Mark Billingham - From the Dead

No real hesitation. Well briefed or on the level, it was hard to tell the difference…

A young girl stepped on to the deck from inside the house. She wore a thin, pale blue sarong over a white bikini and a sullen expression. Brand turned to look at her.

'You remember Ellie?' Langford asked.

'Course I do.'

'Last time you saw her she'd have been what, seven or eight?'

Brand said hello. The girl mumbled it back at him.

'Go and get us another couple of beers,' Langford said. 'There's a good girl. Actually, make it four, will you? I reckon we're on for a heavy session here.' He pointed at Brand. 'You hungry, mate? We could rustle up a sandwich or something…'

'I ate on the plane,' Brand said.

The girl turned and went back into the house without another word. Langford watched her go, then grinned at Brand.

'She's grown up,' Brand said.

'She looks so much like her mother did at that age it's not true.'

Brand nodded. Langford finished his beer. They both looked out across the swimming pool for a minute or more.

'Listen… we really need to talk about what we're going to do,' Brand said. 'That police liaison officer – Murray… she's been getting far too cosy with Andy Boyle and it's starting to look like they've got some serious ammunition to use on Grover, you know? Organising something at Wakefield is obviously going to be trickier now that Howard Cook's gone, but-'

Langford cut him off. 'Of course, I would have been happy to put you up here, but I don't think that's a clever idea.'

Brand took a few seconds, and Langford saw frustration on his face that was every bit as obvious as the sweat patches under his arms. He had few doubts now about what was happening; fewer still that disposing of Brand would be even easier than getting rid of Candela had been.

Another one he would happily handle himself.

'The hotel's fine, honestly.'

Laughing, Langford nodded towards the house. 'Some of the locals are already wondering what I'm doing shacked up with a girl who's young enough to be my daughter. Last thing I need is them thinking I'm on the bloody turn!' He laughed again, louder. 'So, we probably shouldn't spend too much time together.'

'No.'

'Especially now that we've got the Met's finest running around the place.'

Especially now that we've got the Met's finest running around the place.

In the van, Thorne bristled slightly. For a second or two, he thought Langford had worked it all out and was cheerfully taking the piss. Thought the last remark had been meant specifically for him. He glanced at Samarez and Boyle, and could see that they were thinking much the same thing.

'So, what do you want to do?' Thorne asked.

'Not much we can do,' Samarez said.

'We sit it out, then.'

'Right.' Boyle lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and flapped it, revealing a generous roll of pallid beer-gut in his efforts to cool down. 'Let's see if Langford gives us what we want before we roast to death.'

Brand had arrived at the villa in a taxi driven by a Guardia Civil officer, but Thorne and the others had been in position well in advance of that. By now, they had been there almost two hours, and the inside of the van was baking and airless. As an observer, Boyle had seen no reason to wear anything even remotely formal, but Thorne had felt unable to dress quite so casually for this sort of operation. He was sweating in khakis and a short-sleeved shirt, sucking in warm air that tasted of sweat, while Samarez, who was wearing a similar outfit, did not look a great deal happier.

'Perhaps we could just arrest him,' Samarez suggested. 'Confront him with what Brand has told us.'

'Arrest him for what?'

'We can come up with something.'

'He knows that Brand isn't a reliable witness,' Thorne said. 'And anyway, whatever Brand might say, he knows we've got nothing concrete to tie him into any of the big stuff.'

They listened for another few minutes. Again Brand said how worried he was about what was happening back at home, that he needed Langford to tell him what to do. Langford ignored him, refusing to bite and began talking about some film he'd seen. Told Brand he had to get the DVD out when he got home.

'I think we're stuffed,' Boyle said. 'He hasn't even admitted knowing who Grover is and we haven't got him within a million miles of the Anna Carpenter killing.'

'All we need is one slip,' Samarez said.

Thorne drank deeply from a bottle of water that was already warm. His shirt was pasted to his back and he was starting to catch the smell of his own sweat.

One slip…

You're not much of a detective, are you?

The first words Anna ever said to him.

A radio squawked and Samarez reached for the handset next to the speaker. He talked in Spanish for a few seconds, then told the others, 'There's a car coming.'

They waited, watching the gates, knowing that any vehicle passing the Guardia Civil car positioned down the hill could only be on its way to the Langford villa. After a minute or so, a white VW Golf pulled up outside the gates.

'I know that car,' Thorne said.

He recognised the driver, too, but could not get a clear view of the woman sitting next to him. Then the passenger door opened. The woman got out and walked up to the gates.

'Donna…'

Samarez looked confused. 'The wife?'

'What's she doing here?' Boyle asked.

They heard a faint buzzing through the speaker: the microphone picking up the noise of Donna ringing the bell. Langford said, 'Won't be a minute,' then there was nothing but Brand's breathing.

Thorne realised now that the man watching him had been working for Donna. She had clearly hired herself another detective. He had probably been watching Samarez and Fraser, too. Then, as soon as he had found Langford's villa, he had fed the information back to his client.

'Oh, Jesus,' Thorne said. 'She's here for her daughter.'

There was a minute of muffled conversation, then silence until Langford returned to the pool and Donna climbed back into the car.

'It's my ex-wife,' Langford told Brand. 'Why am I so popular all of a sudden?'

' What? '

Thorne watched as the gates begin to swing slowly open.

'You'd best make yourself scarce, Gary,' Langford said. 'She might recognise you. You wouldn't want that, right?'

'What the hell does she want?'

'Well, I don't think she's popped by for tea and biscuits, do you?'

In the van, they could hear the rasp of Brand's breathing and the sharp scrape of his chair against the tiles. As he walked away from the pool and moved inside the house, Brand whispered into the microphone, 'This is all going tits up.'

'You're telling me,' Boyle said.

The Golf was disappearing from view, heading up the driveway, when Langford shouted Ellie's name somewhere in the house. Thorne moved quickly towards the rear of the van.

'Where are you going?' Samarez asked.

Thorne was already opening the doors. 'This could all get very nasty very quickly,' he said.

'What about Brand?'

'I don't care.' Thorne jumped down on to the path, talking fast. 'Langford's not exactly predictable right now, and if Donna's come for Ellie, I can't see him just handing her over, can you?'

'We do not have enough,' Samarez said.

Boyle shook his head. 'We don't have anything.'

'Keep listening,' Thorne said, slamming one of the doors. 'He might get careless now that he's got something else to worry about.'

He slammed the other door before Boyle or Samarez could argue and sprinted towards the gates. He stopped momentarily when he reached them, to check that the Golf was out of sight, then slipped through just before they closed with a clang.

He waited for ten seconds, fifteen, his hands on his knees, panting. His mouth was dry and the spit he sucked up tasted coppery.