Mark Billingham - From the Dead

He decided he would not even get halfway.

He spent a few minutes walking around the bullring's museum, taking no more than a passing interest in the old photographs and mounted bulls' heads. He looked briefly at the antique suits of lights displayed behind glass and wondered why vintage clothes always seemed so small, before walking across to a bar on the edge of the main square.

He waved to attract a waiter's attention and was ignored.

On the table, he laid out a handful of leaflets for some of the town's other attractions. There was certainly no shortage of museums, but each exhibition seemed more gruesome, more bloodthirsty, than the last.

A history of hunting.

Torture during the Spanish Inquisition.

Five hundred years of capital punishment.

Looking at pictures of some of the exhibits, Thorne was not sure that Ronda was quite as 'nice' as everyone kept telling him.

It was hotter now, and Thorne turned again to look for the waiter. The bar was busy and he cast an eye across the customers, half expecting to see the man with the newspaper he had spotted twice already. But when he heard a chair being scraped back, he spun around to see an even more familiar figure.

Thorne could only watch as Alan Langford dropped casually into the seat opposite.

'You mind?' Langford raised a hand, and within a few seconds a waiter was at the table. Langford looked at Thorne. 'What do you want?'

Thorne said nothing.

I want to drive a glass so far into your face that it won't matter what you call yourself, because nobody will ever recognise you again. I want to twist and push and feel the flesh shredding and I want to hear you scream. I want you to say my name, same as she did…

'I fancy a beer,' Langford said. 'Not one of those poxy little ones, either.' He ordered two beers in Spanish, then sat back to look at Thorne, shaking his head and smiling, as though they were two old friends who had fallen out over something so trivial that neither of them could even remember it properly.

I want your blood to wash away hers.

When the beers arrived, Langford put away half of his in one gulp, then sat back again and began methodically peeling the label from the bottle. 'There's nothing for you here,' he said. 'You need to know that.'

Thorne reached for his own bottle. He had no desire to drink with this man, but suddenly his mouth was dry and his tongue felt sticky. He hoped the beer might steady the tremble in his legs and help him fight the urge to do exactly what he had just imagined doing.

' You're here,' he said.

'Right. I'm here minding my own business.'

'And we all know what that is.'

'Listen, I don't know what you think you know, but the only thing you're getting in Spain is sunburn. So all I'm saying is, why don't you just toddle off home and save us all a lot of trouble?'

Langford's hair was greyer than it had looked in the photographs, and too much sun had left his face lined and leathery. Despite the bravado, Thorne could also see that he was anything but relaxed. The smile showed only teeth that were too big for his mouth, and too white.

'For someone who's minding his own business, you seem awfully worried,' Thorne said.

'I'm irritated.'

'Well, I must be doing something right.'

The teeth flashed again. 'It's a lot of trouble to go to, though, don't you think? To come all the way out here, costing the taxpayer God knows how much, to check up on a retired businessman.'

'You're not exactly retired, though, are you? And I'm doing more than checking up.'

Langford puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled slowly. 'A man finds out his wife is planning to have him killed, so he thinks it might be a good idea to start again somewhere else. End of story. I can't see the Crown Prosecution Service getting very excited about that a decade down the line, can you?'

'They're pretty keen on people who leave bodies behind.'

'Well, course they are, but I wouldn't know anything about that.'

'You don't know how a man came to be burned to a crisp in your car?'

'I thought you'd caught the man who did that,' Langford said. 'Isn't he in prison?'

'He was,' Thorne said. 'Until he got carved up in his cell a few months ago.'

'Dangerous places, prisons.'

'Then the prison officer who colluded in his murder got hit by a car.'

'Nasty.'

'Very. But you wouldn't know anything about that either, right?'

'I'm a bit out of touch over here,' Langford said. 'Unless it's in the sports pages…'

His hand dropped to his waist, reaching idly beneath the white linen shirt to scratch. Thorne caught a glimpse of the scar Donna had mentioned, pale against the brown belly.

'Retirement must get a bit boring, though, surely?' Thorne said. 'How much golf can you play, how many laps of your pool can you do?'

'You sound jealous, mate.'

'It's perfectly understandable, that's all I'm saying. Wanting to keep your hand in, I mean.'

'I just want a nice, quiet life.'

'Course you do, but sometimes things need doing to keep it nice and quiet.'

Langford was still picking at the label from his beer bottle, rolling the pieces into balls between his fingers and dropping them into the ashtray. He shook his head and his eyes drifted away, as though he had momentarily lost the thread of the conversation.

Four or five skinny, feral cats were sniffing around near the tables, yowling for food then fighting over any scraps thrown their way. Langford held out a hand towards one, made kissing noises in an effort to draw it towards him, then gave up. He turned back to Thorne, said, 'Little buggers are more suspicious than you are.' Then, 'What were we talking about?'

'Howard Cook and Paul Monahan.'

Another shake of the head.

'Names not ringing a bell, Alan?'

'David.'

'Well?'

'Sorry,' Langford said. 'Are they footballers?' He leaned back and finished his beer, snapped his fingers as if he'd just remembered exactly what they were discussing. 'Hang on, what about that body in the car you were talking about?' Keeping his eyes on Thorne, he held up the empty bottle to let the waiter know he wanted another beer. 'I'm guessing you still don't have a name for that one.'

'We're working on it.'

'Best of British.'

'Thanks.'

'I mean it.'

'You'll be the first to know how we get on, don't worry.'

A couple at the next table got up to leave and Langford leaned across to grab one of their plates. He picked up the pieces of fat and gristle that had been left and tossed them one by one towards the cats. They immediately began rushing for every morsel, hissing at one another whenever they managed to grab a piece.

'What about Anna Carpenter?' Thorne asked.

'What about her?'

'You know her name, then?'

Langford narrowed his eyes, as though the name were familiar but would not quite come to him. As though he had almost placed the woman, then lost her. Finally, he shook his head again, defeated. 'No idea,' he said. 'She's not that tennis player, is she?'

I could end this now, Thorne thought. End all of this and go home. I could reach across the table and use that dirty knife.

End it.

This fucking stupid game.

My fucking stupid career.

'You know, I keep hearing from everyone how good you are at planning things out,' Thorne said. 'Weighing up the risks. Donna told me-'

'You don't want to believe anything that stupid bitch tells you.'

'Well, that's just it, because I think she's wrong. I think they're all giving you way too much credit, because you make plenty of mistakes. You certainly made one when you took Ellie.'

'You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?'

'I've seen photos of her.'

'Have you?'