The Burning Girl Thorne 4

by Mark Billingham

"I've told you," Thorne said. "I don't have any say in what happens, where you end up, any of that. There's a special department that takes care of that stuff."

  "I know, but you must have some idea. They'll presumably move me a good way away, right? Don't you reckon? A whole new identity, all that."

  "There are different. levels of witness protection. I think it's safe to say you'll probably be top level. To start with, at least."

  Rooker seemed pleased with what Thorne had told him. Then he thought of something else. "Can I pick the name?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "My new name, my new identity. Can I choose it?"

  "Got something special in mind, have you?"

  "Not really." He laughed, reached into his tobacco tin. "Don't want to go through all this then end up with some twat's name, do I?" Thorne felt something start to tighten in his chest. The cockiness that he'd first seen in Park Royal was back. Rooker was talking to him as if he were a mate, as if he were someone he liked and trusted. It made Thorne want to reach across the table and squeeze his flabby neck.

  Thorne looked at his watch, bent his head to the recorder. "Interview terminated at two-thirty-five p.m." He jabbed at the button.

  "Are we done, then?" Rooker asked.

  Thorne nodded towards the recorder. "We're done with that! He leaned forward. "What did it feel like, Gordon?"

  "Come again."

  "When you killed someone for money. When you carried out a contract. I want you to tell me how it felt."

  Rooker continued to roll the cigarette, but slower, the yellowed fingers suddenly less dextrous than before. "What's this got to do with anything?" he asked.

  "We already know that why wasn't your business, so I was just wondering what was. Did you get job satisfaction? Did you take pride in your work?"

  Rooker made no response.

  "Did you enjoy it?"

  Rooker looked up then, shook his head firmly. "You enjoy getting the job done clean, that's all. Getting the money. If you start to enjoy the doing, if you start to get some sort of kick out of it, you're fucked."

  Thorne had to disagree. The X-Man clearly relished what he did, and he hadn't made too many mistakes yet.

  "So what, then?" Thorne said. "You just turn off? Go on to some sort of automatic pilot?"

  "You focus. Your mind goes blank. No, not blank exactly. It's like it's fuzzy, and there, right in the middle, is a point of light. It's really sharp and clear. Cold. You relax and stay calm and move towards that. That's the target, and you don't let anything take you away from it."

  "Like guilt or fear or remorse?"

  "You asked me, so I'm telling you," Rooker said. "It's the job."

  "You talk about it in the present tense." Rooker put the completed cigarette into the tin. He snapped the lid back on. "I'm still living with it."

  "A lot of people are still living with it," Thorne said. Phil Hendricks was doing some teaching at the Royal Free, and Thorne had arranged to meet him after work. He'd caught the train to Hampstead and they'd eaten at a Chinese place a stone's throw from the hospital. Afterwards, they'd crossed the road to the nearest pub and sunk a couple of pints each inside fifteen minutes. Neither had said a great deal until the edges had been taken off. "Don't let Rooker wind you up," Hendricks said. "He's trying to make it sound like some fucking Zen mind-control thing. He just killed people. There's no more to it than that."

  "I wasn't in the mood for him, that's all." Thorne smiled, raised his glass. "Just one of those days."

  One of those days that seemed to roll around every month or so. When, for no good reason, Thorne stopped and caught himself. When he saw what he did, looked at the people he was dealing with every hour of his life. When, after ticking along for weeks, doing the job without thinking, he was suddenly struck by the stench and blackness of it all. It was like waking up briefly only to find that real life was far worse than the nightmare.

  Thorne decided that in some ways, when things became extreme, his own life was similar to his father's. There were times when he heard himself saying things to killers, and to their victims that were every bit as bizarre, in their way, as anything that his father ever said.

  "Six and nine," Thorne said, grinning at Hendricks. "Your face or mine?"

  It had become a running joke between them since Thorne had told him about what had happened in Brighton: they had been exchanging filthy bingo calls by phone and text message all week.

  Hendricks got up to fetch another round. He grabbed his crotch, sniffed his hand as he turned towards the bar. "AH the threes, I smell cheese."

  Thorne looked around. The place was busy, considering that it was only a Tuesday night. It's proximity to the hospital meant that the place was probably full of medics. Thorne knew very well that many of them would have their own edges to take off... He was trying, and failing, to think up another bingo call when a fresh pint was plonked on the table in front of him.

  "You know that the body loses weight after death?" Hendricks said.

  "This sounds good."

  Hendricks sat down, drew his chair closer to the table. "Seriously. You weigh a bit less dead than you did when you were alive and kicking."

  Thorne picked up his glass. "It's a bit drastic, don't you think? As diets go."

  "Shut up and you might learn something. You can lose anything from a fraction of a gram upwards. Sixteen grams or thereabouts is the average." Hendricks shook his head, took a sip of lager. "The students I was talking to today looked about as interested as you do."

  "Go on then, what causes it?"

  "No one's a hundred per cent sure. The air in the lungs, probably. But, this is the good bit."

  "Oh, there's a good bit, is there?"

  "People used to think it was the weight of the soul." The phrase rang in Thorne's head. He nodded. Waited to hear more.

  "In the eighteenth century they constructed elaborate scales, designed to weigh terminally ill patients in the moments just before and just after death." Hendricks let the words sink in, relishing his tale. "It was a big deal back then trying to measure the soul's weight as it left the body. Trying to isolate it. They were still doing similar things in America in the early 1900s, and there was a famous experiment in Germany just twenty-five years ago."

  Thorne was amazed. A century or more ago and it was easy to put such a theory down to lunatics in fancy dress, to mumbo-jumbo masquerading as science. But twenty-five years ago?

  "But it's just the air in the lungs, right?"

  "That's the best guess," Hendricks said. "Unless you go for the soul theory."

  Thorne smiled across the head of his beer. "Did you start drinking before you finished work, or what?"

  They drank in silence for a minute or more. Thorne was beginning to feel light-headed. He'd only had a couple of drinks and knew it was tiredness more than anything.

  There were pictures forming, dissolving and forming again in Thorne's head. Bodies and scales. Men in wigs and duster coats loading vast weights on to wooden beams. Monitoring the death throes of the wheezing, whey-faced dying, and scratching figures into notebooks. Eyes wide, raised up from inky calculations and then higher, far beyond their primitive laboratories.

  Thorne looked across at Hendricks. It was clear from the grin, and the faraway expression, that his friend had gone back to thinking about numbers, and rhymes and dirty jokes.

  Hampstead Heath was only a couple of stops on the over ground from Kentish Town West. They were walking towards the station when Thorne's mobile rang.

  "Tom.?"

  Thorne looked at Hendricks, raised his eyebrows. "Bloody hell, Carol, it's a bit late for you, isn't it?"

  "I know, sorry. I couldn't sleep."

  "You haven't had any more calls, have you?"

  "No, nothing like that."

  A huge lorry roared past and Thorne lost whatever Chamberlain said next. There was a pause while each of them waited for the other to say something.

  "I just called to see how you
were getting on."

  "I'm OK, Carol."

  "That's good."

  "Everything's OK. The case is more or less where it was the last time I spoke to you, but it's coming together." He'd known straight away of course, that this was what she really wanted to know. "I'm sorry," he said. "I meant to call."

  "Don't be daft. I know you must be busy. Listen, I'll leave you to it."

  "How's Jack?"

  "He's fine. It's fine, Tom."

  Hendricks pointed to his watch: the last train was due in a few minutes.

  Thorne nodded, picked up speed. "Why don't we meet up next week?" he said. "Come down and we'll go for lunch. I'll whack it on expenses."

  "Sounds great. I'll speak to you next week, then."

  "Take care, Carol. Phil says hello." She'd already gone.

  At the station, they sat on a bench, waiting for the westbound train. On the other side of the tracks, three teenage boys drifted aimlessly up and down the platform.

  "Sixteen grams on average, you said?"

  Hendricks looked blank for a moment or two, then nodded.

  "Yeah."

  "That's for what? A man of medium height and weight?"

  "Right. A woman of medium build would be around twelve grams, I suppose."

  So, a child would be less, Thorne thought. Three quarters as much, maybe eight or nine grams. That didn't make sense, though, did it?

  Thorne's head was starting to spin. Surely the soul of a child would weigh more. It's only as we grow older that we become corrupted, soulless.

  Eight or nine grams.

  Their train rumbled into the station. Thorne spoke over the noise of it, to himself as much as Hendricks.

  "A handful of rice," he said. "Christ, no ... less. A few grains ..."

  TWENTY-ONE

  3 November 1986

  If another person leers at me and winks or says something moronic like 'you'll soon be legal', I might have to do something drastic. It's like they're really saying 'as soon as you're sixteen, you can have sex, you know, which is absolutely normal'. I feel like grabbing them by the wrists and saying, "Thanks a million, I hadn't realised that. All I need now is to find someone who's desperate enough and a big fucking bag to go over my head!

  Why do people presume I'm interested?

  Why do people always presume?

  I've been frantic for days, wondering how to tell M & D that I'd rather die than go to this party they've been so busy planning for tomorrow. First birthday since the recovery, since the final op. It's like it's such a big deal and I know they just want me to have a good time and do normal things and I can't make them understand.

  I don't want a party. I don't want the attention. The falseness of all that.

  When I get angry they just fucking smile at me. They indulge me all the time and it makes me want to scream and smash something. While AH

  and the others would be getting grounded or whatever, I get treated with kid gloves.

  Like all of me's scarred. Like none of me can be touched. I want to be shouted at and punished. I want to tell them to stick their party up their arses just to see them lose their tempers for once and tell me that the whole thing's off. Whenever I do start being a bitch, they just stare at each other and they have this look that kills me, as if they're thinking that this behaviour's acceptable and should be forgiven. You know, black clothes and black moods, like it's all perfectly normal for your average, horribly disfigured teenage girl. When I try to tell them how I feel about this birthday, I know they think it's just some trauma I'm having, some understandable reaction after everything I've been through, and that I don't really mean it. I do really mean it.

  This party, just the thought of it, makes me sweat and makes me ache. Nobody has a clue. Even AH doesn't seem to get what I'm talking about. She keeps telling me that it'll be a laugh, that I'm just being a stroppy cow, and asking me if there's going to be any tasty men there.

  I know M & D have probably spent a fortune on hiring the hall and the disco and everything, and I love them to death for doing it. If I thought for a second that I could get through it, I wouldn't be making a fuss. Watching my mates dance and drink and get off with people sounds great, but I know bloody well what would happen. I know that, eventually, someone would want to say something. I've imagined it for weeks now, ever since they told me. Ever since they announced that they wanted to throw a party and looked a bit upset when I told them to throw it as far away from me as possible. Sometimes I imagine it's Dad and other times it's one of my friends, usually AH. The music stops and there's this howl from the speakers as they grab the DJ's microphone. They start to make this speech. They say something about bravery and make some crap jokes and people pretend to find them funny. Then there's that awkward few seconds of silence that you get after a speech. Then they all start to clap and everyone stares.

  Everyone. Stares.

  And the pale half of my face, the smooth half, reddens until the blush becomes the colour of the scar. Both halves matching as I burn all over again.

  Singing 'Happy Birthday', and Mum and Dad are hugging each other and a few of my mates are crying, and they're all watching me standing in a circle of light in the centre of the room, with looks on their faces like I'm six years old.

  Like I'm special.

  Thorne closed the diary, lay back and pressed it to his chest. He opened it again, took out the photograph he'd been using as a bookmark. Pictured her slipping away into the darkness on a bleak November night.

  The music, a Wham track, fading behind her as she walks away from the hall, from the party, moving towards the lights of the town centre. Unmissed still. Her friends dancing, shouting to one another above the music while she climbs.

  The smell of exhaust fumes and the sound of her shoes echoing off the grey concrete stairwells.

  A voice of concern, the first few worried looks from her friends as, half a mile from them, she steps out into the cold. Into fresh air. The desperate rush of the black towards her. The night kissing both sides of her face as she tumbles through it...

  Thorne jumped slightly when the phone rang, the sudden movement sending Elvis careering from the end of the bed. Thorne looked at the clock: 4.35. Brigstocke wasted no time on pleasantries. "We're getting reports of an incident at an address in Finchley." Thorne was already out of bed. "Ryan's place?" he said.

  "Right. Uniform are on the scene, but there's some confusion. At least one person injured, by all accounts, but beyond that we don't know much."

  "Zarif sent the X-Man after Ryan, you think?"

  "You know as much as I do, mate."

  Thorne was moving quickly around the bedroom, snatching up socks and underpants, grabbing at a shirt. "Are you on your way up there?"

  "Tughan's got it," Brigstocke said, "but you live a lot nearer than he does, so I reckon you'll probably beat him to it."

  "Cheers, Russell. I'll call you when I get there." Thorne moved into the living room to find that Hendricks was already sitting up in bed. Thorne told him what was happening.

  "Want me to come along?" Hendricks asked. Thorne had gone into the kitchen. He came out shaking his head, gulping down a glass of water.

  "You sure? I can be dressed in one minute." Thorne picked up his jacket, felt in the pockets for his keys. "No point. We don't know exactly what's happened yet," he said. "But I wouldn't bother going back to sleep, if I was you." The streets were all but deserted as Thorne drove up towards the Archway roundabout and turned north. He knew he might be over the limit to drive, but he felt clear-headed and focused. He was seeing the tail-lights early, anticipating the few cars that were coming at him from side-streets. Thinking a long way ahead. He chose the route through Highgate, avoiding the road that ran parallel, that would have taken him under Suicide Bridge. The iron footbridge that had long since replaced John Nash's viaduct the original "Archway' was the preferred jumping-off point for many of the city's depressed. Thorne did his best to avoid it when he could, unable to drive benea
th it without unconsciously bracing himself for the impact of a body on the roof of the car.

  Tonight, he was in a hurry, but with the pages of a dog-eared diary still dancing in front of his eyes, he would have done almost anything to avoid the bridge.

  His mobile rang again as the car flashed across a red light and on to the North Circular. Thorne checked the display, saw "Holland Mob'

  flashing.

  "I know," he said. "I'm on my way to Ryan's place now." Holland laughed. "I'll see you there." If the Zarifs had hit Ryan, there was no way of knowing how things would pan out. Thorne guessed that Stephen would take up the reins, and he didn't seem the sort to forgive and forget. Then again, from what Thorne had seen, there might be nothing to Billy's son and heir except a temper. He might go to pieces, leaving Ryan Properties to implode and the Zarifs with new possibilities for expansion. The whole messy business might have started out as a reaction to Ryan's firm moving into their territory, but Thorne couldn't believe that Memet and his brothers would have gone to all the trouble they had without wanting something substantial out of it. Whichever way things went, there were likely to be big changes ahead. Messy changes. Thorne reached the Finchley conservation area within fifteen minutes. He swung the BMW hard around the green and recalled his encounter there with Billy Ryan a fortnight before. He didn't know what he was going to find when he reached Ryan's house, but something told him that somebody else was going to be walking the dog for a while. It was a three-storey detached house at one corner of the green. There were two squad cars parked outside, but no sign of an ambulance. Thorne showed his warrant card to the PC at the door and stepped inside. He was looking at the trail of blood that snaked along the hall carpet when a second uniformed officer appeared in front of him.

  "I'm DI Thorne. Where's the ambulance?"

  "It came and went away empty, sir. The victim was already dead when they arrived. Dead when they were called, if you ask me." Thorne wondered if Hendricks had got himself dressed yet. "Where?" The officer pointed to a doorway down the hall.

  Thorne moved towards it, wishing he'd taken some gloves from his boot.