From the Dead by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page A

until he had finished it, he went over some of the same ground he had covered with Anna Carpenter. Donna had received the photograph two months earlier in a plain brown envelope addressed to her at HMP Holloway. There had been no accompanying note. Two more pictures had followed, both delivered in the same way. Then, a fortnight ago, after her release, a fourth had arrived at the flat.
    Donna showed Thorne the three other photos. They were all from the same batch, dated three months earlier, each shot showing the man in more or less the same pose, holding up his glass of beer or drinking from it. The same triumphant grin. The same sea and sky, the same black mountain and distant boat.
    â€˜No helpful postmark, I suppose?’ Thorne asked.
    â€˜All posted in London,’ Donna said.
    â€˜You keep the envelopes?’
    â€˜I didn’t think. Sorry.’
    Thorne stared down at the photographs laid out on the table, listened to the rustle and click of the lighter, the faint hiss as Donna lit another cigarette.
    â€˜Why didn’t you come to us straight away?’ Thorne asked.
    â€˜Because I knew you’d be like this. Suspicious. I knew you’d think I was full of shit.’
    â€˜But you didn’t mind when Anna came to see me?’
    â€˜She’s a nice girl,’ Donna said. ‘But to be honest, I don’t think she does much more than fetch and carry. I’d rather you lot weren’t involved, no point me pretending otherwise, but if it’s the only way I’m going to find out . . .’
    â€˜Find out why the photos are being sent?’
    Donna nodded. Her eyes were closed and smoke drifted from the corner of her mouth.
    â€˜And who’s sending them?’
    â€˜Where he is,’ she said. ‘I want to know where that bastard is.’
    Thorne fought the temptation to make some crack about knowing exactly where Donna’s ex-husband was, about there not being an awful lot left of him, seeing as how he had essentially been cremated twice. He watched as Donna reached for another stack of photographs from a small sideboard, flicked through them, then passed a couple across.
    These were much older. Donna and Alan Langford dressed up to the nines on an evening out. Black tie for him, cocktail dress for her, and best smiles for the camera.
    â€˜Looks fancy,’ Thorne said.
    â€˜Some charity bash or other.’ Donna spat the words out as if she now saw what a sham her life had been back then. The contented wife. The gangster masquerading as philanthropist. She pointed from one image of her ex-husband to the other; from a photograph taken a dozen years earlier to one dated a few months ago. ‘You can see it’s him, can’t you?’
    Thorne looked. He could not deny the resemblance.
    â€˜Alan had a scar,’ Donna said. ‘He got knifed in the belly when he was a teenager, some ruck in the local pub.’ She pointed again at the photo of the older man and Thorne saw the mark: a pale line just above the crinkled waistband of the swimming shorts, clear against the sagging, brown gut. ‘I reckon he’s had a bit of work done – something around the eyes is different and he’s dyed his hair – but it’s definitely him.’
    â€˜All right, for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s him . . .’
    â€˜Christ Almighty!’ She sighed, dropped back in her chair. ‘Your eyesight going as well, is it?’
    â€˜Look, if it’s him, it’s a fair bet he’s not spending his time playing bowls and doing the gardening, right?’
    She nodded. ‘He’ll be into something dodgy.’
    â€˜So, I’ll put in a word with SOCA and see what they want to do with it, OK? I can’t really do any more than that.’
    â€˜If it’s him, don’t you want to know how ?’ She knocked the worm of ash from her cigarette. ‘How he can still be alive, swanning around in the