Scaredy cat Thorne 2

by Mark Billingham

But I'm the one that's scared, Karen, you know that. It's the way it's always been hasn't it? That's why I can't ever tell them. Why I can't ever share this with anyone except you.

  Why I'm praying, praying, praying that Ruth will be the last one.

  *************

  1984

  They caught Bardsley just outside the school gates. He had a few mates with him but they took one look at Nicklin, at his face, and melted away into the background. Some of them were fifth-formers at least a year older than he was, and it excited him to watch them scuttle away like the spineless wankers he knew they were. The two of them were on Bardsley in a second. Palmer stood in front of him, solid, red-faced and shaking. Nicklin grabbed the strap of his sports bag and together they dragged him towards the bushes. The park ran right alongside the main entrance to the school. A lot of the boys cut across it on the way to school and back, and the sixth formers would hang around with their opposite numbers from the neighbouring girls' school. It wasn't a nice park; a tatty bowling green, an attempt at an aviary and a floating population of surly kids - smoking, groping or eating chips.

  Palmer and Nicklin pushed Bardsley towards the bushes that bordered the bird cages. He grabbed on to the wire of the nearest cage. It housed a moulting mynah bird which, in spite of the best efforts of every kid in school, resolutely refused to swear, producing nothing but an ear-splitting wolf-whistle every few minutes. Bardsley began to kick out wildly. Palmer clung on to the collar of his blazer, which was already starting to tear, and shuffled his legs back, out of the range of the boy's flailing Doc Martens. Nicklin stepped in closer and, oblivious to the pain in his shin as he was repeatedly booted, punched Bardsley hard in the face. Bardsley's hands moved from the wire to his face as blood began to gush from his nose. Smiling, Nicklin pushed him on to his knees, rammed a knee into his neck and pressed him down into the dirt.

  After a nod from Nicklin, Palmer dropped on to Bardsley's chest and sat there for a few moments, breathing heavily, his face the colour of a Bramley apple.

  Bardsley took his hand away from his face and glared up at the younger boy. There was blood on his teeth. 'You're fucking dead, Palmer.'

  Palmer's face grew even redder as his big hands reached forward to grab greasy handfuls of Bardsley's dirty blond hair. 'What did you say about Karen?'

  'Who the fuck's Karen?'

  Nicklin was standing behind Bardsley's head, his back against a tree, his hands in his pockets, his foot pressed against the scalp of the boy on the ground. He pushed his tongue in behind his bottom teeth, opened his mouth and slowly let a thick, globular string of spit drop down on to the bloody face below. Bardsley flinched and squeezed his eyes tight shut. When he opened them again he was staring up at the pistol in Nicklin's hand.

  Palmer and Bardsley moaned at almost the same time. Bardsley in terror at the sight of the pistol, and Palmer in disgust as the groin of the boy beneath him quickly began to grow damp.

  'Shit... he's pissed himself? Palmer jumped up and pointed down at the dark, spreading stain on Bardsley's grey trousers. Nicklin giggled. 'Well turn him over then.' Palmer shook his head. Nicklin stopped giggling as the mynah bird let out a shrill whistle from the cage behind him. 'Fucking turn him over...'

  Palmer stepped forward nervously. Bardsley glowered at him as he tried with some difficulty to scramble to his feet, one hand wiping away blood and spit and dirt, the other covering his groin. His voice was thick with rage and the effort of holding back tears, 'Dead ... fucking dead...' But the fight had gone out of him and Palmer was easily able to yank him over on to his belly. Nicklin moved round and knelt down next to Palmer at Bardsley's feet. 'Pull his pants down.'

  Bardsley began trying to drag himself away until Nicklin leaned forward and pressed the pistol into his neck. Bardsley froze and dropped back into the dirt.

  'Right, grab that side...' Nicklin took hold of Bardsley's waistband and began to pull. He looked at Palmer, who, after a second or two, did the same, and moments later, Bardsley's trousers and pants were around his ankles.

  'He's got fucking blue pants on...'

  'Stu, that's enough, isn't it?'

  'Pissed his pants like a girl. I can smell shit as well...'

  'Stuart...'

  Nicklin handed Palmer the pistol. 'Stick this up his arse.'

  At these words Bardsley was predictably energised, and his buttocks pumped rapidly up and down in his frantic attempts to get away. Palmer took a step back, staring at the ground, but Nicklin leaned in close to Bardsley, laughing. 'Go on Bardsley, you bummer, shag it. Shag the ground you fucking perv ... only thing you'll ever get to shag, you spastic...'

  Palmer turned the pistol over and over in his hand. Nicklin looked up at him, smiling, making certain that Palmer was reassured by the smile before letting it slowly dissolve. Looking serious. Concerned. Shaking his head.

  'He said he was going to do stuff to Karen, Martin.'

  Bardsley tried for the last time to tell them that he didn't have a fucking clue who Karen was, but the words were lost as he dissolved into sobs.

  Nicklin lowered his voice and spoke slowly. Things he didn't want to tell his friend; things he had to tell him. 'Dirty stuff, Mart. He called her names.' Palmer wrapped his fat fist around the butt of the pistol and dropped down slowly, his knees heavy on the back of Bardsley's calves. 'Said you'd done things to her ... touched her tits.' Palmer pushed the barrel into the soft, pale flesh of Bardsley's buttocks and held it there. Bardsley whimpered.

  Nicklin whispered. 'Go on Martin...'

  Palmer looked down at Bardsley's soft, spotty backside, afraid to so much as glance at the boy next to him. Afraid of his friend's excitement. He could see the twin rolls of sweaty, girlish fat on his chest shudder as his heart thumped beneath them. He could taste the perspiration that was running into his mouth. He knew that he should throw the pistol away and get to his feet and run through the park, without looking back, down past the bowling green and up and across the playground, not stopping until he was home... Nicklin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and as the mynah bird screeched raucously behind him, Palmer pulled the trigger. Bardsley screamed as the jet of compressed air fired the tiny lead pellet deep into his flesh.

  FOUR

  The train journey back to London had been half an hour quicker than the outward leg, but had seemed infinitely longer. For the first twenty minutes or so, Thorne and McEvoy had tried to make conversation, then given up. He picked up the newspaper he'd already read and she made for the smoking carriage.

  Thorne had closed his eyes and tried, without any success at all, to go to sleep.

  McEvoy hadn't bothered coming back.

  It was after six by the time Thorne finally got back to Hendon. Becke House was in the Peel Centre, a vast compound that also housed the Metropolitan Police Training College. Hundreds of fresh faced recruits buzzing about, learning how to put handcuffs on, learning procedure. Learning nothing.

  A BBC film crew had been around for the past few months making a documentary on the new intake. Thorne had spoken to the director one day in the canteen, suggested that he might like to catch up with his subjects again in a year or two; see how those ruddy-cheeked recruits had matured into the job. The director had been hugely, stupidly enthusiastic. Thorne had walked away thinking: that'll be one show they'll need to put out after the watershed... Thorne headed for the office. He decided he wanted to put in another couple of hours. It would be a good idea to save the drive back to Kentish Town until the rush hour had died down a little. That was the excuse he gave himself anyway.

  Holland was the only member of the team there, still hunched over a computer screen. In spite of the day he'd had, Thorne didn't envy him. He'd been forced to attend two courses and was still a computer illiterate. The only things he could access with any speed were the Tottenham Hotspur FC supporters' newsgroup and the technical support line.

  'Where's the DCI?'

  Holland looked up from his computer, rubbing his
eyes. 'Meeting with the Detective Super.'

  'Jesus Christ.' Thorne shook his head. 'We've only just started.'

  'Where's McEvoy?'

  'Probably soaking in a long hot bath by now...' Holland nodded. Thorne noticed how tired he was looking. 'Go home, Dave. Start again in the morning.'

  'Yeah, I'd better, before I get RSI. My mouse finger's fucked.' He stopped laughing when he pictured Sophie's expression as he walked through the door. 'I'll just finish what I'm doing...'

  One week into it, and neither of them wanting to go home. Both afraid of looks on faces.

  Thorne pushed open the door to the office he shared with Brigstocke, and waited for a second or two before turning on the light. The room looked a damn sight better in the dark. Who the hell could be expected to work efficiently in an airless grey box like this, or the even smaller one next door that Holland and McEvoy worked out of?. Worn grey carpet, dirty yellow walls and a pair of battle scarred brown desks, like two rectangles of driftwood floating down a shitty river. No amount of potted plants or family photos, or knick-knacks on monitors could stop this room sucking the energy out of him, blunting him.

  There were moments in this office, when Thorne almost forgot what he did for a living.

  He flicked on the light and saw a post-mortem report sitting on his desk.

  When he almost forgot...

  Sarah McEvoy consoled herself with a glass of wine, another cigarette and the thought that crying was easy.

  She couldn't think of the boy in Birmingham as anything other than a potential witness and she knew that perhaps she should. She knew that there were feelings missing. Not maternal ones necessarily, or even feminine. Just human. She felt angry at what had happened to the boy's mother all right. Anger was always instant and powerful. It made her feel light-headed. Anger was enjoyable, but sympathy never came as easily.

  It wasn't fair. She felt that her behaviour was being judged. Maybe right now, Thorne was telling somebody else, Holland probably, how.., hard she was. There was no middle ground as a woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hard, or emotionally unstable. Actually, hard-faced was a favourite with female colleagues. Usually followed by bitch or cow. She was sure that Tom Thorne wouldn't be crying about anything. As it was, there had been quite a few times lately when she'd woken up and been pretty sure that she had been crying. She could never be positive of course, however puffy she looked, or fucked up she felt. She certainly wasn't going to ask whoever she might have woken up next to, for the details. Conversation of any sort, by that point, would be kept to a bare minimum in an effort to get rid of them as fast as possible.

  She knew what those at work who guessed at her domestic arrangements would make of them. For this reason she did her best to ensure that it stayed as guesswork only. She wasn't frigid, so there was only one other option wasn't there? It was a small jump for a small brain from 'sexually active' to 'sexually active with superior officers'. There were still those who suspected that any woman rising through the ranks, did so on her back.

  Right. Lying on her back and staring at that glass ceiling... It was nobody's business and it was her choice. A regular boyfriend was nice in theory and a bonus at parties, but in her experience it rarely meant regular sex, and she needed that. She needed to feel wanted, and if that occasionally meant used then that was fine, because it cut both ways.

  All the time she was checking to see what was on TV and thinking about what she might eat, she knew perfectly well that she'd end up going out. She'd been thinking about it all the way back on the train. Staring at her own reflection in the blackness of the carriage window, smoking cigarettes down to the filter and wishing the hours away. She might even walk there. It was only fifteen minutes away. Following the path of the railway line all the way from Wembley Park to Harlesden.

  She'd need to get changed first though. The people she was going to see, like those on the train earlier, almost certainly had no idea what she did for a living, but she didn't want to take any chances. In the single pool of light from a desktop lamp, Thorne sat, trying to keep his mind on death, but distracted constantly by an image that was full of life. Much as he tried to concentrate on Ruth Murray's postmortem report, he couldn't stop the animated features of Charlie Garner from intruding: staring up at him from beneath the gurney, or peeking around the mortuary door.

  He had finally worked out what it was that had disturbed him so much when Charlie had looked up at him in that sitting room only a few hours before. He'd seen it instantly, but it took a while before he understood exactly what it was he'd been looking at when he stared into that child's eyes. There, in that face, in those shining brown saucers beneath long lashes, Thorne had seen doubt.

  My mummy's asleep...

  The smile had been broad and beautiful, but in those eyes had been the tiniest flicker of something like uncertainty. The smile hopeful, but the eyes betraying a knowledge Charlie Garner didn't even know he had. Who could blame him? Now, that child could never be really certain about anything ever again. It was too harsh a lesson and learned too early.

  And each time Thorne saw that face, the flicker of doubt grew stronger...

  When the phone on the desk rang, Thorne started a little, and on glancing at the page in front of him, realised he'd been staring at the phrase blood-spotted conjunctivae for the past half an hour.

  'DI Thorne...'

  'It's Phil. Have you read it?'

  'It's right in front of me. I've... had loads of stuff to wade through.'

  'How was Birmingham?'

  Thorne exhaled and leaned back in his chair. He should have gone home much earlier. Even with a smooth run back to Kentish Town, it would be ten o'clock by the time he got in. Another couple of hours to wind down meant getting to sleep late and waking up pissed off. Hendricks, by contrast, sounded relaxed. Thorne could picture him, legs up on a piece of sixties' black-leather furniture, some skinhead in the kitchen making them both dinner.

  'That bad?' Hendricks asked.

  'Sorry?'

  'Birmingham. Doesn't matter, tell me tomorrow. Listen, bit of good news. Catch the bastard, we'll put him away. There was plenty of Ruth Murray's own tissue under her fingernails, but loads of his as well. Profile should come through some time tomorrow.'

  It was very good news. Now he would at least drive home in a good mood. 'No need to test those teardrops you were so excited about then?'

  Hendricks snorted. 'Nah, tell you the truth it were a fuck of a long shot. We might have had a chance if he'd worn contact lenses.'

  Thorne was intrigued. 'This sounds good...'

  'Obvious really. A foreign body in the eye would cause a certain amount of irritation so the tear fluid would probably have contained more cellular material. See? Even better if he'd cried out of his nose actually...'

  'I don't want to know...'

  'It's all academic now anyway.'

  'No chance of a Nobel prize just yet then?'

  'One day, mate.'

  Thorne folded up the post-mortem report and started putting papers into his briefcase. 'Never mind, it told us something about him anyway...' There was no response. Thorne heard someone talking to Hendricks. He heard his friend's muffled voice answering, then heard the hand being taken off the mouthpiece.

  'Sorry Tom, dinner's nearly ready.' Hendricks's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Got myself a cracker here, mate. Nice arse, and handy in the kitchen. Sorry, what were you on about?'

  'The tears. I'm not sure exactly what they tell us about him, mind you.'

  'Well, we know he was in a better mood than when he killed Carol Garner.'

  Thorne stood up and closed his case. He might make it home by quarter to, with a following wind. 'Right...'

  'No, I mean it. Go through the report, it's obvious. He must have calmed down or something. Maybe whatever the fucker was on had worn off. It's a very different attack. The hyoid is intact, there's only minimal damage to the cart
ilage...'

  Then Thorne could feel the tingle. The small current running up the nape of his neck. Making him catch his breath. Almost sexy... Something that had been nagging at him was coming into focus, revealing itself. He sat down again, opened the case and pulled out the post-mortem report. 'Take me through this slowly can you, Phil?'

  Opening the report now, tearing pages as he turns them too quickly, speed-reading, his breath getting shorter by the second as Hendricks turns their murder case into something altogether more disturbing.

  'OK... externally, both bodies were much the same, Murray and Garner, but internally it's a different story. Ruth Murray died from a slower, more sustained pressure on the artery. Call it a slow, hard squeezing. Carol Garner was nothing like that. She had bruises on the back of her skull where he smacked her head on the floor as he was throttling her. That was.., frenzied. With Ruth Murray it was different. Maybe he'd got the anger out of his system. Maybe that's his pattern. You tell me mate...'

  Then, Thorne knew. No, not his pattern...

  The tears. A big man's tears on a body, outdoors. A body less damaged, wept upon. Elsewhere, a child in a house, nuzzling what was once the sweet-smelling neck of his mother, now bruised, and bloody, and broken inside. The wrapper from a chocolate bar, discarded... Was he taller than your Granddad?

  And Charlie Garner slowly, defiantly, shaking his head.

  'Phil, can I call you back... ?'

  Tired as he was, Holland had still not left. Thorne's expression, as he burst into the office next door, was enough to wake him up in a second.

  'The stabbings.., tell me about the stabbings.' Thorne's voice low, measured, but with a scream of something - excitement maybe, or horror - lurking just beneath the surface.

  'Sir... ?'

  Moving across the cramped office, talking quickly. 'Two women, both stabbed on the same day. July, I think you said.' Thorne nodded towards the computer, trying to stay calm. 'Call them up.'

  Holland spun the chair round and began to type, trying to recall the details. 'One in Finchley, I think. The other one ... much further south if I remember ...'