Rabbit Hole

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Snap’ was the right word for it.

  ‘Dr Bakshi assured Debbie that it had certainly been something worth trying.’

  ‘You heard Dr Bakshi say that?’

  ‘That’s what Debbie told me she’d said.’ She shifted her chair back. ‘I shouldn’t really be telling you any of this, Alice. It’s a bit naughty of me, and it’s only because I can see how distressed you are.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ I said.

  Malaika stood up. ‘So, are you feeling a little better, now?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah . . . I’m good.’ I got to my feet and wandered out through the door she was holding open for me. I didn’t look at her or even say thank you, but that’s only because I was suddenly struck as dumb as poor old Shaun had been.

  There were so many things rattling around in my head. Kevin and the cameras and Seddon and the drugs and the nurses and Shaun. I was struggling to process the information or make sense of any of it. I knew the answer was in there, fighting to get out, but it was all so jumbled.

  The drugs, maybe. My drugs, I mean.

  When it came to seeing the wood for the trees, which was always going to be important if I wanted to break the case, I was seriously starting to wonder if the meds were doing me any favours. If these ‘inhibitors’ they fed me three times a day weren’t inhibiting the very bits of my brain I needed to be working at full tilt.

  Names and faces, bits of things people had said.

  All racing around my brain and I couldn’t put the brakes on.

  Stuck in a loop.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I’ve worked a couple of murders where attending the victim’s funeral was as much about hoping the murderer might show up as it was paying respects to the victim. Sounds a bit far-fetched, I know, and yeah you see it on cop shows, sometimes – Keep your eye on the mourners, Lewis . . . our killer’s in this church somewhere – but I’m telling you from experience that once in a blue moon it pays off. Maybe it’s one of those where the murderer might not be able to resist showing up to gloat or they’re a bit weird and need to make doubly sure the person they’ve done in is actually dead. Sometimes it’s a bit simpler than that and you just suspect that the killer is one of the victim’s family or friends.

  Either way, all I’m saying is that, every now and again, it’s worth a detective’s while to dig out their black suit and dip into the petty cash for some flowers.

  I wish I could say that when I’d woken up Sunday things were any clearer. I was still all over the shop, I’m not pretending I wasn’t, but at least I’d woken with an idea. A pretty decent one too, I reckoned, despite all the things I didn’t know or couldn’t work out. Because I knew my killer was in the church somewhere.

  In the church, on the ward, you get the point.

  I talked to Marcus about it after breakfast – not about the killers going to funerals thing, obviously – and he wasn’t against the idea.

  ‘It might be nice.’ He didn’t seem in the least bit suspicious. ‘It’s very thoughtful, Alice . . . let me know if we can help.’

  ‘Least we can do,’ I said.

  It wouldn’t really be a funeral, of course.

  I did briefly consider a kind of mock-funeral, knocking up a cardboard coffin or whatever, but in the end it got way too complicated – I couldn’t figure out how to replicate the burial or cremation and I didn’t even know which of those Kevin would have preferred – so I ditched that plan. Decided to stick with something simpler. The actual funeral might already have happened for all we knew, and even if it hadn’t, I didn’t think any of us were likely to get invitations, so I spent the rest of the day making arrangements for what I had told Marcus would be a memorial.

  First off, I told everyone, including the Informals, what I was planning and did my best to persuade them that they ought to be there.

  ‘He was one of us,’ I said. ‘It’ll be good for everyone to . . . let their feelings out, to express themselves a bit.’ And, ‘It’ll be fun.’

  Some were predictably keener than others, but by mid-morning I was pretty sure a fair few would rock up when it came to it. It was something to do, after all, something different. A welcome change of routine.

  L-Plate helped me out a bit – Donna couldn’t take time off from her packed walking schedule and Ilias said he had a chess match – but putting it all together still took most of the day. Once I’d blagged a suitable space, there was a ton of stuff to move and set up. We had to get the chairs arranged in rows and we needed to get everything looking nice. I wanted pictures, if we could get them, and some suitable decorations, and I wanted music.

  I wanted it to be proper.

  It would probably end up detracting a little from the dignity of the proceedings, I was well aware of that, but I decided to do it while afternoon meds were wearing off as opposed to when the evening ones were kicking in. It would make things a bit more interesting, I thought, and, with luck, more useful. So at six o’clock I was ready and waiting and, half an hour later, I watched – trying my best not to look too excited – as they trooped into the occupational therapy room in dribs and drabs.

  All the sectionees, which was perfect.

  A few of the Informals, which couldn’t hurt.

  Most of the nurses.

  I guided people to their seats and did my best to calm them down where it was necessary. The music was helping, I think. I’d connected my phone up to a portable speaker Lucy had lent me. I’d wanted something to suit the occasion, maybe a bit of classical, but I don’t have a lot to choose from, so in the end I’d settled for Michael Bublé. You can’t go far wrong with a bit of Bublé and I have to admit it seemed to be doing the trick.

  I wouldn’t say the atmosphere was ideal because frankly it was like trying to herd cats, but when things were as settled as they were ever going to get, I turned the music off and walked slowly back to my spot at the front of the room to say my piece.

  I’d spent half an hour writing it that afternoon.

  ‘Thanks to everyone for coming.’ Ilias shouted ‘Get off’ but I ignored him. ‘I really appreciate you all making the effort and I know Kevin would have appreciated it, if he wasn’t dead.’

  I nodded towards the picture of Kevin that Marcus had been kind enough to print out for me, which I’d taped to a clipboard and propped up on a table against a plant pot. Not to brag, but I reckon I’d done a tip-top job with the whole room, considering. Me and L-Plate had carted in a bunch of the plastic ferns from other rooms and arranged them on either side at the front, and I’d laid out a bunch of candles on a tray. Smelly ones, like people use in toilets or whatever, but they were all I could lay my hands on.

  ‘This doesn’t have to be sad,’ I said. ‘Because it’s all about remembering Kevin when he was still with us. The laughs we had with him, the stupid things that happened. All the same, we should not forget why he isn’t with us any more.’ A pause for maximum effect. ‘Nobody in this room should ever forget that a crime was committed. The very worst crime of all.’

  I stopped for a couple of seconds and I have to admit I was a bit flustered because I’d heard a couple more arseholes shouting things from the back. I could guess who they were and what kind of comments they were making, but I needed to press on. I certainly didn’t want to look up and risk catching the eye of one of the nurses. Marcus, having sussed what I was up to, glaring at me from the doorway.

  ‘Someone took Kevin from us, and if anyone has anything they’d like to say about that, I’m sure we’d all like to hear it.’ Now I looked up. ‘So if any of you has something they’d like to contribute . . . maybe something they remember and would like to share, now’s the time.’ I pointed to Kevin’s picture again. ‘Come to the front and maybe light a candle for him, and please say whatever’s on your mind.’

  I stepped to one side and waited. I wasn’t sure whether to turn Michael Bublé
back on or not, how long I should give it, so I just stood there shifting from one foot to another, and I probably looked a bit awkward, thinking back.

  Ilias – why did it have to be Ilias? – saved my bacon.

  ‘He was a cocky little wanker sometimes.’ Ilias sniffed and jabbed a finger towards the picture, in case anyone wasn’t clear who he was talking about. ‘Still out of order, though. What happened to him.’ He picked up one of the candles and started walking back to his seat. When I stepped across and tried to take it off him, he got a bit stroppy and said, ‘I thought they were free,’ so I decided to let him keep it.

  Donna came up next, a bit trembly. She said, ‘Kevin was really sweet and he never said anything nasty to me, so God bless him.’ She took the lighter that I’d set on the tray, lit a candle and went back to her seat.

  Several others followed in quick and remarkably orderly succession.

  ‘I didn’t know him very well,’ Bob said.

  ‘Kevin was good at Scrabble.’ Graham nodded sadly. ‘Good at doing the rude words.’

  L-Plate had written a poem, bless her, and read it very loudly, like a princess in a school play. Something about a seagull flying home that went on too long, then some other bit where ‘sadness’ rhymed with ‘madness’. A couple of the Informals came forward after that. While they were lighting their vanilla cupcake candles and saying nothing, I looked over to where Shaun was sitting with Femi at the back of the room. He hadn’t stopped weeping since he came in.

  Then it was the Singer’s turn.

  I’d been dreading madam’s contribution, of course, but even though nothing so far had told me anything I didn’t already know, she at least genuinely surprised me. She stood there staring at everyone for half a minute or more and there was genuine tension in that room, like she might rip all her clothes off, or just run screaming at someone. Instead, she took a deep breath and started to sing a half-decent version of that ‘Hallelujah’ song off X-Factor, and I swear it was nearly in tune. When she’d finished, almost everyone clapped, and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen Lauren look genuinely happy about anything that didn’t involve upsetting someone.

  I almost forgot what I was doing this for.

  Just when it looked like nobody else was going to do anything and I was getting ready to put the music back on, the nurses and the healthcare assistants started coming forward one at a time. They weren’t all in the room at one time, of course, a couple had to be manning the nurses’ station, but three or four of them took a turn.

  Marcus lit a candle, then George and Malaika.

  I looked across at Shaun again, hoping against hope, but his head was on Femi’s shoulder and his eyes were closed. Stupid of me really, because what was I actually expecting? I knew what I wanted. I wanted him to miraculously recover the power of speech, to stand up and run to the front. I wanted him to say, ‘Kevin was being held to ransom by such and such a drug gang and he did . . . something they didn’t like and in the end he had to die, so he was killed by . . .’

  I wanted that witness who blows the case wide open.

  I wanted him to tell everyone what he’d been so afraid to tell me.

  Debbie was the last nurse to come up. I saw that she had tears in her eyes as she lit the final candle. I swear I heard a sob before she gently touched a finger to Kevin’s picture, then crossed herself.

  Quite touching, I suppose, if you give a stuff about any of that.

  Everyone drifted away pretty quickly after that. Places to go, people to see. I offered to tidy the room up, but Marcus said the staff would do it later on.

  ‘So, were you pleased with how that went?’ he asked.

  I told him I was, that I thought it had all gone really well.

  ‘Pleased to hear it,’ he said, as I walked past him. He wasn’t really trying to hide the sarcasm and it was obvious he was pissed off because I’d shafted him, but I was beyond caring.

  My brain was still racing when I got back to my room and more than ever I felt the urgent need to talk everything through with someone. I couldn’t get hold of Banksy, so I called Sophie. Maybe I was gabbling or just not making any sense, but either way she didn’t seem very interested, so in the end I gave up and let her ramble on about her job for a while.

  Her fantastic new flatmate, again.

  Her new boyfriend.

  After that I decided to just chill in my room for a while until dinner. I’d been working on the memorial all the way through lunch, so I was bloody starving. More important, I was keen to know what people had made of it all and to find out if grief – or what passed for it in a place like this – had shaken anything loose.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Johnno and I worked this fatal stabbing in Dollis Hill one time.

  It was a bad one; not like any of them are ever good, but this one was really nasty. A teacher named Gordon Evans, carved up in his front room in the middle of the day. Point is, we knew very well who’d done it and why – were talking about making an arrest within twenty-four hours of catching the case – but the problem was we were struggling to prove it.

  Even with (almost) all the evidence anybody could want.

  It was a dispute between neighbours, something simple and stupid. A lawnmower that never got returned or someone complaining about a noisy party. I can’t remember the details of why they fell out, but several other neighbours told us they were aware of tensions, so we knew damn well they had. Our only suspect – a charmer of a long-distance lorry driver named Ralph Cox – lived in a house with a garden that backed on to the teacher’s. After one conversation with Mr Cox, despite him claiming that he’d been indoors all day, we were convinced that he’d marched round to Evans’s place to have it out and things had got out of hand.

  Forty-two separate stab wounds out of hand.

  Yeah, so this evidence . . .

  Cell-site data meant we were able to place Cox’s mobile at the scene, but it was quickly pointed out that living within fifty yards of the victim’s property meant his phone would have been pinging off the same mast if he was at home. Marvellous. We had our suspect’s prints inside Evans’s house, but Cox’s claim that he had been there before to discuss the dispute – which to be fair he’d never denied – could not be disproved. We never found the murder weapon, but we had a knife-block from Cox’s kitchen that just happened to be missing a knife whose blade was the size and shape of the one that had sliced up Gordon Evans.

  We had an eye witness, another neighbour, who said he saw Cox leaving Evans’s house on the afternoon in question. By the time we came to take a statement, though, that had become thought he saw, then I’m not actually sure it was him and eventually he made it clear that whatever he might or might not have seen, he wasn’t willing to talk about it in court. Yeah, Cox was a scary-looking sod and this witness only lived a few doors away, but still it was a pain in the arse.

  Then there was the camera.

  There was no CCTV on the street, but the neighbour opposite had a security camera that happened to cover Evans’s front door. You can see where this is going, right? A DVR that was full, so nothing recorded.

  That just about put the tin lid on it.

  All this, on top of which, Johnno and me were getting it in the neck from a useless DI who was desperate for a result and couldn’t understand why we weren’t delivering one.

  So one night I went round to Johnno and Maggie’s place to talk about this case that was doing our heads in. We got Chinese and ate off our laps, the three of us just sitting round moaning about it.

  What were we doing wrong? What weren’t we doing?

  ‘Sometimes you’re just going to get jobs like this,’ Maggie said. ‘Doesn’t matter how much you know you’ve got the right person, it won’t go your way.’ She leaned against her boyfriend. ‘Maybe you should just chalk it up and let it go.’

  I was starting to ag
ree with her, but Johnno wasn’t having it.

  ‘We’re making it too complicated,’ he said. ‘Coming at it from too many angles and getting . . . bogged down.’

  ‘Bogged down and buggered up,’ I said.

  ‘Letting all this evidence we’ve got get in the way.’

  ‘Not to mention the evidence we haven’t got.’ I remember I had a gobful of spring roll or ribs or whatever. ‘That bastard camera.’

  ‘Sod the camera.’ Johnno tossed his fork down and sat forward. ‘We don’t need the camera . . . we go after him. The cocky prick thinks he’s laughing, because he knows very well he can dance round everything we’ve got. So we forget all that and start again. We find something else. We do what we do and we come up with a way to nail him.’

  I remember how worked up Johnno was that night, and I’ll never forget how excited he was five months later. That was the day we walked out of court having seen Ralph Cox get sent down. Life, with a minimum tariff of twenty-one years.

  Six months for every one of those stab wounds.

  Long story short, we started digging and found a report filed nine months previously, when Cox had lived south of the river. A woman who lived upstairs from him whose complaint of violent harassment had never been passed on. We brought Cox in for a friendly chat and Johnno broke the scumbag in the interview room.

  Wood for the trees, right?

  I woke up in the middle of the night and someone was having a shouting match with themselves a few doors along. A proper ding-dong. It sounded like Lucy, but it wasn’t a big deal because I was well used to it, and anyway I didn’t think that was what had woken me.

  I was wide awake and sitting up because I knew.

  The police had got it all arse about face. I mean, up to that point so had I to a degree, but now I knew exactly where I’d been going wrong. Why I’d been bogged down and buggered up.