From the Dead by Mark Billingham Page A

seated near the window, as he went. Even before he had sat down, Jesmond was shaking his head, then raising his arms in theatrical disbelief and giving it his best, matey ‘What can you do?’ expression.
    â€˜No sense to it, Tom,’ he said. ‘No sense at all. Just chalk it up.’
    Chalk it up? You pathetic, pussy-arsed tosser.
    â€˜Right,’ Thorne said.
    â€˜You did everything you could. You did a fantastic job.’
    So, it’s my fault? thought Thorne. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
    â€˜Just put it behind you. Get back on the horse.’
    Why are you here ?
    â€˜Now, obviously, I came in to gee the team up a bit in the wake of this Chambers fiasco, but seeing as I’m here . . .’
    Here we go . . .
    Jesmond leaned forward, leafing through the papers in front of him on the desk. He nodded towards Brigstocke, and Thorne noticed that the bald patch was that little bit bigger than last time; that even though there was less hair, the production of dandruff only seemed to have increased.
    â€˜I’ve been talking to Russell about this Alan Langford thing.’
    Thorne glanced at Brigstocke, whose barely perceptible shrug told Thorne everything he needed to know. DCI was a tricky rank; caught in an uncomfortable limbo between the lads and the brass. ‘Like a cock in a zip,’ Brigstocke had told Thorne once. ‘Up or down, it’s a world of pain.’
    â€˜What thing are we talking about?’ Thorne asked.
    â€˜No need to be arsey, Tom,’ Brigstocke said. ‘You’re not the only one around here in a bad mood.’
    Jesmond waved away the DCI’s concerns. He had not stopped smiling. ‘The same thing that took you to Donna Langford’s this morning.’
    Thorne watched Jesmond’s smile widen as he enjoyed his moment or two of triumph; watched him shake his head as though it meant nothing.
    â€˜I checked the log,’ Jesmond said. ‘No big mystery. I saw the address you’d signed out to for the morning was the same as the one I’ve got in front of me.’ He picked up a sheaf of papers. ‘I started doing my homework yesterday, putting a small dossier together as soon as Russell had filled me in on this photo business.’ He straightened the papers, laid them down again. ‘So, what do we think, Tom? Is Alan Langford still alive and kicking?’
    â€˜I reckon so,’ Thorne said. ‘Either that or he’s got a double.’ It was strange how saying it made Thorne realise that he’d known who the man was from the first moment he’d clapped eyes on the photo. That without quite understanding why, it had been easier to pretend otherwise. But having acknowledged the simple and seemingly harmless fact of it, he still felt as though denial might have been the safer option. As though he were no more than a step or two away from a terrible drop.
    â€˜Well, I don’t think there’s any reason to panic,’ Jesmond said. ‘Russell?’
    Brigstocke was cleaning his glasses. ‘No reason at all. There’s no way a miscarriage-of-justice suit would stick. I mean, regardless of whether the man she wanted dead was the man who actually died, Donna Langford did conspire to kill her husband. She’s certainly not denying that, so there’s no worries on that score.’
    â€˜What about Monahan?’
    â€˜Same thing,’ Brigstocke said. ‘We know he killed somebody , so I can’t see an appeal with any legs coming from that direction either.’
    â€˜Looks like we can all sleep easy in our beds, then,’ Thorne said.
    Jesmond missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it. ‘I’m not sure that’s quite true, Inspector. In the light of these developments, we have to look at the Langford inquiry again and it seems obvious to me that, in retrospect, we might have done one or two things differently.’
    So, this one’s down to me as well, is it?