose face he had recognised.

  Thorne felt what might have been a bead of sweat, or an insect crawling across the nape of his neck. He had already forgotten the VW's number plate. 'It's not that strange, is it? Considering the team.' He began walking back towards his car.

  'Not if it was just that, but Sonia Murray called from Wakefield. They did a random search of Jeremy Grover's cell last week and found a mobile phone.'

  'Last week? So why are we only hearing about this now?'

  Holland explained standard HMP protocol in such circumstances, as it had been explained to him by Murray. The phone had immediately been sent to the prison's security department in case it contained pictures of officers or keys, and from there to an outside technical support unit. The techies had extracted data from the SIM card, including the numbers of all incoming and outgoing calls, and had then passed the information on to Murray.

  'If she hadn't been on the ball, we might never have heard about it,' Holland said. 'But she thought we might be interested in the calls made and received in the few days before Monahan was killed. And on the day . . .'

  'You've checked them out?'

  'One number came up repeatedly.'

  'Whose?'

  Holland told him. The same man he had seen in the photograph at Alison Hobbs' house. A mobile registered in his wife's name.

  'Grover sent a text the day he killed Monahan,' Holland said. 'And he was called back a few hours later. The same thing happened the day after Cook was killed.'

  Thorne reached the car and leaned against it for a few seconds.

  'There's your jungle drums,' Holland said.

  Thorne opened the door and climbed in, turned on the ignition and waited for the cold air. He ran through conversations from two months before. Let the pieces fall into place.

  'Sir? Tom . . . ?'

  'We use him to get Langford,' Thorne said. He was thinking aloud, but he knew it was the best chance they had. The only chance. 'We can use him, but we need to get him here, all right?'

  'How do we do that?'

  'Piece of piss,' Thorne said.

  Suddenly he knew exactly what needed to be done. And he knew just the man to do it.

  FORTY-THREE

  'For Christ's sake, drink your beer,' Langford said. 'And relax, will you?'

  A clink of glasses, or bottles maybe, and the sound of something ticking fast in the background.

  'I don't know how you can be so calm. We're in trouble here.'

  'I don't agree.'

  'How can you--?'

  'Getting worked up doesn't do anybody any good.'

  'They're really turning the screws on Grover.'

  'Everything can be sorted. As long as you've been careful.'

  'Course I have.'

  'So, no problem then.'

  'Thorne's not going to give this one up, I'm telling you.'

  'He'll have to, eventually. Chasing lost causes always pisses the brass off in the end. Well, you know that.'

  'You should never have done the girl.'

  Just that ticking for ten seconds or more then the scrape of a chair against the tiles.

  'You're sweating like a pig, mate,' Langford said, laughing. 'Take your shirt off, have a dip in the pool.'

  'I'm fine.'

  A throat cleared loudly . . .

  'If he takes his shirt off, we're in big trouble,' Samarez said.

  Thorne shrugged. 'Not as much trouble as he'll be in.'

  They were sitting in the back of a van with blacked-out windows and the name of a plumbing company on the side. It was parked in a small turning a hundred yards or so from the gates, but with a clear view of them. The conversation at the villa was coming through loud and clear, with the voice of the man wearing the wire only a little more distinct than Langford's. He'd been told to get as close as he could.

  'It's a decent enough microphone, though,' Thorne had told him as the wire was being fitted. 'So, no need to sit on his lap . . .'

  Now, up at the villa, Langford was telling his visitor how warm the pool was. 'Like a bath,' he said.

  The other man said he wasn't much for swimming.

  'We have not discussed what we should do if this does not . . . work out,' Samarez said.

  'Damn, I knew we'd forgotten something,' Thorne said. He pretended to think about it for a few seconds, to give a toss. 'I suggest we just sit here and listen to him getting battered.'

  'Well, for a while, perhaps.' Samarez was wearing the headphones, while Thorne was sitting close to a sm
all speaker on the table next to the receiving equipment.

  Next to him, Andy Boyle shifted his folding chair nearer to the speaker. 'He's pushing it too hard, if you ask me.'

  'Maybe,' Thorne said.

  They listened for another minute.

  'How do we know the tosser's not writing notes?' Boyle asked. '"Say nothing" or whatever.'

  Thorne shook his head. 'He's deep in the shit and this is his only chance of keeping his head above it.'

  'Hope you're right,' Boyle said. *

  Thorne had met the Yorkshireman at the airport two days before. Boyle had shaken his hand, said it was a damn sight warmer than Wakefield.

  'Thanks for doing this, Andy,' Thorne had said.

  Boyle had glanced at the man he had brought with him. 'An absolute fucking pleasure, mate.' Still holding on to Thorne's hand, Boyle had leaned in close to Thorne and said, 'Really sorry about the lass.'

  'I know . . .'

  Then, as if embarrassed to show too much of a soft side without so much as a single drink inside him, Boyle had stepped away and pointed an accusing finger. 'Oh, and you never sent my pants back by the way . . .'

  Thorne had not spoken to Boyle's fellow passenger - the one in plastic cuffs - until a couple of hours later when Thorne had felt good and ready. Only once he, Boyle and Samarez had had a chance to put their heads together and Gary Brand had been given an hour or so to stew in a Guardia Civil safe house.

  'Not quite as clever as your boss, then,' Thorne had said. 'Very careless all this phone business, but I'm guessing you were stitched up by somebody else.'

  Brand was sweating in a grey suit. They had deliberately not given him the opportunity to change out of it. They wanted him hot and bothered. He said nothing for a few seconds, then sat back and folded his arms. 'Cook was a twat,' he said. 'A greedy twat. Like he wasn't getting paid well enough anyway.'

  'He took the phone in.'

  Brand nodded. 'He was supposed to give Grover a clean handset every week and get rid of the old one, but he thought he'd make a few extra quid by selling them to other prisoners. So . . .'

  'Can't get the staff,' Thorne said.

  He had put it all together over the week or so it had taken to arrange for Brand's transfer to Spain. The nuts and bolts of Brand's deception. The extent of his own stupidity.

  'Mind you, Langford's probably not the easiest employer to work for, right?'

  'He was not my employer,' Brand said.

  Thorne smiled, sour. 'Well, not in the sense of holiday pay and a P45, maybe, but in all the ways that mattered, he owned you.'

  It was now clear that Brand had been in Langford's pocket throughout the original investigation and probably for a good while before, that once the new inquiry had begun, he had cleverly wormed his way back into Thorne's confidence. Brand had turned up in the Oak the night of the Chambers verdict and 'bumped into' Thorne, maintaining his trust from that point on through a series of conversations - many instigated by Thorne himself - and by feeding Thorne useless names to check out. He had convincingly portrayed an officer - a friend - with as much interest in putting Alan Langford away as Thorne, while he was busy making the arrangements for Monahan and Cook to be killed.

  And Anna Carpenter.

  'Let's talk about Detective Constable Chris Talbot, shall we?'

  'This isn't a formal interview.'

  'Just a chat.'

  'So, nothing is admissible in court.'

  'Plenty of time for that,' Thorne said. 'So, was it your idea to use Talbot?' He watched Brand thinking.

  Brand already knew that he could not escape serious corruption charges, but he was treading carefully, reluctant to say anything that might lead to him also being charged as an accessory to murder.

  'We know you knew him.'

  'So, I knew him. And . . . ?'

  'And I'm guessing that he was getting too close to your pal Alan. Or maybe he found out that you were.'

  'I played rugby with a lot of people, all right?'

  'Either way, he was the perfect choice to take Langford's place. You needed a body and you needed Talbot out of the way. You might even have been there when he was put in that car and burned alive.'

  'That's bollocks.'

  'You might just as well have been.'

  'I wasn't . . .'

  'Same as you might just as well have stuck that shiv into Monahan or fired the shot that killed Anna Carpenter.'

  Brand visibly tensed at the mention of Anna's name, as though well aware that they were stepping into extremely dangerous territory. 'I knew nothing about that.'

  'Really?'

  'I swear--'

  'You're a lying cunt.' Thorne leaned forward fast. 'Now, give me the name of the shooter and I might not come across this table and rip your head off.'

  Brand held Thorne's stare, but not for long. 'We need to talk about how this deal is going to work,' he said.

  'You're going to prison,' Thorne said. 'That's how it's going to work. Even if you get Alan Langford marching out of that villa with his hands in the air confessing to half a dozen murders and begging us to nick him, you're going to prison. But it's all about which prison. You do this the right way, and you might not end up sharing a wing with some of the people you've put away. Men with a few grudges and plenty of time to get a toothbrush nice and sharp.'

  'How long?'

  'Not my decision, mate, but if you end up in the wrong place, that won't really matter, will it?' Thorne sat back again, giving Brand a few moments to take it in. 'You should consider yourself very lucky that there's anything you can do to make your life a bit easier, and you can be sure that's only because I want Langford even more than I want you.'

  'Don't expect me to be grateful.'

  'What you should be is careful,' Thorne said. 'Because if you don't do this right, I'll happily throw you to the fucking wolves.' There was a gratifying flash of panic for the first time in Brand's eyes. 'Nothing to worry about, Gary. Like you said, this isn't a formal interview.'

  Just a chat . . .

  Langford was now telling Brand about some of the development projects he was involved with and Brand was saying very little. Thorne imagined him sitting there nodding, trying to look relaxed, wondering how he could get Langford to admit anything, waiting for an opening. Brand had been instructed that he should not force the issue under any circumstances, as much to avoid the suggestion of entrapment further down the line as anything else, but he was clearly running out of ideas.

  'So, what about Grover, then?' Brand asked.

  In the van, Thorne, Boyle and Samarez looked at one another.

  'What about him?'

  'You want me to organise anything?'

  'I'm going to organise a couple more beers . . .'

  Samarez grunted in frustration while Thorne kicked out at the side of the van.

  'Langford's cagey as fuck,' Boyle said. 'You think he might be on to it?'

  Thorne knew that it was possible. Brand had never been to visit Langford in Spain before, so his 'insistence' on making this trip could easily have given Langford serious misgivings. They had briefed Brand as thoroughly as possible in the time available. He had been instructed to talk about Candela Bernal and to reveal that evidence was mounting against Grover, who was finally starting to crack under pressure from Andy Boyle, but even that might not be enough to draw Langford out. Thorne recalled the man who had joined him at the bar in Ronda. He was certainly confident, and Thorne wondered if that was bred not just of the power he possessed, but of a faith in his own ability to sniff out danger.

  'Yeah, he might be,' Thorne said.

  The evidence Brand had already provided was sufficient to get Langford arrested and extradited for trial in the UK, but without an admission on tape, Thorne could not bank on a conviction. He knew better than anyone that even the most solid of cases could fall apart, that any half-decent brief might persuade a jury that Brand was no more than a bent copper trying to save his own skin. There was every chan
ce that Langford would be back in Spain before his tan had begun to fade.

  There was no way Thorne could let that happen. He owed it to himself and to too many others.

  'Here you go, mate,' Langford said. 'A nice cold one.'

  'Cheers.'

  'You sure you don't fancy a swim?'