The Burning Girl

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing like that going on here, is there?’ Thorne walked towards the door in the far corner, tipping his head from one side to the other. ‘Neck’s a little bit painful,’ he said. ‘Got anybody through here who can do something about stiffness…?’

  ‘Sorry if I don’t piss myself.’

  Thorne reached for the handle. The girl was either too lazy, or too scared or too engrossed in her magazine to try and stop him.

  The room on the other side of the door was clearly designed to be a lounge, but it had not been expensively decorated. Thorne guessed that this wouldn’t bother most customers, as the eye would quickly be drawn from the multicoloured carpet to whatever hardcore activities were taking place on the big-screen TV. Right now, a blonde in pop-socks was engaged in an enthusiastic bout of fellatio. The permed stallion on the receiving end, eyes tight shut in cutaway, looked suitably grateful…

  Hassan Zarif was sitting, side on to the door, in a velour armchair. A red towelling robe gaped open across his chest and he was using his one good arm to flick through the pages of a Daily Mirror. He let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan when he looked up and saw that he had company.

  ‘That’s a shame…’ Thorne said, nodding towards the sling. ‘You could have a wank and read the paper if you hadn’t gone and got yourself shot…’

  Hassan shifted uncomfortably in his chair, caught between a desire to stand and the need to hide his erection.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ Thorne said.

  It didn’t take too long for Hassan to recover his composure. He crossed his legs, pulled the robe across his chest. ‘If you’ve come here for a freebie, I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure a number of police officers get VIP treatment in here…’

  Thorne walked slowly across the room. He picked up a remote from a glass-topped table, flicked off the TV. ‘Sorry, but the slurping makes it really hard to concentrate.’

  ‘I presume you do want something…’

  ‘This one of yours, is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Thorne held out his arms. ‘This place part of the Zarif Brothers empire?’

  Hassan smiled. ‘No. This business is owned by an acquaintance, but we may, in fact, be looking to invest in similar premises…’

  ‘Right. So this is…what? Research?’

  ‘This is exactly what it looks like. I’m not certain you can arrest me for it, but go ahead and try if you like. I’m happy to let you make a fool of yourself.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘How happy would you be if I stepped over there and snapped your other arm? How happy would you be with somebody else wiping your arse for a while…?’

  Hassan stuck out his prominent chin and pointed towards the ceiling. Thorne looked up at the tiny camera mounted high above a flap of peeling Anaglypta.

  ‘You’d be amazed at how easily a videotape can go missing in an evidence room,’ Thorne said. He moved towards the archway on the far side of the room, leaned against a plastic pillar and stuck his head through. To his left, a number of rooms–‘suites’, as they were advertised on a poster in reception–ran off a carpeted corridor.

  Thorne turned back into the lounge, looked across at Hassan. He thought he’d got the three brothers fairly well worked out: Tan, the youngest, was the hard man–the one with a short fuse; Hassan was the one that made business plans and worked out where to hide the money. Neither was the one Thorne needed to speak to.

  He gestured back towards the archway. ‘Big brother through there, is he?’

  ‘I presume you followed us here, so you know he is.’

  ‘You’re sitting here waiting for sloppy seconds, that about right?’

  Hassan said nothing, but his jawbone moved beneath the skin where the teeth were clenching.

  ‘You presume?’ Thorne said. ‘So you didn’t see me? That’s good news. It’s been a while since I’ve tailed someone and I thought I might have lost the knack.’

  Before he stepped through the archway, Thorne picked up the remote and turned the movie back on. The blonde woman resumed her performance.

  ‘This one’s a classic,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell you what happens at the end, in case you haven’t seen it…’

  Rooker turned the phonecard over and over in his hand as he waited for his turn to make a call. He had a fair amount of credit left that he’d never get the chance to use up now. Phonecards were always in demand in prison, were as good as hard currency to those with people to talk to. He’d swap this one for a few fags before he left.

  He’d made more calls than usual in the last couple of months, but before that there hadn’t really been many people he’d wanted to speak to. Fewer still who had wanted to speak to him.

  The man in front of him swore and slammed down the phone. Rooker avoided making eye contact as he stepped forward to take his turn. He slotted in the card and dialled the number.

  When the call was eventually answered, the response was curt, businesslike.

  ‘It’s me,’ Rooker said.

  ‘I’m busy. Be quick.’

  ‘You know I’m coming out in a couple of days…?’

  The man on the other end of the line said nothing, waited for Rooker to elaborate.

  ‘I’m just checking, you know, confirming that we still have an agreement…’

  There was a grunt of laughter. ‘Things have changed a little.’

  ‘Right, and whose doing well out of that? You’re quids in now, right?’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘Course you are. Competition’s out of the way, aren’t they?’ Rooker cleared his throat, did his best to sound casual, matey. ‘Listen, I’ll be relocated. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’

  There was a long pause. Rooker could hear voices in the background. The man he was talking to spoke to somebody else, then came back to the phone. ‘That’s fine. I hope it all works out, all right?’

  ‘Hang on, I want to know that you’re guaranteeing me protection.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘From whoever…’ Rooker was trying to control his temper. This was the same conversation he’d had with Thorne, for Christ’s sake. Unbelievable…

  ‘Don’t worry. We had an agreement, as you say.’

  ‘Good. Great.’ Rooker saw his own grin; a lopsided reflection in the battered metal plate above the phone. ‘So you were joking just now, right?’

  ‘Just joking…’

  ‘I mean, anything could happen, couldn’t it? The deal was that you’d look after me. That you’d take steps…’

  ‘You have that guarantee.’

  Steel crept into Rooker’s voice. ‘If anything happens to me…’

  It was there too in the voice of the man on the other end of the line. In the words he repeated before ending the call: ‘You have that guarantee.’

  What had been described in reception as the ‘VIP Suite’ was little more than a large bathroom with a sofa in one corner. The walls were panelled in glossy, orange pine that ran with moisture. Red bathrobes hung on hooks, and a pink, plastic jacuzzi took up most of the available space. The wall-mounted TV, probably set up to show the same film that was playing in the lounge, was switched off. Memet Zarif had no need of such visual stimulation. The real thing was being eagerly supplied by the woman sharing his bathwater, though, in the absence of an aqualung, she was providing manual rather than oral relief.

  The woman, whose enhanced breasts bobbed in the water like buoys, stopped what she was doing the second she saw Thorne.

  Memet reached for her wrist, dragged her arm back beneath the water. He spoke to her, but his eyes never strayed from Thorne’s. ‘Carry on.’

  For a few tepid seconds nobody did much, then, finally, with a splash, the woman yanked her hand away and climbed out. Dripping, she walked behind Memet and pulled on a bathrobe, her lack of shyness as obvious as the scars and stretch-marks. S
he slipped her feet into sandals and turned back to Zarif. ‘Do I need to fetch someone?’

  Memet shook his head, unconcerned.

  The woman sized Thorne up like she was working out how big a stick she’d need to scrape him off the bottom of her sandal.

  ‘Am I a copper or a hired thug?’ Thorne asked. ‘Or both? I know you’re finding it hard to decide.’ He nodded towards Memet. ‘Your friend in there’s helping me with my inquiries, so why don’t you go somewhere and wash your hands…’

  The woman slipped the scrunchie from her hair, shaking it loose as she crossed the room. She stopped for just a second to hiss at Thorne, before stepping out into the corridor.

  ‘Tosser…’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ he said.

  When Thorne turned back to Memet, he had disappeared under the water. Thorne waited, watched as he lifted up his balding head and shook the water from it like a dog.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt…’

  ‘She was right,’ Memet said. ‘You are a tosser.’ The accent made the word sound a good deal more serious than when the woman had said it.

  ‘I just thought you might like to know that we found a couple more of your missing DVD players,’ Thorne said.

  Memet smiled, but the effort was obvious. ‘Well done.’

  ‘They’re turning up all over the place. This lot were working in kitchens and cleaning cars. Maybe one day we’ll find out exactly where they came from. What d’you reckon?’

  ‘Good luck…’

  ‘Where’s Tan, by the way?’

  Memet wiped water from his eyes, grunted a lack of understanding.

  ‘Well, Hassan’s out there waiting his turn like a good boy, and I know how close the three of you are, so I was just wondering where the baby of the family had got to?’

  ‘My brother’s on holiday…’

  ‘Oh, right.’ So, Tan was almost certainly the one who had put six bullets into Donal Jackson. Thorne wasn’t hugely surprised. ‘A sudden urge to get away, was it? You can get some very good last-minute deals if you shop around.’

  ‘He was upset after what happened. After the shooting.’

  ‘I’m sure it was very traumatic for all of you…’

  Memet’s face darkened suddenly. ‘Hassan was nearly killed. In the middle of the day, a man walks in with a gun.’

  ‘I know. Not very sporting, was it? Thank heavens for that mysterious second gunman. You sure it was a gunman, by the way? It couldn’t have been Batman or Wonder Woman, could it?’

  Memet said nothing. He moved his arm back and forth through the water. The banter was done with.

  The plastic tiles squeaked beneath Thorne’s shoes as he took a step towards the jacuzzi. ‘So, here’s the thing: I think Stephen Ryan’s a shitbag, and I’m not a great deal fonder of you. In fact, if Ryan was sharing your bathwater right now, I’d be head of the queue to chuck a three-bar fire in…’

  ‘Am I supposed to be upset?’

  ‘You’re supposed to listen. There’s not going to be any retaliation for what happened in the minicab office, do you understand? It’s over. You boys can all put your guns down now.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about…’

  ‘I don’t care what the “policy” is on this. I don’t give a toss about efforts being concentrated elsewhere, about resources being redistributed or even about the fact that you fuckers are doing us all a favour by killing each other. I’m just telling you this: if any more bodies turn up, if Stephen Ryan’s cousin’s auntie’s best mate’s brother-in-law so much as twists his ankle, I’ll start making a major nuisance of myself. Whatever the official position on this might be, I’m not going anywhere…’

  There was amusement in Memet’s voice, but also genuine confusion and curiosity. ‘Why are you taking all of this so…personally?’

  Suddenly, Thorne felt helpless, like the tiny, impotent figure that he’d imagined his father to be. The words he wanted to say were vast and deafening. They were made to be roared or screamed. To be sucked up and spat like powerful poison. Instead, Thorne heard them departing from his mouth as little more than murmurs, half hearted and sullen. ‘Because you don’t stop where other people do,’ he said. He looked at the floor as he spoke, sweat stinging his eyes. He stared at the strip of grubby mastic where the tiles met the base of the jacuzzi. ‘Because you don’t have a line…’

  There was a long moment of silence, of stillness, before Memet heaved himself on to the edge of the bath. Water gathered in thick droplets on his round shoulders. It ran through the dark hair clinging to the fat on his chest and belly.

  ‘I will talk to those with some influence in the community…’

  ‘Don’t start with that “pillar of the community” bollocks.’ Thorne wasn’t murmuring now. ‘I heard enough of it at that hotel.’

  ‘My family has done all that was asked of us…’

  ‘Does Mrs Zarif know about these lunchtime hand-jobs, by the way?’

  ‘You’re starting to sound very desperate.’

  ‘Whatever it takes…’

  Memet sat and dripped.

  ‘Talk to me about what you do,’ Thorne said. ‘Here and now, come on. Tell me about the killing, and the buzz or whatever it is, that you get from controlling people’s lives. It can’t just be about the money…’ He paused as Memet climbed to his feet and stared at him, a defiance in his stance, some strange challenge in his nakedness. ‘There’s nobody worth hiding from in here, is there?’ Thorne said. The water was cooling, but the room seemed to be growing hotter by the second. ‘It’s just the two of us. I’m not writing anything down, my memory’s not what it was and I haven’t got a tape recorder in my pocket, so it stays in this room. Every bit as discreet as everything else that goes on in here. Talk to me about it honestly. Just once…’

  Slowly, Memet reached for the towel that was draped across the arm of the sofa and began to dry himself. ‘That day in my father’s café,’ he said. ‘You told me to make a wish, remember?’

  Thorne remembered the lamps hanging from the ceiling, the cigarette smoke dancing around them like a genie. He recalled his parting shot as he’d walked out of the door. ‘So, did you make one?’

  ‘I made one, but it didn’t come true…’

  Thorne beat Memet to the punchline. He smiled, but felt the sweat turn to ice at his neck as he spoke.

  ‘Because I’m still here.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘I knew I should have got a toy or something.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we can exchange them.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky. I’ve chucked the bloody receipt away…’

  They spoke quietly, conscious of the baby asleep in a Moses basket beneath the window.

  ‘We can just hang on to them, you never know…’

  Thorne had known as soon as he’d clapped eyes on Holland’s baby that all the clothes he’d bought were far too small. Holland was holding up the tiny outfits, trying and failing to find something positive to say about them.

  ‘What, are you going to have another baby?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Well…’ Holland laughed and sipped from a can of lager.

  Thorne, furious with himself, eventually did the same.

  ‘Sophie’s had to nip out and see a mate,’ Holland said. ‘She’ll be sorry she missed you. Said to say “hello”…’

  Thorne nodded, feeling himself redden slightly. He knew very well that Holland was lying, that his girlfriend would have done her level best to make herself scarce on learning that Thorne was coming round. For all he knew, she might have been hiding in the bedroom, waiting for him to leave.

  They were sitting on the sofa in Holland’s living room. The clutter made the first-floor flat seem even smaller than it was. Thorne looked around, thinking that if the rest of the place was as cramped, then Sophie wouldn’t have had the room to hide…

  Holland read his thoughts. ‘Sophie thinks we should find a bigger flat.’

&n
bsp; ‘What do you think?’

  ‘She’s right, we should. Whether we can afford to is a different matter…’

  ‘Rack up that overtime, mate.’

  ‘Well I was. God knows whether there’ll be any on the cards now.’

  Though Thorne had brought the beer, he didn’t feel much like drinking. He leaned over, put his can down by the side of the sofa. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dave. The SO7 thing might have gone, but there’ll be some nutter out there somewhere putting a bit of work our way soon.’

  Holland nodded. ‘Good. I hope he’s a real psycho. We could do with three bedrooms…’

  The joke was funny only because of the dark truth that fuelled it. Thorne knew all too well that in a world of uncertainties, in a city of shocking contrasts and shifting ideas, some things were horribly reliable. House prices climbed or tumbled; Spurs had bad seasons or average ones; the mayor was a visionary or an idiot.

  And the murder rate went up and up and up…

  ‘What d’you reckon about the operation just getting called off like that?’ Holland asked. ‘I know you and the DCI weren’t exactly best mates, but still…’

  Thorne didn’t fancy rehashing the conversation he’d had with Tughan the day before. Instead, he told Holland how he’d spent the morning.

  ‘I reckon they’d booked the entire massage parlour for themselves.’

  ‘Like when they close Harrods so some film star can go shopping,’ Holland said. ‘Only with prostitutes…’

  Thorne described the confrontations in the lounge and the VIP Suite, playing up the comedy in his exchanges with Hassan and Memet Zarif. He exaggerated the moments that had felt like small victories and glossed over those that were a little more ambiguous.

  He left out the fear altogether…

  ‘Will it do any good, d’you think?’ Holland said.

  ‘Probably not.’ Thorne looked across at the baby. He watched for a few seconds, counted the breaths as her tiny back rose and fell. ‘But we can’t let these fuckers just…swan about, you know? Most of the time, they’ll run rings round us, I know that, but every so often we’ve got to give them a decent tap on the ankles, just to let them know we’re still there…’