From the Dead tt-9 Page 12

  He had screamed at her across the roof of the Jag. Called her an ungrateful whore. He had smashed a vase when they got home and when that was not satisfying enough he had pushed his way into the bathroom and broken three of her fingers.

  She had known exactly what Monahan was, even as she had watched him chit-chatting and putting away the canapes, and his was the number she had searched for frantically on her husband's mobile phone the following morning as he showered; that she had dialled a few days later with one of her undamaged fingers.

  'This is a seriously big deal, love. You sure you've thought this through?'

  They had moved to a small table in the corner of the bar. Away from prying eyes and a noisy group of businessmen on the lash. Monahan had nursed his Guinness like he was on any ordinary night out and had turned on the blarney; leaning close and flirting with her, safe in the knowledge that she would not go running to her husband. As though it might enable him to bump up his price when they got to talking about the money.

  Cheeky bastard…

  'I've thought about it.'

  'OK, only you don't want to be going down this road on the spur of the moment, you know what I mean?'

  'I don't need advice.'

  'You can't undo it. That's all I'm saying.'

  'I've told you.'

  'It's not like taking back one of your fancy pairs of shoes-'

  'I just need to know if you'll do it.'

  'I'll do anything if there's enough money involved,' Monahan had said. 'Only, considering what you're asking, I wouldn't go trying to pay me with your old man's credit card…'

  She had walked out of the bar thirty minutes later thrilled and terrified in equal measure, and though she never met with Paul Monahan again, it would be five months before the Irishman finally got the job done.

  Or pretended to…

  Four times Donna gave the go-ahead and four times she lost her nerve and called to cancel the contract, telling Monahan that he could keep the down payment. She had almost decided to forget the whole thing, convinced herself that she must have been out of her mind even to consider doing it. Then, one day, Alan lost out on some business deal or other, came home scowling and pressed her hand between a pair of heated hair straighteners.

  She had called Monahan that evening and told him to get on with it.

  'Don…?'

  She turned to see Kate standing in the doorway, brandishing a mug of tea that Donna guessed would be stone cold by now. Donna said sorry, that she would only be another minute or two, but she was still thinking about Monahan, twinkly-eyed and full of himself.

  This is a seriously big deal, love.

  Later, she had become convinced that it was Monahan himself who had called Alan. Had probably called him as soon as she had walked out of the bar. Got himself paid twice.

  She turned and walked back inside, imagining the cocky so-and-so now, sewn up and stiff in a freezer drawer. She smiled and thought: I'm not the only one who didn't think it through properly. But the smile evaporated as she thought about her daughter. Her only consolation was that, whatever else her ex-husband might be capable of, at least he would never hurt Ellie. Would he? Surely just taking her would be enough…

  She felt Kate move up close behind her, her lover's hands rubbing the tops of her arms. But it was no longer the chill in the air that was making Donna shiver. It was everything she knew about the man she had believed to be dead. The man Paul Monahan was supposed to have killed.

  She glanced down at a ten-year-old scar on her hand.

  Thought that a few photographs might only be the start of it.

  FIFTEEN

  Thorne drove into the West End just before six, waiting for ten minutes on the north side of the Marylebone Road to avoid the congestion charge. He parked on Golden Square and walked towards Soho. It was considerably milder than it had been earlier in the day – hardly balmy, but bearable – and the working women in the strip-lit doorways of the Brewer Street bars were showing a little more flesh than of late.

  Considering the other risks they ran every day, a few goose pimples were neither here nor there.

  Gary Brand called back as Thorne was walking, said he'd managed to dig up a few names from Alan Langford's past who had probably been in Spain at one time or another. It was all a bit vague, he admitted, apologising, but the best he could come up with at such short notice. Thorne thanked him anyway and scribbled down the names, his mobile wedged between chin and shoulder.

  'So, Spain still favourite, is it?'

  'With a bit of luck I'll know a lot more in a few minutes,' Thorne said.

  He had already arrived at one of several shops in the area popular with both bargain hunters and dirty old men. It sold cut-price books and CDs on the ground floor, with adult entertainment – magazines, DVDs and a small selection of sex toys – a few steps away in the basement.

  Thorne stopped at a set of shelves just inside the door. He looked at the back cover of a thriller that he thought might be good for his next holiday – whenever the hell that might be – and leafed through a coffee-table history of the Grand Ole Opry that was a steal at PS6.99. Then, ignoring the knowing look from the woman on the till, he jogged down the stairs to where the volumes on display boasted a few more pictures, and Dennis Bethell would almost certainly be browsing.

  He was not hard to spot.

  Pumped up and powerful, six feet four, bleached blond hair and diamonds in both ears, Bethell would have stood out among an average crowd at White Hart Lane. There were only half a dozen punters in the basement. Five men and a woman.

  'One of yours, Kodak?' Thorne nodded down at the magazine in the photographer's hands.

  Bethell continued to turn the pages. He was wearing tight jeans and an even tighter T-shirt beneath a silver Puffa jacket. 'I do hope you're kidding, Mr Thorne. My stuff 's way classier than this. I mean, look at how this cowboy's lit this rubbish…'

  Thorne studied the explicit double-page spread that Bethell was helpfully holding only inches from his face, aware of the eyes on both of them; the heads that had turned, same as they always did whenever Dennis Bethell's voice was heard for the first time.

  'I'm not sure that anyone really gives a toss,' Thorne said. He nodded towards the customer closest to them, a man in a brown suit who looked like Central Casting's most in-demand 'seedy accountant'. 'You think he cares about the lighting or the composition?'

  'I know what you're saying, but you've got to have some pride in what you're doing, surely?'

  Thorne said he supposed so, struck as ever by the contradictions in the man before him: the bouncer's torso and the helium voice; the genuine passion for his craft and the seeming lack of care or concern for those who took their clothes off for his camera. On a more basic level, Thorne had never figured out Bethell's own sexual leanings, coming to the conclusion that he probably didn't much care either way.

  Man, woman, fish, whatever. None of the images conjured up was particularly pleasant.

  To Bethell's right, the only woman in the place was looking at the back of a magazine sealed in plastic. Bethell caught Thorne's look, leaned in close and lowered his voice. 'You'd be surprised, Mr Thorne. A lot of women go for this stuff these days.'

  Thorne pointed to the magazine that Bethell was still holding. 'Not that stuff, surely?'

  'No, you're right, it's more of a specialised market. Material that's a bit more aimed at them, a touch more sensitive or what have you. Believe it or not, they like a story, you know what I mean? If it's a film where the hunky plumber comes round, him and the horny housewife usually talk for a while before he starts giving her one. They might even have a cuddle afterwards.'

  'That's disgusting!' Thorne said. 'Does he offer to sleep in the wet patch as well?'

  Bethell laughed, high-pitched and scary. The woman looked round, a little alarmed. Thorne smiled and she quickly turned away again.

  'So, let's have it,' Thorne said.

  Bethell reached into a shoulder-bag an
d produced a large brown envelope. 'Right, well, it's almost certainly Spain.'

  'You serious?' Thorne fought to keep his voice down. 'We'd pretty much got to that point ourselves.'

  'Hold on, Mr Thorne. I might be able to tell you which part as well.' Bethell pulled four large colour prints from the envelope and handed them over. 'I managed to isolate and enhance the bits of the photos with the boat. Remember the boat in the background?'

  Thorne looked at the pictures. 'I remember. Go on…'

  Bethell pointed. 'That's the Spanish flag. By law, every boat registered in Spain has to fly it. Now, we might be unlucky. I mean, it's possible that some Spaniard was sailing about off the Greek islands or something, but I doubt it. So, like I said, I reckon Spain's a fair bet.'

  'You said you could be more specific.'

  'Well, I think you can find out from the registration.' He pointed to an indistinct black smudge on the boat's hull, then took out another print in which this section had been blown up to fill the entire frame. Now a series of letters and numbers was blurred but legible. 'There's no name, but I reckon this should be all you need. A mate of mine had a boat in Lanzarote and the Spanish are shit-hot when it comes to keeping records about all that stuff.'

  From the corner of his eye, Thorne could see the seedy accountant staring, clearly keen as mustard to know what was in the photographs.

  'It's because they charge extortionate taxes,' Bethell said. 'Mooring fees on the boats, harbour taxes, all that. Now, you should be able to trace the owner of this boat and, with a bit of luck, he'll be able to tell you where he was on this date.' Just to be extra helpful, Bethell produced a final print in which the date that had been stamped on the original photograph had been blown up. 'See?'

  'You're wasted in porn, Kodak.'

  'Nice of you to say, but I don't think I'm cut out to be a copper.'

  'No, probably not.'

  'They are some of my best customers, though.'

  Thorne slid the prints back into the envelope. 'Nice one, Kodak. I think this may be one of those rare occasions when you've earned your money.'

  'Talking of which…'

  'Sorry, I didn't bring any cash with me. I thought I'd just make a donation to an appropriate charity.'

  'What?'

  'Something for the blind, maybe?'

  'Funny, Mr Thorne.'

  Thorne reached into his jacket pocket and took out the four fifty-pound notes he'd signed out from the CHIS fund. These days, only stubborn old sods like himself still used the word 'snout'. In a prime example of corporate wank-speak, the likes of Dennis Bethell were now officially known as 'covert human information sources', even though there was nothing remotely covert about Kodak. Besides which, on this occasion, he was acting more as an expert witness. Not that Thorne or anyone else would ever consider putting him on the stand, of course. Even if Bethell changed his appearance and his occupation went unmentioned, any iota of credibility would disappear as soon as he opened his mouth.

  'Who's the bloke in the photos anyway?' Bethell squeaked.

  'A ghost,' Thorne said.

  He thanked Bethell again and Bethell thanked him right back, reminding Thorne that he was always available for this kind of work and handing him a fistful of business cards. 'Give them out to some of your colleagues, if you get the chance,' he said. 'Either for this sort of thing or, you know, I can fix them up with any other material they might need.'

  Thorne put the cards in his pocket, wondering if Yvonne Kitson might be in the market for a hunky plumber/horny housewife DVD. With added cuddling.

  'I'm very discreet.'

  'You couldn't be discreet if your life depended on it,' Thorne said.

  He moved away, stopping at the foot of the stairs and beckoning the seedy accountant across. The man looked nervous but could not resist the invitation. Thorne drew him close then glanced around to check that the coast was clear, before teasingly pulling out one of the photographs of the boat.

  'Look at the mast on that!' he said.

  Friday evening, and the main routes out of the West End were predictably snarled up. Sitting in traffic on Regent Street, Thorne called Brigstocke and told him about the meeting with Bethell. He gave him the registration number of the boat and Brigstocke said he'd get on to it straight away.

  'I wouldn't bank on getting hold of anybody before Monday, though, even if it was a British boat,' the DCI said. 'And we're dealing with the Spanish here, mate. Manana, manana, all that…'

  Thorne told him he was a racist and to let him know as soon as he heard anything.

  The BMW moved a few feet forwards, then stopped again. Thorne had tuned into talkSPORT, but was only half listening to a discussion about the following day's football fixtures. Mostly he was thinking about Ellie Langford.

  Had her father really spirited her away to Spain?

  Thorne realised he knew next to nothing about the missing girl. What had her life been like before she disappeared? What had her plans been? She was eighteen. Had she been planning to go to college or did she already have a job? Was there a boyfriend?

  Thorne needed to find out.

  He had managed to get across Oxford Street and was waiting at the traffic lights by Broadcasting House. Drizzle had just begun to fall and some pundit or other was talking about Arsenal's leaky defence when Thorne glanced to his left and saw the woman crying in the car. She had parked twenty yards past the Langham Hotel in a blue Peugeot 405, and at first, Thorne thought she was rocking with laughter at something on the radio or a hands-free call. Then he saw that she was racked with sobs.

  He stared…

  After fifteen seconds or so, he began to feel slightly uncomfortable just sitting there and watching her cry, but he could not look away. He felt the urge to pull over to the kerb, to knock on the window and ask if she was all right. But he sensed that she would not welcome the intrusion; that, although she was parked on a busy street, she would have been horrified at the idea that she had been observed.

  He saw her shake her head as though she were arguing with herself, or thought she were being silly.

  He watched her cry and cry and cry.

  As the lights up ahead changed to amber, Thorne saw a girl – fifteen, maybe less – come out of a house a few yards further up the street and run to the car. He guessed that she was the woman's daughter, and that the woman had been waiting for her.

  Was she collecting her from a friend's house? From a party?

  The woman leaned across the front seats to open the door, then turned away quickly as the girl jumped into the car. Rubbed at her face. Not wanting the girl to see her tears, or at least the extent of them.

  It was at that moment, just for a moment, that Thorne caught the woman's eye. Through the rain streaked on his window and on hers, before she turned back to her daughter and Thorne began to pull slowly away.

  For the rest of his journey home, past the Nash terraces on the perimeter of Regent's Park and down Parkway into Camden, he thought about her. Wondering how sudden her collapse had been and if it had happened before. What might make someone sit in a parked car and howl?

  Bad news of some sort. A loss, recent or imminent. A diagnosis.. .

  Or had it been something more general? Something she was stuck with or settling for? Something about which she could do nothing but sit alone and weep in rage and frustration.

  He was still thinking about the woman when he turned off the Kentish Town Road and pulled up outside his flat. He saw Louise's silver Megane parked a few spaces up on the other side of the street. He was about to get out of the car when the text alert sounded on his phone.

  It was a message from Anna Carpenter: Sorry about being upset outside Donna's place earlier. Feeling v. stupid! Please don't think I'm flaky or whatever. I want u to know that I'm up for all this. I'm stronger than I look: 0)

  Thorne switched the engine back on. He turned the radio off and the heating up. Then he called her.

  SIXTEEN

  Friday
was the biggest night of the week and, as usual, the club was packed. The dance floor was solid. Even though there was barely room to move, sweat glistened on tanned shoulder-blades and showed in dark patches against expensive white and cream linen. He chatted for a few minutes with the owner, a man he had known for almost as long as he had been in the country, necked a bottle of San Miguel at the bar, then took a complimentary bottle of champagne through to the VIP area.

  The gorillas flanking the velvet rope smiled as they let him through and tucked the cash he'd palmed them into their pockets.

  He knew most of those who were already there; exchanged smiles and a handshake or two on his way to one of the booths. There might occasionally be some lower-tier footballer knocking about with a glamour model in tow, or a mainstream comedian scrabbling for the tourist euro, but most of those deemed to be 'very important' in this neck of the woods had earned the label the same way he had.

  There were all sorts of ways to be well known.

  He had arranged to meet Candela here. She liked to dance and he liked to show her off. Theirs was an on/off arrangement, nothing too serious, but he enjoyed her company, loved what she got up to in bed and thought the feeling was mutual. Tonight, they would have dinner and a few drinks before heading back up to the house. They would sleep late, then, after breakfast, he would take her shopping for something nice.

  It was important that some things remained uncomplicated, that a sense of normality was maintained, in spite of what was happening back at home.

  One of the many gorgeous waitresses stopped at the booth to open the champagne and pour him a glass. They chatted for a minute or two. She had got down on her knees for him the previous week, earned a very good tip that night, but he could not remember her name.

  Back at home…

  It was funny that he still thought of the UK, of London, as home. Strange, because he wasn't one of those soppy buggers who were forever dreaming about HP Sauce and warm beer. He had happily settled down and got on with his new life, because he'd had no choice. Still, there was an attachment, of course there was, and he wouldn't be human if he didn't miss a few things.