From the Dead

TWENTY-FIVE

With more than half an hour until going-home time, Anna was delighted to answer the intercom to what sounded like a potential client. If Frank stuck to his usual routine and took the man across the road to discuss business over a drink, then there was every chance he would let Anna leave early. As it was, the man at the front door had no interest in waiting on the street and insisted on talking to Frank in the office, so somewhat disconsolately, Anna buzzed him up.

Having hurriedly cleared the worst of the clutter from his desk, Frank opened the door and showed his visitor to a chair. He immediately apologised for the mess, which he put down to working too hard on cases to have time for cleaning, and for Anna's bike, which was propped against a radiator.

The man seemed unconcerned and keen to get on with it.

Frank handed over a folder filled with laminated testimonials – many of which he had written himself – and told the man a little about the business as he flicked through it. Only then did he introduce Anna, as his associate. The man looked at Anna for the first time and nodded a hello.

Anna smiled and said, 'Nice to meet you.'

'I gather that you specialise in matrimonial work,' the man said, turning his attention back to Frank.

'It's one of several areas-'

'A friend of mine used you and said you were very good.'

'Oh… who was that?' Frank asked. 'It's always nice to hear about another satisfied customer.'

'I'd rather not say.'

'I understand,' Frank said. 'And you can be sure that discretion is very much part of the service we provide.'

'Honey traps, right?'

'Some people call it that,' Frank said. 'We prefer to think of it-'

'Yes or no?'

'Yes,' Frank said. 'Definitely.' He glanced across at Anna, who tried not to look too disgusted at the excitement in his face. The job he had mentioned to her on Friday had failed to materialise. Another in a long list of clients who had gone elsewhere after learning that other agencies provided a more efficient service. 'We can definitely do that.'

'As long as we're clear. So, how much does it cost?'

'It all depends on the circumstances and so on…' Frank was beginning to look a little flustered. 'But there's something I'm not clear about.'

The man looked at Frank, waited.

Frank cleared his throat. 'We're talking about your wife?'

'Girlfriend.'

'Fine, girlfriend. But that still leaves us with the same problem.'

'Which is?'

Frank tried to mask his discomfort with laughter, but it looked and sounded forced. 'Well, normally it's the women who come to agencies like ours, you see, wanting to make sure their husbands aren't playing away from home. We don't actually have any male operatives. I mean, there's me, obviously, but I don't really… I'm hardly likely to trap anybody, so…'

'It's not a problem,' the man said.

'I don't follow.'

The man nodded towards Anna. 'I presume it's your associate over there who normally does this kind of work.'

Frank told him it was, and that Anna's record in such matters was impeccable.

The man turned to look at Anna again, but she reddened and looked away. 'Well, we should be fine, then.' He raised an eyebrow at Frank. ' She 's just my girlfriend's type.'

Frank's mouth fell open a little, and his cheeks flushed the same colour as one of the roses he favoured. 'Right, got it. So… she. ..'

'Swings both ways,' the man said. 'Either that or I've turned her into a lesbian, I'm not quite sure. I was hoping you might help me find out.'

'Well, I won't lie to you, it's a new one on me, but I don't see any reason for us not to take it on.' He reached for a pen and paper to start taking down the necessary details, but the man stopped him.

'I'll need a word with her alone first,' he said. 'With… Anna, was it?'

'I'm not sure-'

'A few details are a bit… embarrassing, you know?'

'Right.'

'It would be easier if it was just the two of us.'

'It's fine, Frank,' Anna said. 'I'll take him across the road.'

The man thanked her and promised it would not take very long.

Frank was quickly on his feet, seemingly relieved to have an awkward conversation taken off his hands. He told the man that they could talk about costs, run through the different procedures for this kind of operation and so on later. There was no hurry, he said, though that did not stop him barking at Anna to get a move on as she paused at the door to dig around in her shoulder-bag for lip-salve.

The man looked daggers at Frank.

'Well, it's all chargeable time,' Frank said. 'No point in wasting your money, is there?'

Anna led F.A. Investigations' newest client down the stairs, not stopping to release the laughter she had been struggling to contain until they were safely out on the street with the door closed behind them.

'What the hell was that?'

'What?'

'You're off your head, you know that?'

'I suppose I could just have showed him my warrant card,' Thorne said. 'Told him I needed to talk to you.'

Anna laughed again. 'Frank's face…'

'But then he would've wanted to know what was going on at some point, and I'm guessing you've still not told him about the case.'

'What case?' Anna said, the laugh trailing away.

'Right. That's what we need to talk about.'

For ten seconds or more, she clearly found it hard to sound as angry as she felt, so she watched the traffic and let it build. 'I don't have a case any more, do I?'

'No.'

'Not since you told Donna to sack me.'

'Let's go and get a drink,' Thorne said.

They walked across the road and into Frank's favourite bar. Thorne bought a Diet Coke for himself and a glass of wine for Anna, and they chose a table by the window. It was still a little early for those wanting a quick one on the way home, or several slow ones after a hard day, so the place was relatively quiet. The muted, hesitant exchanges between the two people by the window did little to change anything.

'What am I supposed to tell Frank?' Anna asked. 'When I go back to the office without his new client.'

'Anything you like,' Thorne said.

'That's helpful.'

'Tell him I was just wasting your time. That I was some kind of freak or whatever.'

' Control freak.'

'Listen-'

She leaned towards him. 'Why the hell does everybody think they have the right to run my life?'

'I don't think that.'

'That I'm somehow incapable of deciding what's best for me.' Anna was drinking quickly, half her large glass of red gone in two gulps. 'First it's my stupid bloody mother. Now it's you.'

'This isn't about what's best for you,' Thorne said. 'It's about what's best for my case. I've got a job to do and, to be honest, you're really not helping.'

She blinked slowly, took another drink.

'I'm sorry, but the fact is… you're a liability.' Guessing correctly that Anna would react badly if she thought she were being patronised, Thorne had decided on a harder approach, but he had not banked on seeing her face fall quite so far.

How bad it would make him feel.

'Oh, cheers,' she said.

'You said yourself, you're still learning the ropes.'

'And…?'

'And part of that is knowing when to step back and admit that you're out of your depth.'

'What did you say to Donna?'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You're a bloody liar.' She emptied her glass and, without a word to Thorne, got up, walked to the bar and bought herself another. Thorne watched, beginning to wish that he had done this over the phone.

Anna started talking before she was back in her chair. 'Donna said that, because the police were now so heavily involved in trying to find her ex-husband, she didn't need my services any more, or some shit like that. But I knew damn well that you put her up to it.'

'I asked her to do me a favour.'

'Because I'm a "liability".'

'Because it's dangerous… Jesus!' Thorne took a breath and lowered his voice. 'You're not stupid, Anna. You know very well what we're dealing with.'

'I told you I wasn't scared after Monahan was killed.'

'Right, and I told you that you should be. And I told you to back off, because I knew that was never going to be the end of it.'

Anna grasped the implication straight away. 'Who else?'

Thorne told her about Howard Cook, taking care to mention the bloodstains on the road outside his house and the brain-matter found baked into the shattered windscreen of the burned-out car. He did his level best to describe how devastated the man's widow was.

'That's horrible,' Anna said, finally. 'But it doesn't really make any difference.'

'What?'

'This man you're after is only killing anyone who can hurt him, witnesses or whatever. He-'

'Don't try to make him sound reasonable.' Thorne's voice was quiet, but there was steel in it. 'He's anything but reasonable.'

'He's a businessman, right?'

'He has people killed, Anna.'

'But there's no reason why he would ever-'

'You can't presume to know what the likes of Alan Langford are willing to do,' Thorne said. 'Basic rule. You never presume.'

Anna laughed, but it was aggressive, like a slap. 'You presume all the bloody time!' She smacked down her glass, splashing wine across the tabletop. 'You presume that I'm scared and out of my depth and that I'll screw things up. You presume to take work away from me, then sit there like some… authority, when you're clearly as much of a fuck-up as anyone.' She stood up, shaking her head, then bent to dab at the spillage with a napkin while scrabbling for her bag and jacket with the other hand. 'And worst of all, stupidest of all, you presume that I like you enough to let you get away with it.'

Thorne watched her leave, pushing past a couple in the doorway, searching for a gap in the traffic then running across the road. Her hair was flying and her bag bounced against her hip as she went.

Unpleasant as it had been, Thorne presumed he'd done what he came for.