Mark Billingham - From the Dead

'It's closure.'

'Is it hell.'

That said, Holland was starting to believe that the dead junkie's mother would end up with a damn sight more 'closure' than Robert and Sylvia Carpenter. That Thorne would be coming back from Spain with nothing more than a bottle or two from Duty Free.

A few minutes after Brigstocke had left, Kitson said, 'It's not like you've let him down.'

Holland looked up.

'Thorne.'

'I wasn't thinking I had.'

Holland had spoken more sharply than he had meant to, but Kitson did not seem offended. 'Yes, you were…'

Holland could see there was no point in denying it any further. Kitson knew him well enough. He had worked plenty of cases where no amount of solid police work could produce the result that everyone wanted. It was part of the Job and the frustration was necessarily fleeting. When it was one of Thorne's, though, there was always more pressure. And when things did not go the way they should, Holland invariably felt like a schoolboy who had missed a last-minute penalty in a vital football match.

'Don't worry, he does it to everyone some time or other,' Kitson said.

'That's something, I suppose.'

'Harder for you, though.'

'Why?'

She smiled. 'Well, you've clearly got a father-figure thing going on.'

'That's rubbish,' Holland said, turning back to his computer screen.

Stepping up again. Getting ready to balloon the ball over the crossbar…

They were all vital to Thorne, of course, and everyone understood how much the Adam Chambers verdict had hurt him. Perhaps that was why this case had become so important to him. But, whatever the reason, Holland knew how much Thorne needed something solid to pin on Alan Langford. How little anything else had come to matter.

Since Anna Carpenter's death, it had become personal.

'You really need to make that call, Dave.'

Holland looked up to see Kitson waving the report on the junkie who was no longer missing. He nodded, well aware that he had put it off too long already. Perhaps she's right, he thought. After all, having a loved one go missing, not knowing whether to hope or mourn, was probably as bad as it could get. The truth had to be some kind of good news.

Holland picked up the phone.

He only wished he had some to give Thorne.

Candela Bernal spent nearly a minute examining the identification cards produced by Thorne and Samarez. Taking just long enough, Thorne thought, to gather her thoughts and compose herself.

She sat down in a chocolate-leather Barcelona chair. 'So stupid of me,' she said. 'I should have known who you were, because cops and criminals are very much alike.'

Thorne sat down opposite her. 'You think?'

'We want to talk about David Mackenzie,' Samarez said.

It seemed to Thorne, in the few seconds the girl took to say anything, as though she were deciding whether there was any point in claiming no knowledge at all of that name. The look on his face clearly made it an easy decision for her. Told her that she would simply be wasting time if she started lying.

'OK, we can talk, but I don't know anything, so…'

'You don't know anything?' Samarez said. He nodded slowly and walked around the back of her chair. Sat down on the edge of a side table, so that Candela was between himself and Thorne. 'You don't know, for example, that David Mackenzie is not this man's real name?'

She shook her head. 'I don't understand.'

'You don't know where all this money he spends on you comes from?'

This time, the shake of the head was more dramatic but far less convincing.

'It doesn't matter,' Thorne said. 'I don't really care if you're lying or not, because we don't need you to tell us anything.'

There was relief on Candela's face, then alarm. 'So, what, then?'

What they would be asking of her was straightforward enough, but there would certainly be some risks. And the fact that she and Langford always got together at his place rather than hers was an added complication. It might have been about caution or control, or perhaps Langford simply preferred a big bedroom when he was on the job. But in the eight months he had been seeing Candela, he had not so much as set foot in her apartment, despite paying the rent on it.

'We would like you to get something for us,' Samarez said. 'And don't worry, we do not mean secret files or anything like that. You will not have to break into Mr Mackenzie's safe.' He smiled, leaned towards her. 'Just a… cup, maybe?' He shrugged, as though it were nothing. 'Something like that; nothing too difficult for you. A glass or a spoon, something you have seen him touch.'

'Something with a fingerprint,' Thorne said.

'These days we can get fingerprints off human skin,' Samarez said. 'But we do not want to put you to that much trouble.'

Candela spat a word at him in Spanish. Seeing Samarez suck in a fast breath, mock-wounded, Thorne did not need a dictionary to know that she had called him something very unpleasant.

'Can you do it?' Thorne asked.

She turned to him, pushed her hair back from her shoulders. ' Why should I do this?'

'Because we've asked you nicely?'

She stood up and told Thorne that he was not funny, that she was going to leave and that they could not stop her. But she was watching as Samarez produced a sheaf of photographs from his briefcase. He laid them out on the coffee table and she slowly sat down again.

'These were taken three nights ago in the Shades nightclub in Puerto Banus.' Samarez pointed at a picture of Candela talking to a man on the edge of the dance floor. 'That is a very nice dress, Miss Bernal.'

Candela stared at the floor.

'Did you have a good evening?' He waited, but got no response. 'Well, it is certainly one you will remember, because later you handed this man two hundred euros in exchange for two grams of cocaine. I know all this because this man is an undercover police officer.'

She muttered more words in Spanish.

'We have more photographs as well as a voice recording of the transaction.'

'Lucky for us that cops and criminals are so alike,' Thorne said.

When Candela finally raised her head she tried to smile, but the panic was clear enough around her mouth and in the eyes that darted between Thorne and Samarez. Finally, she nodded slowly.

Samarez did the same. 'That's very good.'

'You will need to protect me.'

'Yes, of course,' Samarez said.

He and Thorne were happy enough to offer at least a degree of the protection they had known Candela would demand. It had come as no surprise that she was afraid of Langford. And they were pleased to see no sign of loyalty to the man she was being asked to betray.

Earlier, Thorne had glanced at Samarez when the girl had talked about her trip to London. Samarez had given a small shake of the head. The Guardia Civil would have known if Langford had travelled to the UK. More significantly, Candela had said ' a boyfriend'. It was apparent that Langford was not the only one with several partners on the go, that she took what she needed from their relationship just as much as he did.

If she had been in love with him, they might have had more of a problem.

'When are you seeing David Mackenzie next?' Samarez asked.

She leaned towards him and spoke low in Spanish. Samarez shook his head, having previously agreed with Thorne that all conversations must be in English, but Candela ignored him, talking fast and sounding increasingly desperate until he waved at her to shut up.

'In English,' he said, firmly. 'Now, when are you seeing him next?'

She reached down to her bag and took out a pack of cigarettes. Smoking in an agency property was probably against the rules, but Thorne knew that holding on to her job was now the least of Candela Bernal's worries.