Love Like Blood

by Mark Billingham

  ‘So, prove it.’

  ‘I don’t have to prove it.’ He pointed over Thorne’s head towards the whiteboards, the photos pinned up. ‘Those are young men and women who’ve been assaulted, kidnapped, raped. Murdered. I didn’t just cut the pictures out of a magazine, all right?’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘We’re working closely with the groups that are campaigning against this stuff every single day, supporting the victims.’ He nodded towards the whiteboards again and Thorne turned to see a number of flyers and posters, recognised the names of the organisations Tanner had mentioned to him. ‘We’re working with families in all these communities who are violently opposed to HBV. That’s the majority by the way, the vast majority.’

  Thorne nodded, as if he were impressed. He said, ‘Well, seeing as you care so much, as this is all so important to you, I don’t have to worry about you running to my boss and telling him what I’m up to, do I? Telling him about Tanner.’

  Hassani held up his hands. ‘Why would I do that?’

  On his way out, Thorne stopped at the door and turned back to DS Soran Hassani and his two colleagues. ‘Sorry for taking up so much of your time,’ he said. He pointed back into the room. ‘You know, you should seriously think about putting a pool table in here.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The appeal was due to air in a few minutes, but Helen had already decided that Alfie would have to go to bed before it was shown. Excited as he would obviously have been to see ‘Tom’ on the TV, Thorne would be saying words that Helen wasn’t overly keen for her son to hear. Thorne was a little disappointed, but hadn’t bothered to argue. Just words, yes, but Alfie had already demonstrated a knack for parroting them and it wouldn’t go down awfully well if he started jabbering about rape and murder at nursery the next day.

  Besides, Alfie was excited enough as it was, because Uncle Phil was here.

  From the sofa, Thorne watched the two of them kneeling on the carpet, surrounded by toys, laughing their heads off. They had painstakingly assembled a complicated Thomas the Tank Engine playset, with ramps, tunnels and a bridge that would shake if they pressed a button. Predictably, Alfie had been pressing the button as often as possible, but now decided to mix things up by adding a new character to the action.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Hendricks said.

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘You can’t put Spiderman on Thomas’s island.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Hendricks widened his eyes in mock outrage. ‘Because it’s stupid.’

  ‘You’re stupid.’

  ‘You put Spiderman on there and he’s going to get run over by Old Wheezy for a start.’

  Alfie grinned and waved the action figure in Hendricks’s face. ‘You’re stupid.’

  Helen was putting potatoes into the oven to bake for later on. ‘Don’t call people stupid, it’s not nice.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Thorne said.

  Hendricks held up a hand. ‘Don’t worry about me, I can handle this.’ He raised himself up on his knees. ‘I’ve dealt with all manner of little herberts a lot scarier than this one.’ He narrowed his eyes, glared at the boy. ‘Think you’re a hard case?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Alfie narrowed his eyes too and stood up.

  ‘Reckon you and Spiderman can take me, do you?’

  Almost before he had finished, Alfie was laughing and rushing across the few feet of carpet between them. Hendricks roared and pulled the boy to him, began the squeeze-and-tickle manoeuvre that always reduced Alfie to hysterics. ‘You’re no match for me,’ he shouted. ‘You’re weak and feeble.’

  ‘You’re bald,’ Alfie shouted back, struggling.

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Bald! Spiky face.’

  Helen was walking across. ‘All right, that’s enough… you need to say goodnight to Tom and Uncle Phil.’

  Hendricks let Alfie go, but the boy was content to stay nestled close to him for a few seconds. He reached up and gently touched a finger to the pointed stud protruding from Hendricks’s bottom lip. He moved the finger away quickly, then put it back again. ‘Spiky…’

  Thorne watched his friend’s face as Helen picked Alfie up and carried him away to bed. His expression when the boy waved to him.

  Hendricks was always joking about how great it was to come round and get Alfie worked up, let Thorne and Helen deal with the fallout. All the fun of having a kid, he said, but without the responsibility. Almost convincing, but Thorne knew how much Hendricks wanted a child of his own.

  A few years before, he had confessed it. A drunken conversation during which he had told Thorne about his trip to some conference or other; a tour around cutting-edge mortuary facilities for children, each suite designed to resemble a child’s bedroom. While those around him had been busy taking notes about temperature regulation and set-up costs, Hendricks had stood there, he had told Thorne, and seen a child on the bed.

  The child I’d imagined on that bed wasn’t anonymous, he wasn’t a body I’d worked on. He was mine. I’d bought him those pyjamas with rockets and stars on. I was the one who was going to have to bury him. I suddenly knew how much… I could suddenly admit how much I wanted a child. Because I knew how terrible it would feel to lose one.

  Tears after that, while Thorne could only sit feeling awkward and helpless.

  Now, it looked as though Hendricks was finally with someone who felt as he did. He and his partner Liam had discussed adoption, though the conversations between Thorne and Hendricks had thus far been no more than lighthearted; Thorne suggesting that Hendricks might need to modify his appearance a little, if he didn’t want to frighten the horses.

  ‘Unless you want to go to the interview inside a giant sack,’ Thorne had said.

  He knew that if it came to it, Hendricks would happily wear beige slacks and a sports jacket. He would have every tattoo removed by laser and take every piece of metal from his body in a heartbeat.

  Hendricks trudged across and dropped down next to Thorne on the sofa.

  ‘I’m knackered.’

  ‘Still think you want one of your own?’ Thorne asked.

  Hendricks looked at him. ‘Do you?’

  They watched TV in silence for a few minutes: the mayor pressing flesh at a bus depot; another cyclist killed at a notorious black spot. Then the studio presenter cut to the reporter Thorne had met earlier in the day. She made a few introductory remarks and Thorne was on.

  Hendricks laughed at the caption. ‘Thomas?’ He said it again, shouting the name like the maid in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

  ‘Hilarious,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Bloody hell, where did you get that jacket?’

  ‘Shut your face.’

  ‘We are urgently appealing today for any information regarding the whereabouts of Kamal Azim. Kamal is twenty-one and from Whetstone. He was last seen just over a fortnight ago on September the fourth, getting off a Northern line train at Woodside Park…’

  They showed the CCTV still of Kamal and Amaya leaving the station, then cut to a photograph of Kamal. He was smiling, though he looked a little embarrassed, wearing one of the T-shirts from his father’s printing business.

  ‘We’re seeking this individual in connection with the rape and murder of Amaya Shah on September the fourth, so I must stress again how urgently we need to find him. If anyone has seen Kamal Azim or even thinks they’ve seen him, please contact the incident room at Colindale station and they will pass the information on. ’

  A phone number appeared at the bottom of the screen as the reporter wrapped the piece up.

  ‘How was it?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘You looked gorgeous, obviously.’

  ‘How convincing was I?’

  Hendricks thought about it. ‘I reckon it was somewhere between Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent and Keanu Reeves in Dracula.’

  Helen came back in as Thorne’s phone began to ring. He knew who was calling before he saw Tanner’s name on the screen.

&nb
sp; ‘How did it go with the Honour Crimes lot?’

  ‘I can see what you meant, put it that way. Did you see the appeal?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tanner said it as though she had been asked whether she’d watched Saw or Debbie Does Dallas. ‘Very good.’

  Thorne watched as Helen came across. She sat on the floor in front of the sofa, picked up the remote and began rewinding the programme back to the start of Thorne’s segment.

  ‘It had to be done,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I know. Misdirection.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, now you’ve done it, how do you fancy coming with me to the AHCA meeting tonight?’

  ‘There’s one tonight?’

  ‘There’s one every week,’ Tanner said. ‘There was another attack outside a mosque a couple of days ago. They need to talk about a response… and maybe one or two people have other things to talk about.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  Thorne hesitated, and Tanner’s shrug was almost audible.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It’s probably better if I go on my own anyway. More discreet, less attention, whatever.’

  ‘You think Haroon Shah will be there?’

  ‘No idea who’s going to be there, but there’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘Let me know how you get on,’ Thorne said.

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’m working my arse off.’ Thorne saw Helen and Hendricks react, shook his head. ‘I’m working both sides of this thing, remember?’ He took a breath or two. ‘Of course I want to know.’

  ‘OK,’ Tanner said.

  They watched the appeal again, for Helen’s benefit. Thorne felt even more self-conscious seeing it second time round: his head held at a strange angle; the grey hair and the fact there was more on one side than the other; the straight scar across the bottom of his chin.

  One of his chins.

  ‘Very good,’ Helen said. ‘Not sure about the jacket, mind you. Or the tie.’

  Hendricks snorted.

  ‘Don’t you start.’

  ‘I think I was right not to let Alfie see it, though.’

  Thorne kicked at Hendricks’s leg. ‘He doesn’t think I was very convincing.’

  Hendricks grinned and started channel-surfing.

  ‘What did Tanner have to say?’

  ‘That I’m not pulling my weight.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘No, but that’s what she thinks.’ He nodded towards the television. ‘I mean, yeah, all that’s a complete waste of time, but I’m not convinced we’ve got a whole lot either. Two blokes on a tube train and a couple of relatives we might have put the wind up a bit…’

  When Thorne stopped talking, they could hear Alfie crying from his bedroom. Helen swore and got to her feet. She said, ‘I think I rushed his lordship’s story.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Hendricks said. ‘More convincing than Keanu Reeves. Just.’

  ‘Oh, cheers.’

  ‘But he’s far hotter, obviously.’ Hendricks flicked through the channels. ‘With less grey hair.’

  Thorne let his head fall back and closed his eyes. He said, ‘I turned down a room full of people shouting about hate crimes for this.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Riaz turned off the small TV that was mounted on the wall and tossed the remote on to the bed. He smiled, remembering the conversation with the Eastern European girl at the reception desk when they’d checked in. She had given them both forms, which they had filled in with false names and addresses, handed over the room keys, then reached under the counter for their TV remotes.

  Riaz had laughed. ‘People steal these?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the girl had said. ‘Sorry about that. You would not think it would you, but they do. People steal all sorts.’

  ‘No problem.’ He laughed again and studied the remote. There was grime around the buttons and the batteries were held in place with gaffer tape. ‘You can never really be sure who you’ve got staying, can you?’

  The girl had already lost interest, one eye on her phone. ‘Anything else I can do for yourself?’

  Muldoon leaned across. ‘Are there dressing gowns in the rooms?’

  He had carried on moaning all the way upstairs, demanding to know why they always had to stay in fleapits. Riaz had quietly pointed out that the hotel was one notch above the places where the remote was attached to the headboard by a curly wire. It seemed clean and was handy for the job they were doing, besides which, as always, it would not be for long.

  Riaz looked around. The majority of his clothes had stayed in the case, as usual, but his jacket was hung up in the narrow wardrobe and his toiletries had been neatly arranged in the bathroom. The room was clean enough, and that was important to him. He liked to bathe as often as possible, three times a day if circumstances allowed it. A bath whenever he had the chance, showers otherwise.

  There were wet-wipes in the car, if it came to it.

  He needed to be clean when he prayed, of course, but he also believed that it was important when the job itself was carried out. A simple matter of respect, that was all; for himself and, in those final moments, for the man or woman he was dispatching.

  Muldoon, of course, had made some feeble joke when he had endeavoured to explain it to him. Something about a ‘clean kill’. It was no real surprise that the Irishman had failed to understand, and these days Riaz tried to keep their conversations – beyond those that were strictly necessary – to a minimum.

  Difficult, of course, when they spent so much time sitting together in cars, as they had done today. But even if Riaz had felt inclined to engage with his partner, finding any subject that might generate more than a word or two was next to impossible.

  Muldoon enjoyed drinking and Riaz did not. Muldoon followed football and horses while Riaz had no interest in any sport aside from cricket. He was even less interested in the filth of tabloid newspapers or films about superheroes.

  Once, letting his temper get the better of him, Riaz had said, ‘If this were a marriage, I would be looking for a divorce.’

  Muldoon had laughed. ‘Divorce? Not me, mate, I’m a good Catholic boy. I’d just be shagging around on you.’

  Then, of course, there were the differences when it came to the matter of the killings themselves.

  Riaz took his shoes off, set them down next to one another on the floor, then lay back on the bed.

  It had been a productive day. Muldoon would not have thought so, but then he always grew edgy and impatient during the preparations. He was no better than a bull in a china shop and did not fully appreciate the importance of waiting and watching; of knowing as much as possible about your victim’s routines and habits.

  It would be especially important with this one.

  He smiled; the blank television screen a reminder of just how important planning and preparation could be. Was this latest police appeal not a perfect example of what it could achieve? What they had done with the young couple had been distasteful, yes, but it had led the authorities where it needed to. The email he had sent from an internet café in Brighton had worked perfectly, too; cemented the assumptions.

  The money had gone into an untraceable account the previous day, so now they could consider that job done. They could get on with this new one.

  He wondered if Muldoon had seen the appeal.

  Almost certainly not. He would be down in the bar already, or watching dirty movies in his room. Riaz doubted that his partner would care either way. He did not seem to care about a great deal, as long as there was money in his pocket and young women to brutalise.

  A good team. The Irishman was always saying that, but Riaz was no longer so sure.

  Perhaps it was time to start thinking about that divorce again.

  They were talking about one of the local football teams, but Faruk Shah had stopped watching as soon as the policeman disappeared from the screen. He turned the television o
ff and finished his tea. He needed to get back down to the shop anyway and it was good that he could work now without sweating and struggling for breath, that he would finish the day in a much better mood than he had started it.

  What on earth had Haroon been thinking?

  There was no problem, of course there wasn’t. There never had been. Whatever that policewoman had come to see his stupid son about, everything was fine and would continue to be fine and the appeal on the television proved it.

  They could forget Amaya and what she had made them do. They were still a family. They could go about their business.

  Haroon had been panicking when, above all, he should have been remaining calm. He had talked to people who should not have been bothered with this nonsense and it had all been so unnecessary.

  A boy who thought he was a man and had behaved like an old woman.

  Faruk wanted to slap his son again.

  Govinder Athwal had followed the story in the newspapers of course. People had been talking about it at work and in shops. A man he had overheard in the bar.

  He had wondered then, as he always did when such things happened.

  Now, he had seen Tom Thorne talking about the search for this boy and the murder of the young girl, and Govinder could not help thinking that this was what Thorne had been hinting at when he had come to see him the day before. The new information that he said might help him catch Meena’s killer.

  Alone in his room, Govinder had watched and begun to tremble; to speak things out loud that had, until now, been no more than whispers from the bottom of a glass or the noises in a bad dream.

  He sat, frozen, until he could not bear to listen to himself any more.

  He stood and rushed to collect his beads and his book, then hurried from the room to wash.

  In a room several miles to the north of the hotel in which Riaz and Muldoon were staying, a man they knew but had never met had also just watched the television appeal.

  He was thinking.

  He had seen many such appeals in the past; by the police, by stricken families, and often he had watched as an interested observer, because he knew the precise whereabouts of the missing person. Because the service he had provided to those very same families was the reason they were missing in the first place.