Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  “Sounds like Spike.”

  “Looking at the state of him, though, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time…”

  They arrived at a door marked private. counseling in session. Maxwell knocked and pushed it open. “I’ll leave you to it. Give me a shout when you’re done.”

  “Thanks, Bren.”

  Maxwell took a step away, then turned, smiling. “Oh, I couldn’t get much sense out of Phil this morning. He had a bit of a headache for some strange reason. But he did manage to tell me about the two of us going out on a double date with you and Dave. Sounds like fun…”

  Spike’s head was drooping, and the smoke from a cigarette rose straight up into his face. He was sitting on a dirty cream sofa, similar to the one Thorne remembered from the room where he and the others had watched the videotape. Looking around, Thorne realized that this room was virtually identical to that one, save for the absence of a VCR, and the fact that there were AIDS information leaflets on the coffee table rather than the Radio Times and TV Quick.

  “Thought I’d got rid of you,” Thorne said. He flopped into an armchair, leaned forward, and began to drum his fingers on the edge of the table.

  Spike raised his head, grinned, and spread out his arms; croaked a cheer that quickly ran out of steam. He was wearing cammies and his cracked, vinyl bomber jacket. The T-shirt underneath was stained, dark at the neck, and when he let his head fall back, Thorne could see the small, square wad of bandage and the plaster.

  Thorne stroked the side of his own neck. “What happened here?”

  “Abscess burst,” Spike said. “Stunk the fucking place out…”

  The worst detective in the world could have seen that Spike was a long way gone. Thorne could only presume that he was carrying his works with him; that he’d managed to fix up somewhere, since Healey had found him outside the Lift and brought him indoors. Thorne guessed that Spike had spent every waking hour since he’d last seen him as fucked up as he was now.

  “Where’ve you been?” Thorne asked.

  Spike raised his hands to the hair that lay damp-looking against his head. He gathered it between his fingers and tried in vain to push it up into the trademark spikes. “Around. Where have you been?”

  “I knew you were upset about what happened…”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened to Terry,” Thorne said. “I knew the pair of you were upset.”

  “I went to see my sister.”

  “It doesn’t matter where you were. I’m happy you’re still in one piece.”

  “She gave me some cash money…”

  It was like talking to someone who was underwater, suspended beneath the surface of a liquid that thickened as they tried to speak. That was setting above them.

  “Actually, in a way, Terry helped out a bit,” Spike said.

  “How’s that?”

  “I needed gear, ’course I did, loads of it. Both of us did. Most of these cocksuckers are hard as nails, like; wouldn’t matter what you said to ’em. But there’s a couple of dealers who’ve sussed that it’s always going to be good for business in the long run. They do me a favor one time, they know damn well I’ll be back tomorrow…

  “So I lay it on a bit thick, right? I tell ’em that my mate’s been killed, for Christ’s sake, and I need to get more stuff. I tell ’em I really need a bit extra, you know, because of how horribly fucking upset I am. See? Simple…”

  Thorne just listened, unable to fill the pauses that grew longer between sentences. He watched as Spike raised an arm up and pointed a finger. Spun it around, making a small circle in the air.

  “So, Terry dies, and I need the stuff…and I get the stuff because I tell everyone how upset I am…Then I work out what a sick bastard I am for doing that to get the stuff…And I hate myself.” He screwed up his face, put inverted commas round hate with his fingers. “So then I need even more stuff…and round and fucking round…”

  Thorne waited until he was fairly sure there was nothing else. He had no way of knowing if Spike was aware of the tears, any more than he was of the cigarette that was no more than ash and filter between his fingers. “Where’s Caroline?” he asked.

  “Will that bloke call the police ’cause I clocked him?”

  “Healey, you mean?”

  “She’s in Camden…”

  Thorne laughed. “I feel like the quizmaster on that Two Ronnies sketch.”

  Spike looked blank.

  It had been Thorne’s father’s favorite: Ronnie Barker as the man on a quiz show whose specialist subject was answering the previous question.

  “What is the last letter on the top line of a typewriter keyboard?”

  “The Battle of Hastings.”

  “Hosting a dance or enjoying yourself might be described as having a…?”

  “P.”

  “What’s in Camden?” Thorne asked.

  Spike began pulling at a loose thread on the cushion next to him. “Dealer’s place.”

  “How long’s she been there?”

  “A couple of days.” He pulled the cushion to him, folded his arms tight across it. “I took her round…”

  Round and fucking round…

  Thorne understood that Spike and Caroline had both been desperate. That each had found their own way of getting as much as they needed. “Let’s go and see her,” he said.

  Spike moaned and shook his head.

  Thorne stood and stepped across to him. He raised Spike’s hand, lifted it until it was over the table, and squeezed until the burned-out nub end dropped into an ashtray.

  “Where exactly are you from?” Stone asked.

  The barman turned from restocking an optic. “Wellington.”

  “Have you got some identification on you?”

  The barman sighed, started rooting around for his wallet. “I’ve got credit cards…”

  Stone took another glance at the photo he was carrying with him, a composite of the original Ryan Eales photo and the digitally aged version. He looked back at the man behind the bar. “Forget it, mate. It’s okay…”

  He walked back to where Mackillop was sitting. The woman next to him, who’d called to say that the man behind the bar of her local pub might well be the one they were after, looked up eagerly.

  “He’s fifteen years too young and he’s from New Zealand,” Stone said. “He’s got a bloody accent.”

  The woman, fifteen years older than she wanted to be, and from Hounslow, was less than delighted. “I never said I’d spoken to him, did I?” She sat there for a few seconds more, then snatched up her handbag. “I suppose I’m buying myself a drink, then…”

  Mackillop and Stone watched her at the bar. “We could get something to eat ourselves while we’re in here,” Mackillop said. “It’s near enough lunchtime.”

  Stone looked at his watch and stood up. “Actually, I’m meeting someone for lunch, so I think we’re better off splitting up for an hour or so.”

  Mackillop looked thrown. “Right…”

  “If we do Finchley next, you can drop me off in Willesden on the way and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Fair enough.” He followed Stone toward the door. Lewisham, the other location on their list, would have been closer, but Mackillop wasn’t going to argue. Especially when it dawned on him exactly how Stone was planning to spend his lunch hour.

  They grabbed cold drinks and a paper from a newsagent’s, then walked across the road to a small pay-and-display behind a branch of Budgens. “Fucking New Zealand,” Stone said.

  He hung up his jacket in the back of the car, then turned on Capital Gold while Mackillop waited for his chance to nose the Volvo into traffic. “So, you spend an hour or so in a caff or something?”

  “I might just grab a sandwich,” Mackillop said.

  “Whatever. I’ll meet you outside the Finchley address, two o’clockish. Maybe just after.”

  “How are you going to get there from Willesden?”

  “I’ll call a cab,”
Stone said.

  “Straight up the North Circular, I would have thought. Piece of piss this time of day.”

  They drove along the London road through Brent-ford and turned north along the edge of Gunnersbury Park.

  Stone sang along to an Eric Clapton track, put finger and thumb together as if holding a plectrum during the guitar break. “If you get there before me, just park up and wait,” he said. “I’ll call to find out where you are.”

  Mackillop tried his best to keep a straight face. “Wouldn’t it be simpler if I just tagged along to your lunch meeting?”

  “You can fuck right off,” Stone said. “Mind you, she’d probably be up for it.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Thorne sprang for a couple of tube tickets and he and Spike traveled the half a dozen stops to Camden Town. Spike was asleep, or as good as, most of the way, while Thorne was stared at by a young mother who hissed at her two kids and made sure they stayed close by her. When they stood to get off, the woman smiled at him, but Thorne saw her arms tighten around her children’s waists.

  Spike dragged his feet and was easily distracted as they walked along Camden Road toward the overground station. He stopped to peer into the windows of shops or talk to strangers, few of whom seemed fazed at being drawn into conversations with a junkie and a tramp. As places in the capital went, Camden was pretty much a one-off.

  Despite Thorne’s efforts to urge him forward, Spike sat down next to someone he actually knew, who was begging outside the huge Sainsbury’s. Thorne stepped away from them and stared at his reflection in the glass of the automatic doors. His hair and beard were surely growing at a much faster rate than they normally did. He wondered if it was anything to do with exposure to air, fresh or otherwise. Though the bruises had faded, so had the rest of his face. The marks were still visible against the skin, like ancient tea stains that stubbornly refused to shift from a pale, cotton tablecloth. He inched across until he was right in the middle of the doors; until he could enjoy himself being split down the middle whenever anyone walked in or out.

  A security guard was eyeing him with intent, so Thorne decided to save him the trouble. He moved away and yanked Spike up by the collar of his jacket. Spike’s friend moved to get to his feet, caught Thorne’s eye, and lowered himself to the pavement again.

  Thorne wrapped an arm around Spike’s skinny shoulders. “Time to go and see Caroline,” he said.

  They walked farther away from the high street and the market, minutes from Thorne’s own flat in Kentish Town. Halfway between the million-pound houses of Camden Square and the more modest accommodations of Holloway Prison, they stopped. Spike shook his head, like he was about to have teeth removed, and pointed toward an ugly, three-story block set back from the main road.

  “Up there,” he said.

  They stared across at the green front doors for a minute or two; at the brown balconies and multicolored washing strung from their railings. “Do you want me to wait here?” Thorne asked.

  “Wait here for what?”

  Thorne was starting to run out of patience with Spike’s sulky attitude; with the drug and with the hunger for it. He wanted to grab him and tell him to get up to his dealer’s flat and do something. To pull Caroline out of there, or smash the place up, or get down on his knees and thank the poxy shitbag who was fucking his girlfriend so they could get a bit higher for that much longer. Anything…

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Spike leaned against a parking meter. His breathing was noisy; cracked and wheezy. “You could maybe come up, stand at the end of the corridor or something.”

  “Come on, then…”

  They moved across the road like old men, with Spike talking to himself, then spitting at an Astra whose driver had leaned on his horn, furious at being forced to brake. At the base of the low-rise building, on a small square of dogshit-and-dandelion paving, a kid on a skateboard looked at Spike as if he’d seen him before and Spike looked back.

  As they entered the pungent cool of the stairwell Thorne looked round, watched the boy pull out a mobile phone as he kicked his board away.

  “It’s always handy to know when someone’s coming,” Spike said. “The little fucker gets enough cash to keep him in football stickers.” He smacked his palms slowly against the blistered handrail as he led Thorne up to the top floor. “Everyone’s got some sort of habit, like…”

  Climbing, Thorne watched Spike trying, in cack-handed slow motion, to smarten himself up. He messed with his hair and stopped to tighten the laces in his trainers. He straightened his jacket and tucked in his T-shirt, and as they emerged onto a concrete walkway Thorne was still wondering who the effort was being made for.

  A door opened, two or three from the end of the corridor, sixty feet away. A man stepped out: thirty or so, short, with dark hair and stubble. He was wearing sandals, and creased gray trousers below a polo shirt.

  Spike stopped and waved. The man in the doorway raised up his chin.

  “That’s Mickey,” Spike said. “He’s from Malta, so he’s got brown balls…”

  Thorne watched the man take a step forward so that he could look down over the balcony.

  Spike leaned in with a grin, spelled out the joke loud enough for the man by the door to hear. “He’s a Malteser, like, so he’s got brown balls.” He looked round, gave the man another wave.

  Mickey smiled. “Fucking huge brown balls…”

  Spike moved away from Thorne suddenly, and began edging slowly back toward Mickey. He nodded at Thorne, once, twice. “It’s okay, mate, I’m good from here.”

  “Does your friend want something?” Mickey said.

  “No, he’s cool,” Spike shouted.

  Thorne wasn’t sure whether the dealer was talking about drugs or trouble. The man certainly seemed happy enough to provide whatever was required.

  “Really, it’s fine now,” Spike said.

  He was spinning around slowly as he went. He walked backward then forward between Thorne and the dealer, partially blocking the view as Thorne caught sight of a second figure emerging through the green door. Thorne stepped to one side to get a better look. To catch Caroline’s eye.

  She looked as pleased to see him as dead eyes would allow. She tugged on Mickey’s shirt and pointed. “He likes to beat up coppers,” she said.

  The dealer smiled. Let the backs of his fingers move down the girl’s arm. “I like it. He gets a freebie if he wants one.”

  “Honest, you can go now,” Spike said. He was starting to sound desperate, to look embarrassed that Thorne was there at all. “We’re sorted. Both of us. Right, Caz?”

  Caroline pulled fingernails through her hair and walked back into the flat as if she’d forgotten something. Thorne watched Spike drift over to the dealer. Watched the dealer press his fist against Spike’s and step back through the doorway.

  “See you at the Lift later, then?” Thorne said.

  Spike picked at the plaster, tore the stained wad of bandage from his neck, and lobbed it over the balcony. As he followed Mickey inside he stuck up a thumb without turning round, just as Hendricks had done the night before.

  Thorne waited half a minute after the door had closed before walking up to it. A curtain was drawn across the only window and he could hear no sounds from inside, so he turned and walked back toward the stairs.

  On the way down he took out his phone. He’d felt the vibration of a message coming through as he and Spike had walked from the tube station. It was a text from Phil Hendricks, another gag based around the possible “double date” with Brendan and Dave Holland…

  Thorne stopped and stared at the screen.

  He’d felt it up to now as something annoying yet unimportant; like something caught in your teeth that you couldn’t get at. That you pushed at until your tongue got tired and then gave up on. Suddenly Thorne knew exactly what had been nagging at him. And he knew why.

  You know all sorts of things…

  He remembered the voice from a d
ream, and he remembered other voices, too. He remembered what Hendricks had said:

  Brendan likes Dave. Actually, I think he fancies him a bit…

  And what Maxwell had said back at the Lift only an hour before. And, most important of all, what he’d said to Thorne a week or so before that…

  He dialed Brendan Maxwell’s mobile number, the excitement building in him like nausea. “Bren, listen, it’s Tom. Remember you told me that a police officer was looking for me. A week ago?”

  “I’m right in the middle of something…”

  “It wasn’t Dave Holland, was it.” It was more statement than question.

  There was a pause. Thorne could hear others talking in the background. Maxwell lowered his voice. “Sorry, Tom, I’m not with you.”

  “This was a couple of days before Terry Turner was killed. You said that a police officer was asking where I was, and you’d pointed him toward the theater, yes?”

  “Yes…”

  “I know that Holland had been in, because he couldn’t get hold of me, so I presumed…”

  “Dave came in the day after, I think. If I’d been talking about Dave, I’d’ve said so, wouldn’t I, because I know him. I’d never seen this other bloke before.”

  “Right. And because I’m a fucking idiot, I’ve only just worked that out.”

  “Is this important?” Maxwell asked.

  Thorne began to move again. “How did you know he was a copper?”

  “Can I call you back?”

  “I just need a minute, Bren…”

  Maxwell sighed. “He introduced himself, then he showed me ID. I’m not a complete moron.”

  “Do you remember the name?”

  Another pause. “No. Far too many names to remember.”

  Thorne swung round fast onto another flight of stairs, began to swear with each step he took.

  “Sorry,” Maxwell said.

  “How did he get in to see you?”

  “Same as anybody else, I think. They called me down from reception and buzzed him through.”

  “So he would have signed in?”

  “He certainly should have done. They’re usually pretty hot on health and safety. Do you want me to go and have a look?”