TT13 Time of Death (12 page)

Now this terrible business with those girls.

That kind of thing would never have happened back when he
was their age, or when his own children were teenagers, come to that.

He bent to let his terrier off the lead, watched him scamper into the trees.

However bad it got though, he still had the woods that backed on to his house to enjoy every day. That was the clincher, back when he and his wife had first bought the place. They’d both loved walking, and now, every time he took the dog out, he felt that small ache down in his stomach because she wasn’t at his side. These were
their
woods, always would be, however many noisy teenagers were tearing about on motorbikes or starting fires at night.

First thing every morning and last thing at night, ever since the dog was a puppy; him and her talking about their plans for the day. Then later on, looking back on how each of their days had gone. Now, it was mainly the dog he talked to.

He smiled, thinking that at least the dog never answered him back.

Said, ‘Sorry, love, only joking,’ to himself.

The dog came running out of the trees, panting. It sniffed the ground at the old man’s feet, then raced back into the bushes. Poor old bugger was almost as old as he was now, in dog years at any rate, but he still had plenty of zip in him. Still gave the squirrels in his back garden a hard time and went mad if he caught a whiff of a fox or a rabbit.

He walked on, and it seemed as if the day was growing brighter with every few steps, the sun coming up fast above the lines of sycamore and silver birch. At least it looked like they might be getting a bit of good weather today, help out those poor souls up to their armpits in the Anker.

He turned, looking for the dog behind him. He whistled and felt for one of the little bone-shaped chews he always kept in his pocket.

He’d meant what he’d said to that miserable sod at the police press thing the night before. The place would only go downhill a damn sight faster now. Yobbos piling off coaches to take pictures of the street where the girl was taken. Chattering about how terrible it must have been for everyone, then queuing up for fried chicken and making it hard for the people who actually lived here to get to the bar at the end of the day.

She would have wanted to move, if she’d still been alive. He’d thought that more than once. Much as his wife had loved the town, she would not have been able to bear it now, the place it had become. The supermarket and the beauty salons. The yelling in the streets come chucking-out time and the scrabble at the post office to cash the benefits cheques.

He turned, but there was still no sign of the dog.

Maybe he’d write another letter to the local paper. Not that they’d bothered printing his last one. It was a disgrace, because he knew what he was talking about and he wasn’t the only one who felt like this. He wanted his town back and what was wrong with that?

He could hear the dog yapping now, but it sounded a fair old distance away. He turned and walked back along the path, then cut into the trees. He gathered his overcoat a little tighter around him, pushed his scarf up to his throat. It was bright enough, but it was still bloody cold.

He whistled again, waited.

He shouted the dog’s name, once, twice, then cursed under his breath and started walking towards the noise.

Bloody rabbits …

Thorne and Helen woke early, but, with no noise to indicate that anyone else was up and about, they stayed in their room, waiting for Paula or Jason to emerge from theirs.

Helen called her father to see how Alfie was, confident that her son would have woken long before they had and would already be giving him the runaround. Her father assured her that all was well and that he was loving every minute of looking after his grandson. She talked to Alfie briefly. She told him to be good and that she would see him soon.

She said ‘love you’ and he said it back.

When her father came back on the line, Helen reminded him to call if there was any problem. He told her not to be silly. He urged her to make the most of the break and to enjoy herself. Listening in, Thorne was interested to see that Helen took care to give no hint that they were anywhere other than where they were supposed to be; that they were, in fact, in the town where her father had lived for so many years. When Helen finally hung up, she looked at him, as though well aware of what he was thinking. Thorne decided it was probably not a good idea to ask her why.

They lay in bed and read for a while, talking easily. Thorne was happy to see that Helen seemed a lot brighter than she had the previous evening. He hoped that one day in her home town would prove long enough for her to have come to terms with whatever mixed feelings she clearly had about coming back.

Helen flicked through a magazine, while Thorne made another attempt to get involved in a thriller he had picked up and put down again countless times. ‘The copper in this is ridiculous,’ he said.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Helen said. ‘He’s got a drink problem and he’s a bit of a maverick.’

‘Have you ever met a copper like that?’

‘I’m sorry about last night …’

The absence of a smile told Thorne that she was not talking about the Valentine’s Day shag that never was. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I was a bit worried, that’s all.’

‘I think I’m just finding it hard, not being with Alfie.’ She reached for Thorne’s hand. He put his book down. ‘This’ll be the longest I’ve ever been away from him. Well, apart from …’

The armed siege.

Three days during which Helen had lived with the constant terror that she might never see her child again.

‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s understandable.’ He was not convinced that this was the only reason why Helen had not been herself ever since they’d crossed the river into Polesford, but it was the only reason she seemed ready to give. ‘Still, you heard what your dad said about making the most of it.’

She picked up her magazine again. ‘Not exactly the right circumstances though, are they?’

‘We don’t need to stay,’ Thorne said. ‘We can drive back to the Cotswolds if you want.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I need to be here.’

Thorne said, ‘Well, it’s your call,’ and was surprised to find
himself feeling relieved, and not just because of his aversion to the snootier parts of the English countryside. As far as the police operation in Polesford went, he was just an observer, of course he was, and he was under no pressure because he had no responsibility.

No part of this was down to him.

He was still excited though, knowing that a major investigation was taking place just five minutes up the road. That there was a suspect being held, officers putting a case together and, most importantly, victims still to be found. It had been the first thing he’d thought about when he’d opened his eyes.

I’m on holiday
.

He wasn’t exactly hard to find
.

I don’t believe they’ve got enough
…

That buzz had not gone away overnight.

As soon as they heard somebody heading downstairs, Thorne and Helen got up. Helen showered, dressed and went down. Thorne did the same and followed her fifteen minutes later.

It was not quite the ‘full works’ Thorne had joked about, but he was more than happy with a bacon sandwich on white, thick-sliced bread. He and Helen ate at a small table in the kitchen, while Paula stood at the cooker in her dressing gown, making another sandwich to take up to Sweeney who was clearly sleeping off the previous night’s ‘decompression’.

‘Sorry about the pair of us putting you on the spot last night,’ Paula said. ‘Those questions about Linda.’

‘Not a problem,’ Helen said.

‘Something like this happens, you can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘I’m sure I’d be exactly the same.’

‘You like being a copper then?’ Paula stepped back as the pan spat oil at her. ‘I mean, you must do, right?’

‘Most of the time, yeah.’

‘Must be tough though. Some of the stuff that happens.’

‘No tougher than being a nurse.’

Paula began buttering bread. ‘Yeah, well you come back feeling pretty great some days, I’m not saying you don’t. Others though … well, you know what they’re like.’

Thorne remembered what Paula had said the night before, about getting home from hospital, and guessed it wasn’t just the smell she felt the need to wash away.

‘It’s good of you to come back. I mean you’ve obviously got your own life in London, family and all that.’ Paula turned and looked at Helen, pointed with the knife. ‘Linda’s lucky to have a friend like that.’

‘She’s got plenty of friends here, hasn’t she?’ Helen asked.

‘She must do, but people tend to stay away when something like this happens, don’t they? They think it’s going to be awkward, that they won’t know what to say.’ She turned back to the cooker. ‘Maybe some of them are wondering if Linda knows something about what happened. People always think that, don’t they?’

‘Is that what you think?’ Thorne asked.

They waited, watched Paula cock her head.

‘I’d be lying if I told you I hadn’t ever considered it. I know that probably means I’m a horrible, suspicious person.’

Helen looked straight at Thorne. ‘Like you said, it’s what a lot of people think.’

‘All I’m saying, she’s bloody lucky to have you around. It’s times like these you find out who your real friends are.’

‘That’s nice of you,’ Helen said.

Paula turned round again. ‘No, I mean it.’

Just for a moment or two, there was something in the woman’s face – a sudden tightness, and something flat about the eyes – that Thorne thought he recognised. That he’d seen back before he’d joined the Murder Squad, on a few occasions he’d worked
rape or domestic abuse cases. Her job was hard enough, but he had begun to suspect that she spent most of the time when she wasn’t working as an unpaid skivvy for her boyfriend. If he was right, he wondered just how controlling Jason Sweeney could be. How many friends Paula Hitchman was allowed to have.

Paula’s mobile began to ring out in the hall, so she took the frying pan off the heat and went out to answer it.

‘You going to see Linda today?’ Thorne asked.

‘I said I would.’

‘She was right.’ Thorne nodded out towards the hall, where Paula was talking on the phone. ‘About Linda being lucky that you’re here.’

‘I’m not a real friend,’ Helen said.

Out in the hall, they could hear Paula say, ‘Are you serious?’

‘What are you on about?’ Thorne asked.

Helen shook her head. ‘If I was, I wouldn’t have waited for something like this to happen, would I? A real friend would have come back a long time ago.’ She turned to stare out of the window, across a brown field that swept down towards scattered farm buildings, lines of sodden stubble.

‘What was that look before?’ Thorne asked.

‘What look?’

‘When she was talking about wondering how much Linda knows? You gave me a look.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Like, was I wondering the same thing.’

‘Come on,’ Helen said. ‘I know very well it crossed your mind.’

‘And it didn’t cross
yours
?’

Paula came back in, phone in hand. She pointed at what was left of Thorne’s and Helen’s sandwiches. ‘Come on, bring them through. I think we might want to put the telly on.’

‘What?’ Helen asked. Thorne was already standing up.

Paula waved her phone. ‘That was a woman I know from step
class, who runs a coffee shop on the high street. Cupz? Anyway, the place was full of coppers first thing this morning and she overheard them talking.’ She shook her head. ‘Trust me, if she knows something, she’ll have told
everyone
by now.’

‘Told them what?’

‘She reckons they’ve found a body.’

Poppy is delighted when the car stops.

That’s one more drink she can buy with the money she’s going to save on the bus fare. Callum has a part-time job and she knows he’ll be happy enough putting his hand in his pocket, but she can’t let him pay for everything. She knows there are plenty of girls willing to do that, sit there all night downing free rum and cokes, but there are lads who take that the wrong way. Who think it means they’re owed something at the end of the night.

It’s cold too, and it looks like there’s rain coming, so getting a lift is a double bonus.

‘Where you off to, Pops?’ he asks.

‘Tamworth,’ she says. ‘The All Bar One near the station?’

He thinks about it for a few seconds, like he’s trying to get his bearings, then tells her he can probably take her all the way, that he’s got to meet someone to talk about some business thing.

‘You’re in luck,’ he says as he leans across to open the door for her.

It’s warm in his car, and he tells her she can change the station on the radio, find something she likes. He’s been listening to
some rubbish with endless guitar solos, so she starts searching through the stations.

‘You look nice,’ he tells her. ‘I like your boots.’

‘They’re new,’ she says. She looks down at her shiny red DMs, wiggles her feet around. ‘Birthday present.’

‘You on a date?’

She laughs, tells him that nobody says ‘date’ any more, that he sounds like he’s a hundred years old or something. He doesn’t seem to mind her taking the piss, says he feels that old sometimes, that he’s used to teenagers reminding him that he’s out of touch. ‘What’s the right word then?’ he asks.

The road crosses the M42 and she looks down at the traffic, the necklace of red lights in one direction, white in the other. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, laughing. ‘I’m just meeting a friend, that’s all.’

‘Probably have a few drinks though,’ he says.

‘Probably have more than a few,’ she says.

She finally finds something decent on the radio and he laughs when he glances across, sees her nodding her head in time.

‘I don’t get this stuff,’ he tells her.

‘You’re not supposed to, are you?’ she says.