Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  “Just before they were posted to the Gulf,” Holland said. He reached over again and jabbed a finger toward one of the soldiers. The faces were small in shot, the features indistinct. “That’s Jago…”

  Thorne looked at the list of names beneath the photograph. Jago’s was certainly there, but the list was not structured in any way. It was impossible to tell how the names corresponded to the men in the picture, gathered as arbitrarily as they were.

  “How do you know?” Thorne asked.

  “We scanned the photo and e-mailed it to Susan Jago. She picked her brother out for us.”

  “She pick out anybody else?”

  “She told us before that she’d only seen one photo of the crew together…and that was years ago.”

  Thorne studied the photograph. He thought he could read fear—apprehension, at least—on one or two of the faces, but decided in the end that he was simply projecting. He couldn’t see what was in the heads and hearts of these soldiers any better than he’d been able to see what was in the eyes of the four he’d watched committing murder on a grainy videotape. Those men were in front of him at that moment; he was looking at their faces. And now, if any were still alive, there was a way to trace them.

  “How did they get away with it, Dave? How did no one find out what they’d done?”

  “Maybe someone did,” Holland said. “The army might have known and hushed it up…”

  Thorne wasn’t convinced. “Or maybe they just buried the bodies.” He ran that through his mind for a moment; thought about holes being dug in wet sand once the camera had been switched off. Thinking about the tape reminded him of something else. “Any word back from the lab yet? They were going to try and sort out the sound on the video…”

  Holland rolled his eyes. “Believe it or not, we’ve now sent it to a special unit at the University of California…”

  “They can’t do it here?”

  “Not if you want a result this side of Christmas.”

  “Jesus.” Thorne handed the magazine back to Holland. “I presume we’re going back to the army with these names.”

  “Yeah, and this should make things piss-easy for them. We know none of them are still serving with the Twelfth King’s Hussars, but we should be able to find out if any have moved anywhere else within the service. And now we’ve got the names, we can finally get on to the Army Personnel Centre.”

  “I think we should start trying to locate them ourselves at the same time, though.” Thorne got to his feet. “We might find them faster than the army can.”

  “That’s the plan,” Holland said. “We just need to get hold of someone with a decent memory. Someone who can remember the other three who were in Jago’s tank crew.”

  “Start with the rarest names, right? Leave the Smiths and Joneses till last…”

  “Really?” Holland looked across at Thorne like he was telling him how to tie his shoelaces.

  Thorne returned the look with knobs on. “Okay…Sorry, Sergeant.”

  “We’re shit out of luck as far as that goes, anyway.” Holland pulled on his gloves and stood up. “Nothing too outlandish, I’m afraid. Not a single Private Parts or Corporal Clutterbuck among them…”

  They walked south toward the Serpentine.

  It had started to drizzle, and Holland reached instinctively for the umbrella in his case, then stopped when he saw Thorne moving through the rain as if he were unaware of it.

  “So why did you move?” Holland asked. “Are you trying to lower the tone in as many places as possible?”

  “No choice. The bloke whose pitch I took is coming back. Today or maybe tomorrow. These things tend not to be very specific…”

  When Thorne had seen him the day before, Spike had been insistent that Terry T was on his way back to London. He’d heard a definite rumor, at any rate, and seeing as how Terry would want his pitch back, it was a good idea for Thorne to look around for somewhere new to bed down. Terry T was a big bloke, after all, Spike had said, and with a seriously vicious temper. Thorne had taken the bait, pretending to fall for the same gag he hadn’t fallen for on the first night he and Spike had met…

  “How’s the face feel?” Holland asked. This was the first day he’d laid eyes on Thorne since his arrest, and the first time he’d mentioned Thorne’s souvenirs of the occasion.

  “What, have you only just noticed it?”

  “I didn’t think you’d want people banging on about it…”

  “Because I got my face smashed in?” Thorne’s tone was suddenly edgy, and snide. “Or because of why?”

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes.

  “Obviously, it looks pretty bad,” Holland said. “The face, I mean. I just wondered if it hurt much, that’s all. Thought maybe you could get Phil Hendricks to bung you a few painkillers or something.”

  Thorne felt bad that he’d been snappy before. “Don’t worry about the face, Holland. It looks like shit, but beneath the bruises, my looks remain undamaged.”

  “That’s a shame,” Holland said.

  They came out onto Carriage Drive opposite Hyde Park Corner. Thorne had decided to take the long way back and walk into the West End along Piccadilly. Holland was planning to catch the tube back up to Colindale.

  “Do you want to know the worst thing about you being promoted?” Thorne asked. “I can no longer enjoy the simple pleasure of calling you Constable as if it’s spelled with a U and an extra T…”

  Saturday had been a bit hectic, but he’d got what he needed, and the rest of the weekend had actually been very pleasant. He’d taken a boat trip down to Greenwich and wandered around the Maritime Museum. Sitting in a nice pub by the river, he’d had a couple of pints and a Sunday lunch with all the trimmings. Later, he’d poked around a few of the little antiquey places and secondhand shops. He’d bought a computer game and a black suede jacket from the market.

  If you could be bothered to look, there were plenty of places like that in London, north and south of the river; places with some charm and individuality; with a little bit of character. You couldn’t help but wonder why those who ended up on the street chose to congregate like rats around the West End. Were they drawn to the bright lights or something? Did they think it was glamorous? He didn’t understand it. Surely they could have gone wherever they fancied, slept wherever they liked. Wasn’t that one of the few good things about being homeless?

  For all that he’d learned about the lives of these people—and he’d made it his business to learn a great deal—he couldn’t help but think that, for some of them, it was a lifestyle choice. There were a few, of course—the ones who were soft in the head or whatever—who would never be able to cope and were always going to end up on the margins of society, but for others it seemed to be about preference. From what he could see, those people didn’t want to help themselves and scorned any offer of assistance from others. It was hard to have any real sympathy with that sort…

  Bearing in mind what he’d been doing, he knew full well that he could hardly have been expected to think any other way, but that was genuinely his opinion on the subject. He firmly believed that he could do what he’d done and still be, you know, objective about what went on in the world. The people who had died had done so for no other reason than simple necessity. What had been done—what he’d had to do—was about no more than self-preservation. Well, that and the money, of course.

  But nothing else.

  He could honestly say that he hadn’t borne any ill-will toward anyone he’d ever killed.

  Today, with more work to do, he wasn’t quite as relaxed as he had been when ambling about in Greenwich. It should all have been done and dusted by now, but when it came to protecting yourself, being safe rather than sorry was the only sensible approach.

  He was spending a dreary Monday mastering his new computer game; sharpening up his reflexes and concentrating his mind. He’d get back to the matter in hand tomorrow.

  TWENTY-THREE

  As a trainee det
ective constable, Jason Mackillop was desperate for any chance to make an impression. It was easy to get lost on a major investigation such as this one. But it was also possible, if you were in the right place at the right time, with the right people at the end of the phone, to go from donkey to hero in a few minutes. They hadn’t talked much about luck on the five-week Detective Training Course at Hendon, but all the trainees knew it was every bit as important as the stuff they had been taught: forensics; crime-scene management; handling exhibits; disclosure of evidence; performance in the witness box.

  At twenty-three, he was relatively young for a TDC. He was perhaps no more than six months away from being assigned as a full DC, but after the probation, the year on relief, and the two more as a dogsbody on the Crime Squad, he was more than ready to step up. He’d already proved he could handle himself in most formal areas of the job, and catching a break like this one certainly couldn’t hurt…

  Mackillop put down the phone, took a deep breath, and snatched up the piece of paper on which he’d been scribbling. He needed to pass on the information quickly, but for a second or two he wasn’t completely certain as to whom. Should he observe the chain of command or just go straight to the most senior officer he could find? If he did, would he risk putting noses out of joint? It was fantastic to impress, but it might be a very bad move to alienate those just a step or two farther up the ladder than he was.

  He glanced around the incident room, feeling the paper warm against his sweaty fingers. They were a good bunch, by and large, with no more tossers than you’d expect on any team of this size: Andy Stone was the sort of bloke you’d like as a mate, but Mackillop was unsure how good a copper he was; Kitson seemed well liked, but she sometimes had that look, like you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her; Holland could be a bit distant, though he’d only just been promoted, and was bound to have a lot on his plate. Mackillop had never met Tom Thorne, the team’s absent DI, but he’d certainly heard enough about him…

  Looking around, trying to make his mind up, he saw that Kitson was watching him from a spot by the coffee machine. Her eye flicked from his face to the piece of paper he was now wafting nervously from the end of his outstretched arm.

  “All right, Jason?”

  “Guv…”

  Mackillop walked across, decision made, and within a minute he knew it had been the right one. Once he’d finished telling her about the phone call and shown her what he’d written down, Kitson had done exactly as he’d hoped she’d do: she’d congratulated him on a job well done, then pointed him straight toward the DCI’s office.

  He couldn’t see Spike or One-Day Caroline, and guessed they’d be in later, but there were plenty of faces Thorne did recognize as he looked around. He saw Holy Joe, and the drunk who’d shouted at him outside St. Clement Danes, and others he’d exchanged a story or two with at the soup runs around the Strand.

  He asked if any of the unfamiliar faces belonged to Terry T.

  Brendan Maxwell craned his head, panned quickly around the café, then went back to his breakfast. “No, I can’t see him. Why?”

  “That’s his spot I’ve been bedding down in most nights and Spike reckons he’s coming back. So I’ve got to find somewhere else.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to move around a bit,” Maxwell said.

  Thorne rammed the last of an egg-and-bacon roll into his mouth and answered with his mouth full. “S’pose not…”

  “A lot of my clients have been moving around a bit more lately.” They had been talking quietly anyway, but now Maxwell lowered his voice until it was barely above a whisper. “Some of them have taken to sleeping in a different place every night, or getting themselves indoors. For obvious reasons.”

  “I don’t want to go into a hostel,” Thorne said.

  He had purposely gone into the Lift early. The battery on his mobile was very low and he was borrowing a charger in Maxwell’s office. They’d gone down to the café for breakfast while they waited.

  Maxwell took a slurp of tea, then grunted and swallowed quickly as he remembered something. “Did that copper find you, by the way? He was going to look for you at the theater, I think…”

  Thorne nodded. “He tracked me down eventually.” He remembered Holland telling him on the phone that he’d come here; that Maxwell had pointed him toward the theater doorway.

  Since they’d met the day before in the park and Holland had shown him the magazine, Thorne had been anxiously waiting for news. It could only be a matter of time until they had names. It felt like they were turning a corner and picking up speed. Of course, he’d had the same feeling plenty of times before. Often, it just meant that you hit the brick wall that much faster.

  “What’s Phil up to?” Thorne hadn’t seen Hendricks for nearly a fortnight.

  The Irishman pointed a fork toward Thorne’s face. “He told me to make sure you took some painkillers if that was hurting…”

  “They’re fucking ganging up on me,” Thorne said.

  Maxwell looked confused for a moment, shrugged when Thorne shook his head. On the far side of the café, a plate crashed to the floor. Maxwell joined in with the cheer as loudly as anyone else. “You seeing a fair bit of the city, then?” he asked.

  “I’m seeing a lot of it, yeah. But I don’t know that fair is the right word.”

  “Not the stuff you see in the guidebooks, is it?”

  “It’s like being on Panorama,” Thorne said. “Only with more killing.”

  In the queue at the counter behind them, voices were suddenly raised. Maxwell pushed back his chair and stood, ready to step in, but the man doing most of the shouting was already striding toward the door, telling anyone who’d listen that they could go fuck themselves.

  Maxwell sat back down. “You like all that nasty stuff, though, right? Phil was telling me. All that blood and guts and Black Museum shit.”

  Thorne felt slightly irritated. He didn’t know if Maxwell was being deliberately obtuse or if Hendricks had just put it across to him badly. Knowing how Hendricks had once tried to explain Thorne’s love of country music by telling Maxwell that he liked songs about death and lost dogs, this was certainly possible. “I like history,” he said. “In London, a lot of it’s just…dark.”

  Maxwell pushed what was left of his breakfast around the plate. “Getting darker all the time,” he said.

  Thorne sensed a figure looming behind him and twisted his neck round to see Lawrence Healey standing there, clutching a tray.

  “May I join you?” Healey asked.

  Maxwell put his fork down and threw back what was left of his tea. “I’m just on my way to a meeting. Tom?”

  “Free country…” Thorne said.

  Maxwell looked across the table before he turned to leave, something Thorne couldn’t read in his eyes. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need…”

  Healey tucked into a bowl of what looked suspiciously like bran. There was a carton of yogurt on his tray and a cup of foul-smelling herbal tea. After a minute or two of silence and an exchange of awkward smiles, Healey cleared his throat. “I was going to ask how you were getting on, but looking at you, I’m not sure there’s any real need.”

  “You should have seen the other bloke,” Thorne said.

  “I saw him yesterday, as a matter of fact…”

  Thorne didn’t know what to say.

  Healey’s voice, even posher than Thorne remembered, suited a tone of wry amusement very well. “We have a weekly meeting with some of the officers from the Homeless Unit. Just a chat about anything that’s come up.” He stared across at Thorne for a few moments, nudged his glasses a little higher, then went back to his cereal.

  Thorne watched Healey eat. He looked fit and tanned under a brushed-denim button-down shirt. That said, most people would have looked well compared to Thorne himself. Or to any of the blotchy or the blasted, the washed-out or pasty-faced characters that moved around them. “Thanks for the concern,” Thorne said. “But I really wouldn’t bo
ther.”

  “You might need some legal advice…”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “We can help you with that.”

  Thorne said nothing. He turned and looked at the noticeboard for a while, decided he’d probably give the poetry workshop a miss.

  “Things going okay, though?” Healey asked. “Generally, I mean?”

  “I’ve been better…”

  “I know.”

  “Really?”

  “I do understand how hard it is.” Healey’s voice was lower suddenly. He reminded Thorne of an over-earnest vicar. Or of Tony Blair. “It’s the adjustment that’s particularly difficult…”

  Thorne had actually found adjusting to other people the trickiest thing of all; to the way other people saw him. It was usually one of two reactions: he was avoided or ignored. In the first instance, pedestrians would steer clear, the more sensitive doing their best to make that feint to one side as unobtrusive as possible. In the second, he seemed to become completely invisible, as passersby simply pretended that they hadn’t seen him at all. Both reactions were gloriously British in their sly dishonesty, but no more so, Thorne decided, than some people’s when confronted by people whom they actually knew. When greeting those they perhaps hadn’t seen for a while. There was one phrase that Thorne particularly hated; it could cover a multitude of sins and was trotted out no matter how sick or sad the person on the receiving end appeared. No matter how frightful their clothes or hair, or how much weight they’d put on since the last time you’d seen them: “You look well…”

  Suddenly a hand fell onto Thorne’s shoulder and a rheumy-eyed whippet of a man he’d talked to once or twice leaned down close to him. “Great days, eh?” The man breathed sweet sherry into Thorne’s face. “Great days…”

  Thorne had no idea what the man was talking about. He watched him walk away and accost someone at the next table, then turned back to Healey. “I’ve met some fascinating people, though,” he said.