Death Message

by Mark Billingham

  Louise was nodding to Parsons, who took off his jacket and passed it to her. When she turned back, the smile had got frostier still. ‘Fine with me.’ She moved across and wrapped the jacket around Hendricks’ shoulders. ‘I presume your mate didn’t happen to mention if I was in his address book, did he?’

  Thorne felt sure that Brooks had been given all such information, but was almost as certain that he would not be using it. ‘I think it’ll be all right now.’ He looked at Hendricks. ‘I told him to back off.’ Hendricks returned the stare. ‘When he called, you know? I think he got the message.’

  ‘You think?’ Louise said.

  ‘I think we understand each other.’

  ‘Have you any idea how fucking ridiculous that sounds?’

  ‘Louise-’

  ‘How ridiculous you sound?’

  Thorne stood there, wishing he hadn’t left Holland back at the car. For all the self-righteous anger that had coursed through him earlier, he felt isolated suddenly, and apprehensive. Every bit as ridiculous as Louise said he was. When the dust had settled he knew there would be questions to answer and he didn’t know how he was going to face them.

  The wet pavement smelled like new carpet.

  ‘Right, we should get back to Pimlico,’ he said. ‘Kenny, you can get yourself off home, and we’ll take a taxi.’

  Parsons looked to Louise for approval.

  ‘I’ve got stuff inside,’ Hendricks said. ‘And anyway, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had a seriously large drink.’ He began to head back towards the club and, after a few seconds, Louise turned to follow, taking Parsons with her.

  Thorne watched them walk away, listening to the fading siren, a mile or more distant. Each hand clutched at the warm lining of a jacket pocket, and he realised that Hendricks wasn’t the only one who was shaking.

  PART THREE. ‘FORWARD’

  THIRTY

  He’d enjoyed more relaxing Sunday mornings.

  Up before anyone else, Thorne had watched TV for a while, then decided he might as well head over to Holland’s place to pick up his car. He took a paper with him for the Tube ride across to Elephant and Castle. Flicked through it, hoping that gossip or goals or suicide bombs might take his mind off the mess he was in.

  The professional frying pan and the domestic fire.

  While he had been charging around gay clubs, there had been a double shooting in Tottenham. The estate on which two young black men had died had long been considered a no-go area, and, reading the story, Thorne decided that these latest events were hardly likely to turn it into a tourist hot-spot.

  The train from Pimlico had been almost empty, but he’d changed on to a packed Northern Line train at Stockwell, and he could barely read the paper without elbowing his neighbour in the ribs.

  He looked at the front-page story again.

  A brutal event, and simple; drugs-related almost certainly. Reading, he realised just how much he yearned for something bog-standard, where there were no difficult choices to make. He wanted this one done with. There were cases, just a few, that had marked him, inside and out, but he couldn’t remember one that had left him feeling so out of control.

  He had no idea where it – where he – was heading.

  Looking up from the paper, he caught the man opposite staring; watched his eyes flick quickly up to the adverts above his head, then drop to the paperback on his knees.

  On Tube trains, everyone was looking at someone else. It didn’t matter where you were sitting, on which side. You would never be able to see what was coming.

  Holland’s girlfriend, Sophie, didn’t quite throw Thorne’s car keys at him when she opened the door, but she looked as though she’d have liked to. Thorne said hello, then sorry, and stepped inside. It was the warmest greeting he was likely to receive that day.

  ‘I was just going to nip to the shops,’ Sophie said when she and Thorne walked into the living room. ‘Do you want anything?’

  Holland glanced up from the sofa. He looked as though he’d had about as much sleep as Thorne had managed. He shook his head; he and Thorne both well aware that Sophie would just be killing time until she was sure that Thorne had left. A while back, Thorne had contemplated calling her, maybe coming round one day when Holland wasn’t there, to try to sort out whatever was between them. But he’d done nothing, and now things were pretty much set in stone.

  ‘You could pick up some kidney beans if you want. I might do us a chilli later on,’ Holland said.

  When she’d gone, Holland made tea.

  ‘Thanks for last night,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I should think so, too. That car’s a nightmare to drive.’

  ‘I didn’t mean the car.’

  Holland looked at him through the steam from his tea. ‘What happened?’

  Thorne filled him in: everything from when he’d left him in the rain with the BMW, up to, but not including, the point when he had got back to Louise’s flat and faced the music. Holland smirked, reminded Thorne of the moment when he’d taken control of the microphone in Beware and started shouting. ‘I reckon you’re a natural,’ he said. ‘Just need to get you a baseball cap or something…’

  Thorne laughed, feeling like he hadn’t done so for a while.

  ‘You could still go to Brigstocke,’ Holland said.

  ‘No…’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’ Thorne was already shaking his head, but Holland ploughed on. ‘You could set up another divert, from the prepay phone you’re using to talk to Brooks, back to your original mobile. Dump the prepay, and nobody need ever know about the calls. Your word against Brooks’, if it ever comes to it.’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘So just come clean. The guvnor’s a mate of yours, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s in enough shit of his own already. Whatever it is, if he comes out of it, he’ll be trying to keep his nose as clean as possible.’ Thorne could see that Holland was trying to think of another way out. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dave.’

  Holland’s daughter Chloe wandered in from the next room with a fist full of coloured pens. She looked like a little version of Sophie. Thorne had bought birthday presents for the first couple of years, but had missed the last one, a few months before.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘This is Tom,’ Holland said. ‘He’s been here before.’

  Chloe had already moved on. She sat down on the floor and pulled a colouring book from a low table. Thorne and Holland drank their tea and watched her work, her lips pursed in concentration. Thorne asked her what she was drawing.

  ‘Sky,’ she said.

  Nice and simple.

  ‘Still thinking about leaving London?’ Thorne asked.

  Holland raised his arms, inviting Thorne to look around. ‘We’ll have to go somewhere,’ he said.

  The first-floor flat had always been cramped, but with toys scattered about the floor and a pushchair in the hall, Thorne could see how badly Holland and his family needed more space. Still, he wondered if the move might be a step towards Holland getting out of the Job altogether. He knew that his girlfriend was encouraging him to look at other options.

  ‘I think Sophie fancies going back to work,’ Holland said. He shrugged. ‘Nothing’s really been decided at the moment.’

  Thorne couldn’t remember what it was that Sophie had done before she’d had Chloe. He didn’t bother to ask. ‘Be good if you didn’t go too far,’ he said.

  Chloe brought the colouring book across to show her father. Thorne enjoyed the way Holland’s hand drifted to his daughter’s head, how the little girl’s arm slid easily around his neck as they looked at the picture together.

  He felt envious.

  ‘Now I’m going to draw a shark,’ she said. ‘And me killing it.’ She scrawled for another few minutes, then dragged a small plastic chair across to the television and sat with the remote on her knees.

  When Holland got up to fetch the keys to the BMW, he said
: ‘What did Brooks sound like when you spoke to him?’

  Thorne remembered the tiredness in the man’s voice, but knew that wasn’t what Holland was asking. ‘Like he didn’t care.’

  ‘About getting caught?’

  ‘About anything.’

  ‘That’s bad news.’

  ‘For someone,’ Thorne said.

  Louise had still not got out of bed by the time Thorne got back, and they’d exchanged no more than a handful of words when she’d finally emerged just before eleven. Had the sofa been OK for his back? Fine. Did he fancy a cooked breakfast? That sounded great, if it wasn’t too much trouble. She’d taken tea back to the bedroom, come out dressed fifteen minutes later, and announced that she was going to the shop to get a few things.

  ‘I could have picked some stuff up when I went over to Dave’s,’ Thorne said, as she was heading out.

  Louise closed the door. He didn’t know whether she’d heard him.

  When Hendricks came out of the spare room a little later, he was wearing Thorne’s old dressing-gown and muttering about how good the bacon smelled. Thorne was relieved to see that he looked a little sheepish. Hendricks picked up one of the tabloid magazines, seeming content to hide behind it for a while, but instead he carried it through to the kitchen when Louise called him.

  Thorne could hear them talking in whispers as he sat trying, and failing, to read the report of Spurs’ goalless draw at Manchester City. After ten minutes, he shouted through, asking Louise if she needed any help.

  ‘We’re fine,’ she said.

  Bacon, sausage, eggs and beans; toast and fresh coffee. Sunlight washing the table and something innocuous on the radio in the kitchen. Thorne finished first and sat watching Louise and Hendricks eat; listened to them making small talk.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t hold his tongue for very long. ‘Obviously, you both think you’ve got some right to be pissed off with me.’

  They looked up as if they’d only just noticed he was there. ‘What do you think?’ Louise asked.

  Thorne had lain awake most of the night, pondering how near he’d come to losing his closest friend. Had realised that he might have lost him anyway; that he might lose a good deal more. ‘I think we were lucky last night,’ he said. ‘I think we should be… thankful.’

  ‘I am,’ Louise said. ‘There’s a few other things I’m not so sure about.’ She met his stare, flicked her eyes to Hendricks and back again. ‘I’m guessing you’d rather talk about that later.’

  Thorne shook his head, pushed his knife and fork closer together. ‘None of this is exactly straightforward, you know. This case.’

  ‘Never is with you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You can never take the easy road, can you? Everything has to be a fucking struggle. Like nothing’s worth doing unless it hurts. If you want to suffer, that’s fine, just don’t drag the rest of us down with you.’

  Thorne pointed at Hendricks. ‘Christ, if it wasn’t for me…’

  Hendricks looked at him, up for it. ‘What?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for you playing silly buggers, they might have caught this fucker by now,’ Louise said. ‘Last night would never have happened. How easy would that have been to live with?’ She stabbed at something in front of her, the fork squealing against the plate. ‘Would that have hurt enough for you?’

  ‘You think it was my fault?’ Hendricks asked.

  ‘I never said that,’ Thorne said.

  ‘You think I should have remembered?’

  ‘I was surprised, that’s all…’

  ‘It was a body I saw six years ago, OK? A PM I assisted on. Have you got any idea how many bodies I work on every week? If I ever did know the name, then I’d certainly forgotten it and I never knew the name of the bloke who was accused of killing him.’ Hendricks was getting worked up and Louise reached over to put a hand on his arm. ‘As it happens, when you’re elbows deep in somebody’s guts, it helps most of the time if you don’t think of them as a person, all right? If you forget that they’re called John or Anne or whatever. It makes it that much easier when you’re scrubbing them from under your nails afterwards and they’re wheeling the next one in…’

  Thorne held up his hands. ‘Phil…’

  ‘Can you remember them all?’ Hendricks had tears in his eyes, and pushed at them, furious. ‘Every single body, and the name of every fucker responsible for them?’

  Thorne thought about what Louise had said. Forgetting those things would have meant taking the easy road. He picked up his plate and carried it out to the kitchen.

  Later, with Hendricks crashed out in front of the television, Thorne and Louise talked in the bedroom. There were no more histrionics. Louise’s tone was measured, reasonable. Thorne found it harder to deal with than the shouting.

  ‘You really think Phil’s got nothing to worry about?’

  ‘He’ll worry no matter what,’ Thorne said. ‘But Brooks told me he was moving on.’

  ‘Nice that you trust him so much.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘OK, then. Let’s just say more than you trusted me.’ She smiled sarcastically at Thorne’s reaction; counted off on her fingers. ‘You thought it was for the best, you didn’t want to get me involved and you were trying to protect me. I thought I’d get those out of the way early, save you the trouble.’

  ‘All those things are true.’

  ‘Course they are.’

  ‘It’s not like I actually lied.’

  Louise slapped the edge of the bed in mock frustration. ‘Fuck, I knew there was one I’d forgotten.’

  Thorne felt cornered, because he was. He knew he had nowhere to hide. ‘I wanted to go to Brigstocke yesterday,’ he said. ‘You talked me out of it.’

  ‘When I saved your job, you mean? Yeah, that was very selfish of me.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Say whatever you like.’

  ‘“Sorry”? “Thank you”? What?’

  Louise turned away and sat on the edge of the bed. She took a jar of hand-cream from the bedside table, began to rub it in. Thorne leaned back against the wall. He could hear the television from next door; classical music from the flat upstairs. He thought about how much he’d been looking forward to a day off.

  ‘Brooks say who he’d be moving on to?’

  Thorne seized on the question greedily. Oh fuck, yes, he thought, let’s talk like coppers. ‘Whoever helped Paul Skinner set him up, I suppose. “Squire”.’

  ‘That’s what it’s all been about for you, hasn’t it? Trying to get the other one.’

  The professional conversation hadn’t lasted very long. ‘He’s not your average bent copper,’ Thorne said. Reaching for the right words, he tried to explain that there had been no grand plan, as such, that there never was with him. Just a series of stupid decisions. But he could see from the look on her face that she knew she’d nailed him.

  ‘And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you?’ she asked. ‘Or what I did last night make me?’

  ‘We haven’t murdered anyone.’

  ‘What if Cowans had been killed later than he was? Or if we hadn’t got to Phil in time? Do you think any of your stupid decisions might have been just a little bit responsible?’

  Thorne knew they would have been.

  Louise put away the hand-cream and stood up. She was still rubbing her hands. ‘You need to learn from this. I mean it, Tom. About how you do things. About me…’

  As Louise moved past him to the door, Thorne thought about reaching out, pulling her to him. At that moment, though, he couldn’t read her at all. ‘Is Phil going to hang around here?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Brendan’s coming round to pick him up. Phil called him earlier.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he rather stay with you?’

  ‘Not if you’re here, no.’

  ‘Sunday morning? I wished I’d studied that hard,’ Kitson said. Harika Kemal had said she had got a lot of rea
ding to do; that she didn’t have time to talk. ‘I promise it won’t take very long…’

  ‘I’ve told you everything.’

  ‘I know, and I also know how hard it was.’

  ‘I don’t think you do.’

  Kitson could hear voices in the background. She wondered if it was the pair she’d seen with Harika that day outside the university. ‘It’s a simple enough question, really. We think Hakan may have gone to Bristol.’ She waited for a reaction; didn’t get one. ‘I wondered if you had any idea why?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  Kitson was getting impatient. If Kemal had been in Bristol, he might have already moved on. He may well have realised that the parking ticket he’d received might give away his location. ‘I’m starting to wonder if you want us to find your brother at all.’

  ‘I called you, didn’t I?’

  ‘And maybe you’re wishing you hadn’t. Have you been speaking to your family?’

  The answer was quick and earnest. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, one of us might have to.’ Kitson paused; waited to see if Harika’s sniffs were the prelude to tears. ‘We’re going to catch up with your brother sooner or later, you know. Your parents will have to find out. So, why prolong the agony?’

  ‘That will only be the start of it,’ Harika said.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help that.’ Kitson could hear music in the background now. She took her voice up a notch. ‘Look, I’m not going to pretend that Deniz was whiter than white and I’m bloody sure you knew that as well as anybody. But he had a family too, and I have to think about them. You should be thinking about them.’

  She was starting to wonder if Harika Kemal was still there when the girl said quietly, ‘Cousin.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve got a cousin who lives in Bristol.’

  He was halfway back to Kentish Town when the clock on the dashboard moved round to two o’clock; cutting through King’s Cross to escape the hell of Sunday traffic in Camden. He parked up as soon as he had the chance and made the call.