TT13 Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

  ‘I seriously doubt it.’

  ‘That’s long enough for it to have been Bates who buried it.’

  Thorne shook his head. ‘The body was weeks old.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean Bates didn’t kill her.’ Hendricks looked round, suddenly aware that a couple on the next table were leaning a little closer. He lowered his voice. ‘He kills her pretty soon after he’s snatched her, then buries her much later. No big mystery.’

  ‘Where’s the body in the meantime?’

  Hendricks shrugged. ‘Maybe he liked having it around.’

  ‘Right, because that’s normal.’

  ‘Nilsen did. Said he killed young men for company.’

  ‘Yeah, but he didn’t just sit there and watch them rot in his front room, did he? He chopped them up and flushed them down the drain.’

  Hendricks nodded, conceding the point. ‘Yeah, much more civilised.’

  On screen, the post-match analysts were pulling every aspect of Spurs’ performance apart. The young waitress came across to collect Thorne’s plate and after chatting to her for a few minutes, Hendricks lifted up his shirt to show her his piercings. The pair on the next table were drinking in silence, as though waiting for Thorne and Hendricks to pick up their conversation again.

  ‘The only way your worries would make any sense is if that body wasn’t quite as old as it seemed.’ Hendricks leaned to get a better view of the bar.

  Thorne looked at him. ‘Yeah?’ He waited. ‘Phil …?’

  Hendricks straightened up and sighed. The man he’d been talking to at the bar earlier was nowhere to be seen. ‘I tell you what, my gaydar’s well off these days.’

  ‘How do you mean, not as old?’

  Hendricks grinned and held up his empty glass. The price of his further expertise. ‘What I said before. Who the hell burns half a body?’

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘What did he have to come here for?’ Danny asked.

  ‘He’s our dad. He’s got a right to be worried.’

  ‘Shouting and swearing though.’

  ‘He’d had a drink,’ Charli said.

  ‘He’s always had a drink.’ Danny was shouting himself, now; kicking out at the end of the bed. ‘Mum’s always had a drink. Why is our family so fucked up?’

  Their dad had not stayed long, but Charli had been pleased to see him, and hated herself for it. All the usual hugs and kisses, like he couldn’t bear to be parted from them, and crap about how much she and Danny had grown, how much he missed them both, but what did she expect? She wasn’t under any illusions about him. She knew that her mum was better off without him, that she was happier with Steve.

  Now her mum would have to get used to being without Steve. Something else Charli wasn’t under any illusions about. She wondered how she would feel if Steve wasn’t around. It would be different to when her dad had walked out. However much of a loser he was, however much he’d let them all down, he’d always be her dad. There would be feelings she could never get rid of, however deep she tried to bury them. Blood, or whatever. That was the difference.

  Stupid really, but nothing you could do about it.

  ‘I want to go into school,’ Danny said. ‘Pick up some stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Books and shit. Might as well do some work if we’re stuck here.’

  Charli stared at her brother and tried not to laugh. He was hardly a model student and more than once he’d been pulled up for writing essays that he’d lifted wholesale off the internet.

  He held out his arms, inviting her to say something sarcastic. ‘What?’

  He was bored, she knew that. They all were. ‘They won’t let you.’

  ‘Can’t stop me,’ Danny said. ‘What do you think would happen if I just went downstairs right now and walked straight out of the front door?’

  ‘You’d get your picture in the paper.’

  ‘That’d be all right.’

  ‘Yeah. Mum would go mental, ground you anyway and take away your computer for a week.’

  ‘What computer?’ Danny walked across the bedroom and slapped his hand on top of the PC they’d been given by the police officers. ‘I’m not counting this piece of crap.’

  ‘Better than nothing.’

  ‘When are we going to get our own computers back anyway? They must have finished with them by now.’

  Charli thought that was probably true, but wondered how much longer they’d be working on Steve’s. What they’d found already. ‘So, what did they find on yours?’ she asked. She grinned, but Danny wasn’t looking at her. ‘Stupid messages to your sad mates? Pictures of fit girls?’

  Now he turned. ‘Yeah, well what’s on yours? Shit that’s way more embarrassing, I bet.’

  Charli couldn’t bear to think of police officers looking at what was on her laptop; the photos, the conversations on Facebook and Instant Messenger. She felt a knot tighten in her stomach, remembering the last round of online chat between her and her best friend, Gabby. They’d fallen out over a party Charli had gone to. A boy Gabby had got with, who had subsequently bragged about it to everyone, had been there, so Gabby had refused to even think about it. She had accused Charli of wanting to get with the boy herself and being a terrible friend for going.

  The knot got that bit tighter.

  thght we were mates

  come on gabz just a party

  friendship=over

  It wouldn’t take much for Gabby and a whole lot of other girls to drop her now, Charli thought. Parties and misunderstood messages were nothing compared to this. Jessica Toms and Steve …

  There was a soft knock at the door and her mum walked in. She carried her glass of wine across to the bed and sat down.

  ‘You all right?’ Charli sat down next to her and leaned in.

  Linda nodded and smiled. ‘Was it nice to see your dad?’ She turned to see what Danny had to say. He was sitting at the desk, carefully studying one of the magazines that the cops had brought over. Something with a guitar on the front.

  ‘Not sure it was nice,’ Charli said. ‘He was only here five minutes.’

  ‘Good that he wanted to see you though.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘What kind of dad wouldn’t want to see his kids?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Linda said. ‘He’s a dick.’ She grinned, giggly with the wine. ‘Is that the right word? That what you two say? Dick?’ She looked across at Danny again. ‘Douchebag?’

  Charli leaned away from her. ‘We heard what he said, you know? When he was downstairs.’

  Linda blinked slowly. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘We’re not stupid, you know.’ Danny tossed the magazine on the floor. Charli and her mother both turned to look at him. ‘We know Steve’s probably not coming back, right?’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Linda said.

  ‘I said probably not, all right?’ He stood up, thrust his hands into the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms. ‘I mean obviously I’m hoping he will, right, but whether Steve comes back or not, I want you to swear that he’s not coming back, not ever. I mean it, Mum. I want you to swear it, OK?’

  ‘He’s your dad.’

  Danny’s eyes were wet, hands balled into fists inside his pockets.

  ‘Swear.’

  FORTY-THREE

  The TV in the corner of the bar had thankfully been turned off, not that Thorne could have seen it anyway. There was standing room only, now that many of those who had been out searching for Poppy Johnston had returned from fields and woods and wasteland. They huddled together in small groups, warming up; keen to put a couple away before closing time and compare stories.

  Thorne caught snippets here and there as he carefully carried drinks across to the table. Nothing much to tell, sadly, but the conversations were enough reason for Thorne and Hendricks to keep their own even more discreet than it had been.

  ‘I mean, burning gets rid of DNA, obviously,’ Hendricks said. He leaned forward and whi
spered, as though it were the punch-line to a dirty joke. ‘Incriminating fluids.’

  ‘Presuming there were any.’

  ‘Even if there weren’t, there’s stray hairs, fibres, whatever. His fingerprints on her skin.’

  ‘So, he knows what he’s doing,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Bates?’

  ‘Whoever.’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon so.’

  ‘But somehow he still manages to drop a cigarette butt in there when he’s burying her.’

  ‘We all make mistakes.’

  ‘I’m not sure it was a mistake.’

  Hendricks nodded, but it was clear he was thinking about something else. ‘Still a bit strange though, don’t you reckon, only doing half the job? So, maybe we should be asking ourselves … is that the only reason?’

  Thorne waited.

  ‘For setting fire to the body.’

  Thorne waited a little longer. ‘So go on then, what’s the other reason?’

  ‘Well, I’m working on it …’

  Hendricks was into his fourth pint of Guinness without having eaten anything and was becoming a little vague. Still, Thorne knew he was sharper than most people, even when he was three parts pissed.

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  Hendricks grimaced and closed his eyes for a few seconds, fumbling to line up whatever his thoughts were in the right order. ‘It’s just weird, that’s all I’m saying. You set fire to your body, pour on the petrol, whatever, out with the Swan Vestas … and up she goes.’ He threw up his hands. ‘Then you rush over and put the fire out before the body’s completely burned.’ He cocked his head one way, then another. ‘I don’t know … maybe I’m going nowhere with this and he just couldn’t bear to see her completely burned. Maybe she was … precious.’

  ‘An hour ago you were saying he sat there watching her decompose.’

  Hendricks nodded his head slowly, then shook it. He took a mouthful of beer and held it in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it. ‘He burns the body just enough to destroy any forensics, but not enough to destroy her. See what I’m saying?’

  ‘Not really.’ Thorne was starting to think his friend didn’t actually have anything to say that made any sense.

  ‘Just enough for something else.’

  ‘Such as?’

  After a few seconds’ frozen concentration, Hendricks sat back and shook his head. Whatever had been threatening to emerge into the light had drifted back into the murk; thick and black as the Guinness he was busily putting away. ‘So, what do you think’s going on with Helen, then?’

  ‘Wish I bloody knew,’ Thorne said.

  Hendricks nodded, knowingly. ‘Why do you think I prefer blokes?’

  ‘Because they’ve got cocks?’

  ‘Because they’re much simpler creatures.’

  ‘She was fine until we got here.’

  ‘It was her idea to come, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I tried to talk her out of it.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s strange, going home. Memories, whatever.’

  ‘Nothing bad as far as I know.’ Thorne stared at his glass. ‘I mean, her mum died here, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with that.’

  ‘Any people from her past she might not have wanted to see?’

  ‘One ex-boyfriend so far,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry I missed that.’

  ‘In here, the first night.’

  ‘Place is probably crawling with them,’ Hendricks said. He gestured at Thorne with his glass. ‘I mean she clearly has pretty low standards.’

  ‘How long did you say you were staying?’ But Thorne was smiling in spite of himself and, as far as his own relationship with Helen went, he thought that Hendricks probably had a point.

  He was definitely punching above his weight.

  Thorne checked his phone to see if there were any messages from Helen, and, when he looked up again, Trevor Hare was standing at their table, with a drink of his own in his hand.

  ‘Rushed off my bloody feet in here tonight,’ he said.

  Not so busy that he couldn’t find time to wander across and check out the new face, Thorne thought. To enjoy a swift half. ‘This is Trevor,’ he told Hendricks. ‘The governor.’

  Hendricks stuck out a hand and introduced himself.

  ‘You in a band or something?’ Hare asked.

  Hendricks laughed, put him right.

  ‘Blimey,’ Hare said, nodding. ‘So, what, professional curiosity or something? Why you’re here, I mean.’

  Hendricks pointed at Thorne. ‘Just here to keep him out of trouble.’

  ‘I think you might have your work cut out,’ Hare said.

  ‘Oh, I know.’

  ‘Not with me,’ Thorne said. Hare had probably read the paper, he thought, or been talking to one of his customers.

  ‘Only pathologists I ever knew wore suits and ties,’ Hare said. ‘Very straight, you know?’

  Hendricks grinned. ‘I’m a bit of a maverick.’

  ‘Another round?’ Hare looked at his watch. ‘Last chance.’

  ‘I think we’re fine,’ Thorne said.

  Hendricks was about to demur, until he clocked the disapproving look on Thorne’s face. He drained his glass then stared at it. ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Right, let’s get this lot shifted,’ Hare said. He pushed his way back to the bar and rang the bell.

  ‘Do I smell bacon gone off?’ Hendricks asked.

  Hare shouted, announced that it was time for everyone to get their drinks down their necks. He rang the bell again. People began doing as they were told.

  ‘Ex Met,’ Thorne said. ‘Why this place is full of coppers. Fuller than usual, anyway.’ He watched the landlord clearing glasses from the bar and turned in time to see Helen coming through the door. ‘Here we go. Our ride’s here.’

  ‘Well yours might be,’ Hendricks said. ‘Mine left ages ago.’ He grinned and waggled his eyebrows; like Groucho Marx, if he’d been born in Salford and had a thing for extreme body ornamentation.

  ‘Look at you pair,’ Helen said, when she reached the table. ‘Having fun?’

  They stood up, grabbed jackets and downed what was left of their drinks. Helen leaned in to kiss Thorne on the cheek and was then pulled into a prolonged hug from Hendricks.

  ‘How you doing, gorgeous?’ Hendricks drew Helen even tighter, looked at Thorne over her shoulder. ‘You know it’s you I’ve come to see and not him, don’t you?’

  Helen stepped back and said, ‘Course I do,’ and told Hendricks he was pissed.

  ‘I’m … refreshed.’

  ‘As a newt,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Come on then, Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘So, have I got a bed? Hendricks asked.

  ‘You’ve got a sofa.’

  At the door, Helen stopped and handed Thorne the car keys. ‘Car’s outside,’ she said. ‘I need to nip to the Ladies.’

  Watching her go back in, Hendricks said, ‘If she’s gone to get condoms out of the machine, you know I always carry plenty, don’t you?’ He patted his jacket pocket, gave a clumsy boy-scout salute. ‘Be prepared.’

  ‘Don’t think I’ll need to trouble you,’ Thorne said.

  *

  Helen came out of the toilets into the small hallway that led back towards the bar. It smelled only marginally better than the toilets themselves. Wiping damp hands on the back of her jeans, she looked out through the glass doors into the garden and saw two figures emerge from one of the buildings at the far end. They walked past a table where three teenagers sat smoking and as they passed beneath one of the overhead lights, she recognised a young girl she had seen serving behind the bar, straightening her shirt and leaning close to an older man with a ratty-looking beard and glasses. They opened the door and stepped into the hall. The girl did not look at her, but the man smiled as he passed, clearly pleased with himself. She watched them walk towards the bar, trying to remember the joke about ponytails always having arseholes underneath �
�

  She jumped as the door slammed behind her and turned to see that the three teenagers had come in from the garden.

  ‘Blimey, look at this. It’s Linda Bates’ pet rug-muncher.’ The biggest of the three stepped towards her. Dirty blond, with bad skin, the collar of his polo shirt turned up.

  ‘Shit!’ An Asian kid in a baggy American football shirt. ‘She’s got a nerve.’

  The third one just stared, hands thrust into the pockets of his windbreaker.

  Helen could smell the fags and the beer coming off them.

  ‘How can you show your face in here?’

  ‘Fucking nerve.’

  ‘Where’s your girlfriend then?’

  ‘Waiting for you at home with her legs open?’

  ‘Getting the strap-on oiled up.’

  ‘All right, lads,’ Helen said. A smile, but not in her voice. ‘Just get yourselves off home, all right?’

  The boy in the polo shirt spread his legs and stuck his neck out. ‘Think you can tell us what to do?’

  ‘Cheeky bitch.’

  ‘You know I’m a copper, right?’

  ‘Like I care,’ the Asian kid said.

  Helen glanced down to unzip her bag, rummaged for her warrant card.

  ‘You’re a disgrace …’

  She heard the phlegm being hawked up and raised her head at the same time that the gobbet hit her in the face. She tried to lift her hand to wipe it away, but for a few seconds her body refused to do as it was told. She could only watch, and let the cold slug of spittle crawl down her cheek, as the three boys tore open the door to the garden and bolted, whooping, into the darkness.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Paula Hitchman pronounced herself delighted to have another person staying and her other half sounded equally enthusiastic. Jason Sweeney seemed especially taken with their newest guest and, once he’d thanked them both for the use of their sofa, Hendricks was certainly not shy and retiring. Within ten minutes, with cans of beer opened and sandwiches on the go, he had responded to repeated invitations and shown his hosts more tattoos and piercings than the waitress in the Magpie’s Nest had been privileged to see.