Cry Baby

by Mark Billingham

  It had felt good to get out of the flat, no question. She had been looking forward to spending a little time with someone she didn’t know very well and it didn’t hurt that he was unquestionably . . . fit, but now Cat was starting to feel uncomfortable again. She waved at Aksan to let him know they were ready for the bill. ‘Didn’t you say there was something you wanted to give me?’

  Jenner nodded and reached down to open his sports bag. When he sat up again he slid a bulky cardboard folder across the table. ‘I thought these might help,’ he said.

  Cat opened the folder and took out a thick sheaf of paintings and drawings, dozens of them. Scribbles in pencil on lined paper torn from notebooks, spirals of crayon on coloured squares, and bigger ones, folded in half and stiffened where the paint had dried. She could see straight away that they were Kieron’s.

  ‘All the pictures he’s done at school,’ Jenner said. ‘All the ones I could find, anyway. There’s loads. Well, you know how much he loves drawing.’

  Cat had begun to lay the pictures out on the table, but there wasn’t room, so she gathered them up and began leafing through them again.

  ‘Thought you’d like to have them all,’ Jenner said. ‘To keep them all together.’

  ‘Because . . . ?’

  ‘Because they’re Kieron’s.’

  ‘Something to remember him by?’

  Jenner opened his mouth, but for a few seconds nothing came out. He looked like he’d had the breath punched out of him. ‘No, just . . . when I brought that card round, I could tell you were, I don’t know . . . comforted by it. So I thought having his pictures might do the same.’

  Cat stared at the drawings.

  Houses and trees and bright, smiling suns. Superheroes of course, loads of them: Spiderman and Ninja Turtles and all six Power Rangers. There were several of Cat, all with that scrawled mop of frizzy hair he always added, and some that were clearly meant to be Billy, with loads of tattoos and muscles like Popeye.

  The world inside her son’s head.

  She reached into a pocket for tissues. It was automatic now, like scratching an itch. She didn’t have to think because there were wads of damp tissue or balled-up clumps of toilet paper in every pocket.

  Jenner scratched at the tabletop. ‘I’m an idiot, aren’t I? I mean, now it’s so obvious that it was a stupid thing to do and I can see how it might look like . . . a memorial or something, but I swear, I didn’t think.’ He took out his wallet, reached inside and laid three ten-pound notes on the table. ‘I’m really sorry, Mrs Coyne.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  She looked up at him. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Honestly. There’s nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘I am such a twat,’ he said.

  ‘Probably. But a twat whose heart is in the right place.’ She watched him lean a little awkwardly against the chair, unsure as to when might be the appropriate time to leave. ‘Go on, you don’t want to be late for PE.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Don’t forget your whistle.’

  He tapped his thigh. ‘It’s in my pocket.’

  The thought came into Cat’s head and her mood changed in an instant as she felt the grin building.

  This is like being pregnant, she thought. Or insane.

  ‘I thought you were just pleased to see me,’ she said.

  The expression on the teacher’s face – a strange mash-up of horror and relief, like he didn’t know whether to giggle or shit himself – made her laugh out loud. She turned to see that Aksan, who had clearly overheard, was struggling to keep a straight face.

  Cat was still laughing as the teacher closed the door behind him.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  ‘Funny old day.’ Paula Kimmel lifted her pint and effortlessly downed a third of it.

  Thorne had a mouthful of peanuts, but he would not have argued anyway.

  At the morning briefing, Ajay Roth had announced that the forensic tests following the searches carried out ten days earlier had now been completed. The results, he said, did not indicate any match to Kieron Coyne’s DNA in samples taken from Grantleigh Figgis’s flat or car.

  ‘So, we can now officially eliminate Mr Figgis from the inquiry.’

  Thorne had stared stubbornly down at the briefing notes, imagined himself jumping to his feet like a pissed heckler at a comedy club, pointing and shouting. Oh, we can? So, the witness who corroborated the man’s alibi wasn’t quite good enough, then? The witness our so-called Senior Investigating Officer was too busy to bother looking for . . .

  It was unusual for a DI to ask a DC to deputise when there were sergeants present and Thorne could see that Brigstocke was more than a little pissed-off about it. It came as no great surprise to Thorne though, that Gordon Boyle had asked Roth to run the briefing in his place. The DI knew who his friends were.

  ‘Though we will of course continue to investigate the circumstances of Mr Figgis’s death.’

  By ‘circumstances’, you mean murder, right?

  As the results of those tests very clearly fucking indicated.

  Something else your boss chose to overlook, which might explain why he’s keeping his head down. Hiding in his office . . .

  ‘What’s up with Boyle, anyway?’ Kimmel’s question as they’d carried their drinks from the bar, the look on her face as she’d asked it, had suggested to Thorne that he might not be alone in questioning the direction the investigation had taken. Perhaps he was not the only one harbouring mutinous thoughts.

  He had to tread carefully, though.

  ‘Boyle just wanted it to be Figgis.’ They had taken two chairs at the end of a long table occupied by several other members of the team, so Thorne leaned close to Kimmel and kept his voice down.

  ‘We all wanted it to be Figgis,’ Kimmel said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You were the one that pointed the finger in the first place, as I remember.’

  Thorne did not need reminding. ‘Yeah, well, there’s wanting it to be someone and there’s ignoring any evidence that suggests it isn’t. Very different things. So . . .’

  Kimmel looked at him across her glass, raised an eyebrow.

  So . . .

  Thorne was not entirely sure what to do next, what to say. He did not know Paula Kimmel very well and guessed that, hard as it was to believe that Gordon Boyle had any real friends on the team, he might well have allies. He knew there were plenty of coppers with an eye on the main chance who believed in loyalty above almost everything else, the truth included.

  ‘Tom . . . excited about Saturday?’

  Thorne had turned to the young DC shouting to him from the other end of the table. Floppy hair and a well-cut suit, a glass of rosé.

  ‘I reckon we’re in with a good chance, mate.’

  The quarter-final in two days’ time: England against Spain. Thorne was happy enough, for the time being at least, to talk about something other than his piss-poor DI. A little more certain of his footing. ‘You never know,’ he said. ‘We’re only three games away.’

  ‘The Spanish are a decent side,’ Kimmel said. ‘Alfonso, Salinas, Enrique . . .’

  The DC shook his head. ‘They only won two games in the group.’

  ‘Getting better all the time though.’

  While Kimmel and several others argued about 4-4-2 and Christmas Tree formations, Thorne had tucked into his bag of dry-roasted, thought about the rocks Boyle had steered their ship on to and considered the best way forward. He knew that what he should do was go straight to Andy Frankham or even someone higher and voice his concerns, but he also knew what a potentially dangerous step that was. Even back at Hendon, the whispers in the locker room had made it clear that no self-respecting copper would ever set the Directorate of Professional Standards – the ‘Rubberheelers’ – on a fellow officer.

  Not if that copper knew what was good for him.

  Thorne had never been altogether sure what was good for him, not when it came to t
he Job, but he was concerned about the practical ramifications. Any ongoing DPS investigation was likely to result in Boyle being taken off the case and, good news though that would be for all concerned, as the complainant Thorne might well find himself reassigned too.

  He certainly did not want that.

  He owed it to Catrin Coyne, and her son, to stick around for as long as it took.

  Once the football chat had petered out, Kimmel had turned back to him and raised her glass. ‘Funny old day . . .’

  That morning, after breaking the news about the elimination of one suspect in the abduction of Kieron Coyne, Roth had done his best to engender a little enthusiasm for finding another one. All those present knew what that meant, of course. The previous evening’s TV reconstruction had resulted in hundreds of calls and the day would be all about following up, chasing down, weeding out.

  While Thorne had no way of knowing how his own call to the Crimewatch line had been received, he and the rest of the team had spent a long and largely pointless shift at their desks, bashing the phones and working at computers, with only a couple of results worth getting remotely excited about.

  ‘Better than bugger all,’ Boyle had said, on one of his brief forays into the incident room.

  Several callers who lived on Muswell Hill Road had named Felix Barratt, having seen him on the morning in question, and while this was hardly surprising, the information – and in some cases the gossip – provided had revealed him to be even more of a local ‘character’ than Thorne had suspected. Certainly one who might be worth another look. A good many more callers had confirmed the presence of the suspect car and though nobody had actually seen Kieron getting into it or was able to provide even a partial number plate, plenty had been sure enough of the make for the team to concentrate their efforts going forward into tracking down all registered owners of red Ford Fiestas.

  Almost a hundred thousand cars whittled down to eighteen thousand.

  ‘And that’s just in London,’ Kimmel said, now. ‘Me and the woman from the DVLC were practically best mates by knocking-off time.’

  ‘Got to be done,’ Thorne said.

  Kimmel took another drink. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s what we were supposed to be doing before we got . . . sidetracked. All the Figgis business.’

  ‘A couple of murders, remember?’

  Thorne was hardly likely to forget, but he still felt that he was talking sense. ‘It’s what good detective work is, right? Boring, mostly.’

  Kimmel polished off her pint and smiled. ‘I never had you marked down as a desk jockey. Thought you were all about . . . I don’t know, the gut. The feeling.’

  There was nothing snide in her tone, but Kimmel had clearly heard all the stories, same as everyone else. ‘I thought I was, once,’ Thorne said. ‘But it hasn’t done me any favours. Didn’t do Grant Figgis any favours.’

  They said nothing for half a minute, tuned briefly in to the conversation at the other end of the table, then tuned out again. Kimmel held up her empty glass. ‘Same again?’

  Thorne still had most of his pint left. ‘I think I’ll finish this and get off.’

  ‘Fair enough. Back here tomorrow night, then?’

  ‘Probably,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Or we could go somewhere quieter, just the two of us. Somewhere with a few less coppers?’

  Thorne said, ‘Oh.’ It wasn’t that he didn’t think Paula Kimmel was attractive or that he hadn’t found himself . . . looking around since Jan had left. It was more about feeling like a player who was unfit and out of practice suddenly being called off the substitutes’ bench. ‘Sounds like a nice idea, but I’m going through this bloody divorce and . . . well, you probably know. I assumed everyone did.’

  She stared at him. ‘Yes, I know. And I’ve got a boyfriend.’

  Now, Thorne was as confused as he’d been nervous. Was she telling him she had a boyfriend because he’d horribly misjudged the situation? Or because he hadn’t and she was letting him know that it didn’t matter?

  He fiddled with a beer mat. ‘Right, well . . .’

  ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

  Thorne watched Kimmel stand up and walk away. He stared at the back of her leather jacket as she pushed through the crowd around the bar, then down into his beer, afraid to make eye contact with anyone else at the table in case they’d overheard.

  Thinking: Job, life, sex . . . any of it.

  He didn’t have a clue what was good for him.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Maria could not remember her ex-husband being on time for anything when they were married. It had been one of the many things she had grown to despise him for. Every other Friday since their divorce, however, when Jeff arrived to collect Josh for the weekend, she could set her watch by him.

  Five o’clock, give or take a minute, and usually a few seconds either side of the pips on Radio 4.

  In case Josh hadn’t heard the doorbell, Maria shouted upstairs to let him know his father had arrived, and as Jeff followed her into the living room, she found herself wondering if this was what happened when couples separated. A change of habits, of personality, to go with a new beginning. Or perhaps it wasn’t actually a change at all and the truth was that people only behaved in certain ways as a reaction to the partner they were with at any given time. Perhaps Jeff had always been late simply because she was always on time, been sulky because she preferred to discuss things and had nudged the thermostat up whenever he had the chance because she was the one who always turned it down.

  Double acts, that was what couples were. Straight man and clown, stoic and flapper. Faithful mutt and horny old dog.

  She was most certainly not the same woman she’d been when Jeff had left. Yes, she was more self-sufficient these days because she had little choice in the matter, but she was also . . . kinder and more tolerant. She valued her friends – such as there were – far more, had grown to loathe so much as a minute of wasted time and found herself getting uncharacteristically emotional about everything from the state of public transport to fly-tipping.

  Most astonishingly of all, as she had confessed to Cat the last time they’d spoken, Maria had found herself thinking with increasing fondness about the man who had treated her like dirt for so long before abandoning her. Not forgiving him, never that, but making an effort to understand. Remembering the younger man she’d fallen in love with and – she reddened slightly thinking about it – counting down the minutes once a fortnight to those pips on the radio.

  ‘Did you see the thing on TV the other night?’ Maria pointed to the coffee machine but Jeff shook his head.

  ‘Need to get off,’ he said. ‘Traffic’s always a nightmare.’

  ‘The reconstruction.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw it.’ He perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘Boy didn’t look anything like Josh.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say about it?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t. Oh, and why was the woman playing you smoking, by the way?’

  ‘Because I was smoking when it happened.’

  ‘Right. Back on the fags again.’

  ‘It’s just occasionally.’ It had taken less than a minute, but now Maria could only remember the selfish and arrogant so-and-so who’d walked out on her. Annoyed with herself as much as him, she busied herself with the coffee, because she was going to have one even if he wasn’t. ‘Why am I explaining myself to you?’

  ‘You’re right . . . I’m sorry.’ He slid slowly down from the arm on to the sofa then turned to look at her. ‘Is Joshy ready?’

  ‘Yep. I’ve packed everything up for him. Including Snowball.’

  ‘He still needs that, does he?’

  Maria walked round and sat on the ottoman in front of him. ‘He wet the bed again last night.’

  ‘God—’

  ‘So you’ll probably need to change the sheets.’

  ‘I can do that, you know. I have done it before.’ He stood up quickly, walked to the doorway an
d shouted up to his son. He seemed irritated suddenly, but by the time he sat down again his tone had softened and, seeing the way his features had crumpled, Maria understood that he was every bit as concerned about their son as she was. That she should never doubt that for a moment. ‘Is it about the school again?’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s about.’ Maria let out a long breath. ‘I told you, he gets angry.’

  Jeff nodded. ‘Well, it might not be any bad thing. This suspension.’

  ‘No bad thing for me,’ Maria said. ‘I don’t think I can face those other parents at the gate any more. The girl he slapped and the one he bit.’

  ‘Maybe we should look for a different school.’

  ‘Or we could do what the headmistress suggested and take him to see someone. You must know someone, be able to ask around.’

  ‘Yes, of course I could, but . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s easy for kids to get . . . labelled.’

  ‘I just want someone to help him.’

  ‘Once he starts seeing someone, he’s in the system.’

  ‘Not if we go private, surely. Look, you said yourself, what if it’s not just what happened to Kieron and it’s not the school? Not bullying or anything like that.’ Maria leaned towards him, looked at the floor. ‘What if it is something a bit more worrying?’

  ‘Jesus . . .’

  ‘At least this way there might be a chance of finding out.’ The truth was that, ever since Jeff had raised the possibility on the phone a week before, Maria had thought of little else. Imagining, struggling to sleep, and coming close in her darkest moments to understanding what Cat must surely be going through. Dwelling upon.

  Worst-case scenarios.

  Jeff let out a long breath. ‘OK, I’ll make a couple of calls.’

  Maria nodded, hauled herself up and walked back to where the coffee was starting to dribble. ‘So, what have you got lined up for the weekend?’

  Jeff turned again and suddenly he was smiling, full of enthusiasm. ‘Well, I’ve got all his favourite food in, obviously, and a few videos he said he wanted to watch. I’d really like to get out and about a bit, though. Into the countryside. Nature, animals . . . there’s a farm you can visit. He doesn’t get enough of that.’