THIRTY-ONE

‘That’s an even nicer suit than you were wearing last time I was here.’

Once again, DI Tim Cornish glanced down at his jacket. He ran a thumb and finger down his shiny tie. ‘I’m going to court this morning.’

‘It’s only the remand hearing.’

Cornish pulled on his e-cigarette. ‘You should see what I’ve got lined up for the trial,’ he said.

Thorne returned the DI’s smile. It was only the latest of many he had seen since he’d walked into Nuneaton station. Outside in the main incident room, the atmosphere was very different to the one he might have expected on a cold Monday morning. It felt like being at school on the last day before the holidays. ‘Nice way to start the week,’ he said.

‘You brought a cake?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, a card then, at least. Seeing as you’re here to congratulate us.’

‘I’ll put one in the post after you’ve got your conviction,’ Thorne said.

‘See as you do.’ Cornish was on his feet, busying himself. He was putting papers into a briefcase, taking others out. He checked his phone every minute or so.

‘I’ve just got one stupid question,’ Thorne said.

Cornish glanced at his phone again. ‘They’re my favourite.’

‘I was just wondering when the last time was that the woods were searched. Where you found the body.’

‘You mean last time they were searched before we found the body, obviously.’

‘Right.’

Cornish thought for a few moments, looked distracted. ‘Well, I’d need to check to be absolutely sure. Like I said before, the whole search procedure has been a nightmare because of the flooding.’

‘Those woods weren’t flooded though.’

‘No, course not. I just meant the organisational side of it.’ His phone pinged. He checked the text, put it back on his desk. ‘It would definitely have been a couple of days earlier, maybe even the day before.’

‘With cadaver dogs?’

‘That I couldn’t tell you. Like I said, I’d need to check.’ He looked at Thorne. ‘Why?’

‘I was up there yesterday.’

‘Oh yeah? Just out for a stroll?’

‘Place is crawling with dog-walkers.’

‘Good job, or we might never have found her.’

‘Why wasn’t she found before though?’

‘I couldn’t tell you.’

‘There’s people out there with dogs every day,’ Thorne said. ‘Morning and night. So why did it take until yesterday for one of those dogs to find the body?’

Cornish just looked at him. He drew on his e-cig, the tip glowing blue. He raised his arms.

‘Sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I told you it was a stupid question . . . but it’s not like the grave site was in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn’t been cordoned off yesterday, there’d have been dogs all over the place, same as there normally is.’

‘I’m honestly not trying to sound funny,’ Cornish said, ‘but you’ll have to take that up with those dogs. One of them found her and that’s all we need.’

‘How can she have been there that long though?’

‘Well, other than being certain she was buried some time before we nicked Bates, we can’t really be sure how long she was there, can we?’

‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ Thorne said.

Cornish talked across him. ‘We can be a bit more confident about how long she’d been dead for.’

Cornish’s demeanour was still cheerful enough, but Thorne could sense an irritation being held in check, over and above the fact that the DI was busy, or trying hard to appear so. It was understandable. Thorne had yet to make his suspicions clear, but his questions implied a scepticism that would have been unwelcome at almost any stage of the investigation into Stephen Bates. Today of all days, he was well and truly spoiling the party.

He decided to rein himself in a little. ‘Yeah, I gather it was in a bit of a state.’

Cornish nodded. You know what it’s like, we’ve both seen them.

‘Jessica, right?’

Cornish nodded again. ‘We couldn’t have a formal ID because there was no way I was going to let her parents see her like that. There was a bracelet they were able to identify. Rest is down to dental records, which we should have back later today.’

‘I was told she was burned too.’

Cornish did not seem overly concerned about who might have done the telling. He had clearly become as used to the leaking and the jungle drums as Thorne had. ‘Not completely, but enough to get rid of his DNA. Bates knew what he was doing.’

Thorne nodded, thinking that you’d have to be fairly dim not to know that burning would be a handy way to destroy evidence. ‘Left a fag-end behind though, right?’

‘Right. Caught in the plastic.’ There was a little curiosity now, a narrowing of the eyes, but Cornish kept it in check. ‘We got a ninety-five per cent match on that before close of play yesterday. Be a hundred by the time the lab boys have finished.’

‘Can’t argue with that.’

‘They always do something stupid, right?’

‘Like the porn on his hard drive,’ Thorne said.

Cornish grunted and moved behind his desk to look for something in one of the drawers. Busy, busy, busy. There was a burst of laughter from the incident room. A cheer.

‘Nasty stuff?’

‘It’s all nasty.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Thorne said.

‘Bates likes teenage girls.’

‘Or women who look like teenage girls.’

Cornish stopped and smiled, took another drag. ‘Listen, the man himself is due in court in an hour, so some of us need to get a shift on.’

‘Sorry,’ Thorne said. He stepped back towards the door, giving Cornish space to go about his business.

‘No worries. Any other time, you know . . . ’

‘What you were saying before. About the time of death?’

Cornish took a second to focus. ‘The entomologist is still working on his report, but there was no shortage of bugs and beetles.’ Another beep and he snatched up his phone again; a few swipes and stabs at the screen. ‘We’re talking weeks.’

‘Killed her just after he took her then.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Looks?’

‘I’m not an idiot,’ Cornish said. ‘I mean I do realise she was dead well before she went into that bag or the bag went into that hole in the woods. Blowflies don’t burrow through two feet of soil to infest a body, do they? They’re flies, not moles . . . there’s a clue in the name. There weren’t holes in the bin-liner.’

‘So what did he do with her after he killed her?’

Cornish looked up. ‘Well, eventually, he buried her.’

Thorne cocked his head, said nothing.

Cornish stared just long enough to make it clear that a line was being drawn. He dropped his e-cig into the top pocket of his jacket and said, ‘Right then.’ He picked up his case and fastened it as he moved towards the door. ‘Look, it’s all extra. Stuff like his dodgy browsing history. It’s icing on the cake, right? We’ve got a body, we’ve got his DNA, we know he lied about the girls being in his car. A jury is not going to take very long, put it that way.’

‘So, he’s stuffed.’

‘Comprehensively.’

‘You’ve done a good job,’ Thorne said. ‘Wish they were all that easy.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said it was “easy”, but it’s definitely not a case we need any help with. See what I’m saying?’ Cornish opened the door and waited for Thorne to leave ahead of him. ‘How’s your other half doing with Bates’ wife?’

Thorne looked at him. At that moment, Helen was on her way to the magistrates’ court too, with Linda Bates. She and Thorne had arranged to meet for lunch in the centre of Nuneaton as soon as they were both free.

‘She’s doing OK.’

‘That’s good.’

‘A shoulder to cry on, you know?’

‘Poor cow.’ Cornish blinked at Thorne. ‘Linda Bates.’

‘Listen, would you mind if I had a quick look at the file?’

Cornish pulled the door to his office closed and studied Thorne for a second or two. He patted his top pocket. ‘Like I said, we don’t really need any . . . input, so is there a good reason why you’d want to do that?’

Thorne watched a young woman walking towards them. ‘Not really.’

‘Just as a professional courtesy, kind of thing, right?’ Cornish spoke calmly enough, but made it obvious that he believed both ‘professional’ and ‘courtesy’ to be words that Thorne was, at best, no more than dimly acquainted with.

The woman, who was wearing jeans and a tailored leather jacket touched Cornish on the shoulder and said, ‘Have fun, boss.’

‘Holiday reading,’ Thorne said.

He dragged the contents of two thick manila folders out and laid them on the empty desk Cornish had pointed him towards. As he organised them, Thorne was aware that he was being watched by several of Cornish’s team, who made no attempt to disguise the fact.

He looked up and caught the eye of the woman he had seen ten minutes earlier outside Cornish’s office. He smiled at her. An older man at a desk opposite was staring; nose like an old spud, twisting an elastic band around his fingers. Thorne gave him a smile too. He said, ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of some tea?’ and the man slowly turned back to whatever it was he should have been doing.

Any information pertaining to the Bates investigation would have been entered immediately it had been gathered on to HOLMES – the home office large computer system – but Thorne still preferred hard copy. The feel of documents, a picture you could hold up to the light. You could miss things, scrolling through pages on a screen.

A creature of habit, like Helen had suggested.

His eyes were drawn immediately to the photographs of Jessica Toms’ body.

Mush in a bin-bag . . .

Cornish had been right; the body had only been partially burned, was not blackened except where it had putrefied. The heat had been enough to open the skin, but had left enough muscle and fat to attract the insects. Thorne had seen all this before: the remains more liquid by now than solid; tissue all but gone from the head and around the natural orifices; the creamy strips of bone beginning to show through the sludge.

A couple of weeks at least.

He set the photographs aside to read through the initial reports following the abductions of Jessica Toms and Poppy Johnston. The bald facts: dates, times last seen, witness statements.

He studied the results of the search at Bates’ house and garage. The analysis of data on his mobile phone and computer, including the times he had visited websites such as Barely Legal and Teasing Teens. He looked at the report confirming a DNA match between material found in Stephen Bates’ Vauxhall Nova and samples provided by the parents of both missing girls.

He read through the statements given by Stephen Bates. The transcripts of several interviews. The lies, signed to. Then he looked over the interview that Bates’ wife had given the day before.

Looking at their questions, he could sense the frustration of Cornish and Sophie Carson.

It was impossible to tell if Linda Bates was covering for her husband. If she was, it was equally difficult to tell if that was because she believed him to be wholly innocent. Thorne had watched the partners of plenty of men and women they knew to be guilty as sin, lying through their teeth for no other reason than they loved them.

He would ask Helen what she thought.

Thorne stuffed the papers and printouts back into their folders and stacked them one on top of the other. He looked up and saw that once again he had the undivided attention of the man with the elastic band.

Thorne blanked him, because he didn’t feel much like smiling any more.

Then he picked up the photographs of Jessica Toms’ body again. He laid them in a line and stared at them until it began to feel indecent.