I’ve got more important things to worry about, Thorne had said. Well, she hadn’t. She needed the money and she needed something to get her blood pumping a little faster. Whatever Tom Thorne thought about her, Donna Langford had nowhere to turn and she was even more desperate than Anna had guessed when she’d first laid eyes on her.
There was something about Thorne, too; something that told her she could not quite write him off. She had seen it in his face when she’d challenged him, when she’d told him she thought he might be interested. When she had shamelessly done her very best to sound disappointed.
She sat up and reached for the remote. Smiling now, thinking about her poor put-upon father. He was a man who could always be relied upon for a decent homily, whether one was needed or not.
If you want something doing, gift horses and the price of politeness. Always wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident, that sort of thing.
You make your own luck . . .
‘He’s got a point,’ Louise Porter said.
‘Yeah, right.’ Thorne had told her about Russell Brigstocke’s joke: the kidnaps and the country music.
Louise held out her wine glass and Thorne topped it up. ‘It’s a wonder I don’t throw you out.’
‘It’s my flat.’
‘I’m fully expecting the Pope to make me a saint.’
‘I think that only happens once you’re dead.’
‘See? Everything Russell said is true and you’re a smartarse.’
They had spent more evenings together recently, at Thorne’s place or occasionally at Louise’s in Pimlico, than was usually the case. Louise’s team on the Kidnap Unit was less busy than it had been in a long time and Thorne had not caught a murder that necessitated too much overtime. Certainly nothing as all-consuming as the Andrea Keane inquiry.
He had picked up a takeaway en route from Hendon, ignoring the Bengal Lancer – his usual port of call – and opting instead to try a new Greek place a little further south on the Kentish Town Road. The food had been fine, but looking down at what was left of his chicken souvlaki, Thorne wished he had not been so adventurous.
It wasn’t like him, after all.
They drank their wine and a silence grew between them, while Louise flicked through the Evening Standard and Thorne watched the ten o’clock news. It was comfortable enough, as it should have been, more than two years into their relationship. But since Louise had lost a baby the year before, Thorne had found it hard to take anything for granted.
An equilibrium had returned, but it felt precarious.
Often, it seemed to Thorne, they moved too cautiously around one another, circling their loss like wild animals. Curious, but wary. She got angry if she felt that he was treating her differently, and he would overcompensate, storming around the flat and taking out his bad day, his foul mood, his grief on her.
It was difficult.
The mildest of disagreements, a furious row, a fuck . . .
Sometimes it felt wrong to Thorne how easily one could lead to the next, and that any of them was really about a hundred different things. He had tried to explain it to Phil Hendricks – his closest friend and a good one to Louise, too – one night in front of Sky Sports.
‘I bet the row lasts longer,’ Hendricks had said.
‘I just can’t bear the thought of her in pain,’ Thorne had said, at which point Hendricks had stopped joking.
‘Tom?’
Thorne looked over and saw that Louise was watching him over the top of her paper.
‘There’s no point worrying about it,’ she said. She laid down the paper and reached for the cat, curled up next to her on the sofa. ‘There’s nothing you can do, unless you fancy trying to nobble a couple of jurors.’
Thorne sighed, nodded. He knew she was right, but it wasn’t helping. ‘A couple of them are no older than Andrea was,’ he said.
‘So?’
‘So, you worry they can’t make a . . . mature decision.’
‘“Mature” meaning “guilty”.’
‘That they won’t see what Chambers is really like.’
‘You want to raise the legal age for jury service? To what – twenty-one? Forty?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘You don’t think an eighteen-year-old knows exactly what the likes of Adam Chambers is capable of?’ She jabbed a finger at her Standard. ‘Kids half that age are doing worse things every day of the week. Knifing each other for an iPhone.’
Thorne shook his head.
‘Come on, you’ve dealt with enough of them.’
‘Not the same,’ Thorne said. ‘You’re right . . . but most of the time there’s a reason at least. I’m not justifying it, course I’m not, but it’s not the same as what Chambers did to Andrea Keane.’
‘You don’t know what he did.’
‘They don’t enjoy it.’
Louise picked up her paper again, read for a minute, then asked Thorne if he’d remembered to put the leftover souvlaki in tin-foil. He was on his way to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
Louise asked the question with a look. Thorne shrugged a ‘no idea’ and moved towards the door.
‘Look, I know I should have called, so I’m sorry if it’s a bit late . . .’
Thorne’s flat was on the ground floor, but the entrance to the building was half a dozen steps up from the street. He peered down at his visitor from the edge of the half-open door, his expression making it abundantly clear that he was cold and less than delighted to see her.
‘How did you get my address?’
She smiled. ‘I’m a detective.’
Thorne waited.
‘I’ve got a friend who works for the DVLA.’
‘Used to,’ Thorne said. ‘She just lost her job.’
‘Oh come on—’
‘What do you want, Anna?’
She climbed a couple of steps, then leaned towards Thorne and held out a hand. He took the piece of paper she was brandishing.
‘It’s Donna’s address.’
‘Haven’t we been through this?’
‘Just go and see her,’ Anna said. ‘Please.’
‘There’s no point.’ Thorne rubbed at his bare forearms, shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t want to see her and I very much doubt she’d be too keen on seeing me.’
‘I phoned her. She knows I’ve spoken to you.’
‘So, phone her again. Tell her I’m not coming.’
‘Just go round there for half an hour.’ Anna took another step up towards the door. ‘That’s all I’m asking. If you still feel like it’s a waste of time, fair enough.’
‘I will.’
‘Meaning you’ll go, right?’
‘I thought you were just misguided this morning,’ Thorne said. ‘Now I think you’re misguided and pushy.’ He looked down at the slip of paper. An address in Seven Sisters.
‘You got changed.’
Thorne looked up. ‘What?’
‘This morning,’ Anna said, pointing, ‘you looked like you couldn’t wait to get out of that suit.’
Thorne suddenly felt rather self-conscious in his rattiest jeans, socks and T-shirt; even more so when he sensed Louise at his shoulder. He opened the door a little wider, so that she and Anna could see each other, made the introductions.
‘I’m really sorry to disturb you,’ Anna said. ‘I’m just being pushy.’
‘It’s OK,’ Louise said, not really getting it. ‘And you’re welcome to come in, you know. I might go to bed, but if the pair of you have got stuff to talk about . . .’
Anna mumbled a thank-you and looked at her feet.
‘It’s fine,’ Thorne said. ‘We’re about done.’
FIVE
For a few uncomfortable seconds, before reaching into his pocket for his warrant card, Thorne could only stare at the woman who had opened the door. She had short, bottle-blonde hair and a blank expression, her face thin and hard in spite of the bronze foundation and dark brown eyes.
Th
orne was trying to keep the reaction from his face, the amazement that Donna Langford could have changed quite so much, when a second woman appeared from a doorway a few feet down the hall. Realising his mistake, Thorne nodded his recognition and she did the same. She said, ‘It’s OK,’ and the woman at the door stepped back, her face finally softened by a sly smile, to let Thorne inside.
‘You haven’t changed much.’ Donna said.
The flat was in the middle of a two-storey block on a busy road between the stations at Seven Sisters and South Tottenham. There were ornamental plastic animals – rabbits, turtles, herons – lined up along the path to the door and scattered around a front garden almost completely cast into shadow by a giant satellite dish. The orthodox Jewish community of Stamford Hill lay half a mile away, with the up-and-coming middle-class enclave of Stoke Newington a few minutes further south, but Donna Langford was living in one of the few areas in London where you could still buy a place for less than six figures and the pound shops outnumbered the Starbucks.
As comedowns went, it was steeper than most.
Donna introduced the blonde woman as Kate and asked Thorne if he wanted tea. While Kate went to the kitchen to fetch the drinks, Donna led Thorne into a smoky living room. As Thorne took it in – a small leather sofa and matching armchair, a plasma TV that all but filled the wall above the gas fire – Donna sat down and reached for the pack of cigarettes lying on a low, glass-topped table.
‘Housing association,’ she said. ‘Kate found it.’
Thorne nodded. He could still hear the working-class Essex upbringing in her voice. If anything, it was stronger now than it had been before, the result of ten years inside trying to pretend she was tougher than she was. He thought about the last time he had visited this woman at her home – a surprisingly tasteful mock-Tudor pile in the Hertfordshire countryside. ‘You couldn’t even fit your old kitchen inside this place,’ he said. He remembered the echo and the gleaming, dust-free surfaces. ‘Never seen so much marble in my life.’
Donna blew out a plume of smoke and tossed the disposable lighter on to the table. ‘I probably cooked in that kitchen three times,’ she said. ‘Never knew where anything was.’
‘What happened to the house?’
‘Gone. Same as everything else.’
‘Right, yeah.’ Thorne sat down on the sofa. He remembered that Donna had been the main beneficiary of her husband’s will, that for a while this had been considered her motive for wanting him killed. As it had transpired, there was far less to inherit than anyone had thought – the majority of Alan Langford’s assets turning out to have been paper – with the little that was tangible seized by the Serious Organised Crime Agency before Donna had even been sentenced. ‘So, not a lot to come out to?’
‘I had plenty,’ Donna said. She shrugged, reached for a large glass ashtray and pulled it towards her. ‘My priorities had changed.’
Kate shouted from the kitchen, asking if Thorne wanted sugar. He shouted back, letting her know that he did not.
‘Actually,’ Donna said, ‘you’ve put on a bit of weight.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Thorne smiled, unamused. ‘We’ve all changed.’
She too was heavier than she had been ten years before, puffy-faced and jowly, while her hair, which Thorne also recalled that she had been inordinately proud of, was grey and far from perfectly coiffured. She was still prison-pale and, on top of the smoking habit, she had acquired a wariness that Thorne had seen in many with a few years inside under their belt. She shifted focus every few seconds, the circles beneath her eyes as blue-black as bruises.
She might have been the mother of the woman Thorne had last seen a decade earlier.
‘Her Majesty does pretty good makeovers,’ Donna said, seeing what Thorne was thinking. She nodded towards Kate, who was coming through the door with three mugs and a packet of biscuits. ‘Not that bloody drastic, though.’
Thorne looked from Donna to Kate. ‘Sorry.’
Donna leaned over, smirking, to stub out her cigarette. ‘You thought she was me, didn’t you?’
Thorne looked again and saw that Donna’s companion was at least ten years younger than he had originally taken her for, ten years younger than Donna herself. He also noticed the delicate swirls of blue that snaked up from below the neck of her T-shirt. He could just make out a ‘D’ and an ‘O’ and guessed what the rest of the tattoo spelled out. Now he could see that there was no physical similarity whatsoever between the two women. What had seemed familiar to him was merely something they shared in their expressions: a suspicion, a challenge, an invitation to judge.
He had simply recognised an ex-con.
Kate smiled as she handed Thorne his tea, that invitation even clearer this time. ‘Me and Donna met in Holloway, a couple of years back.’
‘I’m thrilled for you,’ Thorne said.
‘I was released nine months ago. Got all this set up for us.’
‘It’s quite lovely.’
Kate bent down and took a cigarette from the packet on the table. ‘Donna said you were a wanker.’
‘Sorry, I just don’t give a toss,’ Thorne said.
Kate shrugged, like that made sense, and lit the cigarette. She took two good, deep drags. ‘So, you going to find her ex, then?’
Thorne held up his free hand. ‘Look, I’m just here because someone asked me, OK? And because I’m an idiot.’
Kate took two more cigarettes from the pack and slipped them into her shirt pocket. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it.’
‘You don’t need to go,’ Donna said.
But Kate was already at the door, her back to them, waggling her fingers in a goodbye.
When the door closed, Donna said, ‘I couldn’t do this without her.’
‘Do what?’
‘You saw the photograph of Alan.’
‘I saw a photograph,’ Thorne said.
‘Come on, you know it’s him.’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘You know Alan’s still alive.’
Thorne took a slurp of tea. Deciding he might just as well stay until he had finished it, he went over some of the same ground he had covered with Anna Carpenter. Donna had received the photograph two months earlier in a plain brown envelope addressed to her at HMP Holloway. There had been no accompanying note. Two more pictures had followed, both delivered in the same way. Then, a fortnight ago, after her release, a fourth had arrived at the flat.
Donna showed Thorne the three other photos. They were all from the same batch, dated three months earlier, each shot showing the man in more or less the same pose, holding up his glass of beer or drinking from it. The same triumphant grin. The same sea and sky, the same black mountain and distant boat.
‘No helpful postmark, I suppose?’ Thorne asked.
‘All posted in London,’ Donna said.
‘You keep the envelopes?’
‘I didn’t think. Sorry.’
Thorne stared down at the photographs laid out on the table, listened to the rustle and click of the lighter, the faint hiss as Donna lit another cigarette.
‘Why didn’t you come to us straight away?’ Thorne asked.
‘Because I knew you’d be like this. Suspicious. I knew you’d think I was full of shit.’
‘But you didn’t mind when Anna came to see me?’
‘She’s a nice girl,’ Donna said. ‘But to be honest, I don’t think she does much more than fetch and carry. I’d rather you lot weren’t involved, no point me pretending otherwise, but if it’s the only way I’m going to find out . . .’
‘Find out why the photos are being sent?’
Donna nodded. Her eyes were closed and smoke drifted from the corner of her mouth.
‘And who’s sending them?’
‘Where he is,’ she said. ‘I want to know where that bastard is.’
Thorne fought the temptation to make some crack about knowing exactly where Donna’s ex-husband was, about there not being an awful lot left of him, seeing as how he had essent
ially been cremated twice. He watched as Donna reached for another stack of photographs from a small sideboard, flicked through them, then passed a couple across.
These were much older. Donna and Alan Langford dressed up to the nines on an evening out. Black tie for him, cocktail dress for her, and best smiles for the camera.
‘Looks fancy,’ Thorne said.
‘Some charity bash or other.’ Donna spat the words out as if she now saw what a sham her life had been back then. The contented wife. The gangster masquerading as philanthropist. She pointed from one image of her ex-husband to the other; from a photograph taken a dozen years earlier to one dated a few months ago. ‘You can see it’s him, can’t you?’
Thorne looked. He could not deny the resemblance.
‘Alan had a scar,’ Donna said. ‘He got knifed in the belly when he was a teenager, some ruck in the local pub.’ She pointed again at the photo of the older man and Thorne saw the mark: a pale line just above the crinkled waistband of the swimming shorts, clear against the sagging, brown gut. ‘I reckon he’s had a bit of work done – something around the eyes is different and he’s dyed his hair – but it’s definitely him.’
‘All right, for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s him . . .’
‘Christ Almighty!’ She sighed, dropped back in her chair. ‘Your eyesight going as well, is it?’
‘Look, if it’s him, it’s a fair bet he’s not spending his time playing bowls and doing the gardening, right?’
She nodded. ‘He’ll be into something dodgy.’
‘So, I’ll put in a word with SOCA and see what they want to do with it, OK? I can’t really do any more than that.’
‘If it’s him, don’t you want to know how?’ She knocked the worm of ash from her cigarette. ‘How he can still be alive, swanning around in the sunshine, when he burned to death ten years ago in Epping Forest? If it’s him, don’t you want to know whose body was in that car?’
Hypothetical as he still believed – just believed – the question was, it had been rattling around in Thorne’s head ever since Anna Carpenter’s visit to Becke House. Somebody had been handcuffed to the wheel of that car, even if it had not been Alan Langford. Somebody’s flesh had spat and melted on to the leather seats.
From the Dead Page 4