Mark Billingham: Buried

The boy’s mother was clearly not convinced. ‘I can’t see it.’ She fumbled for a cigarette. ‘I can’t imagine Luke with a girl his own age, let alone someone older. He isn’t confident with girls. He’s a bit awkward.’

‘Come on, Maggie,’ Mullen said. ‘He could have been into all sorts of things. I don’t mean drugs or anything like that, but kids have secrets, don’t they?’

‘Your husband’s got a point,’ Thorne said. ‘How well does any parent know an adolescent?’

Maggie Mullen lit her cigarette, took in the first lungful like it was oxygen. ‘I’ve been asking myself that quite a lot,’ she said. ‘Ever since I started to wonder if I was ever going to see my son again.’

In the kitchen, DC Kenny Parsons opened another cupboard and peered inside. ‘Maybe we should just leave it.’

Holland was sitting at the table, idly turning the pages of a Daily Express . ‘Don’t be nervous, mate. As family liaison officer, you definitely get biscuit privileges.’

‘ Result . Here you go.’ Parsons produced an unopened packet and placed it on a tray next to the mugs. Coffee had already been spooned into each. The kettle had boiled minutes ago, but been ignored.

‘So how d’you reckon things are between them?’ Holland asked, nodding towards the living room. ‘Normally, I mean.’

Parsons flicked the kettle on again and carried the tray to the table. He was in his mid-thirties, Holland guessed, a dark-skinned black man with hair cut almost to the scalp, and the trick of looking untidy in a perfectly presentable suit. ‘You know they split up for a while a few years back?’

Holland nodded; Porter had told them as much. The team were looking at the family, of course, but not as closely as they might have, had Luke been a bit younger; or if it had been more obviously an abduction rather than a kidnap. The family were certainly not under any suspicion, not this early on at any rate, but a few discreet enquiries had been made all the same.

‘She was the one that walked out, right?’ Holland asked.

‘Yeah, but she wasn’t gone for very long.’

‘Old man playing away from home, d’you reckon?’

‘Usually the way, isn’t it?’

‘So what about now?’

Parsons considered it. ‘Things are pretty good, I think.’

Holland had discovered quickly that his new colleague was not short of opinions. He had plenty to say about those on his own team, and was far more relaxed when it came to talking about the Mullen family than he was about helping himself to their digestives.

Holland was happy enough to get another perspective on the case.

‘Bear in mind that even splitting the shifts, we’re not here twenty-four hours a day,’ Parsons said. ‘Mullen was fairly adamant early on that he didn’t want anyone stopping overnight. Based on what I have seen, though, I reckon he rules the roost, give or take. He’s used to people doing what he tells them to do, for obvious reasons.’

‘And do they do what he tells them? The wife doesn’t come across as any sort of doormat.’

‘Oh no, she’s not. Definitely.’

‘She seems nice enough,’ Holland said. ‘I mean, she’s obviously a bit shell-shocked just now…’

‘She’s tougher than she looks, if you ask me.’ Parsons moved the mugs around on the tray, lining them up, making room for milk and sugar. ‘Ex-teacher, right?’ He held up his hands, as if the point were self-evident.

‘Right.’

‘So I reckon she can give as good as she gets. I bet there are times she tells him exactly what to do.’ He waited in vain for a reaction to the vaguely lewd suggestion before continuing. ‘I think the family’s learned how to look like they do what the old man tells them, know what I mean? They’re good at making him feel like he’s in charge. Probably no different to when he was on the Job, right?’

Notwithstanding Parsons’ obvious taste for gossip and speculation, Holland could see the sense in what he was saying. His own father had been a police officer. In the few short years between retirement and an early death, his relationship with Holland’s mother had fallen into exactly the pattern that Parsons was talking about.

‘What about the kid?’

‘You seen his room?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It’s a lot different to my lad’s, I can tell you that. I don’t think we’re talking about your average sixteen-year-old.’

‘The average sixteen-year-old doesn’t get kidnapped,’ Holland said.

‘It’s all a touch too neat and tidy.’ Parsons made a face, as if the very notion were somehow distasteful. ‘And I wouldn’t put a lot of money on finding any wank-mags under the bed.’ He stopped as he saw Holland’s expression change, and turned to see the girl standing in the doorway. ‘Juliet…’

Holland had no way of knowing how long Juliet Mullen had been standing outside the door, how much of their conversation she’d overheard. He couldn’t tell if her manner and the tone of her voice were because she was angry with them or upset about what had happened to her brother, or simply down to the fact that she was an average fourteen-year-old.

The girl half turned to go, then nodded towards the tray and spoke casually, as if she were insulting them in code: ‘I’ll have tea. Milk and two.’

‘What time does your post come?’ Thorne asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What time in the morning? Mine’s all over the bloody place. It’s any time before lunchtime, really, and stuff gets lost right, left and centre.’

If Tony Mullen knew where Thorne was going, he showed no sign of it. ‘Between eight and nine, usually. I don’t see-’

‘Your wife said that she stopped you from phoning the police straight away.’

‘She didn’t stop me…’

‘That she didn’t think there was anything to worry about.’

‘I wouldn’t have called immediately anyway. There was no reason to.’

Thorne strolled around the sofa, walked to the opposite side of the fireplace to where Maggie Mullen was crushing her cigarette butt into an ashtray. ‘Sorry, I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but your wife certainly implied that you were worried; or at least concerned. That’s why I was asking about what time your post arrived.’ Thorne caught Porter’s eye; saw that she understood. ‘I think you were expecting a ransom demand. I think you presumed that someone had snatched Luke and that you’d hear from them yesterday morning. I think you were probably waiting to find out exactly what they wanted and that you were planning to handle it yourself. When you didn’t get anything in the post, that’s when you really started to worry, when you started to wonder what might have happened. That’s when you called us.’

Maggie Mullen walked across the room and sat down on the arm of her husband’s chair. Her hand moved very briefly to his, then back into her lap. ‘Tony tends to look on the blacker side of things a lot of the time.’

‘The Job does that to most of us,’ Porter said.

‘Look, it’s understandable.’ Thorne was still trying to connect with Tony Mullen. ‘I’m sure I would have thought the same thing.’

‘I knew he’d been kidnapped before I went to bed on Friday night,’ Mullen said. He looked up at Thorne, something like relief on his face. ‘I was brushing my teeth and Maggie was sorting the dog out downstairs, and I knew someone had taken him. Was holding him. Luke wasn’t the type to just go off, certainly not without letting us know where he was.’

‘Like I said, it’s understandable. In light of your career, you’ve got every reason to believe there might be people who would want to hurt you. Or hurt those close to you.’