Mark Billingham - Lazybones

Carol could see that the woman who answered the door was clearly not expecting someone who looked like her, rinse or no rinse. She had gained a stone in weight for each year that she'd been out of the force, and at a little over five feet tall she knew very well how it looked. Her hair could be as fashionable and artificially auburn as she wanted, but – whatever lies Jack might tell her – she could do little about, the rest of it. However sharp she felt, she knew that those thirty years on the job showed in her face. Some mornings she stared at herself in-the bathroom mirror. She looked into her dark, disappearing eyes. Saw currants sinking into cake mix…

The woman opened the front door a little wider. However disappointed or confused she might be, Carol hoped that good old British reserve would prevent Sheila Franklin saying anything about it.

'I'll put the kettle on,' she said eventually. In the kitchen, while tea was being made, they spoke about weather and traffic. Sheila Franklin wiped down surfaces and washed up teaspoons as she went. Settled a few minutes later in the small, simply furnished living room, her face crinkled into a frown of confusion.

'I'm sorry, but I thought you said that the cage was being reopened…'

Carol had said no such thing. 'I'm sorry if you were misled. I'm reexamining the case, and if it's considered worthwhile, it might be reopened.'

'I see…'

'How long were you and Alan married?'

Alan Franklin's widow was a tall, very thin woman whom Carol would have put in her mid-to late fifties. Not a great deal older than she was herself. Her hair was pulled back from a face dominated by green eyes that did not stay fixed on any one spot for more than a few seconds. From behind the rim of her teacup, her gaze darted around like a meerkat's as she answered Carol's questions. She'd met Franklin in 1983. He would have been in his late forties by then, ten years older than she was. He'd left his first wife and a job in Colchester a few years before that and moved to Hastings to start again. They'd met at work and married only a few months later.

'Alan was a fast worker,' she said, laughing. '. Very smooth, he was. Mind you, I didn't put up much of a struggle.'

As always, Carol had done her homework. She was up to speed with what very few background details there were. 'How did Alan's kids react? What would they have been then? Sixteen? Seventeen…?'

Sheila smiled, but there was something forced about it. 'Something like that. I'm not even sure how old they are now. In all the time we were married, I think I saw the boys once. Only one of them bothered to show his face at Alan's funeral…'

Carol nodded, like this was perfectly normal. 'What about the first wife?'

'I never met Celia. Never spoke to her on the phone. I'm not even sure that Alan ever did, to be honest, after they split up.'

'Right…'

Sheila leaned forward and put her cup and saucer down. 'I know it probably sounds odd, but that's Just the way it was. It was Alan's past…'

Carol tried not to let any reaction, any judgment of these people's lives, show on her face, but it was hard. She and Jack had married relatively late, and there were times when relations with his ex-wife were a little strained, but they were civil. They acknowledged each other. And Jack's daughter had always been a part of their lives.

'I did make an effort with the children,' Sheila said. 'For a while I tried to persuade Alan that he should see them, that he should try and build bridges. He was always a bit funny about it.'

'Perhaps he thought his ex-wife had turned them against him.'

'He never said so. The kids were more or less grown up anyway, and we did try briefly to have our own.' She began piling the tea things back on to the tray she had brought them through on. She took hold of the tray and stood up. 'I was nearly forty by then, and it never happened…'

Carol followed Sheila as she walked back towards the kitchen. 'Did Alan never talk about why he and Celia had divorced?'

'Not really. I think it was unpleasant.'

From what Carol was hearing, that was probably an understatement.

'Presumably there was alimony though? They must have communicated through solicitors?'

'For the last few years we didn't even know where they were living. The son who turned up at the funeral only knew Alan was dead because he saw it on the news.'

'I see…'

The cups and saucers were already being washed up. When Sheila turned from the sink, Carol saw her read something in her face. Maybe that judgement she'd been trying to hide…

'Look, it was always just Alan and me,' Sheila said. 'We were self sufficient. Anything that happened before didn't seem to matter. And I was the same, honestly. I never bothered with old boyfriends or what have you, and we never saw much of my family. Alan had no contact with the family he had before, because he had me.' She took a step towards Carol, who was standing in the doorway, water dipping from a teacup on to the lino. Her face seemed to soften as she spoke. 'That's what he always used to say. That I was his life now. What he had before hadn't worked out and so he didn't want to think about it. Alan was trying to get away from his old life…'

Carol nodded. 'Could I use your loo…?'

She leaned against the sink, letting the water run a while. She had never worked much on instinct, but in thirty years Carol Chamberlain had learned to give it breathing space. Back in 1996, Alan Franklin's murder had gone unsolved. Unsolved, largely because it had been seemingly motiveless.

She smelt the soap, began to wash her hands… It was at least possible that whatever Alan Franklin had been trying to escape from, here in this house with his new job and nice new wife, had finally caught up with him in that car park. Sheila Franklin was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

'Do you have any of Alan's old things?' Carol asked. 'I don't mean clothes or…'

'There's a couple of boxes in the loft. Papers and what have you, I think. Alan put them up there when we moved in.'

'Would you mind if I had a look?'

'God, no, not at all. Actually, you could do me a favour and take them with you.' Sheila looked past Carol, back up the stairs. She blinked slowly and a film appeared over her eyes. 'I could do with getting things tidy…'

It wasn't exactly a photo-fit, but then there wouldn't have been a lot of point…

Thorne had taken the picture out of his bag while the train was pulling out of King's Cross, laid it out on the table in front of him, stared at it for ten minutes.

The waiter from the card opposite Dodd's studio had made his statement the day after the body had been found. He'd described a motorcycle courier who'd been hanging around a few days before. He hadn't actually seen the man in the dark crash helmet and leathers go in through the door, or even go up to it. It was a hot afternoon. He'd had a lot of tables to look after…

A Wednesday, nearly a fortnight ago. Five days before they'd broken down the narrow, brown door and smelt a murder scene. So, Charlie Dodd had not been completely full of shit. The man to whom he had rented out his studio had worn a crash helmet. The lie, Thorne guessed, had been about not seeing the face underneath it. It was a lie that Charlie Dodd thought might make him a few quid and had ended up costing him a lot more.

At the noise of the buffet trolley squeaking down the carriage Thorne glanced up. Thameslink food would not be his Sunday morning breakfast of choice, but he was hungry. He felt in his pocket for change.

Dodd had probably felt totally safe as the man in the motorbike gear had strolled up the stairs in the middle of the afternoon. As likely as not, he'd felt in control, ready to squeeze the mug for whatever he could get. He'd had no idea of the kind of man he was dealing with. No witness from the Remfry or Welch killing had mentioned seeing anybody in a crash helmet, but all the same it needed to be checked out. On any given afternoon, Soho was thick with bikes, scooters and mopeds, delivering scripts and videos, sandwiches and sushi. It had taken the best part of two days to trace every courier who had been in the area on legitimate business and eliminate them. Two days dicking about to confirm what Thorne had known to be true from the moment the waiter had described what he'd seen.