Sleepyhead Thorne 1

by Mark Billingham

  'You think?'

  His stomach lurching. Calvert smiling as he walked out of the interview room. Alison staring into space. Dead Susan, dead Christine, dead Madeleine, crossing their fingers.

  'Looks the same, sir. I don't think they'd even have passed this one on to us but she hasn't got a mark on her.'

  'What's the address?'

  'That's the thing, sir. The body's outside. The woods behind Highgate station.'

  Minutes away, this time of night. He downed the rest of the glass in one. 'You'd better send a car, Holland. I've had a drink.'

  'Best of all, sir...'

  'Best?'

  'We've got a witness. Somebody saw him dump the body.'

  I could sense that Tim really wanted to know who the flowers were from. He didn't say anything, but I know he was looking at them. He didn't ask me. Maybe that's because it was a question he actually wanted an answer to, and not just a pointless conversation with his ex-girlfriend who's now a retarded mong. Sorry, Tim. But nothing can prepare you for this, can it? I mean, you go through all the usual stuff,, holidays together, meeting each other's friends. He never had to deal with meeting the parents, jammy sod. His were a nightmare! But this was never part of the deal, was it? "How would you cope if I was on a life-support machine and completely unable to move or communicate?" never really comes up in those early intimate little chats, does it?

  Oh, and I've got an air mattress now, to stop me getting bed sores apparently. It's probably hugely comfy. Makes a racket, though. Low and electrical. Sometimes I wake up and lie in the dark thinking that somebody's doing a bit of late-night vacuuming in the next room.

  Anne's got the hots for that copper, I reckon. He does seem nice, I grant you. Nicer than her ex anyway, who sounds like a tit. The copper's funny, though. I was pissing myself when he apologised for being a bit whiffy. I heard Tim asking one of the nurses about the flowers. There was no card and the nurse went away to ask one of her mates. Now I think Tim suspects I'm having an affair with a policeman. Obviously, he must be a fairly strange policeman with a taste for cheap yellow nighties and extremely compliant girlfriends who never answer back.

  What's that old joke about the perfect woman? If I was a nymphomaniac and my dad owned a brewery, he'd be quids in...

  FOUR

  The Sierra pulled up behind the operations van. As soon as Thorne stepped out of the car he could see that things were going to be difficult. Even at two o'clock in the morning it was still muggy but there was rain coming. Valuable evidence would be lost as the scene turned quickly to mud. The various photographers, scene-of-crime-officers and members of the forensic team were going about their business with quiet efficiency. They knew they didn't have very long. Anything useful was usually found in the first hour. The golden hour. Tughan would still have everything covered anyway: he'd have rung for a weather forecast. This was their first sniff of a crime scene, and nobody was taking any chances.

  Thorne set off down the steep flight of steps that led to Highgate tube station and gave access to Queens Wood the patch of woodland bordering the Archway Road. As he walked he could see the glare of the arc lights through the trees. He could see the figures of forensic scientists in white plastic bodysuits, crouched over what he presumed was the body, in search of stray fibres or hairs from the girl's clothing. He could hear instructions being barked out, the hiss of camera flashes recharging and the constant drone of the portable generator. He'd been at many such scenes in the past, far too many, but this was like watching the A team work. There was a determination about the entire process that he'd seen only once before. There was a distinct absence of whistling in the dark. There was no gallows humour. There wasn't a flask of tea to be seen anywhere.

  It was only when he ducked under the handrail and began to pull on the plastic overshoes provided by a passing SOCO that Thorne realised just how difficult a crime scene this would be to examine. He also saw at once how callous the killer had been in his choice of dumping ground. The body lay hard against the high metal railings that bordered the pavement all the way down the hill. On one side lay the main road and on the other, some hundred feet of dense woodland on a steep hill leading down to the underground station at Highgate. The only access to the body was up the hill and through the trees. Though a well trodden path had already emerged, it was still a slow process negotiating the route to the body. The ground was hard and dry but it would take only ten minutes of rain to turn it into a mud chute. By the time they'd got the scene protected with polythene tents it would hardly have been worth the effort. He hoped they got what they needed quickly. He hoped there was something to get. Dave Holland came jogging down the slope towards him. He was backlit beautifully by the arc lights. Thorne could quite clearly make out the silhouette of a notebook being brandished. He doesn't look like a policeman, thought Thorne, he looks like a prefect. Even with a hint of stubble, his tidy blond hair and ruddy complexion made him the obvious target for comments of the aren't-policemen-looking-younger-these-days variety. Pensioners adored him. Thorne wasn't sure. Holland's father had been in the force and, in Thorne's experience, that was rarely without problems. He doesn't even move like a copper, he thought. Coppers don't skip down hills like mountain goats. Coppers move like.., ambulances.

  'Cup of tea, sir?'

  OK, perhaps he'd been a bit naive. There was always tea.

  'No. Tell me about this witness.'

  'Right, don't get too excited.'

  Thorne's heart sank. It was obviously not going to be earth shattering.

  'We've got a vague physical description, not a lot.'

  'How vague?'

  'Height, build, a dark car. The witness, George Hammond...'

  That fucking notebook again. He wanted to ram it up the cocky little gobshite's arse.

  '... was at the top of the path a hundred yards further up the main road. He thought the bloke was chucking a bag of rubbish over.'

  That was what Thorne had already worked out. He must have pulled up and heaved the body over the railings. She might just as well have been a bag of rubbish.

  'And that's it? Height and build?'

  'There's a bit more on the car. He says he thinks it was a nice one. Expensive.'

  Thorne nodded slowly. Witnesses. Another thing he'd had to become resigned to. Even the more perceptive ones gave conflicting accounts of the same event.

  'Mr. Hammond's eyesight isn't brilliant, sir. He's an old man. He was only out walking his dog. We've got him in the car.'

  'Hang about, those railings are six feet high. How big did he say he was?'

  'Six two, six three. She's not a big girl, sir.'

  Thorne squinted into the lights. 'Right, I'll have a word with the optically challenged Mr. Hammond in a minute. Let's get this over with.'

  Phil Hendricks was crouched over the body, his ponytail secured beneath his distinctive yellow shower cap. The scientists had finished their scraping and taping, and Hendricks was taking his turn. Thorne watched the all-too familiar routine as the pathologist took temperature readings and conducted what, until the body was removed, would be a cursory examination. Every minute or so he would heave himself on to his haunches with a grunt, and mumble into his small tape-recorder. As always, each tedious detail of the entire procedure was being immortalised on film by the police cameraman. Thorne always wondered about those characters. Some of them seemed to fancy themselves as film-makers - he'd actually had to bollock one once for shouting, 'That's a wrap.' Some had a disturbing glint in their eye that said, 'You ought to come round to my place and have a look at some of the footage I'll be showing the lads at Christmas.' He couldn't help wondering if they were all waiting to be headhunted by some avaricious TV company eager for more mindless docu-soaps. Maybe he was being too harsh. He was too harsh about Holland as well. Perhaps it was just the perfectly pressed chinos and loafers he didn't like. Maybe it was just that Holland was a young DC eager to please. Hadn't he been like that? Fifteen years ago. Heading for a
fall.

  Hendricks began to pack away his gear and looked up at Thorne. It was a look that had passed between them on many occasions. To the untrained eye this 'handing over of responsibility' might have seemed as casual as two pool players exchanging a cue. Pathologists were supposed to be colder than any of them but despite the Mancunian's flippant, nasal tones and dark sense of humour, Thorne knew what Hendricks was feeling. He'd watched him crying into his pint often enough. Thorne had never reciprocated.

  'He's getting a tad fucking casual, if you ask me.'

  Hendricks began fiddling with one of his many earrings. Eight the last time Thorne had counted. The thick glasses gave him an air of studiousness but the earrings, not to mention the discreet but famous tattoos and the penchant for extravagant headgear, marked him out as unconventional to say the least. Thorne had known the gregarious goth pathologist for five years. He was ten years his junior and horribly efficient; Thorne liked him enormously.

  'I didn't, but thanks for the observation.'

  'No wonder you're touchy, mate. Two-one at home to Bradford?'

  'Robbed.'

  'Course you were.'

  Thorne's neck was still horribly stiff. He dropped his head back and gazed up into a. clear night sky. He could make out the Plough. He always looked for it: it was the only constellation he knew by sight. 'So, it's him, then, is it?'

  'I'll know for sure by the morning. I think so. But what's she doing here? That's a hell of a busy road. He might easily have been seen.'

  'He was. By Mr. Magoo, unfortunately. Anyway, I don't think he was here very long. He just stopped and chucked her out.'

  Hendricks moved aside and Thorne looked down at the woman who in a few hours would be identified as Helen Theresa Doyle. She was just a girl. Eighteen, nineteen. Her blouse was pulled up, revealing a pierced bellybutton. She was wearing large hoop earrings. Her skirt was torn, revealing a nasty gash at the top of her leg. Hendricks clicked his bag shut. 'I think the wound's from where she got caught on the railings as the bastard hoisted her over the top.'

  Something caught Thorne's eye and he glanced to his right. Standing twenty or so feet away, staring straight at him, was a small fox. A vixen, he guessed. She stood completely still, watching the strange activity. They were on her territory. Thorne felt a peculiar pang of shame. He'd heard farmers and pro-hunt lobbyists ranting about the savagery of these animals when they killed, but he doubted that a creature killing to feed itself and its young could enjoy it. Bloodlust fed off a particular kind of intelligence. There was a shout from the top of the hill and the fox prepared to bolt but relaxed again. Thorne could not take his eyes from the animal as it stared into the artificially lit reality of a warped kind of human bloodlust. Of a genuine brutality. Half a minute passed before the fox sniffed the ground, its curiosity satisfied, and trotted away.

  Thorne glanced at Hendricks. He'd been watching too. Thorne took a deep breath and turned back to the gift. Conflicting emotions.

  He felt revulsion at the sight of the body, anger at the waste. Sympathy for the relatives, and terror at the thought of having to confront them, their rage and grief. But he also felt the buzz.

  The rush of the crime scene. The first crime scene. The thing that might smash the investigation wide open might be under their noses, waiting, asking to be found. If it was there, he'd find it.

  Her body...

  There were leaves in her long brown hair. Her eyes were open. Thorne could see that she had a nice figure. He tried to get the thought out of his mind.

  'He's always taken a bit of time before, ain't he?' mused Hendricks. 'Nice and easy. Taken the trouble to lay them down like they'd stroked out watching telly or cooking dinner. He didn't really seem to care this time. Bit of a rush job .'

  Thorne looked at him, asking the question.

  'An hour or two at the most. She's not even cold yet.'

  Thorne bent down and took the girl's hand. Hendricks pulled off his shower cap then snapped off his rubber gloves, releasing a small puff of talcum powder. As Thorne leaned forward to close the girl's eyes, the hum of the generator filled his head. Hendricks's voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.

  'I can still smell the carbolic.'

  Anne Coburn sat in the dark room at the end of a horrible day that by rights should have ended three hours earlier. The papers were forever banging on about the intolerable hours worked by junior doctors but senior ones didn't exactly have it easy. A meeting with the administrator that should have taken an hour, and lasted three, had given her a headache that was only just starting to abate. It had raged through two lectures, a consultation round, an argument with the registrar and a mountain of paperwork. And David was still on the warpath...

  She sat back in the chair and massaged her temples.

  Christ, these chairs were uncomfortable. Had they been designed that way deliberately to encourage visitors to deposit their fruit and bugger off?.

  Maybe if David had still been at home she'd have left the paperwork, but not any more. The house would be quiet. Rachel would be tucked up in bed by now, watching some emaciated drug casualty with too much eyeliner prancing about on MTV.

  She thought about her daughter for a while. They hadn't been getting on very well recently. The GCSE's had put them both under a lot of strain. Rachel was just letting off steam, that was all, having slogged her guts out. Anne had decided to buy her a present when she got her results, to say well done for working so hard. A new computer, maybe. She thought about getting it now instead.

  And then she thought about Tom Thorne.

  She looked at the flowers he'd brought with him and smiled as she remembered his apology to Alison for... what was the word he'd used? Humming. She'd thought he'd smelt good. She thought he smelt honest. He wasn't a hard man to find attractive. She probably had a few years on him, but knew instinctively that he wasn't the type that would be bothered by that. He was chunky. No... solid. He looked like he'd been round the block a few times. He was the sort of man to whom she'd found herself drawn since things had begun to fizzle out with David - many years ago, if she was being honest with herself.

  It was odd that there was more grey in Thorne's hair on the left-hand side. She'd always liked brown eyes as well. Anne was suddenly aware that she was voicing her thoughts. These late-night conversations with Alison were becoming routine. Nurses were used to discovering her wittering away in the middle of the night. She had begun to look forward to talking to Alison, Engaging with Alison's brain was vital as part of her treatment but Anne found it therapeutic too. It was strange and exciting to be able to speak your mind and not be... judged. It was confession without the spooky stuff. Perhaps somewhere Alison was judging her. She was probably full of opinions - 'Sod the crusty copper! Find yourself a tasty young medical student!'

  One day Anne would find out exactly what Alison had been thinking. Right now, the hum of the machinery was making her sleepy. She stood up, reached across and gently squeezed the lubrication drops into Alison's eyes before taping them shut for the night. She took off her jacket, scrunched it up and put it beneath her head as she sat down again. She closed her eyes, whispered goodnight to Alison and was immediately asleep.

  By seven thirty the next morning the body had been formally identified. Helen Doyle's parents had rung to report that she hadn't come home at about the same time as George Hammond was watching her tumble over the railings into Queens Wood. Within hours of that first concerned phone call, Thorne was leaning against a wall, watching them walk slowly down the corridor, away from the mortuary. Michael Doyle sobbed. His wife, Eileen, stared grimly into the distance and squeezed her husband's arm. Her high heels click-clacked all the way down the stone steps as they walked outside, to be greeted by the dazzling, crisp and completely ordinary dawn of their first day without a daughter.

  Now Thorne stood with his back to a different wall. Dead Helen had taken her place alongside the others. She hadn't spoken up yet but it was only a matter of tim
e. Now, forty or so officers of assorted rank, together with auxiliaries and civilian staff, sat waiting for Thorne to speak to them. As ever, he felt like the badly dressed deputy headmaster of a run-down comprehensive. His audience exchanged bored pleasantries or swapped laddish insults. The few women on the team sat together, deflecting the casual sexism of colleagues for whom 'harass' was still two words. The wisps of smoke from a dozen or more cigarettes curled up towards the strip-lights. Thorne might as well have been back on twenty a day.

  'The body of Helen Doyle was discovered this morning in Queens Wood in Highgate at just after one thirty a.m. She was last seen leaving the Marlborough Arms on Holloway Road at eleven fifteen. The post-mortem is being carried out this morning but for now we're working on the assumption that she was killed by the same man responsible for the deaths of Christine Owen, Madeleine Vickery and Susan Carlish...'

  The dead girls: 'Oh, come on, Tommy. You know it was him: '... as well as the attempted murder of Alison Willetts.'

  But it wasn't attempted murder, was it? The killer was actually attempting to do something else. Thorne didn't know the word for it. They'd probably have to invent one if they ever caught him. He cleared his throat and ploughed on.

  'George Hammond, who discovered the body, has given us a vague description of a man seen removing the body from his car and dumping it at the scene. Six feet one or two, medium build. Dark hair possibly. Glasses maybe. The car is a blue or possibly a black saloon, no make or model as yet. The victim was abducted at some point on her journey from the pub to her home on Windsor Road, which is no more than half a mile away, sometime between eleven fifteen and eleven thirty. Nobody's reported seeing anything but somebody did. I'd like them found, please. Let's get a make on that car and a decent description...'

  Thorne paused. He could see one or two officers exchanging glances. It had taken him less than a minute to impart the essential information, the paltry scraps of fact that were supposed to shift the operation up a gear. Frank Keable stood up. 'I don't really need to tell you, but the usual press blackout, please.' The media hadn't got hold of the killings, not as the work of one man at any rate. The fact that the murders hadn't been concentrated in one area and had been so well disguised had made it hard for them. It had taken the police long enough to put it together themselves. Still, Thorne was surprised: Backhand had been up and running for weeks now and they usually had sources within most high-level operations. In time there would be a leak and then the usual buck-passing would begin. The tabloids would come up with a lurid nickname for the killer, publicity-hungry politicians would bleat about law and order, and Keable would give him a speech about 'pressure being brought to bear'. But so far so good.