Mark Billingham - From the Dead

If Thorne had been served his breakfast by then, he would have heaved it up across the table.

Even more disturbingly, Bennett mentioned that she and Chambers were currently working on a book that would 'lift the lid' on the abysmal failings of the police investigation and in which the full extent of their suffering would be revealed. Thorne read on, thinking things could not get any worse, until he spotted that the book was being co-written by a hack journalist and true-crime writer called Nick Maier. Thorne had had dealings with Maier in the past, and the thought of him profiting in any way from what had happened to Andrea Keane turned his stomach still further.

By the time he had thrown the paper away, his appetite had all but gone and the call from Fraser killed it altogether.

Now, he was stepping gingerly through a crime scene, in the apartment from which Candela Bernal had fallen to her death the night before.

'You seen many jumpers?' Fraser asked.

'She didn't jump, Peter.'

'Just saying. They take their glasses off, did you know that? I saw it in an old episode of Inspector Morse.'

'She didn't wear glasses,' Thorne said, 'and she didn't fucking jump.'

'I know, OK? Just making conversation, Christ…'

The sliding door that led to the balcony was open and there were more officers working outside. A blue tarpaulin that had been secured to the railings snapped and fluttered in the wind.

'Why was nobody watching this place?' Thorne asked. 'We told her there would be protection.'

Fraser raised his hands. 'Nothing to do with me, mate.'

'Well, somebody screwed up,' Thorne said. He considered everything Silcox and Mullenger had told him back in London. 'Or looked the other way.'

'Come on, we couldn't have guessed it would be so quick.'

' Couldn't we?' Thorne was as angry with himself as he was with Fraser or any of his colleagues. 'Langford probably sussed it when she told him she had to go home early. He might even have seen her put the champagne glass in her bag.'

'Look, none of this was my idea, all right?'

Thorne moved away, but Fraser followed, a pace or two behind, his hands stuffed sulkily into the pockets of his plastic bodysuit. Thorne stepped across a local scene of crime officer who was on his hands and knees, scraping at the carpet. The officer muttered something in Spanish that was almost certainly not 'Good morning and how are you?' as Thorne walked over to where the two suitcases lay near the door.

'She was trying to leave,' Thorne said.

'Looks that way.' Fraser moved alongside him, nodded at the door. 'No sign of forced entry, so maybe she knew him.'

'You should check with all the local taxi companies.'

'Wouldn't she just have taken her own car?'

'Too easy to trace,' Thorne said. 'She'd have known Langford has friends in high places. Including police officers.'

'I don't know what you're trying to suggest, mate,' Fraser said.

'I'm not suggesting anything.'

'One or two of the local boys might be a bit dodgy, fair enough, but…'

Thorne had already stopped listening to him. He was staring at a small, glass-topped side table next to the sofa. There was an empty wine glass and a beer bottle minus a label. In the ashtray, dark gobbets of rolled-up paper lay scattered among the lipstick-stained cigarette butts.

'Langford did this himself,' Thorne said.

'Come again?'

'He killed her.'

'No way,' Fraser said. 'You've said it yourself, he doesn't get involved in the messy stuff.'

'Messy' was the only way to describe the scene on the street seventeen floors below. By the time Thorne had got there, the area had been sealed off and hidden from the public, but there was still a good deal of cleaning up to be done. They would be lucky if there was enough of Candela Bernal left for a post-mortem.

'He's rattled,' Thorne said. 'His girlfriend does the dirty on him and he takes it personally. He's already had the job on me go wrong and he's fired up enough to do this one himself.'

'I can't see it.'

Thorne pulled Fraser across to the small table and pointed. 'He had a drink with her, OK? Or sat down and helped himself to one after he'd killed her.'

'Jesus…'

Thorne remembered the terror on the girl's face when they confronted her, and what she had said about cops and villains. The difficulty in telling one from the other. She had not been given much of a choice in the end, but she had still picked the wrong side. 'Make sure you get prints off that bottle,' he said. 'Match them with the ones from the glass Candela brought in.'

'Doesn't matter if his prints are all over the place,' Fraser said. 'This is his girlfriend's flat.'

'But he'd never been here, remember?'

'Yeah, but the only person who can corroborate that is the girl and she's pavement pizza, so what's the point?'

There was a sudden burst of laughter from the balcony.

'The Spanish are even more hard-arsed about this stuff than we are,' Fraser said. 'Some of the jokes.'

'Just get the prints.' Thorne turned and began unzipping his bodysuit as he walked quickly towards the door.

'Where are you off to?' Fraser asked, two steps behind him again.

'A bit more sightseeing,' Thorne said.

The villa was at the edge of one of the countless golf resorts that had been developed beneath the Sierra Blanca, and it was more exclusive than most. At the highest point of a winding road, Thorne could not see any neighbouring properties, and though he had not followed the perimeter fence for any distance, he guessed that there was a fair amount of land attached to it. Plenty for a man to stroll around and feel good about himself.

However hard that might otherwise be.

There were solid metal gates at the end of the driveway, and from what Thorne could remember from the helicopter pictures he had been shown, it was about a quarter of a mile from them to the house itself. Thorne could not see any security cameras, but he did not much care if he was seen anyway.

He rang the bell and waited. Rang again, then stepped back and walked a few yards along the perimeter fence. Densely cultivated firs obscured the view, so he moved back to the gates, pushing the sweat out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. He pressed the bell one more time, then leaned down to the speaker that was built into a concrete post. He had no idea if anyone was listening.

'You made another mistake, Alan,' he said. He could hear nothing but the low buzz of power lines overhead and the humming of cicadas. 'Your last one…'

He turned at the sound of a vehicle approaching and watched a white VW Golf coming around the steep bend that led to the villa. The car slowed when the driver saw him, then stopped altogether. Thorne took a few casual steps and recognised the man he had seen watching him on his first two nights in Mijas. The man who may or may not be working for Alan Langford.

Thorne and the driver looked at each other for ten seconds before Thorne began walking quickly towards the car. The gravel spat as the driver immediately threw the Golf into a three-point turn. Thorne started to run, but there was never any chance of him catching it. He made a mental note of the number plate and was repeating it to himself as the Golf disappeared around the corner and his phone rang.

It was Holland.

'How did it go in Nottingham, Dave?'

'Chris Talbot is definitely our man,' Holland said. ' Was our man, whatever. But listen, there's a photo you need to see.' He told Thorne about the rugby picture, about the man whose face he had recognised.

Thorne felt what might have been a bead of sweat, or an insect crawling across the nape of his neck. He had already forgotten the VW's number plate. 'It's not that strange, is it? Considering the team.' He began walking back towards his car.