Lifeless Thorne 5

by Mark Billingham

  A soldier waving papers taken from the Iraqi prisoners. No sign of what was to come. “We are keeping these.” (LOUDER) “Do you understand?”

  While decisions—including that which would determine his own future—were being made, Thorne wondered if the Met had taken one to hand the tape over to the army. He wondered, too, in spite of all the bickering between the Met and the RMP that would surely follow, if the army themselves would be very surprised. Had Eales and his fellow crewmen effectively covered their tracks in 1991?

  “Where D’you Get It?”

  “Say Again?”

  (Louder) “Where D’you Get It?”

  “This?” (Soldier Holds Up Bacon Strips) “I Brought It With Me.”

  Or was that commendation in the war diary little more than an exercise in sweeping shit under the carpet?

  “That Reminds Me, I Could Kill A Fry-up …”

  “That Stuff Fucking Stinks, Ian …”

  Thorne read the next line …

  And stared, breathless, at the page. At five words, spoken out of vision. A phrase that told him everything.

  He knew who the man behind the camera was.

  Thorne shut his eyes and pressed himself back in the chair, thrown by the excitement and the terror of being suddenly and completely without doubt. It was a sensation he’d almost forgotten: the sickness and the surge of knowing.

  Then, quick and painful as a low punch, Thorne knew something else: that the man who had paid Ryan Eales to commit murder would walk away from it as surely as Eales himself had so far managed to do. Certain as he was of the man’s identity, and of what he had done, Thorne knew that there was no way on God’s earth that he could prove it.

  Five minutes, perhaps ten, passed as Thorne weighed it up.

  He stared into the thought, into the white-hot heart of it, until at last he began to make a few decisions. Each would be dependent on the decisions of others, but as Thorne stood and gathered his things together he felt as energized as he had in a long while. He might yet fail to cross it, but now at least he had a bloody good idea where the finishing line was.

  He came out of the office and descended quickly toward the lower-ground floor. If Spike was still there, the two of them could chat while they played pool. They would have plenty to talk about.

  Thorne had decided that if he was going to get off the streets, he needed to come clean … in every possible sense. He was going to tell Spike everything.

  THIRTY-SIX

  He heard the man coming long before he saw him. The footsteps sounded hesitant; he could recog

  nize the tread of someone unfamiliar within the network of tunnels from a mile away. He’d heard such

  echoes many times before: the click-clack of heels

  slowing, then speeding up again as confidence comes

  and goes; the scrape of a leather sole against the concrete as the wearer turns to get their bearings, or

  decides in which direction to proceed. Or whether to

  proceed at all …

  When he finally saw the man rounding the corner,

  Spike stood. He leaned back against the wall and

  waited; tried to look unconcerned as the distance

  between the two of them shortened, as the man

  moved toward him through puddles of water and

  deeper pools of shadow.

  “Am I in the right place?” the man said. Still

  twenty feet or more away.

  The fear would have killed any strength in his

  voice anyway, but with the sound moving effortlessly, as it did through the air underground, Spike

  had no need to speak much above a whisper. “Depends,” he said, “on if you’ve got shitloads of cash in

  one of those pockets …”

  When the man stopped, it was three or four arms’

  lengths away from Spike. He looked around quickly. Took in his immediate surroundings. “This is nice,”

  he said.

  Spike said nothing.

  The man nodded toward the large cardboard box

  behind, and to Spike’s right, against the wall. “That

  where you sleep?”

  “It’s a lot better than some places,” Spike said. The corners of the man’s mouth turned up, but it

  could hardly have been called a smile. “Tell me how

  you got the tape.” It seemed that the small talk was

  at an end.

  “I told you when I called …”

  “You told me fuckall,” the man said. “You talked

  a lot of crap and I’ve had a few days to think about it

  since then.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you want it? That’s fine

  with me, like. Only you seemed keen enough on the

  phone …”

  “Tell me.”

  It was never really silent down in the subways.

  There was always the muffled roar of the traffic

  overhead, the buzz of the strip lights, the eerie beat

  of dripping water. These were the only sounds for

  several seconds.

  Spike rubbed his hands across his face. Through

  his hair. “What d’you want me to say?” His voice

  was hoarse; cracked with nerves and desire. “You

  want me to tell you I’m a fucked-up junkie? Do anything to score? Desperate enough for money to shit

  on a mate?”

  “Now you’re starting to persuade me,” the man

  said.

  “Thorne told me he was a copper, like. That he’d

  been working undercover because of these murders.

  He told me about the case, about why everyone had

  been killed.”

  The man didn’t blink.

  “He talked about everything,” Spike said. “What

  happened all them years ago in the fucking desert.

  He told me who you were and he told me about the

  tape.”

  “Why?”

  Spike shrugged. “Fuck knows. Because it was his

  last night, I suppose, and the stupid bastard thought

  it didn’t matter. He said that the bloke who did the

  actual killing had legged it and there wasn’t anything else anyone could do …”

  The man thrust his hands into the pocket of a long

  leather coat and pressed his arms close to his body. It

  was getting very cold in the early hours. “So, you

  just sat there, took all that in, and saw an easy way

  to make a few quid?”

  “More than a few, mate …”

  “Don’t try to be clever.” It was a simple directive.

  Spoken quietly, with the cold confidence that comes

  from being used to having such instructions followed.

  “Look … I was fucked off with him,” Spike said.

  “For bullshitting me all that time. For making me

  and my girlfriend and all the rest of us look like idiots. It was a good way to get my own back.” The man looked unconvinced. “It was a good way

  to make some money.”

  “Yeah, all right. ’Course it was. Obviously, after

  what he told me, I knew that the tape was valuable.

  That you’d probably pay a fair bit to get it back.

  When he said he had the tape on him, I started to

  think about it, you know? I was thinking about a

  shedload of smack and that. And a flat for me and

  my girlfriend.” Spike grinned, bounced a fist against

  his leg, as he thought about those things again. “She

  wants us to get a place together, you know?” “You just took it?”

  “When he was asleep, I grabbed his stuff and fucked off. I know he’s looking for me, but I’m pretty

  good at keeping out of people’s way, you know?” “He said this was the only copy?”

  Spike widened his e
yes. “Thorne’s fucking mental.

  I told you. I reckon being on the street has made him

  go funny, made him see things a bit twisted, like. He

  more or less nicked it, from what he was saying. Got

  some other copper he knew to hand it over to him on

  the quiet.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Don’t ask me. He was ranting about showing it

  to somebody. About using it for something.” The man seemed to think about this.

  “Listen,” Spike said. “I don’t really want to know

  about any of it, all right? Like you said, I’m just doing this for the money.”

  “Now, that I do understand,” the man said. “It’s

  what started all this in the first place.”

  Spike lifted a sleeve and rubbed the sweat away.

  “Starts everything, mate. Only some of us need it a

  bit more than others …”

  The man peered at Spike with curiosity and disgust, as though the wreckage of an accident had

  been taken away and he was staring at a bloodstain

  on the road. “My good fortune in this case,” he

  said.

  Spike reached into the inside pocket of his jacket,

  pulled out a plastic carrier bag, and wrapped it

  around whatever was inside. “Tape’s in here,” he

  said.

  The man made no move to take it. “You know

  that if you’re fucking me about, I’ll find you,” he

  said. “However good you think you are at keeping

  out of people’s way. I’ll pay someone to find you.” “Thorne told me what’s on here.” Spike shook the

  package. The tape rattled inside. “I haven’t watched

  it, but I know what you did. I know what happened back then, and what happened later on with cars and tablets and with army boots, so I know what you’re capable of.” He looked across at the man and held his stare. “I’m a junkie, and a liar, and a fuck

  ing thief. But I’m not stupid …”

  The man seemed impressed by this. When his

  hand came out of his pocket it was holding a bulging, brown A3 envelope.

  “How do we do this, then?” Spike held out the

  plastic bag at arm’s length. It shook in his hand. He

  dropped the arm and took a breath; tried to sound

  casual. “You want me to chuck it over or what?” The man stepped forward suddenly, and kept coming as Spike moved backward away from him. When

  Spike was against the wall, the man gently lifted the

  package from his hand. Six inches taller than Spike,

  he looked down and pressed the envelope against the

  boy’s chest. “Quite a bit in here,” he said. “Quite a

  lot of shit to put in your arm …”

  The man’s eyes swiveled in an instant to the cardboard box and at the same moment he took a step

  back. At the sudden noise; at the movement … A week before, back at the Lift, when they’d been

  playing pool and talking about how it might work,

  this had been the moment that had caused Spike to

  laugh out loud. Back before Thorne had gone to

  Brigstocke or Brigstocke to Jesmond. Before Jesmond had gone higher to wherever the buck

  stopped. This had been what they’d called the “rat”

  moment.

  “He’ll probably think it’s a rat,” Spike had said.

  “A fucking big one, like. He’ll probably shit himself …”

  The man’s reaction when Thorne appeared from

  inside the box—sitting and then standing up in one

  smooth movement—was less dramatic than Spike had predicted, but Thorne could certainly see that he’d sprung a powerful surprise. “I’m guessing those football tickets are out of the question now,” he said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Alan Ward nudged his glasses, then reached to grab a handful of hair at the back of his head, as if that might be the only way to stop himself shaking it. He’d carried on moving backward as the sides and lid of the box had burst outward and upward, and now he stared at Thorne and Spike across the eight or so feet that separated one wall of the tunnel from the other.

  Thorne glanced to his left. “All right?”

  Spike nodded, without taking his eyes off Ward. “This is … interesting,” Ward said, finally. He

  looked both ways along the length of the tunnel. “No point in going anywhere,” Thorne said. “Because … ?”

  “Because there are police officers at every exit. Why

  did you think it was so quiet down here tonight?” “Stupid bastard,” Spike said.

  The slow shake of Ward’s head became a nod of

  acceptance, and as Thorne watched, an excitement of sorts came into the journalist’s eyes. Though he was clearly anxious—the muscles in his face and neck singing with it—there was also a calmness in his voice and in his manner, as though he were somehow relaxed by the tension.

  He glared at Spike. “That little fucker wired up, is he?”

  Spike just smiled.

  “Or have you got something set up in the box?” Thorne nodded up at the roof of the tunnel, toward one of the small, metal PA speakers that was now more or less directly above Ward’s head. “The mike’s in there,” he said. “And the camera. Seemed appropriate to get it all on film as well.”

  “You haven’t got anything.”

  “You know we’ve got plenty …”

  Ward cocked his head as if he were weighing it up.

  Then he casually dropped the package he was carrying to the ground and began to stamp on it. The noise, as the tape’s plastic housing first cracked and then shattered, echoed back along the tunnel from left and right.

  Thorne waited for a couple of seconds. “Well done,” he said. “You’ve just stomped the shit out of a Jim Carrey movie.”

  “I don’t believe you …”

  “Not that we couldn’t have tied you to these latest killings without the tape anyway, but did you really think we’d only have one copy?”

  Ward turned angrily to Spike.

  “Since when do junkies tell the truth?” Spike asked.

  Ward’s unsettling calmness had all but vanished now. Thorne was aware only of the adrenaline, of a readiness, in the man opposite him. And something else at the furthest edge of the rush: Ward’s barely concealed fury at the hopelessness of his situation.

  There was nothing practical to be gained by it, but still there were many reasons why Thorne felt the need to push and to bait. To glory, and to let Ward see him glory at his impotence.

  “So, lucky or unlucky, then?” Thorne said. “The day you came across that tank crew. What d’you reckon, Alan?”

  Ward seemed to find the question funny. Asked one in return: “For me or those Iraqis?”

  Thorne answered with a look.

  “Lucky for me, definitely,” Ward said. “Very lucky. And you can make your own luck up to a point, but it’s what you do with it that makes the difference.”

  “What were you doing there?” Thorne asked.

  “I was driving around, monitoring radio transmissions, and I heard Callsign 40 radio through that they’d thrown a track.” Ward leaned back against the wall and looked hard at Thorne. This wasn’t reminiscence. It was education. “I heard REME telling them that the engineers couldn’t get out there for a couple of hours, and I was nearby, so I thought I’d head across and see what was happening. By the time I’d got there, the men in the Iraqi tank had just driven up and surrendered. Popped their lids waving fucking white flags …”

  “Very stupid of them.”

  “See, I had my nice bit of luck right there, and ordinarily that’s all it would have been. If all I’d wanted was to point my little camera and watch a few of our boys capturing a few of theirs, that would have been handy. But it was much more than that. Becaus
e I wanted much more than some boring bit of footage that might or might not have given me a bit of clout next time I was negotiating a pay rise.”

  “So you … encouraged them.”

  Ward was still, and focused, his eyes unblinking in the artificial light. When he spoke, it was clear to Thorne that what he said was deeply felt. The frigidity and scorn for life that Thorne knew to be at the core of this man were belied by the twisted passion of the words.

  “Have you ever thought you were about to die?” Ward asked. “Or even that you were about to be the one to take a life? Have you ever really experienced that sort of excitement?”

  Thorne had little intention of answering, and Ward had even less of giving him the opportunity.

  “I suppose, because of what you do, that you’ve felt it more keenly than most, and let me say straightaway that I admire what you do. Really. Perhaps you have been in the sort of situation I describe, but can you even begin to imagine feeling those things for days, for weeks, on end? Constantly. Can you imagine it becoming something that you live with?” He flicked his eyes to Spike, spat the words out at him. “That … heightened feeling in the body becomes something that’s more powerful than any drug. And when you come down from it, you fall a very long way and you fall very hard.”

  “What the fuck do you know about it?” Spike said.

  Ward just smiled and turned his attention back to Thorne. “Those boys were trained for it … And they were boys, emotionally at any rate. They were taught to expect it, whipped up into a state every day until eventually, not seeing combat became far worse than seeing it. They needed the high, can you understand that? They were sent over there to do a job and then some of them didn’t get a chance to do it. There were lads out there turning on each other. Shooting fucking camels. Anything to get close to that buzz.”

  “You wanted it, too, though, didn’t you?”

  Ward’s eyes widened. “I was … frustrated, yes,” he said. “And me and that situation were just fucking perfect for each other. They thought it was about to happen, Hadingham and Eales and the others. They’d been told that the enemy was close, that there was every chance of engaging at any fucking moment. Then the machine lets them down and they can do nothing but watch their mates disappear into the distance. Feel that buzz disappear with them.”