Their Little Secret Read online

  Mark Billingham has twice won the Theakston’s Old Peculier Award for Crime Novel of the Year, and has also won a Sherlock Award for the Best Detective created by a British writer. Each of the novels featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has been a Sunday Times bestseller. Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat were made into a hit TV series on Sky 1 starring David Morrissey as Thorne, and a series based on the novels In the Dark and Time of Death was broadcast on BBC1. Mark lives in north London with his wife and two children.

  Also by Mark Billingham

  Sleepyhead

  Scaredy Cat

  Lazybones

  The Burning Girl

  Lifeless

  Buried

  Death Message

  Bloodline

  From the Dead

  Good as Dead

  The Dying Hours

  The Bones Beneath

  Time of Death

  Love Like Blood

  The Killing Habit

  Other fiction

  In the Dark

  Rush of Blood

  Die of Shame

  Copyright

  Published by Little, Brown

  ISBN: 978-0-7515-6699-4

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Mark Billingham Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Lines from ‘I Want You’ by Elvis Costello © Universal Music Publishing Group

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Little, Brown

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Mark Billingham

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Part Three

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Part Four

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Acknowledgements

  For Michael. Onwards and upwards …

  It is my belief that the problems arising

  from love – infatuation, jealousy,

  heartbreak, trauma, inappropriate

  attraction and addiction, to name but

  a few – merit serious consideration and

  that the line which separates normal

  from abnormal love is frequently blurred.

  The merest spark of sexual attraction

  can cause a fire that has the potential to

  consume us …

  DR FRANK TALLIS,

  THE INCURABLE ROMANTIC

  I want you,

  The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark,

  It scares you witless,

  But in time you see things clear and stark,

  I want you,

  Go on and hurt me, then we’ll let it drop,

  I want you,

  I’m afraid I won’t know where to stop …

  ELVIS COSTELLO,

  ‘I WANT YOU’

  PART ONE

  The Bed and the Beach

  ONE

  Tom Thorne watched as the bag containing the woman’s body was lifted, as gently as was possible, from the tracks. He saw the telltale sag in the middle before it was laid down on the platform, where those pieces that were unattached had slid together. Where liquid had pooled inside the plastic.

  What was left of the woman’s body …

  He watched as DS Dipak Chall finished his conversation with an officer from the British Transport Police and walked back along the platform towards him. Now, Chall was carrying a plastic bag of his own; small and clear, stained by its contents. He held it up, somewhat gingerly, so that Thorne could see what was inside.

  A brown leather handbag, some keys, a mobile phone.

  ‘We’ve got a name,’ Chall said.

  It was Thorne’s turn on the Homicide Assessment Team, a mobile unit dispatched to the location of any sudden death to determine if circumstances were suspicious and further investigation warranted. Once the on-call HAT car had been alerted by uniform, it was down to Thorne and Chall to attend and report whenever a body was discovered; to examine those scenes where even an intellectually challenged cadet could see that a murder had taken place, but also to check the state of any premises where an apparently natural death had occurred. To look for signs of violence or forced entry. To take note of any drugs – prescription or otherwise – at the property, before passing the case on to the necessary team and waiting for the next one. Their first call that morning had been to a flat in Wood Green, where they had quickly been able to establish that the old man slumped in a chair in front of The Jeremy Kyle Show had died of natural causes. The request to attend an incident at Highgate underground station had promised, initially at least, to be every bit as straightforward.

  ‘They’ve looked at the CCTV,’ Chall had said after his first conversation with the officers already at the scene. ‘She was standi
ng on her own at the near end of the platform.’ He’d pointed. ‘Where the train comes in. Started running towards it just before it came out of the tunnel.’

  Thorne had said little, watching those still working on the tracks; gathering up what was left after flesh and bone had met a train travelling at forty miles per hour and then fallen beneath it.

  ‘Seems pretty cut and dried,’ Chall said now.

  Thorne stared at the bag, the keys, the phone. A gobbet of something smeared against the plastic. ‘I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know how people can do it.’

  ‘Kill themselves?’

  ‘Like that, I mean.’

  ‘It usually gets the job done,’ Thorne said. Not always, though, he knew that. The woman in the bag had been lucky, in that the outcome for her had presumably been the one intended. There were many, whose timing was not quite as good, who simply ended up losing multiple limbs.

  ‘It’s the driver I feel sorry for,’ Chall said. ‘He’s got to live with it, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, true enough.’ Thorne had glimpsed the train driver in the station office on the way in. Pale, shaven-headed and cradling a mug of something as he was spoken to by someone from the London Underground Emergency Response Team. Nodding as a tattooed arm was laid gently around his shoulder. Thorne knew that the man would be offered trauma counselling, had read somewhere that any driver unlucky enough to get ‘one under’ three times was immediately offered fully paid retirement.

  It was probably an urban myth, Thorne decided. Like the secret station at Buckingham Palace or the community of cannibalistic savages haunting the tunnels.

  He had seen some of the passengers as well, gathered in clusters outside the entrance to the station, having been ushered off the train. They too would be offered as much support as was needed. Thorne couldn’t help wondering if the woman whose actions had triggered all this activity was ever offered any kind of support. If they would be here if she had.

  ‘Don’t know how you get over something like that. You know, if you’re not used to it.’ Chall stepped to the edge of the platform. On the tracks below him, men and women in high-vis jackets were moving with rather more urgency now that the body had been removed, eager to get the power switched back on, the trains moving again.

  The DS turned to look at Thorne. ‘You OK, boss?’

  ‘Just a bit warm down here, that’s all.’

  Chall nodded, humming something. Without thinking, he began to gently swing the plastic bag, a rivulet of blood running back and forth along the bottom. He checked himself and stopped.

  The weather outside was as unforgiving as one would expect in the last week of January, and the breath of the passengers outside had plumed in the air as they had stood chatting nervously or smoking. Nevertheless, Thorne felt clammy and uncomfortable, headachy. He unzipped his leather jacket, took a deep breath when Chall looked the other way.

  Suicide had never agreed with him.

  His first body had been a hanging and he had never forgotten it. For good or ill, Thorne remembered most of the bodies he had encountered over the course of his career. He certainly remembered all the murder victims and, try as he might, he could never forget those who had been responsible for them.

  It had been a teenage girl, that first one. A slip of a thing dangling from the branch of an oak tree in Victoria Park. A ripped blue dress and legs like sticks and the muddy heels of her trainers kissing.

  He remembered himself and a colleague and a rickety stepladder.

  That skinny body so much heavier than it looked.

  ‘So, what do you reckon, then?’ Chall asked.

  In many ways, he found murder simpler to process and deal with, because the questions were always the same. Who had done it, why and, most importantly of all, how was he going to find them? The questions thrown up by a suicide were often the ones that bothered Thorne the most, because, nine times out of ten, he was never going to find out the answers.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Should we leave this lot to it?’ The DS nodded up towards the station entrance. ‘Move on …?’

  ‘Do we know anything else about her?’

  Chall opened his mouth, closed it again. ‘No, but if you want to find out, it shouldn’t take too long.’ He raised the plastic bag again. ‘We know who she is.’

  Now, Thorne could see a few credit cards scattered at the bottom of the bag. An Oyster and a driving licence spotted with blood. He leaned closer to look at the picture and thought he could see the hint of a smile on the face of the woman to whom it had belonged. ‘OK, well, it might be worth asking a few questions.’

  ‘Really?’ It was clear from the look on Chall’s face that he believed their job at the station was done. The death, though certainly sudden, was not suspicious, so surely there was no more reason to look any further into the life of the woman in the bag than there had been to follow up on the old man in the armchair in Wood Green. He stepped closer. ‘Any reason to think there’s an issue?’

  Thorne shook his head.

  ‘Have I missed something?’

  A few feet away, two men clambered up on to the platform, then reached down to help colleagues from the tracks. For the umpteenth time since they’d arrived, a woman’s voice, distorted by a tannoy, announced that the station would remain closed until further notice.

  ‘I mean, the CCTV was pretty clear cut.’ Chall looked towards the camera mounted high at the end of the platform. ‘There was nobody even close to her.’

  ‘I might just … poke around a bit later on, that’s all.’

  ‘Up to you, boss.’

  Thorne walked away towards the station office to see if he could grab a few words with the train driver. While he was there he could try to scrounge a couple of aspirin. He stepped aside to let two men pushing a gurney go past, thinking about something Chall had just said.

  Nobody close to her …

  TWO

  Sitting at the kitchen table she had waxed and polished an hour earlier, Sarah watches the woman opposite tucking into a slice of carrot cake as though she hasn’t eaten for a month. The woman – Karen, with the first syllable pronounced like car – hums with pleasure and dabs at her mouth with one of the napkins that Sarah had carefully ironed after the table had been polished.

  ‘Oh. My. God.’ The woman flaps her hands as if the sublime taste has temporarily robbed her of control of her limbs.

  ‘Glad you like it.’

  The woman swallows. ‘Did you make this yourself?’

  Some things are just not worth fibbing about. ‘Sainsbury’s, I’m afraid. I wish I had the time to cook.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ The woman glances across at the pile of Lego bricks pushed into one corner, the scattering of DVD cases – Dino Man and Curious George – on the countertop above it. ‘Not enough hours in the day, right?’

  Sarah smiles and shakes her head, but she had caught the flash of something like disapproval on the woman’s face. A grimace, barely held in check. The suggestion that, however busy things get, there is simply no excuse for being slovenly.

  Especially when you have visitors.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’ The woman pushes her hair back then begins to pick at the crumbs left on her plate. ‘You drop the kids off, then straight back to deal with the carnage at home, a bit of lunch if you’re lucky and, before you know what you’re doing, it’s time to pick the little sods up again.’

  ‘Hard enough when you’ve only got the one little sod.’

  ‘Well, of course it is.’ The woman licks her fingers. ‘Not to mention trying to find time to walk the dog, rain or shine …’

  Sarah nods, sips at her coffee.

  It’s how the two of them had met, a fortnight or so before, in the park at the end of the road. Sarah dragging her dim old mutt around the lake and Karen fussing over a yappy little Cockapoo. The dogs sniffing at each other’s backsides while the two women greeted one another in a rather more civilised fas
hion.

  Yes, it is nice, isn’t it? I wish they’d do something about the litter, though, and the boys smoking weed by the benches. The smell of it, you know? Oh, bloody hell, Monty’s chasing the ducks again, better dash …

  A bit more chat on the following day, a couple of walks together and here they were.

  Coffee and cake, nice as you like.

  ‘I think my two are a bit older than yours, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s only six.’

  ‘Well, sorry to tell you that it just gets harder. Muddy football kit all over the place and homework and what have you. You’ve got all that to look forward to.’

  Sarah laughs and rolls her eyes because it’s the appropriate thing to do. ‘So, where do yours go?’

  ‘St Mary’s. It’s very good, I think. You should get your boy’s name down nice and early.’

  Karen’s children are not at the same school as Jamie. It might have been a little awkward had they been, but Sarah would have coped. She has found herself in a similar situation a few times before but has always managed. She has become very good at thinking on her feet.

  The woman has picked up her phone and is busy scrolling. Without taking her eyes from the screen, she reaches down to pick up her bag and says, ‘God, it’ll be pick-up time in an hour, I need to shoot.’ She raises her head up and smiles. ‘This was so lovely, Sarah.’

  ‘I’m really pleased you could come.’

  ‘My place next time, yes?’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Sarah laughs. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t be expecting a freshly baked cake.’

  The woman laughs in return, a grating bark. ‘Good, because you won’t be getting one.’ She stands up, looking pleased with herself as though she’s just had a truly wonderful idea. ‘Actually, why don’t you come over for dinner, instead? You know, you and your …?’

  ‘There isn’t a my anything,’ Sarah says.

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘Divorced.’ Sarah takes the woman’s empty plate and places it on top of her own. ‘Looking.’

  ‘Well, I hope you took your ex for every penny.’ The woman looks around. ‘I’m guessing that you did.’

  ‘I did my best,’ Sarah says.

  ‘Well, anyway.’ Karen picks up her coat and steps towards the doorway. ‘Just having coffee’s nice, too. Happy with that, if you are.’