From the Dead

Before they had left the prison, Boyle had told Thorne that he and his team would start getting stuck into Jeremy Grover and his family, see if there were any funds knocking about that could not be accounted for. Thorne told him that there might be a fair bit more to do, depending on how his and Holland's next appointment went. Boyle said the overtime would come in handy.

Follow the money, that's what Louise had said.

She hadn't said anything else the night before, at least not about Thorne's day out with Anna Carpenter. She had gone to bed early, leaving Thorne and Hendricks talking nonsense in front of the television. It was the way Thorne had been hoping the evening would turn out.

You're not going to get it on a plate.

She'd said that too, just before things had turned a little awkward, and, much as it pained him, Thorne knew she was right. There were too many hard-arses like Monahan and Grover and not enough luck. On a plate would have been nice, but he was happy to do things the hard way if it meant getting the right result in the end.

The taxi slowed as it drove into Kirkthorpe, a village four miles west of the city.

'Reckon you could live out here?' Holland asked.

Thorne looked out of the window again and shook his head. 'A bit too Last of the Summer Wine for my liking,' he said.

Holland laughed.

'Not nearly dirty and noisy enough.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Holland said. 'I can just see you coming down one of those hills in an old bathtub on wheels.'

Thorne looked at him. 'Sophie still trying to get you out of London, is she?'

'We're still… talking about it.'

As ever, Thorne could see that Holland was uncomfortable discussing his girlfriend. They both knew that she was not Thorne's greatest fan, and that she wanted to get Holland and their daughter Chloe away from more than just the city.

'As long as it's just talk,' Thorne said.

The driver found the address Thorne had given him quickly enough and pulled over. Holland paid the fare and hurried after Thorne to the door of a modern terraced house. Thorne rang the bell and stepped back, thinking: One of these buggers has got to give us something.

Howard Cook was older than they had been expecting. Thorne guessed that the man who eventually answered the door, bald and blinking, was only a few years away from retirement.

A nice, cosy one.

Thorne and Holland showed the prison officer their warrant cards.

'I hope we're not disturbing you,' Holland said.

'This'll be about what happened last night, I suppose.'

Thorne said that it was.

'You'd best come in then,' Cook said. 'I've not long boiled the kettle.'

Thorne stayed where he was. 'I'll keep this quick if it's all the same to you, Howard. I just want to know where the knife is.'

'Sorry?'

The sounds of a TV show were coming from inside the house. A lot of shouting, gunshots.

'Knife, sharpened toothbrush… whatever Grover used. I just want to know where you put it once he'd passed it to you.'

Cook was shocked, or else did an amazing job of looking it. Thorne guessed it was more at the manner in which he had been confronted than the accusation itself.

'How dare you?' Cook said. 'How bloody dare you?'

'I know you've been through a trauma,' Holland said. 'So you might want to think about calming down.'

'I'm perfectly calm.' Cook folded his arms across his chest and swallowed. His lips were dry and white. 'And I'm thinking about how many shades of shit my solicitor is going to knock out of you two smartarses.'

'That'll be pricey,' Holland said. 'Hope you've got a bit of cash tucked away.'

A woman appeared behind Cook, asked if everything was all right. He didn't turn round; just said that he was dealing with something and told her to go back into the living room.

'If we dig hard enough, we'll find something,' Thorne said. 'You need to know that.'

'Have you any idea how long I've served as a prison officer?'

Thorne ignored him. 'We'll find the weapon. We'll find someone who saw you dump it or saw you turn off the security camera. We'll find someone willing to turn you over-'

'Thirty years.' He pointed back towards the city, the tip of the cathedral spire just visible in the distance. 'Longer than most of the bastards in there. So, do you think I'm going to let you pair of clowns get away with this?'

'You're finished,' Holland said. 'Next time you set foot in a prison, you won't be coming home for your tea.'

'I'm saying nothing else, so you might as well save your breath.'

'We all know what happens to the likes of you inside.'

Cook shook his head like they were simply being silly. He reached down to a pot near the front door and began pulling the dead leaves from a plant.

'Anything you made on the take gets confiscated,' Thorne said, 'and you can forget about your pension.' He nodded towards the inside of the house. 'How's she going to get on when you've gone? What's she going to do with herself while you're getting spat at and watching your back on a VP wing?'

'Just tell us what you did with the knife,' Holland said. 'That would be a good start.'

Cook slowly straightened up and considered them. He crushed the dead leaves in his fist and tossed the pieces into the flower bed. Then he pushed his shoulders back and stuck out his chin. 'You go ahead and dig,' he said. 'Fill your boots. Get right down there in the muck and see what happens. Because I promise you this: when you're finished, you'll be covered in it.' He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, rocked on the balls of his feet. 'You'll find bugger all, because there's bugger all to find. You'll look stupid, but from what I've been reading lately, I reckon you're probably used to that.'

'Are you done?' Thorne asked.

Cook stepped back and reached across to pull a tabloid newspaper from a table against the wall. He stabbed at the front page. 'This was your lot, wasn't it?' He gleefully turned the paper round to show them.

There was a picture of Adam Chambers on the front page.

'How much did that little fiasco cost?'

The day was brighter and still mercifully free from rain, so the view from the southbound train was less depressing, but Thorne felt every bit as frustrated as he had done the day before. Three men, each with a connection of some kind to Alan Langford. One dead and the other two – so far at least – saying nothing. Scared or just bloody-minded, it didn't much matter, as far as making progress in the case went.

Brick walls, as solid as any of those around Wakefield Prison.

Thorne looked across at the table opposite. A young couple sat where the elderly one had been a day earlier, and he wondered if he was in exactly the same carriage, on the same train. He sent Holland to the buffet car for coffees and told him to make sure he got a receipt.

Then he called Anna Carpenter.

She sounded pleased to hear from him. Thorne imagined her sitting alone in her office, bored and flicking through a magazine. He told her where he was calling from, where he had spent the best part of the day.

She laughed. 'Didn't trust me to have another crack at Monahan, then.'

'Monahan's dead.'

She said nothing for a few seconds, then spluttered a 'Jesus'.

'So, you know… things have changed.'

'What happened?'

'I can't really go into it,' Thorne said.

'OK.'

'I just thought you should be aware that it's all a bit more serious now.'

'I'm not with you.'

'Just, you might want to think about… Anna?' He realised that she could no longer hear him and put the phone down on the table. He stared at the handset, waiting for the signal to return, but unsure as to exactly what he would say when it did, or even why he'd called her in the first place. After a minute or so, the icon reappeared on the screen and he called her back. 'Sorry, lost you. I was just saying-'