Rabbit Hole

by Mark Billingham

  Malaika had stabbed Debbie to death only moments before I went in, and when she heard that outer door opening, it gave her just enough time to duck into one of the cubicles. That’s where she was all the time I was on my hands and knees doing CPR and it wasn’t until I ran out screaming that she was able to step out of the cubicle and start playing the hero herself. Remember how confused I was about whether it was Marcus or Malaika who’d come in to help first? Well, she’d been in there all the time, and the fact that she’d been covered in blood afterwards, same as me and Marcus, wasn’t suspicious because she’d been pumping the dead woman’s chest like we had.

  Christ, talk about thinking on your feet.

  As to whether Debbie’s murder was premeditated, they won’t really know unless Malaika tells them. When the detective came round, which was nice of him, I was able to help a bit with that, because I remembered Lauren complaining that someone had been going through her room and that was three or four days before Debbie had been killed. The detective told me that was very helpful information, which definitely put a spring in my step. Lauren freely admitted that it was her knife and told the police that before it was stolen it had been hidden in the webbing under her mattress. Just like those DVDs, that day Johnno had been killed. Weird, eh?

  There’s some suggestion that it might have been Malaika’s plan all along to put Lauren in the frame for Debbie’s murder, but I’m not sure I buy that. The DNA and prints on the knife alone were never going to be enough to send anyone with a half-decent defence team down. I reckon she just discovered Lauren had a knife, so knew exactly where to get it when the time was right. The detective told me Malaika hadn’t said a fat lot, certainly not admitted to anything, but he isn’t bothered because they’ve got enough evidence anyway. The clincher was getting Graham to admit that Malaika had been the one who’d asked him to put the camera out of action that day. Good old Graham. When the case comes to trial, I bet he’ll be hanging around by that witness box a good hour before he’s due to give evidence.

  And when it’s my turn?

  I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, I’m finally getting my chance, so why wouldn’t I?

  I jump a little when a handful of grit crackles against my window and, when I stand up to look, I can see Ilias beaming up at me from the pavement. I hold up a finger to say one minute and the cheeky bugger holds up a finger that means something entirely different.

  I grab my bag, phone, keys . . . check I’ve got everything.

  I hope it’s not a stupidly late one, that him and Lucy aren’t set on making a big night of it or anything. We’ve already had several of them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m bang up for a few drinks and I know we’ll have a laugh, same as always, but I don’t really fancy being out that long.

  These days, I like spending time on my own, too.

  I double-lock the door to my flat, then breathe through my mouth as I start down the stairs. I can’t hear the woman or the baby or the dog, so a clean getaway looks like it’s on the cards.

  Ilias has his face pressed against the glass in the front door.

  I’m good and ready for a night out, but the truth is I’m already looking forward to getting back. To standing at my bathroom window in the dark and staring out at those milky-white lights, pulsing through the trees at me from the far end of the garden.

  EPILOGUE

  From: Timothy Banks Banksy1961@hotmail.com

  To: Alice Armitage GoAskAlice@btinternet.com

  Subject: SORRY

  Hey, Al. Sorry it’s been so long and that I haven’t been to see you in your new place. Sorry I haven’t called or returned your messages. I’m sorry if you think I haven’t been a good friend, but trust me, I really have. That’s what all this is about really and the big SORRY is for what I need to say, what I haven’t been brave enough to say until now.

  God this is hard to write.

  I’ve been waiting until I was sure that you were doing better and it certainly sounds like you’re getting back on track. I couldn’t be happier about that, I swear, and I want you to remember that when you get to the end of this. If you’re feeling like you never want to see or hear from me again.

  The truth is I should never have come to see you in the hospital. I mean, I wanted to see you as a friend, but I shouldn’t have helped you. I shouldn’t have let myself get involved in it all. I should never have got sucked in.

  I need to say straight away that civilian support staff do an important and incredible job for the Met. You did an incredible job and you should be proud of everything you did to help coppers like me. But it’s not the same, Al, it’s really not and this is the bit I’ve been most scared about writing, but I just need to say it, nice and simple.

  You aren’t a police officer. You were never a police officer.

  I’m sorry, mate, but there it is. I know that while you were in hospital, a lot of people in there played along with the fantasy. Maybe they didn’t know it was a fantasy, I mean you’re an adult so why shouldn’t they believe what you tell them? Did they ever actually check? The police officers who came to the ward knew the truth, I’m fairly sure of that. The shrink working with them and the DI who made the arrest certainly did, but at any rate nobody ever seemed to contradict you or try to tell you that you were . . . Christ, I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t really want to say deluded, because that makes it sound like you weren’t suffering and I know you were. But it was a delusion and that’s all there is to it.

  This next bit is difficult, too . . .

  It feels like I’m ripping off a sticking plaster or something, but I need to do it.

  Johnno was my partner and not yours. My partner, Al. I was the one who went with him to that flat in Mile End and I was the one who watched him bleed to death. I was the one who fucked up.

  Yeah, I know Johnno was your friend too, and what happened to him obviously hit you very hard. Every bit as hard as it hit me, harder even, I know that now. I suppose that’s when all your problems started, the drink and the drugs, and that’s one of the reasons I feel bad telling you all this now, because it could so easily have been me that lost it and ended up the same as you.

  Maybe that’s why I came to the hospital as often as I did. There but for the grace of God, all that.

  I’ve been talking to the therapist I went to see after what happened to Johnno and she said this was a good idea. Me finally telling you everything, I mean. She told me that it might be painful, but that being honest would be better in the long run. For both of us, she said.

  I do feel like I was responsible in some way for what you went through. I should never have told you everything that happened in that flat, because I know now that it’s what you came to believe had happened to you. I feel like I planted the idea or something. I know you did believe it, too. I never felt like you were stealing my life, anything like that. I know you couldn’t help it, Al. But I also know that I can’t carry on pretending it’s just this weird thing that happened. We both need to be honest with ourselves.

  I said something before about being brave enough to finally send this, but I know I’m actually being a coward because I’m just pressing a button and not sitting down and talking this through with you in person. I just couldn’t face that, so I’m sorry again. More sorry.

  I don’t know if this is the right thing to do medically or whatever, but I’ve looked this stuff up online and nobody seems to know what the right thing is or when the right time might be. It’s the right thing for me though, I know that. There have been far too many lies already and my sanity matters every bit as much as yours.

  I really hope you’ve already started coming out the other side of all this. I hope you’re better and getting on with a normal life. You deserve to be happy.

  I want the best for you, Al, I promise you that.

  Take care, mate.

 
Banksy x

  Detective Sergeant Tim Banks read through the email he’d agonised over long into a great many nights and rewritten so often that he’d forgotten what it had said to begin with. He closed the email and dragged it into the drafts folder. He finished what was left in his wineglass, then opened the email again.

  He moved the cursor until it was hovering over the send button.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  No reader should be expected to shell out for a book, in whatever format, if its author found the writing of that book too easy. I say that, of course, well aware that you might have been gifted this particular book or found it on a park bench. You might even have nicked it, in which case I hope you feel a little bit ashamed. There’s always the possibility that you’ve borrowed Rabbit Hole from your local library, which should always be encouraged, but however you acquired it, I think my point holds. Writing a book shouldn’t be a doddle and it rarely is, but this one, for all manner of reasons, was particularly . . . tricky.

  I am more than usually grateful for all the help I received.

  Thank you, as always, to my amazing agent, Sarah Lutyens, to Wendy Lee, and to Mike Gunn for letting me steal some stories.

  Thank you to everyone on the team at Little, Brown/Sphere which, as I enter my third decade of publishing with them, remains the best in the business, and most particularly to: Charlie King, Catherine Burke, Robert Manser, Gemma Shelley, Callum Kenny, Thalia Proctor, Tom Webster, Sean Garrehy, Sarah Shrubb, Hannah Methuen and Tamsin Kitson. A tip of the hat once more to Nancy Webber for the copy edit. Saved my bacon again . . .

  Thank you to my brilliant editor Ed Wood for making everything so much better, and to the best publicist in the game, Laura Sherlock (who is only ever FPN when she needs to be).

  Thank you to Sara Vitale, Morgan Entrekin, Justine Batchelor, Deb Seager and all at Grove Atlantic.

  I will forever be grateful to SL, a fiercely dedicated mental-health nurse in north London whose time and expertise were invaluable in the writing of this book. I really did forget my wallet. Honestly . . .

  And to Claire, most of all – the only other person who understands exactly why this one was so tough.