From the Dead tt-9 Read online

  He had no paperwork to do. And he'd looked up the actor's name on Google.

  On Fridays, if he fancied a night on the town, he would see Candela or one of his other girls. But Saturday night was usually reserved for the boys. The previous night, he and a few of the lads had taken one of the boats, motored out a mile or so on a calm sea, then dropped the anchor. Somebody had brought along a decent-sized bag of charlie, which got the party started, and they did a bit of business and necked red wine until nobody could talk sensibly about anything.

  So, as was often the case, Sunday morning meant a long lie-in. Once he was vertical, a stumble on to the patio to drink tea and listen to one of the English-speaking radio stations. Then, when he was starting to feel vaguely human again, he stretched out by the pool to sweat out the over-indulgences of the night before.

  He flicked through El Sur in English, a free newspaper that was delivered every week. There were details of a foiled ETA jailbreak on the front page, a few familiar faces in the local news section, but nothing that really grabbed his interest. Later, he would drive down to pick up the overseas editions of the Mail on Sunday and the News of the World. He missed the supplements, but enjoyed catching up with the sport and doing the crosswords.

  He had books of crosswords and sudoku in every bog in the place; they kept his mind sharp.

  The breeze made reading the newspaper tricky, so he reached for a paperback that had been sitting beside his bed for several months, that he had picked up at the airport on his last trip across to North Africa. It claimed to be a 'gritty gangland thriller' and promised to 'pull no punches'. It sounded like just the thing to take his mind off what was happening in the real world.

  He needed a laugh.

  It was the same with most of the films. All that million-miles-an-hour geezer-garbage the bloke who used to be shacked up with Madonna churned out. Gangster chic, or whatever they called it.

  Gangster shit, more like.

  He supposed it was entertaining enough, if that's what you were looking for, and it certainly gave him and the lads a few good giggles. But it was about as true to life as Lord of the effing Rings

  …

  The book was much as he expected – sharp suits and sawn-offs – at least those few pages he read before the words began to blur and he felt himself drifting away. He flattened the sunlounger and pulled the towel over his head. There was an old Rolling Stones song on the radio and the sucker-thing slurped and ticked as it hoovered the bottom of the pool, and when he woke up an hour later, his head was thumping.

  He kept the towel on his face and lay still. He was desperate for something to drink but unwilling to get up and walk to the kitchen, or even shout through to the maid who was pottering around inside. It was hot and white behind his eyes, the sweat was slick on him, and the worry turned to anger as the sun crept higher in the sky. His mood became sour and murderous when he thought about what was happening, the moves he was being forced to make.

  So much trouble over a few poxy snaps…

  Somebody had it in for him, that was clear enough, but finding out who might not be so straightforward. So, as well as trying to sort things out back in the UK, he'd put the word out locally. There were a few in the frame: a town councillor he'd maybe squeezed a little too hard; a Moroccan supplier who thought he was being underpaid; a jumped-up used-car dealer from the Midlands who'd arrived six months before and had been put in his place when he'd tried to throw his weight about. There were those, and more than a few others who might have resented his closeness to their wives and girlfriends. Any one of them could have sent the pictures, stirred up trouble.

  Of course, it would help if he could see the bloody photographs. Then he might have a better idea about who was playing silly buggers. One way or another, he'd find out eventually and get it sorted, but until then it was all about damage limitation.

  Fortunately, he'd always been good at that.

  He tried his book again, but it got no better, then deciding the paperback was good and heavy if nothing else, he hurled it at the sliding doors as hard as he could. It thumped against the glass and dropped to the deck. He lay there watching as a few of the scattered pages were picked up by the breeze and blown towards the water.

  They bought cakes from a patisserie on Camden Parkway and took them back to Thorne's flat. Louise dug out a teapot from somewhere and poured milk into a jug, despite Thorne's curmudgeonly protestations that hot soup and toasted crumpets would have been more suitable, considering the testicle-free brass monkeys that were knocking about.

  Hendricks told Thorne he was a soft southern bastard. Thorne ignored him. Louise only took issue with 'soft'.

  Once tea was done with, the wine came out and they sat and drank as the Sunday evening doldrums kicked in early. The light faded outside, and when the conversation turned equally dark, Louise announced that she was going to have a bath.

  Thorne opened another bottle. 'I should have worked harder at school.'

  'You what?'

  'Got enough qualifications to go to university. Got myself a job that didn't make me feel like this quite as much.'

  'I shouldn't worry about it,' Hendricks said. 'I doubt you were bright enough anyway.' He smiled, raised his glass. 'This is almost certainly all you're fit for.'

  It was a trick Hendricks had used a good few times before. The banter and the piss-take as ways of easing Thorne out of a black mood. It worked more often than not, but tonight Hendricks had an uphill struggle, and Thorne told him so.

  'Who said I was joking?' Hendricks asked.

  'You're probably right,' Thorne said. 'I wouldn't have stuck it for so long otherwise.'

  'Maybe you need to move up.'

  'As in…?'

  'You've been an inspector since I was a sodding medical student.'

  'Suits me.'

  'What's so wrong about an extra pip and a better parking space?'

  'Nothing… if I want to sit on my arse all day. Spend most of my time having to crawl up Jesmond's.'

  'Get you out of the firing line for a bit.'

  'I'd rather wash a corpse.'

  'I can arrange that,' Hendricks said. He refilled both their glasses, nodded towards the bathroom. 'Listen, you should be in there scrubbing her back instead of sitting out here talking crap with me.'

  Thorne manufactured a smile, but he was thinking about the enthusiasm that fizzed up and out of Anna Carpenter. He had felt the same thing, had probably felt it, back before he had stood over the body of a dead child. Before he'd watched a man tortured and done nothing. A lifetime or two before he'd seen a murderer waltz out of a courtroom to be feted by the media.

  'Why not sit the exam at least?' Hendricks asked. 'Might take your mind off stuff.'

  Five minutes later, the pathologist was getting to his feet, complaining that the Northern Line would be even slower than usual thanks to weekend track repairs. At the front door, he pulled Thorne into their usual awkward embrace and winked. 'With a bit of luck, that bathwater will still be warm.'

  Thorne walked back into the living room and drained his glass. He looked up a phone number in his diary and dialled.

  'Steve? It's Tom Thorne.'

  Stephen Keane was not a man who said a great deal, at least not in Thorne's experience. Then again, Thorne had not known him long or in anything like normal circumstances. He might ordinarily have been as mouthy as all hell, there was really no way to know, but since his daughter had been murdered, he had been a man of few words.

  Now, it took Andrea Keane's father a few seconds to find a couple.

  'Oh. Hi.'

  'I just called to… see how you were doing. Both of you.'

  'We're OK.'

  'I meant to call earlier, so I'm sorry-'

  'Is this because Chambers was on the radio?'

  'Did you hear it?'

  'A friend called us, told us about it.'

  'It was a disgrace. What can I say?' Thorne was sitting on the edge of the sofa now, shaking hi
s head. 'If there was anything we could have done to stop it, we would have, I promise you that. You shouldn't have to sit and listen to that.'

  'Look, I'm right in the middle of something, so-'

  'No problem. Sorry to… Not a problem at all.'

  There was a pause. Voices in the background at Keane's end. Thorne's breathing loud against the plastic handset.

  'What do you want?'

  'Like I said, I just wanted to see how things were going.' Thorne eased himself on to the floor. 'I don't know… I thought it might help.'

  'Help you or me, Mr Thorne?'

  Howard Cook held the car door open, waited as his wife walked slowly down the path from the restaurant, then gently took her arm and guided her as she leaned down and folded herself painfully into the passenger seat.

  'In you go, love.'

  The arthritis had been getting steadily worse, so there had been at least an ounce or two of truth in what he'd told that copper. He had known for a while that Pat would need a lot more care as time went on. What had happened at the prison might have speeded up his decision, but he had been thinking about retirement anyway.

  It was basically a pub, but they did good food and it was only a ten-minute drive, so they treated themselves to dinner there a few times each month. Now and again, they came with friends – a couple Pat knew from the library or one of the other prison officers and his wife – and once they'd brought their eldest and his girlfriend, on one of the rare occasions when he'd deigned to visit. But they were happy enough on their own.

  'How was your lamb, love?' she asked.

  'Very tender. What about your steak?'

  'A bit rare for me, if I'm honest, but they're so nice in there you don't like to say anything, do you? And the pudding was lovely.'

  'Let's get home, shall we?' he said.

  Heading back through the narrow, unlit lanes towards the village, they left the radio off, same as always. Happy enough to chat. In thirty-two years of married life they had never run out of things to say to each other. Plenty of people envied them, told them it was the secret to a long and happy marriage.

  That and knowing when not to talk about certain things.

  Driving home, they continued the conversation that had begun back in the pub, over steak and lamb and a bottle of rose. They talked about the kids, and where they might go for a holiday this year and what they were going to do with Pat's mother, who was eighty-five and barely able to leave the house. They talked about almost everything except where the money was going to come from and the retirement which had been taken out of the blue, several years too early. Cook was relieved that his wife knew him well enough to leave it alone. When he had told her about his decision a few days before, he had made it clear that he was not at all keen to discuss it further. She had nodded, concerned but understanding, and he had drawn her into a reassuring hug.

  'It's done and dusted, love, so what's the point?'

  Just how done and dusted any of it really was remained to be seen, but he didn't think that Boyle and his team would be going away any time soon. Cook had brazened it out when they had first confronted him, not knowing what else to do. He had told that London copper to dig away to his heart's content, cocky as you like, but now he lived in fear of the knock at the door and a smiling Andy Boyle on the other side of it.

  'Good news, Howard. Not for you, mind… '

  The money he'd been given for those first few 'favours' – the mobile phone business and what have you – was already long gone, and there would certainly be no more cash until things had quietened down. But he had no way of knowing how careful everyone else involved had been. One slip and they'd all be buggered.

  Pulling up outside the house, Pat was talking about making them both tea as soon as they got indoors, and Cook told himself to try to relax. These were people who knew what they were doing, course they were, who did their homework. He had often wondered if they knew him even better than his wife did. Asked himself if, back when they had made their first approach, they had known exactly how worried he was about making ends meet on a prison officer's pension.

  That he would be unlikely to refuse their offer.

  'Here we are, love…'

  Christ, though, now he wished he'd refused. Back then, it had seemed like a lot of money for very little work or risk. A few bits and pieces of business in and out of the prison, and a bag full of tenners in the boot of his car.

  'Wait there and I'll help you out.'

  No talk of anybody being killed. No cell floors running with blood and homemade blades to get shot of. And no way for him to stay clear of it.

  He was theirs by then, wasn't he?

  He got out of the car and walked around to open Pat's door. She held out a hand and he was about to take it when the headlights broke across the brow of the hill.

  The car was travelling at such a speed that he knew what was coming for no more than a few seconds. Just enough time to squeeze his wife's hand once before letting go. Before the car took him and the open door, then accelerated away, the roar of its engine dying as Patricia Cook's screams grew louder.

  A few minutes later, kneeling over the body in the road, a neighbour phoned 999 while his wife tried to calm the distraught woman in the car. Once an ambulance was on the way, the emergency call was relayed to the on-call Homicide Assessment Team and one of their cars was immediately dispatched. Within an hour, as soon as the pathologist had made his initial examination and the identity of the dead man had been established, contact was made with the relevant unit of the West Yorkshire Homicide and Major Inquiry Team. Once the name had been run through the computer, details of the incident were passed to the senior investigating officer of the investigation with which Howard Cook appeared to be closely connected. Within two hours of the incident in Kirkthorpe, the case had been given a number and the necessary files had been opened.

  A second murder inquiry had been launched.

  Just before 11.30 p.m., driving towards the crime scene from his home on the other side of Wakefield, Andy Boyle called Tom Thorne.

  TWENTY

  'There's so much to do,' she said. 'To be organised and what have you. I haven't even had the chance to go to the shops yet or cook anything and the house is a pigsty. I wish you'd let me make some tea or something. I could easily nip down to the end of the road and pick up some cake…'

  Pat Cook stopped, the thought trailing away as though she had just remembered something, and turned to look at the woman sitting next to her on the sofa. She seemed surprised to see the local WPC – sent to stay overnight and by her side ever since – and shook her head. For a moment or two, she appeared to be trying to work out what the woman, and two other police officers, were doing in her front room.

  At least one of those officers was not entirely sure himself.

  'Honestly,' Thorne said. 'We're fine.'

  It was Monday lunchtime, but the curtains were drawn at the large windows and the only light struggled from behind the fringed, brown shade of a standard lamp. Pat Cook wore a padded blue housecoat and was clutching what looked like a man's pyjama jacket. She spoke slowly, each thought an effort, like someone who was not quite awake yet.

  'Did you get any kind of a look at the car?' Andy Boyle asked. He was standing near the door, a similar position to the one he had taken when he and Thorne had interviewed Jeremy Grover. Thorne wondered if he did it deliberately, if it was some kind of status thing. 'The make or the colour?'

  'It was dark,' Pat Cook said. 'And it was all so quick.'

  'Not even when it was driving away? A glimpse of the number plate, maybe?'

  'I wasn't watching the car, I was watching Howard. He seemed to roll over and over, for ages. Then, when he stopped, I could just see the door lying beyond him in the grass.' She turned to look at the WPC. 'It took the door clean off the car, did you know that?' The WPC nodded, confirmed gently that she did. 'I was looking at it, lying there all twisted, and I was thinking that they'd have one hell of a j
ob to fix it back on the car. It's ridiculous, now I come to think about it. Don't you think that's ridiculous?'

  'It's not ridiculous,' Thorne said.

  He knew from experience that the strangest thoughts could fly into people's heads at the most extreme moments. He remembered a woman who had taken a carving knife to her husband and would not stop talking about how bad she felt for ruining his favourite shirt. A father whose young son had been the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting who became obsessed with finding the football his son had had with him at the time. 'It was his best ball,' the man kept saying. 'He would have been so upset if that had gone missing.'

  'Could you even see if the car had one occupant or two?' Boyle asked.

  As inconspicuously as possible, Thorne rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and loosened his collar. The room was far too hot, but none of the visitors had been brave enough to make any comment.

  'I didn't see anything.'

  Thorne found himself wondering if Howard Cook had been the one responsible for turning the radiators down; the one who complained about it being too stuffy and marched around the house adjusting the thermostat and throwing open windows. Thorne had yet to encounter a couple who agreed about such things.

  Boyle asked a few more questions about the incident, but Thorne knew that it was all academic. The car would almost certainly have been stolen and, when it finally turned up, they would be very lucky if it yielded anything remotely useful. Based on the pattern of the inquiry thus far, even if they were to get super -lucky and pull in whoever was responsible, they would probably not be able to identify the third party who paid them to murder Howard Cook. Thorne knew who was ultimately responsible, of course, and he had it on very good authority that this was a man who considered all eventualities. These would surely include the arrest and questioning of the people he hired.

  'It's to do with his job, isn't it?' Pat Cook asked suddenly. 'The money.'

  Boyle took half a step away from the door. 'What about it?'

  'When I asked him, and this is going back to last year now, he said he was doing a lot more overtime.' She shook her head at what she clearly believed was the littlest and whitest of lies. 'But I knew all his comings and goings, because I always cooked for him, always had a hot meal ready, you know? I knew his hours better than he did and it wasn't overtime.'