The Burning Girl

by Mark Billingham

  Nobody could prepare you for it.

  You never stopped learning.

  There was no right way and no wrong way.

  Thorne knew from talking to these people, from listening to their conversations, that there were times when you needed to come down hard. And times when you did, only to feel shitty later, when you realised that you’d got it wrong. Now, Thorne understood what they meant. Sometimes, though they might not like what their children were doing, or the effect that their behaviour was having on other people, it was important to accept that the child was simply having fun. He pictured the look on his father’s face as he was shouting out obscenities…

  Thorne wondered if it was too late to call Alison Kelly. He decided it probably was. Then he reached for his phone and dialled anyway.

  ‘Hi, it’s Tom. Hello…?’

  ‘Hi…’

  ‘Sorry if it’s late. I was wondering how you were.’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘Me too. It was quite a night.’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’

  Thorne pictured her naked. Pictured her crying. Pictured her turned away from him, trying to take in what he’d said. ‘I was wondering how you were about what I told you.’

  Static crackled on the line. Thorne thought he’d lost the signal, looked at the screen on his phone.

  ‘I’m fine about it,’ she said finally. ‘I’m…grateful.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘You told me the truth…’

  ‘You were upset…’

  ‘I needed the truth. I need the truth.’

  Thorne noticed the woman opposite turning her head away. He lowered his voice. ‘Some truths are harder to handle than others.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Alison…?’

  ‘I’m a big girl,’ she said. Another laugh, humourless. ‘At least I got to be a big girl…’

  ‘Do you want to do it again? Go out?’

  He heard a breath let out slowly. ‘Why do I think you’re just being nice?’

  ‘No, really…’

  ‘Let’s give it a few days, shall we?’ she said. ‘See how we feel…’

  Because of the darkness on the other side of the window, it took Thorne a few seconds to realise that they’d entered a tunnel. He checked the phone. This time he had lost the signal. He stared into space for a few minutes, then reached across the aisle for a newspaper that had been discarded on a table. He turned it over and began to read.

  He was asleep before he’d finished the back page.

  NINETEEN

  The waitress slid a plate of perfectly arranged biscuits into the middle of the table. She picked up the empty tray and moved back, stopping at the door to cast a somewhat perplexed glance back towards the group of men and women gathered in the conference room.

  It was certainly an odd collection…

  Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Jesmond cleared his throat noisily and waited for silence. ‘Shall we get started, ladies and gentlemen…?’ Tea and coffee were poured as Jesmond made the introductions.

  There were seven people around the long, rectangular table. Jesmond was at the head, with a Turkish-speaking uniformed WPC adjacent to his right. Further down the same side of the table sat Memet Zarif, who was next to an elderly man, described as a well-respected Turkish community leader. Opposite them sat Stephen Ryan and a smartly dressed woman named Helen Brimson, introduced by Jesmond as the solicitor representing Ryan Properties. The last person to be introduced sat sweating beneath his leather jacket, a pen in his hand and a sheaf of paper in front of him.

  ‘DI Thorne will be taking notes. Keeping minutes of the meeting…’

  Helen Brimson sat forward and cut in: ‘I presume these proceedings will be subject to a valid Public Interest Immunity Certificate?’

  Jesmond nodded, and kept on nodding as she continued.

  ‘I want it confirmed that any notes taken will form the basis of an internal police document only, that they will not be disclosed in open court should any action arise at a later date…’

  Thorne scribbled without thinking, hoping that there wouldn’t be too much more of this legal bullshit to wade through.

  ‘This meeting is purely part of an ongoing process of community consultation,’ Jesmond said. He held out his arms. ‘I’m grateful that everyone has agreed to take part, and to come here this morning…’

  ‘Here’ was a bland and anonymous hotel just outside Maidenhead. A businessman’s hotel, like any one of a hundred others around the M25. Easy enough to reach and far enough away from the spotlight.

  This was what Tughan had been talking about a little over a week before–getting them around the table, trying to put an end to it.

  Zarif placed a hand on the shoulder of the man next to him, the ‘well-respected community leader’. The pair of them wore smart suits and tidy smiles. ‘My brothers and I have been asked, through our good friend here, to assist the police in any way we can,’ he said. ‘I would like to think that we were already doing everything in our power to aid these investigations, but if there is anything else we can do, of course we shall be happy to do it.’

  Jesmond nodded. Thorne scribbled. There was clearly going to be a lot of bullshit flying around.

  ‘The same goes for myself,’ Stephen Ryan said. A thick gold chain hung at his throat. A pricey suede jacket over the open-necked shirt. ‘It goes for my father and for everyone connected with Ryan Properties. An important business meeting has meant that my father can’t be here today, but he wanted me to stress his disgust at these killings…’

  Thorne could barely believe his ears. He thought about Alison Kelly. It had been just over a week since their phone conversation on the train. There had been no contact between them since…

  ‘…and his desire to prevent any further bloodshed.’ Ryan looked along the table at Thorne. ‘Are you going to write that down?’

  Thorne thought, I’d like to take this pen and write something across your face, you smug little shitehawk.

  He wrote: Ryan. Disgust. Desire.

  Jesmond snapped a biscuit in half, careful to shake the crumbs on to the plate. ‘I don’t need to tell any of you that this is what we want to hear. But we need action if anything’s going to change. If this bloodshed you refer to is really going to stop.’

  ‘Of course,’ Zarif said.

  Ryan held up his hands: Goes without saying.

  Jesmond put on his glasses, reached for a piece of paper and started to read the names printed on it. ‘Anthony Wright. John Gildea. Sean Anderson. Michael Clayton. Muslum Izzigil. Hanya Izzigil. Detective Sergeant Marcus Moloney.’ Jesmond paused there, looked around the table. ‘Most recently, Francis Cullen, a long-distance lorry-driver and two as yet unidentified bodies found along with his.’

  Thorne looked at Ryan, then at Zarif. Both wore serious expressions, suitably sombre in response to the roll-call of victims. Those they had lost. Those they had murdered.

  ‘These are the deaths we know about,’ Jesmond said. ‘These are the murders we are currently investigating, all of which, to some degree, have involved your families or your businesses…’

  Ryan’s solicitor tried to cut in.

  Jesmond held up a hand. ‘Have, at the very least, affected your families or your businesses. Miss Brimson?’

  ‘I have advised my client that, for the purposes of this meeting, he should say nothing in relation to any specific case on which you might ask him to comment.’

  ‘Who’s being specific?’ Thorne asked.

  He received an icy smile. ‘ “Might”, I said. Might.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I underline it,’ Thorne said.

  Zarif poured himself a second cup of coffee. ‘It’s a shame that this is your attitude, Mr Ryan. It is people’s refusal to speak about these things, to get involved, that is so dangerous. It’s what makes these murders possible.’

  The old man next to him tugged at hi
s beard, nodding enthusiastically.

  ‘There are some in my community who are afraid to speak up,’ Zarif said. He looked towards Jesmond. ‘We had thought that those in Mr Ryan’s…circle might be a little less fearful.’

  Zarif was pressing all the right buttons. Ryan’s anger was controlled but obvious.

  For a long ten seconds no one spoke. Thorne listened to the sound of the cars on the nearby motorway, the rattle of a fan above one of the ceiling vents. The weather had taken a turn for the better in recent days and the room felt arid and airless.

  ‘These killings, whoever and whatever the victims might have been, are simply unacceptable,’ Jesmond said eventually. ‘They hurt people across a wide range of communities. They hurt people and they hurt businesses…’

  Thorne wrote, thinking, They hurt your chances of promotion…

  Ryan smiled thinly. ‘Sometimes they’re the same thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Jesmond said.

  ‘People and business.’ Ryan leaned forward, looked hard at Zarif across the table. ‘Sometimes, your business might actually be people. You know what I mean?’

  Now it was Zarif’s turn to exercise some control. He knew that Ryan was talking about the people smuggling, about the hijack. He turned to the old man next to him and muttered something in Turkish.

  When Zarif had finished, the Turkish-speaking officer translated for Jesmond. ‘There was some swearing,’ she began.

  Thorne looked at Zarif’s face. He wasn’t surprised…

  ‘Mr Zarif said that some people should think a little about what they were saying before they opened their mouths…opened their stupid mouths.’

  Thorne looked from Ryan to Zarif, in the vain hope that the two of them might clamber on to the table and get stuck into each other. Go on, he thought, Let’s end it here and now…

  Jesmond thanked the WPC. Thorne looked across and caught her eye. He’d forgotten her name. He knew that she was there to ensure that any incriminating statement could be noted, however inadmissible it would later prove to be. He knew there was fat chance of anything much that mattered being said by anybody. This was politics and pussyfooting. The whole seemingly pointless exercise was about what was not being said.

  ‘We need to be united in our efforts,’ Jesmond said. He looked around the table until he was satisfied that tempers were being held in check.

  ‘There seems little point in continuing’, Brimson said, ‘if my client has to sit here and be insulted.’

  Thorne glanced at her and Ryan. Their arms were touching, and he idly began to wonder if they might be sleeping together. He knew Brimson was only doing her job, but surely there had to be some other reason why the bile wasn’t rising into her mouth. ‘Would Mr Ryan prefer to sit here and be insulted?’ he said.

  Ryan didn’t bother looking up. ‘Fuck you, Thorne.’

  Thorne turned innocently to Jesmond. ‘Should I write that down…?’

  ‘I want to get two messages across to you this morning,’ Jesmond said. ‘The first, and I want there to be no mistake about this, is that, as far as the murders I have already mentioned are concerned, we are in no way scaling down any of those investigations.’

  ‘No way,’ Thorne repeated.

  Jesmond glanced at him, nodded. ‘Some of you will already know this, but DI Thorne is one of the officers actively involved in seeking those responsible.’

  Thorne was tempted to give a little wave.

  ‘The second message is by way of a direct appeal.’ Jesmond removed his glasses, slid them into his top pocket. ‘We want this level of consultation to continue, for everyone’s benefit. On behalf of the Commissioner, I’m appealing to you directly. We want you to use your influence. As businessmen. As important members of your communities. We want you to do whatever you can to prevent further loss of life.’

  Thorne’s pen moved across the paper. He was struggling to keep up with Jesmond’s speech. He sat there, hot and headachey, fighting the urge to doodle.

  Fifteen minutes later, the waitress knocked and entered. She asked if the biscuits needed replenishing, but the meeting was already starting to break up. Ryan and Zarif left a minute or two apart, each chatting animatedly with his adviser.

  Jesmond gathered up his papers. ‘How would you say that went, Tom?’ He didn’t wait for the answer, perhaps guessing that it would be a long time coming. ‘I know. These kind of meetings are buggers to get right.’ He snapped his briefcase shut. ‘Let’s just hope we get something out of it.’

  With the possible exception of writer’s cramp, Thorne doubted it…

  Methodical in this, as she was in everything–up one aisle then down another, missing none of them out–Carol Chamberlain steered her way past a small logjam near the checkouts, and turned towards detergents, kitchen towels and toilet roll.

  Jack appeared, grinning at the side of the trolley, and dropped large handfuls of shopping into it. ‘Do we need dog food?’ he asked.

  Chamberlain nodded, then watched her husband head up the aisle and disappear round the corner. She moved on slowly, picking things off the shelves. Reach, drop, push. Methodical, but miles away…

  ‘When we get Ryan, he’s going to tell us who took his money twenty years ago and burned Jessica. He’s going to give me a name.’

  Thorne had made her a promise. He’d told her he was going to find the man who’d been responsible for what had happened twenty years before. He’d told her that he was going to put right her mistake.

  He’d told her what he thought she wanted to hear.

  That had been more than a fortnight ago, round at his flat, and she hadn’t seen Thorne since. She hadn’t spoken to him on the phone for almost as long. She knew he was busy, of course, knew that he had far better things to do than keep her up to date.

  Reach, drop, push…

  Her cold case from 1993, the murdered bookie, was going nowhere. There was nothing in it to get the blood fizzing in her veins. Nothing to distract her.

  Naturally, it was how Jack preferred it. He relished the calm at the end of the day, the fact that she had nothing, of any shape or form, to bring home. He was happier now that she rarely needed to be away from home at all. She loved him fiercely, knew that he felt as he did only because he loved her just as much. She’d have been lost without him, helpless without the anchor of his concern. But, feeling as she felt now, as she’d felt since this had all begun, that anchor was starting to pull her down.

  She wanted this to be over.

  Reach, drop, push…

  Tom Thorne was the man in whom she’d placed her hopes. She’d had no choice but to do so. Much as Chamberlain liked and respected him, she hated feeling beholden. Hated the fact that it was out of her hands.

  Hated it.

  She wanted to load up her trolley, pile it high with heavy bottles and tins, and charge, shouting, down the aisle. She wanted to watch the families and the shelf-stackers scatter as she ran at them. She wanted to hear the rattle of the trolley and the squawking of two-way radios as she burst past the tills and flattened the guards, and rushed at the plate-glass windows…

  Jack came hurrying towards her, clutching cans of dog food to his chest. As soon as they’d tumbled noisily into the trolley, she reached out and slid her arm around his. They moved together towards the next aisle.

  23 August 1986

  The new Smiths album is awesome. It’s got ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ on it and Dad still puts his head round the door if he hears it, and laughs when it gets to the ‘Joan of Arc’ line.

  Ali’s got a boyfriend! She met him at some club. I don’t know when she went clubbing, or who she went with, but apparently this bloke just walked up to her and asked if she wanted a drink. I met him the other day and he seems nice enough, but when he said hello to me, like everything was normal, he kept looking at Ali, so she could see how ‘sensitive’ he was being, like he was checking to see what she thought of him.

  I don’t know if they’ve really done anyt
hing yet.

  There’s another bloke who she says she’s got a big crush on as well. Ali has a crush on somebody different every week. This one’s much older than she is, which is why she’s so keen, if you ask me. Also, he used to work with her dad, which means that he’s probably got a nickname like Ron ‘The Butcher’ or something. Ali always used to joke about trying it on with one of those blokes, one of her dad’s friends. You know, flirting with them and saying, ‘Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me? Oh, it’s a gun…’

  There’s another song on the album called ‘I Know It’s Over’.

  I was listening to it on my headphones and there’s a bit where Morrissey is singing about feeling soil falling over his head. Like that’s how it feels when this relationship he’s been in has finished, when he’s been dumped or whatever. I was trying to imagine it. Like I’d been with someone and he’d finished with me. I was lying there with it on loud and my eyes closed, putting myself in that position. For a while, it made me feel deep and romantic, like some poet or something. Then, suddenly, I started feeling angry and stupid and I couldn’t stand to listen to it again. I always skip that track now. The words and the melody were making me cry, making me want to cry, but the feelings weren’t real. The emotion behind it was fake. I’d thought that pity from other people was painful enough, but when I start pitying myself, that’s just about as bad as it gets.

  I’m not likely to have a fucking relationship, that’s the simple truth, and if by some miracle I did, you wouldn’t need to be Mastermind to figure out why it might not work. Unless I got it together with some other Melt-Job, of course. You know, our eyes meet across a crowded plastic surgeon’s waiting room…

  No chance of that. Just because I look like I do, doesn’t mean I have to fancy other people who look the same, does it?

  Being dumped wouldn’t make me sad. It would make me want to kill whoever I’d been having the relationship with for being such a wanker. Such a cowardly shithead.