Mark Billingham - Buried

Mullen stood up, held out his arms towards his wife, but she didn’t move. She sat and wept and looked anywhere but at Thorne or her husband, until Mullen moved across to her. He gathered her up and pulled her back with him on to the sofa, pressing her head to his chest until she had to break free to suck in a breath.

‘I don’t understand how you could have been on that panel in the first place,’ Thorne said. ‘Wasn’t there a conflict of interest, with your husband having put Freestone behind bars in the first place?’

Mullen looked at his wife. She was in no fit state to answer. ‘She didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Not to start with at least. We didn’t discuss cases and she’d never even heard of Grant Freestone until she joined that panel.’

‘So what happened? “Not to start with”, you said.’

‘She saw my name on Freestone’s probation report, the stuff about the threats he’d made, so then she told me and we discussed it. She talked about resigning, but there was really no need. What had happened in the past was of no concern to Maggie and the others on that panel, so there was no conflict.’

‘Of course not. Still, it must have been handy to have someone who could keep a close eye on Freestone for you. Someone who had a nice professional reason to know exactly what he was doing.’

Mullen shook his head. ‘You’re talking crap. My wife just did her job.’

‘Right, and plenty of overtime, by the sound of it.’

It was a cheap shot, and it got the reaction it deserved. Mullen sat up straight, clutched his wife’s hand and spoke quietly, each word clearly intended to be definitive; weighted with loathing for both subject and listener.

‘This man was someone Maggie worked with closely, only because she believed in doing things properly. She trusted everyone on that panel, had every reason to think they had the same dedication to the work that she had.’

Next to him, Maggie Mullen sat, stiff and shaking, the tears coming more slowly now. Her face reacted to the jolt of each sob, and twisted as her husband spoke, as though in distaste, in horror at this woman he was discussing that she did not recognise.

‘Men like him can mistake a close working relationship for affection. They look for it, desperate, and search for any way to exploit it, to turn it into something sordid it was never intended to be. They’re leeches. That’s what he was.’

Next to him, Maggie Mullen spoke her husband’s name quietly. It sounded like a plea to stop.

‘He was needy,’ Mullen said, ‘terminally needy, and he twisted my wife’s sympathy into something different. He took advantage of her.’

Maggie Mullen was shaking her head, insistent now, her words spoken and repeated in tandem with the movement. ‘That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened…’

‘Calm down, love-’

‘Don’t be so fucking stupid,’ she shouted. She turned to Thorne, focused, spoke quietly. ‘He’s got Luke.’

Thorne felt the prickle at the nape of his neck, a buzz that began to build and creep…

‘Who’s got Luke?’

She said his name again. The name of the man with whom she’d had the affair.

Mullen took hold of her other hand and put his face close to hers. ‘Sorry, love, I don’t-’

She screamed the name into his face, scored it in spittle across his cheek and into his eyes.

‘He took Luke,’ she said. ‘He got those people, that couple, to take him as a warning. To convince me, I suppose. The affair didn’t finish when I told you it did. I tried to end it, but he wouldn’t let me.’ Mullen tried to say something, but she continued over the top of him, quickly, as though, if she stopped, she might fall to pieces. ‘We carried on, but I was dying every time I looked at Luke or Juliet. I was dying with the guilt. So, a few months ago, I decided I was going to end it and I told him that this time I wasn’t going to change my mind.’ She paused, remembering. ‘He took it badly…’

Thorne was out of his seat. He couldn’t keep the astonishment and the disgust from his voice. ‘So he kidnapped your son?’

‘I was stupid,’ she said, clutching at her husband. ‘I was so stupid to do it when I did. He’d just lost his mother and he was in pieces, and I thought it would be a good time, you know… to tell him, because he would have other things on his mind. But he went completely off the rails.’

Thorne stared, thinking, You’re telling me. He waited for the rest.

‘And, God help me, I mentioned Sarah Hanley.’

‘ What?’

‘We never talked about what happened. It was just like a film we’d seen or something. But I wanted him to accept that it was over and leave me alone, and I said something about how terrible it would be if anyone ever found out. It was just something I said, because I was desperate and I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t trying to threaten him.’

‘ What was it that happened?’ Thorne asked.

Mullen just gasped out his wife’s name.

‘I was there when Sarah Hanley died,’ she said.

Tony Mullen got slowly to his feet and, as both of his wife’s hands were in his, she rose with him. Their fingers twisted, whitened, and the tension grew in their arms until they were pushing at each other, standing in front of the sofa, straining and searching for some leverage, a low moan somewhere in the throat of one of them…

Thorne was out of his chair, fearing violence, but the moment passed and Mullen dropped back on to the sofa as if he’d been gutted. Thorne stared at the two of them. Took a few deep breaths as a hundred questions careered through his mind.

Knowing that he could wait for the answers, he took out his phone and began to dial.

Maggie Mullen saw what was happening. She stepped towards him and reached out a hand. ‘Please, not like last time,’ she said. ‘Don’t go in there like you did at that flat. Don’t charge in there with guns. I don’t know how he’ll react. I’ve no idea what he’ll do.’

Thorne nodded and raised the phone. ‘I need a home address.’

She gave it to him without a second thought. ‘Please,’ she said again. ‘Luke’s unharmed… so far. He’s fine. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, that you won’t go in there with guns…’

The number Thorne was calling began to ring. He looked at Tony Mullen and followed the man’s wide eyes to those of the woman who was pawing at his sleeve. ‘How do you know Luke’s unharmed?’

Her eyes left his. ‘I’ve spoken to him.’

Mullen’s voice was hoarse. ‘You’ve spoken to Luke?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not to Luke. I haven’t spoken to Luke.’

Porter answered her phone.

She’d just started driving back from Kathleen Bristow’s house in Shepherd’s Bush. She pulled over to take down details as soon as Thorne had her attention and began to take her through it. He gave her an address in Catford, the other side of the city from him, and still a good distance south-east of where Porter was.

‘How soon do you think you can get a team there?’ He asked.

‘They’ll be there before I am,’ Porter said. ‘Almost certainly.’

Thorne passed on Maggie Mullen’s concerns: her belief that the kidnapper’s reaction to an armed entry was highly unpredictable; her plea for them to be cautious.

Porter sounded dubious. ‘I can’t make any promises,’ she said.

When Thorne hung up, he told her Porter had assured him that she’d do her best.

He didn’t feel bad about lying to her.

You think about the kids.

First and last, in that sort of situation, in that sort of state ; when you can’t decide if it’s anger or agony that’s all but doubling you up, and making it so hard for you to spit the words across the room. First and last, you think about them…