From the Dead

by Mark Billingham

  ‘I was probably somewhat . . . manic when you called,’ Maggie said. The fixed smile and the way her hands moved in her lap told Thorne that she was still far from calm. ‘Only, as soon as you said who you were, I thought maybe you’d found her.’

  ‘I’m sorry for the misunderstanding,’ Thorne said.

  Julian Munro came in and Thorne and Anna stood to shake his hand before everyone sat down again. It was all rather formal, despite the invitation that Thorne and Anna should make themselves at home and the Munros’ Saturday casuals: jeans and rugby shirt for him; powder-blue tracksuit for her.

  ‘I must admit, I thought you’d be older,’ Thorne said. He had been genuinely shocked to find that the Munros were in their late thirties, having got it into his head that fostering was only ever done by fifty-something women whose own kids had flown the nest.

  ‘We’d been trying for a baby for a while,’ Julian said, ‘but for one reason or another it hadn’t worked out. So then we thought of adoption, but the process was incredibly long and drawn out.’

  His wife had been nodding along and now she took up the story. ‘We thought we’d try fostering just to see if bringing up someone else’s child was something we were cut out to do. And we got Ellie.’ She smiled. ‘As it happened, a few months later, I fell pregnant.’

  It was Thorne’s turn to smile. ‘Falling’ pregnant only ever seemed to be something the middle classes said. ‘Fell’ rather than ‘got’. Despite this, he thought he had heard the trace of a northern accent from both of them and for no very good reason had quickly formed an impression of a couple who had not been given anything on a plate. Who had worked hard for everything they had.

  ‘Ellie was thrilled to be getting a little brother,’ Maggie said. ‘And when Samuel came along, we were a family.’

  ‘He’s training,’ Julian said, explaining their son’s absence. ‘Every Saturday morning.’

  Anna hunched her shoulders and shivered theatrically. They had been talking about snow on the radio as she and Thorne had driven up. ‘Poor little lad’ll be freezing,’ she said.

  Julian shook his head. ‘He’s pretty tough.’

  The husband and wife were sitting a few feet apart on a large sofa, while Anna and Thorne sat in matching armchairs, facing them across a low table strewn with glossy magazines.

  Maggie leaned forward and cleared her throat, as if she were about to deliver a prepared speech. ‘The fact is, we’re very glad to see you,’ she said. ‘Nobody ever took Ellie’s disappearance seriously, not really. She was eighteen, so legally she was responsible for herself, and they just kept telling us she must have run off with some boyfriend or other. Kept saying that she’d show up when she got bored or ran out of money. It was so frustrating.’

  ‘Was there one?’ Anna asked. ‘A boyfriend?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘Nobody we knew about. Nobody special, at any rate.’

  ‘The police did keep in touch fairly regularly,’ Julian said. ‘At the beginning anyway. But only to tell us there was nothing to tell us, if you see what I mean.’ His jaw tightened and he breathed out noisily through his nose. ‘Some family liaison officer or other would sit where you are now, scoffing our bloody biscuits and bleating on about counselling, but singularly failing to tell us what anybody was actually doing to find our daughter.’ He looked at his feet, one of which was tapping angrily against the carpet. Maggie leaned across and took his hand.

  ‘Tell us about the day Ellie went missing,’ Thorne said.

  Maggie glanced at her husband. He nodded. You tell it.

  ‘She’d been out celebrating her A-level results. She’d done really well. She and some of her friends went to one of the pubs in the centre of town.’ Maggie shrugged. ‘That’s it. Just a bunch of teenagers having a drink and letting their hair down. All her friends told us she was fine when she left to get the bus. She never came home . . .’

  Thorne thanked her and said he understood how difficult it must be, going over it all again. She told him it had become second nature; one or other of them had told the story a thousand times by now.

  ‘What were the results?’ Anna asked. ‘You said she did well.’

  Maggie looked slightly taken aback before her face broke into a beam. It was clear that nobody had ever bothered to ask. ‘Two Bs and a C,’ she said. ‘Bs in English and History, C in French.’

  Thorne knew that the Munros were exaggerating somewhat in claiming that the police had done nothing, but he understood why. If he were the parent of a missing child, he would want every police officer in the country on the lookout twenty-four hours a day. The truth was that those in charge of the inquiry had done as much as possible before running hard into a brick wall. Ellie Langford had quickly become just one of several thousand missing teenagers.

  Thorne had spoken to one officer from the case who suspected drug use of some sort. Said most of his team expected Ellie to be on the streets somewhere, London most likely. Sitting here and talking to the girl’s foster parents, Thorne doubted that, but he knew he was no expert. He did know that no images of her had shown up on CCTV footage and that her mobile phone had not been used since the night of her disappearance. He also knew that if she had left the country, she had done so illegally.

  ‘She didn’t take her passport,’ Thorne said.

  Maggie shook her head. ‘No. We told the police that. Her passport was still here, and all her clothes. She hadn’t been planning on going anywhere.’

  The implication was obvious. She had been taken. Of course, the Munros had no way of knowing that Alan Langford was still alive, so they could not have suspected that Ellie had been taken by her own father. Their fear was far worse, far harder to wake up with every morning.

  That their daughter had been abducted by a stranger.

  ‘She’s dead.’ Maggie addressed the words to Anna. Simply and without emphasis. ‘Isn’t she?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because if she was alive, she would have got in touch to let us know she was OK. She would have wanted to talk to us, to talk to Sam.’

  ‘We’ve got no reason to believe she’s come to any harm,’ Thorne said. He knew that the Surrey Police had checked at the time and that they were still routinely checking all unidentified bodies as well as calling A&E departments as part of a regular monthly review.

  ‘Nobody ever said as much, but I think those people who believed she’d run away weren’t particularly surprised.’ Julian sat back, calmer now. ‘As though it was only to be expected that she’d have some kind of breakdown sooner or later. After what happened with her parents, I mean.’

  The surprise must have registered on Thorne’s face.

  ‘We knew who they were.’ The man fought to keep the distaste from his expression, but it was clear in his voice. ‘We knew all along who Ellie’s father was, and why her mother went to prison.’

  Thorne shrugged. ‘I just didn’t think they would have told you everything. All the details, I mean.’

  ‘Well, they told us a little of it at the time and we pieced together the rest once it all broke in the media. I think they wanted us to know the basic facts in case Ellie had been . . . affected, you know? They were worried she might show signs of it in her behaviour, of being traumatised. ’

  ‘Did she?’ Anna asked.

  Maggie shook her head. ‘You would never have known,’ she said. ‘She was the calmest little girl. Never lost her temper, never had a tantrum. Even when she hit thirteen, fourteen, and all her friends were going through that awful hormonal stage.’

  ‘Boyfriends and bitching,’ Julian said.

  ‘She just seemed to be removed from it somehow. Like she was above it all.’

  ‘She never talked about her mother coming out of prison?’ Thorne asked. ‘What might happen then?’

  The Munros shook their heads.

  ‘You do know she’s been released, don’t you?’

  The look on both their faces made it clear that they did no
t. Social Services might have decided that they had no need to know. Or they might just have screwed up and neglected to call them. Either way, it was an awkward moment. Looking at them, Thorne suddenly felt under pressure; as if he were being invited to declare where his loyalties lay.

  ‘How long?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Just over a month,’ Thorne said.

  He looked through a glass door that led to a small conservatory and the garden beyond. There was an almost full-sized football goal in one corner and a huge trampoline in the other. Thorne thought this must have been a good place to grow up, and not too much of a comedown from the place Ellie Langford had lived in before. Not as much as the one her mother had faced at any rate. Then, just before he turned back to Julian and Maggie Munro, he found himself thinking about another missing girl. About the very different house in which Andrea Keane had been raised.

  Four siblings scrabbling for attention and a garden barely big enough to bounce a ball in.

  ‘Have you still got Ellie’s computer?’ Thorne asked.

  Maggie nodded. ‘We’ve got everything.’

  ‘Is it OK if we send an officer round to pick it up?’

  ‘They already looked at it,’ Julian said. ‘The week after Ellie disappeared. ’

  ‘I know, but we’re making progress with that stuff all the time, so it might be worth a try. I can barely manage an email, but you can get all sorts of information off a hard disk now, so . . .’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ Maggie said. ‘Just let us know.’

  Thorne gave Anna a small nod, and reached down for his briefcase. ‘Well, if you think of anything else . . .’ He stood up, shaking his head. ‘Why do coppers always say that?’

  ‘You’ve read the statement we made at the time?’ Julian asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Thorne lied. He had asked for it to be faxed across. With luck, it would be waiting for him back at the office, along with statements from the friends who had been with Ellie in the pub the night she vanished.

  ‘Well, you know as much as anyone, then.’ Julian walked slowly to the door, with Anna, Thorne and Maggie a few steps behind. ‘The pub, her friends, the woman. All of it.’

  ‘Which woman?’ Thorne asked. ‘I don’t recall . . .’

  ‘I saw her talking to a woman,’ Julian said. ‘An older woman. This was a couple of weeks before she went missing. I thought it must have been one of her teachers, but then I could see . . . Well, she didn’t look like a teacher.’ He leaned against the door jamb. ‘I saw them twice, actually: once at the end of the road when I was coming back from the office, then a few days later in one of the cafés in town. They were sitting at a table in the window and I thought they were arguing.’

  ‘About what?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Anna leaned forward, excited. ‘But there was definitely some sort of argument?’

  ‘Look, I was driving past, so it wasn’t like I watched them for a long time, but that’s what it looked like.’

  ‘Did you talk to Ellie about it?’ Anna asked.

  ‘She didn’t really want to discuss it. At least, that’s how it seemed when I thought about it later. Afterwards, I mean. She said something about it being of one of her friends’ mums and that was the end of it. I didn’t really think about it again until after Ellie had disappeared. You rack your brains for anything, you know?’

  ‘I know it’s in the statement,’ Thorne said, ‘but can you give us a description?’ *

  ‘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.