'Oh yeah.'
'Ten years ago?'
'You don't know him,' Donna said. Her voice dropped away as the anger took hold. 'First he… takes her. Then he sends these photographs to rub it in. To make sure I suffer as much as possible.' She had taken out another cigarette and was struggling with a disposable lighter. 'He's showing me how great his life is, now that I've got nothing.'
Anna stepped in and steadied Donna's hand so she could light her cigarette.
'Now that he's taken away the only good thing I ever had.'
'We'll find her,' Anna said.
'I'm dead if you don't, simple as that.' Donna sucked hard at the cigarette, her cheeks sinking with each draw. 'Dead in all the ways that matter, anyway. You lose a child, the best bit of you dies, that's all there is to it.'
Anna stepped back. She pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and looked at the pavement.
'Any idea at all where he might be?' Thorne asked. 'I know you must have thought about it…'
'Spain's a bit obvious, but he did know a few people down there. Ex-business colleagues of one sort or another.'
'Remember any names?'
'You'd be better off asking some of your lot,' she said. 'The organised crime mob, or whatever they're called now. We had so many of that bunch knocking on the door over the years that Alan was on first-name terms with most of them.'
If Langford was in Spain, it would certainly make sense to speak to the people Donna was talking about. These days that meant SOCA, so Thorne made a mental note to ask Brigstocke how he'd got on with them. Then he would chase up Dennis Bethell, see if his friendly neighbourhood pornographer had made any progress with the photographs.
'We'll be in touch,' Thorne said.
Donna took care to give Anna a hug before turning and walking up the path. Thorne did not even warrant a goodbye. Standing at the car door, he could see Kate looking down from an upstairs window, though whether she was watching him or Donna, he could not be sure.
Thorne started the engine, cranked up the bluegrass CD. Then he turned and saw the look on Anna's face.
'What?' He turned off the engine. 'Anna?'
There were no tears, but it looked as though they might be on the cards. 'It's just all that stuff about her daughter,' Anna said. 'It upsets me.' She shook her head, said, 'Stupid,' and glanced at him. 'I'm sure you have to get… hardened or whatever to that kind of thing, what with some of the stuff you see. I mean, it's just stories in the newspapers for the rest of us, you know? Dead kids…'
'You don't get hardened,' Thorne said.
'Sorry, I'll be OK in a minute.'
'Take your time.'
'Have you got kids?'
'No,' Thorne said. He started the engine again, told her he would run her back to Victoria.
'That's miles out of your way.' She rooted in her bag, pulled out a small pack of tissues. 'Haven't you got to get back to Hendon?'
'It's really not a problem.'
'I'll be fine,' she said. 'Just drop me at a tube.'
The argument picked up where it had left off; Kate on her way down the stairs as Donna came through the front door.
'How did that go?'
Donna ignored the question, threw her coat across the banister and walked past her girlfriend into the kitchen. Kate followed, asked the same question.
'Why would you care?'
'Come on, Don…'
'You've already made your opinion perfectly clear.'
Kate sat at the small table. 'Look, I was just warning you about getting your hopes up.'
'My hopes?'
'I don't want you to be miserable.'
'You're making me miserable, because you're not supporting me.'
'You're wrong,' Kate said.
'I don't need people being negative.' Donna slapped her hand against a cupboard door. 'I've had years of that. I need you to back me up.'
'I've always backed you up. I'm just saying go steady, that's all. You're pinning everything on that copper and that soppy girl and if you're not careful-'
'What?'
'You just might be in for a shock, that's all.'
'You think she's dead, don't you?'
'I never said that.'
'You think my Ellie's dead? I will not listen to that crap.'
'You're not listening to anything…'
Donna flicked the kettle on, paced up and down the five feet of worn linoleum. 'I know what this is about,' she said.
'It's not about anything, OK? I just think you need to be realistic.'
'You're threatened by her,' Donna said. 'You're threatened by Ellie.'
'Don't be stupid.'
Donna nodded, suddenly sure of herself. Spitting out the words. 'You think that if I had my daughter around, I wouldn't have time for you. You're scared shitless about being number two.'
'You're pathetic.'
'I should have worked it out before,' Donna said. 'Same as when we were inside. You were always a stupid, jealous bitch.'
'How can I be jealous of someone who isn't even here? Someone you don't even know?'
'I know you, though,' Donna said. 'I fucking know you!'
'You don't know anything.' Kate stood up and walked to the door. 'You don't know anything, and I can't help you.'
They stared at each other for a few seconds, until Kate turned and walked out. Donna leaned against the kitchen worktop, feeling the anger and the panic wheeze in her chest as the grumbling of the kettle grew louder behind her.
THIRTEEN
No more than a couple of days into it, Dave Holland had to face the fact that they might never discover the identity of the man who had died in Alan Langford's place.
It wasn't that the numbers were daunting. Although more than two hundred thousand people were reported missing each year, only a third of them were adults. Of those, the majority were found safe and well within seventy-two hours, and almost ninety-nine per cent turned up within a year. So the number still missing ten years on was in the dozens rather than the hundreds. The parameters within which Holland was working narrowed down the search even further. He was looking for a man of roughly the same height and build as Alan Langford, who had probably been reported missing a week or two either side of the body being discovered in Epping Forest.
