Good as Dead by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page A

not.’
    ‘You knew he was angry though, right?’
    ‘Javed has been angry for a long time.’
    Barndale was a medium-sized Young Offenders Institution thirty-five miles north-west of London; its location in an area of lush Buckinghamshire countryside a constant source of irritation to the well-heeled residents in the nearby towns of Chorleywood and Amersham. From Javed Akhtar’s shop, Thorne had driven north and crossed the river at Chelsea Bridge. The blue light cleared a path through the traffic into Earls Court and Kensington until he picked up the Westway at White City. Even without the flashing light, it was only ten minutes in the outside lane from there to the M40, then a couple of junctions on the M25 and they would be there. No more than forty minutes all told.
    ‘Javed doesn’t think that Amin killed himself,’ Thorne said. ‘He wants me to prove it. To find out what happened.’
    Nadira laughed derisively. ‘I want to win the lottery, so what?’
    ‘You’re not holding people at gunpoint until you do though.’
    She turned to him. She was ashen. She said, ‘What is it that you want?’
    ‘You can start by telling me you think he’s wrong. About what happened at Barndale.’
    ‘My son took his own life,’ she said. She might have been telling Thorne her son’s name or how old he was. A simple statement of fact. ‘He could not cope with what had happened to him. What was happening to him every day. He was not … a hard boy.’
    ‘So why does your husband believe that he was killed?’
    She thought about it for half a minute. ‘It’s easier for him to believe that, perhaps. He likes to think that everyone is lying to him.’ She stretched her legs out, but they still did not reach the end of the footwell. ‘He doesn’t really sleep any more, so there is a lot of time for brooding on things and for foolish ideas to take hold.’
    ‘What about you?’ Thorne asked.
    ‘Me, what?’
    ‘How are you sleeping?’
    She gave a small shrug, and smoothed out the material of her sari against her legs. ‘I have some pills. It’s fine.’ She glanced at Thorne. ‘You have to move on.’
    Nadira Akhtar sounded fine. She spoke as if she had come to terms with what had happened to her son in a way that her husband had not, but Thorne could sense the anguish beneath the matter-of-fact exterior. He knew this was how couples coped sometimes. How they handled disaster. There was little point in both partners going to pieces and, if one did, the other had to at least maintain the pretence of getting on with things. Hadn’t he and Louise done much the same thing after the miscarriage?
    All a front, of course, but one that had served its purpose for a time.
    Nadira had other children, a life to live, a business to keep afloat. It was understandable that she should at least seem to have adjusted to the death of her youngest child so much better than Javed.
    ‘You’ll need to help him,’ Thorne said.
    Before Nadira could answer, her mobile rang. She fished it from her bag, then spoke in Hindi for a few minutes. She sounded agitated, but had calmed down by the time she ended the call.
    ‘My eldest son,’ she explained. ‘He is waiting for me back there, with the police. He is very upset.’
    ‘I’ll get you back as soon as I can.’ Thorne checked in his rear-view and raised a hand to the driver of the squad car that had followed him from south London. The squad car flashed its lights in acknowledgement. ‘There’s an officer on the scene who specialises in these situations,’ he said. ‘She thinks you might be able to help. That it might be good if you talked to Javed.’
    ‘We would only argue,’ Nadira said. ‘He won’t listen to me.’
    ‘Will you try?’
    She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
    ‘There’s a woman in there with your husband who has a young child. She’s very scared.’
    ‘He won’t hurt anyone.’
    ‘Are you certain about that?’
    She reached into her bag and