From the Dead tt-9

by Mark Billingham

  ' That's why I left the bank,' Anna said in the car outside. She smacked her palm against the dash for emphasis. 'Why I wanted to get into this kind of thing. To get that feeling, that buzz.'

  Thorne looked across at her. She was virtually bouncing up and down in her seat.

  'I mean… does that happen often?'

  Thorne started the car.

  'Oh, come on, don't say you didn't feel it as well.'

  'I felt it,' Thorne said. 'And no, it doesn't. Not often enough, anyway.'

  'When he described the woman Ellie was with, I almost wet myself.'

  'Well, you'll need to do something about that.'

  'I haven't the faintest idea what it means, mind you. Her, talking to Ellie.' She looked to Thorne for an answer.

  'Not a clue,' he said.

  'So, what now?'

  'We go back to Seven Sisters and find out.' He swung the car around and waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic. The first car flashed its lights to let him in. It was nice to be out of London. 'Lunch first, though,' he said. 'I think I saw a decent-looking pub a mile or so back.'

  'Oh, OK.' Anna sounded a little disappointed. As though she wanted to maintain the momentum they had generated; to hold on to the unfamiliar rush for fear it would dissipate.

  'I think you need to calm down,' Thorne said. 'Besides which, this is going to be an awkward conversation. Best not to have it on an empty stomach.'

  EIGHTEEN

  Thorne's dislike of the typical English country pub was as fierce as the one he harboured for trendy bars. Thankfully, though, there were no horse-brasses in evidence, nor any wizened old buggers with their own tankards, and the place did not fall completely silent when they walked into the saloon bar.

  They sat at a round, copper-topped table with a bottle of sparkling water, two bags of crisps and a couple of yesterday's baguettes. At the bar, the landlord and two middle-aged women were watching A Place in the Sun on a small television mounted high in the corner.

  'People must lie to you all the time,' Anna said.

  They had been talking about the woman they would shortly be visiting ever since leaving the Munros' house.

  'To be fair,' Thorne said, 'she couldn't really give a dishonest answer to a question we never asked her.'

  'You know what I mean.'

  'She just didn't mention it.'

  'A lie by omission, then. She must have known it was relevant.'

  'Let's just see what she's got to say.'

  'I'll know if she's lying again,' Anna said. 'I'm good at spotting it.'

  'I'm listening,' Thorne said.

  She leaned towards him. 'It's all about body language and the smallest changes in expression. Like that TV show, the one with the actor from Reservoir Dogs… God, I'm so rubbish at names. Anyway, he helps the police by letting them know when someone's lying, but it's a curse as well as a gift, because he can also tell when the people he loves are lying.' She swallowed. 'And that's not always.. . a good thing.' She reached for a beer mat and began methodically tearing it into tiny pieces. 'Are you good at telling?'

  'I thought I was once.' Thorne puffed out his cheeks. 'But I've made enough mistakes to be a bit more careful now.'

  'As long as you learn from them, right?'

  'People lie for pretty basic reasons,' he said. 'They're scared or nervous or they've got something to hide. Sometimes they lie to spare somebody's pain, or at least that's what they tell themselves they're doing.' He looked past her, up at the television. 'We all do it dozens of times a day, most of us. Some people lie even when they've got no reason to, because they just can't help themselves. Each time they do it and don't get caught, it's a little victory. It's what gets them through the day, I suppose. Then, there are the ones whose lies are a little more serious.'

  On the screen, an elderly couple was being shown around a farm-house in Tuscany or Carcassonne or somewhere. Louise watched the show whenever she got the chance, but Thorne had never seen anyone actually buy one of the places they were shown. 'They're just in it for a free holiday,' he told Louise. She said she didn't care and told him to shut up.

  'Are you thinking about that man who got off?' Anna asked. 'The one who killed the girl. Chambers?'

  'He didn't kill her,' Thorne said. 'Not in the eyes of the law.'

  'But you think he did.'

  'I don't want to get into it.' With no beer mat of his own to tear up, Thorne leaned forward and swept crumbs from the table on to his plate.

  'I lied to you,' Anna said.

  'When?'

  'In the car, outside Donna's place. I told you I was upset about her and Ellie, but it was really all about me and my mother.'

  'You had words,' Thorne said. 'You told me. After you left your job.'

  'It was more serious than that.' She smiled, reddened a little. 'You see, there you go, another lie. The truth is that we haven't spoken since. Not for a year and a half.'

  'Blimey.'

  'It's always been tricky with me and my mum.'

  'What about your father?'

  'He's fine about it now, or at least says he is. We talk once a week, something like that, but whenever I call, she refuses to come to the phone.'

  'It sounds like she's the one who's behaving like a child, so why are you feeling guilty?'

  Anna didn't argue. 'Listen, I know she's being melodramatic and that she should be supporting me, but it's complicated. She drinks, OK, and I don't think what I'm doing is helping matters.'

  'How bad is it?'

  'It was getting better. That's the point. But I think my… change of career kind of set her back a bit. And now my dad's not coping very well.'

  Thorne poured out the last of the water. 'What you said before, about knowing when people are lying…'

  She nodded, knowing that he'd worked it out. 'Mum was really good at it, but I learned to read the signs. I knew that she'd had four glasses when she said she'd had just the one, I knew where she was hiding the empty bottles, all the usual stuff. So, you know, I'm not exactly like the bloke in that TV show, but I can spot a porky more often than not.'

  'I'll bear that in mind.'

  'Where did you get the scar?'

  She pointed. Thorne reached up and traced a finger along the straight, white line that ran across the bottom of his chin.

  'I'll know if you're bullshitting, remember,' she said.

  'It was a woman with a knife a few years back,' Thorne said. 'Or a man wearing a signet ring who punched me when I tried to arrest his brother. Or I ran into a coffee table when I was five.'

  She narrowed her eyes. 'Knife,' she said. 'I'm right, aren't I?'

  'You had a one-in-three chance.'

  'I should also tell you that it makes me a very good liar.' She sat back, folded her arms. 'And a shit-hot poker player.'

  'You kidding?'

  'It saved me having to work behind a bar when I was at college.'

  Thorne nodded, genuinely impressed. She was certainly naive, this girl, and gobby and over-exuberant.

  But she kept on surprising him.

  The look on Kate's face when she opened the door gave Thorne the impression that she knew, or at least had a good idea, why he and Anna had come. She certainly did not appear overly shocked when he told her.

  The three of them were in the living room and each tensed at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Donna came in drying her hair. Nobody had bothered to sit down.

  'What?' she said.

  Thorne ran through it all again for Donna's benefit. Then he turned back to her girlfriend. 'Julian Munro saw the tattoo, Kate,' he said. 'Not in any great detail, though I'm not convinced the name would have rung any bells with him anyway.'

  'It rang quite a bell with us, though,' Anna said.

  Kate's hand moved to her neck, to the elaborate lettering that curled below the collar of her shirt. She nodded. 'It was boiling that day,' she said. 'I remember the two of us sitting there sweating in that cafe and I had this stupid little vest on…'
/>
  Donna was just standing there, the towel dangling from her fist, the anger building to the point where it looked as though she might use it to strangle the woman she loved. 'You saw Ellie? Why the hell didn't you say anything? Why did you think it was any of your business?' She shouted, furiously spitting out the questions one on top of the other, while Kate turned her face away and tried desperately to interject. ' Why did you see her? Christ, why am I only hearing about this now?'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'All that rubbish the other day, you swearing blind you were on my side. I was right, wasn't I? About you being jealous. Were you trying to warn her off?'

  'No-'

  'Did you tell her I didn't want to see her?'

  'God, no. Why would I want to do that?'

  'How the hell should I know? Because you're sick in the head?'

  'You should try and calm down,' Thorne said.

  Donna wheeled around. 'You can piss off as well. I can see how much you're enjoying this.'

  'Don't be stupid.'

  Donna turned to Anna, jabbing a finger in Thorne's direction. 'He fucking loves it, look at him.'

  'Why did you go to see Ellie, Kate?' Thorne asked.

  Kate stepped back until her calves were pressing against the sofa, then she dropped on to it. 'Look, it was stupid,' she said. 'I knew that. But I also knew how much you were looking forward to seeing her. So when I got out, I just wanted to… I don't know, pave the way or something. See if I could help.'

  'What did she say?' Anna asked.

  'What the hell did you say?' Donna marched across and stood above Kate; glaring down, demanding answers. 'What did you say to my daughter? "You don't know me, but I've been shagging your mother in prison for the last few years"?'

  'I told her I was a friend.'

  'Some fucking friend,' Donna said.

  Kate looked up at Thorne. 'It didn't go very well, OK? Like I said, it was stupid and I don't really know what I was expecting.'

  'You didn't hit it off, then?' he asked.

  'I just freaked her out, I think.'

  'Julian Munro said you were arguing.'

  'It was a bad time for her, that's all. She was waiting for her exam results and was all stressed out about it. She got upset, and.. . Look, it was just bad timing, OK?'

  'That was the last time you saw her?'

  Kate nodded.

  'You never saw Ellie Langford again after that meeting in the cafe in Cobham?'

  'No, that was it,' Kate said. 'It was only a few weeks later that she went missing.'

  Donna suddenly swung the towel violently, slapping it hard against the cushion next to Kate, who flinched when it came down. 'I cried on your shoulder. When you came to visit, the day after I'd heard about Ellie disappearing. I cried like a baby and you just sat there. You'd seen her, and you just sat there and said nothing.'

  'You know why I'm asking, Kate,' Thorne said. 'Why I have to ask?'

  Anna looked at him, her lack of understanding obvious. Thorne continued to stare at Kate.

  'The girl you killed was about the same age as Ellie, wasn't she?'

  Kate's eyes met Thorne's, something desperate in them now. 'You can't be serious.'

  'That was a case of bad timing too, wasn't it?'

  'You're out of order.'

  'Someone else who didn't react the way you were expecting.'

  'It was nearly twenty years ago.'

  'What were you and Ellie arguing about?'

  Kate looked up at Donna, leaned towards her and clutched at the wet towel as though her life depended on it. 'Don, you're not taking any of this shit seriously, are you? You're not listening to this, right? Ellie just disappeared, I swear.' She pulled on the towel, but Donna stood firm, her knuckles as white as the cotton, her eyes fixed on the floor. 'Tell them, will you? Tell them this is out of order, Don, for Christ's sake…'*

  'She killed someone?'

  Thorne nodded, walking quickly away from the front door that Donna had slammed behind them. 'Like she said, we're talking almost twenty years ago. She was only a teenager.'

  'Who was it?' Anna asked.

  'A girl she was in love with who was already involved with someone else.' Thorne had looked up Katharine Mary Campbell's record after his first visit to Donna's flat. 'Kate hit her more than twenty times with a lump hammer.'

  'Jesus…'

  They could still hear the shouting from inside the house as they reached the car.

  'So, what do you reckon?' Thorne asked. 'Is she lying?'

  'God knows,' Anna said. 'Ever since this whole thing kicked off, I've started to think that almost everybody's lying about something.'

  Thorne opened the car door. ' Now you're starting to think like a detective,' he said.

  NINETEEN

  Thorne and Louise walked down into Camden and mooched around the market, as busy as any other Sunday morning, despite the near-freezing temperature and the threat of rain. Although Louise still spent an evening or two a week at her own flat in Pimlico, they had been talking vaguely about doing up Thorne's place a bit and she was on the lookout for decorating and design ideas.

  'Something a bit more colourful,' she'd said. 'Something funky.'

  As it was, nothing caught her eye and anything approaching a purpose was quickly forgotten. They trudged around aimlessly for the best part of two hours while Thorne moaned about being cold, ate freshly made doughnuts from a stall near Dingwalls, then walked up towards Chalk Farm to meet Phil Hendricks for lunch.

  As close as he and Hendricks were, a few months ago Thorne might have resented his friend's presence – the intrusion on a few precious hours alone with his girlfriend. He could not recall which of them had made this particular arrangement, but it hardly mattered. He did not feel the same way any more and seriously doubted that Louise did, either.

  They ate mussels and chips at Belgo and drank bizarrely named Belgian lagers: Satan Gold, Slag and a sickly concoction called Mongozo Banana, which Louise could not finish. Hendricks was happy to help her out. He thought it was hilarious that some of the most lethal-sounding ales were brewed by Trappist monks.

  'I bet they've got plenty to say after a few pints of that,' he said, dipping a chip into a pot of mayonnaise. 'They must at least manage "I love you, you're my best mate."'

  'Or be able to ask where the nearest kebab shop is,' Thorne said.

  'Trust me, they get up to all sorts inside those monasteries with gallons of free beer knocking around. Maybe they can't speak because their mouths are full…'

  Hendricks was on fine form and the three of them laughed a lot. He talked about some of his fellow pathologists – 'humourless morons' – and the boyfriend situation – 'deader than the buggers on my slab'. He seemed to sense that Thorne and Louise were desperate for the company and the entertainment, that both were going through stressful periods at work and that things weren't a whole lot better at home.

  When Louise was in the toilet, Hendricks asked Thorne how things were going. Work had been off limits all day and it was clear that he was not talking about Adam Chambers or Alan Langford.

  'I think I'm getting on her nerves,' Thorne said. He looked at Hendricks and saw that his friend was not quite buying it. 'We're getting on each other's nerves.'

  'You should try and get away,' Hendricks said. 'First chance you have.'

  'Right, so we can get on each other's nerves somewhere a bit warmer.'

  'It's about spending some decent time together, that's all.'

  'Maybe…'

  'You should do something about the living arrangements. Make it more official or whatever.'

  'Have you written that best-man speech already?'

  'I'm just saying, maybe Lou should get rid of her flat. Or you could sell both places and get somewhere bigger.'

  They had been considering both of these options before Louise had lost the baby. But like a great many other things, changing their living arrangements had become something associated with the pregnancy, and, as suc
h, was no longer talked about.

  'It's just a blip, mate,' Hendricks said.

  Thorne looked up and saw Louise walking back from the toilets. She looked tired and distracted, in no great hurry to return to the table, and Thorne suddenly understood the unconscious association he had been making in his head over the last two days. He pictured Louise sitting in her silver Megane, parked up somewhere and crying her heart out.

  He thought: It's me.

  Something she was stuck with or settling for.

  A blip.

  Hendricks leaned across the table. Said, 'My best-man speech would be hilarious…'

  After lunch, they returned to the market and while Hendricks and Louise wandered in and out of vintage clothing shops and looked at retro furniture, Thorne walked back up the main road to the Electric Ballroom in search of second-hand CDs.

  He browsed for a few minutes, then sent a text to Anna Carpenter: the series is called 'lie to me' and the actor is tim roth!

  He was looking at the track listing on an Alison Krauss compilation when she called him back.

  'You're a genius,' she said. 'That's really been annoying me.'

  'I meant to tell you yesterday.'

  'Listen, there's this pub quiz which a few of us go to on a Sunday night. I wondered if you fancied it.'

  'A quiz?'

  'It's a good laugh and we could do with you on the team, to be honest.'

  Thorne stood to one side so that a fellow browser could flick through the box of Johnny Cash bootlegs. 'Sounds a damn sight more fun than paperwork, but I've got a ton of stuff I need to catch up on before tomorrow.'

  'Come on! Two free pints for each member of the winning team.'

  'I'd be rubbish anyway,' Thorne said. 'If it isn't music, football or obscure TV shows.'

  'There's always stuff like that, and anyway it doesn't really matter if you don't know the answers. It's just a good night out.'

  'I'd better not.'

  'OK, well, call if you change your mind.'

  Thorne said he would and with fifteen minutes to kill until he was due to meet Louise and Phil, he went back to the CD racks. He wondered why the conversation had made him so nervous, and if Anna was quite as good at spotting lies as she thought she was.