Lazybones tt-3

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne watched them. Wishing he was somewhere else. Thinking of things that would put anybody off their breakfast… When they'd battered down the door early the previous evening, Thorne had known exactly what they would find. The smell, thick against his face-mask, would have told him anyway, but as he'd climbed the narrow staircase, Thorne had been very well aware of what was waiting for him at the top. He'd already seen the pictures. The real thing, several long, hot days after the event, was a whole lot worse.

  The body had been strung up. The washing line had been tied in a makeshift noose around Dodd's neck and thrown over one of the lighting bars above the studio floor. It was tied off around the foot of the bed, the weight of the body lifting one end of the bed twelve inches off the ground. The pictures, taken while Dodd was still alive, had shown the spasms, the desperate clawing at the neck and kicking of the legs. Several days dead, the corpse hung, stiff and still. It was only the rumble of the tube trains passing beneath them on the Bakerloo Line, that caused the slightest tremor, that made the body start to swing just a little…

  Each time, Thorne had fought a bizarre urge to stop the movement. To step across and grasp the legs that protruded from dirty shorts like bloated blood sausages. To clutch the feet, purple with lividity, straining against the straps of the plastic sandals.

  Thorne had stood by the bed in the middle of the studio, remembering a pair of pale girls, writhing on nylon sheets.

  He had watched a SOCO leaning across the mattress, scraping at whatever had dripped down from the body that dangled above it.

  He had looked up at the tongue that stuck out from Dodd's mouth. Blue, and big as a man's hand. Telling him to fuck off. Once it had been cut down and loaded up, Thorne had been only too grateful to do precisely as Dodd's corpse had seemed to be requesting. Home for a change of clothes, and food he couldn't finish. Four hours not sleeping, and then back to the murder scene. Opposite him, the girl finished the last mouthful of her sandwich. She wiped the back of a hand across her mouth, reached down behind the kiosk for her handbag. She shrugged at Thorne and began to apply lipstick.

  Thorne turned at the sound of the door opening. Holland stepped out. He moved across to join Thorne, unzipping his bodysuit and gulping down the fresh air as he walked.

  'Fuck, it's hot in there.'

  Thorne handed Holland the bottle of water. 'How much longer?'

  'Almost done, I think.'

  Holland stood next to Thorne, leaning back against the window of the fishmonger's shop. They stared across at the peep show and t pavement cafe. A waiter smiled across at them. They might just have been friends enjoying the good weather, their plastic outfits far from being the most outlandish on display.

  'So he's probably just cleaning up after himself,' Holland said. 'He kills Dodd to make sure he can't say anything.'

  'Maybe…'

  Holland turned, pressed his hands against the window, already dusted for fingerprints. The fishmonger had been given very little time to get his stock into the freezer room and no time at all to clean up afterwards. Holland looked at the pink swirl of blood and fish guts, floating on top of the water in a metal tray. 'He knew you'd get it.' He nodded towards the window. Flies bumped against the glass, buzzing around the scattered flaps of puckered skin. 'He knew you'd understand what that photo meant.'

  Thorne nodded. 'Oh, he knew I'd been here all right.' Holland looked sideways at him, raised an eyebrow. 'Don't get excited. Yeah, he might have followed me, or he might be Trevor Jesmond hearing voices from the devil, but I think there's probably a simpler explanation.'

  Holland turned, listening. 'I think you were right. I think Dodd was killed because of what he could tell us. And because he was threatening to.'

  'Dodd tried to blackmail the killer?'

  Thorne folded his arms. 'Only the daft twat didn't know he was a killer, did he? I can't prove any of it, obviously…'

  'It sounds feasible,' Holland said.

  'Dodd was lying, of course he was. That crap about the killer keeping his crash helmet on, about not having any records. I should have fucking pulled him on it…'

  'You weren't to know.'

  'Yes, I was. If wankers like Dodd are breathing, they're lying. He didn't know who we were after, or why, but that didn't matter. If he thought I was chasing someone who hadn't paid their TV licence, he'd have lied through his back teeth, as long as he could see a way to make money out of it.'

  They watched as a middle-aged man handed over his money at the peep-show kiosk and hurried inside. The girl caught Thorne's eye, put her thumb to the tips of her fingers and made a wanking gesture. Thorne didn't know whether she was indicating what the man would be doing or what she thought of him. Or what she thought of them… Holland cleared his throat and took a drink. 'So, after you come round and show him the photo of Jane Foley, he contacts the killer…'

  Thorne stepped away from the window, turned and looked up towards the second floor where the studio was. 'I've been through the place and there's no sign of an address book or anything like that anywhere…'

  'Maybe the killer took it,' Holland said.

  'He might have done.' Thorne put his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. 'Let's go over every inch again, anyway. If there's a scrap of paper with an address or phone number on it, I want it found.'

  'What about phone records?'

  Thorne nodded, pleased that Holland was thinking so fast, was so close behind him. 'I've got Andy Stone on to it. I want everything, landline and mobile, if Dodd had one. Every call he made since the day I was here…'

  'He might have just gone round, if he had an address…'

  'In which case we're stuffed.' Thorne reached across for the water bottle. He took a swig, held the now tepid water in his mouth for a while before swallowing. 'We're still none the wiser as to how the killer hooked up with Dodd in the first place. People like Dodd don't advertise. It's word of mouth, it's contacts…'

  'We've already spoken to everybody we could find,' Holland said.

  'Anybody who's ever taken so much as a snap of their wife's tits in that studio has made a statement.'

  'So talk to them again. And find me some you haven't spoken to at all.' Holland groaned, let his head drop back against the glass. 'Just get on it, Dave,' Thorne said. 'Yvonne can work up a new list. I'll catch up with you later.'

  While Holland climbed out of his bodysuit, Thorne watched as two young media types stood up from their table at the care opposite and shook hands. They were dressed casually in shorts and trainers, but their top-of-the-range mobiles and designer sunglasses gave them away. An advertising campaign agreed maybe, or a TV project given the green light.

  He wondered if they knew that only a few hundred yards away, in an attic room over a coffee shop on Frith Street, John Logie-Baird had given the first-ever public demonstration of television nearly eighty years before.

  Thorne opened the door, took a second or two before heading back inside…

  Christ, a commercial break would be nice. A catchable made-for TV killer would be even nicer. He might just as well have been a TV cop. For the umpteenth time that morning, Thorne watched a passerby dock him, the bodysuit, the police tape.., and look around eagerly for the camera.

  After the post-mortem at Westminster Mortuary, they walked over to a small Italian place near the Abbey. Talked about murder over pizzas and Peroni.

  'I think Dodd was beaten until he was more or less unconscious,'

  Hendricks said. 'Then the killer tied the line around his neck, tossed it over the lighting bar and hauled him up.' Thorne nodded, took a swig of beer. 'Would have taken a fair bit of strength…'

  'So we know he's not a nine-stone weakling. What else?'

  'He's a nasty fucker…'

  'We knew that already.'

  Hendricks poured more chili oil over what he had left of an American Hot. 'Dodd wakes up pretty bloody quickly when he works out what's going on but it's far too sodding late by then. The killer ties the li
ne off, picks up his camera and starts taking pictures.'

  'How long?' Thorne asked.

  'He'd have blacked out in a couple of minutes.' Hendricks speared a sliced of pepperoni, popped it into his mouth. 'Death through cerebral hypoxia pretty quickly afterwards…'

  Thorne thought about it. Dodd had been a sleazy piece of shit, but he hadn't deserved that. Dancing at the end of a line, like something in the shop next door. Tearing at the flesh of his own neck. Staring through half-closed eyes at the maniac responsible, calmly snapping away, trying to capture his best side…

  'When they talk about killers like this, they use words like "organised" and "disorganised",' Thorne said. 'Two basic categories. The ones who plan carefully, who follow an almost ritualised pattern of killing, of cleaning up after themselves. And those who just act on instinct, who don't have as much control over what they're

  'So where does this nutter fit in?'

  Thorne put down his knife and fork. There was half a pizza left but he'd had enough. 'That's what I was thinking. Part of him is organised. The letters to the men in prison. Dodd needs to be got rid of, so he gets rid of him. The washing line, the lack of forensics, the photos he sent to me…

  'He's getting off on that, definitely…'

  'Why beat the bloke half to death though? Dodd's face looked like cheap mince. Why not just smash him across the back of the head then string him up?' A waitress was hovering, trying not to earwig. Thorne held up his plate. She took it gingerly and moved quickly away. 'At some level, they're always angry, you know? I haven't met a killer yet who wasn't pissed off somewhere about something.' Thorne downed the last of his beer. He swallowed, seeing the bodies of Welch and Remfry, the mess that had been made of their necks. Of their inside.

  'This bloke, though? He's off the fucking scale…',

  'You doing anything tonight?' Hendricks wiped his mouth. 'I could come over.'

  'What?'

  Hendricks glanced across to where the waitresses were gathered near the till. 'I'm changing the subject. Before they call the police.'

  'They're staring because of what you look like, mate, not because of our interesting table conversation. And no, you can't come over. I'm meeting someone a lot better looking than you.'

  'Surely not.'

  'With no embarrassing piercings…'

  Hendricks grinned. 'You never know. She might have them in special, secret places.'

  The waitress was there again. She took the plate from in front of Hendricks. He'd left a perfect ring of pizza crust.

  'You won't get curly hair,' Thorne said.

  Hendricks ran a hand across his shaved head. 'With the look I'm cultivating, that's not really a problem…'

  The afternoon had bled into the evening and by the time Thorne pushed through to where Eve was sitting, at a small table next to the cigarette machine, it was almost last orders. Plenty of time to get through a bottle of wine between them. For Thorne to apologise for messing her about, and for Eve to tell him he was being stupid. More than enough time for Thorne to tell her almost nothing about the sort of day he'd had.

  It was a small, friendly pub near the Hackney Empire. They stepped out on to Mare Street and looked up and down the road. They fastened unnecessary buttons on jackets, studied parked cars, filling up a suddenly awkward moment.

  Eve stepped over to him, put her hands on his shoulders. 'Now, about that snog…'

  Thorne didn't need asking twice.

  They kissed, his hand's moving around her waist and hers to the back of his head and neck. She bit softly on his lower lip. He pushed the tip of his tongue into the gap between her teeth. Then his mouth widened into a grin and they leaned away from each other.

  'I knew you were well up for it,' Thorne said. She dropped her hand down, gave his backside a good hard squeeze. 'I'm well up for anything.'

  They were a few minutes' walk from Eve's flat A short bus or cab journey from Thorne's. This wasn't the reason for the uncertainty which Eve saw in Thorne's expression.

  'You still haven't bought a new bed, have you?' she said. Thorne tried his best to look like a guilty schoolboy. He imagined that it made him look endearing. 'I haven't had time…'

  She grabbed his hand and they began to walk.

  'I've only really had last Sunday and there was all manner of shit that needed doing.' Thorne decided not to elaborate. He didn't explain that the shit in question had involved replacing his stereo system and those twenty-five or so CDs that he really couldn't do without. Spending his nights curled up on the sofa as he was, some people might have questioned his priorities. With the prospect of a night curled up with Eve Bloom looking distinctly achievable, even he had to agree that they seemed completely bonkers.

  They walked a little way up Mare Street and then turned left, crossing the railway line and cutting across London Fields. The night wasn't as muggy as some had been recently, but it was still warm. There were plenty of people around.

  'You're not waiting for the insurance, are you?' Eve asked suddenly.

  'What?'

  'To pay for a new bed.'

  Thorne laughed. 'I think I can run to a new bed. It's actually only a new mattress so it won't break the bank. I'll need the insurance to sort out a new car though. I'm getting pissed off with buses, and bangers from the car-pool…'

  'What are you going to get?'

  Thorne wasn't sure whether he'd spent more time the previous week on the phone chasing the insurance company or sitting at his kitchen table poring over car magazines. 'I'm not really bothered,' he said.

  Eve leaned in close to Thorne to let a jogger go past. 'Do coppers fiddle their insurance like everybody else?'

  'Well, fiddle is putting it a bit strong. I may have got the make and model of the stereo ever so slightly wrong. All right, and the price. I might have thrown the odd boxed set in when I was doing my CD inventory, but luck 'em, I probably forgot stuff as well.'

  They walked on in silence for a minute or so and then stopped at the edge of the park. They watched a group of lads having a kick about, floodlighting courtesy of a couple of lamp-post; and a full moon.

  Thorne remembered the game he'd watched just over a week earlier.

  The park near the hotel in Slough. That one had been just before a post-mortem…

  'There was another body today,' Thorne said. 'Well, last night and today. That's why I had to cancel.'

  Eve squeezed his hand. 'Is it the same man? The one who left the message on my machine?'

  They moved away from the game and out on to the road that ran parallel to the one where Eve lived and worked.

  'He kills men who have assaulted women,' Thorne said. 'Who've raped them and been to prison for it. The one we found yesterday was slightly different, but that's basically what he does. Fucked if I know why he does it, or when he's going to do it again, and fucked if I know how I'm going to stop him.'

  'So don't.'

  Thorne laughed. Stared at the pavement. Stepped around the dogshit. 'I'm not the one who decides…'

  'It's not like he's chopping up old ladies, is it?'

  They turned on to a mall side street, and walked slowly up the middle of the road.

  Hand in hand, at arm's length.

  'I'm always reading about how stretched police resources are,' Eve said. 'So why not use them on something a bit more worthwhile?'

  'More worthwhile than a murderer?'

  'Yeah, but look at who he's murdering…'

  Thorne took a deep breath. He shouldn't have said anything. He did not want to get into this. 'Look, whatever you think about what those men had done, whatever any of us thinks, they'd been to prison for it. I haven't got a lot of respect for the legal system, but surely…'

  'All right. Just think of this bloke as cutting reoffending rates then.'

  Thorne looked at her. She was smiling, but there was something set around her eyes. She clearly felt strongly about what she was saying, and Thorne knew that it was tough to argue with. 'I can't think
like that, Eve. I can't go down that road…'

  'As a police officer, you mean? Or just.., personally?'

  They emerged from the side street. Eve's shop stood in darkness on the corner opposite. Thorne's change of gear was as grinding as the one he'd picked Hendricks up for at lunchtime.

  'Listen, just how much of a problem would it really be with Denise? If I was to stay?'

  Eve sighed heavily. 'I told you. She gets a bit weird…'

  'Aren't there nights when she's not there? Doesn't she ever stay at Ben's?' Eve shook her head. 'Why not?'

  'I don't know. He's just as batty as she is. Come on, you've seen them together…'

  They walked past the shop, stopped at Eve's doorstep. Eve reached into her bag for the door keys.

  'She's got no right to tell you who you can have staying,' Thorne said.

  Eve pressed her palms against his chest. 'She doesn't exactly tell me. Listen, it's just not worth the hassle.' She grabbed the lapels of Thorne's leather jacket, pulled him towards her. 'Especially when you can just buy a mattress. I could do it for you, if you like…'

  They stopped kissing when the front door of Eve's flat suddenly swung open from the inside. Denise stood in the doorway, looking surprised. A figure loomed behind her, and Thorne recognised the man he'd seen working in the florist's that first day he'd been in there.

  'Hello, Eve,' he said.

  Denise stepped out into the street. The man followed her. 'Keith just dropped round to say he won't be able to make it again on Saturday,' Denise said.

  Eve moved forward, put a hand on Keith's shoulder. 'Everything OK, Keith?'

  He shook his head, reddening. 'It's difficult…'

  Eve turned to Thorne. 'Keith's mum hasn't been well…'

  The four of them stood there a little awkwardly. Denise's arms were bare and she rubbed at them, shivering slightly as a breeze began to pick up.