Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  “Are you finished?”

  “Only you don’t really seem to have grasped the basic concept.”

  “I’ll take that as a no, then…”

  They stared at each other for a few moments.

  Thorne was finding it hard to dislike McCabe, much as he thought it would be the appropriate thing to do. Maybe he’d start disliking him later, when the hangover had worn off a little. “Let me try and guess why you’re so tetchy,” he said. “You clearly are, smiling or not…”

  McCabe said nothing.

  “It might be piles, or money worries, or maybe it’s because your wife has discovered that you’re really a woman trapped in a man’s body. If I had to choose, though, I’d say it was because you haven’t been kept informed. Not about the undercover operation, obviously. That’s need-to-know…”

  “Not last night, it wasn’t…”

  Thorne nodded, allowing McCabe the point, then carried on. “I’m talking about the rough-sleeper murders generally. Maybe as senior officer on a specialist unit that deals with the homeless, you feel that you should have had some involvement. That you should have been consulted more.”

  McCabe’s smile had disappeared.

  “I know fuck-all about it,” Thorne said. Decisions about who should be talking to whom had been taken before he was ever involved, but he knew how these things worked. It wasn’t just computers that had problems talking to one another, and much as Brigstocke had been loath to take this case on, once he had, his Major Investigation Team were as territorial as any other. When it came to expertise and information, the idea was to avoid sharing wherever possible. “You know the game. Everyone takes what they can and tries to give sweet FA in return.”

  “Like oral sex,” McCabe said. “Right?”

  “I’m not sure I can remember back that far…”

  McCabe leaned back, ran a finger and thumb up and down the golf-ball tie. “I’ve not been here long, but I’ve made it my business to get to know this area. To forge some kind of relationship with most of the people who bed down around here every night. Your lot were complaining that no one was telling them anything, that they weren’t being trusted, but the dossers know the lads on my team. They might have talked to them. If we’d been invited to the party.”

  “You must have been consulted at some point, though?”

  “We were liaised with.” He said the word with huge distaste. Like it meant interfered…

  “You’re right,” Thorne said. “It’s stupid. Maybe they should have put the two of us together before I went onto the streets.”

  McCabe nodded, like he thought that would have been an excellent idea, turning up his palms in weary resignation at other people’s idiocy. “So how’s it going, anyway?” he asked. “It’s all gone a bit quiet since Radio Bob was killed.”

  Thorne took a mouthful of coffee. Gave himself a few seconds to formulate a response. As far as his own part in things was concerned, the cat was out of the bag and happily spraying piss anywhere it wasn’t wanted. Nevertheless, he thought it might be best to keep quiet about other matters. He thought that McCabe had every right to feel aggrieved at being marginalized, and that if he were brought up to speed on the case, he might even prove to be of some use.

  Still, something told Thorne to say nothing.

  McCabe saw the silence for what it was. “And it’s staying quiet, is it?”

  “Like I said, you know the game…”

  The crooked smile appeared again, but Thorne could see that it contained no warmth. “So you’re happy to suck up a bit when it’s in your interests. When I’m sitting here deciding whether or not to put the complaints paperwork through on your assault.”

  “Listen—”

  “But when it comes to talking about your case, you’ve suddenly got nothing to say. Shame you weren’t so fucking tight-lipped last night.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  McCabe pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Whatever else happens, I hope Dan Britton presses charges. You can take your chances with the DPS…”

  The Directorate of Professional Standards. The people that investigated corruption, racism, blue-on-blue violence. They’d made headlines a few months earlier after prosecuting a pair of budding entrepreneurs from the Flying Squad who’d been caught trying to sell footage of car and helicopter chases to TV companies. Thorne had been subjected to DPS attention a few times before. He’d made his fair share of work for those who handed out smacked wrists. But the way things stood now, in his career—in his life—there were plenty of things he was more afraid of.

  “I was in enough shit before I took this job,” Thorne said. “A bit extra isn’t really here or there…”

  McCabe picked up his mug, and took Thorne’s half-drunk cup as well. “We’ll see.”

  “Listen, I was taken off the world’s most tedious desk job to do this, for fuck’s sake, so it’s not like I’m committing career suicide, is it?” Thorne turned, spoke at McCabe as the inspector walked across the room. “You can do what you like, but I’ve got to tell you, I could have ripped your sergeant’s head off and things wouldn’t be much worse than they were already…”

  McCabe paused at the door. “Things can always get worse, mate.”

  “What happens now?” Thorne asked.

  “You sit there and wait. Your guvnor’s on his way over.”

  Thorne turned back to the table as the door slammed shut. He leaned down to the tabletop and lowered his head onto his arms. He felt wiped out by the exchange with McCabe and hoped he might be able to get a bit of sleep before Brigstocke arrived. Even ten minutes would be fucking great…

  He closed his eyes. He could hazard a pretty good guess at what sort of mood Russell Brigstocke would be in when he arrived. Thorne was fairly certain he wouldn’t be bringing coffee.

  From what Kitson and Holland had seen on the cab ride from the station, the army had built on, or fenced off, vast tracts of land in and around the lush river valley a few miles from Taunton that was now home to the 12th King’s Hussars.

  Standing at the main gate, as they’d waited to be escorted to the admin block, they’d been able to hear the boom of guns from ranges a long way distant and see sheep and cows grazing, unconcerned, on the hills that swept away on either side. Such incongruities were everywhere: a fully outfitted soldier in face paint and camouflage coming toward the barrier on a rickety bicycle; a car park full of Lagunas, Volvos, and Passats, while fifty yards away, on a rutted patch of tarmac as wide as a football pitch, rows of tanks and other armored vehicles stood in lines, some grumbling and belching out plumes of black smoke as they were repaired.

  Major Stuart Poulter’s office was small, but predictably neat and organized: a series of drawings illustrating the development of the modern tank was arranged along one wall; wooden “in,” “out,” and “pending” trays were lined up along the front of his desk; and kit bags of various sizes were laid out in one corner, as if he were expecting to be called away at any moment. Poulter was in his early forties, a little under average height, and with a thick head of dark hair worn relatively long. A full mouth and ruddy cheeks gave him an oddly girlish expression, but his body looked hard and compact under his uniform. He was immaculate in gleaming, brown oxfords, light trousers, and a green sweater with leather epauletes over regulation shirt and khaki tie.

  As they waited for their tea to be delivered, Holland explained just how confused he’d already become by the terminology; by the unfathomable series of initials and numbers on the signs that hung outside every office on the corridor. He wondered why an RSM was a WO1 while a CSM was a WO2, and even when he’d been told what OC and CO stood for, he wasn’t certain what made commanding officer any different from officer commanding. Poulter, who chain-smoked, and smiled rather too much, explained patiently that anyone unfamiliar with the military was bound to find it all terribly bewildering at first.

  Then, even though they knew that Poulter had been comprehensive
ly briefed, Holland and Kitson were obliged to spend five minutes or so going over their reasons for being there.

  “Just so we’re singing from the same hymn sheet,” the major said.

  The visit had, of course, been agreed between the army and the Met well in advance; the details hashed out in a series of telephone conversations between officers far senior to both Detective Inspector Yvonne Kitson and Major Stuart Poulter.

  Poulter used a brass Zippo to fire up his second cigarette since the interview had begun and leaned back in his chair. “I still think it would make more sense for the Met to liaise with the RMP on this.” He had a soft, comforting voice, like someone who might read out a weather forecast on the radio. “But, ours is not to reason why. Correct?”

  Once tea had been delivered and they’d got down to business, it became apparent that the system of tracking regimental personnel was every bit as complicated, every bit as arcane, as the command structure itself.

  “We only keep any sort of record on soldiers who are still serving,” Poulter said. “That’s the first thing, and it’s purely practical. Once they leave here, they’re no longer my concern, and I can’t really care anymore. You should really talk to the AP Centre at Glasgow…”

  Kitson told him that they knew all about the AP Centre. She explained that they simply needed the names of those who had served alongside Christopher Jago. She gave a brief and relatively vague outline of exactly why those names were so important. The existence of the videotape was not so much as hinted at.

  “It’s basically about tracing the other three on the crew,” Holland said. “We just need to know how we can get that information.”

  “Which crew are we talking about, though?” Poulter asked.

  “Like we said, it’s the Gulf, 1991…”

  “I’m clear about that, but this Jago might have been part of any number of crews. Do you understand? Just in that single campaign.”

  “Right…” Kitson was starting to sense that this wouldn’t be straightforward. That even though, this time, they’d come armed with all the relevant information, they were as far out of their depth as they had been when they’d interviewed Rutherford and Spiby at the Media Ops Office.

  “I’ve been all over the U.K.,” Poulter said, “and to most parts of Europe, right? I’ve been to Malaysia and Hong Kong and Belize; to Bosnia, the U.S.A. and Australia. And I’ve been to the Gulf. All in just the last ten years. Do you see what I’m driving at? Soldiers move around, all the time. Not only do they change location, but they also get shifted from troop to troop and from squadron to squadron.”

  “What gets done with their records if that happens?” Kitson asked.

  “It’s fairly standard…unless, of course, the soldier in question has served at any time with one of the intelligence-based units. The SAS, the Special Boat Service, 14 Int, or what have you…”

  “What happens then?”

  “Well, those records can have a habit of disappearing, or at the very least of a few chunks going missing. Normally, though, each man has a P-File, which is confidential and contains all the basic info: the courses he’s been on, names and dates, his disciplinary record, that kind of thing. That file goes with him if he switches squadrons. There’s also his Troop Bible, which gives admin details—passport number and so forth—but, again, that travels with the soldier.”

  “So the paperwork is as mobile as they are,” Holland said.

  Poulter turned, blew smoke out of the window he’d opened behind him. “That’s about right. And again, it’s purely practical. We’d be swamped with the stuff otherwise. I guess you lot have got much the same problem, right? Filling every bloody form in three times.”

  Kitson smiled politely, acknowledging the moment of levity. “Why might a soldier move?”

  “Any number of reasons. Troops go where they’re needed, basically. You might be going to assist another regiment, right? To backfill wherever it’s necessary. On a tank crew, say, you might have trained as a driver, and if a driver on another crew falls ill or whatever, you get shunted across and someone else is moved into your crew and trained up. You work as crew and you also work as engineering support for crew, and if that expertise is required elsewhere, you go to plug that hole. Some commanders like to move their crews around as a matter of course and some don’t, but either way it’s all change once the ORBAT comes through.” Poulter saw the confusion on Holland’s and Kitson’s faces and explained: “Order of Battle. That’s any troop movement order, peacetime or wartime, right? Once that comes through, you go. Simple as that.”

  Holland had begun by taking notes, but had realized fairly quickly that there was little point. Even so, he drew a line on his notepad, as if underscoring something of great importance. “I understand all that, but surely when there’s a conflict, like there was in the Gulf, it’s a good idea to have some…continuity.”

  “It’s certainly a good idea,” Poulter said. He looked vaguely pleased, as if Holland had asked the predictably stupid civilian’s question. “When the regiment’s deployed, that’s when people really start to get switched around. Troops are reorganized all over again in accordance with battle regs.” He stuck the cigarette into his mouth and began to count off these regulations on his fingers: “You can’t go if there are any medical issues, any at all; you’ll get left behind if you’ve got so much as a toothache, right? You can’t go if you’re underage…”

  “I’m not with you,” Kitson said. “How can you be underage?”

  “You can join up when you’re sixteen and a half, right? After basic training and what have you, we get them at around seventeen, but you cannot be sent to war unless you’re eighteen years of age. You’re a gunner on a tank crew and the regiment gets deployed to a combat zone, right? If you’re a week short of your eighteenth birthday, somebody else is going to get brought in to do your job.”

  Kitson nodded. She couldn’t help but wonder if the Iraqi army had been subject to the same regulations…

  “Then, once you’re actually out there, everything can change again. People get injured; that’s the most obvious thing. And I don’t just mean as a result of enemy action.” He pointed out of the window toward the line of tanks that Kitson and Holland had seen earlier. “You take a tumble off the back of one of those wagons and you’re going to know about it. These things have a knock-on effect as well. One tanky breaks his arm, half a dozen crews can get shifted around.”

  In his notebook, Holland circled the full stop beneath a large and elaborately shaded question mark. “What about soldiers who were in the Gulf and are still with the regiment?” he said. “Could we perhaps just talk to them? From what you said before, there should be a list of those people somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I think that would be very useful,” Kitson added.

  Poulter thought for a moment, before rolling his chair back and tossing his cigarette butt out of the open window. “I’ll go and have a quick word with someone about what you’re suggesting,” he said. “If you’d like to wait there, I’m sure I can rustle up some more tea…”

  Holland closed his notebook before Poulter walked past him on his way to the door.

  NINETEEN

  Spike had found him within half an hour of Thorne’s release from custody.

  “Fat Paul, who sells the Issue outside Charing Cross, saw you coming out. How was it?”

  “Bailed for a fortnight,” Thorne said. “Gives ’em time to decide if they want to go ahead and charge me.”

  Spike looked surprised, as Thorne knew he had every right to be. “I don’t know how you managed to wangle that. Can’t see there’s much to decide, seeing as how you decked a copper.”

  “They’re waiting for medical reports or something.”

  “Right…”

  “Plus, if they do me for assault, they know they might have to do one or two of their own.”

  Now Spike thought he understood. “Good thinking, mate. We’ll get one of them disposable cameras, make sure we
get some photos of your face. It’s a right mess, like.”

  Thorne had finally got a good look at himself in the gents’ back at the station after Brigstocke had finished with him. He looked every bit as worked over as he felt. One eye was completely filled with blood, while the other was half-closed above a bruise that was plum-colored and blackening at its edges. There were scratches down one side of his neck, and a graze, livid against his forehead, from where he’d been pressed against the wall.

  “Yeah, well.” Thorne could feel the air, cold on his wounds, and the pain that still sang along his shoulder blades where his arms had been driven up hard behind his back. “There were quite a few of them in the end…”

  “What d’you expect? You smack a copper in the face and a lot of his mates want to give you something to remember them by. Sounds like they did you a right favor, though…”

  Thorne looked at the cut along Spike’s cheekbone and the side of his lip that had split and swelled. “I thought you’d be a damn sight worse,” he said.

  Spike shook his head, looking smug. “I kept my head covered most of the time, like. Bastard ribs are black and blue, mind you. Just sorry I never got a chance to stick the fucker.”

  “You carry a knife?”

  With half his lip as swollen as it was, the smile was as lopsided as McCabe’s had been. “I’ve always got a weapon,” Spike said.

  They were heading north through Soho. The overcast streets were busy with lunchtime shoppers and workers hurrying to grab a bite to eat, or a quick drink to take the edge off the rest of the day. Thorne and Spike walked slowly along in the center of the pavement. The state of their faces allowed them to cut a swathe through pedestrians a little thicker than might normally have been the case.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t pick you up with it,” Thorne said. He was thinking that, despite what he’d said to McCabe, things could have been a lot worse. If he’d been party to an assault with a deadly weapon, there’d have been bugger-all Russell Brigstocke could have done about it…