Mark Billingham - Bloodline

Thorne was already reaching for his phone and walking away fast, aware of Strang calling after him, asking what he should do about Mr Macken. Scrolling through the phone’s contact list, he marched past Holland, told him he’d better get in touch with his girlfriend to let her know he was going to be home very late.

Then Holland was shouting after him as well.

It was easy enough getting through to the Incident Room in Leicester, but it took some cajoling, then a minute or two’s concentrated shouting and swearing, to get Paul Brewer’s home number.

‘In a hurry to arrange that drink?’ Brewer asked.

‘I’m coming up to Leicester tonight,’ Thorne said. ‘And I want to talk to Catherine Burke’s boyfriend. I need you to sort that out for me.’

‘Sort it out?’

‘Make sure he knows I’m coming. Make sure he stays in, and waits up.’

‘Christ, is this about Catherine’s mother?’ It sounded as though Brewer were suppressing a yawn. ‘I told you, I already spoke to him about that.’

‘I know you did, Paul,’ Thorne said. ‘The problem is, he lied.’

There was a FOR SALE sign outside the two-bedroom flat that Jamie Paice had, until three weeks before, shared with Catherine Burke. Thorne was staring at it as the door was opened and a young man in jeans and a Leicester City shirt began ranting about how late it was, and how he couldn’t see what was so important. How he was really sick of answering questions when he’d only just buried his girlfriend.

Thorne introduced himself and Holland. Said, ‘Coffee would be nice.’

They followed Paice upstairs, and while he went straight on into a small kitchen, Thorne and Holland turned into a living room dominated by a black leather sofa and matching armchairs. A blonde woman in her twenties sat cradling a bottle of beer in front of a large plasma television. After a brief staring contest, she reluctantly turned off the TV and introduced herself as Dawn Turner.

‘I’m just a friend,’ she said, without being asked. ‘I was a friend of Catherine.’

Thorne nodded. She was wearing a cap-sleeved T-shirt that did her no favours, with a transparent bra-strap visible on each shoulder. It was sweltering in the room. Thorne and Holland took off their jackets and sat down on the sofa.

‘It’s been really hard for Jamie,’ Turner said. She put her bottle down by the side of her chair. ‘Last few weeks.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Thorne said.

They had made good time getting out of London and even with Thorne keeping the BMW at a well-behaved seventy-five all the way, they had hit the outskirts of Leicester within an hour and a half of leaving Holloway. It was pushing ten o’clock by the time Jamie Paice sauntered into the living room with two mugs of coffee and fresh beers for himself and his ‘friend’. He dropped into the armchair he took a good, long look at his watch.

‘I’m doing you a favour here, to be honest,’ Paice said. ‘So this better be important. Doesn’t look like you’re here to tell me you’ve found the fucker who killed Cath.’

Thorne smiled, as though he simply hadn’t heard him. ‘Selling the place, Jamie?’

Paice looked across at Turner and shook his head in disbelief. ‘That what you came all this way to ask me? You want to make an offer?’

‘Just interested. I saw the sign.’

‘We were planning to sell anyway. Me and Cath had looked at a few places already when she was killed.’

‘The police thought that might have had something to do with what happened,’ Turner said. ‘They reckoned whoever killed her might have come round pretending to look at the flat. I think they checked with the estate agents and that.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Thorne said.

Holland shuffled to the edge of the sofa and looked at Paice. He nodded towards Turner. ‘Did you ask your friend round when you knew we were coming?’ he asked.

‘Why would I do that?’

‘A bit of moral support.’

Paice said nothing, took a swig from his bottle.

‘So, she was here anyway?’

‘Brewer said there was something you wanted to talk to me about.’ Paice leaned back in his chair and spread his arms. ‘Can we get on with it?’

‘You were shopping in town when Catherine was killed,’ Holland said.

‘Christ, are we going through this again?’

‘Looking for a computer game you wanted, that’s what you said. But you didn’t buy anything in the end.’

‘It’s not what I said. It’s what happened.’

‘This is stupid,’ Turner said. ‘The police checked all that an’ all. Went to the shops Jamie went into.’

‘We could always check again,’ Thorne said.

‘Do what you bloody like,’ Paice said. ‘Maybe I should be talking to a solicitor, check out how much I can sue you bastards for.’

‘A solicitor might be a good idea,’ Holland said.

‘What?’ Paice suddenly looked furious and began rocking slowly in the chair, his knuckles whitening around the neck of his beer bottle.

‘It’s all right, Jamie.’ Looking daggers at Holland as she went, Turner moved across and sat down on the arm of Paice’s chair. She laid a hand on his shoulder and told him that he needed to calm down; that getting worked up wouldn’t do any good, or bring Catherine back.

‘She’s telling the truth,’ Holland said. ‘And it’s about time you did.’

Thorne had been happy to sit there and let Holland get stuck into Jamie Paice. They knew very well that his alibi checked out, and they had not driven a hundred miles because they thought he’d killed Catherine Burke or anyone else. But for some reason he had lied to Paul Brewer, they felt sure about that, and in these situations it always paid to put the subject firmly on the back foot.

Holland had made a good job of it, and not for the first time. Thorne had told him once, a year or so back, how impressed he had been. Holland had laughed, then told Thorne that when it came to making people feel uncomfortable, he’d learned from the master. ‘I don’t mean watching you in interview rooms or anything,’ Holland had said, enjoying himself. ‘Just, you know, how you are with people… all the time.’

‘You were asked how Catherine’s mother had died,’ Thorne said. He waited until Paice was looking at him. ‘And you talked a lot of rubbish.’

‘When Brewer rang and asked, you mean?’ Paice seemed genuinely confused. Turner was squeezing his shoulder, trying to say something, but he wouldn’t let her speak. ‘I told him. I don’t understand.’

‘You said Catherine’s mother died of cancer.’

‘Right, same as her dad. He died a few years ago, stomach cancer I think, and her mum died when Cath was a kid. I’m not sure what sort-’

‘Why are you lying?’

‘I’m not. She died of cancer.’

‘No,’ Thorne said. ‘She didn’t.’ He was as certain as he could be that Catherine Burke’s mother had been murdered fifteen years before, just as the mothers of Emily Walker and Alex and Greg Macken had been. There was nobody named Burke on the list of victims that was folded in Thorne’s pocket, but nor was there a Macken or a Walker. There were any number of reasons why the surnames of parent and child might not match, but the link between the four most recent murder victims could no longer be in any doubt.

‘This is mental,’ Paice said. He shifted forward, trying to get up, but was pressed gently back into his chair.

‘It’s true, Jamie,’ Turner said. ‘Cath’s mum was murdered by a man named Raymond Garvey.’

Paice looked up at her, and as soon as he had placed the name, he began shaking his head. ‘You’re kidding? He killed loads, didn’t he?’

‘Seven,’ Turner said. She looked at Thorne, received a small nod of confirmation. ‘Cath’s mum was the third or fourth, I think.’