Mark Billingham - Bloodline

‘Tea’s fine for me,’ Chamberlain said.

‘It’s a bit early in the day, but what the hell.’

The woman hovered in the doorway, as though she were waiting for Chamberlain to change her mind. Chamberlain smiled, saw a flash of what might have been fear in Sandra Phipps’ eyes and, for the first time since she’d accepted Tom Thorne’s offer to get involved in the investigation, began to feel excited.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ Chamberlain said.

While she waited for Sandra to return, Chamberlain sat in a well-worn but comfortable armchair and took in the room. The tops of the television, sideboard and corner cupboard were cluttered with knick-knacks and photographs. A TV listings magazine lay open on the sofa and a chick-lit paperback was on the small table next to it. A tropical-fish tank had been built into an alcove, its gentle bubbling just audible above the frantic bass-line that had begun to bleed down from an upstairs room. There was certainly no sign that this was a family in mourning: no flowers or sympathy cards on display. The daughter had been wearing black, but even with her limited knowledge of teenagers, Chamberlain guessed it was probably the colour Nicola Phipps chose to wear most of the time anyway. The scowl was probably a permanent feature, too.

When Sandra returned – with a mug of tea and a half-empty bottle of wine – there were a few minutes of chit-chat, each woman getting comfortable in her own way. Sandra was horrified, she said, at how unsafe the streets had become in recent years. Chamberlain told her she agreed, and made the right noises when Sandra complained about the extortionate cost of funerals.

Then, Chamberlain got down to it.

She had found it hard to gauge the other woman’s reaction to the mention of the name ‘Raymond Garvey’. A long-distant ex-boyfriend was one thing, but when he also happened to be a notorious mass murderer, there were few precedents. Sandra’s reaction to the name ‘Malcolm Reece’ was a little easier to read.

‘They were a right pair,’ Sandra said, laughing. ‘Him and Ray, swanning around like they were God’s gift.’

‘Sounds like a few of you fell for it.’

‘Yeah, well.’ She shrugged. ‘Young and stupid, I suppose.’

‘How long were you and Ray an item?’

‘I don’t think we were ever “an item”. We were both married, so…’

‘OK. For how long were the pair of you sneaking into the stationery cupboard for a quick one?’

Sandra smiled, reddening a little. ‘There was a hotel room once in a while. The odd weekend away.’

Chamberlain waited.

‘Six months or so, I suppose, on and off. Until he met my younger sister.’ She smiled again, cold this time, then took a drink. ‘ Frances.’

‘He started seeing your sister?’

Another shrug. ‘She was prettier than me.’

‘Malcolm Reece said something about a baby.’

If Sandra heard what Chamberlain had said, she chose to ignore it. ‘They kept their affair even quieter than me and Ray did,’ she said. ‘I only found out by accident and, to be honest, I didn’t really want to know too much about it. I was jealous, I suppose, and pissed off with my sister. We didn’t talk to each other for quite a while.’

Chamberlain said she could understand.

‘I even gave Malcolm Reece a bunk-up once or twice, stupid cow that I was. Trying to get my own back at Ray, I suppose.’

‘So, what about this baby?’

‘Not mine,’ Sandra said.

‘Your sister’s?’

Sandra took her time, then nodded. ‘A little boy. Frances and Ray had already broken up for a while by that time. I think Ray’s wife was starting to cotton on.’

Chamberlain grunted agreement. She remembered Jenny Duggan telling her she’d always known about Garvey’s other women.

‘Took her long enough, mind you.’ Sandra drained her glass. ‘You OK?’

Chamberlain stared at Sandra Phipps, suddenly stunned by the echo of a coin dropping hard. ‘ Frances?’

Sandra nodded again, and seemed to be wondering what had taken Chamberlain quite so long. ‘Frances Walsh. The stupid thing is, we never really made up properly.’

Chamberlain blinked, pictured the pages of notes she’d been studying on the train: a list of Anthony Garvey’s victims and a list of the women, long since murdered, who had given birth to them. ‘Frances Walsh was Ray Garvey’s third victim,’ she said.

Sandra shook her head. ‘First victim. They found her third, but she was the first to be killed.’ She leaned forward and picked up the wine bottle. ‘You sure you don’t want one of these?’

Chamberlain shook her head.

Sandra said, ‘Suit yourself,’ and began to top up her glass.

Hendricks breathed heavily for a few seconds then spoke, nice and slowly, in the huskiest voice he could muster. ‘What are you wearing?’

‘You must be really bored.’

‘Bloody hell, how much more miserable could you sound?’

‘Give me another hour or so,’ Thorne said.

When the lack of progress on a case cast heavy shadows across every brick, rippled black in each pane of its dirty glass, Becke House could quickly turn a good mood bad and a bad mood ugly. Thorne had been more than halfway there, sitting in his office and trying in vain to recapture a little of the morning’s optimism, when Hendricks had called.

‘Fancy a beer or six later?’

‘Tricky,’ Hendricks said. ‘I’m in Gothenburg.’

‘Right. Shit.’ Thorne had completely forgotten about his friend’s seminar. Analysis of something or other.

‘You had your chance, mate.’

‘How’s it going?’

‘Well, I’d been hoping for wall-to-wall Vikings and bars full of men who look like Freddie Ljungberg.’

‘I was talking about the seminar.’

‘Equally disappointing.’

‘So, these men…’

‘More like Freddie Krueger.’

Thorne laughed, remembering the last time he had done so, and thought about describing his conversation with Louise that morning, perhaps even telling Hendricks about the one he’d had with Carol Chamberlain the night before.

He never got the chance.

‘I’m guessing there’s no joy on Garvey, then?’

‘Well, he hasn’t killed anyone else, not as far as we know, anyway, so it’s not like things are any worse.’

‘I was thinking about the one in the canal.’

‘Walsh?’

‘Right. Remember you asked me why I thought he’d attacked him from the front? Why it was so much more brutal?’

‘You said something about him getting cocky or angry.’ Thorne tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder, began sorting through the mass of unread paper on his desk. ‘Being in a hurry, maybe.’

‘Maybe.’

Thorne heard something in the silence. ‘What?’

‘What if he wasn’t in a hurry?’ Hendricks asked. ‘What if he deliberately took the trouble to make the victim unrecognisable? There’s still been no formal ID, has there?’

‘No, but-’

‘Can we get a DNA sample from that aunt, do you think? Make sure.’

‘We know who he is, Phil. The stuff in his pocket?’

‘Who the hell carries an old driving licence around? An old letter?’

‘Maybe someone who’s off his face on God knows what and is trying to hang on to who he was.’ Thorne balled up a sheaf of papers he no longer needed, tossed it at the waste-paper bin. Missed. ‘Walsh was virtually living on the street, as far as we can tell.’

‘I was thinking about that, too,’ Hendricks said. ‘The drugs that showed up in the body weren’t what I’d expected.’

Thorne told Hendricks to hang on while he found the relevant file on his computer and called up the toxicology report. He opened the document, said, ‘OK.’