Lazybones tt-3

by Mark Billingham

  It was a classic businessman's hotel. Trouser presses, Teas mades and bog-standard soap in the bathroom. The simple, clean room couldn't have been more different from the pit they'd stood in three weeks earlier. Save of course for the one, gruesome feature they had in common. As with the murder scene in Paddington, the bed had been stripped and the bedding taken away. The clothes lay scattered but the body itself had been precisely positioned. Dead centre with head towards the wall, belt around the wrists, white hands bloodless. The hood, the line around the neck, the dried, red-brown trails snaking down the thighs like gravy stains…

  This one looked a little older than Remfry. Late forties maybe. Brigstocke gave Thorne what little they had. Thorne took the information in, standing by the window, one eye on the fields beyond the main road. They were two minutes from the motorway, fifty yards from a major roundabout, but on this Sunday morning, Thorne could hear nothing but birdsong and the rustle of a body bag. This time the killer had ordered his floral tribute personally. The order had been placed with a twenty-four-hour florist at just after eight-thirty the evening before and paid for with the victim's debit card. Thanks to that, they already had a name for the dead man…

  'He didn't fancy leaving a message this time,' Brigstocke said. Thorne shrugged. Either the killer had learned from his mistake or had done what he needed to do in leaving his voice on Eve Bloom's machine.

  'Twenty-four-hour florists?' Thorne shook his head. 'Who the hell needs flowers in the middle of the night?'

  'They're not actually twenty-four hours,' Brigstocke said. 'But there's always somebody there until at least ten o'clock. They don't guarantee to get your flowers delivered by the next morning, but apparently they made a special effort in this case, due to the nature of the order…'

  At 9 a.m., a delivery man had waltzed into hotel reception carrying the wreath. The receptionist, somewhat taken aback, had rung room 313 and, on getting no reply, had asked the delivery man to wait, and had gone up to the room. Five minutes later, her screams had woken most of the hotel.

  'Sir…?'

  Thorne turned from the window to see Andy Stone coming through the bedroom door. He was clutching a piece of paper, grinning, and moving quickly across to where Thorne and Brigstocke were standing.

  'The victim checked in under his own name…' Stone said. Brigstocke shrugged. 'No real reason for him not to, was there? He thought he was coming here to get fucked.'

  'Looks well and truly fucked to me,' Holland said. When Stone had finished laughing, Thorne caught his eye. 'Go on…

  Stone glanced down at the piece of paper. 'Ian Anthony Welch.' He half turned towards the body. 'Released eight days ago from Wandsworth. Three years of a five-stretch for rape.'

  Thorne spoke to nobody in particular. 'I don't know why we never considered it. Remfry wasn't killed because of who he was. He and Welch were killed because of what they were. Christ, this is the sort of case we normally get brought in for…'

  Brigstocke stretched, his plastic bodysuit rustling. 'Well, this time, we've got our very own.'

  Now, things were going to change: in the previous week and a half, priorities had shifted. Older cases that had been downgraded in the immediate wake of the Renfry murder had, suddenly, three unsuccessful weeks on, been shunted forward again. Members of the team found themselves knee-deep in court preparations for a domestic, processing the arrest of a teenager who'd stabbed his friend for a computer game or gathering the papers on a drug-related shooting. This reallocation of resources was normal and now it would need to be done all over again. Now that the Remfry murder was the Remfry and Welch murders, the more straightforward cases would slide back on to the back-burner.

  Now, Team 3 would be handling no other cases at all…

  'One, two, three…'

  Thorne watched as four officers heaved the body off the mattress and on to the black body bag which had been stretched out on the floor next to the bed. The belt had been removed but the hands were still clenched tightly together behind the back, fingers entwined. Rigor mortis had set in hours ago and the body rolled awkwardly on to its side, knees drawn up to the chest. The officers looked at each other and, after a few moments, a DS stepped forward. He placed a hand on the chest and as he rolled the body on to its back, he pushed the legs downwards as far as they would go. Flattening the body just enough to zip the bag up.

  'I forgot to ask,' Brigstocke said, 'how was the wedding?'

  Thorne was still watching the sergeant, whose eyes were closed the whole time his hands were on the naked body.

  'Not a lot more fun than this,' Thorne said.

  Fifteen minutes later, just after midday, the core of the team gathered in the lobby. They were about to go their separate ways. The postmortem was being rushed through at two o'clock and while Thorne would be following Hendricks to Wexham Hospital, Brigstocke and the others would be heading back to the office. While the DCI spoke on the phone to Jesmond and then to Yvonne Kitson back in the Incident Room, the others sat on mock-leather armchairs and shared a pot of coffee. Less animated than the small gaggle of hotel staff and guests, they stared out through the plate-glass windows in reception at the body being loaded into the mortuary van. Brigstocke joined them, sliding his mobile back into the inside pocket of his jacket. 'Well, that's everybody up to speed, me included…'

  'What words of wisdom from the all-knowing Detective Chief Superintendent?' Thorne asked. Outside, the mortuary van was moving away. Hendricks waved as he climbed into his car to follow it. Thorne raised a hand in return.

  'Nothing I can argue with,' Brigstocke said. 'We'll have reporters here before they've put new sheets on the bed. So here it is. Officially, we can't confirm or deny a link with the Remfry murder.' He paused, making sure the message was sinking in. 'It makes sense. The tabloids would have a fucking field day with this one. Screaming about vigilantes, running polls. Is the killer doing a good job? Yes or no?'

  'Is that a possibility, you think?' Stone asked. 'Could this be some sort of vigilante thing?'

  Thorne reached for the coffee pot, poured himself another cup.

  'This is something very personal. The man who's doing this isn't doing it for you or me…'

  'Maybe,' Brigstocke said. 'But all the same, there will be people asking whether or not we should be grateful…'

  The hotel manager walked through reception, talking quietly to a small group of guests in golfing gear. They stopped at the main doors and chatted some more. The manager shook their hands before watching the bemused golfers duck underneath the police tape and walk away, shaking their heads. It was a game Thorne had little time for, but he guessed they'd have something other than new cars and holidays to talk about on the first tee.

  Brigstocke cleared his throat. 'Right. Forensics will be moving as quickly as they can, but while we're waiting, there's plenty we need to do…'

  'We'll get nothing,' Thorne said. 'It's cleaner than the last place, but it's still a hotel room. They'll be gathering samples into next week.'

  'We might get lucky,' Holland said.

  'More chance of six numbers coming up Saturday night…'

  Brigstocke tapped a spoon against his coffee cup. 'Let's cut the morale-building short for a minute, shall we? Talk about what we can do.'

  Holland raised a hand. 'Sir. If I do get six numbers up on Saturday night, I'm officially requesting permission to resign from the case and fuck off to Rio de Janeiro with twin supermodels.' The few seconds of laughter did everybody good.

  'I want to know exactly what Ian Welch has been doing since he came out,' Brigstocke said. 'Where he's been staying, who he's been seeing…'

  Stone cut in. 'He came out NFA. The prison gave me the address of a hostel…'

  Brigstocke nodded. 'Good, and you're going to be calling a lot more governors before we're finished. We'll need to contact every prison in the country housing sex-offenders, talk to anyone with an imminent release date. That's the easy bit. We're also going to trace every rapist
, groper and flasher who's been released in the last six months. Check that none of them have received letters. Warn them in case they get any.'

  'How many are we looking at?' Holland asked.

  Brigstocke picked up a small pack of biscuits, sealed in plastic. He dangled it between two fingers. 'Based on the last set of Home Office stats, probably one serious sex offender is released somewhere in the country every day.' He tore open the packet with his teeth, spat out the plastic, looked at the faces of the other men around the table. 'I know. Frightening, isn't it? Just going back to the start of this year, we're going to be looking for something like a hundred and fifty offenders…'

  Stone raised his eyebrows. 'Well, we should know where most of them are, in theory at least. Still might be a shitload of work, though.'

  'Yes, it might be,' Brigstocke said.

  'Are we going to be able to justify that? I mean, like you said, these aren't exactly innocent victims, are they?'

  Brigstocke blinked, opened his mouth to shout. Thorne got in first.

  'Not your worry, Andy.'

  'I know. I was just saying…'

  Thorne raised a hand. 'What we can't justify are bodies…'

  They walked out to their cars. Brigstocke drifted away from the others towards his Volvo, took Thorne with him. He glanced towards Andy Stone.

  'Have a Word…'

  Thorne nodded. 'Well, he was making the same sort Of point you made yourself earlier. Remfry, Welch, doing what they did, being what they are. Some people might well think that…'

  Brigstocke pressed the remote, deactivating the car alarm with a squawk. 'I'm not talking about what he said back there. I'm talking about the Gribbin business.'

  Thorne had been waiting for this. He had known that Stone's behaviour during the raid was not just going to be forgotten. 'Right…'

  'Don't worry, it's not going as far as the Funny Firm. All been put down to protecting the girl. Still, I want you to let him know he overstepped the mark.'

  'Fair enough…'

  Brigstocke got into the car, started the engine. He began to pull slowly away. 'Call me from the Wexham as soon as Phil's finished…'

  Holland loped across the gravel as Thorne walked to the Corsa.

  'You up for a drink later?'

  'I'm likely to be up for several,' Thorne said. Holland ran a hand along the front wing of the hire-car. 'This is the sort of thing you ought to get.'

  'Sort of thing I ought to get when?'

  'Come on, your car is fucked. This is nice, though…'

  'It's white.., and my car is not fucked…'

  'Name one thing that's good about it.'

  Thorne opened the Corsa's door, hesitated before getting in. 'What?

  Straight off the top of my head?'

  Holland laughed, leaned down as Thorne climbed in. 'If this was a woman we were talking about, you'd dump her.'

  The electric window slid down. 'You've got a very strange mind, Holland.'

  'How's it going with the florist, anyway?'

  'Mind your own business.'

  There was a rumble as an engine started up. Thorne looked across to see Stone watching them from behind the wheel of his own car, a silver Ford Cougar. He nodded towards it. 'What d'you think of Stone's motor?'

  'It's a bit flash,' Holland said.

  Thorne could see Stone slapping his palm off the steering wheel.

  'Better get a move on. He looks keen to get back.'

  Holland took a step away from the car, stopped. 'Did your dad have a good time at the wedding?'

  'A good time? Yes. I think so…'

  'I meant to tell you…' Stone sounded the horn. 'William Hartnell was the first Doctor Who. I looked it up on the Internet.'

  'I'll tell him…'

  Thorne turned the key in the ignition, watched as Holland ran across and climbed into Stone's car. He could hear the music being cranked up as the sports car roared past him, and out on to the main road with hardly a look from Andy Stone towards anything that might have been coming.

  Thorne looked at his watch and turned the engine off again. Not quite one o'clock yet. The post-mortem wasn't until two and it was no more than a ten-minute drive to the hospital. He sat for a few minutes trying to decide between sleep and a Sunday paper and then he started to hear distant shouting, a cheer, a solitary handclap. The noise recognisable, tantalising. Carrying easily on the warm, afternoon air. It took him twenty minutes to find the game, a quarter of a mile away up the main road in a small park. The season was still a month and a half away, but Sunday footballers cared as little for the calendar as they did for other trivialities like fitness and skill. A team in red and a team in yellow and a dozen or so lunatics watching, living every less than beautiful second of it.

  Thorne could not have been more content. He stood on the touchline and lost himself in the game. In a little over an hour he would be watching organs meticulously excised, the flesh expertly sliced and laid aside… For a while, he was happy to watch a team in red and a team in yellow, running and shouting and kicking lumps out of each other. Thorne picked up his pint and turned from the bar. Except for Russell Brigstocke, one of whose kids was unwell, and Yvonne Kitson, most of the senior members of the team had come out. There was an unspoken need to loosen up, to enjoy a night out that they might not have the chance to repeat for a while, now that the case had moved up a gear. Now that there was a second body.

  Thorne wasn't planning on staying long. He was wiped out. One drink, maybe two, and then home…

  They were gathered around a couple of smallish tables. Holland and Hendricks were sitting at one end with Andy Stone and Sam Karim, a DS who worked as office manager. They were playing Shag or Die, a game that involved choosing between a pair of equally undesirable sexual partners, which had swept through the entire Serious Crime Group in the last few weeks. The choice between Ann Widdecombe and Camilla Parker-Bowles was prompting heated debate. Phil Hendricks was trying to make himself heard, claiming that as a gay man, he should not have to sleep with either of them. His point was eventually accepted as valid and he was given a choice between Jimmy Savile and Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Jesmond to mull over…

  If the Royal Oak had a theme other than drinking heavily, nobody had ever worked out what it was. Apart from being the nearest pub to Becke House, it had nothing whatsoever to recommend it. The fairly constant presence of police officers may have had something to do with it, but there was rarely anybody drinking in the pub who didn't have a warrant card.

  Thorne looked around. Sunday night and the place was all but deserted: a couple at a table near the toilets, staring into their drinks like they'd had a row; the room quiet, save for his team's graphic deliberations and the tinny, musical stings from the unused quiz machine in the corner.

  Hardly any more there than had gathered earlier in the Dissecting Room: Phil Hendricks; a trio of mortuary attendants; the exhibits officer; a stills photographer; a video cameraman; the PC who had been first to arrive at the Greenwood Hotel, there to confirm that the body was indeed the same one he had seen on the bed in room 313. And Thorne…

  Nine of them, gathered in a cold room plumbed for hoses, with easy-to-clean surfaces and drains in the floor. The smallest murmur or the crunching of peppermints magnified, bouncing off the cracked, cream tiles. A small crowd, waiting for the body of Ian Welch to be uncovered and taken apart.

  Thorne had attended hundreds of post-mortems, and though it was a process he had become resigned to, he had found that lately it was a difficult one to leave behind, to shed easily. The visceral onslaught disturbed him now far less than the tiny details, the sensory minutiae which might stay with him for days after each session… Blinking awake in the early hours, as a brain plops gently into a glass jar.

  Dabbing at his freshly shaved face, the water spiraling away, its momentary slurp like the sucking of the flesh at the finger that presses into it.

  A smell at work, the odour of something very raw, lurk
ing some, where deep within the medley of sweat and institutional food… Nine of them gathered. Waiting like embarrassed guests at a bizarre party, strangers to each other. That dreadful hiatus between arriving, and anything actually happening…

  Finally, Hendricks drew back the white sheet and asked the equally white PC to confirm it was the same body he'd seen earlier. The constable looked as though the only thing he could confirm was rising rapidly up from his stomach. He swallowed hard.

  'Yes,' he said, 'it is.'

  And they were away…

  Holland had moved across to the bar to get a round in and Thorne took his place next to Andy Stone. Karim leaned across, eager to involve Thorne in the game. Before he had a chance to speak, Thorne angled his body away, turned into the corner, towards Stone.

  'Idiotic, bloody game,' Stone said. Thorne had only just got there, but Stone sounded like he was three or four drinks ahead of him. 'If it's shag or die, you'd shag anybody, wouldn't you? So what's the point?'

  Thorne swallowed a mouthful of lager and leaned a little closer to Stone. 'I need to have a quick word about what happened when we picked Gribbin up.'

  If Stone had been on the way to being drunk, he sobered up very quickly. 'I was protecting the kid. I didn't know what he was going to do.'

  'Which is exactly what the DCI is going to say. Still, Fm here to tell you, off the record, that you overstepped the mark. That nobody wants to see it happen again, OK?' Stone stared forward, said nothing.

  'Andy…?' Thorne took another drink. Half the pint had gone already.

  'Nobody's very fond of blokes like Gribbin, but you were over the top.'

  'There's just so bloody many of them. I don't understand how there can be so many of them walking about.'

  'Listen…'

  Stone turned. He spoke low and fast as if imparting dangerous information. I've got a mate on the Child Protection Team over at Barnes. He told me about this time they were after a child-killer up in Scotland. This bloke had already killed three kids, they had a description, and some woman claimed she'd spotted him on a beach one bank holiday, right? So they appealed for people to come forward with their holiday snaps, see if anybody might have got a picture of this fucker accidentally…'