From The Dead by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online

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.’

    ‘I saw a photograph,’ Thorne said.

    ‘Come on, you know it’s him.’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘You know Alan’s still alive.’

    Thorne took a slurp of tea. Deciding he might just as well stay 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.

    ‘No helpful postmark, I suppose?’ Thorne asked.

    ‘All posted in London,’ Donna said.

    ‘You keep the envelopes?’

    ‘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.

    ‘Why didn’t you come to us straight away?’ Thorne asked.

    ‘Because I knew you’d be like this. Suspicious. I knew you’d think I was full of shit.’

    ‘But you didn’t mind when Anna came to see me?’

    ‘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 . . .’

    ‘Find out why the photos are being sent?’

    Donna nodded. Her eyes were closed and smoke drifted from the corner of her mouth.

    ‘And who’s sending them?’

    ‘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.

    ‘Looks fancy,’ Thorne said.

    ‘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.

    ‘Alan had a