Mark Billingham - Buried

Porter introduced Thorne and Holland to those members of the team who were around. Most of them seemed friendly enough. They all looked busy.

‘Obviously a lot of the lads are out and about,’ Porter said. ‘Chasing up what we laughably call “leads”.’

Holland leaned back against an empty desk. ‘At least you’ve got some.’

‘Just the one, really. A couple of witnesses saw Luke Mullen get into a car on the afternoon he disappeared.’

‘Number plate?’ Thorne asked.

‘Bits of it. Blue or black. And it might be a Passat. This is from the other kids at the school, all just finished for the day, too busy talking about music or skateboards or whatever the hell they do.’

Holland grinned. ‘Not got any yourself, then?’

‘“ Get into a car”,’ Thorne said. ‘So it didn’t look like he was being forced?’

‘He got into the car with a young woman. Attractive. I think the other boys were too busy eyeing her up to pay much attention to the car.’

‘Maybe Luke had a new girlfriend,’ Holland suggested.

‘That’s what some of the boys think, certainly. They’d seen him with her before.’

‘So, isn’t it possible?’ Thorne asked. ‘He’s a sixteen-year-old boy. Maybe he’s just buggered off to a hotel somewhere with a glamorous older woman.’

‘It’s possible.’ Porter began to gather a few things from her desk, then grabbed a handbag from the back of a chair. ‘But this was last Friday. Why hasn’t he been in touch?’

‘He’s probably got better things to do.’

Porter cocked her head, acknowledging a theory that she had clearly dismissed. ‘Who goes away for a dirty weekend with nothing but a school blazer and a sweaty games kit?’ She let it sink in, then walked past Thorne and Holland towards the door, leaving them in little doubt that they were expected to follow.

Holland waited until she was out of earshot. ‘Well, she doesn’t seem to fancy herself too much…’

Outside, in the lobby, another member of the team stepped out of the lift. Porter introduced the woman to Thorne and Holland before the three of them took her place. Porter exchanged a few quick words with her colleague, then punched a button and glanced round at Thorne as the doors closed. ‘She’s one of two family liaison officers who’ve been at the house on rotation since we were brought in. You’ll meet the other one when we get there.’

‘Right.’

Porter’s eyes shifted to the display of illuminated numbers above the doors. Thorne wondered if she was always this anxious; in this much of a hurry.

‘I want to get a good couple of hours with the Mullens today if I can. These first few conversations with the family are the important ones, obviously.’

It took a second or two to sink in. ‘“First few”?’ Thorne said.

Porter turned to look at him.

‘I’m not clear about-’

‘We only got brought into this yesterday afternoon,’ she said. ‘The kidnap wasn’t reported straight away.’

Thorne caught a look from Holland, who was obviously every bit as confused as he was. ‘Was there some kind of threat?’ he asked. ‘Were the family told not to involve the police?’

‘Whoever took Luke has made no contact with the family whatsoever.’

The lift reached the ground floor and the doors opened, but Thorne made no move to go anywhere.

‘At the moment, your guess is as good as mine,’ Porter said.

‘And what would that be?’

‘What’s the point in guessing? The simple fact is that Luke Mullen was kidnapped on Friday afternoon, but for reasons best known to themselves, his parents decided to wait a couple of days before telling anybody.’

Say you’re a dwarf, OK?

It doesn’t mean that you only fancy other dwarves, does it? That you can’t be excited about a fumble with someone you might have to stand on a chair to have a proper snog with? Actually, it’s normal to want to be with someone different, isn’t it? Just to see what it would be like.

He knew damn well that he was meant to be with a woman who worked on the till in Asda and wore fake Burberry and knock-off perfume, so when Amanda had come sniffing round, deliberately dropping her aitches and knocking back the alcopops like there was no tomorrow, he’d been in there like a rat up a drainpipe. Why wouldn’t he? He’d always fantasised about a bit of posh, and even though he knew deep down she was only slumming it, everything had seemed to be working out very nicely.

Recently, though, he’d started to feel like something was missing, and it wasn’t just the sex falling off a bit, which it always did anyway a few months in. It was more than that. He’d started to feel like everything was a bit unreal. She could call herself Mandy all she liked, and dress down, but she would always be an ‘Amanda’ and he would never really be in her league when it came to breeding or brains. Not that he was stupid; far from it. He knew what was what, pretty much. But when it came to doing stuff, to making a living and all the rest of it, he tended to go where other people took him. That was fine, though, because he knew his limitations. Which made him clever enough, he reckoned.

Now, though, he’d started to think about other women. Nobody specific; just other types of woman. His types. He’d started to drift off, even in the middle of bloody important stuff like what to do with the kid and what have you, and imagine himself with women who had dirty bra straps and read crappy magazines. He thought about women who made a bit more noise in bed and treated him properly and didn’t tell him where to put his fingers. It made him feel guilty at first, but lately he’d been telling himself that she probably felt exactly the same way. She probably dreamed about rugger-buggers called Giles or Nigel when they were doing it and maybe his accent was starting to put her teeth on edge as much as hers was doing to his…

Maybe it was all down to this business with the kid. It had seemed like easy money at the time and it hadn’t taken long to agree to it, but, Christ, it was a damn sight more stressful than knocking over some old duffer or talking your way into a pensioner’s flat. Both of them were acting a bit funny, and maybe, when this was all over and they had some real cash to play with, he’d start to feel more like himself again. Maybe they could get away somewhere.

What was he thinking? It would make bloody good sense to get away somewhere. And maybe then he’d stop thinking about those other girls…

When Amanda came into the room five minutes later, he thought for one horrible minute that she could see what he’d been thinking. That it was as obvious as the semi in his lap that he’d swiftly covered up with a Daily Star . But everything was cool. She asked him if he was OK and kissed him on the top of his head when he asked her the same thing. She walked over and helped herself to one of his fags, then had a quick look to see if there was anything decent on the box.

Then she sat on the edge of the bed and began to talk about what they were going to do with the boy.

‘He’s not exactly a baby, is he?’ Holland leaned forward, dropped a hand on to each of the front headrests. ‘They were probably just waiting for him to come waltzing back home again.’

‘That’s more or less how they explained it.’

‘He might have done this sort of thing before.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Porter said. She took the unmarked Saab Turbo past a silver 4×4, glared hard at the driver, who was talking animatedly into her mobile phone. ‘But like I said, we haven’t spoken to the parents that much yet. Hopefully we’ll find out a bit more over the next couple of hours.’