Scaredy cat tt-2

by Mark Billingham

  'Sir, I think McEvoy's in some sort of trouble.'

  'Some sort…?'

  'Real trouble.' Holland couldn't say why he was worried. He didn't know what it was that was nagging at him, couldn't explain where the feeling came from. It made him shiver and it kept him awake, and he needed to tell someone. It was there in McEvoy's eyes and the things she said, and the way she'd been acting for a while. It was as if she had a secret. Another secret…

  'What?' Thorne said.

  Holland shook his head, looked around the room, searching desperately for something that might bring this indistinct unease into sharp relief. His gaze settled on the computer. . The look on McEvoy's face a few days before, when he'd walked in to the office and found her on the Internet. Panic, and something else. Defiance?

  Triumph…?

  Thorne watched Holland walk across, pull up a chair, hit the button to wake the machine up.

  'What are you doing?'

  'I'm going to check her emails.'

  'You think she's been ordering drugs by email?'

  'No… maybe. I don't think this is about the coke…' Holland began moving the mouse, clicking, opening windows.

  'Don't you need some sort of password?'

  'I would if I was actually going to sign on to her account, but I should be able to check her filing cabinet – see what she's been sending out, what she's received…'

  Thorne nodded, letting Holland get on with it, whatever it was. Cocaine. Thorne had suspected as much. He'd known a few coppers who liked a sniff. It was usually the older ones who should have known better, the ones that couldn't be doing with Ecstasy because it involved dancing. Whatever their reason for doing it, some of them got seriously messed up.

  Thorne wondered how far into it McEvoy had got. He looked up and saw the answer reflected around the room, from one mirror to another…

  'Fuck… oh fuck, no.'

  'What?' Thorne felt the change in his body straight away. He sensed a livening in the nerve endings, a heightening of the senses as he moved rapidly across the room, reacting instinctively to the panic in Holland's voice. 'What is it, Dave?'

  Holland ran his fingers through his hair, scratching hard at his scalp, staring in disbelief at the screen. Thorne leaned in and looked over his shoulder. He couldn't immediately work out what he was looking at.

  'I can't…'

  'She's been getting e-mails from the killer,' Holland said. 'From Night Watchman…'

  Thorne felt something prickle around the top of his shoulders, heard his heartbeat quicken. 'Getting them, or getting them and replying?

  How long…?

  'Wait…' Holland clicked, sorting the mails by date. He began to scroll slowly through them, and Thorne watched it move down the screen in front of his eyes. A correspondence between a woman on his team and the man they were trying to catch. A man who killed more brutally than anyone Thorne had ever lost sleep over.

  'A week or more,' Holland said. 'Shit, there's fucking dozens of them…'

  It had begun tentatively, like an exchange of letters between lovers to-be. He told her he thought she was special, that there was something about her. He wondered how far across the line she would go to get the right result. His words were cryptic, teasing. Thorne could tell that, at least initially, he had been fishing, trying to find out how much she knew, how much any of them knew about him. He was wooing her. Thorne could see it, clear as day. He wondered if McEvoy had seen it. Her responses were open and forthright. She had fallen for it, or was letting him think she had. Thorne couldn't tell which.

  'What the fuck is she playing at…? Holland's panic was increasing with every minute that passed, with every e-mail opened. As Thorne read on, the answer became horribly apparent. The round-the-houses stuff had given way, in the last day or two, to something specific. An invitation. Did she want to meet him? Was she the individual he thought she was? McEvoy had replied. She was everything he thought she was, and more.

  'When? There's got to be something that gives us a time…'

  'Got it,' Holland said, opening another mail. 'Jesus, it's today. Four o'clock…'

  Thorne looked at the time flashing at him in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever the hell McEvoy thought she was doing, she probably had about twenty-five minutes to live.

  'Where?'

  Holland clicked, scrolled, jabbed viciously at the keys. 'His last email was.., just after one this morning.' He opened the file and they stared at the killer's words on the screen.

  Let's make it the place where Martin was told the Jungle Story. Looking forward to it, Sarah…

  'What the hell does that mean?' Holland put his finger against the screen and pressed hard, as if he was trying to push through it, rub out the words floating on the other side.

  'What about McEvoy's last mail?'

  Holland called it up. 'She sent two, one after the other, just before midday today…'

  No idea what that means. Should I? If you want me to come, you'd better spell it out.

  'Let's see the second one.' Thorne dared not hope. He already knew there was no reply from the killer, nothing that spelled anything out. Would McEvoy's final message be to cry off, to suggest they rearrange? She would have no choice, surely. She didn't know the place he was suggesting…

  Going out now. Not sure when I'll be back. Need to know where to meet.

  Then, two words that jumped off the screen, sent the guts shooting up towards the throat.

  Text me.

  Holland's body spasmed. 'Shit. He's sent a text message telling her where to meet him.'

  'We don't know if he contacted her at all,' Thorne said. 'We don't know anything. She might come breezing back in here any second, off her tits with a bag full of Charlie.' Holland's look told Thorne that he didn't believe it any more than he did.

  Thorne grabbed at the phone on the corner of the desk, thrust it at Holland. 'Call her mobile.'

  He walked away, across to the window and stared out into the garden. The wind was coming up. He watched the overgrown grass sway slightly, and the long, rusty mirror bump gently against the fence post. Watching, hoping to hear Holland's concern translate into anger when he got through. Where the fuck are you? Hearing instead a long, frustrated breath, the crack of the phone going down, two more words he could really have done without.

  'Switched off…'

  Thorne turned around, walked back to the desk and picked up the phone himself. He dialed, waited, then hung up.

  'Who are you calling?'

  Thorne said nothing, his hand never leaving the receiver. He snatched it up again and dialed the number. He looked away from Holland, waiting for an answer…

  'It's me. Tell me about the Jungle Story… never mind that, just tell me! Listen, Palmer, there isn't time for this, tell me what it is. No… forget that, just tell me where. Where was it…?'

  Holland couldn't believe what he was hearing. Palmer? What the hell was Thorne playing at…? He stopped thinking about anything at all when Thorne's face changed. Even the bruises on his face seemed to grow momentarily pale. He thought that perhaps Thorne let out a long, low moan, though it might actually have come from him… Thorne hung up with his finger. Gently but quickly he passed the receiver to Holland.

  'It's at the school. He's meeting her at King Edward's.'

  'Where are you…?'

  Thorne was on his way to the front door, his voice getting louder as he moved further away. 'Get on the phone and get it organised, right now. Tell Brigstocke I want an armed response unit. Keep trying McEvoy's mobile, or get somebody else to.'

  'Sir…'

  By now Thorne was shouting:

  'And get a message through to the school…'

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  McEvoy walked into the playground in slow motion.

  Stop. Just move backwards. Out of here the way you've come. Only he will ever know you bottled out. You don't have anything to prove, Sarah… It was that strange time between darkness and ligh
t, the half an hour or so that can't quite make its mind up. As McEvoy pushed herself through the air, she felt like she was wading through a sticky, viscous liquid.

  Adults and children milling around. Their movements impossibly fast. Their voices ringing through her, setting her teeth on edge. The squeals of the younger children, the honking voices of those a year or two older, the shouting of teachers. A braying cacophony fighting for space in her head with the voice.

  The voice was back with a vengeance.

  She thought about turning round, getting away to somewhere she could do a line and shut herself up. Getting away was just what the voice was telling her to do, though, so she kept moving forward. Maybe, if she just dived inside the school, found the toilet… She couldn't do it out here, not with children around. It would only take a minute. The teachers had to have their own toilet, surely… What the fuck do you think you're doing? Think why you've come here. Worrying about where you do your next line is neither here nor there, considering.

  She just kept walking. She'd decided that when she reached the far side of the huge playground she would turn around, walk slowly back again. They hadn't agreed on anywhere more specific. His text message hadn't narrowed the location down.

  Silly bitch. Hard-faced bitch. Hard-faced as you like.., not going to do you any good now. What's he going to do to you?

  Her bag was over her shoulder. She pulled it in close to her body. Was there anything in there she could use against him if it came to it? Run. Get out. Call Thorne…

  Most of the boys smiled as they walked or ran past her on their way out. In a hurry to get home, but still polite as they had been taught to be. Deferential to adults, well-mannered, especially with ladies.

  He was a pupil here, wasn't he? He isn't very well-mannered with ladies.

  She raised her head and looked up at the school building on one side of her, the trees in the park high up in the distance on the other. Was he watching her from somewhere? Would there be some sort of signal? The weight of all the things she didn't know felt suddenly unmanageable. She felt stupid. Trapped and stupid. Even fifteen minutes before, she was so in control, so ready for this. Now she walked across a playground, her grip loosening with every step.

  He could see that she was scared.

  Probably nobody else who saw her would have spotted it. She looked like she was out for a stroll. Adjusting her route to avoid collision with a burly sixth-former, turning side-on to miss a gaggle of first-years. She looked like she was in control. He knew what to look for, though., He recognised fear. He would have seen it even if he'd been a long way away. He could see it coming off McEvoy like a heat-haze.

  Her being scared was good, but it was less important than the fact that she was here. And that she'd come alone. That had been the gamble all along, and it was one he couldn't really lose. He'd been able to watch her arrive. From his vantage point he'd been able to verify absolutely that she'd done as he'd asked. If she hadn't, if at the last moment she'd double-crossed him, gone to Thorne, he'd have known it. Even if they'd sent her in as if she'd come alone, using her as bait, he'd have seen it. He'd have spotted them, however well hidden they were.

  They would never have recognised him.

  Even if she'd stood him up he would have coped, taken her to task over it later.

  But she was here, as ready for him as she was ever going to be. He felt a surge of pure excitement that, but for these moments just before he killed, he hadn't felt since he was a child. He grinned. He could still taste the chocolate. Was that what all this was about? Getting in touch with his inner child? cu O 4 @ plygrnd: o)

  The text message had been simple. The childish shorthand was proof, if she needed it, of his sense of fun. Now it was time for the real fun to start.

  Driving like an idiot through Wembley Park, horn blaring, lights flashing; one eye on the dashboard clock, and a speech forming itself in his mind. The words tumbling into sentences with each busy junction, every queue at traffic lights. The speech he would 5e giving to Sarah McEvoy's parents if he was too late…

  Why had the killer targeted McEvoy? How had he targeted her?

  Thorne leaned on the horn, swerved inside to accelerate noisily past a Transit van. He knew he wouldn't get the answers to these questions, not yet. Not until the fucker was in a chair opposite him, shitting himself in an interview room in the early hours of the morning. There were other questions, though. Questions a little closer to home that got into his head and stayed there like a jingle he couldn't shake. Why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't he seen a senior member of his team getting into this? The drugs, the lies, the descent into something warped and deadly…

  He drove north across Fryent Country Park, the school now maybe less than five minutes away. The minute hand moving another notch past the vertical. The speech almost fully formed.

  DS McEvoy was a fine officer, who gave her life in the line of duty…

  Thorne hammered the Mondeo across a roundabout and turned left towards the centre of Harrow. He bellowed at the windscreen as the car that should have had right of way missed him by a matter of inches, the face of its driver murderous. Thorne returned the look with interest and stamped on the brakes, catching his breath through gritted teeth as a line of stationary vehicles appeared in front of him.

  All of those who worked with her, of whatever rank, will miss her dedication and good humour…

  The school was no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thorne's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his foot pumping the accelerator as he raced the engine in neutral. The shriek of the complaining engine was almost as loud as the scream inside his head. Nothing was moving. There were no lights ahead, no sign of an accident. Nobody was going anywhere.

  The fucking school run.

  McEvoy reached the far side of the playground, turned and looked around, thinking come on you fucker,-where are you? Moving back towards the centre now, saying it out loud, like a madwoman on a bus. I'm here, why the hell aren't you? There's a big surprise coming your way, coming everybody's way…

  Then a few words from the voice, and she stopped, because she needed to evacuate the playground. Of course she did. After all, she had no idea what was going to happen. There were still plenty of kids around – the slower ones, the stragglers, a group kicking a ball around. Christ he'd used a gun before, hadn't he? Thoughts of Dunblane, of Columbine High…

  How messed up are you? Protecting the public should have been your first thought, would have been a few months ago. If this is about showing how good you are at your job, it's not going very well so far… She reached into her jacket pocket for her warrant card, opened her mouth to start shouting…

  What if they panicked? If he was nearby, it might provoke him into something. No, she might scare him off. She needed to do what they'd agreed. Besides, if he was nearby, she was going to take the fucker before he could hurt anybody.

  That was her last thought before she felt the knife in her back and heard the voice, close to her ear.

  'You are alone, aren't you, Sarah?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're not lying. That's good. Walk with me, and please be sensible…'

  She gasped as the point of the knife pressed through her jacket and shirt, and into her skin. A hand was placed in the small of her back and began to guide her forwards towards the exit. His voice. Did she recognise it? Yes, maybe, couldn't remember. Fuck it…

  McEvoy almost laughed. She was going to the fucker. She knew exactly what she wanted to do, needed to do, but couldn't for the life of her remember how. She was suddenly all but asleep on her feet. Helpless. If she hadn't felt as weak as a baby already, the words whispered into her ear would have taken away any last vestige of strength in her body.

  'If you scream or try to run, I will kill a child.'

  Thorne thought that from somewhere a few streets back he could still hear the horns that had blared at him as he'd got out of the Mondeo and begun to run. Now they were being sounded in pure rage a
nd frustration at the abandoned car.

  Oh Christ…

  He began to slow down, his hands flying to his head, legs suddenly leaden.

  Fuck…

  Where were they coming from? Which direction would the backup vehicles come from? Brigstocke, Holland, the Armed Response Unit?

  The traffic had been impossible before. Now, thanks to him, it would be gridlocked. If the cars were coming the same way he had… Suddenly, Thorne was aware of schoolboys moving past him: in ones and twos at first and then in bigger groups. Jabbering and clowning around. Blue blazers, trimmed with claret. The ties taken off for the journey home.

  He was nearly there.

  He took a painful breath and picked his legs up again, drove himself forward.

  We can only hope that more young women of her calibre will come forward and offer their services to the public…

  The tree-lined streets around the school now thick with blue and claret, alive with shouts and taunts, and boasts. Hitting the ground. Dragging his knees up… His stomach began to burn, the judder of each step sending an agonising shockwave through his shattered nose and up into his forehead. His chest rattled and clattered. Beneath his jacket, the sweat had plastered his shirt to his back. It froze as it met the cold air blowing down his collar.

  Christ they were big, some of them. A pair of lumbering teenagers, striped ties wrapped around their foreheads, blocked the pavement ahead of him. Thorne put his head down and charged at them, ignoring the shouts and jeers as he crashed through the middle and began sprinting for all he was worth up the school drive.

  As he ran, as his feet smacked the ground beneath him, he remembered the car crunching slowly over the gravel. He remembered the last time he'd come up this drive. He and Holland comparing educations in the car.

  Then inside the school, the first time he'd got a look at Stuart Nicklin. The face turned away.

  In making the ultimate sacrifice, this brave officer has increased the determination of those she leaves behind, to continue the fight… Was he about to see that face in the flesh?