The Dying Hours

by Mark Billingham

  Now, Thorne sat up and turned the music off, and they spent a few minutes catching up while tea was made and Alfie settled down in front of CBeebies.

  ‘How did you get on with him last night?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Thorne said. ‘Piece of cake.’

  ‘Really?’

  Thorne noticed the half-smile as she turned back to the tea things. He had been hoping she was so smashed the night before that she might have forgotten the carnage in the kitchen or the sopping towels on the bathroom floor. ‘Yeah. We had a great time.’ He looked across at Alfie, hypnotised in front of the TV. ‘Didn’t we, mate?’

  ‘I’ll have to go out more often,’ Helen said, her back to him.

  ‘How was Gill?’

  ‘Oh… she was fine,’ Helen said. ‘Had a bit of a hangover this morning though.’

  ‘Worse than yours?’

  ‘I drank loads of water when I got in.’

  ‘See, I know that’s the sensible thing to do,’ Thorne said. ‘But it becomes a very tough choice when you get to my age.’ He mimed the tipping of scales, up and down. ‘Lessening the chance of a hangover or pissing the bed.’

  Helen turned round. ‘So, what have you been up to today?’

  There was a moment of tension between them then, a crackle, but no more than that. A hesitation and a glance away.

  Thorne bent to pick up one of the empty beer bottles from the floor by the side of the sofa. ‘Well, it was a relaxing afternoon, I can’t pretend it wasn’t, but there were several hours of meditation first thing this morning. A trip to the gym after that, obviously.’

  They carried on laughing as they made Alfie’s tea together; Helen boiling the eggs and sorting the juice while Thorne cut toast into soldiers and insisted that it was all a little primitive in comparison to the feast he had prepared the night before. Alfie wolfed down the lot and it was certainly less messy than pasta and tomato sauce.

  Half an hour later, Thorne was in the bathroom, his radio sitting on the toilet cistern, when he heard the two words he had been listening out for amid the chatter and hiss. That he had been praying for, and dreading.

  Sudden death.

  He grabbed the unit and listened for the response. Inspector Simon Carlowe’s six-digit ID number came up on the Airwave’s screen when he announced that he was on his way to attend. Thorne entered the number and was straight through to him.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Carlowe said. ‘I’m not even in the car yet.’

  ‘I need to go out…’

  Thorne was walking back and forth between kitchen and living room, growing increasingly irritated, unable to remember where he’d left his jacket. He asked Helen if she’d seen it, but she shook her head.

  He found the jacket by the side of the sofa and pulled it on.

  Helen looked at him, asking the question.

  Thorne sighed. Said, ‘I don’t want an argument.’

  FIFTY

  The body never quite stopped moving.

  That was always the trouble with a hanging. Dead for it didn’t matter how long, there was still that hint of a sway, the smallest swing of the feet. A train thundering past somewhere close by might do it, or a lorry on the street outside or, in this case, a hairy-arsed constable coming that bit too quickly down the stairs.

  Thorne stood and watched them: the dead man’s shoes – black and highly polished – no more than eighteen inches or so from the carpet. Toes down and heels kissing. The constable came charging down the stairs from which the body was hanging and Thorne saw those shoes shift a little.

  It was better than looking at the face, though.

  The terraced house was on a quiet street off the Woolwich Road, midway between the Dockyard and Charlton Athletic football stadium. The south-east London heartland. The place had been nicely kept, inside and out; magazines piled neatly in the sitting room and washing-up done in the kitchen. Several pairs of shoes were lined up inside the front door, only a few feet away from that nice shiny pair still swaying just a fraction.

  The constable turned at the bottom of the stairs, glanced at the body then saw the look on Thorne’s face. Thorne was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, so either the officer knew who he was or had him pegged as a casually dressed CID man.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Just go easier,’ Thorne said.

  As the constable squeezed past the body and tiptoed down the narrow hallway towards the kitchen, Simon Carlowe emerged from the sitting room. The inspector leaned back against the wall, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He took a notebook from his pocket and opened it, then leaned forward to hang his hat on the newel post.

  ‘So… Edward Mallen, mid-sixties, but we can’t be any more precise just yet.’ Chatter erupted suddenly from his radio and he turned the volume down. ‘Retired factory manager, machine parts, something like that. Right now we’re just going on what the woman who found him can tell us.’ He nodded towards the sitting room.

  ‘And who’s she?’

  ‘Some kind of care-worker who’s been keeping an eye on him. She had her own key, pops in every couple of days.’

  ‘When did she find him?’

  ‘She got here about five thirty, she says.’ Carlowe sniffed. ‘He probably did it last night or early this morning. Three o’clock, four o’clock, a fiver says it’s somewhere around there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s the most popular time for people to kill themselves.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I’m telling you, I saw it on some website.’

  Thorne shook his head.

  ‘So, you’re an expert, are you?’ Carlowe asked.

  It was all stuff he’d got from Hendricks. The statistics and the surprises, like the absence of a note in the majority of cases and the fact that Christmas was actually a period when the suicide rate was lower than normal.

  ‘I swear I’m right.’ Carlowe stabbed at his notebook. ‘Between three and four in the morning. Those are the peak hours.’

  ‘We’re not talking about buses,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Just saying.’

  ‘You want to die badly enough, one hour’s going to be much the same as any other, don’t you reckon? Just pick any one of the twenty-four.’

  ‘Come on then, a fiver,’ Carlowe said.

  Thorne stared past him, said nothing. Most people had no choice as to the hour of their death and Thorne guessed that it was largely arbitrary even for those who chose that death for themselves. He did know that there were twice as many suicides as murder victims and he knew that right now he was looking at the less common of the two.

  You want to die badly enough, or kill someone…

  Carlowe shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, the doctor should be here in a minute, so he’ll give us a rough idea.’

  ‘So, that it?’

  Carlowe hesitated, clearly a little riled at being spoken to like a subordinate, but went back to his notes. ‘She reckons Mallen had been living up in the north-east for about thirty years, but was from here originally. Still had the accent, by all accounts. He moved back six months ago when his wife died. His kids still live up there.’

  Thorne nodded.

  For about thirty years…

  ‘Obviously, we’re trying to get hold of next of kin. The lads are looking around, trying to find contact numbers, whatever.’

  ‘Why did he need a care-worker?’ Thorne asked. ‘Looks like he was taking care of himself.’

  ‘Well, she’s being a bit cagey… client confidentiality and all that, but apparently Mr Mallen had been having a few “emotional” problems.’ Carlowe looked up at the body, puffed out his cheeks. ‘Yeah, right.’

  The dead man’s lips and the inch of tongue that hung through them were black. His eyes were open, bulging like table-tennis balls cracked with red and a thin streak of blood ran from one nostril down his white shirt. A small swell of hairy belly sagged over the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘Not a nice w
ay to go,’ Carlowe said.

  Thorne said, ‘The worst.’

  Over the years, Thorne had been witness to all manner of damage inflicted on the human body. He had seen how it looked after every kind of assault imaginable; what a machine could do to it, or gravity, or water. The variety of cruel and unusual methods other human beings had confected to make something so familiar practically unrecognisable.

  Hanging, though, was unique, in the way that damage was displayed.

  Thorne had dealt with perhaps half a dozen in his time and could still remember the first one; standing on a rickety stepladder in Victoria Park as he and a colleague tried to lift down the body of a teenage girl, suspended from the branch of an oak tree.

  Rope, wire, dressing-gown cord or washing line, there was always something so unnatural about the way in which the body was still free to move through the air. The dreadful slump and shape of it. That first time had been suicide, as had all but one of the others, but every one had spoken more powerfully of loss and desperation than any other body Thorne had encountered. Of brutality.

  Though yet to figure out precisely why, Thorne had a good idea who had put this latest body on display.

  ‘Anyway,’ Carlowe said, ‘it certainly seems kosher enough. Can’t find a note, but there’s no sign of anything iffy and we’ve got a first-hand report that he was… I don’t know… depressed or what have you. Bathroom cabinet’s chock-a-block with happy pills.’ He leaned across to retrieve his hat from the newel post. ‘So, I don’t think we’ll be needing to trouble our friends in suits.’ He looked at Thorne. ‘What do you reckon?’

  Thorne suddenly realised that Carlowe had brought him in, not because he was doing him a favour, but because he was the type that valued back-up when it came to the big decisions. The sort that liked to keep his arse covered.

  ‘It’s your call,’ Thorne said.

  Just then, a female PC put her head round the open front door. ‘We’ve got an old geezer out here who’s a bit upset, sir.’ She stepped in and straightened her vest, kept her eyes anywhere but on the body. ‘Says he’s a friend of the deceased. Poor old bugger’s been waiting in the pub for him since six o’clock.’

  ‘Get a name and address,’ Carlowe said. ‘Offer him a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘But what am I supposed to tell him?’ She looked nervous. Her face was ruddy, having clearly been on duty outside for the best part of an hour, with the temperature dropping. ‘I mean he’s seen all the cars and stuff, so he knows something’s happened.’

  ‘So, tell him the truth.’

  The young woman glanced, horrified, at the body. ‘What? You mean about…⁠?’

  ‘No need to be specific,’ Carlowe said. ‘Just tell him his friend’s passed away.’ He saw the woman shift from one foot to the other. ‘Not done a death message before?’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘Well, this shouldn’t be too tricky.’ Carlowe glanced at Thorne conspiratorially and half smiled, old hand to old hand. ‘I mean he’s only a friend, isn’t he? It’s a damn sight tougher when it’s family, trust me.’

  The PC said, ‘Sir,’ then turned away, adjusting her hat in the mirror by the front door before heading outside.

  ‘One she’ll remember,’ Carlowe said.

  Thorne ignored him and walked to the door. He opened it a few inches further, in time to see the young officer stepping through the front gate and approaching an old man who was waiting on the pavement.

  He wore an old-fashioned flat cap and a heavy coat. He had gloves on but he was wringing his hands all the same. Nervous rather than cold. Perhaps he was hard of hearing, because he leaned closer to the PC as she began to speak, his lips moving as though he were mouthing her words.

  Thorne closed the door, having no wish to see the old man’s reaction when he was given the news about his friend; the mess it made of his face. It was a night he would remember as well.

  He turned back into the hall and saw Carlowe leaning close to talk into the radio that was clipped to the top of his vest. The inspector narrowed his eyes and said, ‘Say again,’ then walked into the kitchen while he listened. Thorne heard one of the other officers already in there say, ‘You’re kidding.’

  A few seconds later, Carlowe came out, shaking his head. Thorne could not read his expression, but it did not look as if there was anything good coming.

  ‘We’ve got another one.’

  ‘Another what?’ Thorne asked.

  Carlowe pointed at the hanging man. ‘Another one of these.’ He moved the finger towards Thorne. ‘Is there something I should know about?’

  FIFTY-ONE

  Thorne took his own car, staying close behind Carlowe and the young female PC as they pushed through traffic on the Western Way, following the arc of the river until it widened out at Thamesmead. It was a ten-minute drive and they could have made it in even less time, but there was no call for blues and twos; no point risking life and limb when there was only a dead man waiting for them at the other end.

  ‘Not like he’s going anywhere,’ Carlowe said, when the PC suggested it.

  With the grim silhouette of the pumping station up ahead, they came off the main road and half a mile further on, after missing the unmarked turning once, they finally pulled into a narrow, unlit alleyway. It was rutted and pot-holed; the tyres churning up mud and stones as the cars moved slowly past high walls that were crumbling and overgrown. Fifty yards on, the track swung round to the right and broadened out, just as the river had done, into a patch of near-wasteland with a row of four shabby-looking garages at its far end.

  Other units had arrived ahead of them. Two officers were leaning against their Fiesta, cradling cups of takeaway coffee, while a third spoke to a civilian a few feet away. The first vehicle on the scene had now been moved and reparked more strategically, its headlights beaming directly into the open garage at one end and lighting up the rear end of the car inside.

  Thorne clocked it, and understood everything.

  While Carlowe disappeared into the open garage, Thorne took out his warrant card and wandered across to the officers enjoying their coffee. With a number of units still in attendance at the Mallen scene, the two women had clearly been pulled off their break. The elder of them, a sergeant, nodded towards the civilian and explained that he was the one who had made the 999 call.

  ‘Says that nobody really uses these garages at all, just kids smoking weed every now and again. He could hear the engine running inside.’

  Thorne looked across at the man. Black, in his late thirties; nodding and gesturing towards the garage while the officer he was talking to scribbled in his notebook. After one final draw, the witness flicked away the remains of a cigarette and immediately reached for another.

  ‘See, it’s a damn sight harder with modern cars.’ The younger of the two officers took a quick slug of coffee. ‘Electrically controlled combustion and catalytic converters, whatever. These days they produce so little carbon monoxide it’s almost impossible to do it.’

  ‘So how old you reckon that one is then?’ The sergeant nodded towards the garage.

  The PC turned to look. ‘Fifteen years old, something like that?’

  ‘What is it, a P-reg?’ The sergeant began counting back.

  ‘Surprised the engine ran at all, to be honest.’

  ‘You seen the body?’ Thorne asked.

  The younger woman nodded. ‘It was me that went in with a wet hankie over my gob and turned the ignition off.’ She sipped her drink. ‘You know, in case he hadn’t been in there too long.’ Her eyes widened above the large plastic cup. ‘Very dead, unfortunately.’

  The sergeant said, ‘P-reg is more like seventeen years old.’

  Thorne stepped away when he saw Carlowe emerge from the garage, pulling off plastic gloves with a practised flick of each wrist, sucking in deep breaths and squinting against the glare of the headlights.

  He walked to meet him.

  ‘We’ll have a proper rumm
age around when the fumes have cleared a bit more,’ Carlowe said. He took another long, slow breath. ‘Nothing you wouldn’t expect though. There’s a note, too… sort of. Scrap of paper on the front seat.’ Before Thorne could say anything, the inspector leaned down to his radio and casually thumbed the button. ‘Listen, anybody at the hanging in Woolwich… can you just tell the doctor to get straight over to this one when he’s finished?’ A voice said, ‘Understood,’ and Carlowe looked back to Thorne. ‘He’ll be earning his money tonight.’

  ‘What’s the note say?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A man of few words, obviously,’ Carlowe said. ‘Or maybe his pen ran out.’

  Thorne waited and Carlowe let him. There was the hint of a smile on the man’s face, but something decidedly unamused in the narrowing of his eyes, beady slits in the half-light. Suspicious that he was being played for a mug and not happy about it.

  ‘It says, Job done.’ Carlowe paused. ‘The note.’ He reached inside his Met vest and scratched. ‘Good job too, no question about that. Whoever he is, he was a dab hand with a plastic hose and a roll of gaffer tape.’

  ‘No ID yet then?’

  ‘Nothing in his wallet except cash,’ Carlowe said. ‘An old photo of a woman and a couple of kids. They’re running the car through the system right now, so we’ll have the name in a minute.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘Do you mind if I go and have a look?’

  Carlowe thought about it for a second or two, any suspicions seemingly tempered, for the time being at least, by his satisfaction at being deferred to as the senior officer on duty. He said, ‘Help yourself,’ then turned to greet the female PC who had driven him there and who was now approaching them, open notebook in hand.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘We should have that ID now.’

  Knowing that they would have no such thing, Thorne walked towards the garage, pausing on the way to tug a pair of plastic gloves from an open box on the bonnet of one of the patrol cars. His hands were clammy as he pulled them on. Moving into the tunnel of yellow light cast by the patrol car’s headlamps, he was passed by an officer coming from inside the garage, gulping the fresh air hungrily. Thorne held up his warrant card, but the officer did not bother looking at it. Instead, he pulled a face as though he were stepping from a rank toilet stall and said, ‘I should give that a couple of minutes if I were you.’