TT03 - Lazybones

by Mark Billingham

  'It's all right, Dad,' Thorne said. 'Look, I'll have to go home first, all right? To get my stuff and pick up the hire car. Calm down, OK? I'll be there as soon as I can...'

  The snotty cow behind the reception desk looked at Welch like she thought he was going to nick something. Like he was a piece of shit that one of those businessmen laughing loudly in the bar had brought in on their shoes. It wasn't like it was the fucking Ritz either...

  'I rang a couple of days ago to book,' Welch said. The receptionist stared at her computer screen, plastered on a smile that was fake and frosty at the same time. 'So you did,' she said. 'Just the one night, is it?'

  Welch felt like reaching across the desk and slapping her. He had half a mind to ask for the manager, to demand the level of service and fucking courtesy to which he was entitled. 'Yeah, one night. I get breakfast, don't I?'

  The girl didn't look up. 'Yes, sir, breakfast is included in your room rate.'

  Welch suddenly wondered what would happen if there were two of them coming down in the morning. He didn't know if she would want to stay for breakfast. He thought about asking, decided to leave it.

  'I won't keep you a second, sir...'

  While the receptionist punched her keypad, Welch stared around the lobby. The plants were plastic. The grey carpet looked like it would take your skin off if you fell on it. There was a sign next to the desk which said The Greenwood Hotel, Slough, Welcomes Thompson Mouldings Ltd...

  'There we go, sir. If you could just fill that in.' She slid the booking form across to him. He had to think for a few seconds before he could remember the address of the hostel. 'I'll need an imprint of a credit card. Nothing will be charged to it, but...'

  'No need. I'm paying cash.' He signed the form and reached into the pocket of his jacket for the roll of tenners.

  'That's fine, sir...'

  Welch took out the money. He had a card he could have used if he'd felt like it, but he wanted her to see the cash. He slipped off the elastic band, started counting it out. The hostel was fucking horrendous, but being released NFA - having No Fixed Abode - did have its advantages. The discharge grant was more than double what you'd get normally.

  'No payment in advance, sir. You settle the bill when you check out.'

  She placed a key card on top of the pile of cash and pushed the lot back towards him. 'Room 313. Third floor.'

  He grabbed his money, tried not to shout. 'I do bloody well know. I know what you're supposed to do, all right?'

  The receptionist reddened and turned away from him.

  Welch picked up the plastic bag that contained a toothbrush, condoms, clean pants and socks for the morning. He thought about joining the gang from Thompson Mouldings in the bar, having a quick one. On second thoughts, he'd go straight to the room, maybe have a shower, try to enjoy every single minute of it... Grinning at nobody in particular, he walked towards the lift. This was stuff that only went on at family weddings. That Thorne knew could never happen anywhere else: an old woman, seventy if she was a day, dancing awkwardly in the corner with a small boy; two women in their forties shouting at each other across the table, raising their voices so that their comments about the food/dress/service could be heard above the Madonna/Oasis/George Michael; small children sliding on their knees across the polished dance floor, while smaller ones screamed or struggled to stay awake in spite of the loud music.

  Some related by blood, for ever, and some for only an hour or two. Eyeing each other up and staring each other out. A fuck or a fight not much more than a look or a lager away...

  Twenty minutes since the happy couple had taken to the floor to dance the first dance to 'Lady in Red', and Thorne hadn't moved from his seat in the corner. From there he could watch what was happening in the main hall and keep an eye on his old man. He looked across. His father was no longer sitting at the bar. Thorne got up, ordered himself another Guinness, and while he was waiting for it to settle, wandered through into the main hall. He passed people he knew not well or not at all, their faces coloured by the DJ's piss-poor lighting rig - red then green then blue. At the far end of the hall, Thorne looked to his right and through the archway that led to another, smaller room, he could see his father shuffling along the buffet table, muttering to himself, piling food he would never eat on to a paper plate...

  'Go easy, Dad. How many chicken legs can one man eat?'

  'Mind your own fucking business...'

  'It's too much.., look, get your hand underneath it...'

  'Shit...'

  The flimsy cardboard folding, unable to sustain so much food. The plate collapsing in on itself. The mattress sagging beneath the weight of the dead man...

  Thorne was suddenly angry with his father, at having to play nursemaid. Then angrier still at knowing that if he were at home there would be luck all happening, the leads dried up, the new angles nonexistent. There was no reason for him to be missed.

  He bent to pick up the food that had spilled on to the floor, thought better of it, and kicked it under the table.

  The room was absolutely fucking huge. Or perhaps it just seemed huge. He knew that his sense of perspective was still a little skewed. Christ, having a crap without company felt like luxury .... It was all Welch could do to stop himself running into the bathroom for a wank. That had been exactly what he'd done when Jane had got in touch with him at the hostel. Grabbed one of her photographs and thrown one off the wrist, hardly able to believe what she was suggesting. He'd been gobsmacked, how had she known where he was? He didn't bloody care, mind you, he'd been fucking delighted. He hadn't thought he'd hear from her again. He'd presumed she was one of those silly tarts that got off on writing to cons while they were inside, but would run a mile once they got out. He'd been so sure that he'd actually chucked away the letters she'd sent him in prison when he got out. He kept the photos, obviously. No way was he getting rid of them... He pulled out the one photo of Jane that he'd brought with him. God, she looked gorgeous. He dreamed that perhaps she would bring the hood with her, maybe even the handcuffs. He'd secretly brought the picture along in the hope that they could try to recreate it. He'd spent such a long time imagining what she looked like underneath the hood, or with her face lifted up out of the shadow and now, when he was about to see her, the truth was that he didn't care. He knew what her body was like, that she would surrender it to him, allow him to take it. Besides, when it came to it, he'd always been a firm believer in not looking at the mantelpiece when you were poking the fire.

  Welch let out a long, slow breath. Looked at his watch. He stroked himself through his trousers, unsure that he'd be able to contain himself if she didn't get a bloody shift on...

  Somebody knocked at the door. Three times. Softly. On the way back to the bar, his father out of harm's way, Thorne had been collared by his Auntie Eileen who asked if he was having a good time, and would he mind having a quick word with one of her nephews who was thinking of joining the police force? Thorne thought that he'd rather wash a corpse and said that yes, of course he would, and pushed his way back towards where he hoped his drink would still be waiting...

  He downed a third of the pint in one and as it went down, he watched as hard glances were exchanged on the other side of the b. Some cousin or other and the bride's mate, looking like they fancied it. Thorne decided that even if they started punching seven shades of shit out of each other right there and then, he wasn't going to raise a finger. He realised that he was wrong about this stuff only happening at family weddings. With the possible exception of the disco, you could get it all at family funerals as well. The key word was family, that first syllable stretched out and said with a metaphorical jab of the finger, if you were a character on East Enders, or a mockney TV celebrity, or from a particular part of South-east London.

  Thorne looked across. He guessed that the trouble would kick off a little later. In the car park, maybe.

  It was events like these, he thought, births, marriages and deaths, that saw the undercurrents ri
se to the surface and become unstable. Bubbling up and swirling in eddies of beer and Bacardi. Sentimentality, aggression, envy, suspicion, avarice.

  History. The ties that bind, twisted...

  This was the stuff that was reserved for those closest to us, that was hidden away from strangers, even when that was exactly what most of your family were.

  Thorne saw a lad, sixteen or seventeen, walking across the bar towards him. This was probably the nephew in search of careers advice. On second thoughts, Thorne was in just the mood to give him some...

  He might start with a few statistics. Such as the number of murders committed by persons unknown to the victim, and how tiny they were compared to those committed by persons to whom the victim was actually related. He would tell the boy that when it came to families, to the tensions within them and the acts carried out in their name, he should never, ever be surprised. He would tell the stupid, eager young sod that families were dangerous.

  That they were capable of anything.

  When the man had come through the door, Welch could see straight away that he was in trouble.

  There was a look on the man's face that Welch recognised, that he'd spent years in prison trying to avoid. It was the look he'd seen often on the faces of ordinary, honest-to-goodness murderers and armed robbers. The same look of contempt, of threat, that Caldicott must have seen down in that laundry room before they flash-fried his face...

  Welch thought that perhaps he should have struggled more, but there was little he could do. The man was far stronger than he was. The years inside had toughened him up mentally but his body had gone soft and flabby. Too much time reading and not nearly enough in the gym...

  Welch spent his last moments thinking that pain was so much worse when you were unable to fight it, when you could not protest its presence...

  The scream in his throat was stopped by whatever had been thrown around his neck and pressed back into a strangled, bubbling hiss. His body, too, could do nothing. It drew itself instinctively from the agony, but each jerk away from the tearing, from the stabbing, just tightened the grip of the line that was crushing the breath out of him. Welch pushed his head down towards the carpet, feeling the line bite further into his neck, his teeth deeper into his tongue. He strained against the hands that dragged his neck back, contorting himself, his body fetal in the seconds before death.

  I'm dying like a baby, Welch thought, his eyes wide but seeing nothing inside the hood, a softer, blacker darkness beginning finally to come over him...

  Thorne had just put his father to bed. He was walking across the corridor to his own room when the phone rang. He let it ring until he was inside the room.

  'You're up late...'

  'Great, isn't it?' Eve said. 'Lie-in tomorrow. So, how was the wedding?'

  'Perfect. Dull speeches, shit food and a fight.'

  'What about the actual wedding...?' 'Oh that? Yeah, that was OK...'

  She laughed. Thorne sat on the bed, wedged the phone between shoulder and chin and started to take his shoes off. 'Listen, I'm really sorry about last night...'

  'Don't be silly. How's your dad?'

  'You know, annoying. Mind you, he was annoying before ...'

  Thorne thought he could hear the sound of traffic at the other end of the line. He guessed Eve was out somewhere, but thought better of asking where. 'Seriously though, sorry about rushing off. Did the food get eaten?'

  'Don't worry, it will...'

  'Sorry...'

  'It's fine, there would have been tons left anyway. I'd made loads and Denise eats sod all, so I wouldn't worry about it.'

  Thorne began to unbutton his shirt. 'Say thanks to her and Ben for the entertainment, by the way...'

  'Good, wasn't it? I think I broke it up too early though. Another minute, and I'm sure we'd have seen a glass of wine thrown in someone's face...'

  'Next time.'

  She yawned loudly. 'God, sorry...'

  'I'll let you get to bed,' he said. He was imagining her in the back of a cab, pulling up outside her flat

  'Sleep well, Tom.'

  Thorne lay back down on his bed. 'Listen, you know that scale of one to ten? Can I move up to an eight...?'

  Thorne's phone rang again eight hours later. Its insistent chirrup pulled him up from the depths of a deep sleep. Dragged him from a dream where he was tryin to stop a man bleeding to death. Each time he put his finger over a hole, another would appear, as if he were Chaplin trying to plug a leak. Just when it seemed he had all the wounds covered, the blood began to spurt from a number of holes in him...

  'You'd better get back, sir,' Holland said.

  'Tell me...'

  'The killer's ordered another wreath...'

  PART TWO

  LIKE LIGHT

  27 NOVEMBER, 1996

  Stooping to pick up the car keys he'd dropped, Alan Franklin winced in pain. A fortnight shy of retirement, and his body, like a precision alarm clock, was telling him that it was just the right time. The back pain and the talk of retirement cottages abroad had begun on almost exactly the same day...

  He straightened up, his noisy exhalation echoing around the almost deserted car park. They'd probably talk about it again tonight, the two of them, over a bottle of wine. Sheila was leaning towards France while he fancied Spain. Either way, they would be off. There was nothing to keep them, after all. The three children he'd had with Emily were grown up and producing kids of their own. He'd miss the grandchildren, of course he would, but it wasn't like he and Sheila were going to be far away. They had no real ties. ? . He fumbled for the key to the Rover, pushed it towards the lock. Sheila would probably get her way in the end of course, she usually did. It had to be said that more often than not she was right. She'd been right this morning, telling him that it was going to freeze, that he needed to wrap up warm.

  He turned the key, popped up the central locking. As he reached for the door handle, something passed in front of his eyes with a swish and bit back, hard into his neck, pulling him off his feet... . He hit the floor before his briefcase did, before he had a chance to cry out, one leg broken and bent behind, the other straight out in front of him, hands flying to his throat, fingers wedging themselves between line and neck. Hands scrabbled at his own, tearing at his fingers, pulling them away. A fist crashed into the side of his head and as he rocked with the impact, he felt his fingers, numb and running with blood, slipping from beneath the line. And hot breath on the back of his neck...

  He watched his leg shooting out, the foot kicking desperately against the Rover's dirty, grey hubcap.

  He remembered suddenly the face of the woman underneath him. Smelt himself; the aftershave he used to love. Felt again that strength in his arms. He saw her legs kicking out against the boxes piled high on either side of the stockroom. Heard the dull thud of her stockinged feet on the cardboard. He felt the movement beneath him die down and then stop, saw her eyes close tight.

  It seemed to be getting dark very quickly. Perhaps the lights in the car park were on some sort of timer. Fading to save electricity. He could just make out his foot, the heel of his brogue still crashing into the hubcap, again and again. Cracking the cheap plastic.

  Then, just black and the rushing of his blood, and the sound of his heartbeat which thumped inside his eyeballs as the line tightened. He saw his wife, smiling at him from the garden, and the woman beneath him trying to turn her head away, and his wife, and then the woman, and finally the woman where his wife should have been, telling him how cold it was going to get.

  Laughing, and reminding him not to forget his scarf.

  TEN

  Carol Chamberlain had always been an early riser, but by the time her husband shuffled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen at a little after seven o'clock, she'd already been up a couple of hours. He flicked on the kettle, nodded to himself. He'd known very well she would have trouble sleeping after the phone call.

  It had come the evening before, in the ad break between Stars in their Eyes
and Blind Date. As soon as the caller had identified himself, begun to tell her what he wanted, Carol had understood the quizzical look on Jack's face when he'd handed her the receiver. She'd listened to everything that the Commander had to say. From the audible exasperation in his voice it was clear that she'd asked a lot more questions than he'd been expecting. After fifteen minutes she had agreed to think about what she'd been asked. The new team had been set up, she was told, to utilise some of the resources that had been - how had he put it? - wasted in previous years. The basic idea was that highly capable ex-officers could bring years of valuable experience to bear on re-examining old, dead cases. Would be able to cast a fresh eye across them.

  For most of the time since she'd hung up, since they'd gone back to watching Saturday-night TV, Carol had been in two minds. She was certainly a 'wasted resource', but much as she was happy, no, desperate, to do something, she had also heard something dubious in the voice of the unspeakably young Commander. She knew immediately that he and many others would be picturing hordes of aged ex-coppers shuffling in from Eastbourne, on sticks and Zimmer frames, waving dog-eared warrant cards and shouting: 'I can still cut it. I'm eighty two, you know...'

  Jack put a mug of tea down in front of her. He spoke softly. 'You're going to do it, aren't you, love?'

  She looked up at him. Her smile was nervous, but still wider than it had been in a while.

  'I can still cut it,' she said.

  While Thorne had been racing back from Have, shagging the hired Corsa up three different motorways, Brigstocke had made the scene at the Greenwood Hotel secure. By the time Thorne arrived, it was nearly three hours since the body hey would later identify as Ian Welch had been discovered, and more than twelve since he'd been killed. There was little else for Thorne to do but stare at him for a while.

  'Well, it's a slightly nicer hotel anyway,' Hendricks said. Holland nodded. 'They even sent us up some coffee...'