From the Dead (2010)

by Mark Billingham

  'You look like you could do with this.'

  Holland looked up and smiled, relieved to see an attractive trainee detective constable brandishing a cup of coffee. She had been paying him a good deal of attention over the previous few weeks, but he couldn't decide if she fancied him or was just arse-licking. He was happy enough either way and certainly grateful for the drink.

  'Bit of a slog, is it?'

  Holland had just got off the phone with a woman whose younger brother, a soldier in the British Army, had disappeared after going AWOL from his unit.

  'Can't you just tell me if he's dead?' The woman had sounded wrung out. 'It'd be so much bloody easier if we knew he was dead . . .'

  'Yeah, a slog,' Holland said.

  He had found himself constructing scenarios in a bid to explain the often baffling disappearances laid out in the files before him. The twenty-eight-year-old who had vanished on the way home from the pub during a stag weekend in Newquay could have been bundled into a car by Alan Langford or one of his cronies. Equally, he could simply have wandered off the road, three sheets to the wind, and tumbled into the sea from a cliff-top. The thirty-seven-year-old man with a history of mental illness last seen at a bus stop in Willesden could have been picked up by Langford. But he was more likely to have drifted into the shadows and lost himself, to die later in rather more banal circumstances than the man Dave Holland was looking for.

  It was a long and laborious process: tracing the relatives; dispatching officers to collect samples; testing the DNA. With no guarantee of a result at the end of it. There was a real possibility that Langford had deliberately selected someone whose disappearance might not even be noted; someone who had already slipped through society's cracks and would not merit a missing person's report. It made a sick kind of sense, Holland understood that, and was far less risky than targeting someone whose nearest and dearest would go running to the police as soon as he didn't show up for his dinner.

  If that were the case, they might never identify the victim.

  They might never pin the murder on Alan Langford.

  Holland took the tea, asked where the biscuits were, then told the blushing TDC that he was only kidding. 'Pull up a chair,' he said. 'I'll take you through it.'

  As soon as Thorne returned to the office, he called Gary Brand, the DI he had spoken to in the Oak a few nights earlier. Before being drafted into the Langford inquiry ten years earlier, Brand had worked on the old Serious and Organised Crime Squad. In fact, his expertise in that area had been the very reason why he had been drafted in.

  Thorne hoped that same expertise might come in handy again.

  'I heard about Monahan,' Brand said. 'Sounds like you've opened a right can of worms.'

  'It was opened for me,' Thorne said.

  'Doesn't really matter, does it?'

  Thorne told Brand about his conversations with Jeremy Grover and with Cook, the bent prison officer. Brand did not seem remotely shocked at any of it, but he was more surprised when Thorne told him what Donna had said about the possibility of Langford being in Spain.

  'Really? I mean, it was my first thought when you told me about the photograph, but you would have thought he'd be slightly more imaginative. The Costa del Crime's a bit bloody predictable, don't you reckon?'

  'We'd never catch any of these buggers if they weren't occasionally predictable,' Thorne said.

  Brand laughed. 'True enough, mate.'

  'Look, it's a possibility, that's all, but she said he used to know a few people who were holed up over there. I wondered if you might be able to come up with some names.'

  'Bloody hell, we're going back a bit . . .'

  'I know, and it's probably a waste of time . . .'

  'Let me make a couple of calls, see if I can dig out some old files.'

  'Anything you can find.'

  'I can't promise anything.'

  'My shout next time you're in the Oak,' Thorne said.

  Brand said he would get back to him by the close of play.

  Once he'd hung up, Thorne wandered along the corridor and into Russell Brigstocke's office. The DCI had a selection of coins laid out in front of him on the desk. He was moving them from hand to hand and growing increasingly annoyed at his own less-than-impressive legerdemain. Thorne sat down and watched, thinking that Alan Langford's sleight of hand had been all but faultless. He had slipped away, leaving a mysterious body in his place. And, if Donna's suspicions were correct, he had returned ten years later to make his daughter disappear.

  'Revenge,' Thorne said. 'That's what Donna reckons it's all about.'

  'You buying it?' Brigstocke asked.

  'If that's what it is, it's certainly worked,' Thorne said. 'She's in pieces.'

  'Did you take Anna Carpenter with you this morning?' There was a slight smile on Brigstocke's face as he casually asked the question, but Thorne convinced himself it was because he'd just palmed one of the coins particularly well.

  'I thought it was a good idea,' Thorne said. 'She's pretty close with Donna. Puts her at her ease, you know?'

  'Makes sense.'

  'Good.'

  'I'm glad all that's working out.' Brigstocke opened his hand to show Thorne it was empty. 'Jesmond will be happy at any rate.'

  'I wouldn't sleep well otherwise,' Thorne said.

  While Brigstocke continued to practise, Thorne told him about the call to Brand, and the possibility of Langford having followed an old friend or two to Spain.

  Brigstocke agreed that it sounded somewhat obvious, but suggested it was certainly worth chasing up. 'I'll put the SOCA boys on stand-by,' he said. 'It would be nice if we had something a bit more definite before you meet them, mind you.'

  Thorne said he'd do his best.

  'Any word from Bethell?'

  'I've left two more messages today,' Thorne said.

  Brigstocke admitted he was having no more luck with the FSS lab than Thorne was having with his own image-analysis 'expert'. 'I'll chase them up too,' he said. 'Tell them we need something by tomorrow. ' He thought for a second, then spun round in his chair to study the chart of shifts on the wall behind him. 'Are you on tomorrow?'

  Saturday.

  The first since a long-forgotten and seemingly resolved case had come back with a brutal vengeance. Since a corpse had been revealed as a killer. Since one murder had become two, separated by ten years, but each orchestrated by the same man.

  'Presuming you've managed to conjure up the overtime,' Thorne said.

  'Makes you want to ring in,' Yvonne Kitson said. 'Put some of these idiots straight.'

  'Would it make any difference?'

  'Who cares?' She slammed shut a drawer in her desk. 'I tell you this, though, they'd need a state-of-the-art bleeping machine if I ever got on there.'

  'There's a delay,' Thorne said. 'Thirty seconds or something, so the swearing doesn't get broadcast.'

  Kitson thought about it. Said, 'Wankers.'

  In their office, Thorne and Kitson had the radio tuned to 5 Live and were listening intently to a phone-in discussion about the legal system and the presumption of innocence.

  The guest in the studio was Adam Chambers.

  It seemed to Thorne that the show's host was fawning all over Chambers as though he were some hot-shot actor or pop star. Chuckling at every quip and grunting in sympathy each time her guest complained about how he had been treated by the police or pleaded for the tolerance and understanding that, as an innocent man, he believed was his by right.

  'It's another example of trial by media,' one caller said. 'And the police just go along with it.'

  'Adam?' the host simpered.

  'That's spot on,' Chambers said. 'The police know very well that people are reading these stories, taking in all these rumours and allegations, and the truth goes out the window. Even if the truth does come out, which, thank God, it did in my case, you still have to deal with being . . . marked out and stigmatised. Tarnished by it, you know?'

  'No smoke without fi
re, right?'

  Thorne winced; the phrase, as it always did, setting his teeth on edge.

  'Absolutely, Gabby,' said Chambers.

  'I think I might be sick,' Kitson said.

  Thorne felt pulled in two very different directions. He despised the 'no smoke without fire' brigade, the knee-jerk smugness of their tabloid-friendly mantra. He knew better than most that some people were convicted of crimes they had not committed. And he did his best to accept that, in principle at least, those who were innocent in the eyes of the law should be able to walk free, unburdened by any association of guilt.

  But then there was Adam Chambers.

  In his case it was not so much fire as a raging inferno.

  When Sam Karim came in and said that Andy Boyle was on the line from Wakefield, Thorne told him to put the call through and turned off the radio.

  'Bloody good job,' Kitson said. 'I was about to lose my lunch.'

  Thorne would listen to the rest of the programme on his computer when he got home. Get worked up all over again. He felt sure that Andrea Keane would not even warrant a mention.

  Boyle was in a marginally better mood than the last time Thorne had spoken to him, but it could not have been described as cheerful. Thorne doubted the Yorkshireman ever did cheerful.

  'Thought you might like a progress report.'

  'That's good of you,' Thorne said. 'So?'

  'There isn't any,' Boyle said, his mood lightening further as he delivered the bad news. 'We've had another crack at Grover and we've had that bent screw in a couple of times an' all, but neither one's about to roll over.'

  'What about trying to find the money?' Thorne asked.

  'Well, you know what the sodding banks are like. Hardly falling over themselves to give us any records on the hurry-up. But I'm betting the payments were made in cash and never deposited, so we're probably wasting our time.'

  Thorne had already come to the same conclusion about any money paid to Paul Monahan, but a detailed investigation into his finances had been put on the back burner since his death. There was not much point in pressurising a witness who was no longer around to give evidence.

  'Even if we do find the cash,' Boyle said, 'there's no way of tracing where it's come from. Cook might have bought a new car more often than most, taken the odd flash holiday or whatever, but without a paper trail, there's bugger all linking either him or Grover to Langford.'

  'They still have some explaining to do, though.'

  'Best we can hope for,' Boyle said. 'I mean, they might not even have been paid yet for the Monahan job, and any money they pocketed before will probably be long gone. You just keep the cash under your bed and spend it as you see fit, right?'

  'I wouldn't know,' Thorne said.

  'These days you can pay for most things with readies, right? People are too grateful to bother asking questions.'

  Thorne said he supposed so.

  'I'm betting that whoever's handing the dosh over is going to wait until it's safe. They'd know damn well we'll be looking at Grover and Cook, so they'll bide their time and meanwhile that pair of arseholes can just bluff it out.'

  'Grover's not exactly got a lot to lose by keeping his mouth shut, has he?'

  'Right. He's never going to be convicted of doing Monahan without Cook's confession. And Cook's already done the smart thing and handed in his resignation, by the way. Claims his wife's poorly.'

  'Well, there's an admission of guilt.'

  'Yeah, you know that, and I know that . . .'

  Thorne also knew that Boyle was right to be pessimistic. Wherever he was, as things stood, Alan Langford did not have a great deal to be worried about.

  'I'll keep squeezing,' Boyle said. 'All I can do.'

  'We'll find something.'

  'The thing is, even if I could pin something on Cook, and even if he put Grover firmly in the frame for the Monahan murder, I don't think you'd get your man. Not directly, anyway.'

  Thorne found it hard to argue with what Andy Boyle was suggesting. What had Donna said about her ex-husband considering all eventualities? Alan Langford was not stupid, and by getting Monahan out of the way so efficiently he had already proved just how careful he was. He would certainly not be dealing personally with the likes of Jeremy Grover and Howard Cook.

  There had to be a middle man.

  Thorne's mobile buzzed on his desk. He picked it up, saw the caller ID and told Boyle he'd check back with him tomorrow. 'Sorry about that whippet comment, by the way,' he said.

  'Don't worry. If it weren't for the fact that I've actually got one, I might have clocked you.'

  'That's all right then.'

  'I'm joking, you twat.'

  Thorne hung up and answered his mobile. 'About bloody time, Kodak.' His nickname for Dennis Bethell. 'I was on the verge of sending a few friendly vice-squad types round to kick your door in.'

  'Yeah, sorry, only I didn't want to get back to you until I had something on these photos, you know?'

  Irritated as he was, Thorne smiled at the familiar high-pitched squeak, the voice so at odds with the man's appearance.

  'Let's have it, then.'

  'Best if we meet up, don't you reckon? So we can sort out the cash and what have you.'

  'I've not got time to piss about.'

  'Tonight's good for me.'

  'I'll have to owe it you.'

  'I'm a bit strapped, if I'm honest, Mr Thorne.'

  Thorne sighed and rolled his eyes at Kitson. 'Right, when and where?'

  FOURTEEN

  Anna could not say that she had ever seen Frank Anderson roaring drunk. She guessed that he had a tolerance borne of many years' practice and could put away a fair amount without it becoming obvious, but she was often aware that there was drink on him. She could smell it, the sweetness not quite hidden by the gum or extra-strong mints, could see the flush in his face after one too many glasses of red at lunchtime. The songs sung under his breath and the slight tremor in his hands.

  The singing aside, her mum had been much the same.

  It had been apparent an hour before, when Frank had returned from a three-hour lunch meeting with a prospective client, that a good deal had been drunk. Anna was not surprised, but did not know whether his ebullience was down to the booze or to landing the job. Frank preferred to conduct such interviews in the swanky bar across the road, and though Anna could understand his reluctance to let clients see the unimpressive office, she often wondered if the prodigious consumption of alcohol might be even more off-putting, might cost him more in the long run than he would ever earn.

  She had never bothered voicing her concerns.

  Since four o'clock, while Anna had been stuffing tacky A5 adverts into envelopes - 'F.A. Investigations: Peace of Mind Needn't Cost the Earth!' - Frank had been hunched over his computer or making calls. He had chased a couple of late payments, trying and failing to sound fierce, then phoned half a dozen competitors, posing as a prospective client and arranging time-consuming meetings at distant locations.

  'Anything that gives us a bit of a leg up,' he'd told Anna when she'd first caught him doing it.

  She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost quarter-past five. 'Can I get off now, Frank?'

  He looked up, glanced at his own watch and shrugged. 'You've had a fair amount of time off lately . . .'

  'I've been ill--'

  'What about this morning?'

  'That was a family thing. I told you.'

  'I don't think I'm being unfair asking you to make it up.'

  Anna had not told Frank about Donna; about her meetings with and alongside Tom Thorne. He would not have been pleased to discover she had taken on a client behind his back. Actually, if she were being honest with herself, she could not be sure how he would react, but she was certain he would at least insist that she hand over the majority of the fee.

  She stared back at him across the small office, thinking, Sod that!

  'A lot of time off.'

  'It's not like you've
been run off your feet,' Anna said.

  Frank nodded slowly, went back to his computer. Anna slotted two more flyers into envelopes. The Association of British Investigators logo was reproduced on the bottom. F.A. Investigations was not a member of the ABI, and any client would only need to visit the association's website to discover that, but Frank was unconcerned. Few ever bothered, he had assured Anna, and besides, maintaining a punter's confidence was more important than complete honesty.