Scaredy Cat

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Well, Bob, it’s a bit embarrassing.’

  ‘Tom, are you a first time caller?’

  ‘Yes, I am, sorry . . .’

  ‘Just relax, you’re among friends.’

  ‘The thing is, I was wondering if any of your listeners might be able to help me. I’m trying to catch a multiple murderer you see, and it isn’t going at all well . . .’

  He picked up his steaming mug of tea and carried it back into the sitting room, still chuckling to himself. On the radio, a new caller was broadcasting to the nation. Not Thorne of course, but he sounded equally interesting.

  Leonard from Cheshire: ‘This bloke who was battered last week, this teacher? They say on the news it was that pair, the ones who’ve been doing all these murders, but I reckon it was just some little bastard, pardon my French, what hadn’t done his homework. I mean it could have been, couldn’t it, you know what they’re like now in some of these schools . . . ?’

  He was laughing so much, he had to hold on to his tea with both hands.

  When Thorne arrived at work the next morning, the last thing he was mentally prepared for was a bust up with Steve Norman. The press officer, on the other hand, who was waiting for Thorne in his office, seemed well up for it.

  ‘You’ve made us all look very stupid, Thorne.’

  Thorne cocked his head and crossed to his desk, thinking, how hard can that be?

  Norman followed him, standing at his shoulder as Thorne, without looking at them, picked up a pile of reports from his desk. ‘Alienated most of your fellow officers already, now you’re making a pretty good job of pissing the rest of us off as well.’

  Thorne carried the sheaf of papers across to the window and began pretending to read them. He wasn’t sure why Norman was here and why he was in such a bad mood, but he really wanted him to leave and guessed that it might be a good idea if when he did, it wasn’t with a broken nose or any teeth missing.

  He dropped the paperwork down onto the window ledge and turned to face him, trying his damnedest to look tired rather than angry. ‘What’s your problem, Norman?’

  ‘No problem. I just wanted you to be aware just how much trouble you’ve caused. We worked our bollocks off, liaising with the press, getting close to the journos . . .’

  ‘That must have been hard. All that expense account wine to get down your necks . . .’

  Norman laughed in mock confusion. ‘Sorry, don’t you remember whose idea this was? An idea which, for the record, most of us thought was half-arsed at the time.’ Thorne shrugged. He hadn’t forgotten. ‘Yeah, well this time it was people like me at the sharp end of it. You wanted false stories planted in the press, you needed a lie perpetrated and we did it. Brilliantly. Now, it’s all gone tits up because you were wrong, and we’ve got to sort the mess out.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Thorne said, starting to fray a little round the edges. ‘You’re shouting your mouth off, because basically, you’ve got to do your job.’

  ‘I’m not . . .’

  Thorne took a step closer to him. ‘Well, why don’t you shut up and go and do it?’

  Norman showed no inclination to retreat. He raised a finger, jabbed it towards Thorne’s chest. ‘I will, and you’d better be bloody thankful that someone round here’s good at their job. I might, might, just be able to put things right with the press. I might be able to get this operation out of the mess it’s in with half a decent reputation left.’ He turned away and strolled towards the door, stopped when he got there. ‘When I say this operation, I’m not including you of course. You’re already down the shitter and there’s no way to get you out again . . .’

  Thorne laughed, moved to the chair behind his desk. ‘Listen Norman, I’m busy, and if you’re just going to stand there stating the obvious . . .’

  Norman opened the door. ‘Later, Thorne . . .’

  Thorne spoke calmly, straightening things on his desk, lining up the pens. ‘Oh, just to let you know, if you point that finger at me again, I’ll break it. Fair enough?’

  Norman turned around. Thorne saw the colour rise to his cheeks and was quietly delighted to see a little of the cockiness disappear from around the eyes. They looked at one another, unblinking, for a few slow seconds.

  ‘There’s a theoretical equation of ranks between officers and civilian staff. Did you know that, Thorne?’ Thorne did, but said nothing. ‘It’s a courtesy thing really, but most people tend to observe it. A press officer on my team equates with a Detective Inspector such as yourself. I’m a senior press officer, which if I’m not wrong, and I’m not . . . equates to a DCI – the rank immediately superior to yours. Are you listening, Thorne?’

  Thorne looked up, the desk nice and tidy, the eyes nice and dead.

  ‘Like you said, it’s theoretical. Now fuck off.’

  Norman did as he was bid, and was replaced almost immediately by a far friendlier face. Holland leaned against the doorframe and watched Norman as he made his way across the incident room.

  ‘Cheer me up,’ Thorne said. ‘Tell me the Desk of Doom has got him, gouged a big hole in his leg. Better yet, taken one of his bollocks off.’

  ‘Sorry, no luck. You padded it with all that paper anyway.’ Thorne grunted. He’d completely forgotten doing it. ‘What was all that about?’ Holland asked. ‘I could hear it from next door.’

  Thorne got up and walked across to join Holland in the doorway. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Something got up his arse though.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is, it looks like it’s gone now . . .’

  The two of them watched as Norman stood talking to Sarah McEvoy. He was smiling, gesturing with his hands. She smiled back, leaned towards him, briefly placed a hand on his arm. Her eyes darted towards Thorne and Holland. Half a second later, they were looking at the floor in front of her.

  Holland moved into the office. Thorne followed him.

  ‘Oh, listen, I’m sorry about the other morning on the phone,’ Holland said. ‘You asked about McEvoy, how she was doing, or something, and I was a bit stroppy. Didn’t get much sleep . . .’

  Thorne had been wondering if Holland would say anything. His reaction had been so out of character. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  Holland breathed in, let it out. Like he’d got something out of the way. ‘Norman got it in for you then?’

  ‘Looks that way,’ Thorne said. ‘Buggered if I know why though. Worst thing about it is, I can’t really argue with him. Most of what he was saying was spot on.’

  Holland opened his mouth to argue but Thorne cut him off. ‘He’s a little tosser, don’t get me wrong, but he knows what he’s talking about.’

  ‘No need to make it personal though, is there?’

  Thorne sat down. ‘He’s a small man, you know? All got big chips on their shoulders.’ Holland looked at him, eyebrows raised, a grin threatening to appear. Thorne’s face crinkled, sarcastically, in return. ‘He’s smaller than me, OK? I’m ­average . . .’

  Holland held up his hands. ‘I’m not arguing. What about chips though?’

  Thorne thought for a second, then smiled, like he’d suddenly remembered an old friend.

  ‘Me? More than Harry Ramsden, Dave.’

  Holland laughed loudly, and at that moment, Thorne would have been happy, Jesus, he would have been deliriously happy, to just close his eyes and listen to the sound of it all day. He would have been delighted to shut the door and do fuck all of any use to anybody and just sit and wait for the darkness outside the window. To let the night come and grow thick around him. To sit in his office and drink tea and talk to Holland about nothing: about Sophie, his girlfriend and his last holiday, and Tottenham’s pointless push for a place in Europe, and what films he’d seen lately and how bloody awful they both thought public transport was . . .


  Whatever.

  But he knew that every few seconds, his voice, even as he spoke, would grow quiet to his ears, as if the Mute/Fade button on his brain’s remote control were being fingered, and a new sound would take its place. A sound that he had to invent. One that could only exist in his imagination. A sound that very few people, very few people living, could ever have heard. The dull, wet smack of a bat striking a skull.

  Over and over again.

  I got Ken Bowles killed.

  The phone rang. Thorne reached for it absently, picked it up without looking, said nothing.

  After a moment or two, a voice. Tight, impatient, a faint Midlands accent.

  ‘Is this Thorne?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘This is Vic Perks. You’ve been trying to get hold of me.’

  ‘Have I?’

  Perks sighed. ‘Well somebody there has. Ex-DCI Vic Perks. I was in charge of the Karen McMahon investigation in 1985.’

  Thorne grabbed a notepad and began to write . . .

  As he jotted down details, as he and Perks made arrangements, an image began to form at the back of Thorne’s mind. There one second and gone the next. Then back again, like the picture glimpsed in a cloud formation or an odd arrangement of shadows.

  He saw a stranger leaning down and reaching out a hand to pull him up – to drag him from the cold, dark water at the very moment he was about to go under.

  EIGHTEEN

  They met in a pub called The Mariners’ Arms on the Isle of Dogs.

  It was a basic kind of place. Thick nylon carpets, a dart board, beer. Wednesday lunchtime, and aside from Thorne and Perks, there were only two people in there: the barman – a student by the look of things with dyed blond hair and bad skin – who stared intently at the small television above the bar; and a wizened old man in a battered brown trilby who sat in the corner with a newspaper, half a Guinness and a fierce-looking Alsatian at his feet.

  While they worked their way through their beers and waited for two cheese rolls to appear – there must have been somebody else there, in the kitchen, because the rolls materialised eventually – they talked about their respective journeys. The pub had been Perks’s idea. He hadn’t wanted to travel too far from the small flat in Epping to which he and his wife had retired. When the older man mentioned where he lived, Thorne had glanced up from his pint, only for a second, but Perks still knew what he was thinking. That part of the world did have something of a reputation.

  ‘That’s right. Retired to the same place where most of the villains I spent all those years chasing ended up. I see one or two of them now and again. Buying the paper or down the garden centre. We say hello . . .’

  Thorne had been right about the Midlands accent: Birmingham was his best bet, or Coventry maybe. Perks was a tall man. His face was thin and deeply lined, but Thorne guessed that laughter was probably just as responsible as worry. He was in his early sixties, with his grey hair cut short and a neatly trimmed moustache, a collar and tie beneath the padded car coat.

  Perks finished his last mouthful of cheese roll, wiped the crumbs from around his mouth with a wax-paper serviette and looked Thorne in the eye.

  ‘You haven’t found her. You haven’t found Karen, else you’d have said by now.’

  Thorne was still eating. He swallowed quickly. ‘No. But I intend to.’

  Perks stood up, scanned the room for the entrance to the toilet. He looked down at Thorne before making a move.

  ‘So did I . . .’

  Later, they walked east, along the river. The fine rain was annoying more than anything – not enough to warrant an umbrella, but enough to necessitate screwing up the eyes and hunching the shoulders. The Thames was wide here. They walked within feet of cheaply built sixties’ council housing, drab and depressing. On the other side of the river, at the top of the hill was Greenwich Observatory, the Royal Naval College and the Cutty Sark.

  They walked slowly; Thorne moving a little slower than he might normally have done. The river belched and slid and slurped beneath them, oily and gunmetal grey. Ahead and across from them, the bizarre monstrosity that was the Millennium Dome rose up through the drizzle, rusting and ridiculous. A million and more a week, so they reckoned, just for it to sit empty.

  ‘That’s a decent hospital every couple of months,’ Perks said. ‘A school every few weeks.’

  ‘Did you think she was alive?’ Thorne asked. ‘When you were looking for her?’

  Perks turned his face away towards the river, towards the wind. When he finally spoke, Thorne had to strain to hear the words. ‘For a week, perhaps a fortnight, we hoped. I probably thought so longer than anyone else. That was my job I suppose.’

  Thorne went another step or two before he realised that Perks had stopped. He turned and walked back towards him. ‘There were sightings weren’t there?’

  ‘Several. Always plenty of sightings though. People are well-meaning or else they’re being plain malicious. Hard to tell at the time. One though in particular . . .’

  ‘Carlisle?’

  Perks nodded, wiped rain from his face with the back of a brown leather glove. ‘A few miles outside actually. Three days after she went missing. That one was hard to ignore. The clothes were spot on – we never released everything but the description was perfect. Hair, clothes, the car. That one felt right.’ Perks said something else but it was lost as a screaming gull passed just overhead, its cry mingling with the clatter of a nearby helicopter. Thorne looked up and saw a bulky, tomato-red chopper swooping down towards City Airport.

  Perks moved past him. Thorne followed, but kept an eye on the helicopter, unable to explain the sudden, morbid thought, but not wanting to miss a moment should it burst into flame and plunge into the river.

  ‘So that’s why you never searched locally?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘We searched everywhere . . .’

  ‘Sorry, I mean . . . looked for a body, looked for it in the area where she disappeared. The country park, the railway line . . .’

  ‘The sightings were one reason, certainly. Didn’t make sense for whoever took her to kill her and bring her back to dispose of the body. Not that these animals do anything normal . . .’

  Perks’s gaze was steady but despite the disgust in his voice, Thorne thought that there was something missing from the eyes. It was something Thorne saw in the bathroom mirror every morning, flickering into life. On a good day he might call it passion. On a bad one, panic.

  ‘Then there was the lad’s statement,’ Perks said. ‘The boy that saw her get taken. We had an eye witness who watched Karen get into that car.’

  ‘Stuart Nicklin.’

  Perks’s eyes narrowed for a moment. ‘Yes. Nicklin.’

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes. A varied panorama of heavy riverside industry moved slowly past them on the other side of the water, some of it flourishing, some of it long dead. All of it pig-ugly. A disused power station, a grain processing plant, the scrapyard where the Marchioness was finally broken up and melted down, wharves piled high with gravel and aggregates, rusting cranes poking skywards.

  The sky, the shore, the water, the buildings. Black, grey and brown . . .

  ‘Tell me about Nicklin.’

  ‘He was a strange kid . . .’

  Thorne nodded, thinking, Jesus . . .

  ‘You don’t know how much things like that are going to affect kids down the road, do you? He was really upset. Seeing her get into that car. He knew it was wrong, you see. I think he knew he should have done something to try and stop it. He never said that but . . . he knew. Seeing her taken like that, it shook him. They were close, not boyfriend and girlfriend, but close. Best friends, you might say. Actually there was another kid, Martin Palmer. They were a bit of a threesome. They’d all been together earlier that day, but then
they’d had some kind of falling out and Palmer had gone home.’

  ‘Any idea what they’d fallen out about?’

  Perks squinted at him, his mind racing ahead, aching to work it out. ‘No . . .’

  ‘You knew that Nicklin had been expelled from school before this? Him and Palmer?’ The look on Perks’s face – the confusion, the desperate desire to know – made Thorne feel suddenly guilty. He was going round the houses. Pissing a decent ex-­copper around for no good reason he could think of. He should have just said what he had to say back there in the pub, told Perks what he wanted – what he wanted confirmed.

  Thorne put a hand on Perks’s arm. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Stuart Nicklin. Palmer as well, but really . . . this is about Nicklin. I wanted to check that his statement was the only reason why you didn’t look for Karen closer to home; how much what he said to you at the time had to do with that . . .’

  They couldn’t walk any further. They’d reached Saunders Ness, the end of the riverside walk. A spit, or nose, of land formed by the huge curve of the river as it swept round the Isle of Dogs and out towards the estuary.

  Perks leaned on the handrail and stared out across the river. ‘The Thames was more or less dead a couple of years ago. Did you know that? Bugger all could live in it.’ Thorne was not surprised. All manner of shit got dumped in the river and most people didn’t know or didn’t much care. To the average Londoner, the Thames was just something you had to cross sometimes. Perks looked at him as if reading his thoughts. ‘The few people who gave a toss did something about it though. There’s nearly a hundred different types of fish in there now – sea trout, salmon, jellyfish. They found seahorses up past the Dartford crossing. They’ve brought this thing back to life. Nice you can do that, isn’t it?’

  Thorne nodded, acknowledging that yes, it was nice.

  Perks smiled and pointed towards the water. Thorne peered at the shoreline and saw what he was so pleased about; his tale of life after death being illustrated for him, right there. White against the dark water, a heron, standing motionless in the shallows, looking for lunch.