Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne looked back to see Spike unrolling a bar towel on the floor, revealing three or four thin syringes, a plastic craft knife, and a black-bottomed spoon with a bent handle. He then produced a small bottle of Evian from behind one of the boxes, looked across at Caroline, who was on her way back. Thorne could see the goose pimples clearly, the sheen that he’d thought was grease from the fried chicken.

  “Get a move on, Caz, I’m sick…”

  Caroline sat back down and passed over a match-book-size wrap of folded white paper.

  Spike snatched up the cigarette lighter, talking ten to the dozen as he opened the wrap, smoothed it out on the floor. “Great to see Terry again, though, yeah? Told you he was a good bloke, like. He’ll be fucking bladdered by now, off his fucking head somewhere with a few of Radio Bob’s old cronies. Bunch of nutters, most of ’em, but Terry’s not proud who he drinks with, like…”

  Using a supermarket reward card, Spike flattened out the heroin, shaped it carefully until he was satisfied. He thrust the card at Caroline. “You cut, I’ll choose.”

  Caroline moved away from the wall, shuffled toward Spike, and toward the heroin. Now Thorne could see that she was every bit as strung out as Spike was. Her tongue came out to take the sweat from around her lips. The translucent covers on the subway lights cast an odd glow across everything, but it wasn’t this that gave her skin the color of the old newspapers that blew down the tunnels. “Don’t fuck about,” she said. “Cook it all…”

  Spike funneled the wrap and carefully poured every grain of brown powder onto the spoon. “You do me first, yeah?”

  “Piss off. I’ll do myself, then I’ll do you.”

  “No way. You won’t be in any fit state to do fuck-all then.”

  “Just get a move on, tosser…”

  Spike drew water up into the syringe, then let some out until he had just the right amount. He leaned down, concentrating hard as he released the water into the bowl of the spoon, then used the end of the syringe to mix the heroin into it.

  And Thorne watched…

  He wasn’t shocked, but he’d never worked on a drugs unit; he’d never been this close to it before. He sat and stared, gripped by the process. Fascinated by the ritual of it all.

  “You got vinegar?”

  Caroline reached into her pocket, pulled out tissues, a plastic Jif lemon, the pile of sachets she’d grabbed earlier in the café. She handed a sachet to Spike. He bit off the end, squeezed some vinegar into the mixture, and continued to stir.

  “What’s that for?” Thorne asked.

  “This lot was only twenty quid,” Caroline said. “It’s not pure, so it don’t mix very easy. The vinegar helps it dissolve a bit better…”

  Thorne reached across for the plastic lemon on the floor. “Making pancakes later?”

  Spike put down the syringe and picked up the lighter. “Taste well strange if we did, mate.” He held the flame beneath the spoon, nodded toward the lemon in Thorne’s hand. “It’s not fucking lemon juice in there.”

  “Anyone tries it on, they get a face full,” Caroline said.

  Thorne took the cap off, sniffed, then drew his face sharply away from the pungent kick of the ammonia.

  Spike laughed. “I’ve got my weapon, she’s got her’s, like…”

  Then Thorne became aware of another smell: the syrupy kick of the heroin as it began to bubble on the spoon; the vinegar slight, but noticeably sharp, beneath. He realized that this was the smell he’d noticed earlier. He held his breath…

  Caroline reached over for the needle. She tore it from the plastic sleeve, and after pulling off the orange cap, she attached it to the syringe.

  “Come on, we’re there,” Spike said.

  There were a number of cigarette butts, of varying sizes, scattered across the bar towel. Caroline took one from the bobbly, maroon material and used the knife to cut a thin slice from the filter, then dropped it into the liquid. Thorne thought it looked like those inedible slivers of something or other you got in spicy Thai soup…

  While Spike held the spoon steady, Caroline placed the tip of the needle flat against the section of filter and drew the liquid through it, up into the syringe. Again, she expunged some of it back into the spoon to be sure she had exactly half.

  “For fuck’s sake, Caz, get a shift on…”

  “This is for your benefit, mate, to make sure you get your share.” She lifted the spoon and placed it on the floor, out of harm’s way. The handle had been bent in such a way that the bowl rested flat on the concrete.

  Spike had already rolled up the sleeve of his faded, red hoody. As Caroline put the needle to his skin he twisted the material that was gathered above his elbow and made a fist.

  Caroline grunted as she dug around for a vein…

  Spike moaned as she found one; as she drew blood back into the syringe; as the red billowed into the brown, like wax in a Lava lamp; as she pushed the plunger.

  “Flush it…flush the fucker…”

  Twice, three times, she drew the blood back into the syringe and pressed it back into the vein. By the third time, Spike was nodding; each bounce of his head taking it lower. He raised it slowly, one last time to smile at Thorne, to beam like a baby at Caroline. “‘Time for bed,’ said Zebedee…”

  Caroline had already begun to clean out the syringe, drawing water in from the bottle and squirting it away onto the floor. She leaned across to kiss Spike, then gave him a push. “Into your box, you silly bastard…”

  Spike half fell, half crawled into the cardboard box, until all Thorne could see were the soles of his trainers. After only a few seconds, they stopped moving. Then Thorne watched as Caroline flushed the syringe again. She cursed, announced that the thing was “juddery,” and rooted among her collection of sachets for a pat of butter to smear around the plunger. Her movements were practiced and precise, and she bit off the ends of her words as she talked, like they were bitter on her lips.

  “Aren’t you worried about sharing needles?” Thorne asked.

  She shrugged. “It’s only him and me…”

  “But they’re easy enough to get.” He pointed at the bar towel. “You’ve got new ones.”

  “Everyone thinks we’ve got AIDS anyway, don’t they?”

  Thorne stretched out his legs and opened his mouth, but before he could speak she was shouting at him to be careful, and moving quickly to avert any risk of the spoon being knocked over; of losing the precious liquid pooled in its bowl.

  “Who’s Robbie?” Thorne asked.

  She dipped the syringe back into the spoon, put the needle to the filter, and drew up the remainder of the heroin. “My kid. From before I met Spike. He’ll be ten now.” She held the syringe up to the light. “I lost him.”

  Thorne watched as she pushed down a sock and flexed her foot. “I’m sorry…”

  She looked up briefly from what she was doing. “See what I mean about luck, though?” A smile that seemed to hurt appeared for just a moment. “Mind you, my luck might have been shit, but at least Robbie’s hasn’t been too bad. It was his good luck to get taken away from me, right?”

  Thorne couldn’t think of anything to say. He could only imagine how badly she needed what the needle she was holding could give her.

  For another few seconds she tried to get the needle into the right position, but it was tricky. She was right-handed and the vein she was after was above her left ankle. She looked up at Thorne, sweat falling off her. “Could you give me a hand with this?”

  “I’m a bit shit with needles…”

  “Please…?”

  Thorne had known there might be such moments; he hadn’t signed on to go undercover thinking it would be easy. That he would never need to make tough choices. It took him only a second or two to realize that, as choices went, this was actually one of the easier ones.

  It was the least he could do…

  He could feel something shift—in himself as well as in Caroline—as he pushed the drug into her. He sw
ung round when it was finished, so that he was sitting next to her against the wall. He let her head fall onto him as she began to nod. “I was thinking about this money thing,” he said. “I know Spike doesn’t like to ask, but couldn’t his sister help? Just to get you two started, maybe?”

  “Sister…”

  “I know he’s funny about it, but it sounds like she wants to help him.”

  Now the words dribbled from her, falling in thick, sloppy threads without emphasis or cadence. “His sister’s dead; died fucking ages ago. Years. When he was still at home…”

  “Caroline…?”

  It was maybe half a minute before she continued. “When he was still at home, his dad used to mess with ’em, you know? With both of ’em. Used to hurt him and his sister and he couldn’t stand it, so he got out.

  “Got the fuck out…

  “He was older than she was, you see? A couple of years. Older. So he left her there, and then a bit later on…six months or something, you’d have to ask him, was when she took a load of pills. Chucked ’em down like Smarties…

  “Spike was…you know? He was very fucked up. There was a nasty scene when they buried her…That was the last time he saw anyone in the family. That was it for good then.”

  “He knows it wasn’t his fault, doesn’t he?” Thorne asked.

  “Like Smarties…”

  Thorne could hear someone singing in one of the adjoining subways. He was stroking Caroline’s hair. “I don’t think it’s hurting anyone that Spike pretends…”

  Caroline groaned.

  “Everybody does it to some extent or other,” Thorne said. “When they lose someone. People bang on and on about letting go, like it’s the healthy thing to do, like we don’t all need a bit of fucking comfort. We all keep our loved ones alive somewhere…”

  But she couldn’t hear him anymore.

  At some point during the night, Thorne was woken by something. He reached out to touch the cardboard on every side of him. He was hot and stinking inside his sleeping bag.

  From a few feet away, he could hear Spike and Caroline making love. The noises they made, their cries, and the movement of their bodies inside the box seemed urgent and desperate. His hand moved to his groin, but did not stay there for very long. He was touched rather than excited by what he could hear: there was a reassurance in their passion, in the simple desire of each to please the other.

  Thorne eventually drifted back to sleep, soothed by the rhythm of it and comforted by the affirmation of need. By an honest moment of human contact; by an act of love that had more meaning on cardboard than it might have had on silk.

  The next time Thorne woke, he knew the cause straightaway; he could feel the mobile phone vibrating in his coat pocket. He groped for it, getting hold of the thing just as the shaking stopped. The glow from the illuminated screen lit up lines of grime on the heel of his hand; it was 6:18 a.m. and it had been Holland calling…

  It rang again almost immediately.

  Thorne pushed his way out of the box and took a few steps away from where Spike and Caroline were still sleeping. He squatted down, answered the phone with a whisper.

  “Dave?”

  “Thank fuck for that…”

  During the short pause that followed, Thorne stood and waited for his head to clear a little. A plastic bag flapped along the tunnel and he shuddered as the draft whipped into him; icy against clammy skin.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were alive,” Holland said.

  “That’s thoughtful, but it’s a bit bloody early—”

  “They’ve found another body. We haven’t got anyone down there as yet.”

  Thorne could smell piss and sugar, vinegar and grease. He glanced up and down the corridor, checking that there was no movement from any of the boxes. He wondered if the body might be that of Ryan Eales; if the killer had finally completed the set.

  “Sir…?”

  “I’m listening,” Thorne whispered.

  “A rough sleeper, looks like the usual method, in the doorway of a theater behind Piccadilly Circus. D’you see what I’m getting at?”

  Thorne saw exactly.

  Just keeping it warm for you, obviously.

  Now his head was clear, but the rest of him was suddenly leaden. He could feel a prickly heat rising…

  There was a grunted laugh of relief before Holland spoke again. “I just wanted to be sure,” he said. “I thought it might be you…”

  Thorne leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily. He stared down at the discarded chicken bones and scattered flakes of leprous-looking batter.

  And was violently sick.

  Part Three

  Luck of the Draw

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Holland and Stone stood on the platform at Stockport Station, waiting for their connection to Salford. Both had hands thrust deep into pockets, and as they gazed along the track in the hope of seeing the train’s approach, they could see the rain coming down in skewed, billowing sheets.

  “Fucking hell,” Stone said, miserable. “I’m still wet from the other night…”

  Holland nodded, remembering the downpour as they’d gathered at the crime scene, waiting for the sun to struggle up. The rain had hissed off the arc lights, and the only dry body there was curled up and stiffening in the theater doorway. As with the other victims, there hadn’t been a great deal that was recognizable about Terence Turner. He’d finally been identified by a friend thanks to the chain and padlock around his neck. Later, this had been removed with a hacksaw by a mortuary assistant, just prior to Phil Hendricks getting to work and doing some cutting of his own…

  “I’m going to see if I can grab some coffee,” Stone said. “D’you want some?”

  Holland eagerly accepted the offer and Stone walked toward the station concourse in search of what would be their third cup of the day. It was a little over twenty-four hours since they’d found the body, and Holland had slept for perhaps three of them.

  It was accepted that the first twenty-four hours were “golden”; that this was when they had the best chance of picking up a decent lead. As far as Holland was aware, at that moment they still had nothing, and he’d be surprised if anything changed. It wasn’t always just a killer they were up against. Care and caution could get thrown to the wind in the name of urgency, and adrenaline was easily swamped by fatigue and protocol.

  After they’d wrapped things up at the murder scene, a DS from the Intelligence Team had conducted the “hot debrief” at Charing Cross police station. Every officer who’d been present had run through the notes in their incident report book and made a statement. These would need to be collated and added to the duty officer’s report and the log that would later be completed by the DCI. This was all part of the procedure instituted in the wake of the Lawrence Report. There were those who thought it would mean fewer mistakes. Others, including Tom Thorne, were more skeptical. They thought that it was less about doing the right thing than being seen to do it.

  Thorne…

  This was what, for some of them at least, had given the latest murder an unsettling significance; had brought it far closer to home. Those on the team who knew of Thorne’s role in the investigation had come to an obvious, and disturbing, conclusion. Holland, Brigstocke, and Hendricks had stared at the battered body of a man in a doorway; had watched it being bagged up and loaded into a wagon; had seen the progress of the pathologist’s blade through its flesh, and known, as they looked on, that it should have been the body of Tom Thorne that was suffering such indignities.

  Holland looked up, watched Stone walking back toward him with the drinks, and thought about the phone conversation two nights before…

  That’s thoughtful, but it’s a bit bloody early.

  He’d rung from home as soon as he’d been contacted about the discovery of the body. Sophie had been woken by the initial call, and he’d gone into the living room so she wouldn’t hear him talking to Thorne. He’d felt a little embarrassed at how relieved
he’d been to hear the miserable git’s voice.

  It was strange: Thorne had taken longer than anyone else to grasp the importance of just where Turner’s body had been found. Maybe Holland had caught him at a bad time…

  “Train’s coming in,” Stone said, still a few feet away.

  Holland looked back and saw the train rounding a bend, moving toward them through rain that was getting heavier. The huge wipers were moving fast across the locomotive’s windscreen.

  Stone seemed to have cheered up a little. He put on a coarse, Hovis accent: “It’s grim up north,” he said.

  Holland smiled and took his coffee, thinking that it wasn’t exactly a bed of roses back where they’d come from.

  “Do you want me to tell you how many of those kicks could have killed Terry Turner on their own? How many different bones were broken? How many of his teeth were actually smashed up into his nose?”

  “Only if you want to put me off my lunch,” Thorne said.

  They were sitting in a dimly lit pub, south of the river near the Oval. A television was mounted high on one wall. Through the Keyhole served only to highlight the lack of atmosphere in the place. Aside from a couple in their thirties who scowled at each other across scampi and chips, Brigstocke and Thorne were the only customers.

  Brigstocke knew that, with Thorne looking the way he did, they’d have had a fair amount of privacy even if the place had been much busier. Though the bruises had faded to the color of nicotine stains, Thorne was still far from a pretty sight. That said, though, he had never been a GQ kind of man, and many had given him a wide berth even when he hadn’t looked like a battered sack of shit. Brigstocke had said as much to him as they’d collected drinks and cheese rolls from the bar.

  Thorne held up his Guinness and smiled. “Cheers, mate.”

  “Those clothes are actually starting to smell…”

  “I think you’re the one they’re worried about,” Thorne had said. He’d nodded toward the couple who’d given the two of them a long, blatantly curious look when they’d walked in. “They think I’m some sort of over-the-hill rent boy and you’re a very pervy businessman on a limited budget.”