Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  Three steps up from pavement level and fairly sheltered. Odd as it was to sleep surrounded by giant black-and-white photographs of actors and extravagant quotes testifying to their skill and comic timing, Thorne figured that a theater doorway was a safe bet. As long as he waited until the show had finished and the place had shut its doors for the night, he probably wouldn’t be bothered. Plus, of course, theaters—unlike shops—tended not to open first thing in the morning.

  Two days shy of September, it was a relatively mild night, but within half an hour of lying down, his arse was dead and it felt as though a corpse’s feet had been pressed against his neck.

  Thorne hitched up the sleeping bag and leaned back against the doors. He’d felt ready to drop only an hour before. Having walked around since the day center had closed its doors at four o’clock, he’d been stone-cold dead on his feet by the time he’d staked his claim to the theater doorway. Now, suddenly, he was horribly awake. He thought about getting his gear together again and walking some more, but he didn’t want to run the risk of losing his pitch. He’d seen one or two characters earlier in the surrounding streets, mooching around, looking like they were searching for a good spot to spend the night. For a second he decided that reading a book might help him sleep, and then he remembered where he was and what he was doing. It struck him that the first few days would be about similar moments of desire and realization. About feeling spoiled and stupid every few minutes.

  Remembering, and perhaps forgetting, the thousand everyday things that he would be going without.

  Music, TV, decent food. But it wasn’t even so much about these obvious things themselves. He would eat. There was a television in the day center if he had a desperate desire to watch Richard and Judy. It was getting used to such things not being available whenever he felt like them. It was a question of choice, and space. Somewhere to lie down, to feel comfortable, to have a piss…

  He started to make a list in his head of all these things and it didn’t take him long to work out exactly what it was that he needed. He couldn’t believe that he’d been so stupid as not to get it organized. Christ, he’d have had a beer at home, wouldn’t he? He decided that tomorrow night he’d make sure he stashed a couple of cans in his rucksack. Maybe something even stronger.

  He sat, bored and scared, letting his head drop back against the polished wooden doors and staring at the photographs all around him. Listening to people shouting and to cars accelerating away. Smelling the aftershave on his father’s coat.

  It was, he guessed, not even one o’clock yet. People still walked past his doorway every few minutes or so. Thorne wondered how long it would be before he no longer bothered looking up at them.

  In retrospect, his one regret about killing the driver was that he hadn’t given the pathetic twat time to get a proper look at him. He’d have liked to have seen the shock register, just for a second, before the first kick had…

  Mind you, there was no point dwelling on it. Most of them had been so out of it, so away with the fairies, that they hadn’t registered much of anything. The driver was in such a state, he wouldn’t have recognized him anyway, likely as not. He could smell the beer on the poor sod, alongside that stink they all had. That tangy, tramp stink. Sharp and musty at the same time, like cats had been pissing in a charity shop.

  He turned off the bathroom light and moved into the darkness of the bedroom. He thought about checking to see if there was any metal on MTV, maybe working out for twenty minutes. He decided against it and began to undress; it was easy enough to do a bit more in the morning. He’d eaten late and the food hadn’t had a chance to go down.

  Things in London had been fairly straightforward up to now, so it annoyed him that this last one, Hayes, had survived. It sounded, from what they’d said on the news and in the paper, that he wouldn’t survive for very long, but still, it rankled with him. It made him swear at the mirror and kick out at stuff. You did a good job and you took pride in it. That mattered. It was important that you did what was required.

  He flicked on the TV. The light from the small screen danced across his clothes as he folded them carefully onto the chair at the foot of his bed.

  He’d already made up his mind to do another one. This one would be just for him, would go some way toward making up for botching the last one. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it couldn’t do much harm. It would cost him another note, of course, but twenty quid a pop wasn’t a lot for reinforcement that bloody good.

  He climbed beneath the blanket in his vest and pants and began jabbing at the remote. As he had looked at what was showing on all the stations a few times, it was obvious that there was nothing he fancied, but he carried on regardless. Moving methodically through the channels with the sound down.

  When he’d finished, Thorne tucked himself in and turned from the wall to find himself being studied.

  “You want to be careful, mate. There’s one or two coppers round here’ll do you for that. Take great delight in doing it, an’ all…”

  He stood directly opposite Thorne on the other side of the road, with a gray blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Early twenties was Thorne’s best estimate. He had delicate features set below spikes of blond hair and his cheeks hollowed dramatically as he dragged hard on a cigarette.

  “I can show you a place thirty seconds from here which is a bit more private, like, and a lot bloody safer. Of course, there’s always McDonald’s if you want to go before midnight, though there is one down toward Trafalgar Square that sometimes stays open a bit longer. With a piss, like, there’s always somewhere, but there’s nothing quite like seeing them golden arches when you’re bursting for a shit.” He reached up a hand from beneath the blanket to take the cigarette from his mouth.

  Thorne said nothing for a few seconds. The boy seemed friendly enough, but still, Thorne sensed that caution would be best. It would certainly look best. “Right,” he said. His voice was flat, with just a hint of aggression in the delivery.

  The boy looked to his right. “You’re in the theater doorway, yeah? Just round the corner there?”

  Thorne nodded, began to walk slowly toward it.

  “Just so as you know, that’s Terry T’s spot.” He began to move in the same direction as Thorne, walking parallel to him on the other side of the narrow street.

  “So, where is he?”

  “He’s gone visiting, so you’ll be all right for the time being. He’ll be back at some point, though, so just as long as you know, yeah? As long as you know that’s Terry T’s spot.”

  “Well, I know now. Thanks.”

  The boy crossed the road, moving over to Thorne in a couple of strides and walking alongside him. “It’s a good spot, like. Sheltered…”

  “That’s why I took it,” Thorne said. “I think I’ll move around a bit anyway, see how it pans out.”

  “Only Terry can be a right psycho, like. Goes a bit mental sometimes and, you know, with him being so enormous and that—”

  “Mental how exactly?”

  The boy chucked his cigarette into the road and hissed out a laugh. “I’m winding you up. I’m kidding, like. Terry’s all right, plus he’s my mate, so I’ll square things if he does get a bit funny with you.”

  Thorne had seen the joke coming, but had let the boy have his moment. “Thanks,” he said.

  They rounded the corner and Thorne was relieved to see that his sleeping bag and rucksack were still there. He’d decided to risk leaving them for a minute or two while he’d gone to answer the call of nature. The relief must have been clear to see on his face.

  “Don’t worry, mate, people only tend to nick what they can sell. Nothing valuable in your bag, is there?” Thorne shook his head. “Don’t worry about your sleeping bag, though, you can pick one of them up anywhere. Salvation Army’s got thousands of the bloody things, or you’ll just see ’em lying around, so you can help yourself. You want to watch out for scabies, though, that is not fucking pleasant.”

  “C
heers…”

  “Best not to cart that much around at all if you can help it. Leave your stuff somewhere else, you know, one of the day centers or whatever. Trust me, even a plastic bag with some old papers and a pair of socks in it gets dead heavy if you’re carrying it around all the time, like.”

  Thorne climbed the marble steps and sat down in the doorway. “How come you’re such a font of all fucking knowledge? You’re only twelve.”

  The boy laughed again, nodding and spitting out the laugh between his teeth. “Right, mate, you’re right, but it’s like dog years on the streets, so I’m a lot older than you where it counts, you know?”

  “If you say so.”

  “How long you been around, then? I’ve not seen you…”

  “First night,” Thorne said.

  “Fuck.” The boy pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He repeated himself, drawing out the word, respectfully.

  “So, what? You’re the welcoming committee, are you?”

  “Nearest thing to it, yeah, if you like.”

  Thorne watched the boy rummage beneath the blanket and emerge with another cigarette. He could see that the boy was actually much taller than he’d first appeared. He’d walked with hunched shoulders, eyes down, as though he could tell exactly which way he was going by looking at the cracks in the slabs, by studying the pattern of discarded chewing gum on the pavement.

  “You look like the Man with No Name,” Thorne said.

  The boy finished lighting up, blew out a thin stream of smoke. “You what?”

  Thorne pointed toward the blanket around the boy’s shoulders. “With that. Like Clint Eastwood in the movie, you know? The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

  The boy shrugged and thought for a minute. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, rocking from side to side. “He the one did those films with the monkey?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Thorne shoved his feet down inside the sleeping bag. “Good time for your mate Terry to go visiting.”

  “Why’s that, then?”

  “One less for this nutter to go after. This loony that’s killing rough sleepers.”

  The boy’s cheeks sank into shadow again as he took a deep drag. He held in the smoke until he needed to take a breath. “I suppose. He’s still got plenty to choose from.” His mood had changed suddenly: fear, suspicion, or perhaps a bit of both. It was hard for Thorne to work out which.

  “Did you know any of them?” Thorne asked the question casually, through a yawn. “Any of the blokes who were…?”

  “I knew Paddy a bit, yeah. Mad as a snake, like, but totally harmless. Paddy was happy with God and a bottle.”

  “So you don’t reckon he could have fallen out with somebody? Nobody had a reason to give him a kicking?”

  The boy looked straight at Thorne, but it was as though he’d heard a totally different question. He nodded once, twice, quickly. Repeated what he’d just said: “God and a bottle…”

  “Right.”

  “What’s your name?” Another, equally sudden change of mood and tone.

  “Tom.”

  “I’ll see you around, Tom…”

  “What about you? You might look like the Man With No Name, but you must have one.”

  “Spike. Because of the hair, you know? Like the vampire in Buffy.”

  Now it was Thorne’s turn to be the one on whom a reference was lost. “Okay, but what’s your real name?”

  The boy cocked his head, looked at Thorne as though he, too, were a harmless old nutcase. “Just Spike.”

  Then he turned, hoiked up his blanket, and began walking north toward Soho.

  SEVEN

  The mobile phone Thorne had been issued with was permanently set to vibrate, and had been shoved deep inside the pocket of his overcoat. It had been agreed that Thorne and Holland would talk twice every day, morning and evening. Contact either way could, of course, be made at other times if necessary, and a face-to-face meeting, with either Holland or Brigstocke, would take place, all being well, once a week.

  Thorne had already spoken to Holland by the time he walked into the London Lift day center, just after the place opened at nine o’clock. He found himself in a small holding area between the front entrance and a larger glass door. The young Asian man on duty at the reception desk eyed him through the glass for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, before pressing the button that allowed him through the second set of doors.

  “All right?” Thorne stepped up and leaned against the counter.

  “I’m good, mate. You?”

  Thorne shrugged and scribbled his name in the register that had been passed across to him. The receptionist, who wore an ID badge that said raj, tapped a couple of keys on his computer and Thorne was buzzed through the steel door into the café area.

  A fair number of the gray or orange plastic chairs—scattered around tables or lined against the walls—were already taken. Most people sat alone, nursing hot drinks and rolls, and though a few had gathered in groups, the sound of a knife scraping across a plate rose easily above the muted level of conversation. Considering how busy it was, the place was oddly still and quiet. Thorne knew that half as many people would be making twice as much noise in the Starbucks across the road.

  He moved to the end of a short queue, studied the price list on the blackboard behind the counter. He saw a familiar figure rise from a table across the room and nod. Spike walked across, moving a little slower than he had done the night before.

  “Found this place quick enough, then?”

  “I saw an outreach worker,” Thorne said. “Came along last night after you left, told me if I got down here first thing, I could get a decent breakfast.” The second lie of the day came easily. He’d told the first on the phone half an hour earlier, when Dave Holland had asked him how his night had been.

  Thorne looked around. It was a big room, and bright. One wall was dominated by a vast, glossy mural; notice boards ran the length of another.

  “You signing on?” Spike asked.

  Thorne nodded. He wouldn’t be going to the dole office, but he’d taken the decision early to live on the equivalent of state benefit. He would exist on the princely sum of forty-six pounds a week, and if he wanted any more he was going to have to find his own way to come up with it, same as anybody else sleeping on the street.

  He took a step closer to the counter, remembering what Brendan had said about “De Niro shite.”

  “The rolls aren’t bad,” Spike said. “Bacon could be crispier.”

  “I just want tea.”

  Thorne’s instinct at that moment was to put his hand a little deeper into his pocket and offer to buy tea for Spike, too, but he stamped on the natural impulse to be generous. The idea was to fit in, and he knew damn well that, where he was, nobody would make that kind of gesture.

  They reached the front of the queue and Spike stepped in front of him. “I’ll get the teas in.”

  Thorne watched Spike hand over forty pence for two cups of tea and realized that there was precious little he could take for granted.

  They walked over to a table, Thorne a step or two behind Spike, thinking, He must want something. Then, Fuck, I’m doing it again.

  “You get much sleep?” Thorne asked.

  Spike grinned. “Haven’t been to bed yet, like. Busy night. I’ll crash for a couple of hours later on.”

  “Where d’you bed down?”

  Spike seemed distracted, nodding to himself. Thorne repeated the question.

  “The subway under Marble Arch. I only come into the West End during the day, like, to make some money.” The grin again, spreading slowly. “I commute.”

  Thorne laughed, slurped at his tea.

  “It’s not bad, this place,” Spike said. He leaned down low across the table and dropped his voice. Thorne could just make out the last gasp of an accent. Somewhere in the southwest he reckoned. “There’s not many centers around like this, where under-twenty-fives and over-twenty-fives can hang around together. Most
of ’em are one or the other. They prefer it if we don’t mix.”

  Thorne shook his head. “Why?”

  “Stands to reason, when you think about it. The older ones’ve picked up every bad habit going, haven’t they? You take somebody fresh on the streets. After a couple of weeks knocking about with someone who’s been around awhile, he’ll be a pisshead or he’ll be selling his arse or whatever.”

  It made sense, Thorne thought, but only up to a point. “Yeah, but look at us two. I’ve got twenty-odd years on you and you’re the one that’s been around.”

  Spike laughed. Thorne listened to the breath rattling out of him and looked into the pinprick of light at the center of his shrunken pupils, and thought: You’re the one that’s picked up the bad habit…

  Thorne had seen it the previous night: the glow from a streetlamp catching a sheen of sweat across Spike’s forehead, heightening the waxy pallor of his skin. This morning, it was obvious that he’d not long got his fix. Thorne knew that without it he’d have no chance of getting any sleep.

  “Can you not get a hostel place?”

  “Not really bothered at the moment. When I wake up covered in frost, like, I’ll be well up for it, no question, but I’m all right where I am just now. Been in plenty of hostels, but I’m not really cut out for ’em. I’m too…chaotic, and that’s a technical term. ‘Chaotic.’ I’m fine for a few days or a week, and then I fuck up, and end up back on the street, so…”

  Spike’s speech had slowed dramatically, and his gaze had become fixed on a spot above Thorne and to the right of him. Slowly, he lowered his head and turned, and it was as though the eyes followed reluctantly, a second later. “I think…it’s bedtime,” he said.

  Thorne shrugged. A junkie’s hours.

  Spike slid his chair slowly away from the table, though he showed no sign of getting up from it. On the other side of the room voices were raised briefly, but by the time Thorne looked across, whatever had kicked off seemed to have died down again.

  “Maybe see you back here lunchtime.”