Sleepyhead

by Mark Billingham

  Slowly she moved the pointer along the bottom row of words, highlighting each one for nearly a minute. As she waited Anne looked intently at Alison. She could hear the drone of the traffic ­outside. There was no reaction. She glanced across at Bishop. He nodded.

  ‘Right, let’s have a crack at this, shall we?’ She began to move the pointer. Bishop removed a small pad from his top pocket and sat holding a pencil, waiting. Anne held the pointer under each letter for nearly a minute but after the first five or six she began to speed up a little. P . . . Q . . . R . . . S.

  A blink.

  Anne wanted to cheer. ‘S. OK . . .’

  She reached the end of the alphabet without any further reaction.

  Bishop cleared his throat. ‘It’s a shame there aren’t more words in alphabetical order, Jimmy.’

  Anne turned to face him, the light from the pointer passing across his chest like the laser dot on a sniper’s rifle. He was busily scribbling. ‘Almost . . .’

  ‘Almost what?’ She could feel herself starting to get snappy.

  ‘Almost is one. A word where the letters occur in alphabetical order. And billowy. Aegilops is actually the longest, which, amazingly enough, is an ulcer in part of the eye, though I can’t see her bringing that up.’ He smiled. ‘Back to the beginning, I think.’

  Anne felt stupid for not having considered this. Perhaps there was a more efficient way of laying out the letters. She’d have to work on it later. A second pass added H, O and R.

  Anne tried to help. ‘Short? Alison . . . short?’

  Alison blinked. Anne waited. Alison blinked again. Back to the beginning.

  On the third pass Alison blinked as the laser pointer reached M. Anne looked across at Bishop, who was scribbling in his notebook. He stood up, smiling, and moved towards the bed. ‘I think she’s being a bit over-eager. She’s blinking in advance of some of the letters in case she misses them.’

  Anne looked at him. There was a hint of impatience when she spoke. ‘And?’

  ‘If the S is a T and we go one letter on from the M . . .’

  Anne thought for a moment, worked it out, and blushed. Bishop smiled mischievously at her. ‘She’s asking how our friend the detective inspector is. If I were you I’d add a question mark to the board.’ He was standing at the head of the bed. He looked down at Alison. ‘And you might want to draw a smiley face on there somewhere as well. There’s a definite twinkle in that eye.’

  Anne picked up a piece of chalk, a little irritated. Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked Jeremy to come along. She’d wanted a colleague who was also a friend to back her up and he’d been only too glad to help, but fond as she was of him, he could be awfully smug. She began to write on the blackboard. ‘I’m glad all that time doing The Times crossword hasn’t been wasted, Jeremy . . .’

  Bishop wasn’t listening. He was leaning down, his face close to Alison’s. ‘Do you remember me, Alison?’

  A blink.

  ‘From when you were admitted?’

  Nothing. Then, a blink.

  Bishop nodded. His voice was low and eminently soothing. ‘That’s good. Now what about before, Alison? Can you remember anything from before?’

  A blink.

  Anne turned back from the board.

  Another one.

  Bishop walked back towards Anne, shaking his head. He held out the notepad to her with a grin. Around the single word THORNE he’d drawn a heart with an arrow through it. Anne snatched it from him with part-mock, part-genuine annoyance and moved to open the curtains.

  ‘Mr Thorne is very well, thank you, Alison. I’m frankly disturbed that my private life is of such immediate concern to you.’ She walked to the bed and looked down. Alison’s eyes were still locked on the blackboard. ‘Not that I should expect a great deal else from a shameless Geordie hussy with a one-track mind!’ She put her hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. Her smile was huge and just for Alison.

  She turned to look at Bishop, who was staring at the blackboard and smiling at something. She felt sorry for being irritated with him. ‘Do you want to pop over for something to eat later?’

  He answered without turning round. ‘Sorry, Jimmy, I have a date.’

  She moved to join him, her eyes wide at the prospect of intrigue. ‘Sounds mysterious?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Suit yourself. I’ll get it out of you later, though, you know I will. What’s so funny anyway?’

  Bishop was snorting as he stared at the letters on the blackboard. Anne stared at him, still smiling. ‘What?’

  ‘Remember that night in your flat twenty-odd years ago?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Raising the dead, me, you and David. And that girl from Leeds, what was her name?’

  ‘Oh, God, that was freaky.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. David was moving the glass.’

  Anne pretended to shudder but felt a genuine chill at the memory. She turned to include Alison, pointing at the blackboard. ‘He thinks this looks like a Ouija board.’

  The smile on Bishop’s face died a little, as he muttered to himself, ‘Might just as well be.’

  Thorne picked up the Backhand contact list from the kitchen table and walked through to the living room to call Dave Holland. The Bill was on with the sound turned down. As good a situation comedy as ITV would ever have.

  ‘Hello . . .’

  Holland’s girlfriend. Christ, what was her name?

  ‘Oh, hi, is that Sophie?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, it’s Tom Thorne, I work with Dave. Is he around?’

  He heard the distortion in sound as she put her hand over the phone. He couldn’t make out what she was saying. As Holland came to the phone he could hear the television being turned down.

  ‘Holland, it’s DI Thorne . . .’ Best not to be too matey. ‘I hope I’m not keeping you from your homework.’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘The Bill – I heard it in the background. It’s not real, you know.’

  Holland laughed. ‘Yeah, but that one they all take the piss out of is an awful lot like DI Tughan.’

  The joke told Thorne a great deal. Holland knew the way things stood. As it happened, Thorne also knew which character he was talking about – he was spot on. He had seriously underestimated this young man. ‘Listen, obviously you know I’m back at Hendon now, but I’d still be interested in any developments on the case. Who’s come in, by the way?’

  ‘Roger Brewer. Scottish bloke – seems nice enough.’

  Thorne hadn’t heard of him. Probably just as well. ‘So, you know, anything comes up . . .’

  ‘I’ll let you know straight away, sir.’

  ‘Anything and everything, Holland . . . please.’

  Rachel looked at her watch. He was only five minutes late but she didn’t want to miss the trailers. She thought about the nutter who’d sat behind her on the bus from Muswell Hill and decided she’d get a cab back. She checked her purse. If she paid for her own ticket she’d need to ask him to lend her the money. Mum would be happier with a taxi anyway, although she’d wonder why Claire’s dad hadn’t given her a lift. He usually did after she’d been round there for the evening. Maybe she could say his car was in the garage. But she might see him driving around. Or talk to Claire’s mother on the phone. She decided it was probably easier to ask the cab to stop somewhere away from the house. Too many lies weren’t a good idea. She wasn’t very good at it and she didn’t like lying to her mum anyway. She’d just have to pray her mum didn’t run into Claire in the next few days.

  She was starting to get cold. She did up another button on her denim jacket and stared at the corner of the street, willing him to appear.

  She wasn’t really lying about him, after all. She j
ust wasn’t telling. There’d only be a row and it would be a damn sight bigger than the one they’d had the other night.

  These fucking resits that she didn’t want to take were the problem. It was so unfair that the time when you started to get serious with people was the same time you had so-called important exams.

  Were the two of them serious? It felt like it. They hadn’t slept together yet, but not because she hadn’t wanted to. It was him. He didn’t seem in any hurry. He was obviously waiting for the right time. He was being nice and sensitive because he’d obviously already done it and she hadn’t, and he didn’t want her to feel like he was putting her under any pressure if she didn’t want to . . .

  Rachel knew that this would be the big thing with her mother. His experience. The thing that would send her mum ballistic . . .

  Her hand flew to her hair as she saw him coming round the corner. He waved and started to jog towards her. He was really fit. In good condition. Claire would be so jealous. But Mum would not be impressed at all.

  Not with him being so much older.

  A blackboard! For fuck’s sake. Anne brought in a brochure one day with these computers that they were developing in America that you can work with your eyelid or something. They can virtually tell what you’re thinking, like something in a film. I’ve got a mobile phone which predicts what letters you’re going to type in when you’re sending somebody a text message. Bloody useful, actually, when your spelling is as bad as mine. That cost £29.99 as far as I can remember. And I get a poxy blackboard. Everyone goes on about the cuts in the NHS but this is really taking the piss, isn’t it?

  And there I was thinking that maybe they might be able to fix up some system so I could read or watch the telly. Nothing too fancy, just a few mirrors and stuff so that I wouldn’t have to lie here all day staring at the piece of plaster that’s about to fall off the manky grey ceiling up there. Well, there’s no chance of that, I suppose. All these machines are probably on their last legs as well. The big one on the left is definitely making a few dodgy noises. I hope they give the nurses enough change to feed the meter. I wouldn’t want to pop off in the middle of the night because somebody didn’t have a fifty-pence piece.

  I know this isn’t Anne’s fault and I know that you only ever think about these things when you’re on the receiving end of it and everything. But still . . .

  I was pretty chuffed with myself actually, when it came down to all the alphabet business. We just need to sort out a system so I can tell Anne to go back instead of forward. Otherwise it’s sodding interminable. I’m sure she’ll work it out.

  That doctor she had with her was a right clever sod, mind you, working out that I’d blinked too early. I just had to go for it. If I’d waited and then not been able to blink in time and missed the letter I really wanted, the whole thing would have been cocked up. I’d’ve ended up spelling out the Czechoslovakian for chemist or something.

  I suppose I should be grateful to that doctor if he was the one who sorted me out when I first came in. I do remember his face looking down at me. I remember him telling me to wake up, but I just drifted away. Before that I can only remember bits and pieces. Bits and pieces of a voice. Not the words. Not yet. Just the sound. Smooth and gentle like Dr Bishop.

  And there I was, worried that my mobile phone was going to give me cancer . . .

  TEN

  Thorne got off the train at Clapham Junction. He came out of the station, checked his A–Z and began to walk up Lavender Hill. The house was only ten minutes’ walk away. He was knackered after five. Carrying the briefcase didn’t help.

  Not that there was anything in it.

  He’d spent precisely an hour at Beck House that morning, not listening as Brigstocke brought him up to speed on a caseload of assorted rapes and robberies-with-menace. He’d picked up the address of a security guard who needed questioning and headed straight for Hendon Central station. He’d have to find time to fit in the interview before he went to Queen Square. Well, he’d see a bit of London today anyway.

  He didn’t know this part of the city very well but you’d’ve had to be blind not to see that it was affluent. Wine bars on every corner, delicatessens, restaurants and, of course, more estate agents than you could shake a shitty stick at. Out of curiosity he stopped briefly to peer into a window. An oily-looking article with bad skin and a widow’s peak smiled at him from behind a computer terminal. Thorne looked away and took in a few of the details on a revolving display in the window. Kentish Town wasn’t cheap but he could have bought a big two-bedroom place with a garden there for the price of a toilet cubicle in leafy Battersea.

  His breath back, he started plodding on up the hill. He was already panting again when his phone rang. The squeak was unmistakable. ‘Bethell here, Mr Thorne.’

  ‘I know. Are they ready?’

  ‘Oh . . . you recognised my voice, eh?’ Bethell laughed.

  Thorne had to hold the phone away from his ear. Half the dogs in the area were probably rushing towards him already.

  ‘How did it go, Kodak?’

  ‘Could have gone better, as it goes . . .’

  Fucking idiot. He should have brought a camera and done it himself.

  ‘Listen, Bethell . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Thorne, I got the photos. Good ones too. He was standing on his doorstep pissing about with a hanging basket. What’s this bloke do anyway? Some sort of businessman, is he?’

  ‘Why could it have gone better?’ Bethell said nothing. ‘It could have gone better, you said.’

  He could hear Bethell take a long drag on a cigarette.

  ‘Yeah, nothing that I couldn’t handle, but after he’d gone back inside this other bloke pulls up outside and when he gets out of his car he looks around and, I don’t know, maybe the sun was glinting off the lens or something but he saw me anyway.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘I don’t know – tall, in his early twenties, I suppose. Bit of a student type, I reckon – you know, a bit grungy.’

  The son. Popping round to borrow a few quid, if what Anne had said was true.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘You’re breaking up, Mr Thorne . . .’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, you know, he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was composing a portfolio of common urban birdlife and I just stared at him until he pissed off. No sweat. Got a picture or two of him as he buggered off, actually.’

  Thorne smiled. He’d sent the right man for the job.

  ‘So when can I have them?’

  ‘Well, they’re just drying at the minute. Couple of hours?’

  That would work out perfectly.

  ‘Right. Bucket of Blood about one-ish.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’

  Bethell was right. Thorne doubted his welcome would be a warm one.

  ‘Outside, then. Try not to talk to anybody.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Mr Thorne.’

  ‘Kodak, you’re better than Boots.’

  He’d rung the Royal London to check and found out that Bishop’s night on call was still Tuesday. He wasn’t due in until lunchtime. With a bit of luck Thorne would catch him at home. He certainly looked well rested when he came to the door wearing an expensive-looking lemon sweater and a winning smile.

  ‘Oh . . . Detective Inspector. Should I have known you were coming?’

  Thorne could see him looking over his shoulder, searching for a colleague or a car.

  ‘No, sir, this is purely an on-spec sort of thing. Bloody cheeky, if I’m honest.’

  ‘How’s the head?’ Bishop was relaxed, his hands in his pockets. They were going to have a cosy chat on the doorstep. Fine.

  ‘Much better, thanks. Good job I’m hard-headed.’

  Bishop leaned back
against the front door. Thorne could see through to the kitchen, but there was still no invitation to come in.

  ‘Yes, I rather got that impression that night round at Jimmy’s. Thoroughly enjoyed myself by the way and I hope you didn’t mind my being somewhat spiky.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I can’t help myself sometimes. I do love a little verbal sparring.’

  ‘As long as you keep it verbal, sir.’

  Bishop laughed. He didn’t have a filling in his mouth.

  Thorne shifted the briefcase to the other hand. ‘I had a good time too, which is sort of why I thought I could be a bit pushy and ask you an enormous favour.’ Bishop looked at him, waiting. ‘I’ve been to see somebody just round the corner from you, on a totally different case coincidentally, and my constable needed to rush off because his girlfriend’s had some sort of accident . . .’

  ‘Nothing serious?’

  ‘I don’t think so, trapped her hand in a door or something, but anyway I’m a bit stranded. I’ve got another interview to do and I’m running late, and as you were only round the corner and seeing as we’ve already had dinner together . . .’

  Bishop stepped forward past Thorne, bent down and began to pull the brown leaves from a large pot on the driveway. ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Could I ponce a lift to the station?’

  Bishop looked up and stared at him for a few seconds. Thorne could sense that he saw through the lie and was looking to see if it was there in his face. He’d be amazed if it wasn’t. Thorne broke the stare and turned his attention to the dying flowers. ‘They look as if they were probably lovely a few weeks ago.’

  ‘I’m going to plant evergreens next year I think. Dwarf conifers and ivies. This is such a lot of work for something that dies so quickly.’ He crumpled the dead leaves into his hand and stood up. ‘I’m actually going into town. Is that any good to you?’

  ‘Yes. Fantastic. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘I’ve just got to grab my keys and stuff. Come in for a minute.’