Time of Death

by Mark Billingham

Still, he couldn’t help but marvel at the things people got up to.

  On the day Alan had hoped to give Rachel the bracelet, his mother tripped on the stairs.

  So many things that could have been different . . .

  Two weeks before, the jeweller had shown him a catalogue. There had been charms that would have carried more or less the same meaning but Alan knew what he wanted. He’d ordered one specially made. He’d decided against the diamond spots and gone for the enamel, but still, it wasn’t cheap. He’d thought of it as a dozen decent sessions with one of his private patients. He always thought in those terms whenever he wanted to splash out on something.

  A fortnight later, half an hour before he was due to meet Rachel in the woods, he walked out onto Bond Street with the bracelet. Then, his mother called.

  ‘Don’t worry, Alan. It’s just my ankle, it’s nothing.’

  A message that said ‘come and see me now, if you give a shit . . .’

  He phoned Rachel and left a message of his own. She was probably on her way already, was almost certainly somewhere on the Northern line. He made for the underground himself, steeling himself for the trip to his mother’s warden-controlled flat in Swiss Cottage.

  As he walked, he realised that his mother would see the bag. It was purple with white cord handles and the name of the jeweller in gold lettering. He couldn’t show her the bracelet for obvious reasons.

  He decided that if she asked, he’d tell her he’d bought himself a new watch.

  Lee wasn’t stupid – God, it would all have been a lot easier if he were – but it couldn’t be very much longer before he noticed how often she was going to the toilet or taking a shower just before seven o’clock.

  She collected her bag on the way upstairs, then, once she’d locked the bathroom door she switched the phone on, set it to vibrate only, and waited.

  Tonight she was desperate, had been since Alan had failed to meet her at lunchtime. She’d waited in the woods for twenty minutes before she’d got a signal, before the alert had come through. She’d listened to his message once then erased it as always. Walked back towards the tube, unravelling.

  Sitting with her back against the side of the bath, she thought there was every chance that he might not ring at all. His excuse for not turning up had sounded very much like an excuse. Not that she could blame him for wanting to call a halt to things. She knew how hard it was for him in so many ways.

  She almost dropped the phone when it jumped in her hand.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Didn’t you get the message? I was at my bloody mother’s.’

  ‘I thought you might have made it up.’

  ‘Jesus, Rachel.’

  ‘Sorry . . .’

  A sigh. Half a minute of sniffs and swallows.

  ‘God, I wish I could see you,’ he said. ‘Now, I mean. I’ve got something for you. I wanted to give it to you this afternoon.’

  ‘I’d like to see you too.’

  ‘Can you?’

  The hope in his voice clutched at her. ‘There might be a way.’

  ‘By the tree in half an hour. The woods don’t shut until eight.’

  ‘I’ll try . . .’

  When she’d hung up she dialled another number. She spoke urgently for a minute, then hung up again. When she heard the land-line ringing a few moments later she flushed the toilet and stepped out of the bathroom.

  Lee was holding the phone out for her when she walked into the lounge. She took it and spoke, hoped he could hear the shock and concern in her voice despite the fact that he hadn’t bothered to turn the television down.

  ‘That was Sue,’ she said afterwards. ‘Her brother’s been in a car accident. Some idiot talking on his mobile phone, ploughed into the back of him on the motorway. I said I’d go round.’

  Lee’s team had been awarded a penalty. Without turning round to her, he waved his consent.

  He was astonished to see her leave the house alone at night. The husband did of course, jumped in his sports car every so often to collect a takeaway or shoot down to the off license, but never her.

  He’d been planning to do it during the day; he knew the quiet places now, the dead spots en route where he could take her with very little risk, but he wasn’t a man to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  This was perfect, and he was as ready as he’d ever be.

  He presumed she’d be heading for the tube at High Barnet. He got out of his car and followed her.

  It took Alan ten minutes to get to the woods. By half past seven he’d got everything arranged.

  He hadn’t wanted to just give her the bracelet. He’d wanted her to come across it, to find it as if by some piece of good fortune. Luck had played such a big part in their coming together after all, which is why he’d chosen the charm that he had. There was only really one place that he could leave it.

  The light was fading fast. The few people he saw were all moving towards one or other of the various exits. He dialled her number.

  ‘It’s me. You’re probably still on the tube. Listen, come to the tree but don’t worry if you can’t see me. I’ll be nearby, but there’s something I want you to find first. Stand where the ball was found, then look up. OK? I’ll see you soon . . .’

  He moved away from the tree so that he could watch from a distance when she discovered the bracelet. It worried him that it would soon be too dark to see the expression on her face when she found it. He sat down, leaned back against a stump to wait.

  It was the away leg of a big European tie and one-up at half time was a very decent result.

  Lee was at the fridge, digging out snacks for the rest of the game when the car alarm went off. That fucking Saab across the road again – he’d told the tosser to get it looked at once. The wailing stopped after a couple of minutes, but started up again almost immediately and Lee knew that uninterrupted enjoyment of the second half had gone out of the window.

  He picked up his keys and stormed out of the front door. The pratt was out by the looks of it, but Lee fancied giving his motor a kick or two anyway. He might come back afterwards, grab some paper and stick a non-too subtle note through the wanker’s letterbox. Maybe a piece of dogshit for good measure.

  Rachel’s phone was lying on the tarmac half way down the drive.

  Lee picked it up and switched it on. The leather case had protected it and the screen lit up immediately.

  He entered the security code and waited.

  There was a message.

  Rachel had realised her phone was missing as soon as she came out of the station. She knew Alan would be worried that she’d taken so long and had reached for the phone to see if he’d left a message. A balloon of sickness had risen up rapidly from her guts, and she’d begun running, silently cursing the selfish idiot who’d thrown himself on to the line at East Finchley, then feeling bad about it.

  A few minutes into the woods and still a few more from where Alan would be waiting. It was almost dark and she hadn’t seen anyone since she left the road. She looked at her watch – the exits would close in ten minutes. She knew that people climbed over fences to get in – morons who lit bonfires and played ‘chase me’ with the keepers – so it wouldn’t be impossible to get out, but she still didn’t fancy being inside after the woods were locked up.

  She thought about shouting Alan’s name out; it was so quiet that the sound would probably carry. She was being stupid.

  Still out of breath, she picked up her pace again, looking up at the noise of feet falling heavily on the path ahead, and seeing the jogger coming towards her.

  Alan rang again, hung up as soon as he heard her voice on the answering machine.

  He looked at his watch, leaned his head back against the bark. He could hear the distant drone of the traffic and, closer, the shrill peep of the bats that had begun to emerge from th
eir boxes to feed. Moving above him like scraps of burnt paper on the breeze.

  He slowed as he passed her, jogged on a stride or two then backed quickly up to draw level with her again. She froze, and he could see the fear in her face.

  ‘Rachel?’ he said.

  She stared at him, still wary but with curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘I met you a few weeks ago in the pub,’ he said. ‘With Alan.’ Her eyes didn’t move from his. ‘Graham. The cardiologist?’

  ‘Oh, God. Graham . . . right, of course.’

  She laughed and her shoulders sagged as the tension vanished.

  He laughed too, and reached around to the belt he wore beneath the jogging bottoms. Felt for the knife.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I think my brain’s going. I’m a bit bloody jumpy to tell you the truth.’

  He nodded but he wasn’t really listening. He span slowly around, hand on hip. catching his breath. Checking that there was no-one else around.

  ‘Well . . .’ she said.

  He’d have her in the bushes in seconds, the knife pressed to her throat before she had a chance to open her mouth.

  He saw her check her watch.

  It’s time, he thought.

  ‘Rachel!’

  He looked up and saw the shape of a big man moving fast towards them. She looked at the shape, then back to him, her mouth open and something unreadable in her eyes.

  He dug out a smile. ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said.

  With the blade of the knife flat against his wrist, he turned and jogged away along the path that ran at right-angles to the one they’d been on.

  ‘Was that him? Was that him?’

  ‘He was a jogger. He just—’

  Lee’s hand squeezed her neck, choked off the end of the sentence. He raised his other hand slowly, held the phone aloft in triumph. ‘I know all about it,’ he said. ‘So don’t try and lie to me.’

  There were distant voices coming from somewhere. People leaving. Laughter. Words that were impossible to make out and quickly faded to silence.

  Lee tossed the phone to the ground and the free hand reached up to claw at her chest. Thick fingers pushed aside material, found a nipple and squeezed.

  She couldn’t make a sound. The tears ran down her face and neck and on to the back of his hand as she beat at it, as she snatched in breaths through her nose. Just as she felt her legs go, he released her neck and breast and raised both hands up to the side of her neck.

  ‘Lee, nothing happened. Lee . . .’

  He pressed the heels of his hands against her ears and leaned in close as though he might kiss, or bite her.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  She tried to shake her head but he held it hard.

  ‘Or so help me I’ll dig a hole for you with my bare hands. I’ll leave your carcass here for the foxes.’

  So she told him, and he let her go, and he shouted over his shoulder to her as he walked further into the woods.

  ‘Now, run home . . .’

  Alan had given it one more minute ten minutes ago, but it was clear to him now that she wasn’t coming. She’d sounded like she was really going to try, so he decided that she hadn’t been able to get away.

  He hoped it was only fear that had restrained her.

  He stood up, pressed the redial button on his phone one last time. Got her message again.

  There were no more than a couple of minutes before the exits were sealed. He just had time to retrieve the bracelet, to reach up and unhook it from the branch on which it hung.

  He’d give it to her another day.

  Standing alone in the dark, wondering how she was, he decided that he might not draw her attention to the newest charm on the bracelet. A pair of dice had seemed so right, so appropriate in light of what had happened, of everything they’d talked about. Suddenly he felt every bit as clumsy as his father. It seemed tasteless.

  Luck was something they were pushing.

  He stepped out on to the path, turned when he heard a man’s voice say his name . . .

  The footwork and the swing were spot on.

  The first blow smashed Alan’s phone into a dozen or more pieces, the second did much the same to his skull and those that came after were about nothing so much as exercise.

  It took half a minute for the growl to die in Lee’s throat.

  The blood on the branch, on the grass to either side of the path, on his training shoes, looked black in the near total darkness.

  Lee bent down and picked up the dead man’s arm. He wondered if his team had managed to hold on to their one goal lead as he began dragging the body into the undergrowth.

  Graham had run until he felt his lungs about to give up the ghost. He was no fitter than many of those he treated. Those whose hearts were marbled with creamy lines of fat, like cheap off-cuts.

  He dropped down on to a bench to recover, to reflect on what had happened in the woods. To consider his rotten luck. If that man hadn’t come along when he had . . .

  A young woman with Mediterranean features was waiting to cross the road a few feet from where he was sitting. She was taking keys from her bag, probably heading towards the flats opposite.

  She glanced in his direction and he dropped his elbows to his knees almost immediately. Looked at the pavement. Made sure she didn’t get a good look at his face.

  The next High Barnet train was still eight minutes away.

  Rachel stood on the platform, her legs still shaking, the burning in her breast a little less fierce with every minute that passed. The pain had been good. It had stopped her thinking too much; stopped her wondering. She sought a little more of it, thrusting her hand into her pocket until she found her wedding ring, then driving the edge of it hard against the fingernail until she felt it split.

  Alan had thought it odd that she still took the ring off even after she’d told him the truth, but it made perfect sense to her. Its removal had always been more about freedom than deceit.

  An old woman standing next to her nudged her arm and nodded toward the electronic display.

  Correction. High Barnet. 1 min . . .

  ‘There’s a stroke of luck,’ the woman said.

  Rachel looked at the floor. She didn’t raise her head again until she heard the train coming.