Bloodline

by Mark Billingham

  She continued as though she had not heard him. ‘Then, when they came round to collect his clothes, they wouldn’t tell me where he was.’ She tucked a strand of immaculately styled blonde hair behind her ear. ‘I mean, is he even in London?’

  ‘He’s . . . in London,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m sure you understand that it’s best to keep the exact location secret. Bearing in mind the nature of the inquiry.’ It sounded convincing enough as he said it, but he could see that she was not taken in.

  She pushed the remnants of the salad around the plate. ‘I didn’t know things were quite that bad,’ she said. ‘We’d been arguing, you must know that much.’

  ‘Like I said, not our business.’

  ‘He’s making it your business though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Your husband’s been under a lot of stress, I know that much. Maybe he thinks it’s better for both of you if he just . . . cuts himself off a bit right now. It makes a lot of sense actually, considering that there has been a serious threat.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re a good detective or not,’ she said. ‘But you’re pretty good at bullshit.’

  ‘It’s a vital part of the job.’

  ‘Ever thought of working in advertising?’

  Thorne caught the first hint of a smile. ‘I’m sure the money’s a damn sight better,’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s bloody stressful.’

  Thorne had to struggle not to laugh. A waitress appeared and asked if Sarah had finished. She picked up her plate and handed it over without looking at the girl. The suggestion of a dessert menu was waved away, and it was only then that Thorne noticed just how thin Sarah Dowd’s arms were, the bones sharp at her wrist.

  ‘Andrew was telling me about a man you had working for you,’ Thorne said. ‘Someone who came to the house to clean the cars?’

  She nodded. ‘Tony.’

  Thorne felt a prickle at the nape of his neck. ‘Do you know his second name?’ He asked, knowing that it would certainly not be Garvey, not when he was working for someone to whom the name would be so recognisable.

  ‘He was always just “Tony”,’ Sarah said. ‘I never asked.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘He just turned up at the house one day touting for business. I told him what we were already paying, he offered to do it cheaper and he did a bloody good job. He had all the equipment in his van - a jet-wash thing, a vacuum, etcetera. Why are you so interested?’ A second after she’d asked the question, her face changed; a pale wash of realisation. ‘You think this could be the man who wants to kill Andrew?’

  Thorne reached down for his briefcase and took out copies of the three E-fits, based on the various descriptions they had been given thus far. ‘Could any of these be him?’

  She studied the pictures, then lightly tapped a finger against the middle one. ‘This one isn’t a million miles away, I suppose. But he was a bit fatter in the face and he wore glasses. A lot of stubble too, like he was growing a beard.’

  Thorne put the pictures away, thinking how easy it was to change your appearance. You did not need to be a master of disguise. A beard grown or shaved off. A haircut, a hat, glasses. Factor in the average person’s powers of observation and recall and almost anyone could hide in plain sight.

  ‘Did he ever come into the house?’

  She seemed to become nervous suddenly, as though she were being accused of something. ‘I made him cups of tea, we chatted about this and that . . . yes.’

  ‘How long was this going on for?’

  ‘He probably came eight or nine times, so I suppose a couple of months?’

  ‘Then he stopped coming?’

  She nodded, getting it. ‘Around the time Andrew went off. I tried calling the number I had for him, but it wasn’t in service.’ She reddened. ‘I remember I was pissed off because I had to drive to the garage to wash the car.’

  ‘Can you let me have the number?’ Thorne knew that it had almost certainly been a pay-as-you-go phone and all but untraceable, but it was worth checking.

  ‘He seemed like a nice enough guy,’ she said. ‘Down to earth. Just a . . . regular bloke.’

  ‘What did you talk to him about, when he was in the house?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sounded tetchy now. ‘Holidays, jobs, we just nattered for ten minutes at a time while he drank his tea.’

  ‘Did he ask you any questions?’

  ‘Well, you do when you’re having a conversation, don’t you? Nothing out of the ordinary, though.’

  ‘Nothing about your routines, your domestic set-up?’

  ‘No, nothing specific, but he was probably there enough to get a . . . sense of everything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I never said anything . . . told him anything.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have needed to,’ Thorne said. Everything he’d learned so far about Anthony Garvey pointed towards a man who was content to watch and listen, until the time was right. ‘Was Andrew ever there when he came?’

  She thought for a few seconds. ‘A couple of times, I think. He usually came on a Saturday.’ She began to play with her napkin. ‘I remember he was there once when we had a major bust-up. I hate it, you know, airing your dirty linen, but Andrew’s never shy about speaking his mind when other people are around. He doesn’t even notice them most of the time, but if he does, it’s like he enjoys having an audience.’ She took a breath and it caught slightly, and she ignored the strand of hair that fell back across her face. ‘We were screaming at each other and swearing, and I remember it spilling out into the front porch and seeing Tony outside working on the cars.’ She paused for a moment or two. ‘I remember him glancing up and me smiling at him like an idiot, as if to say everything was fine. Like this was all perfectly normal.’

  Thorne watched her squeezing the napkin, thinking that if Andrew Dowd’s version of events was to be believed, a row such as the one she was describing had become perfectly normal. Thinking, as she looked at her watch, then made noises about having to go, that he liked her far more than he had ten minutes earlier, especially when he considered what the rows between her and her husband had been about.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Thorne said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

  He ordered another coffee and stayed for ten minutes or so after Sarah Dowd had left. Thinking that the background music - salsa, was it? - was actually pretty good and that, what with his newly discovered appreciation for classical music, perhaps his taste was broadening a little. He wondered if one day he might even grow to like jazz, then decided that was probably pushing it.

  Thinking for the most part about a killer who was perhaps the most meticulous, the most organised, he had ever tried to catch.

  Had Anthony Garvey ever planned to let Nicholas Maier write his book, or had that been no more than a scheme to extort the money he needed? When did he first draw up his list of victims? How early in their relationship had he decided that Chloe Sinclair was expendable?

  Wondering, as he stared at the passers-by, what plans Anthony Garvey was making now, with three of those on his list still alive and well, and with no way to reach them.

  On his way out, Thorne was almost knocked flat by a man who then glared at him for daring to be in the way. Thorne said, ‘Sorry,’ then wished he hadn’t - the typical English response. He winced at the rib-tickling slogan on the man’s T-shirt: IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO THE PUB.

  Walking back to where he had parked the BMW, Thorne decided that if a prick like that was lost, then those who knew him would surely be praying he stayed that way, or that anyone who found him left him exactly where he was.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand the smell.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s like . . . dried piss and damp, and you’re right up close to them.’

  ‘You’ve obviously not been to a post-mortem yet,’ Kitson said.

  Trainee Detective Constable Bridges looked away to hide hi
s embarrassment. He had been assigned to Kitson for the evening, and she could see that he was no more thrilled with the arrangement than she was. It was sensible, though. A night-time trawl around the West End’s less glamorous locations was unpredictable, and all six feet three of TDC Bridges was there as back-up as much as anything. Even though Yvonne Kitson could handle herself if it came to it, she supposed that the occasional stupid comment was a small price to pay for feeling safe; and, green around the gills as her companion might have been, he had at least been smart enough to stay back when she was talking to anyone.

  That bit of the assignment obviously suited him.

  They had already covered Leicester Square and the small streets off Piccadilly Circus, and both were grateful for the mild weather. Kitson had shown pictures of Graham Fowler to anyone who looked as though they might be sleeping rough, and she was ready to produce an E-fit of Anthony Garvey if she got lucky. Thus far, the E-fit had stayed in her bag.

  Having spoken to Tom Thorne and picked his brains about life on the streets, Kitson had not expected to strike lucky immediately. The population of rough sleepers around the West End was thankfully not huge, but it was fragmented into distinct cliques - the drinkers, the addicts, those with mental-health issues - and big enough for many of its members to be strangers to one another.

  ‘You shouldn’t have to look too hard, though,’ Thorne had told her. ‘People can move on quite quickly, or just disappear, but there’s a hard core who’ve been knocking around for years.’

  Bridges was not quite so optimistic, or understanding. ‘Even if some of them have seen this bloke,’ he had said after the first hour, ‘most of them are too out of it to remember.’

  They walked down to Trafalgar Square and along to Charing Cross station. An old man with an East European accent, a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders, shook his head at Fowler’s picture, though he was clearly finding it hard to focus. He pointed Kitson further up the Strand, where a soup run would shortly be taking place. ‘Be many types around there,’ he said.

  Kitson thanked him, though the location was on the list that Fowler had provided anyway, and pressed a couple of quid into his hand.

  ‘You can probably claim that back on expenses,’ Bridges said, as they walked. ‘You know, as part of the inquiry.’

  Kitson ignored him.

  The van pulled up just after nine-thirty in a quiet street behind Somerset House, between a small park and the grand building that housed the headquarters of American Tobacco. About two dozen men and women had been waiting, and they moved forward quickly to form a queue as soon as the serving hatch was lowered and the smell began to drift across the road.

  Like the man at Charing Cross had said: many types.

  Several customers took their soup or coffee and immediately drifted away, but others remained, standing alone and looking as though they preferred it that way, or gathered in small groups on either side of the road. The first few people Kitson approached shook their heads, not interested or unfamiliar with Graham Fowler’s face, it was hard to tell the difference. One man just stared at her and the woman next to him told her to piss off. Much as she wanted to do just that, Kitson persevered until she finally got a positive response from a Scotsman named Bobby who was standing on the edge of a group near the railings that ran alongside the park. He nodded enthusiastically between slurps of tea and jabbed a finger at the picture. ‘Aye, I know that bloke.’

  ‘You sure? His name’s Graham Fowler.’

  Bobby shrugged and peered again at the photo. He could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. ‘Graham, is it?’

  ‘Graham Fowler.’

  More nodding. ‘Aye, I know that bloke.’

  Others in the group moved across then, and two more men said that they recognised Fowler, too.

  ‘He’s all right, he is,’ Bobby continued. ‘Had a go at some arsehole who gobbed at me, down by the river.’

  Another man said he would have punched the arsehole, but agreed that Graham, if that was his name, was a decent sort.

  ‘Not seen him for a few nights,’ Bobby said.

  Bobby’s friend nodded at Kitson. ‘Why d’you think they’re going round showing everyone his picture? He’s dead as mutton, mate. Probably been done over by that arsehole who gobbed at you.’

  ‘That right?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Kitson said. ‘He’s just staying with friends.’ She quickly dug out the E-fit. ‘We’re more interested in this man.’

  ‘Bloody terrible photo,’ Bobby said.

  Kitson laughed along with everyone else. ‘Do any of you remember seeing him, probably hanging around whenever Graham was there?’

  Bobby shook his head, but then another member of the group said, ‘Seen someone with the same eyes. Hair’s all wrong but the eyes are spot on. I thought he looked a bit mental, so I stayed well clear.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Two weeks ago, maybe. Right here, waiting for the van.’

  One of the others agreed and said he’d spoken to the man with the small, dark eyes. Kitson asked if he could remember the conversation.

  ‘He was just asking about where various places were, you know . . . shelters and day centres, what times they opened. All that.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Said he was new, just getting to know the ropes, so I put him straight. Well, we was all new to this once weren’t we, so you try and be helpful. And it doesn’t bother me if they’ve got a screw or two loose.’

  ‘Graham was here, was he?’

  ‘Yeah, far as I remember.’ He finished his drink and turned to head back to the van for more. ‘Yeah, Graham was probably knocking around somewhere.’

  ‘You sure he’s not dead?’ Bobby asked.

  Kitson thanked everyone and put away the pictures. She was turning to leave when a man she had not spotted before came marching across the road in her direction. He was probably mid-twenties, skinny as a stick, with bad skin and dirty-blond hair teased into sharp spikes. His walk was oddly purposeful, and the fact that he was grinning was probably the only reason why Bridges did not step forward to meet him.

  ‘I know one of your lot,’ he said.

  Kitson was wary. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘We did a job together once, as it goes. I helped him catch a bloke. You can ask him about it.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Thorne.’ He stared at her, waiting for some sign of recognition and seeing none. ‘Been a few years, like, but you don’t forget stuff like that. We’re talking seriously heavy business.’ He stepped a little closer. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Yeah, I know him.’

  The grin grew wider and Kitson got a good look at what few teeth the boy had left, brown against grey gums. She could almost smell the rot. A junkie’s mouth.

  ‘Tell him Spike says hello, yeah? He’ll know who you mean.’ He began rooting in the pockets of his jacket and eventually produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Tell him to take care.’

  Walking away, Bridges was keen to know what the boy had been talking about, but Kitson ignored the question, talking instead about what Bobby and the others had told her. She said they should be pleased with a good night’s work: ‘It puts Garvey here. Tells us a bit more about the way he does things.’

  Bridges looked unconvinced. ‘Doesn’t help us catch him, though, does it? Not really sure of the point.’

  ‘It’s called building a case, all right? Helps us put him away when we do catch him.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Kitson picked up her speed and moved a step or two ahead of the TDC. The lad was probably able to handle himself, and if she’d been interested she might have said he wasn’t bad looking, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d got herself lumbered with the superintendent’s idiot son.

  Bridges grumbled behind her. ‘It all takes so bloody long.’

  ‘You want a job that’s quick and easy,’ Kitson said, ‘you made a very bad career choice.’

&nb
sp; ‘I thought he’d be back by now, to be honest.’ Louise took another look at her watch and pulled up her legs. ‘I knew he was going to be late, but it’s usually before this. Maybe there’s been a break in the case.’

  Hendricks was sitting at the other end of the sofa. ‘He’ll call if something’s happened,’ he said. He reached down for the wine bottle and poured each of them another glass. ‘This is a bloody awful case, Lou.’

  ‘Why does he always get the bad ones?’

  ‘They seem to suit him.’

  ‘Maybe I should be worried about that,’ Louise said. ‘If he’s going to be the father of my child.’

  ‘Don’t worry. With any luck, the kid’ll get your looks and your personality. ’

  ‘Right, and his bloody taste in music.’

  They were talking over an album Hendricks had dug out from the back of a cupboard, a CD he’d left at the flat one time or another, something they both knew Thorne would have hated.

  ‘I’ve got to say, I was amazed he had it in him at all.’

  ‘He was sound asleep at the time,’ Louise said. ‘I just helped myself.’

  Hendricks laughed for a few seconds longer than he might have done with fewer glasses of wine inside him. Said, ‘So you are going to try again?’

  ‘We’ve not talked about it, and maybe not yet . . . but I want to, yeah.’

  Hendricks drank, holding the wine in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. ‘Funny, I remember sitting here a couple of years ago . . . well, lying here actually, because I was staying over while I was getting the damp sorted in my flat. I was upset, because I really wanted a kid back then and the bloke I was with at the time wasn’t keen, so . . .’

  Louise shuffled across and let a hand drop on to Hendricks’ knee. ‘I remember telling him about seeing this . . . exhibition on children’s mortuary facilities, this special room all done up to look like a kid’s bedroom. I’d seen a kid in there and it was like being kicked in the stomach. Anyway, I was telling him all this and suddenly I was just lying here, crying like a girl. No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’