From the Dead Read Free Page A

for the most part, stared straight ahead. Both seemed collected enough and, although only one was talking, both gave the impression, if you searched their expressions for more than a few moments, that there was plenty going on behind the façade of unflappable calm.
    Both looked dangerous.
    The man on the witness stand was well into his forties: stocky and round-shouldered, with dark hair that was greying a little more on one side than the other. He spoke slowly. He took care to say no more than he needed to as he gave his evidence, choosing his words carefully, but without letting that care look like doubt or hesitation.
    â€˜And there was no question in your mind that you were dealing with a murder?’
    â€˜No question whatsoever.’
    â€˜You have told us that the defendant was “relaxed” when he was first interviewed. Did his demeanour change when you questioned him subsequent to his arrest?’
    As Detective Inspector Tom Thorne described the five separate interviews he had conducted with the man on trial, he did his best to keep his eyes fixed on the prosecuting counsel. But he could not quite manage it. Two or three times, he glanced across at the dock to see Adam Chambers staring right back at him; the eyes flat, unblinking. Once, he looked up for a few seconds to the public gallery, where the family of the young woman Chambers had murdered was gathered. He saw the hope and the rage in the faces of Andrea Keane’s parents. The hands that clutched at those of others, or lay trembling in laps, wrapped tight around wads of damp tissue.
    Thorne saw a group of people united in their grief and anger, and for whom justice – should it be meted out to their satisfaction – would be real and raw. Justice, of a sort, for an eighteen-year-old girl who Thorne knew beyond any doubt to be dead.
    Despite the fact that no body had ever been found.
    â€˜Inspector Thorne?’
    His voice stayed calm as he finished his testimony, reiterating dates and times, names and places: those details he hoped would linger in the minds of the jurors; combining to do their job as effectively as those precious, damning strands of blonde hair, the lies exposed by a mobile-phone record, and the smiling face of a girl in a photograph, taken days before she was killed.
    â€˜Thank you, Inspector. You may stand down.’
    Thorne slipped his notebook back into the pocket of his jacket and stepped from the witness box. He walked slowly towards the rear doors of the courtroom, a fingertip moving back and forth across the small, straight scar on his chin. Eyes moving too, as he drew closer, towards the figure in the dock.
    Thinking:
    I don’t want to see you again . . .
    Not in the flesh, obviously not that , because you’ll be banged up, thank God, and growing old. Watching your back and feeling that great big brain of yours turn to mush and staying on the right side of men who’d be happy to carve you up for looking at them funny. Because of what you are . I don’t want to see you at night, I mean. Hanging around where you’re not wanted and messing with me. Your smug face and your croaky ‘no comment’ dancing into my dreams . . .
    As he passed beneath the dock, Thorne turned his face towards Adam Chambers. He paused for a second or two. He found the man’s eyes, and he held them.
    Then he winked.
    Â 
    Thorne shared a ride back to Hendon with DS Samir Karim. As Exhibits Officer on the case, Karim was responsible for the evidence chain and for maintaining the integrity of its key pieces.
    A hairbrush. A mobile phone. A glass with Andrea Keane’s fingerprints.
    It was a typical February day that had begun for Thorne by scraping frost from his windscreen with a CD case, but still he opened his window and leaned towards it as the car moved slowly out of central London in heavy traffic. Over the rush of cold air, he could hear Karim telling him how well he had done. That there was no