From the Dead

'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,' Thorne 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.'