‘No, you’re right, it’s more of a specialised market. Material that’s a bit more aimed at them, a touch more sensitive or what have you. Believe it or not, they like a
story
, you know what I mean? If it’s a film where the hunky plumber comes round, him and the horny housewife usually talk for a while before he starts giving her one. They might even have a cuddle afterwards.’
‘That’s disgusting!’ Thorne said. ‘Does he offer to sleep in the wet patch as well?’
Bethell laughed, high-pitched and scary. The woman looked round, a little alarmed. Thorne smiled and she quickly turned away again.
‘So, let’s have it,’ Thorne said.
Bethell reached into a shoulder-bag and produced a large brown envelope. ‘Right, well, it’s almost certainly Spain.’
‘You serious?’ Thorne fought to keep his voice down. ‘We’d pretty much got to that point ourselves.’
‘Hold on, Mr Thorne. I might be able to tell you which part as well.’ Bethell pulled four large colour prints from the envelope and handed them over. ‘I managed to isolate and enhance the bits of the photos with the boat. Remember the boat in the background?’
Thorne looked at the pictures. ‘I remember. Go on . . .’
Bethell pointed. ‘That’s the Spanish flag. By law, every boat registered in Spain has to fly it. Now, we might be unlucky. I mean, it’s possible that some Spaniard was sailing about off the Greek islands or something, but I doubt it. So, like I said, I reckon Spain’s a fair bet.’
‘You said you could be more specific.’
‘Well, I think you can find out from the registration.’ He pointed to an indistinct black smudge on the boat’s hull, then took out another print in which this section had been blown up to fill the entire frame. Now a series of letters and numbers was blurred but legible. ‘There’s no name, but I reckon this should be all you need. A mate of mine had a boat in Lanzarote and the Spanish are shit-hot when it comes to keeping records about all that stuff.’
From the corner of his eye, Thorne could see the seedy accountant staring, clearly keen as mustard to know what was in the photographs.
‘It’s because they charge extortionate taxes,’ Bethell said. ‘Mooring fees on the boats, harbour taxes, all that. Now, you should be able to trace the owner of this boat and, with a bit of luck, he’ll be able to tell you where he was on this date.’ Just to be extra helpful, Bethell produced a final print in which the date that had been stamped on the original photograph had been blown up. ‘See?’
‘You’re wasted in porn, Kodak.’
‘Nice of you to say, but I don’t think I’m cut out to be a copper.’
‘No, probably not.’
‘They
are
some of my best customers, though.’
Thorne slid the prints back into the envelope. ‘Nice one, Kodak. I think this may be one of those rare occasions when you’ve earned your money.’
‘Talking of which . . .’
‘Sorry, I didn’t bring any cash with me. I thought I’d just make a donation to an appropriate charity.’
‘What?’
‘Something for the blind, maybe?’
‘Funny, Mr Thorne.’
Thorne reached into his jacket pocket and took out the four fifty-pound notes he’d signed out from the
CHIS
fund. These days, only stubborn old sods like himself still used the word ‘snout’. In a prime example of corporate wank-speak, the likes of Dennis Bethell were now officially known as ‘covert human information sources’, even though there was nothing remotely covert about Kodak. Besides which, on this occasion, he was acting more as an expert witness. Not that Thorne or anyone else would ever consider putting him on the stand, of course. Even if Bethell changed his appearance and his occupation went unmentioned, any iota of credibility would disappear as soon as he opened his mouth.
‘Who’s the bloke in the photos anyway?’ Bethell squeaked.
‘A ghost,’ Thorne said.
He thanked Bethell again and Bethell thanked him right back, reminding Thorne that he was always available for this kind of work and handing him a fistful of business cards. ‘Give them out to some of your colleagues, if you get the chance,’ he said. ‘Either for this sort of thing or, you know, I can fix them up with any other
material
they might need.’
Thorne put the cards in his pocket, wondering if Yvonne Kitson might be in the market for a hunky plumber/horny housewife
DVD
. With added cuddling.
‘I’m very discreet.’
‘You couldn’t be discreet if your life depended on it,’ Thorne said.
He moved away, stopping at the foot of the stairs and beckoning the seedy accountant across. The man looked nervous but could not resist the invitation. Thorne drew him close then glanced around to check that the coast was clear, before teasingly pulling out one of the photographs of the boat.
‘Look at the mast on
that
!’ he said.
Friday evening, and the main routes out of the West End were predictably snarled up. Sitting in traffic on Regent Street, Thorne called Brigstocke and told him about the meeting with Bethell. He gave him the registration number of the boat and Brigstocke said he’d get on to it straight away.
‘I wouldn’t bank on getting hold of anybody before Monday, though, even if it was a British boat,’ the
DCI
said. ‘And we’re dealing with the Spanish here, mate.
Manana, manana
, all that . . .’
Thorne told him he was a racist and to let him know as soon as he heard anything.
The
BMW
moved a few feet forwards, then stopped again. Thorne had tuned into talkSPORT, but was only half listening to a discussion about the following day’s football fixtures. Mostly he was thinking about Ellie Langford.
Had her father really spirited her away to Spain?
Thorne realised he knew next to nothing about the missing girl. What had her life been like before she disappeared? What had her plans been? She was eighteen. Had she been planning to go to college or did she already have a job? Was there a boyfriend?
Thorne needed to find out.
He had managed to get across Oxford Street and was waiting at the traffic lights by Broadcasting House. Drizzle had just begun to fall and some pundit or other was talking about Arsenal’s leaky defence when Thorne glanced to his left and saw the woman crying in the car. She had parked twenty yards past the Langham Hotel in a blue Peugeot 405, and at first, Thorne thought she was rocking with laughter at something on the radio or a hands-free call. Then he saw that she was racked with sobs.
He stared . . .
After fifteen seconds or so, he began to feel slightly uncomfortable just sitting there and watching her cry, but he could not look away. He felt the urge to pull over to the kerb, to knock on the window and ask if she was all right. But he sensed that she would not welcome the intrusion; that, although she was parked on a busy street, she would have been horrified at the idea that she had been observed.
He saw her shake her head as though she were arguing with herself, or thought she were being silly.
He watched her cry and cry and cry.
As the lights up ahead changed to amber, Thorne saw a girl – fifteen, maybe less – come out of a house a few yards further up the street and run to the car. He guessed that she was the woman’s daughter, and that the woman had been waiting for her.
Was she collecting her from a friend’s house? From a party?
The woman leaned across the front seats to open the door, then turned away quickly as the girl jumped into the car. Rubbed at her face. Not wanting the girl to see her tears, or at least the extent of them.
It was at that moment, just
for
a moment, that Thorne caught the woman’s eye. Through the rain streaked on his window and on hers, before she turned back to her daughter and Thorne began to pull slowly away.
For the rest of his journey home, past the Nash terraces on the perimeter of Regent’s Park and down Parkway into Camden, he thought about her. Wondering how sudden her collapse had been and if it had happened before. What might make someone sit in a parked car and howl?
Bad news of some sort. A loss, recent or imminent. A diagnosis . . .
Or had it been something more general? Something she was stuck with or settling for? Something about which she could do nothing but sit alone and weep in rage and frustration.
He was still thinking about the woman when he turned off the Kentish Town Road and pulled up outside his flat. He saw Louise’s silver Megane parked a few spaces up on the other side of the street. He was about to get out of the car when the text alert sounded on his phone.
It was a message from Anna Carpenter:
Sorry about being upset outside Donna’s place earlier. Feeling v. stupid! Please don’t think I’m flaky or whatever. I want u to know that I’m up for all this. I’m stronger than I look :0)
Thorne switched the engine back on. He turned the radio off and the heating up. Then he called her.
Friday was the biggest night of the week and, as usual, the club was packed. The dance floor was solid. Even though there was barely room to move, sweat glistened on tanned shoulder-blades and showed in dark patches against expensive white and cream linen. He chatted for a few minutes with the owner, a man he had known for almost as long as he had been in the country, necked a bottle of San Miguel at the bar, then took a complimentary bottle of champagne through to the
VIP
area.
The gorillas flanking the velvet rope smiled as they let him through and tucked the cash he’d palmed them into their pockets.
He knew most of those who were already there; exchanged smiles and a handshake or two on his way to one of the booths. There might occasionally be some lower-tier footballer knocking about with a glamour model in tow, or a mainstream comedian scrabbling for the tourist euro, but most of those deemed to be ‘very important’ in this neck of the woods had earned the label the same way he had.
There were all sorts of ways to be well known.
He had arranged to meet Candela here. She liked to dance and he liked to show her off. Theirs was an on/off arrangement, nothing too serious, but he enjoyed her company, loved what she got up to in bed and thought the feeling was mutual. Tonight, they would have dinner and a few drinks before heading back up to the house. They would sleep late, then, after breakfast, he would take her shopping for something nice.
It was important that some things remained uncomplicated, that a sense of normality was maintained, in spite of what was happening back at home.
One of the many gorgeous waitresses stopped at the booth to open the champagne and pour him a glass. They chatted for a minute or two. She had got down on her knees for him the previous week, earned a
very
good tip that night, but he could not remember her name.
Back at home . . .
It was funny that he still thought of the UK, of London, as home. Strange, because he wasn’t one of those soppy buggers who were forever dreaming about HP Sauce and warm beer. He had happily settled down and got on with his new life, because he’d had no choice. Still, there was an attachment, of course there was, and he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t miss a few things.
Strangest of all, though, in spite of everything that had happened – was still happening – he continued to think fondly of Donna.
He could clearly remember the moment when everything had fallen apart. That helpful voice at the end of a phone: ‘I think you should know what your old lady’s up to, Alan. Who she’s met up with.’ At the time, fired up and raging, he had thought about dishing out the same kind of treatment to Donna that Monahan eventually received a couple of days ago, but that would only have aroused suspicion. It might have scuppered all his plans and caused some copper to start looking at things a bit harder.
He remembered the coverage in the papers after they’d found the car in the woods. The copper in charge: Thorne. He’d looked the type that might have enjoyed a bit of digging.
So, he’d let the anger go and, in the end, as far as Donna was concerned, he’d almost come to admire what the silly cow had done. To understand it, anyway. All that time dressing up and tagging along after him, playing the dutiful wife like a good girl, she had been
learning
. . .
Candela finally appeared looking suitably stunning, and they sat pressed up against each other while she told him about her day. She worked for one of the smartest independent estate agents in the region and was very excited about a Russian businessman who seemed keen on one of her luxury villas in the next town.
‘Him and his friends have
three
viewings,’ she said, holding up her fingers.
Three guesses what kind of business he was in.
When the champagne was finished, Candela went to dance and he moved to the edge of the floor to watch her. He enjoyed seeing the young men trying to get close and the older ones – all those saddos who thought they could still cut it – with their tongues hanging out. He would never dream of dancing himself, that had never been his game, but he wasn’t worried about the competition. Even if some bloke didn’t know who she was with and tried to make a move, she wouldn’t give him the time of day.
She knew where her bread was buttered. Besides which, he reckoned he still looked pretty good for his age. He’d had a little work done – some orthodontics and a dye job, just enough to help with the new ID – but it was mostly about keeping fit. Not eating like an animal, the way some of them did. Full English breakfast like it was going out of fashion and lager with everything.
Candela closed her eyes, shook her hips and ran her hands through her long hair for him. She was gorgeous, no question, but at that age Donna had been every bit as spectacular, in her own way.
And Ellie looked a lot like her mother. Same temper on her, too, which didn’t make things as easy as they might be.
Looking around, he saw a few faces he’d been wanting to get close to for a while and decided that he might do a little business before the evening was over. It was the ideal place. A few drinks, a handshake and the deal was done, which was how he preferred it. The money and the merchandise would be moved by others later, and there would be no need for him to get his hands dirty.