Good as Dead tt-10

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Well, for some reason you weren’t answering your mobile,’ Thorne said. ‘So I tried the university. She was very helpful, actually. Told me you’d been feeling unwell. That you’d gone home early.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That must have come on suddenly.’ Thorne shifted his position to try and get comfortable, then gave up. ‘Not long after we spoke, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Some kind of virus,’ Rahim said.

  Thorne nodded then turned towards the stereo. ‘What was that you were listening to before?’ Rahim had turned the music off as soon as he’d shown Thorne in.

  ‘You wouldn’t know it.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Thorne said. ‘Didn’t sound like my kind of thing.’

  Rahim just looked at him. Thorne could see that he was nervous but nevertheless unwilling to make casual conversation. Bright enough to know that Thorne was not there for that.

  ‘You like music then? Go to a lot of clubs and stuff?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Sure?’

  Rahim sat forward, said, ‘What’s this about?’ but it was clear from his expression that he already knew.

  ‘You were arrested as part of a raid on the Crystal Rose in Brewer Street five months ago,’ Thorne said. ‘Cautioned for possession of cocaine.’

  The boy was probably aiming for something like insouciance, but he could not control the nervous reflex. That soft red moccasin tapping fast against the floor. ‘So?’

  ‘So, were you there for the music?’

  ‘It’s a nice club,’ Rahim said. ‘I just went out with some friends.’

  Thorne leaned forward, happy to see that Rahim leaned that little bit further away as he did so. ‘I don’t give a toss about the drugs,’ he said. It was no longer a conversation, no longer casual. ‘What’s interesting is that it wasn’t even the drug squad that made the raid. It was actually part of a vice operation. They’d been tipped off that certain individuals were using the Crystal Rose as somewhere they could go to pick up underage boys.’ He waited, but Rahim just stared at the floor, both his feet now working together against the stripped and varnished boards. ‘I’m talking fourteen-or fifteen-year-olds here,’ Thorne said. ‘You understand? Nothing disgusting enough to get the “dirty paedo” brigade too hot under the collar, but, unfortunately for some of the customers, illegal enough to do time for, and these are the kind of men who really can’t risk a quiet stroll around the alleyways off Piccadilly Circus in the early hours. Professional types, you know what I’m saying, Rahim? Respectable. I mean, who in their right mind wants to risk getting ripped off, or having their head kicked in by some junkie, when all he wants is a quick hand-job from someone with nice smooth hands?

  ‘So, somewhere like that club you were in… well, it’s a godsend, don’t you reckon? The perfect place to find what they’re looking for without any hassles. A few drinks and a slow dance, and no need for money to change hands until they’re safely back in their nice comfy “bachelor” pads or hotel rooms. Then the really sad ones can kid themselves that whoever they’ve brought home with them actually wants to be there. They can do what the hell they like then and take their time about it. They can relax and take off their business suits… and fuck teenage boys like you to their hearts’ content.’

  Rahim eventually raised his eyes from the floor. Now, he looked as unwell as he had previously been pretending to be.

  ‘You remember what we talked about earlier,’ Thorne said. ‘So, bearing in mind that I’m pushed for time and that it’s Amin I’m really interested in… I was wondering what you might be able to tell me about that.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rahim said.

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘ I’m not underage.’

  ‘You were,’ Thorne said. ‘And so was Amin.’

  Rahim stood up. ‘I want you to go.’

  ‘Considering what you haven’t told your parents, I’m guessing that they don’t know about your arrest.’ Thorne stood up too, stepped towards Rahim. ‘About the drugs.’

  ‘So tell them,’ Rahim said.

  ‘I will if I have to.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ Thorne stared until the boy’s bravado began to fall away, until his head sank and it looked as though he might drop backwards on to the sofa. Thorne knew that he was being a bully. He had treated killers, rapists, better than this in the past, but then he had been granted the luxury of time, and a team behind him to gather evidence. He looked at the boy’s face and hated himself, but he could not afford to spare anyone’s feelings, and thinking about what Helen Weeks was going through, what Amin Akhtar had suffered, he fought the temptation to push Rahim against one of his tastefully decorated walls and press an arm across his throat until the boy told him what he knew.

  ‘We went to parties,’ Rahim said. ‘Me and Amin.’

  ‘What kind of parties?’

  ‘Parties with men, OK?’ He spat the words out. ‘Like the ones you were talking about. Respectable men.’

  ‘And these men paid you and Amin for sex?’

  Rahim nodded slowly. ‘Some boys did it because they needed drugs, but we just did it for the money. Our parents were not rich, do you understand? Most of the time the men were… clean, and we were looked after.’

  Most of the time.

  Thorne waited.

  ‘It was… exciting too,’ Rahim said. ‘We liked it, the fact that we were not like the other Asian kids, spending every minute swotting to be doctors and lawyers and all that. Living to keep their mothers and fathers happy. We were in control, you know?’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘It felt like that.’

  ‘Where did these parties take place?’ Thorne asked.

  Rahim hesitated. ‘Different places. The City. A penthouse on the river. Highgate sometimes.’

  ‘I need addresses.’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Tell me about these men, Rahim.’

  ‘I’ve told you-’

  ‘You need to give me some names.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Thorne shouted, ‘one of these men might have killed Amin.’

  The boy shook his head and kept shaking it, and Thorne’s breathing grew more ragged with every refusal. He knew there was little point in dragging him down to an interview room, with no valid reason to hold him and even less chance of getting the answers he was looking for. Once again, he felt ready and willing to beat the information from him. The bruises would fade a damn sight quicker than grief, and Thorne would live with whatever consequences came his way. Then, as quickly as the urge for violence had come over him, it went again, as Thorne looked into Rahim Jaffer’s eyes and saw that he would be happy to take it.

  Would welcome it.

  Instead, Thorne lashed out at the brushed chrome shade of the lamp that hung low to the side of him. He sent it swinging and bouncing across the room on its spindly metal neck; the pool of light washing back and forth across the boy’s face as Thorne walked out of the door.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Peter Allen spent a lot more time in the pub these days. He had always liked a drink, but lately it had been less about enjoyment and more like a simple need to get wasted. To sink into the beer or the cider or whatever and lose himself. Ironic, he supposed, considering how he’d earned the money to pay for it.

  The Victoria on the Queensbridge Road wasn’t quite his local. That honour belonged to an old man’s boozer that stank of piss and brown ale, so he preferred to walk the extra ten minutes and drink with people who were a bit closer to his own age. Where there was a big TV if there was a match on and something to eat besides peanuts. This place wasn’t flashy like a Wetherspoons or what have you, and Allen guessed it had been there since before he was born, because there were frosted-glass windows and old-fashioned booths that made it feel like you were getting pissed up in a church or something. There were a few strop
py locals who tried to stare you out when you first walked in, but there was usually a decent game of pool to be had, as well as live music some Fridays and a wide selection of fruit machines to pour his shrapnel into.

  Best of all, it wasn’t one of those Paddy places with shamrocks and shit everywhere you looked.

  He’d started good and early, had a couple of cans at home before he’d gone out. But even after four pints of lager in the Vic, he was still sober enough come eight o’clock to be taking his third straight frame of pool off some shaven-headed squaddie type. The bloke had been winding him up since he walked through the door, looking and smiling and all that, and now Allen was enjoying making him look stupid.

  He’d actually lost the first frame when he’d knocked the black in accidentally and was forced to watch as Corporal Cock winked at his slag of a girlfriend in the corner and said, ‘Bad luck, mate.’ Then, it had been a toss-up between breaking his cue across the arsehole’s nose or sharpening his game up, and after thinking through his options Allen had decided to get his own back on the table. He reckoned it was probably the sensible thing to do, considering the terms of his licence. Besides, he knew he could always batter the bloke later on if he lost, or if winning didn’t prove satisfying enough.

  He sank the final black nice and slow, and was staring at the squaddie’s pig-ugly girlfriend before the ball even dropped. Giving her a nice, big smile. He winked and said, ‘Bad luck,’ and as he was walking back to the bar, it struck him that he could have been talking about the game, or just saying it was her bad luck to be shacked up with such a loser. A double-meaning kind of thing.

  He thought that was pretty clever.

  Despite waving a twenty at her for at least half a minute, the snotty cow behind the bar ignored him and carried on gassing with some twat in a suit, so he moved to the other end of the bar and squeezed into the first gap he could find. He started waving his money again, then turned at the sound of a payout on the fruit machine and saw a face he recognised.

  ‘Oi, knobhead!’

  The boy at the fruit machine turned, his eyes cold and dead, then grinned when he recognised Allen, who had raised his arm and was now making wanking gestures. He scooped out his winnings and sauntered across, then, ignoring the angry looks of those he jostled on the way, he pushed through the crowd at the bar to Allen’s side. He held out a fist. Said, ‘What you doing here?’

  Allen touched his fist to the boy’s. ‘Just getting hammered,’ he said.

  ‘Sweet… ’

  ‘What you drinking?’

  He hadn’t been particularly close to Johnno Bridges in Barndale. The kid was a Jock for a kick-off and Allen never really had much to do with the smackheads. On top of that, Bridges only ever hung out with the white kids, and while it wasn’t like Allen was any big fan of the blacks or the Pakis, he’d preferred to give the gangs a wide berth and keep himself to himself. Safer that way in the long run, he reckoned. All the same, Bridges had never seemed like too much of a prick whenever their paths had crossed. That was a pretty decent character reference considering some of the idiots they’d been banged up with and was certainly a good enough reason to buy him a drink.

  ‘How long you been out?’

  Bridges thought about it. ‘Not long after you. Couple of months, whatever.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a string of blue, plastic rosary beads. He dangled them in front of Allen and smiled, showing a row of crooked and missing teeth. ‘Secret signal,’ he said. ‘Come on then, let’s see ’em.’

  Allen nodded and produced his own beads from his jacket. All the boys at Barndale had been issued with them and it was accepted that, once released, they would always carry them. It was a way of acknowledging a shared history, establishing trust with one another on the outside.

  No different from those secret handshakes all the coppers and judges had, that’s what Allen reckoned.

  He slipped the rosary beads back into his pocket and watched Bridges sip his beer. He had very short, reddish hair and wore a dirty denim jacket over jeans. His pupils were dilated and Allen could see that he had got himself high recently.

  ‘Still on the gear, then?’

  Bridges nodded slowly and raised his glass in a salute. ‘Nothing cut to shite with laxatives either.’

  ‘Where’s the money for that coming from?’

  Bridges nodded across towards the fruit machine. ‘Them.’

  ‘Piss off.’ It was the same kind of story Allen had tried on those two coppers earlier.

  ‘I swear,’ Bridges said. ‘I just drift around the pubs emptying those things once the punters have filled them up for me. I’ve got a mate works for the company, told me how to beat ’em.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘Piece of piss, I’m telling you.’

  ‘Yeah, well tell me then.’

  Bridges put a finger to his lips and giggled.

  While Allen downed the rest of his drink, Bridges rummaged in his pockets then slammed a fistful of change down on the bar. Ignoring the coins that rolled on to the floor, he turned to Allen as though he’d just had a revolutionary idea. ‘Let’s make a night of it.’

  ‘What have you got in mind?’

  ‘Let’s get completely off our faces,’ Bridges said. ‘See if we can find a couple of birds who are up for it.’ He reached for his rosary beads again and waved them in front of Allen’s eyes like a hypnotist’s gold watch. ‘Come on… a great big “fuck you” to Barndale.’

  Allen stared at him. He was starting to feel the booze kick in himself, but Bridges looked well out of it, and bearing in mind the day Allen had had, the mood he was in after his visit from those two smartarse coppers, he certainly fancied getting into the same state himself.

  ‘Sounds good,’ he said.

  Pascoe and Donnelly sat drinking coffee in the small room behind the stage. There were no more than a couple of hours to go before the overnight team came back. One more phone call to Helen Weeks, a briefing for the new boys and girls and they would be away.

  ‘You’re doing well, by the way,’ Donnelly said.

  Pascoe looked at him, swallowed her coffee. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know.’

  Pascoe turned away, not wanting the superintendent to see her blush, to see what the praise had meant to her. Almost immediately she began to wonder why he had told her. Was it perhaps because he fancied her a bit and was trying to gain favour? Or did he simply think she was the sort that needed reassurance?

  Neither explanation made her feel particularly good.

  ‘I’m pleased that’s what you think,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I’m not… but I just wondered why you felt the need to mention it. Is it because you don’t believe I’m… confident?’

  ‘No. I mean I think you are -’

  ‘Because I am.’

  Donnelly raised his hands in mock-surrender. ‘I know, I know. Look, I just thought you were a bit nervous when you arrived, that’s all, but you’re doing a great job and I wanted to let you know that I’m impressed. That’s it. No hidden agenda.’

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that.’

  ‘I think it’s part of my job to make sure everyone on the team’s feeling positive about themselves,’ Donnelly said. ‘Every bit as much as they are about the operation. People work better, simple as that.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘So, are you still feeling positive? About what’s happening?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Pascoe said. ‘There’s no increase in references to violence and no insistence on face-to-face negotiations. We’ve got a hostage taker demonstrating no more than mild to moderate anxiety and a hostage with at least basic training in dealing with her situation.’

  ‘Right… ’

  Donnelly had grunted and nodded three or four times as Pascoe had been speaking, but she got the impression he had been looking for something other than chapter and verse from the hostage-negotiator handbook. ‘I think it’s looking good,’ sh
e said.

  ‘You still think we should wear him down?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Provided the state of play stays the same.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Donnelly nodded again, and not for the first time Pascoe saw an uncertainty that bothered her. She would have been far from happy had the officer in control of the operation been one of those hard-arses unwilling to listen to those around them, but she was nervous nonetheless. Donnelly was starting to look increasingly like someone who needed others to make decisions for him. Who took advice only because it meant he could duck responsibility if things didn’t work out.

  ‘It was impressive,’ he said. ‘The way you squared up to Chivers earlier.’

  ‘I was just fighting my corner.’

  ‘It was good,’ Donnelly said, smirking.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s used to people taking him on, you know?’

  It had been good, and Pascoe smiled remembering the look on Chivers’ face. Thorne had clearly been impressed too, and she in turn had enjoyed watching him give every bit as good as he got.

  Still impossible to say, Bob…

  Donnelly said he was going to have another coffee and asked if she wanted one. She handed her cup across. He filled it from one of the vacuum jugs and handed it back to her.

  ‘Are you married, Sue?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Just asking, that’s all.’ Donnelly slurped at his coffee. ‘I mean I noticed there wasn’t a ring, so just wondered… ’

  ‘I don’t think that’s part of your job, sir,’ Pascoe said. ‘Is it?’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Though Helen knew what time it was and that it would be dark outside, the light in the storeroom never changed. With no windows to the back and the shutters down in the shop itself, the sickly white wash of the flickering striplight had remained constant and, exhausted as she was, Helen knew that once again there was little possibility of sleep.

  Akhtar was lying on his camp bed. He had one arm folded across his eyes, but Helen knew that he was awake.

  The most recent call with Sue Pascoe had been brief and uneventful, which Helen knew was a good thing. It was becoming routine. The woman was good at her job, Helen decided; businesslike, but as friendly as she was required to be. Helen guessed that she could also be firm if the need arose, but for now she was doing all that was necessary to keep Akhtar calm and relatively relaxed.