Mark Billingham - From the Dead

'Fair enough, but I thought you were a bit fussier than that.'

'Piss off, Frank.'

He laid the photo down and raised his hands in mock-surrender. 'All right, love, steady on.' He turned back to the computer screen, muttered, 'Time of the month, is it?'

Anna reached for more envelopes and watched the second hand crawling around the dial of her watch. Wondered how easily she could unplug the keyboard from her computer and throw it at him, whether he would have time to get his fat, red head out of the way. Wondered how much longer Donna would continue to pay her now that the police were involved and making a far better job of the case than she was.

Wondered if 'Time of the month, is it?' was the kind of thing that Tom Thorne would say.

In jeans and a thin sweatshirt, Donna Langford stood shivering outside the back door of the flat, staring out at the cheaply paved postage-stamp that passed for a garden, the outline of trees beyond and a scattering of stars against the blackness above.

The house in which she had lived ten years before had come with a garden that she could not see the end of. There had been ponds and statues that were lit up at night and a paddock for Ellie's pony. There had been parties in marquees. Donna closed her eyes for a few seconds, willing away those memories that had come to feel like images from a film she had seen once upon a time.

The story of somebody else's life.

She had always hated those stupid statues anyway and the sky was bigger now than it had ever been at Holloway or Peterborough and Donna wondered if this was where she had always been destined to end up. In this life, somewhere between luxury and lock-up. It seemed a fair enough result, given all the stupid decisions she had made in her life.

She was certain now that, with the exception of Ellie and Kate, most of her decisions had been terrible ones. None more so than when she had decided that she and her daughter would be better off with her husband dead. When she had emptied her savings account and sought out Paul Monahan.

'This is a turn-up for the books, I'll say that.' The man she was asking to commit murder for her had stood up and asked her if she wanted a drink. He had hesitated, smiled. Said, 'I don't know what to call you.'

'I don't much care,' she had said. 'And I'll have a large gin and tonic.'

Donna could still remember the exact date when she had walked into that bar; an anonymous hotel a mile or so from Gatwick Airport. It was just a week after the bash at which she had first been casually introduced to Paul Monahan, along with another dozen or so of her husband's more dubious friends and acquaintances. A party from which she had later been dragged after Alan had put away a few too many drinks. After a joke she had not laughed at hard enough and a look or two in what he had decided was the wrong direction.

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.

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.