From the Dead

'Right…'

'So, back on with the slap and the high heels again.' Anna's face was not quite as red as her wine, but there was not a great deal in it. 'Who would have thought anything could be less sexy than banking, eh?'

Thorne laughed.

'Not to mention making me feel even less good about what I was doing for a living.'

'I gave up worrying about that a long time ago,' Thorne said.

'So, yeah, I've been disappointed.' She tapped a finger against the rim of her glass, staring down at a fingernail that Thorne could see was chipped and bitten. 'But not as disappointed as some.' She looked up. 'My parents weren't exactly thrilled.'

'You can see their point.'

'They couldn't see mine, though.' Her tone was casual enough, but there was tension around her mouth. 'My mum especially. We had words.'

Thorne struggled for something to say. He thought about some of the words he had exchanged with his father, both before and after the old man's death a few years earlier. He had learned since that the fire in which his father had died had not been accidental, that Jim Thorne had been targeted because of him.

Thorne still woke up sometimes stinking of sweat, tasting the smoke.

He looked across at Anna and thought about saying 'Sorry' or 'Be glad you've still got them.' In the end, though, he settled for an understanding nod and the safety of his beer glass.

'I think I'll go and see Donna tomorrow,' he said.

'OK, but I already told you what she told me.'

'Right, but I need to pick up this latest photo. And I want to talk to her about Langford. I know she hasn't clapped eyes on him for ten years, but she still knows him better than anybody else.' He caught Anna's look. 'What?'

'You sure about that?'

It was a fair point. Donna Langford had not known too much about what her husband was thinking ten years earlier. She had not known that he had rumbled her, that he planned to fake his own death and skip off with everything, leaving her to rot in prison. She had not known he would come back years later and snatch their daughter. 'OK, but she's the closest thing I've got to him,' Thorne said.

'Sounds like a plan, then.'

'This is what being a detective's like, most of the time. Making it up as you go along.'

'Can I come with you?'

'I don't think so.'

'Donna trusts me.'

'I told you, you need to back away.'

'Yes, I know, but-'

'Langford found out we'd been to see Monahan, so he'll also know we're talking to Donna.'

'I'm not scared,' Anna said.

Thorne could see that she meant it. 'Then you're stupid,' he said. 'And I need to get home…'

When Thorne came out of the Gents' she was waiting for him, standing by the bar's main door, with her hands in her pockets. He offered to run her home, but she reminded him that her flat was only a five-minute walk away.

'Good luck tomorrow,' she said. 'I mean obviously you'd get more out of Donna if I was there.'

'Obviously.'

'You wouldn't have to make up quite so much as you went along.'

'You don't give up, do you?'

She pushed open the door to the street and they both grimaced at the blast of cold air.

'That's something we've got in common,' she said. 'Isn't it?'

ELEVEN

He carried a bottle of decent wine out on to the balcony, sat and poured himself a glass, hoping it might help him relax.

When he was younger, marauding around the pubs of Hackney and Dalston, playing the big man, booze always fired him up; made a bad temper worse and turned a minor niggle into something worth pulling a knife for. Once he'd got into his thirties, with a few quid and a reputation behind him, alcohol started to have the opposite effect. Now, much to his and everybody else's relief, a good drink was more likely to put the brakes on and calm him down. He guessed that was because he was smarter than he used to be. Or just older. Then again, it could be down to the quality of what he was drinking these days.

Either way, it usually did the trick. And right now, he needed calming down.

He drank a glass, then another, and felt his mood gradually begin to lift a little. He stared down towards the lights of the town a few miles below, and the bright slice of moon reflected in the sea beyond.

Silly bastard, he was. Still playing the big man.

He had overreacted, he knew that. He should never have raised his hands, how stupid was that? He would apologise to the bloke, sort things out, send over a good bottle of single malt in the morning.

It wasn't as if nobody ever called him by his real name any more, or that he didn't occasionally hear it whispered in a bar. What did he expect? OK, it hadn't been what he'd called himself for ten years, and the face and hair weren't exactly the same, but 'Alan Langford' was still basically the bloke he saw when he looked in the mirror.

Only the name was dead.

Still, everyone close to him knew how it worked, same as those who had been here a while. They knew there were coppers and friends of coppers all over this stretch of coast like flies on a turd, and stupid things like the name you used could draw attention. Could end up getting you pinched. But a few faces occasionally got careless. Older types from the London days who turned gobby after a drink or two; or recent arrivals who were mooching about, looking to make the right contacts.

Tonight, it had been one of the older boys. A bloke he'd done some business with in the seventies. No harm in him, just a slip of the tongue, and the look on his face when he realised what he'd said was priceless. But still, he'd needed telling.

A week ago, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did. A quiet word would have done it. Now though, with the business back home, with these photographs and everything else, he had every right to feel a bit jumpier than he would be otherwise.

To feel cornered.

Below him, lights drifted across the water as a couple of boats emerged from around the headland and moved into the bay. Night fishermen, probably, nets bulging with squid and sardines.

All this grief because of a photograph. Jesus…

He could just make out the music drifting up from his favourite club on the seafront, the bass-line anyway, like a racing heartbeat. He knew there'd be a few of those in the place tonight – sweaty punters revved up on coke and ecstasy. Soft-top Mercs and Bentleys parked outside and high-quality Russian hookers lined up around the dance floor.

He poured out what was left of the wine and lobbed the empty bottle into the swimming pool.

He was a long way from Hackney.

There had not been too much traffic on the way back from Victoria, and Thorne was home before ten o'clock. Louise had already gone to bed. He thought he had come in quietly enough, but standing in the kitchen, necking water from the bottle, he heard her call out from the bedroom.

He got undressed in the dark.

'I just conked out in front of the TV,' she said. 'Couldn't keep my eyes open.'

'It doesn't matter.'

'I can smell Guinness.'

He got into bed and turned on to his side. Said, 'I had a couple in the Oak with Russell.'

Had Thorne been asked there and then why he was lying, he could not have explained it. The night before, when Louise had asked about his first trip to Wakefield, he had felt as though he were lying when he was being truthful. Now, lying felt a lot less problematic than being honest.

He told himself that he was protecting her. That she was oversensitive at the moment, had been since the miscarriage.