From the Dead Read online

‘Stirring stuff,’ Boyle said, when Thorne had finished. ‘You’ll make brass one of these days.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Talking of which . . .’ Boyle nodded towards a tall man in an expensive suit who was striding towards them. He muttered, ‘Here we bloody go . . .’ then smiled and introduced Detective Chief Inspector Roger Smiley.

  The DCI failed miserably to live up to his name as he shook Thorne’s hand and told him how pleased he was with the way their two forces were working together. Thorne did his best to look as though he were paying attention and formulated an instant opinion. Same rank as Brigstocke, but probably not a Brigstocke. Way too much formality and, thankfully, no card tricks.

  ‘We like to think that we can stay as ahead of the curve as you boys down south,’ Smiley said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Andy?’

  ‘Spot on,’ Boyle said, looking as if he hadn’t the faintest notion of what or where this curve might be.

  ‘So, we’re particularly proud that this inquiry is such a good example of the CRISP initiative in action.’

  ‘Which initiative?’ Thorne asked.

  Smiley finally smiled. ‘The Cross-Regional Information Sharing Project.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s a shining example.’ No, not a Brigstocke, Thorne decided. Definitely a complete and utter Jesmond.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty to be getting on with,’ Smiley said. ‘Andy can sort you out with an office, if you need one.’

  Thorne thanked him, said he wasn’t planning to hang around too long, but an office for an hour or two would be nice. When Smiley had left, Thorne turned to Andy Boyle. ‘CRISP? Is he having a laugh?’

  ‘Does he look like the type?’

  ‘Sometimes I think they come up with these half-arsed schemes just to fit the stupid bloody initials.’

  ‘I suggested one of my own the other day,’ Boyle said. ‘The National Unified Tactical Service. Told him that way he could have CRISPS and NUTS.’

  Thorne laughed.

  ‘Didn’t even crack his face,’ Boyle said.

  By the end of the day, Thorne had spent a couple of hours in a poky office, reading through everything that the West Yorkshire team had put together in the wake of the Paul Monahan murder and in the few hours since Howard Cook’s. All information pertaining to the investigation would be accessible from London via a shared-database system, but it made sense for Thorne to review the material while those who had compiled it were on hand to answer any questions.

  As it was, nothing worried or excited him.

  Building a case, some called it, though the likes of Jesmond and Smiley probably had a far more convoluted description. To Thorne’s mind, nobody was building much of anything, although that was understandable, given that they lacked most of the necessary materials and had no clear idea of what was being built.

  Get Alan Langford. For Thorne, it had already become that simple.

  And find his daughter.

  He called and left a message for Louise, to let her know that he would be leaving soon and that, barring delays on the train, he should be back in time for a late dinner. He offered to pick up a curry on the way back from King’s Cross.

  He was ready to go and reaching for his jacket when he changed his mind and went back to the desk. He picked up the phone and called Donna Langford.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘How’s everything with you and Kate?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you care?’

  ‘I care enough to ask, obviously.’

  ‘We’re beating seven bells out of each other. We’re not talking. I’m moving out. Which of those would you like best? Which one would give you the biggest stiffy?’

  ‘You’re being stupid, Donna.’

  ‘Look, it’s not exactly love’s young dream at the minute. Let’s leave it there, shall we?’

  ‘Kate had nothing to do with Ellie going missing,’ Thorne said. ‘You need to know that.’

  There was a pause. ‘So, why bring up all that ancient history the other day? Talking about what Kate did twenty years ago.’

  ‘I was just trying to shake things up, all right?’

  ‘Shake things up?’

  ‘Pushing buttons, trying to find out what happened. It’s what I laughably call “my job”.’ Thorne pulled across a piece of paper, grabbed a pen and began to doodle. ‘I didn’t mean to stir it up between the pair of you.’

  ‘Now you’re really taking the piss,’ she said.

  ‘OK, I knew it might, but that wasn’t why I did it. That’s what I’m trying to say.’

  ‘This is all well and good, but I don’t hear you saying sorry.’

  Thorne had already got as close to an apology as he was planning. ‘Look, you must have known when you started this that there might be some . . . pain down the line.’

  ‘I didn’t start anything.’

  ‘Whatever, you know what I mean.’ Thorne was actually dating things back to the receipt of the first photograph, and though it was a possibility he had briefly considered, he did not think Donna Langford had sent the photographs to herself. ‘Since this thing started then . . .’

  ‘I never thought it would be plain sailing,’ she said. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

  ‘Two people dead is certainly not “plain sailing”, Donna.’

  Thorne got the silence he had expected. The incident in Kirkthorpe had yet to make the news. Donna knew about the murder of the hit man she had hired a decade ago, but she could not possibly know what had happened to the prison officer who had been an accessory to it. He heard a cigarette being lit.

  ‘Who else?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I can’t go into the details, but I think it’s safe to say that your ex-husband knows people are looking for him.’

  ‘Jesus . . .’

  ‘Which is why I want you to call Anna Carpenter and tell her you’re not employing her any more.’

  ‘It’s a free country, isn’t it? If I want to pay her and she wants the money—’

  ‘Listen, we’ve both been around the block a few times, OK?’ Thorne pressed the pen hard against the page, going over the same shape time and time again. ‘We both know exactly what Alan Langford might do if he’s threatened, what he’s already done, and for various reasons neither of us has much say about whether we get involved or not. I want to put him away and you want your daughter back. But whatever Anna thinks she wants, she’s not up to any of this. She’s not much older than your daughter, for God’s sake.’

  The sigh was filled with smoke. ‘Fine, I’ll talk to her,’ Donna said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Ten seconds went by before Donna said, ‘What are they like? The people who had Ellie.’

  It took Thorne a moment to realise that she was asking about the Munros. ‘They’re nice,’ he said.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘And every bit as worried as you are.’

  There was not too much else to say, and once Thorne had said he’d call again to see how the conversation with Anna went, Donna hung up. He sat back in his chair, thinking that a drink would be nice. That Kate and Donna seemed a solid enough couple to deal with the trouble he’d caused between them. That, despite Kate’s past, she was by far the more straightforward of the pair.

  He picked up the piece of paper and stared down at his scribbles: a house; a boat with an enormous sun overhead; a woman sitting in a car. Then he screwed up the page and dropped it in the bin on his way back to the incident room.

  He found Andy Boyle at the photocopier, asked if there was anyone available to run him to the station. Boyle said he would do it himself. Then, ‘Actually, I was wondering what you had on later.’

  Thorne hesitated. He was about to trot out the paperwork excuse he’d used on Anna the day before, but Boyle did not give him the chance.

  ‘I thought you might fancy a bite to eat.’

  ‘Well . . . maybe we could grab something quick near the station,’ Thorn
e said.

  ‘I don’t mean anything fancy. I’ve got a huge pot of stew in the fridge, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Thorne realised he was being invited back to Boyle’s house. ‘Well, thanks, Andy, but I should probably be getting back. And anyway, I don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘No intrusion, pal.’ Boyle leaned back against the photocopier. ‘I could do with the company, to be honest, and the stew needs eating.’

  Thorne glanced at Boyle’s wedding ring. ‘Right. I just presumed . . .’

  Boyle looked at the ring himself, admiring it as though he had never seen it before. ‘She passed away a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a pretty decent stew, if I do say so myself.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Thorne said.

  ‘She taught me how to cook all sorts of things, those last few months.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Boyle and Thorne drove down a busy main road crowded with shops, most still open even though it had gone six-thirty, and restaurants just beginning to serve dinner. The customers and the signs made it clear that the community was predominantly Asian.

  Sitting at a set of lights, Thorne lowered the window and thought about the curry he could have been having.

  Soon they entered a quieter neighbourhood and pulled up outside Boyle’s modest terrace. ‘City’s had a lot to deal with the last few years,’ Boyle said. ‘Some of the lads that did the London bombings were from round here, so the anti-terror thing kicked off big time. Been a load of press about honour killings an’ all, special initiatives, all that.’ He opened the door. ‘Personally, I don’t give a monkey’s why you’re killing someone. You’re an arsehole and I’m going to nick you, simple as that.’

  Thorne followed Boyle up the narrow path, thinking that as a working philosophy went, it was as decent as any.

  ‘Last train’s about ten, I think,’ Boyle said. ‘I’ve got a timetable inside somewhere.’ He leaned against the front door until it opened. ‘I may not be in a fit state to drive you to the station by then, but there’s plenty of taxis.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘Sorry about the mess . . .’

  The stew was as good as Boyle had promised, and Thorne made sure he said as much. The lamb was lean and nicely spiced, and there were dried fruits – apricots and sliced mango – which Thorne had not seen in a stew before but which went very nicely with the puy lentils. They ate in the kitchen and then carried cans of lager through to the living room. It was a decent size, but cluttered: a mass of papers on a low table, a pile of clothes that might have been clean or dirty on a chair. An enormous plasma TV dominated one corner, with DVDs stacked underneath and scattered on the floor in front. Thorne saw boxed sets of Only Fools and Horses and The Fast Show, and there was plenty of cricket in evidence: England’s Six of the Best, The Greatest Ashes Ever, Boycott on Batting.

  Andy Boyle could not be more of a Yorkshireman if he tried, Thorne thought.

  ‘I tell you what cheers me right up,’ Boyle said. ‘The thought of Jeremy Grover sitting there shitting himself when he hears what’s happened to Howard Cook.’

  ‘Presuming he doesn’t know already?’

  ‘Yeah, somebody always knows somebody, don’t they? Jungle drums.’

  Plenty of those about, Thorne thought.

  ‘Might make the little shitehawk a bit more talkative.’

  ‘Or do the exact opposite,’ Thorne said.

  Boyle shrugged and agreed that was the more likely outcome, that warning Grover might well have been one of the main reasons Cook was killed in the first place. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I feel sorry for the wife, course I do. But it’s hard not to think that Cook got what was coming to him.’

  ‘I think that’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘Maybe, but he knew the risks. You take dirty money from that sort of pondlife, all bets are off.’ Boyle shook his head. ‘Cook was bent and that’s the one thing I can never get past with people. Whatever else, you keep a straight bat, right?’

  This was clearly something of a hobby-horse, so Thorne just nodded and said, ‘Right.’

  ‘Same as on the Job. I don’t care whether it’s a few quid here and there or if you’re swiping kilos of coke left, right and centre, a bent copper’s a bent copper and I don’t want to know.’ He gave a sly smile. ‘I can tell which ones are bent, an’ all.’

  ‘You reckon?’ He thought of Anna Carpenter and her in-built lie-detector. Now, here was someone else who thought he had a nose for dishonesty.

  ‘Oh yes, mate.’ Boyle pointed. ‘I had you figured out within the first five minutes.’

  ‘Go on ...’

  Boyle paused for comic effect. ‘You’re a wanker, but you’re a straight wanker.’

  Thorne laughed, held up his can when Boyle raised his.

  They sat in silence for half a minute. It had just reached the point where Thorne was about to ask if they should turn on the TV.

  ‘She was weird, though, wasn’t she?’ Boyle said. ‘Cook’s missus.’

  ‘I’ve seen people react in stranger ways than that,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Oh yeah, me too.’ Boyle took a long swig of beer and relaxed into his chair, clearly relishing the opportunity to swap war stories. Or perhaps just to talk. ‘A mate of mine got slapped in the face once, when he had to break the news. This woman went mental and just smacked him good and proper, like it was his fault.’

  ‘Everyone reacts differently,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yeah, right, for sure.’

  Thorne had seen sudden death affect people in more ways than he could count. He had known people laugh their way through the bad news, as though Thorne and whichever officer he had been with at the time were playing some elaborate practical joke. It took time to sink in with most people, but none he could remember were quite as calm as Pat Cook. Her denial was almost childlike, a game of pretend.

  ‘It knocks you for six, even when you know it’s coming,’ Boyle said.

  Thorne nodded, sensing where Boyle was going.

  ‘Like with my Anne. I mean, for those last couple of months we were talking about it all the time . . . planning for it, because Annie didn’t like loose ends, you know? But then, at the very end, it was still . . . bad.’ He took another drink. ‘You think you’re prepared for it but you’re not, that’s all I’m saying. It’s still like the world stops.’

  ‘It must have been rough,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I can’t tell you, mate.’

  ‘How old was . . . ?’

  ‘She was forty-two.’ His fingers busied themselves on the arm of the chair, picking at a loose thread, a speck of dirt, or nothing at all. ‘No bloody age, is it?’

  ‘You seem to be doing OK, though, Andy,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m sure she’d be proud of you.’

  ‘She’d be bloody amazed, mate.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  Boyle drained the can and crushed it. ‘You get on with it, don’t you? Nothing else you can do.’

  Thorne wondered how it would be for Pat Cook in the coming weeks and months. For some, it was helpful to focus all their energy into a simple hatred for whomever they deemed responsible. For others, it was easier to blame themselves.

  I should never have let him go out

  I should have picked her up.

  If only, if only, if only . . .

  He wondered, too, which way Andrea Keane’s family would go, now the justice system had decreed that Adam Chambers should be free to walk around, to breathe fresh air and talk to anyone he liked about the young woman they had lost. At least the law had given them a target; perhaps, for some of them, that would help.

  ‘Do you want another?’ Boyle asked, brandishing the distorted can.

  ‘I’ve not finished this one.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I do?’

  ‘It’s your house,’ Thorne said. He watched Boyle head towards the kitchen, still thinking about Andrea Keane’s parents. Hoping that what
had happened in that courtroom did not slowly destroy what little was left of them.

  It was probably a vain hope, he knew that.

  A single murder cost many lives.

  Having flown in the face of all her instincts and been extra nice to Frank, she had still not been allowed to leave the office a minute before five-thirty, so Anna had hit the rush hour full on. It had taken almost an hour and a half to drive the eight miles from Victoria to her parents’ place in Wimbledon. Plenty of time to ask herself why she was bothering.

  And to build up her courage.

  Even so, having pulled up outside the house, she needed another five minutes before she felt ready to go inside. She sat in the car and stared at what had once been her home: a four-bedroom house with a decent garden and views over the common, no more than a ten-minute walk from the All England Club.

  ‘That’ll all be yours one day,’ her friend Rob had said.

  ‘I think I’ve been written out of the will,’ Anna had said.

  Neither of them had really been joking.

  Now, her father turned from the fridge and carried the milk across to where Anna was sitting at the kitchen table.

  ‘Must be some weird, primal thing,’ Anna said. ‘Every time I come back here I get this urge to eat cereal.’

  Her father smiled. ‘I always make sure I’ve got some in.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I only ever have a slice of toast, and your mum . . .’

  ‘Right, I know. If she was having Rice Krispies, it wouldn’t be milk she’d be pouring over them.’ Anna glanced up and saw the look on her father’s face. ‘Stupid joke. Sorry . . .’

  She started eating.

  ‘She’ll be glad you’ve come, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I told her you were coming over and she will ask me all about it later, when you’ve gone.’

  ‘When she’s sober.’

  ‘She’ll ask me what we talked about.’

  ‘If I said anything about her, you mean.’

  Her father searched for the words but gave up and turned away. He picked up a cloth that was draped over the sink and began wiping the work surfaces. Anna watched him, thinking: This nonsense is making him older. It’s ridiculous . . .