From the Dead

' Used to,' Thorne said. 'She just lost her job.'

'Oh come on-'

'What do you want, Anna?'

She climbed a couple of steps, then leaned towards Thorne and held out a hand. He took the piece of paper she was brandishing.

'It's Donna's address.'

'Haven't we been through this?'

'Just go and see her,' Anna said. 'Please.'

'There's no point.' Thorne rubbed at his bare forearms, shook his head. 'Look, I don't want to see her and I very much doubt she'd be too keen on seeing me.'

'I phoned her. She knows I've spoken to you.'

'So, phone her again. Tell her I'm not coming.'

'Just go round there for half an hour.' Anna took another step up towards the door. 'That's all I'm asking. If you still feel like it's a waste of time, fair enough.'

'I will.'

'Meaning you'll go, right?'

'I thought you were just misguided this morning,' Thorne said. 'Now I think you're misguided and pushy.' He looked down at the slip of paper. An address in Seven Sisters.

'You got changed.'

Thorne looked up. 'What?'

'This morning,' Anna said, pointing, 'you looked like you couldn't wait to get out of that suit.'

Thorne suddenly felt rather self-conscious in his rattiest jeans, socks and T-shirt; even more so when he sensed Louise at his shoulder. He opened the door a little wider, so that she and Anna could see each other, made the introductions.

'I'm really sorry to disturb you,' Anna said. 'I'm just being pushy.'

'It's OK,' Louise said, not really getting it. 'And you're welcome to come in, you know. I might go to bed, but if the pair of you have got stuff to talk about…'

Anna mumbled a thank-you and looked at her feet.

'It's fine,' Thorne said. 'We're about done.'

FIVE

For a few uncomfortable seconds, before reaching into his pocket for his warrant card, Thorne could only stare at the woman who had opened the door. She had short, bottle-blonde hair and a blank expression, her face thin and hard in spite of the bronze foundation and dark brown eyes.

Thorne was trying to keep the reaction from his face, the amazement that Donna Langford could have changed quite so much, when a second woman appeared from a doorway a few feet down the hall. Realising his mistake, Thorne nodded his recognition and she did the same. She said, 'It's OK,' and the woman at the door stepped back, her face finally softened by a sly smile, to let Thorne inside.

'You haven't changed much.' Donna said.

The flat was in the middle of a two-storey block on a busy road between the stations at Seven Sisters and South Tottenham. There were ornamental plastic animals – rabbits, turtles, herons – lined up along the path to the door and scattered around a front garden almost completely cast into shadow by a giant satellite dish. The orthodox Jewish community of Stamford Hill lay half a mile away, with the up-and-coming middle-class enclave of Stoke Newington a few minutes further south, but Donna Langford was living in one of the few areas in London where you could still buy a place for less than six figures and the pound shops outnumbered the Starbucks.

As comedowns went, it was steeper than most.

Donna introduced the blonde woman as Kate and asked Thorne if he wanted tea. While Kate went to the kitchen to fetch the drinks, Donna led Thorne into a smoky living room. As Thorne took it in – a small leather sofa and matching armchair, a plasma TV that all but filled the wall above the gas fire – Donna sat down and reached for the pack of cigarettes lying on a low, glass-topped table.

'Housing association,' she said. 'Kate found it.'

Thorne nodded. He could still hear the working-class Essex upbringing in her voice. If anything, it was stronger now than it had been before, the result of ten years inside trying to pretend she was tougher than she was. He thought about the last time he had visited this woman at her home – a surprisingly tasteful mock-Tudor pile in the Hertfordshire countryside. 'You couldn't even fit your old kitchen inside this place,' he said. He remembered the echo and the gleaming, dust-free surfaces. 'Never seen so much marble in my life.'

Donna blew out a plume of smoke and tossed the disposable lighter on to the table. 'I probably cooked in that kitchen three times,' she said. 'Never knew where anything was.'

'What happened to the house?'

'Gone. Same as everything else.'

'Right, yeah.' Thorne sat down on the sofa. He remembered that Donna had been the main beneficiary of her husband's will, that for a while this had been considered her motive for wanting him killed. As it had transpired, there was far less to inherit than anyone had thought – the majority of Alan Langford's assets turning out to have been paper – with the little that was tangible seized by the Serious Organised Crime Agency before Donna had even been sentenced. 'So, not a lot to come out to?'

'I had plenty,' Donna said. She shrugged, reached for a large glass ashtray and pulled it towards her. 'My priorities had changed.'

Kate shouted from the kitchen, asking if Thorne wanted sugar. He shouted back, letting her know that he did not.

'Actually,' Donna said, 'you've put on a bit of weight.'

'Yeah, well.' Thorne smiled, unamused. 'We've all changed.'

She too was heavier than she had been ten years before, puffy-faced and jowly, while her hair, which Thorne also recalled that she had been inordinately proud of, was grey and far from perfectly coiffured. She was still prison-pale and, on top of the smoking habit, she had acquired a wariness that Thorne had seen in many with a few years inside under their belt. She shifted focus every few seconds, the circles beneath her eyes as blue-black as bruises.

She might have been the mother of the woman Thorne had last seen a decade earlier.

'Her Majesty does pretty good makeovers,' Donna said, seeing what Thorne was thinking. She nodded towards Kate, who was coming through the door with three mugs and a packet of biscuits. 'Not that bloody drastic, though.'

Thorne looked from Donna to Kate. 'Sorry.'

Donna leaned over, smirking, to stub out her cigarette. 'You thought she was me, didn't you?'

Thorne looked again and saw that Donna's companion was at least ten years younger than he had originally taken her for, ten years younger than Donna herself. He also noticed the delicate swirls of blue that snaked up from below the neck of her T-shirt. He could just make out a 'D' and an 'O' and guessed what the rest of the tattoo spelled out. Now he could see that there was no physical similarity whatsoever between the two women. What had seemed familiar to him was merely something they shared in their expressions: a suspicion, a challenge, an invitation to judge.

He had simply recognised an ex-con.

Kate smiled as she handed Thorne his tea, that invitation even clearer this time. 'Me and Donna met in Holloway, a couple of years back.'

'I'm thrilled for you,' Thorne said.

'I was released nine months ago. Got all this set up for us.'

'It's quite lovely.'

Kate bent down and took a cigarette from the packet on the table. 'Donna said you were a wanker.'

'Sorry, I just don't give a toss,' Thorne said.

Kate shrugged, like that made sense, and lit the cigarette. She took two good, deep drags. 'So, you going to find her ex, then?'

Thorne held up his free hand. 'Look, I'm just here because someone asked me, OK? And because I'm an idiot.'

Kate took two more cigarettes from the pack and slipped them into her shirt pocket. 'I'll leave you to get on with it.'

'You don't need to go,' Donna said.

But Kate was already at the door, her back to them, waggling her fingers in a goodbye.

When the door closed, Donna said, 'I couldn't do this without her.'

'Do what?'

'You saw the photograph of Alan.'