Die of Shame by Mark Billingham

know what else to say, really. I got on better with her than some of the others in the group. We took the piss out of each other, helped each other out.’
    ‘Helped how?’ Tanner asked.
    ‘You know, if she was having a bad day or whatever, she might call and I’d try and snap her out of it. We’d go and have a cup of tea or something, talk bollocks. She did the same for me a few times. Just normal stuff.’
    ‘Talk bollocks about what?’
    ‘Anything. Telly or sport, something in the news. Things you never get to talk about in the group.’
    Tanner looked up from her notebook. ‘Anything you think we should know? Anything you think might be important, bearing in mind what happened to her?’
    ‘Not that I remember.’
    ‘Nobody she was involved with? Who she might have been worried about or frightened of?’
    ‘Not now.’ Clemence saw Tanner’s reaction, shook his head. ‘By which I mean, yeah, there would have been, but we’ve all had dealings with some nasty bastards over the years.’ He smiled. ‘One or two of them even had warrant cards.’
    Tanner did not rise to it. ‘Did Heather ever mention any names?’
    ‘If she did I can’t remember any, but she would have come across a few people you wouldn’t want to mess with. Ex-junkies don’t have too many saints in their address books.’
    Tanner shifted her chair to allow a young woman to sit down at the next table. The woman immediately pulled a laptop from her bag and logged on. She caught Tanner’s eye and smiled. Tanner looked back to Clemence. He had remarkably good skin, considering his history, she thought. Pale, but more or less flawless around the carefully groomed stubble. He had styled his hair every bit as carefully; blond streaked into the black, teased into spikes on top and squaddie short at the sides. His teeth were better than she might have expected too and he showed them off a good deal, well aware of his winning smile. Tanner could easily understand why other men might find him attractive. Women too, unaware that they were barking up the wrong tree, or simply wanting to mother him.
    ‘Tell us what goes on in one of your sessions,’ she said.
    ‘In the group, you mean?’
    ‘It would be helpful,’ Chall said.
    Clemence sat back and folded his arms. He appeared to think about it for a few seconds, but then shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think I can. That’s the one rule, you know.’
    ‘Yeah, but murder trumps it,’ Chall said. ‘Don’t you reckon?’
    ‘I don’t see how it’s relevant.’
    Tanner nodded. ‘As far as we can make out, Heather didn’t have too much else going on in her life outside the group you were both in with Tony De Silva. We’re obviously looking at all sorts of things, but until we’ve got anything else concrete, those sessions might well prove to be extremely relevant.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Clemence said. ‘We talk… well, you can probably work that much out, but I really can’t tell you who said what. There are people in the group who’d want my balls on a plate. Tony for a kick-off.’
    Tanner leaned forward. ‘She wasn’t found for a while, you know that?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘They didn’t find Heather’s body for nearly three weeks. Nobody reported her missing, because there wasn’t anybody to miss her.’
    ‘In the end, most of her just seeped through the floorboards,’ Chall said.
    ‘Jesus.’
    ‘If you were her friend like you say, I would have thought you’d want to do anything you can to help us.’
    Clemence grunted, tore around the cardboard rim of his empty coffee cup. ‘What was her name?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘That’s how much of a friend I was, OK? I don’t even know what Heather’s second name was.’ He carried on tearing, the cup getting stubbier, an inch at a time. ‘First names only in the group, you see?’
    ‘Finlay,’ Tanner said. ‘Heather Finlay.’
    Clemence nodded. ‘Sounds Scottish or something.’
    ‘She was from Sheffield originally. Came down