Lifeless

by Mark Billingham

  Hendricks reached into his plastic bag, rummaged for two more cans.

  “Shit like this just makes you stronger,” Thorne said. “You move a little closer together. We look out for each other.” He looked over at Hendricks. “What?”

  Hendricks held out the beer, unable to keep a slightly nervous smile at bay. “You said ‘we’…”

  Thorne reached across and took the can. He’d already drunk three but was feeling unusually clear-headed. He wondered if all that Special Brew—a beer he’d sworn by everything he held sacred never to touch again—had somehow increased his tolerance to the weaker stuff. He popped the ring pull. “This stuff must be stronger than it tastes,” he said.

  If you screwed up on a computer game, nobody minded. You could always have another bash. It was easy enough to go back and start that level again.

  He wasn’t screwing up; he rarely did because he got plenty of practice. But people—real-life, flesh-and-blood, human fuckups—weren’t quite as predictable as those he was happily blowing away on screen. The real ones moved around; they weren’t where they were supposed to be. And they had an irritating habit of looking much the bloody same in a darkened doorway at three in the morning…

  He’d planned to be long gone by now. Somewhere sunny and expensive, where people smelled good and the only ones dossing down outdoors were sleeping on the beach because they couldn’t find their way back to the hotel. That had been the idea, anyway. Taking Thorne out of the picture was meant to be something of a last hurrah, but it hadn’t turned out that way.

  When he’d completed the level, he turned off the PlayStation and ejected the game. He sauntered through to the tiny kitchen to make himself some tea. It was important to wind down a little; you had to let the adrenaline level drop and level out if you wanted to get any sleep at all. He sat in his underwear, watched the kettle, and waited. Trying to picture the sea. To imagine it like glass, lapping gently at the sand; to look down at himself, lying golden and satisfied, like a pig in shit with all his worries far away. This was something he’d become good at over the years: he’d developed the ability to lose himself, and to watch as he reappeared elsewhere; somewhere safe and still. But as the kettle boiled, the salt water began to seethe and the sea quickly grew rough. The waves became larger and crashed onto his beach, forcing him to move. Soaking the sand…

  It wasn’t time to relax quite yet.

  He carried his tea back to the bedroom and lay down.

  As soon as he’d seen that newspaper—the photo of a young man called Terry Turner below its lurid headline—he’d realized that he’d made a mess of it. He’d known deep down that he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. It was a pain in the arse, having to rethink, but to have left would have felt wrong. He knew that if he had done so, he could never have relaxed.

  He didn’t set a great deal of store by much anymore, but he still believed in the virtue of a job well done.

  TWENTY-NINE

  There were no more cans in the bag.

  Though Thorne—as far as he could work out—had drunk as many as Hendricks, he felt none the worse for it. He was still worn out and frightened; he was still lost. But for that moment at least he wasn’t alone, and he welcomed the clear understanding of his place in the world that chance, or cheap lager, had lent him. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant place to be; not where he was in the life he was pretending to have, and certainly not in the life that was truly his to live with. The life that sooner or later he would have to go back to. Face up to.

  His place in two worlds…

  “I think I should make a move,” Hendricks said.

  Thorne grunted, waited, but it looked as though thinking about it was as far as his friend was going to get for a while. The rain had stopped, but water was running off the roof of the covered walkway, falling on three sides of him as he sat back against the wall.

  He saw something else clearly, something that most people—even if they knew the truth of it—were happier to ignore. He saw the dreadful ease with which the line separating two worlds could be breached. He had chosen to take that step, and could retrace it, but he knew that for those with no choice at all, it was usually a one-way crossing.

  “We’re only two paychecks from the street,” he said.

  Hendricks turned his head. “Right…”

  “Two paychecks. A couple of months. That’s all that separates a lot of us from sleeping in a doorway.”

  Thorne had heard Brendan talking about this, so he knew it was likely that Hendricks had heard it many times. But he wasn’t talking for Hendricks’s benefit, and besides, the man who was now lying next to him seemed perfectly content to listen.

  “I mean, obviously it depends on circumstances,” Thorne said. “On having the right sort of family, or more likely the wrong sort of family. It comes down to not having the support when you need it most. You see what I’m saying? You’re earning enough to pay the rent, or make the mortgage repayments, right? You make enough money to eat and have a social life. But you’ve got no capital of any sort, you’ve got decent lumps owing on your Visa, and on a few store cards, and you’re paying for a car on tick or whatever. You get two months’ notice and you’re fucked. Really, it sounds unbelievable, but you could easily be comprehensively fucked. You might not realize that straightaway, but your whole life can go down the toilet in those eight weeks.

  “And this is not a fantasy, Phil. This is how a lot of people live. And I’m not talking about poor people either, or drug addicts, or pissheads. These are not people on Channel Four documentaries. These are average people. These are average families a lot of the time, who can find themselves homeless very bloody quickly. Living in hostels and care homes before you can say P45.

  “You’ve got two months. Normal notice period. Now, the council might pay your rent, but by the time those payments come through, your landlord’s thrown you out on your ear because he can’t be arsed waiting for his money, right? They might pay the interest on your mortgage, but there’s a limit on that depending on how generous your local council is, and banks get stroppy pretty bloody quickly when the checks start bouncing.

  “Two months…

  “You still owe money on your cutup credit cards, and you lose the car sharpish because you can’t make the payments on that, and it’s weeks before the DSS gives you anything. So, bit by bit, you lose everything: job, car, house, credit rating. Wife and kids, if it all goes really tits up. It all just slips away; or it’s taken away by force. If you’ve got good friends or close family who are there for you when this happens, then fine. Likely as not, you’ll be all right. You might not fall too far or too hard. But if you haven’t…

  “I’ve met people, Phil…Most of them haven’t finished falling yet.

  “You’d be amazed how quickly good friends can become distant acquaintances. How fast close family just become people with the same surname. If you’re unlucky, you find that blood means fuck-all when you’re in the shit. When you stink of failure…”

  Hearing footsteps, Thorne looked up and saw a young man walking past on the far side of the street, swinging an orange-striped traffic cone at his side. He watched as the man leaned against a shopfront, heaved the cone up to his mouth, and made his own Friday-night entertainment by blowing trumpet noises through it.

  Thorne looked to his right and saw that Hendricks’s eyes were closed. “Are you tired or am I boring?” he said.

  A smile spread slowly across Hendricks’s face, then, with one of those sudden bursts of energy unique to men under the influence, he climbed rapidly to his feet and slapped his hands together. “Right. I’m away…”

  “How you getting back?” Thorne asked.

  “I’ll pick up a cab.” Hendricks squinted across the street at the cone trumpeter.

  “He’s great, isn’t he?”

  Hendricks turned back to Thorne. “We must do this again. Well, not this, but when you’re back, you know, let’s have a proper night out. The four of us maybe
. You, me, Brendan, and Dave. Brendan likes Dave. Actually, I think he fancies him a bit, but he always denies it.”

  “That would be good,” Thorne said.

  Hendricks was ready to go. He looked from one end of the street to the other.

  Thorne pointed to the right. “Kingsway.”

  “Kingsway,” Hendricks repeated. He turned and pointed himself toward the main road. Walking quickly, like someone trying too hard to look sober.

  Thorne shouted after him. “Cheers, Phil…”

  Hendricks raised a thumb, without turning round.

  The drunk with the traffic cone was now playing something vaguely recognizable, though Thorne couldn’t put a name to it. Wondering if the man did requests, Thorne toyed with shouting across; asking if he knew the horn part to “Ring of Fire.”

  He took out his sleeping bag and tried to get settled for the night. Opposite, the man with the cone grew in confidence and technique. He played “Mack the Knife” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

  After five minutes, Thorne stood up and shouted at him to piss off.

  His eyes snapped open and he stared at the figure standing above him: a shape stooping out of shadow. Thorne cried out and kicked his legs forward, pushing himself away from danger, driving himself back against the wall.

  “What’s the matter with you, you daft fucker?” the man said.

  Thorne gulped up his heart. Felt it thump against his teeth.

  “For fuck’s sake, you silly twat!”

  The breath he’d been holding exploded from Thorne’s mouth. “Oh Christ, it’s you.”

  Jim Thorne chuckled. “You thought I was the killer, didn’t you?”

  “What am I supposed to think?” Thorne gestured angrily at his father. “Standing there in the dark…”

  “Standing in the dark and pissing myself laughing, watching you scuttle away like a fucking girl.”

  Thorne was still breathing heavily. He shuffled forward and moved to one side. His father stepped forward and sat beside him, groaning with the effort as he lowered himself onto the concrete.

  “Anyway, son, I’m the one person you can be pretty sure isn’t the killer, right? You’ve not sussed much of anything out so far, but I should hope you’ve worked that much out at least. Yes?”

  Feeling like a kid, answering the question quietly, the sarcasm sounding childish and petulant as he spoke. “Yes. I know that much…”

  “You know all sorts of things. All sorts. You know who the killer really is, for a kickoff.”

  Thorne stared. His father’s face was expressionless. “You’ve got worse since you died.”

  “You know his name, son.”

  “Tell me…”

  “Hold your horses. Let’s have some fun with it.”

  Thorne saw where it was going. “Oh, please God, no. Not a fucking quiz.”

  “Don’t be so boring. Right, list all the people who it might be.” He leaned over and tapped at the side of his son’s head. “You’ve got all the names up there.”

  “I’m tired,” Thorne said.

  “Come on, I’ll give you the first couple to start…”

  Thorne listened as his father gave him the first name, paused, and then gave him a second. Thorne was impatient. He couldn’t help asking, though he knew his father would say nothing until he was good and ready. “Is either of those the man behind the camera? Is one of them the killer, Dad?”

  The old man smiled, enjoying his secret. He began to list more names, and with each one Thorne felt himself drifting further toward sleep…

  Then back toward consciousness. And by the time he’d woken up, thickheaded and shivering, Thorne couldn’t remember a single name.

  THIRTY

  There was nothing like a grisly death or two for putting things into perspective.

  Holland sat at his computer, logged on, and cast an eye across the daily bulletin. Each morning he did the same thing: scanning the reports on serious crimes that had come in overnight. It was useful to see what other teams were doing of course; to get a sneak preview at what might be coming his own team’s way. And to get a graphic reminder—good and early in the day—that, all things considered, life could be a hell of a lot worse…

  Sometimes, if it had been a slow night, there was little to get excited about. But usually there was something: a body more often than not, or a missing person who would soon become a body. Something to take Dave Holland’s mind off the fact that he was putting on a bit of weight, or to push some imagined slight to the back of his mind, or to make him forget about the row he’d had with Sophie the night before.

  Saturday morning’s bulletin was usually the best, or worst, of the week. Depending on whether you wanted to be seriously distracted or were just interested in keeping your breakfast down.

  It had been a vintage Friday night…

  A man, age and ethnicity impossible to determine: hog-tied and barbecued in the back of a burned-out Nissan Micra in Walthamstow Forest.

  Two teenage boys, one white, one Asian: the first killed, the second fighting for his life in a hospital after a stabbing outside a club in Wood Green.

  A woman, thirty-four: found at home by her boyfriend after gaffer-taping a twelve-inch Sabatier carving knife to the edge of a table, and pushing her neck against it.

  Two murders, perhaps three; possibly even four. The Homicide Assessment Team would already have signed the Walthamstow killing over to an MIT. They would be waiting to see if the boy carved up in Wood Green recovered. They would certainly be taking a good, long look at the man whose girlfriend had supposedly killed herself so inventively…

  DS Samir Karim walked past Holland’s desk and held up a coffee. “Ready to get going as soon as I’ve got this down me…”

  Holland nodded. He went back to the computer, pulled up the list of visits he’d been allocated to make later that morning, and printed them out. While he waited for hard copy to appear he looked at the details. He studied the names, addresses, and comments attached; aware all the time of those other details, still there in the bulletin window, inactive and partially hidden on the screen.

  While some had spent their Friday night busy with gaffer tape, washing blood from their hands or disposing of petrol cans, others had been safe at home in front of the television, disgusted and entertained by Crimewatch’s crime-lite version of such events, before picking up the phone—four hundred and twelve of them—to do their bit…

  “How come we never get any of the overnighters?” Andy Stone was pulling on his jacket and moving toward him.

  Holland thought that Stone had good reason to be pissed off. Obviously, a great many of the calls that had come in after the program had been made from outside London, so while those in the office liaised with the relevant local forces, members of the team had been dispatched bright and early. Officers were already on their way to Exeter, Aberdeen, Birmingham, and half a dozen other cities. Such interviews were coveted, and with good reason. Holland was one of those who would not have said no to a night away from home; getting a little time to himself and giving his expenses a hammering in the restaurant of a decent hotel.

  “Luck of the draw, mate,” he said.

  “Couldn’t you have swung something with the DCI?”

  Holland thought that he probably could have. He wondered why, in spite of fancying the time away, he hadn’t even bothered to try. Chances are, Sophie would have offered to pack for him…

  “So who are you heading out with?”

  “I’ve got Mackillop,” Stone said. He brandished a piece of paper with his own list of names and addresses. “Me and Wonderbollocks are off to waste our time in Hounslow, Lewisham, Finchley. All the glamour locations…”

  “We’ve got to check out every possible sighting, Andy.”

  “I know,” Stone said. “I’m kidding. Yourself?”

  Holland pointed across to Karim, who waved back and dropped what was left of his coffee into a wastepaper bin. “Me and Sam are going sligh
tly more upmarket.”

  “Eales hiding out in Mayfair, is he?”

  “Well, we’ve got a woman reckons she’s seen him walking a dog on Hampstead High Street.”

  “Why are so many of these calls always from women?” Stone asked before wandering away.

  Holland thought it was likely to be something to do with women being more observant, and more likely to respond to appeals for help. More inclined, when it came down to it, to get off their arses and make an effort. They wouldn’t even have Eales’s name if it hadn’t been for that female assistant adjutant going the extra yard.

  Seeing Karim heading over, looking ready for the off, Holland began gathering his things together. He guessed that he would be spending much of his day thinking about Lieutenant Sarah Cheshire, and nights away in posh hotels.

  “I’ve put him in one of the rooms upstairs,” Maxwell said.

  Thorne nodded. “I’ll follow you…”

  Maxwell had collared Thorne in the café, explained that Lawrence Healey had found Spike passed out on the steps when he’d arrived to open up. “Not that unusual,” Maxwell said as he led Thorne toward the offices. “Their sense of time gets totally screwed. Sometimes they turn up in the middle of the night expecting to get breakfast and just nod off.”

  They walked up the winding stone staircase. Thorne stared at the face of the boy on a drug-awareness poster; the blackness of the mouth inside the smile. He could see that the resilience he’d described to Hendricks was only as temporary as the high.

  “Healey actually thought Spike had OD’d,” Maxwell continued. “He spent twenty minutes walking him around, slapping some life into him.” Maxwell grinned. “Got a decent slap back for his trouble.”