Scaredy Cat

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Wasn’t he always like that?’

  ‘I told you, it was just a feeling. Something about him that day in the restaurant. It’s nothing I could put into words. I have to go now . . .’

  ‘Wait. I want you to think about stopping this. Wherever you are, we’ll find you. What’s the point of it?’

  ‘I really can’t talk to you any more . . .’

  ‘Wait a minute. I’ll call again. I’ll let it ring three times first, and then hang up, so you’ll know it’s me. Three times, Palmer. OK?’

  The line was dead.

  McEvoy lay on her back, holding her breath, staring up at the mirrors.

  Her heart was going bonkers in her chest. Her face was tingling, the gorgeous numbness spreading across her mouth and teeth, the buzz dancing its way up into her skull.

  She froze as she heard a car pull up outside. Every muscle tensed, waiting for the footfall outside the door. She could get to the mains switch in ten seconds . . .

  She was flat on the floor beneath the window ledge in the living room, out of sight. She’d moved the free-standing mirror in from the bedroom, positioned it to the inch, tilted it until it gave the optimum view. Now she could lie here safely and watch the back garden. She would see any of them coming immediately. There was another mirror halfway down the garden – a big one she’d hung from a fence post. From this position, she could see around the side as well.

  When she’d first bought the flat, the garden had been great. She’d enjoyed sitting out there on summer nights, with a man sometimes, sharing a bottle of wine before bed. These days it was a bloody liability. It would be the way they would come. It was the place they watched her from most of the time, though the officer in the cherry-picker pretending to fix the lamp post on the street outside was a clever idea. But she was cleverer. She knew all the tricks, didn’t she? The surveillance game. She knew the car that was following her was probably the one in front. She knew all the tricks because she was one of them.

  Holland must have been talking. Everybody knew, she was certain of it. She’d caught two people at it in the space of five minutes, earlier in the day. Talking about her, clamming up when she came into the room. Watching her and judging. Well she was watching them as well. As she re-applied make-up using the small mirror she kept in her bag. She could see what they were thinking. Same as Holland. Same as everybody. All of them thinking that she couldn’t do the job.

  She froze. A shadow moved across the garden. She could be at the mains switch in less than five seconds at a push, plunge the place into darkness, turn everything off. She’d done it before when she’d heard them coming. It was a pain to spend the time re-programming the video and re-setting clocks, but she’d had no choice.

  They were out there, listening. The bastards weren’t going to hear or see anything tonight. She slid across the floor until she was away from the window before standing up and inching her way around the wall. She dropped into the chair by her desk, woke up her computer.

  There were those she could talk to who knew how good an officer she was. Who thought she was probably better at the job than anybody else. Who challenged her to prove it.

  She had email.

  The ringing phone punched its way into Thorne’s dream where it became the bark of a hungry animal, scrabbling at a door, digging its way beneath it. Behind the door stood a small boy, rooted to the spot, terrified, until a girl arrived and took him by the hand. Thorne woke then and leaned across, fumbling for the phone.

  ‘Palmer?’

  ‘Thorne? It’s Colin Maxwell. You in bed?’

  Thorne blinked hard and looked at the clock. It was just after eleven. He’d been asleep less than half an hour. ‘I was reading. Trying to get an early night . . .’

  Maxwell. The hotel killings. More bodies . . .

  ‘Which hotel is it?’

  Maxwell sounded surprised. ‘The Palace, in South Kensington. How the hell did you know?’

  Thorne was wide awake now. He needed some more painkillers. ‘Why else would you be calling? How many dead?’

  ‘Nobody’s dead. Listen, I think we’ve got our wires crossed here, mate. This is good news, and I reckon you could do with cheering up. Our man isn’t as bright as we thought he was.’

  The painkillers could wait. ‘You’ve got him?’

  ‘He delivers bar supplies. Drives a fucking beer wagon. Delivery once a month, gets friendly with the catering managers, chats up a few waitresses. Who’ve you got staying? Who’s throwing their money about? Bungs them a few quid for the right bit of information . . .’

  ‘What’s the Palace hotel got to do with it?’

  ‘A witness comes forward, a cleaner, gave the suspect information last year when she was working at the Regency, back when our murderer was still just a thief. The suspect approaches this girl again last week, only now our cleaner’s read the papers hasn’t she? She knows all about him. We’ve told her she’s in the clear if she plays along.’

  Thorne was growing irritated. They could go over it all in detail later. ‘Colin, just tell me about the Palace hotel . . .’

  ‘That’s the best bit, mate. What are you doing next Tuesday night?’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Thorne looked down at his new phone. It was smaller than the one it was replacing and flashier. He’d spent most of the day making sure that everyone who mattered had the new number. He hadn’t discontinued the account on his old phone. He wanted that number active for the time being.

  While it was quiet, while they were waiting, Thorne messed around with some of the new phone’s features. This one had a predictive text function. He had never been one for sending text messages, it always seemed easier and quicker to make the call. This might be fun, though. He typed the message. There were probably all manner of symbols and shortcuts he could be using – he knew this stuff was hugely trendy with kids – but he just kept it straightforward. He pressed the send button and looked up, smiled at a couple of the others. Nobody was saying a great deal.

  Thorne was pretty sure that what he’d sent would be read. There was no risk in opening it, even if the number that sent it wasn’t familiar. It was a simple enough message.

  give up . . .

  A stomach rumbled, breaking the silence, dispersing the ­tension. They all had a good laugh. Somebody suggested calling room service, ordering up a bit of dinner on expenses.

  Holland and McEvoy pushed through the revolving door and made their way across the lobby towards reception. Holland was wearing a blue suit. McEvoy wore a soft leather jacket over a black dress.

  They were hand in hand.

  ‘Room 133, please,’ Holland said.

  McEvoy took a small hand mirror from her bag and checked her make-up.

  The woman behind the reception desk plastered on a fake smile that was almost, but not quite, the same fake smile she plastered on the rest of the time. The tremble in her hand was almost imperceptible as she handed over the key.

  ‘Do you need a call in the morning?’ she asked.

  McEvoy shook her head.

  ‘Would you like a newspaper?’

  Holland smiled. She was very good. ‘No thanks. Good­night . . .’

  They waited for the lift. McEvoy stared at her reflection in the metal doors. Holland turned round casually, had a quick look. A man smoking a cigar on the armchair by the main entrance, fifty-ish, waiting for someone. A party of noisy business types spilling out of the bar. A younger man on the phone.

  The lift arrived, bringing with it half a dozen more jabbering businessmen. Holland and McEvoy stepped inside. Holland pressed the button for the first floor.

  It was only when the doors had closed fully that they stopped holding hands.

  Jason Alderton moved quickly along the corridor, his feet in soft black training shoes that m
ade no noise on the deep carpet. A woman came around the corner. He grinned as they passed each other, got a smile in return.

  He stopped outside the door and readied himself. He placed the bag soundlessly at his feet, looking left and right every few seconds, pulling on the gloves. It was important to step up close to the door, to get your face right up against the spyhole. The clothes were utilitarian enough anyway, but up close all anyone could see was the smiling face that looked away unconcerned, whistling.

  Jason breathed in and out very fast a dozen times, then knocked. It gave him a little kick that inside the gloves, his palms were perfectly dry. He was getting very good at this.

  Footsteps from inside the room. He tensed up, ready for it. It was the surprise that gave him the edge. They were always so completely stunned. He saw that expression on every face. They’d felt safe.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Hotel maintenance, sir. Problem with one of your radiators . . .’

  When the door was opened, in the half a second before he struck, Jason took in every detail necessary.

  Fucker in a suit, about thirty, here for the conference like the girl had told him . . . average size, not big . . . fit-looking, but that wouldn’t matter . . . full of himself most probably, but he would cry like a baby when it came to it . . . the look on his face, the shock, starting to sense much too late that something isn’t right . . . a woman, the wife or girlfriend, behind him, sitting on the edge of the bed . . .

  He raised both hands and pushed the man in the suit hard in the chest, shoved him back down on to the floor. He was moving in then, picking up the bag and shutting the door in one clean, quick movement, and the man in the suit was on his hands and knees moaning, and as Jason stepped forward to kick the fucker in the stomach, he saw the woman on the bed jump up, really jump up in the air, just like the old Dutch woman had done.

  She jumped up in the air and screamed . . .

  McEvoy screamed.

  The scream of the terrified wife. The scream of the good copper giving the signal for everyone to move.

  Thorne stepped quickly out from his hiding place behind the right-angle formed by a line of built-in wardrobes. He saw the look of sudden panic on the suspect’s face, watched it grow as he turned, looking for a way out, only to see two more men bursting out of the bathroom behind him.

  It would be five seconds, no more, from the moment Thorne stepped out into plain view, to the moment he would find himself staring down at the man on the floor, amazed at the fact that he wasn’t punching him into unconsciousness.

  As Thorne moved towards him, the suspect tried to run but Holland moved fast from his hands and knees, tackled him around the waist and drove him back across the room. ­McEvoy moved out of the way, and Holland and the suspect crashed down onto the edge of the bed. Thorne and Maxwell were right behind them, and together they lifted the suspect clear off the floor and threw him across the bed into the wall on the other side.

  Before the suspect had hit the carpet, Thorne was stepping round the bed after him.

  Up for it.

  Ready to do some damage to that face.

  The face not hidden by a balaclava, because the fucker hadn’t been planning on leaving anybody alive to identify him. The bag over his arm – the bag that contained the knife and the tape, and Christ alone knew what else . . .

  Thorne remembered the last time he’d been in a hotel room. He thought about the bodies in the bath and on the bed. Now he was ready to kick and punch and smash away a little frustration. Half a yard behind him, Maxwell and Holland moved just as quickly, reading the look on Thorne’s face, ready to stop him.

  They wouldn’t have to.

  Thorne saw something like amazement on the face of the man lying crumpled on the floor between the wall and the bed. In the tussle, his trousers had got pulled down to the top of his thighs, exposing grey underpants. A livid scratch ran across his forehead. His hair, thick with gel, lay plastered to his scalp like the legs of fat black spiders. Beneath, a thin, bland face, the small eyes wide, the mouth hanging open as he panted for breath. Thorne came around the bed at him, his fists clenched, his discoloured face a disaster area. Thorne could see the man on the floor wondering if his was going to end up the same way . . .

  Thorne stopped dead. He stopped and stared down at the pig-shit-thick piece of pond scum, who’d more or less handed himself over to them. The vicious moron who wasn’t quite careful enough and who would grow old in prison thinking about it. A tick in a plus column, a feather in a commander’s cap. A killer caught for the same simple reasons that most of them got caught.

  Blind luck and stupidity.

  Sutcliffe, West, Nielsen, Shipman. Virtually everybody on that list his father had asked for. All of them tripped up by a piece of good fortune, or coincidence, or carelessness. Not just the big ones either: Killer A and Rapist B too. Everyday maniacs on any street corner, and the majority of them a long way from the bright, refined psychopaths of popular fiction. All killing for ordinary, dull reasons. Anger, envy, lust, greed. Malign individuals, yes, but also every bit as stupid as some of those that hunted them . . .

  Thorne and the rest of them stumbling around, having good days and bad. Hot streaks and shitty patches. Following procedure or not following it, depending on who they were and how much they gave a fuck. Detectives hoping that this one wanted to get caught and failing that, praying for the sharp-eyed witness, the conscience-stricken relative, the dim-witted accomplice.

  Needing all the help they could get.

  Thorne knew it, of course. He knew it very well, but once in a while it would slap him in the face. A moment, an image, would remind him. How lost he was. How much he was reliant on fortune and fuck-ups.

  Detective? They needed to invent a new name for it.

  Thorne couldn’t remember the last time he’d detected anything but the smell of bullshit or beer on a colleague’s breath.

  It was five seconds, no more, since he’d stepped out of his hiding place. Thorne felt an arm on his sleeve, heard something high-pitched and unpleasant. Came out of it . . .

  The man on the floor was not looking at him, but past him, across the room at something else. The arm on his was pulling him away – not from the suspect, there had been no violence – but towards something else, something that demanded his attention.

  Thorne turned at the same time as he started to really hear it. He turned, wincing, and looked in the same direction as every­body else in the room. They had their hands over their ears. They stared at where Sarah McEvoy sat slumped against the wall near the door.

  She was still screaming.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  When she lifted her head up to look at him, Holland could see that his shirt was sopping, with snot, and tears.

  McEvoy had been crying for over an hour.

  She’d kept it together until moments after they’d climbed into his car and driven away from the hotel. She’d been hysterical from there, all the way back to Wembley, and when he’d pulled up outside her flat, she’d leaned across, crying so hard she was almost unable to speak, and demanded to be held.

  They hadn’t moved since.

  At the hotel, the two of them plus Thorne had moved downstairs once Jason Alderton had been taken away. They’d gone silently down in the lift and moved to a sofa and chairs in the deserted reception area. Thorne had found somebody, ordered coffee and then looked at them, demanding answers. Holland had been gobsmacked at how quickly McEvoy had recovered her poise, how easily she was able to look Thorne in the eye and lie to him. She told him that her mother was ill, that she was finding it hard to cope. She laughed and said that the business up in the hotel room was probably just down to her subconscious getting a lot of pent-up shit out of her system. Just a one-off thing. A bit of a wobbler, sir . . .

  Thorne had fucking believed he
r. Talked about her taking a bit of time off. Asked a bit more about her mother.

  Or maybe he hadn’t believed her. Holland had looked in the rear-view mirror as they’d pulled out of the hotel car park and seen Thorne standing there, watching them leave. It struck him then, watching Thorne standing with his hands in his pockets, that look on his face . . . perhaps he was just leaving it all for another day.

  Holland tried to shift his position a little. McEvoy was all but on top of him, her weight making him uncomfortable, but every time he tried to move, she began wailing again. It had started and stopped half a dozen times since they had arrived at her flat, unbearably loud; the noise dredged up from somewhere deep down in her guts. An emotion so raw and unformed that it screamed when it met the fresh air. Each time, the sobbing seemed to tear through her whole body, and through his, for long minutes at a time until it finally settled down.

  With the engine off, the clock on the dashboard wasn’t lit, but it must have been well after midnight. A man walking his dog looked into the car and quickly looked away again. Holland didn’t know if he understood what he was seeing.

  ‘Sarah . . .’

  She moaned and raised her head. She looked like she’d been dunked in paint-stripper. When Holland opened his mouth, she pushed her tongue into it and he felt the stirring in his groin. It took a major effort to pull away from the kiss.

  ‘Sarah, let’s get you inside.’

  ‘No . . .’

  She squeezed his neck so hard that he had to fight not to cry out. He reached up and wedged a hand between her fingers and his skin. ‘You need to stop this. You need to get to bed and go to sleep.’

  Her voice was hoarse and punctuated by desperate, absurd intakes of breath. ‘Was it nice . . . to be proved right? To see me . . . fuck up at work . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘In front . . . of everybody . . .’

  ‘What you said to Thorne was . . . good enough.’