FIFTY-FIVE

Having decided once again to forgo the specialised dining area, they ordered food and took a small table at the end of the bar. The young girl who brought their meals over was clearly used to people making the same decision.

‘Shelley’s tried telling them, but they know best.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Trevor and his wife. It always stinks of bleach and it’s too near the toilets. Puts everyone off, doesn’t it?’ She smiled. ‘Enjoy your dinner . . . ’

Thorne got stuck into ham, egg and chips, while Helen picked somewhat less enthusiastically at scampi and salad. Thorne asked how things had been going with Linda. Helen told him about the visiting order arriving, the visit Linda would be making to Steve Bates in Hewell prison the next day.

‘Nice to see her a bit happier,’ she said.

Thorne nodded, sipped at his pint. ‘Well, with any luck, I reckon we’ll be able to make her even happier pretty soon.’

Helen folded her arms. ‘Oh yeah, when exactly were you planning to tell me about the bugs?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You and Phil working out that they were actually put into the body. That they’d come from somewhere else.’

‘I haven’t seen you, have I?’

Helen reached for her phone, held it up. ‘You heard of these?’

Thorne tried hard not to show his irritation. What about those things Helen had chosen not to share with him? He had only found out about those kids spitting at her because Linda had mentioned it. He felt sure there was plenty else besides.

He took another drink. Said, ‘How did you find out?’

‘I ran into Paula at the hospital yesterday.’

‘How the hell did she know?’

‘She came down from her ward because she’d heard what was going on, that Bates had been brought in. She told me her mate who runs the café had overheard you and Phil talking about it. Bugs and bodies.’

‘Jesus, this place.’

‘I had to pretend I knew what she was talking about.’

‘I hope you told her to keep it to herself.’

‘I think it might be a bit late for that,’ Helen said.

The waitress stopped at their table as she collected glasses and asked if everything was all right. Thorne told her it was and nodded across at Trevor Hare who stopped pulling a pint to wave at them. The place was busy enough, but there was plenty of room at the bar and several empty tables. Thorne wondered if there was a search party out looking for Poppy Johnston tonight.

‘I didn’t tell you about it because there wasn’t anything to tell. It was just a theory of Phil’s, that’s all.’

Helen leaned towards him. ‘It’s a bit more than that now though, isn’t it? I could tell by how pleased with yourself you were looking.’

While they finished eating, Thorne told her exactly where Hendricks thought the bugs had come from and about that morning’s visit to the pig farm. He told her where they had spent the afternoon and why Hendricks would not be coming home.

Helen was excited, the snippiness of a few minutes earlier gone. ‘So we can prove it.’

‘I think so,’ Thorne said. ‘You know how persuasive Phil can be.’

‘That’s fantastic.’ Helen downed the last of her wine. ‘I can’t wait to give Linda some good news.’

Thorne looked at her.

‘What?’

‘You didn’t seem very interested before,’ Thorne said. ‘When I told you I thought Bates wasn’t the killer.’

‘I didn’t want to give her any false hope, that’s all.’

‘“Pissing in the wind.” I think that was how you put it.’ Thorne conjured half a smile to let her know he wasn’t being altogether serious. ‘“Poking around in misery.”’

‘Sorry,’ Helen said. She reached for Thorne’s hand. ‘And sorry about having a go at you just now.’

‘Bloody hell, I’d really hate to be across the table from you in an interview room.’

‘You’ve no idea,’ Helen said.

Thorne went to the bar to get more drinks. When he came back to the table, Helen said, ‘Thanks for doing this, all right?’

‘It’s only a glass of wine.’

‘Seriously.’

‘I’m counting on a fair few brownie points.’

‘Lots.’

Thorne smiled. ‘And I didn’t even need to go antique shopping . . . ’

Helen had called her father after leaving Linda’s and, for a few minutes, she talked about their conversation, every bit as awkward as it had been the first time they’d spoken after the pictures had appeared in the newspaper. She was telling Thorne about the much more enjoyable chat she’d had with Alfie, when she looked up to see a figure approaching from the kitchen.

She sat back. ‘Twat incoming.’

Thorne turned to see Shelley, the poetry-writing chef, striding to the table.

‘All good?’

Thorne said that it was.

‘You didn’t finish.’ The chef pointed to the remains on Helen’s plate.

‘Sorry,’ Helen said. ‘Is there a fine or something?’

Shelley laughed rather too hard and tugged at his beard. He shook the bracelets back down on to his wrist. ‘Long as you enjoyed it.’

‘Ham and eggs was good,’ Thorne said.

Shelley bowed his head in thanks for the compliment, but insisted that he could not take much credit. ‘Local ham’s very good.’

‘Long as it didn’t come from a stolen piglet.’

Shelley laughed again. ‘You’ve been talking to Farmer Bob then, have you? Thinks we’re all thieves.’

‘Not sure that particular pig would be very fresh now anyway.’

The chef stared down at the table. ‘So, you done, then?’ When Thorne said that they were, Shelley shouted the young waitress across and told her to take the plates away. He stepped aside as she reached a little awkwardly for them. Said, ‘Can’t get the staff.’ He watched her walk away towards the kitchen then turned back to Thorne. ‘Just wanted to say that I’m finished in an hour or so if you fancy a drink later on. I enjoyed our conversation the other evening.’

‘I don’t know how long we’ll be staying,’ Helen said.

Shelley nodded. ‘Well, the offer’s there. I’ll be out in the garden probably, if you fancy one after hours.’ He nodded towards the bar. ‘Can’t see his nibs firing me for that, not with the boxes of knocked-off whisky he’s got piled up in the cellar.’

As the chef walked away, Helen muttered, ‘Wanker.’

‘He’s certainly full of himself.’

‘I saw him the other day with that girl. The waitress. Coming out of one of those buildings in the garden.’

‘That’s where he stays,’ Thorne said.

‘She’s only a kid.’

‘He’s not that old himself.’

‘Probably got her into bed by writing her some shit poem.’ Helen looked disgusted. ‘Look at him.’

Thorne turned and saw that Shelley was standing in the doorway, surveying the crowd proprietorially. He followed the chef’s gaze and saw a young girl who had just come in and was walking a little nervously towards the bar. She was eighteen or thereabouts, hair tied back into a tight ponytail, and from where they were sitting, Thorne and Helen could hear snippets of the conversation when she arrived at the bar.

‘What you having, Rory?’ Trevor Hare seemed pleased to see her. ‘Coke, is it? Or do you fancy going mad? Have a shandy if you want, I shan’t tell anyone.’

‘Coke’s fine,’ the girl said.

As Hare worked the drinks gun, he asked the girl something about her grandfather. She said that he was fine. ‘Well, not fine, but you know.’ She said, ‘Those places are awful though.’

‘Tell him I said hello,’ Hare said, ‘when you see him.’

The girl sipped her drink for a while, raising her head to cast a glance towards Thorne and Helen’s table every few minutes.

‘You know her?’ Thorne asked.

‘Never seen her before,’ Helen said.

Once she had finished her drink, the girl stepped away from the bar and walked towards them. She looked as though she was heading for the Ladies, but cut across to their table at the last moment.

‘I saw your picture in the papers,’ she said.

‘OK,’ Helen said.

‘You’re a friend of Linda Bates.’

Helen nodded.

‘Can I sit down?’

Thorne stood up and the girl squeezed in between them. She was slight, with legs like matchsticks in skinny jeans and a short, silver Puffa jacket. Close up, she was pretty, though the heavy make-up was working hard to disguise the fact. She had looked a little severe from a distance and it was hard to know if that was what she wanted or not.

‘This is a bit of a nightmare, actually,’ the girl said. ‘You being a friend of his wife’s. But I’m hoping it means you’ll help me.’

‘Help you how?’ Helen asked.

‘Help me prove Steve didn’t kill anyone.’

The girl looked at Helen and then at Thorne. She was making a fair attempt at hiding her nerves. Eventually, Thorne said, ‘Why don’t you think he killed anyone?’

‘Because the night everyone reckons he took Jessica Toms, he was with me. It was me he was meeting in that pub.’

Helen looked past the girl at Thorne. He gave the smallest of nods, happy to let Helen take the lead.

‘You and Steve were together?’ Helen asked. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’

The girl nodded. ‘Yeah, it was all crap, that stuff about getting a quote or whatever. He’d used the same excuse a couple of times before. We had to meet in places that were a bit out of the way, obviously.’

‘Right,’ Helen said.

‘So, I can give him an alibi, can’t I?’

‘Sounds like it.’

The girl smiled then let out a deep breath. ‘So, what do we do? I need you to tell me the best way to do things, you know?’

‘OK, let’s take it one step at a time,’ Helen said. The girl could easily have passed for eighteen, but Thorne and Helen had both overheard the conversation at the bar. What the landlord had said to her about drinking. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen,’ the girl said. ‘Seventeen in a few months. In six months.’

‘And how long have you and Steve been seeing each other?’

The girl sat back and shook her head. ‘Yeah, I knew you’d ask that.’

‘So, you know why I’m asking.’

‘We started going out a while ago, but we didn’t do anything until I was sixteen, all right? I swear.’

‘OK.’

‘Steve didn’t want to. He’s not like that.’

‘There’s no need to get upset,’ Helen said. ‘We just need to get the facts straight.’

The girl reached into an oversized handbag and took out a compact. She checked her face then laid the mirror on the table. ‘You’re both coppers, right?’

‘Not round here though,’ Helen said.

‘Will you come with me?’ The girl looked at Thorne. ‘When I go to the police?’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ Thorne said. He looked around, recognised the faces of several local officers, though none seemed to be paying him any attention. He exchanged another nod with Trevor Hare, then turned back to the girl. ‘But we’ll tell you exactly what to say.’

‘Promise? Because I’m shitting myself.’

‘Just tell the truth,’ Helen said.

‘I am telling the truth.’

‘I know you are.’

‘We’ll do everything we can,’ Thorne said. He took out his phone. ‘Give me your number and I’ll give you mine. You can call any time, OK?’

The girl took her own phone from her bag, clearly comfortable with this familiar exchange of information. Her hands flew across the keypad as Thorne told her his phone number.

‘Now call me,’ he said. As soon as his phone rang he ended the call. ‘Now, I’ve got your number. What’s your name?’

‘Oh, God.’

‘I heard Trevor call you Rory?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Short for Aurora.’ She clocked Thorne’s look of surprise. ‘Blame my mum. Latin for dawn, apparently. She found it in some book. Could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been called Dawn.’

‘It’s a nice name,’ Helen said.

‘You reckon?’

‘Aurora . . . ?’

‘Harley,’ the girl said. ‘Like the motorbike.’

Thorne added the name to his contacts list. ‘Right, first thing is, you need to get across to the Police Control Unit. Tell them you’ve got important information and they’ll take it from there.’

‘That easy?’

‘To start with, yeah,’ Thorne said. He looked at the girl’s small hands as her fingers drummed against the edge of the table. The chipped pink nail polish. ‘Listen, it’s brave of you to come forward.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Had to, didn’t I?’

‘Not everybody would have done.’

‘Up to them, isn’t it?’

‘Still.’

‘I love Steve and he says he loves me.’

Thorne caught Helen’s pained expression. He guessed she was thinking about Linda. ‘I’m just saying, knowing this place. It might not end up being very easy.’

‘I know what they’re like.’ The girl looked around. ‘It was hard enough just coming over and talking to you two. I could have done with some vodka in that Coke, I tell you.’

‘Well, we’re on your side.’ Thorne looked at Helen. ‘Right?’

Helen was already pushing her chair back, getting to her feet. ‘Excuse me . . . ’

They watched Helen walk quickly away towards the toilets. ‘She your girlfriend?’ the girl asked.

Thorne nodded.

‘Well you know then.’

‘What?’

‘What it’s like when you care about someone.’ She picked up her compact again, checked her make-up. ‘Being brave doesn’t come into it.’

Helen dropped hard on to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and grabbed the edge of the seat with only a few seconds to spare. She retched once, twice, then heaved up the food that the chef had been so proud of, the taste not much better coming up than it had been going down. She carried on retching, her stomach in spasm until there was nothing left. She spat and wiped away the gloopy brown strings then climbed, a little unsteadily to her feet.

She flushed, then stepped out of the cubicle and across to the dirty sink. She threw cold water on to her face and ran wet fingers through her hair.

She didn’t look quite as bad as she felt.

When she came back into the bar a few minutes later, she could see that Thorne and the girl were no longer at the table. She found them on the pavement in front of the pub.

‘I need to go and see Linda,’ she said. ‘Now.’

Thorne nodded.

The girl was looking at her feet.

Helen walked across and wrapped her arms around the girl. Even with a thick jacket, there was nothing of her. She said, ‘Don’t be scared.’ She pulled the girl closer and held on. ‘There’s no need to be scared.’