Scaredy cat tt-2

by Mark Billingham

  He was only a hundred yards or so away. The drive curved sharply to the left and then narrowed suddenly, a bottleneck forming at the high, narrow gate that was the main entrance to the playground. He began to slow down as he approached it.

  Everything seemed normal. Kids coming out smiling. There was no noise, no abnormal noise. He slowed to a jog and then a fast walk. Getting his breath back. Everything seemed normal, but he had no idea what was waiting for him inside that gate. He was suddenly very worried – sweating every bit as much as he had been when he was running.

  If the message, whatever it was, however it had been worded, had got through to the school, then surely things would not have been so normal. Wouldn't the kids be inside? Kept away from any danger, held inside the building?

  Thorne put out an arm, brushed past a boy hovering at the gate and stepped through.

  He stood there, his guts churning, his eyes flicking across the expanse in front of him, trying to take it all in quickly. The main building to his right. The huge windows of the gymnasium, lined with wall bars. Up ahead, the newer buildings – the sixth-form block, the music rooms – and beyond them the playing fields. Still plenty of kids about. Singing coming from somewhere. A few teachers moving around…

  McEvoy…

  He took a step in her direction and then stopped. Her eyes bulged, terrified, out of a bloodless face. What little breath Thorne had left was gone in a moment.

  'Sarah…'

  Then Thorne got his first look at the face of the man immediately behind her. The man who was guiding her gently but firmly towards him. The man who stopped and looked straight at him, scowling, as if he were no more than a hindrance.

  Then Thorne knew exactly why Ken Bowles had been killed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  'You're out of breath,' Cookson said. 'What have you been doing?'

  It was a moment of terrible clarity. The sort that only ever comes hand in hand with terror, or great pain. Thorne embraced it as he would the sting of the flame that cauterised a wound. Andrew Cookson. ..

  'You killed Bowles because he recognised you,' Thorne said. 'It wasn't random. It wasn't a message. You needed to do it…'

  Cookson casually placed a hand on McEvoy's shoulder. 'Silly old sod should have retired years ago. Could barely do his sums any more. Then after half an hour with you he takes one good, hard look at me without the beard and.., bang! Cobwebs well and truly blown away. Corners me in the staff room. Pointing his finger and making melodramatic speeches. I know who you are. Fucking idiot…'

  Thorne pictured the chalk on Bowles's Crotch, the soil dropping down on to the lid of his coffin. Why hadn't he called the police?

  Why, when he'd recognised Cookson as Nicklin, hadn't he used the card that Thorne had given him, the one that Jay had found in his jacket pocket?

  The answer was a painful one to acknowledge. It wasn't heroism, it was desperation. It was Ken Bowles's last chance. A crack at balancing that chair on his chin one final time.

  'Enjoyable as this is,' Cookson said, 'the situation is a little tricky, wouldn't you say? I think we need to resolve it quickly. So, any bright ideas?'

  His tone was easy and faintly amused. Not hard when you were the one with a knife in a woman's back.

  'Not really,' Thorne said.

  'I thought not.'

  There was a silence that should have been heavy with threat and danger, but with children filing past smirking, it felt no more than awkward or embarrassing. Thorne wondered what the three of them looked like. Cookson and McEvoy might have been lovers, and he the ex-boyfriend, bumped into at an inopportune moment… Cookson smiled, as if working something out that pleased him enormously.

  'You've come on your own as well, haven't you?

  Thorne thought about lying but wasn't quick enough. Cookson leaned forward, ready to move on. 'Well, you have somewhat gate crashed things, but we're not going to let it spoil our enjoyment, are we, Sarah?' McEvoy winced as the knife nudged through another layer of skin. Thorne was close to rushing at him, hammering fists into his face. 'So, we're just going to carry on as if we never saw you. Excuse me…

  There was nothing Thorne could do. He had to step aside to let Cookson walk away. He didn't have a shred of doubt that he would push the knife into McEvoy's spine at the slightest provocation. He turned side-on, giving Cookson the room to get past, to maneuver McEvoy through the gate and away. Thorne noticed that in his free hand Cookson was carrying his briefcase with him. His cover was perfect. This was territory he'd felt safe on. Just a tired teacher heading home with a friend at the end of a long day… Cookson froze suddenly, looked right and left. Then Thorne saw what was happening. Children were moving back towards the building, some running. Teachers had appeared silently around the edge of the playground and were gathering in those pupils still around. The message had got through.

  Hissing instructions, beckoning, gesturing, the teachers emptied the playground in as orderly a way as they could. Following the directives that they had been given – that were standard in such situations they were trying to do it without alarming anyone, least of all the killer they'd been told might be nearby.

  He was nearer than they realised and he was alarmed. Thorne could see the hesitation, the tension in Cookson's face and in the hand that squeezed the back of Sarah McEvoy's neck.

  'Please,' McEvoy said. It was more of a moan than a word.

  'I think we're stuck with each other,' Thorne said. 'Half the Met is waiting for you out there. Plenty of them are armed and looking for an excuse…

  Cookson shook his head, and in an instant he had brought the knife round to McEvoy's throat. Smiling, he began to move backwards, towards the centre of the playground. Thorne followed slowly, praying that what he'd just told Cookson was, or would very soon be, true. As they neared the middle of the playground, McEvoy's eyes locked on to Thorne's. He couldn't begin to guess what they were trying to tell him. Cookson stopped and took a deep breath. He adjusted his position, leaving the knife exactly where it was, the blade biting into McEvoy's neck, but moving round a little to stand next to her.

  'You know I'll kill her, so why don't we stop pissing about. One way or another, I'm leaving here. If I'm in the back of a squad car, then she'll be leaving in a body bag.'

  'Fuck you,' McEvoy said.

  Cookson opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. 'It speaks,' he said.

  'I was wondering where you'd got to. I reckon your blood must be about ninety-eight per cent Colombian.' He laughed, and McEvoy grunted as a line of blood an inch or so long sprang onto the flesh of her throat and began to drip.

  'Sorry,' Cookson said. 'Accident…'

  Thorne twitched and Cookson's look told him to keep very still. It told him that the next time there would be a lot more blood.

  'What did you do with the boy when you killed Carol Garner?'

  Thorne said. 'Did he see it happen?' Cookson narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as if confused by the question. 'Did you make her son watch while you killed her?'

  Cookson shook his head, blew out a breath through tight lips.

  'Sorry, you'll have to help me. Which one was Carol Garner again?'

  Thorne knew then that as things stood, none of them were likely to leave that playground alive. He was willing his feet to stay where they were, but he knew that at any moment he would fly at this man, that rage would simply stop him caring any more. He knew that McEvoy's throat would open and cover the two of them with blood as she dropped away while he and Andrew Cookson murdered each other with cuts and clutching hands on the cold asphalt… Thorne became aware of a low buzzing noise. He realised that the sound was coming out of McEvoy's mouth.

  'I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…'

  'McEvoy…'

  Thorne's voice just seemed to activate some switch in McEvoy's brain. Now the words gushed out of her. She shook her head violently as if trying to dislodge something, shake it out of there; her neck moving back and forth across the blade
of the knife, the blood running down Cookson's fingers.

  'I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry…'

  Thorne could have sworn that the scream that followed came from him, or was at the very least inside his head, but if it was, why was Cookson spinning round? Why was he looking so astonished…?

  The figure came running from around the side of the main building, shouting and waving. Thorne blinked, looked again. The figure was waving a gun.

  Martin Palmer lumbered towards them, and the things that Thorne was seeing seemed to happen in slow motion at the same time that the thoughts in his head started coming faster than he could make sense of them.

  Cookson pushing McEvoy away, dropping the knife… McEvoy turning, running straight at Palmer… Cookson bringing up his hands to protect his head as the first shot rang across the playground…

  As Thorne went down hard, he heard the second shot, and at the edge of his vision he saw McEvoy stumble and crash heavily to the ground. An instant before he closed his eyes, he saw the look of astonishment frozen on Cookson's face, and a look there were simply no words to describe on Martin Palmer's.

  It was no more than a few moments, but when Thorne opened his eyes, it seemed to have become considerably darker. There were a few spots of sleet in the air.

  Thorne raised his head. Twenty-five yards away, McEvoy lay on the floor. He had no idea where she'd been hit, how badly she was hurt. He heard her moan as she tried to move the leg that was twisted awkwardly beneath her.

  She was moving at least.

  Thorne slowly got to his feet. His eyes, and those of Andrew Cookson, never moved from the figure of Martin Palmer. He stood no more than a few feet from them, his head bowed, the hand that held the gun twitching spastically.

  'What the fuck are you doing, Palmer?' Thorne said. Palmer looked up. His eyes seemed huge behind his glasses. The gun was smacking against his leg. 'I'm sorry.'

  Behind Palmer, McEvoy cried out. Th0rne couldn't make out whether it was pain or anger.

  'Sorry?' Thorne shouted. 'Fucking sorry…?'

  'You're full of surprises, Martin,' Cookson said. 'I tell you to shoot someone, you throw a wobbly and run to the police…'

  Palmer shook his head. 'Shut up, Stuart…'

  Cookson didn't even draw breath. 'Then up you pop out of the blue, and fuck me if you don't put a bullet in one of them.'

  Palmer raised the gun and pointed it at Cookson's chest. 'I told you to shut up.'

  'Not deliberately, of course. I think we know who the bullets were meant for.' He nodded his head towards McEvoy. 'She was just a lucky accident.'

  Thorne looked at Cookson, no more than two paces away, and promised himself that whatever else happened, he was going to hurt him.

  A noise came up from Palmer's throat, a low growl which erupted out of his mouth as a roar. His knuckles were white against the grip of the gun, his finger twitching against the trigger. He nodded once, twice. Those little nods. Urging himself to do it, telling himself to shoot. Cookson looked unconcerned. 'I always had to get you riled up, didn't I?' he said. 'Do you remember? There was a small window of opportunity if I was going to get you to do something, because you never held it together for very long. So, what's got you so excited now? Specifically?' He asked the question casually, as if checking some trivial fact. 'Was it Karen?'

  Palmer swallowed hard. He brought his left hand up to steady the gun.

  'Yes, of course it was.' Cookson smiled. 'Was is right, isn't it, Martin? You've lost it already. You want to kill me, but whatever made you brave enough to actually try has vanished, hasn't it? Run out of you like watery shit. Now you're just scared again…'

  Thorne looked at McEvoy. She was getting harder to make out clearly. The clouds were lower now, and blacker. The light was dirty, diffuse. The whole scene seemed lit by a thousand dusty, forty-watt light bulbs.

  He had to make a move. 'I need to get to my officer,' he said. Palmer didn't appear to be listening. Thorne took a step forwards, and in a second the gun was leveled at him.

  'No!' Palmer shouted.

  Thorne was genuinely surprised. 'What are you playing at, Martin?'

  Palmer said nothing. He looked lost. Lost, confused, and with a gun pointing at Thorne's belly.

  Thorne tried to keep his voice low and even. 'There are armed officers watching us right now. They're slightly better at this than you are. Do you understand, Martin?'

  Palmer nodded slowly.

  Thorne knew damn well that there was nobody watching them – not yet. If the Armed Response team had been there, then Palmer would not be standing and pointing a gun. He would almost certainly be dead by now.

  'Throw the gun away and let me get across to my sergeant. Martin…?'

  A light came on to Thorne's right. His eyes flicked across and he saw that there were children at the windows of the gymnasium, watching.

  The sleet started to get a little heavier.

  'Martin?' Thorne said.

  Cookson shrugged. 'It's a toughy, Mart…'

  Thorne's head whipped round and he spat gobbets of spittle and hatred into Cookson's face. 'Shut your fucking stupid cunt's mouth. I will kill you, is that clear? I'm not afraid, certainly not of you. I don't care what happens. He can shoot the pair of us, I don't give a fuck. But if I hear so much as a breath coming out of you before this is finished, a single poisonous whisper, I'll rip your face off with my bare hands. I'll take it clean off, Nicklin. I'll make you another nice, new identity…'

  Cookson's face was blank. He was very still. Thorne thought he'd shaken him, but he couldn't be sure whether the stillness was that of the prey that seeks to protect itself, or the predator that is-conserving its energy, preparing to strike.

  Palmer spoke and the thought was gone.

  'I'm sorry about your officer.' His voice was lower than usual, certainly calmer than it had been a few minutes before. 'I need to tell you something,' he said. 'I got the gun from a man in a pub. The first gun I mean.' He pointed with the gun to Cookson. 'He knows, he can tell you. It's a pub in Kilburn, I'm sure you could find it…'

  Thorne stared at him. What the hell was he on about? 'We don't have to do this now, Martin…'

  'I got this gun from the same man. I followed him from the pub. He's got a lock-up garage in Neasden, near the railway works, just across from the tube station.'

  Thorne was confused, but his mind raced, made connections. Neasden, four or five stops from where they were on the tube. Fifteen minutes, no more. Palmer, easily able to get here quicker than he had. 'Martin, this isn't important…'

  'Please, you have to listen. I took the gun, and there was a great deal of cash…'

  Cookson snorted. 'He'll fucking kill you.'

  'He's dead.' Cookson's eyes widened. Palmer's looked like they were ready to bulge out of his head as he craned his neck towards Thorne. 'He was a bad man, though, so maybe I did a good thing. I had no choice anyway.' He glanced at the gun in his hand. 'I needed.., this. I needed somewhere to stay for a while. I stayed in the garage. With the body. It was starting to really smell in there…'

  Palmer blinked slowly, his eyes closing almost, but not for quite long enough for Thorne to think about lunging…

  'We can sort all this out later, Martin. There'll be loads of time. Just get rid of the gun. You must get rid of it…'

  Palmer lowered his arm.

  'That's good, Martin, but you have to drop it. Let it go.'

  Palmer shook his head. Thorne sensed movement away to his right, and turned his head to see the children in the gym being led away from the windows. One by one the faces disappeared. Thorne blinked. The last face pressed up against the window, eyes wide and full of doubt, belonged to Charlie Garner… There was other movement, indistinct and fleeting, somewhere above and to the right of him. Finally, Thorne knew that back-up had arrived. Positions were being taken up, targets identified, sights fixed. A momentary glance told him that Cookson had seen it too.

  'I don't wa
nt you to be afraid,' Palmer said suddenly. Thorne looked away from the rooftop. As he brought his gaze back round to Palmer, he checked out Cookson, who was standing stock still, arms by his sides, eyes narrowed.

  Palmer's expression was bizarrely earnest. 'Really. You don't have to be afraid.'

  'Guns make me afraid, Martin. Throw it away.'

  'You know fear has a taste, don't you? It's actually the taste of your adrenal gland. That's what you can taste, that's the flavour of it…'

  Thorne saw Palmer's fingers moving. He watched, afraid to breathe, as the finger moved away from the trigger.

  Should he move now? Go for the gun…?

  'It's a very strange taste. Like chewing on a bit of tinfoil. That suggestion of metal in your mouth. It's actually the chemical that's in adrenaline…'

  Palmer slipped his finger out of the trigger guard. Rested it against the outside. Safe.

  He needed to do it now. He wasn't sure he'd seen McEvoy move for a while…

  'It's called adrenochrome. Did you know that?'

  Thorne shook his head. He didn't know the name, but he knew the taste very well.

  As Palmer screamed and raised his arm, Thorne saw what was happening. As Palmer leveled the gun at him, Th0rne saw exactly what he was trying to do.

  He saw everything, far, far too late.

  The bullet from the marksman's rifle had ripped through Palmer's throat before any of them had even heard the shot. Palmer dropped to his knees with an odd slowness, but then pitched forward fast on to his face. Thorne thought, or perhaps imagined, that he could hear nose, cheekbones and glasses shattering as the face hit the ground.

  Thorne went down quickly, put his hands on the gun that was lying a foot or so away from Palmer's corpse. He looked across towards McEvoy, hoping…

  'Congratulations on being alive, Thorne.' Cookson smiled, slowly raising his hands into the air. 'Being alive is the easy bit though, isn't it?'

  From somewhere behind them, a distorted voice boomed through a loudspeaker. Cookson took a step towards it, his arms high and straight. 'It's feeling alive, that's the hard part…'