Scaredy Cat

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Are you looking forward to Christmas, Charlie?’ The boy picked up a thick, red plastic bolt and began pushing it through a hole in a tiny workbench. ‘I’m sure Father Christmas will bring you lots of nice things if you’re a good boy.’ He pushed the bolt further in, his face a picture of concentration. ­McEvoy moved from her chair and knelt down, a few feet away. ‘It looks like you’re a good boy to me.’ She picked up the plastic screwdriver and examined it, as Charlie furtively examined her. She tried hard to keep any hint of seriousness out of her voice. ‘What would be very good is if you could tell me and Tom a little bit about when your mummy got hurt . . .’ She glanced up at the Enrights. Mary’s eyes were already filling with tears. Her husband sat motionless, his eyes on the floor.

  Charlie Garner said nothing.

  ‘What you could do, if you wanted, is tell your Nan about it. Do you want to do that?’

  He didn’t . . .

  McEvoy felt herself sweating and it was only partially due to the temperature. She was beginning to feel out of her depth. She started to say something but stopped. She could only watch helplessly as the boy stood up suddenly, marched past her and plonked himself down at Thorne’s feet.

  Thorne gazed down at Charlie and shrugged. ‘Hello . . .’ Charlie produced a small squeaky hammer and began vigorously banging on Thorne’s shoe. It might have been nerves or it might have been because the moment was, in spite of every­thing, ­genuinely comical, but Thorne began to laugh. Then Charlie laughed too.

  ‘I hammer your shoe . . .’

  ‘Ow . . . ow . . . ouch!’ Thorne winced in mock agony, and as the boy began to laugh even louder, he sensed that the moment might be right. ‘Do you remember the man who was there when your mummy got hurt?’

  The laughter didn’t exactly stop dead, but the answer to Thorne’s question was obvious. Charlie was still hammering on the shoe but it was purely reflexive. The intermittent squeak of the toy hammer was now the only sound in the room. Mary and Robert Enright sat stock still on the sofa, and Sarah McEvoy was all but holding her breath, afraid that the slightest movement could spoil everything.

  Thorne spoke slowly and seriously. He was not following a different tack to McEvoy for any particular reason. There was no strategy involved. Instinct just told him to ask the child the question, simply and honestly. ‘Can you tell me what the man who hurt your mummy looked like?’

  A squeak, as the hammer hit the shoe. And another. Then the tiny shoulders gave a recognisable shrug. Thorne had seen the same gesture in a hundred stroppy teenagers. Scared, but fronting it out.

  Maybe I know something, but you get nothing easily.

  ‘Was he older than me do you think?’ Charlie glanced up, but only for a second before returning to his hammering. ‘Was his hair the same colour as yours or was it darker? What do you think?’ There was no discernible reaction. Thorne knew that he was losing the boy.

  Hearing a sniff, Thorne looked up and could see that the old man on the sofa was quietly weeping, his big shoulders rising and falling as he pressed a handkerchief to his face. Thorne looked at the boy and winked conspiratorially, ‘Was he taller than your Grandad? I bet you can remember that.’

  Charlie stopped hammering. Without looking up he shook his head slowly and emphatically. Thorne flicked his eyes to McEvoy. She raised her eyebrows back at him. They were thinking the same thing. If that ‘no’ was as definite as it looked, it certainly didn’t tally with Margie Knight’s description. Thorne wondered who was the more credible witness. The nosy working girl or the three-year-old?

  Eye witnesses had screwed him up before. So, probably ­neither . . .

  Whatever, as far as Charlie was concerned, it looked as though the shake of the head was all they were going to get. The hammering was growing increasingly enthusiastic.

  ‘You’re good at hammering, Charlie,’ Thorne said.

  Mary Enright spoke up from the sofa, she too sensing that the questions were over. ‘It’s Bob The Builder. He’s mad on it. It’s what he calls you sometimes, isn’t it, Bob?’ She turned to her husband, smiling. Robert Enright said nothing.

  McEvoy stood up, rubbing away the stiffness in the back of her legs from where she’d been kneeling. ‘Yeah, my nephew’s always going on about it. He’s driving his mum and dad bonkers, singing the theme tune.’

  Mary stood up and began tidying things away, while Charlie carried on, the hammer now replaced by a bright orange screwdriver. ‘I don’t mind that,’ Mary said. ‘It’s just on so early. Half past six in the morning, on one of those cable channels.’

  McEvoy breathed in sharply and nodded sympathetically. Thorne looked down and brushed his fingers against the boy’s shoulder. ‘Hey, think about your poor old nan will you Charlie? Half past six? You should still be fast asleep . . .’

  And Charlie Garner looked up at him then, his eyes wide and keen, the bright orange screwdriver clutched tightly in his small fist.

  ‘My mummy’s asleep.’

  In spite of all the horrors to come, the bodies both fresh and long dead, this would be the image, simple and stark, that would be there long after this case was finished, whenever Thorne closed his eyes.

  The face of a child.

  It’s been over a week now, Karen, and it’s still on the television. I’ve stopped watching now, in case something comes on and catches me unawares when I’m unprepared for it. I knew that it would be on the news, you know, when they found her, but I thought it would die down . . . I thought it would stop, after a day or two. There always seems to be people dying in one way or another, so I didn’t think that it would be news for very long.

  They’ve got some sort of witness they said. Whoever it was must have seen me because they know how tall I am. I know I should be worried, Karen, but I’m not. Part of me wishes they’d seen me up close. Seen my face.

  A police officer on the television said it was brutal. ‘This brutal killing.’ He said I was brutal and I really tried so hard not to be. You believe that don’t you, Karen? I didn’t hit her or anything. I tried to make it quick and painless. I don’t really expect them to say anything else though. Why should they? They don’t know me . . .

  The other one, the one in south London, I can barely bring myself to think about that. It was horrible. Yes, that was brutal.

  The scratches are fading, but a couple of people at work noticed and it gave them something else to use against me. Not as if they needed any more ammunition. It was all nudges and giggles and, ‘I bet she was a right goer’ or, ‘did she make a lot of noise?’. You know, variations on that theme. I just smiled and blushed, same as I always do.

  Oh my God, Karen, if they only knew.

  Sometimes I think that perhaps I should just tell them everything. That way it would all be over, because someone would go to the police and I could just sit and wait for them to come and get me. Plus, it might at least make some of them think about me a bit differently. Find someone else to belittle. It would wipe a few smiles off a few faces wouldn’t it? It would make them stop. Yes, I’d like them to step back and start to sweat a little.

  I’d like them to be scared of me.

  But I’m the one that’s scared, Karen, you know that. It’s the way it’s always been hasn’t it? That’s why I can’t ever tell them. Why I can’t ever share this with anyone except you.

  Why I’m praying, praying, praying that Ruth will be the last one.

  1984

  They caught Bardsley just outside the school gates. He had a few mates with him but they took one look at Nicklin, at his face, and melted away into the background. Some of them were fifth-­formers at least a year older than he was, and it excited him to watch them scuttle away like the spineless wankers he knew they were.

  The two of them were on Bardsley in a second. Palmer stood in front of him, solid, red-faced and shaking. Nicklin gra
bbed the strap of his sports bag and together they dragged him towards the bushes.

  The park ran right alongside the main entrance to the school. A lot of the boys cut across it on the way to school and back, and the sixth-formers would hang around with their opposite numbers from the neighbouring girls’ school. It wasn’t a nice park; a tatty bowling green, an attempt at an aviary and a floating population of surly kids – smoking, groping or eating chips.

  Palmer and Nicklin pushed Bardsley towards the bushes that bordered the bird cages. He grabbed on to the wire of the nearest cage. It housed a moulting mynah bird which, in spite of the best efforts of every kid in school, resolutely refused to swear, producing nothing but an ear-splitting wolf-whistle every few minutes. Bardsley began to kick out wildly. Palmer clung on to the collar of his blazer, which was already starting to tear, and shuffled his legs back, out of the range of the boy’s flailing Doc Martens. Nicklin stepped in closer and, oblivious to the pain in his shin as he was repeatedly booted, punched Bardsley hard in the face. Bardsley’s hands moved from the wire to his face as blood began to gush from his nose. Smiling, Nicklin pushed him on to his knees, rammed a knee into his neck and pressed him down into the dirt.

  After a nod from Nicklin, Palmer dropped on to Bardsley’s chest and sat there for a few moments, breathing heavily, his face the colour of a Bramley apple.

  Bardsley took his hand away from his face and glared up at the younger boy. There was blood on his teeth. ‘You’re fucking dead, Palmer.’

  Palmer’s face grew even redder as his big hands reached forward to grab greasy handfuls of Bardsley’s dirty blond hair. ‘What did you say about Karen?’

  ‘Who the fuck’s Karen?’

  Nicklin was standing behind Bardsley’s head, his back against a tree, his hands in his pockets, his foot pressed against the scalp of the boy on the ground. He pushed his tongue in behind his bottom teeth, opened his mouth and slowly let a thick, globular string of spit drop down on to the bloody face below. Bardsley flinched and squeezed his eyes tight shut. When he opened them again he was staring up at the pistol in Nicklin’s hand.

  Palmer and Bardsley moaned at almost the same time. Bards­ley in terror at the sight of the pistol, and Palmer in disgust as the groin of the boy beneath him quickly began to grow damp.

  ‘Shit . . . he’s pissed himself!’ Palmer jumped up and pointed down at the dark, spreading stain on Bardsley’s grey trousers.

  Nicklin giggled. ‘Well turn him over then.’ Palmer shook his head. Nicklin stopped giggling as the mynah bird let out a shrill whistle from the cage behind him. ‘Fucking turn him over . . .’

  Palmer stepped forward nervously. Bardsley glowered at him as he tried with some difficulty to scramble to his feet, one hand wiping away blood and spit and dirt, the other covering his groin. His voice was thick with rage and the effort of holding back tears, ‘Dead . . . fucking dead . . .’ But the fight had gone out of him and Palmer was easily able to yank him over on to his belly.

  Nicklin moved round and knelt down next to Palmer at Bards­ley’s feet. ‘Pull his pants down.’

  Bardsley began trying to drag himself away until Nicklin leaned forward and pressed the pistol into his neck. Bardsley froze and dropped back into the dirt.

  ‘Right, grab that side . . .’ Nicklin took hold of Bardsley’s waistband and began to pull. He looked at Palmer, who, after a second or two, did the same, and moments later, Bardsley’s trousers and pants were around his ankles.

  ‘He’s got fucking blue pants on . . .’

  ‘Stu, that’s enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘Pissed his pants like a girl. I can smell shit as well . . .’

  ‘Stuart . . .’

  Nicklin handed Palmer the pistol. ‘Stick this up his arse.’

  At these words Bardsley was predictably energised, and his buttocks pumped rapidly up and down in his frantic attempts to get away. Palmer took a step back, staring at the ground, but Nicklin leaned in close to Bardsley, laughing. ‘Go on Bardsley, you bummer, shag it. Shag the ground you fucking perv . . . only thing you’ll ever get to shag, you spastic . . .’

  Palmer turned the pistol over and over in his hand. Nicklin looked up at him, smiling, making certain that Palmer was reassured by the smile before letting it slowly dissolve. Looking serious. Concerned. Shaking his head.

  ‘He said he was going to do stuff to Karen, Martin.’

  Bardsley tried for the last time to tell them that he didn’t have a fucking clue who Karen was, but the words were lost as he dissolved into sobs.

  Nicklin lowered his voice and spoke slowly. Things he didn’t want to tell his friend; things he had to tell him. ‘Dirty stuff, Mart. He called her names.’ Palmer wrapped his fat fist around the butt of the pistol and dropped down slowly, his knees heavy on the back of Bardsley’s calves. ‘Said you’d done things to her . . . touched her tits.’ Palmer pushed the barrel into the soft, pale flesh of Bardsley’s buttocks and held it there. Bardsley whimpered.

  Nicklin whispered. ‘Go on Martin . . .’

  Palmer looked down at Bardsley’s soft, spotty backside, afraid to so much as glance at the boy next to him. Afraid of his friend’s excitement. He could see the twin rolls of sweaty, girlish fat on his chest shudder as his heart thumped beneath them. He could taste the perspiration that was running into his mouth. He knew that he should throw the pistol away and get to his feet and run through the park, without looking back, down past the bowling green and up and across the playground, not stopping until he was home . . .

  Nicklin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and as the mynah bird screeched raucously behind him, Palmer pulled the trigger.

  Bardsley screamed as the jet of compressed air fired the tiny lead pellet deep into his flesh.

  FOUR

  The train journey back to London had been half an hour quicker than the outward leg, but had seemed infinitely longer. For the first twenty minutes or so, Thorne and McEvoy had tried to make conversation, then given up. He picked up the newspaper he’d already read and she made for the smoking ­carriage.

  Thorne had closed his eyes and tried, without any success at all, to go to sleep.

  McEvoy hadn’t bothered coming back.

  It was after six by the time Thorne finally got back to Hendon. Becke House was in the Peel Centre, a vast compound that also housed the Metropolitan Police Training College. Hundreds of fresh-faced recruits buzzing about, learning how to put handcuffs on, learning procedure. Learning nothing.

  A BBC film crew had been around for the past few months making a documentary on the new intake. Thorne had spoken to the director one day in the canteen, suggested that he might like to catch up with his subjects again in a year or two; see how those ruddy-cheeked recruits had matured into the job. The director had been hugely, stupidly enthusiastic. Thorne had walked away thinking: that’ll be one show they’ll need to put out after the watershed . . .

  Thorne headed for the office. He decided he wanted to put in another couple of hours. It would be a good idea to save the drive back to Kentish Town until the rush hour had died down a little. That was the excuse he gave himself anyway.

  Holland was the only member of the team there, still hunched over a computer screen. In spite of the day he’d had, Thorne didn’t envy him. He’d been forced to attend two courses and was still a computer illiterate. The only things he could access with any speed were the Tottenham Hotspur FC supporters’ newsgroup and the technical support line.

  ‘Where’s the DCI?’

  Holland looked up from his computer, rubbing his eyes. ‘Meeting with the Detective Super.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Thorne shook his head. ‘We’ve only just started.’

  ‘Where’s McEvoy?’

  ‘Probably soaking in a long hot bath by now . . .’ Holland nodded. Thorne noticed how tired he was lo
oking. ‘Go home, Dave. Start again in the morning.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d better, before I get RSI. My mouse finger’s fucked.’ He stopped laughing when he pictured Sophie’s expression as he walked through the door. ‘I’ll just finish what I’m doing . . .’

  One week into it, and neither of them wanting to go home. Both afraid of looks on faces.

  Thorne pushed open the door to the office he shared with Brigstocke, and waited for a second or two before turning on the light. The room looked a damn sight better in the dark. Who the hell could be expected to work efficiently in an airless grey box like this, or the even smaller one next door that Holland and McEvoy worked out of? Worn grey carpet, dirty yellow walls and a pair of battle-scarred brown desks, like two rectangles of driftwood floating down a shitty river. No amount of potted plants or family photos, or knick-knacks on monitors could stop this room sucking the energy out of him, blunting him.

  There were moments in this office, when Thorne almost forgot what he did for a living.

  He flicked on the light and saw a post-mortem report sitting on his desk.

  When he almost forgot . . .

  Sarah McEvoy consoled herself with a glass of wine, another cigarette and the thought that crying was easy.

  She couldn’t think of the boy in Birmingham as anything other than a potential witness and she knew that perhaps she should. She knew that there were feelings missing. Not maternal ones necessarily, or even feminine. Just human. She felt angry at what had happened to the boy’s mother all right. Anger was always instant and powerful. It made her feel light-headed. Anger was enjoyable, but sympathy never came as easily.

  It wasn’t fair. She felt that her behaviour was being judged. Maybe right now, Thorne was telling somebody else, Holland probably, how . . . hard she was. There was no middle ground as a woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hard, or emotionally unstable. Actually, hard-faced was a favourite with female colleagues. Usually followed by bitch or cow.