Free TT13 Time of Death by Mark Billingham Page B

apart.’
    They had decided to get something to eat first. Helen didn’t much like the look of the Punjab Palace, so with little other choice they had parked near the abbey and were walking back towards the Magpie’s Nest to check out the ‘extensive’ menu it seemed so proud of.
    ‘Still sounds like it might be a bit awkward, though,’ Thorne said. ‘If you don’t really know this woman.’
    ‘It’ll be fine.’ Helen stopped at the entrance to the abbey, stared through the archway.
    ‘You want to go in?’ Thorne asked.
    It was almost six o’clock and bar a distant light near the visitors’ centre, the building and surrounding grounds were in darkness. Helen shook her head and carried on towards the pub.
    ‘Does she know you’re a copper? Paula?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Helen said. ‘Probably.’ She stopped outside the pub and looked at the same chalkboard Thorne had seen earlier. ‘Why?’
    ‘Maybe she thinks she’s going to get all the gossip.’
    ‘Maybe she’s just being nice.’
    Thorne pushed the door open, let Helen go past, then followed her into the pub. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said.
    The fabric of the building might well have been centuries old, but the interior had been gutted and the refit was far from sympathetic. A bar clad in polished pine and bog-standard pub furniture; the small dining room and snug brightly lit. One whitewashed wall was home to an arrangement of stuffed fish withengraved plaques beneath, the collection sandwiched between a hand-drawn sign advertising various pub events and a poster listing televised Premiership fixtures.
    Thorne and Helen weaved their way through the crowd of drinkers to the dining area and sat at one of the four melamine-topped tables. The room smelled faintly of bleach and a Simply Red track was drifting from a speaker high up on the opposite wall.
    ‘You sure about that Indian?’ Thorne whispered.
    The only other people eating were a family of four: mum, dad and two young children, who began bickering loudly as soon as Thorne and Helen sat down.
    ‘I’m too hungry to care,’ Helen said.
    Thorne wasn’t arguing. There was a top note of cooking fat just discernible above the smell of bleach and the music could usefully have been employed in a Dignitas waiting room, but he had eaten nothing but a few biscuits since breakfast.
    One of the children at the next table let out a piercing scream. The mother caught Thorne’s eye and mouthed a ‘sorry’. The father turned and glared until Thorne looked away.
    Thorne snatched up a menu; images of hearts and flowers at the top. With only a lone, semi-deflated balloon hovering halfway up the wall in the far corner, he guessed that the landlord was displaying a degree of sensitivity similar to that shown by the owner of the party shop; that he had scaled back the celebratory paraphernalia. It had clearly been too late to do anything about the special ‘Menu for Lovers’. One quick look told Thorne that the pictures of hearts and flowers were the only things about it that were in any way special.
    They each ordered steak and chips, a pint of Guinness.
    The food was delivered with merciful speed and, as Simply Red gave way to Adele and then Mumford and Sons, Thorne and Helen put it all away in fifteen minutes, without a great dealin the way of conversation. The couple, whose kids were now both screaming, looked relieved when Thorne and Helen took what was left of their drinks and walked back towards the relative conviviality of the small bar.
    ‘Told you we should have gone to the curry house,’ Helen said.
    ‘What?’
    She grinned at Thorne’s outraged expression and pushed him into the crowd.
    They were lucky enough to bag a small table in the corner, but within a few minutes of sitting down, they were joined by a man in jeans and a denim shirt, who had clearly been drinking a little longer than they had. He stood with his thighs pressed against the edge of their table until they finally looked