Mark Billingham - Bloodline

Miriam tugged at the loose thread until it broke, then balled it up in her palm and closed her fist. ‘We called the police on the Saturday,’ she said. ‘Then, three weeks later, we had the visit.’

‘There were two of them on the doorstep,’ Alec said. ‘I knew it, when the woman tried to smile and couldn’t quite manage it.’

‘Do you know why?’ Miriam asked suddenly. ‘I know you’ve got a name now, so maybe you’ve got some idea why he did what he did.’

Because Anthony Garvey already had a plan. Because he needed your daughter to get the money to fund it. And once she’d done what he wanted, he had to get her out of the way. He could not afford to have loose ends lying around once his grand scheme of killing was under way, so he stuffed your daughter behind a pile of rusted metal and dusty sacking, curled up among the shit and the silverfish with the back of her skull caved in and a plastic bag tied around her head.

Because he needed to practise on someone.

‘It’s a bit too early to say,’ Thorne said, hoping that it didn’t sound as piss-weak and pathetic as he felt while saying it.

Kitson glanced at him, but couldn’t meet his eye. ‘We’ll come back to you as soon as we know any more.’

Thorne could see that the couple had had enough. He thanked them for their time and apologised for making them talk about something that was so painful. Miriam said that it was no trouble, that nothing was too much trouble if it might help find the man who had murdered her daughter. She said she was the one who should apologise for not being a better hostess.

‘Did Chloe have a diary?’

‘Yes, but only for appointments and things,’ Miriam said. ‘I looked through it afterwards… hoping she might have said something. The police had a good look, of course, but it’s just “meeting T”, “having a drink with T”, that kind of thing. You’re welcome to take it, if you want.’

‘It might be useful for checking dates,’ Thorne said. ‘What about a mobile phone?’

‘Police looked at that, too,’ Alec said. ‘They found it in her bag.’

‘Do you still have it?’

Miriam shook her head. ‘Once the police had returned all Chloe’s things, Alec took it to one of those recycling places.’

‘I can’t bear waste.’ Alec reached across and fumbled for his wife’s hand. ‘Can’t bear it.’

Thorne nodded and looked down for his briefcase. He knew the man was not talking about mobile phones any more.

Jenny Duggan, formerly Jenny Garvey, had not been comfortable with the idea of Carol Chamberlain visiting her at home, so they met outside a small pub in the city centre. Chamberlain was the second to arrive, her train from Waterloo having got in fifteen minutes late, and once she had visited the toilet and got some drinks in, she walked back outside to join Duggan at a table in the sunshine. They were no more than a hundred yards from the Bargate, the ancient monument at the northern end of the old medieval wall. It had served as police headquarters during the Second World War and now housed a contemporary art gallery, but eight hundred years earlier it had been the main gateway to the city of Southampton.

‘All very nice,’ Duggan said, as Chamberlain drew back a chair. ‘But it’s still rough as you like round here on a Friday night.’

Chamberlain took a pair of sunglasses from her bag, smaller than the rather oversized pair Jenny Duggan was wearing. Chamberlain found herself wondering if, even now, fifteen years on and in a different city, the woman worried about being recognised.

‘I didn’t think you were allowed to drink on duty,’ Duggan said. ‘Or is that just something they say on TV?’

‘I’m not on duty, strictly speaking,’ Chamberlain said. ‘I’m retired, actually. Just helping with an inquiry.’

‘Like a cold-case thing? Like on Waking the Dead?’

‘I suppose.’

‘I’ve always quite fancied the main bloke in that,’ Duggan said. ‘Do you know any coppers like him?’

‘Not many,’ Chamberlain said.

They sat there for ten minutes or more, talking about television, the weather, the job doing the accounts for a local furniture firm that Duggan had recently found for herself. Chamberlain knew she was ten years or so older than her drinking companion, but guessed that an impartial observer would have put it closer to fifteen. Duggan had looked after herself, maintaining a good figure and with her hair kept in the kind of shaggy bob that women a lot younger seemed to favour. Chamberlain was a little ashamed at wondering if the sunglasses might also be hiding the signs of having a bit of work done.

Duggan was talkative and relaxed. Chamberlain knew that she ought to be steering the conversation towards Garvey, but she was reluctant to push it, and not only because it was always useful to establish a rapport. She was enjoying their chat about nothing in particular. The sun was warm and the wine wasn’t too bad, and any passer-by would have taken them for two friends having lunch or gearing up for an afternoon at the shops.

‘So, you didn’t get married again?’ Chamberlain asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘You’re still using your maiden name.’

Duggan laughed. ‘It’s a bloody good job you retired. Married again and divorced again.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Don’t worry, this one wasn’t a serial killer or anything.’ She took a slug of wine, swallowed it fast. ‘Just a selfish pig.’

Chamberlain did not know how to react, so said nothing and they stared at the traffic and the shoppers for a minute or more until Duggan said, ‘Ray never laid a hand on me, do you know that?’

Once again, Chamberlain had no reply.

‘Surprising, isn’t it, considering what happened later? He was a good husband, more or less. Good at his job, too.’ She looked away. ‘Good at killing, as it turned out.’

Chamberlain thought about the tumour, about the notion that it had changed Raymond Garvey’s personality. Could she and Thorne be wrong in dismissing the possibility so easily? ‘So, would you say that what he did was out of character?’

‘Well, I wasn’t… shocked,’ Duggan said. ‘When these things happen, they talk to people, neighbours, whatever, and they always say, “I’d never have believed it” and “He seemed like such a normal bloke” and all that stuff. But when they told me what Ray had done, I just nodded. I remember the coppers’ faces, how they looked at each other, and for a while I’m sure they thought I’d known what he was doing, you know? Looking back, I think there was just something in him… a dark side, which I knew was there but wasn’t willing to face up to. Not that I had any bloody idea where it would lead, mind you.’

‘You couldn’t have known that.’

Duggan smiled, grateful. ‘Like I said, there were plenty who thought I did, but how much do you ever really know? I mean, you hear about these cases, horrible stuff, men hiding children underneath the house and what have you, and I’m as bad as anyone, thinking the wives must have known what was going on. No smoke without fire, you know?’

‘Did you know he had a son?’

It took Duggan a while to say anything. Chamberlain stared at her, saw an expression of surprise that was no more than fleeting, and knew she was seeing an echo of the reaction from fifteen years before, when Jenny Duggan had been told that her husband had brutally murdered seven women. She could understand why officers at the time had been suspicious.

‘I knew there were always other women,’ Duggan said, finally. ‘I knew… but I pretended I didn’t. Told myself I was just being stupid.’ She removed her sunglasses and laid them on the table. ‘You can understand that, right?’