Billingham tells me about the extraordinary murder of Peter Nielsen by Vitaly Kaloyev in 2004. Nielsen was a Swiss air traffic controller held responsible for the crash of Flight 2937, in which Kaloyev’s wife and two children died. Kaloyev took part in the search for bodies, and actually discovered his daughter’s corpse. After a year in which he practically lived beside his family’s graves, Kaloyev finally tracked Nielsen down and thrust a photograph of his family in his face. After Nielsen refused to talk and struck the photograph from his hands, Kaloyev stabbed him to death. He later claimed to have no memory of the murder. Released from prison after serving two years of an eight-year sentence, Kaloyev returned to his home region, Ossetia, as a hero. ‘He was a good person who had never done anything wrong, and was probably never going to do anything wrong again. There was just that one moment when an otherwise good person did something horrific.’
This emphasis on credible, everyday motivations for his characters has pushed the Thorne series in new directions. This hasn’t always been to everyone’s taste. Billingham cites the first review of The Burning Girl, which ended his literary apprenticeship (the criminally enjoyable first three novels – Sleepyhead, Scaredy Cat and Lazybones) and signalled his growing confidence as a writer. ‘That review said, “What a shame Billingham has changed a winning formula.” I remember thinking at the time – This is a lesson. If it was a formula then I was absolutely right to change it. The stories were clearly in danger of becoming formulaic. I don’t want that.’
This is only one way of many ways Billingham’s work has evolved over the past twelve years. Technology too has had a different, but no less profound impact on plotting and police procedure, not to mention human relationships in general. This has advanced so quickly during Billingham’s writing career that parts of Sleepyhead seem almost quaint. Forget 4G, his early characters weren’t guaranteed to have a mobile phone or an email address. And the scene in which Tom Thorne recalls buying a Massive Attack tape from a ‘smug little git’ in Our Price makes you feel almost tearfully wistful.
Hercule Poirot may have been able to solve crimes by deducing that the narrator committed them, but modern detectives have little recourse to such literary ingenuity: Billingham estimates that ‘Ninety-five per cent of 21st century crimes’ are solved by recourse to mobile phone technology and CCTV footage. ‘Technology has completely changed my writing. There are only so many times that you can say, “The battery on his phone died.” Or, “The CCTV was broken, Guv.” It has definitely made the job harder. You want those gleeful moments of revelation that would make Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle readers gasp because the explanation is so clever. I almost envy writers of historical crime fiction, even though they really have to do research.’
Technology has impacted Billingham’s writing process in other ways than this. Twitter and email are named as his most profound sources of procrastination. ‘Those things are such a time-suck,’ he notes, almost fondly. Nevertheless, his writing schedule hasn’t changed much over the years. Not a superstitious person in most areas of his life, he admits to certain rituals when embarking upon a new project.
‘I have to buy the same kind of Ryman’s notebook every time I’m starting a new book. I did it for Sleepyhead and it worked, so I did it again. It’s for snippets of dialogue, plot ideas, or for questions if I talk to a copper. I buy one every year and dutifully put a little sticker with “Thorne Book X” on the front. Not once have I thought to buy more than one so I’ve got a stock of them. If they ever stop making them I’m going to be really upset.’
Talking to coppers continues to be the basis for Billingham’s research. The Dying Hours was actually written in response to a challenge laid down by two fans in uniform, acknowledged in the book as NW and KT. They dared him to return Thorne to the street. Billingham took up the challenge and accompanied the officers on a night shift that began by examining the death of an elderly woman: she died of natural causes, but the police needed to establish whether or not there was anything suspicious. Eight hours later, the shift ended on a housing estate at the scene of a horrific traffic accident.
‘I was just there to watch. The poor old lady was the first time I had actually seen a body other than at a family funeral. It was a very different feeling eight hours later at that housing estate. There were bodies lying in the road with just a sheet thrown across them. Officers were just stepping over them like they were not there. I had no spit in my mouth. I am clearly not a cop. I was glad I was shocked by it. If I hadn’t been, then I would worry.’
For the most part, however, Billingham has learned to relax about research. ‘I used to be a nutcase about it. I would go to a set of traffic lights to check whether you could turn left. I had to know that everything was correct. I later realised that was just work displacement activity. It wasn’t writing. I know what I have to get right now.’ In The Dying Hours, this necessitated learning about the grim subject of suicide, and exploding some of the myths that surround it. ‘For example, the misplaced idea that most people kill themselves at Christmas or at a particular time in the morning. What is true is that twice as many men kill themselves than women. But more women try. Men are just better at it.’
Experience has clearly lent Billingham a fundamental confidence in his writing process. Despite a punishing schedule of writing and promotion across the globe, he always delivers a manuscript on time thanks to what he calls a built-in calendar. ‘I know when I’m pushed, and I know when I’m not. If I haven’t written a single word for a couple of days, I will definitely get a little edgy. But I also know it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean the book will be late.’
Indeed, he argues that in reality the writing process happens anywhere other than at his computer. ‘Typing is just getting it down. The book is being written when I’m driving the kids to school or when I’m walking the dog. I can be driving along and my wife will suddenly say, “Oh, you’re not listening to me”.’
It is at moments like these that Billingham and Thorne sound eerily similar, intent on the case running through their imagination to the exclusion of all else. Whereas Billingham devises dastardly plots, Thorne attempts to unravel them. Both love the city they inhabit and hate it at the same time. Their lives combine an attraction to darkness with the need to escape it through joy, laughter and family. As The Dying Hours puts it: ‘There were jokes, of course, there had to be. All part and parcel of the Job; the defence mechanism, the pressure valve, whatever you chose to call it.’
I suspect there is rather more joy, laughter and family life in Mark Billingham’s everyday existence than that of Tom Thorne. There is certainly more conversation and less talk about Tottenham Hotspur. Whatever the differences, the pair are inextricably linked, and not simply by a shared love of Johnny Cash. ‘There’s no question that Thorne is me. He’s not as gobby as I am, but when you hear Thorne moaning about the state of public transport or the NHS, that’s me getting stuff off my chest. I don’t know who the hell else it is! But Holland is also me and Hendricks is me too. If I want a funny line I will give it to Hendricks. It’s acting again – it’s a performance. Whether I am trying to get inside the head of Thorne, or a bumptious chief inspector or a serial killer, I ask: “What’s on his desk? What’s on the walls around him?” It’s like Laurence Olivier said: You start with the shoes.’
Despite Thorne’s rough edges (and possibly because of them), there is plenty of life in the old dog yet. The years have changed them both, for sure. ‘How could any character be the same as they were ten years ago?’ Billingham asks. ‘But that is one reason readers love series. It’s the reason I love them. I want to see this cast of characters change and grow.’
As if to prove his point, Billingham has already begun a new Ryman’s notepad with ‘Thorne Book 12’ on the front. All he will reveal is that his alter ego will travel far from London and in the company of an old adversary. Even Billingham doesn’t know how it will all end just yet. For now, he is simply grateful
to have got this far. ‘I can’t think of anything I would rather be doing. Sometimes I wonder why I waited so long to do it. But actually, I am glad I spent twenty years doing stand-up. I am glad I was an actor. I am glad I did all those things. I wouldn’t be the writer I am without them.’
James Kidd
The Dying Hours Page 34