A minute or two passed. The reversing signal of a van or lorry sounded close to the window. There were voices outside the door, some laughter, then it was quiet again.
Linda closed her eyes. ‘Sorry.’
‘You’ve got every right to be angry,’ Helen said.
‘Why won’t anybody tell us anything?’ She looked at Helen, at Thorne. ‘How long’s it been?’
‘Time always drags in places like this,’ Thorne said.
‘Right,’ Hendricks said. ‘A minute seems like ten.’
Linda nodded, summoned a smile. ‘Listen, thanks for the support. Be bloody horrible if I was here on my own.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Shit, the kids. I should call them.’
‘They’ll be fine,’ Helen said. ‘I can call them if you want, but there’s really no need.’
Linda looked at Thorne. ‘She’s been great, you know, your missus. You should have seen her earlier on.’
Thorne looked at Helen. ‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Helen said.
‘Stood up for me, she has.’ Linda got up and walked across, wrapped an arm around Helen’s shoulder. ‘Been slagged off in the papers for it, an’ all. Gobbed at.’
‘What?’ Now, Thorne was out of his chair.
‘Gobbed at by who?’ Hendricks asked.
Helen inched away from Linda. ‘Just a few twats in the pub last night. When I went to the toilet.’ She clocked the look on Thorne’s face. ‘Again, I’ll tell you later.’
Thorne remembered how Helen had been, driving them back to Paula’s the night before. The silence, and something he didn’t recognise coming off her like a stink. He hoped, for their sake, that he never got hold of those responsible, but for once, at least, he had an explanation for Helen’s behaviour.
‘You look after her.’ Linda pointed a finger. ‘You’ve got a good one here.’
Thorne bought a round of weak teas from the machine and they all sat down again. Helen chatted quietly to Hendricks about work for a few minutes while Thorne tried talking to Linda about anything but the reason they were there.
The floods, the food in the local café, how her kids were doing at school.
It didn’t last long.
‘Why did he do it, d’you think?’
Once again, there was no answer anyone could give, but Thorne knew very well what most people would have said. He wondered if it was an answer that Linda was even considering.
‘It just keeps going round in my head.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Helen said.
‘I mean, there’s always hope, isn’t there? He must know me and the kids are there for him, whatever else happens.’ She looked to Helen, got a nod which seemed to perk her up a little. ‘I know prison’s horrible, but Steve’s a strong bloke, really he is.’
‘I’m sure he knows,’ Helen said. ‘It won’t have been that—’
Instinctively, they all stood up when the door opened, but it wasn’t the nurse or doctor they were expecting.
‘Everyone all right?’ Tim Cornish asked the question as though they were guests waiting to go through for dinner. He took a good look at Thorne, and at Hendricks.
Linda stepped towards him. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that your husband’s fine. All patched up.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Well, not right now, but if he sends a visiting order, of course you can.’
Linda looked confused, but Thorne and Helen understood immediately.
‘Are you winding us up?’ Helen asked.
Cornish shrugged. ‘Nothing I could do.’
‘What’s happening?’ Linda asked. ‘Why can’t I see Steve?’
‘They’ve already taken him back to prison,’ Cornish said. ‘The van left twenty minutes ago.’
‘What?’ Linda sounded on the verge of hysterics.
Cornish leaned back against the door. ‘The cuts weren’t much worse than superficial in the end,’ he said. ‘They stitched him up, gave him some painkillers and that was it.’
Helen shook her head. ‘This is not on.’
‘You know as well as I do that as soon as it’s been established a prisoner’s in no immediate danger, it’s the responsibility of the prison service to have him returned to custody as soon as possible.’
‘They told me to come.’ Now Linda was shouting, looking to Helen for support. ‘We’ve just been sat waiting here like idiots, for nothing.’
‘It was the governor’s decision.’ Cornish held up his hands. ‘Not mine.’
‘You just got me here to take the piss. To make me suffer.’
‘You’re upset, Linda—’
‘Bloody right, I’m upset.’
‘Go back to your kids,’ Cornish said. ‘Just be grateful Steve’s alive, eh?’
Helen could see that Linda was about as ready to take a swing as she herself had been a few hours earlier in the pub. She moved quickly to usher her from the room.
Thorne waited until the door had closed. ‘There was no need for that.’
‘For what?’ Cornish was the picture of wounded innocence. ‘I know you’re on holiday, but you can’t have forgotten the way things work that quickly.’
Thorne held himself in check, looked away. Just the partner of a woman who was here supporting a friend. No more than that.
Cornish looked at Hendricks. Hendricks moved to introduce himself, but Cornish held up a hand. ‘I know who you are.’
Hendricks tried to look pleased. ‘My fame is obviously spreading.’
‘You can get famous very fast round here,’ Thorne said.
Cornish smiled and loosened the top button of his shirt. He let out a long sigh, like he’d had a tough day. ‘Ballpoint pen, eh?’ He walked across to the coffee machine, digging into his trouser pockets for change. ‘When I heard what happened, I thought he might have done us all a favour.’
Thorne stared at him. ‘You what?’
Cornish jammed the first coin into the machine then turned. He looked at Hendricks, then at Thorne, as though unsure what he was being accused of. ‘I hoped he’d written us a nice juicy confession.’
FIFTY
Driving back, Hendricks seemed less amused than he had been by the strict tone of the woman giving them directions. ‘She’s got a point though,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Bates’ wife. Asking why he tried to top himself.’
‘All sorts of reasons he might do it.’
‘Yeah, maybe someone threatened him in the showers or his favourite football team lost again, but being guilty is pretty high on the list, I reckon.’
‘What about being innocent when everyone thinks you’re guilty?’ Thorne glanced at his friend. ‘What about knowing you’re probably never going to see your family again?’
‘Fair enough, but aren’t you even going to consider the possibility that you might be wrong?’
‘I thought you were on board with this.’
‘OK, then, that we might be wrong?’
The ultra-stern sat-nav woman told Thorne to take the first exit off the next roundabout.
‘No,’ he said. Another glance at Hendricks. ‘And that’s to you, not her.’
A car coming in the other direction had its headlights on main beam. Thorne flashed and the driver dipped his lights, but Thorne swore at him anyway.
‘What if he’d died?’ Hendricks asked.
‘I’m not with you.’
‘If Bates had actually managed to kill himself. Would you have let it go?’
‘He didn’t though, did he?’
‘Yeah, but if he had. Guilty or not, if he was dead you could just forget the whole thing and go back to your holiday. Get some sun on those pasty legs.’
For a few seconds, Thor
ne toyed with the kind of line that was trotted out in American cop shows. A serious look and a few desperately heartfelt words just before the ad break.
The dead deserve justice every bit as much as the living.
That kind of thing.
He knew that Hendricks would be the last person to buy it and the first to take the piss, so in the end he just settled for the truth.
‘If I’m right, I want to damn well prove I’m right.’
Linda Bates had left the house like a schoolgirl on a spree, but she returned like a middle-aged woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders. With Helen close behind her, she walked as quickly as she was able along the path cleared for them by the ever-growing number of uniformed officers. Her eyes stayed fixed on the front door as the cameras flashed on either side; the comments and curses making it clear that many already knew where she had spent the last few hours, and why.
He should have finished the job.
He obviously can’t live with what he’s done so how the hell can you?
They could sense the atmosphere in the house straight away. Carson, Gallagher and two other officers in uniform stood silently in the kitchen, as though they had been waiting for them to get back, and Charli had begun calling for her mother from upstairs as soon as the front door had slammed shut.
‘What’s going on?’ Helen asked.
Carson looked at Linda, who was standing in the doorway, seemingly afraid to cross the threshold. ‘I didn’t want to call you, while you had other things to worry about. I’m glad your husband’s OK, by the way.’
‘Call me about what?’
Charli shouted from upstairs again and Helen noticed that Gallagher was staring down at her nice shiny shoes.
‘Danny was attacked.’ Carson swallowed and carried on quickly. ‘He’s fine, honestly. It was nothing.’
‘Attacked where?’ Helen asked.
Carson turned and stared hard at Gallagher. ‘Ask her.’ She nodded towards the two PCs standing in the corner. ‘Ask those idiots.’
Finally, Gallagher looked up, the colour flooding her cheeks. ‘Poor kid was begging us to let him go up to the school. Said he wanted to pick up some books, kept saying how bored he was.’
‘And you let him?’
‘No, course I didn’t . . . I mean, not on his own, but eventually I said we’d take him up there, if he was really that desperate to go. Myself and a couple of other officers.’ She glanced towards the two PCs, statue-still with expressions like stunned fish. Both had clearly been on the receiving end of a major bollocking before Helen and Linda had got back.
‘What about that lot out there?’ Helen pointed towards the front of the house.
‘I told him that,’ Gallagher said. ‘He said it didn’t matter because him and his sister had been in the newspaper already. Said he didn’t care about them, he just wanted to go to the school for a few minutes to get his books.’
Linda was shaking her head. She murmured, ‘This can’t be happening.’
‘I wasn’t here,’ Carson said. ‘I want to make that clear. No way in hell would I have let this happen.’
Helen looked at the DC; an officer clearly well practised at making sure the buck got passed good and early. ‘So, what happened?’
It took a few seconds before one of the PCs spoke up. ‘We told the school we were coming,’ he said. ‘We made the call, then took him down there in one of the squad cars.’ He looked to his left; his colleague’s turn.
‘Yeah . . . so, we were both with him the whole time, there was no way we were going to leave him on his own. Then right at the end as we were walking back to the car . . . I don’t know . . . maybe I looked away for a few seconds and this little twat came from nowhere, just started throwing punches.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s not too bad, honestly. Just a split lip.’ He rubbed a finger against his cheekbone. ‘A bit of a bump.’
‘Danny didn’t seem that bothered about it, to be honest.’
The second PC nodded his agreement. ‘We arrested him, obviously. The lad concerned.’
Helen looked at them. ‘Congratulations.’
‘What the hell have we done?’ Linda spoke up suddenly, and everyone turned to look at her, visibly shocked at the agony in her voice. ‘What the hell have me or my kids done?’ She looked at Gallagher and Carson, at the two PCs. ‘Anyone?
From upstairs, Charli called for her mother again and almost immediately, Danny shouted at his sister, told her to shut up.
‘I’m going up to see him,’ Linda said, walking out into the hallway.
Helen turned and pointed at Carson. She said, ‘You were the senior officer, so this comes back to you.’ Then she walked out after Linda.
By the time Helen got to the foot of the stairs, Linda was already halfway up. She stopped and looked back. She might have felt fifteen years old a few hours before, but now she looked three times that, more. Her face was washed out and empty. She reached to steady herself against the banister.
She said, ‘I can’t do this any more,’ then turned and carried on up.
Helen sat down on the bottom step. She took out her phone and texted Thorne. Told him she would be staying the night.
Thorne was relieved that Paula had decided on an early night. He was tired and not really in the mood for another late-night chinwag with Paula and her over-enthusiastic other half. She told Thorne and Hendricks that Jason would probably be out working until three or four o’clock and she had an early shift at the hospital, but they were more than welcome to stay up if they wanted, help themselves to drinks and some supper if they were hungry.
Thorne thanked her and said they might have a quick beer, if she was sure, perhaps a sandwich or whatever, if they could be bothered.
Hendricks had begun cooking sausages before Paula had taken her make-up off upstairs.
‘Rough on Linda Bates,’ Hendricks said.
‘Yeah.’ Thorne was sitting at the kitchen table, sending Helen a text.
sleep well. see you tomorrow. x
‘She’s certainly had one hell of a bad day.’
Thorne pressed send and laid his phone down. ‘I still don’t quite get what’s happening with her and Helen though.’ He picked up the phone again to check the message had gone. ‘Why she’s so keen to help her. It’s like she feels obliged.’
Hendricks turned the sausages, spoke over the sizzle. ‘They’re old mates, you said. No big mystery.’
‘They’re not though,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s the thing. Never heard Helen mention her name until all this. She’s never talked about anybody from here.’
‘Sometimes it’s easier to do things for people you’re not so close to. Helping total strangers. A bit less baggage.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I mean, it’s only her time she’s giving up, right? She isn’t giving this woman a kidney or anything.’
‘Not as far as I know.’
Hendricks turned to look at Thorne, his smile a little nervous. ‘It’s not like we’re talking Bardsey here, is it?’
They still hadn’t talked about it, not in any depth. What Thorne had done for Hendricks on that island, what had been taken from Hendricks because of him. Just jokes that weren’t really funny, or the odd remark, much like this one. Thorne was still not sure if he was happy for things to stay that way.
He said, ‘I suppose.’
‘Helen’s just being nice.’ Hendricks turned back to the hob. ‘She’s a nice person . . . who just happens to have awful taste in men.’ He laid the sausages onto thickly buttered white sliced bread and carried the plates across.
Thorne was ravenous, having left most of his lunch. He took a bite, then got up to hunt for brown sauce in Paula’s kitchen cupboards.
‘These sausages are bloody gorgeous,’ Hendricks said, mouth full.
‘Local delic
acy.’ Thorne was opening and shutting doors. ‘This place is the pork sausage capital of the western world, by all accounts.’ He found the sauce in the last cupboard. ‘Pig farms all over the place, apparently.’
He sat down, lifted a slice of bread and squirted on the sauce. When he glanced up, he saw that Hendricks had stopped eating; mid-mouthful, sandwich in hand.
‘What?’
‘He wouldn’t have needed to buy them.’ Hendricks swallowed fast. ‘Your killer wouldn’t have needed to buy the bugs.’ He dropped the sandwich on to his plate. ‘I mean you’re right, course you are, it’s not like you can pop down to Tesco’s and pick up a box of mixed beetles, is it? And yeah, there’s the internet, maybe, but there’s a far easier way.’
Thorne watched the smile growing on his friend’s face and felt something tickle at the nape of his neck. He had learned from experience to take notice when those two things happened one after the other. ‘So, tell me.’
‘You harvest them from another body.’
‘What?’
‘You let another corpse decompose naturally. You wait for the flies to come, to feed and lay their eggs, for the beetles to pitch up and feed on the maggots. You wait for all that stuff to happen and when you’ve got enough, you just transfer them from the old body to the new one.’ Hendricks shook his head, grinning. ‘Course that’s how he did it. It’s bloody genius.’
‘There’s another body?’
Hendricks leaned forward. ‘Doesn’t have to be human, though, does it?’
‘Listen, I don’t know what’s in those sausages—’
‘It’s the sausages I’m on about, you dozy cock.’ Hendricks pulled apart what was left of his sandwich, picked up a chunk of sausage and held it towards Thorne. ‘The skin of a pig is so similar to human skin that they use it to train people like me. Right? They use pigskin to train medics learning how to treat battlefield trauma, to test new surgical techniques, all sorts. It’s a bit easier to come by now they’ve made grave-robbing illegal.’ He nodded at Thorne and popped the piece of sausage into his mouth. ‘You don’t have a human body, you use the next best thing.’
Time of Death Page 24