Buried

by Buried (epub)

  She followed a step or two behind as officers escorted Farrell through the cage. When she entered the custody suite she watched as they led him towards the skipper, walking slowly, deliberately slowly, past Samir Karim and his ‘sons’ – the two Asian DCs Kitson had ‘borrowed’ from CID.

  Farrell glared, and got it back in spades.

  The DC with the goatee sucked his teeth. ‘And they reckon you don’t see white dog-shit any more . . .’

  Thorne was being shown to the door by Juliet Mullen when his phone rang. She walked back towards the kitchen once he’d answered; when he turned away and lowered his voice.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Where are you?’ Holland asked.

  ‘I’m at the Mullens’.’

  ‘Jesus—’

  ‘How did it go with Farrell?’

  Holland sounded flustered, thrown, spluttered an answer: ‘Kitson got the names. Sir, this is important.’

  Thorne listened. Holland didn’t call him ‘sir’ very often.

  ‘I thought I was going mad,’ Holland said. ‘Thought I was just overtired, that I’d looked at the wrong list or something.’ He explained that he’d finally been able to track down the missing member of the MAPPA panel; that the people living at Margaret Stringer’s old address had finally got back to him. They’d been away, but had dug out a phone number they’d been left when they’d bought the place five years before. ‘When I called, I just presumed I’d got confused and dialled the wrong number . . .’

  ‘What’s the matter, Dave?’

  ‘How long have you been at Tony Mullen’s place?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . half an hour or so.’

  ‘You must have heard the phone go, then,’ Holland said. ‘A couple of times in the last fifteen minutes?’

  Thorne had heard it, when he was with Juliet in the kitchen. Both times the call had been answered from the sitting room next door.

  ‘First time, when I realised who I was talking to, I didn’t know what to say. I just talked some shit about a courtesy call. Second time, when I rang again to check, I just hung up.’

  ‘OK.’ Thorne was only half listening now; trying to put it together.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

  Thorne had no idea, but he was in the right place to find out. He had already worked out that a lot of women worked under their maiden names. And he knew what Margaret shortened to . . .

  When he’d hung up, Thorne went back to the kitchen and told Juliet Mullen to go back to her room. Then he walked into the sitting room and sat down without being invited.

  Maggie Mullen put down the book she was reading and her husband, somewhat reluctantly, turned off the television.

  ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘I haven’t even started,’ Thorne said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Did it not occur to you for one minute that this was going to come out?’ Thorne spoke to them, and looked at them, as if they were children. ‘How could you think we wouldn’t find out about this?’

  ‘It’s not a big deal,’ Mullen said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It was an affair, that’s all. People have them. You’ll just have to forgive us for trying to keep some tiny part of our fucked-up lives private.’

  But Thorne was in no mood to forgive anyone. He’d listened with a growing sense of disbelief and anger as Tony Mullen had explained why he’d taken the decision not to mention Grant Freestone. How they’d jointly decided that there would be little point in revealing the affair that his wife had had while serving as an officer of the local education authority on Freestone’s MAPPA panel in 2001.

  ‘You lied because of this?’ Thorne said. ‘We’re trying to find your son and you lie because of a bit of screwing around? Whose embarrassment were you trying to save? Your wife’s or your own?’

  ‘Both,’ Mullen said. ‘Either. Does it really fucking matter?’

  ‘You messed us around—’

  ‘Does any of it matter?’ Mullen looked ready to scream, with frustration, exhaustion, rage. ‘Christ, my wife made a mistake years ago. One mistake . . .’

  Mullen was sitting on the sofa, facing the fireplace and the TV. Thorne and Maggie Mullen were opposite each other in the armchairs to either side. Thorne stared at the woman across the Chinese rug, her feet curled underneath her, same as he’d seen her daughter do. She was still, and had spoken barely a word since Thorne had entered the room.

  He was unable to tell if she wore a stunned expression or a defiant one.

  ‘So who did you make this mistake with, then?’

  She shook her head slowly, as if she were being asked to submit to something unspeakable.

  Mullen groaned. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No more secrets,’ Thorne said.

  So Maggie Mullen named the man with whom she’d had her affair. Thorne thought about it for a moment. He could see why it would have upset Tony Mullen so much.

  ‘You’re obviously enjoying this, Thorne,’ Mullen said. ‘Enjoying our . . . discomfort.’

  ‘You think you can claw back one single bloody inch of the moral high ground?’ Thorne asked.

  Mullen said nothing, looked across at his wife.

  ‘You should feel uncomfortable. Jesus. You’re ex-Job, for crying out loud, and your son is missing. You withheld information.’

  ‘Irrelevant information.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Considering everything that’s going on, do you really think that who my wife slept with five years ago is remotely important?’

  ‘That depends,’ Thorne said. ‘Does “everything” include another member of the MAPPA panel being murdered this morning?’ He looked from one to the other. It was clear from Tony Mullen’s expression that he hadn’t known. That, despite his connections, this development in the case hadn’t been relayed to him five minutes after it had happened. ‘Someone broke into Kathleen Bristow’s house and killed her, and nobody’s going to convince me that it wasn’t the same person who took your son, so . . .’

  Maggie Mullen began to cry.

  ‘I wonder if you still think the fact that your wife was on that panel is unimportant. If it’s irrelevant.’

  Mullen stood up, held out his arms towards his wife, but she didn’t move. She sat and wept and looked anywhere but at Thorne or her husband, until Mullen moved across to her. He gathered her up and pulled her back with him on to the sofa, pressing her head to his chest until she had to break free to suck in a breath.

  ‘I don’t understand how you could have been on that panel in the first place,’ Thorne said. ‘Wasn’t there a conflict of interest, with your husband having put Freestone behind bars in the first place?’

  Mullen looked at his wife. She was in no fit state to answer. ‘She didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Not to start with at least. We didn’t discuss cases and she’d never even heard of Grant Freestone until she joined that panel.’

  ‘So what happened? “Not to start with”, you said.’

  ‘She saw my name on Freestone’s probation report, the stuff about the threats he’d made, so then she told me and we discussed it. She talked about resigning, but there was really no need. What had happened in the past was of no concern to Maggie and the others on that panel, so there was no conflict.’

  ‘Of course not. Still, it must have been handy to have someone who could keep a close eye on Freestone for you. Someone who had a nice professional reason to know exactly what he was doing.’

  Mullen shook his head. ‘You’re talking crap. My wife just did her job.’

  ‘Right, and plenty of overtime, by the sound of it.’

  It was a cheap shot, and it got the reaction it deserved. Mullen sat up straight, clutched his wife’s hand and spoke quietly, each word clearly intended to be definitive; weighted with loathing for both subject and listener.

  ‘This man was someone Maggie worked with closely, only because she believed in doing things properly. She trusted everyone on that
panel, had every reason to think they had the same dedication to the work that she had.’

  Next to him, Maggie Mullen sat, stiff and shaking, the tears coming more slowly now. Her face reacted to the jolt of each sob, and twisted as her husband spoke, as though in distaste, in horror at this woman he was discussing that she did not recognise.

  ‘Men like him can mistake a close working relationship for affection. They look for it, desperate, and search for any way to exploit it, to turn it into something sordid it was never intended to be. They’re leeches. That’s what he was.’

  Next to him, Maggie Mullen spoke her husband’s name quietly. It sounded like a plea to stop.

  ‘He was needy,’ Mullen said, ‘terminally needy, and he twisted my wife’s sympathy into something different. He took advantage of her.’

  Maggie Mullen was shaking her head, insistent now, her words spoken and repeated in tandem with the movement. ‘That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened . . .’

  ‘Calm down, love—’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid,’ she shouted. She turned to Thorne, focused, spoke quietly. ‘He’s got Luke.’

  Thorne felt the prickle at the nape of his neck, a buzz that began to build and creep . . .

  ‘Who’s got Luke?’

  She said his name again. The name of the man with whom she’d had the affair.

  Mullen took hold of her other hand and put his face close to hers. ‘Sorry, love, I don’t—’

  She screamed the name into his face, scored it in spittle across his cheek and into his eyes.

  ‘He took Luke,’ she said. ‘He got those people, that couple, to take him as a warning. To convince me, I suppose. The affair didn’t finish when I told you it did. I tried to end it, but he wouldn’t let me.’ Mullen tried to say something, but she continued over the top of him, quickly, as though, if she stopped, she might fall to pieces. ‘We carried on, but I was dying every time I looked at Luke or Juliet. I was dying with the guilt. So, a few months ago, I decided I was going to end it and I told him that this time I wasn’t going to change my mind.’ She paused, remembering. ‘He took it badly . . .’

  Thorne was out of his seat. He couldn’t keep the astonishment and the disgust from his voice. ‘So he kidnapped your son?’

  ‘I was stupid,’ she said, clutching at her husband. ‘I was so stupid to do it when I did. He’d just lost his mother and he was in pieces, and I thought it would be a good time, you know . . . to tell him, because he would have other things on his mind. But he went completely off the rails.’

  Thorne stared, thinking, You’re telling me. He waited for the rest.

  ‘And, God help me, I mentioned Sarah Hanley.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We never talked about what happened. It was just like a film we’d seen or something. But I wanted him to accept that it was over and leave me alone, and I said something about how terrible it would be if anyone ever found out. It was just something I said, because I was desperate and I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t trying to threaten him.’

  ‘What was it that happened?’ Thorne asked.

  Mullen just gasped out his wife’s name.

  ‘I was there when Sarah Hanley died,’ she said.

  Tony Mullen got slowly to his feet and, as both of his wife’s hands were in his, she rose with him. Their fingers twisted, whitened, and the tension grew in their arms until they were pushing at each other, standing in front of the sofa, straining and searching for some leverage, a low moan somewhere in the throat of one of them . . .

  Thorne was out of his chair, fearing violence, but the moment passed and Mullen dropped back on to the sofa as if he’d been gutted. Thorne stared at the two of them. Took a few deep breaths as a hundred questions careered through his mind.

  Knowing that he could wait for the answers, he took out his phone and began to dial.

  Maggie Mullen saw what was happening. She stepped towards him and reached out a hand. ‘Please, not like last time,’ she said. ‘Don’t go in there like you did at that flat. Don’t charge in there with guns. I don’t know how he’ll react. I’ve no idea what he’ll do.’

  Thorne nodded and raised the phone. ‘I need a home address.’

  She gave it to him without a second thought. ‘Please,’ she said again. ‘Luke’s unharmed . . . so far. He’s fine. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, that you won’t go in there with guns . . .’

  The number Thorne was calling began to ring. He looked at Tony Mullen and followed the man’s wide eyes to those of the woman who was pawing at his sleeve. ‘How do you know Luke’s unharmed?’

  Her eyes left his. ‘I’ve spoken to him.’

  Mullen’s voice was hoarse. ‘You’ve spoken to Luke?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not to Luke. I haven’t spoken to Luke.’

  Porter answered her phone.

  She’d just started driving back from Kathleen Bristow’s house in Shepherd’s Bush. She pulled over to take down details as soon as Thorne had her attention and began to take her through it. He gave her an address in Catford, the other side of the city from him, and still a good distance south-east of where Porter was.

  ‘How soon do you think you can get a team there?’ He asked.

  ‘They’ll be there before I am,’ Porter said. ‘Almost certainly.’

  Thorne passed on Maggie Mullen’s concerns: her belief that the kidnapper’s reaction to an armed entry was highly unpredictable; her plea for them to be cautious.

  Porter sounded dubious. ‘I can’t make any promises,’ she said.

  When Thorne hung up, he told her Porter had assured him that she’d do her best.

  He didn’t feel bad about lying to her.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  You think about the kids.

  First and last, in that sort of situation, in that sort of state; when you can’t decide if it’s anger or agony that’s all but doubling you up, and making it so hard for you to spit the words across the room. First and last, you think about them . . .

  ‘Why the hell, why the fuck, didn’t you tell me this earlier?’

  ‘It wasn’t the right time. It seemed best to wait.’

  ‘Best?’ She took a step towards the man and woman standing on the far side of her living room.

  ‘I think you should try to calm down,’ the man said.

  ‘What do you expect me to do?’ she said. ‘I’d really be interested to know.’

  ‘I can’t tell you what to do. It’s your decision . . .’

  ‘You think I’ve got a choice?’

  The other woman spoke gently. ‘We need to sit down and talk about the best way forward—’

  ‘Christ Almighty. You just march in here and tell me this. Casually, like it’s just something you forgot to mention. You walk in here and tell me all this . . . shit!’

  ‘Sarah—’

  ‘I don’t know you. I don’t even fucking know you . . .’

  For a few seconds there was just the ticking, and the distant traffic, and the noise bleeding in from a radio in the kitchen . . .

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re what?’ Sarah Hanley smiled, then laughed. She gathered the material of her dress between her fingers as her fists clenched at her sides. ‘I need to get to the school.’

  ‘The kids’ll be fine,’ the man said. He looked at the woman who was with him and she nodded her head in complete agreement. ‘Honestly, love. Absolutely fine.’

  ‘. . . that’s when she came at him,’ Maggie Mullen said. ‘When she came at both of us, scratching and spitting and swearing her head off. He only raised his hands to protect his face, because she was out of control. He didn’t mean to push her.’

  ‘She was thinking of her children,’ Thorne said.

  ‘So were we. That’s why we were there, why the decision was made to tell her about Grant Freestone’s past.’

  ‘And it never occurred to anyone that she might not take the news very calmly?’


  Maggie Mullen had slunk back to the armchair. Her arms were wrapped around each other at the waist as she spoke. From the sofa, her husband watched, ashen-faced, as though all but the smallest breath he needed to stay alive had been punched out of him.

  ‘We were trained to have these conversations,’ Maggie Mullen said. ‘We tried to be sensitive. Everything just . . . got out of hand.’

  ‘What happened afterwards?’

  ‘We panicked. There was such a lot of blood. We didn’t know what the hell to do, and in the end we just decided to leave.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘I can’t remember whose idea it was, really I can’t, but it was all such a mess. It was just a stupid accident.’

  ‘An accident for which you knew Grant Freestone would probably get blamed.’

  ‘We never thought about that,’ she said. ‘I didn’t anyway, I swear. When he did get blamed, we talked about it, but we didn’t know what to do for the best. It was too late to come forward by then, to try and explain.’

  Thorne moved slowly around to the back of her chair. ‘Was she still alive when you left?’ he asked.

  Maggie Mullen lowered her head, shook it.

  Thorne stared down at hair that had gone unwashed for days. Only she and the man she’d been with in Sarah Hanley’s house that day knew if she was telling the truth. ‘You know that her children discovered the body, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  Tony Mullen’s hands were trembling in his lap. He swallowed hard, then muttered, ‘Christ . . .’

  ‘So, you just walked out,’ Thorne said.

  She nodded, but kept her eyes down. ‘Yes, we walked out, and we hoped nobody had seen us.’ She looked up. ‘And nobody had. We went to Kathleen Bristow, who’d assigned us the job of making the visit, and told her that we’d had to cancel it, that we’d never gone. We made up some story about me being poorly. Then, when the body was discovered, it all got forgotten anyway, and it looked like we were safe.’

  ‘Is that why he killed Bristow?’ Thorne asked. ‘Did she keep a record of the fact that you were due to have visited Sarah Hanley?’