The Dying Hours

by Mark Billingham

  ‘It’s the best chance we’ve got, Dave.’

  ‘I know.’

  Thorne could hear the doubt in Holland’s voice, but he had already asked for help in every way he knew how and he was out of ideas. ‘Listen, if you and Yvonne are in the shit, that’s my fault and I’m sorry… but if you’re already in it, I really don’t see how this is going to make it any worse.’

  Holland made a noise that might almost have been a laugh, and said, ‘I suppose.’

  ‘So?’ Thorne eased the pushchair away from the edge of the pavement as a bus roared past them down the hill.

  ‘I’ve got a mate in the ANPR office,’ Holland said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thanks, Dave.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying that.’

  Thorne understood. Holland did not want reminding that what he was doing warranted gratitude, that it was so far outside the norm as to be worthy of it. He said, ‘Talk to you later, then,’ but he was grateful nevertheless; for the help and for the fact that Holland had failed to work out that being up to your neck in shit was actually a damn sight better than being in it over your head.

  Half a minute later, he and Alfie arrived at the entrance to their block.

  Thorne said, ‘Here we go, mate.’

  Alfie said, ‘Tom,’ and jettisoned his frog again.

  Thorne made pasta for them both with tomato sauce from a jar in the fridge. Apple juice in a beaker and a can of supermarket lager. Once he had cleaned up, they sat through an hour of In the Night Garden on DVD, then Thorne gave Alfie a bath.

  He could not say which of them was the wettest at the end.

  It was after eight o’clock and fully dark outside by the time Thorne gave the child his final bottle of milk and got him into his cot. Safely wrapped inside his soft, stripy Grobag, Alfie settled quickly. Thorne used a couple of dirty towels to mop up the water on the bathroom floor, then zombie-walked next door and – still wearing shirt, socks and pants – all but fell into bed. Despite that morning’s determination to fight the exhaustion, he felt as though he’d been hit by a truck.

  He hoped Alfie would sleep through until Helen came home.

  There was music leaking from one of the flats a few doors away – a low, urgent pulse of bass – but it could not keep Thorne awake any more than the image of blackened cement or spooning corpses, or the whiff of milky sick on his shoulder.

  FORTY-FIVE

  ‘I’ll try and pop back up next weekend, love.’

  ‘Yeah, well I wish you would,’ she said. ‘The kids miss you, you know?’

  Edward Mallen breathed into the phone, trying to think of something to say to his daughter, deciding eventually that there was nothing he could say.

  She clearly did not have the same problem. ‘I still don’t understand why you moved back down there in the first place,’ she said, her Geordie accent so different from his own. ‘Your friends are all up here. Your family…’

  ‘Well, you know.’ He shifted in his chair, let a long breath out. ‘After your mum and everything.’

  ‘All the more reason to stay put,’ she said. ‘Times like that you want your family close, I would have thought.’

  ‘Course I did,’ he said. ‘I do.’

  ‘Still, what do I know?’

  Once again Mallen struggled to find words that would do the trick, but was finding it no easier now than he had a minute or two before. Than he had six months before that, when he’d sat everyone down in the local pub, got a round in and calmly announced that he was moving back down south.

  ‘It’s… hard to explain,’ he said.

  ‘Listen, it’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘Don’t get stroppy, love.’

  ‘Who’s getting stroppy?’

  ‘There’s things to sort out, OK? It’s complicated.’

  ‘Yeah, you said that.’ His daughter sounded tired suddenly. A child was shouting in the background. ‘Listen, I need to get your grandchildren to bed.’

  ‘Give them both a big kiss from me, will you? Tell them to behave themselves. And tell them Grandad’s got their picture on top of the TV.’ He promised to pop a fiver for each of them in the post, assured her he would do his best to get a train up the following weekend.

  ‘You can give them the money yourself, can’t you?’ she said. ‘If you’re coming up anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, course. Good idea.’

  ‘Right then,’ she said.

  ‘Got your picture on the telly too, love,’ he said. ‘Obviously.’

  She said good and that she hoped it was a decent one. She told him to look after himself. She told him that she loved him, then put the phone down before he had the chance to reply.

  Mallen put the phone back in its cradle on the hall table, then climbed the stairs to his bedroom. His dinner was repeating on him, acid rising up. There was some milk of magnesia on his bedside table. He sat on his bed and had a healthy swig, sat for a minute or two more then walked through to the bathroom and took some of his other tablets; the ones organised in a plastic container with separate compartments for each day of the week.

  Two blues, a pink and a yellow.

  Like making them nice and colourful might help you feel a little brighter.

  He started to walk back downstairs, feeling as though he was rattling with bloody pills.

  It’s complicated…

  Truth was, he couldn’t really explain it all convincingly to himself. Once his wife had gone, he couldn’t see the sense in putting it off any longer, that was all. The timing was near-perfect too, though she couldn’t have known that, poor thing, lying there and wasting away; like she hadn’t known so many things.

  Time to go home, simple as that.

  Time to try and sort things out, clear the rubbish away. A chance to face up to things and be honest, and – probably a long shot – a chance to build bridges, even. Couldn’t hurt to try, that was for sure, and however hard it had been for his family to understand, that shot at forgiveness was worth the sacrifice. His faith had taught him that.

  Something else he’d found up there by the Tyne.

  Along with the sweet, brown beer and a half-decent football team. The woman he’d loved and lied to.

  He froze at the sound of the knock, one foot on the bottom stair, one on the hall carpet. Slowly, he raised his front foot back up, sank down on to the step and stared at the door.

  The vague shape beyond the frosted glass.

  He told himself that it was probably that nosy care-worker checking up on him. A little later than she would normally call, yes, but maybe she was worried about him. She usually let herself in with the key he’d given her, but there was always a chance she’d forgotten it.

  The second knock was louder.

  Using the banister, he pulled himself up from the stair and stepped gingerly down. He felt silly, stupid for telling himself lies; contriving scenarios that would give no reason for the dry mouth or the twitching fingers. The blood roaring in his one good ear.

  Nothing wrong with being afraid, after all.

  Mallen knew very well who was at the door.

  FORTY-SIX

  They had arranged to meet in the Opera Rooms, upstairs at the Chandos pub on St Martin’s Lane. The place was fairly busy for a Tuesday night, the pre-theatre crowd colliding with those in need of a few drinks after work, but Hendricks, who had got there first, had managed to snag a corner table in the smaller and quieter of the two rooms. Helen queued at the bar for ten minutes, then carried a large glass of wine across and joined him.

  She said, ‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’

  ‘I was early,’ he said.

  Conversation did not progress much beyond the prosaic for the first half a glass. Both had endured working days they were not particularly keen to talk about and there was understandable reticence on both sides about plunging straight into the subject – the person – they were actually there to discuss. Instead, Hendricks chose to engage in a sardonic, whispered commentary
as they sat and observed the interactions of their fellow drinkers. The ‘slappers on the sniff’ and the ‘wankers in cheap suits’. He decreed who was likely to get lucky and which of them was barking up the wrong tree and he was more than happy to give Helen a demonstration of what he told her was a foolproof Gaydar. Sizing up a noisy trio of lads standing at the bar and eyeing up the talent, he nodded from one to another and simply said, ‘Gay… dabbles a bit… straight, but eminently turnable.’

  On cue, the best-looking of the three turned and smiled nervously at him.

  ‘Bingo,’ Hendricks said.

  Helen thought Hendricks’ observations were hilarious, but could not help wondering what those around them made of him. He was wearing a black, skin-tight Metallica T-shirt; shaven-headed with enough facial adornments to make it look as though he’d had a nasty encounter with a fishing-tackle box. She did not think that too many people would guess what he did for a living.

  Then again, she never had any idea what the casual observer would make of her. Did she look like a copper? She’d come straight from work, so made sure she’d left home that morning in a smart skirt and matching jacket; her favourite white blouse. She wasn’t sure quite why she’d made such an effort and was now firmly convinced that Hendricks could see that she had. That she was nervous.

  ‘I think we got off on the wrong foot,’ she said.

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘The first time we met.’

  Hendricks took an insouciant sip of Guinness. ‘News to me.’

  ‘Probably just me being stupid,’ Helen said. ‘But I thought perhaps you weren’t predisposed to like me, because I’m not Louise, and I know you two were close. Because I’ve got a kid.’

  ‘And Louise hasn’t?’

  Helen remembered what Thorne had told her about the miscarriage. She felt herself redden. ‘That’s not what I meant, but yes, maybe that as well. I just meant… listen, I’m not looking for Alfie’s new dad, all right? I’m not trying to turn Tom into that, if that’s what you were thinking.’

  ‘It wasn’t, but thanks for clearing it up.’

  ‘Not that he isn’t great with him, because he is.’

  Hendricks nodded and when he spoke again, the sharpness was gone from his tone. ‘Yeah, he talks about him a lot.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘He really wanted to be a dad, you know? He made out like he wasn’t that keen at the time… just terrified, probably… but really he was. He’s not the only one as it happens.’ Hendricks took another drink, as good as emptied the glass. ‘But that’s a very long story.’

  Helen finished her wine and nodded towards what was left of Hendricks’ Guinness. ‘We’re not in any hurry, are we?’

  So Helen got more drinks in and Hendricks told her about his own desire to father a child. The moment in a specially designed children’s ‘suite’ at a mortuary in Seattle when he had finally admitted it to himself. He leaned close as he described the thus-far doomed efforts to find a partner who was equally keen; his desperate offers to donate sperm to any woman who so much as mentioned the words ‘biological clock’.

  ‘I swear,’ he told her, ‘I’m just about ready to toss off into a turkey baster and hand it out to strangers at the bus stop.’

  There was a longing and sadness in Hendricks’ face that the wisecracks couldn’t mask completely. Still, by the end they were both laughing and any hint of awkwardness between them had been forgotten. She caught him staring at the lad by the bar and leaned across to poke his arm.

  Helen went to the toilet while Hendricks was getting more drinks. At the mirror afterwards, she automatically reached for her bag to freshen her make-up, then decided against it. When she returned to the table, she plonked herself down and reached for her wine.

  Said, ‘So, what the hell’s he up to?’

  Hendricks’ shoulders sagged and he shook his head. ‘Yeah, well…’

  ‘I’m guessing it was you that told him to tell me.’

  ‘I couldn’t believe he hadn’t.’

  ‘Makes two of us.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who thinks he’s being stupid,’ Hendricks said. ‘Trust me, there’s plenty of us.’

  ‘So, tell him.’

  ‘That why you wanted to meet up? You want me to persuade him to knock all this on the head?’

  Helen nodded. ‘I think you’ve probably got a better chance than me.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ Hendricks said. ‘It didn’t go down well.’

  ‘If you think he’s being stupid, why are you still… involved with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Damage limitation, I suppose.’ Hendricks picked up his glass, put it down again. ‘Making sure he doesn’t shaft himself quite as badly as he might.’

  ‘How can you make sure that doesn’t happen?’

  ‘Not sure I can,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s got to try though, and I’m the mug that got the short straw. Far as Tom’s concerned, I always get the short straw.’

  ‘Because you care about him,’ Helen said.

  Now it was Hendricks’ turn to redden a little. He brought his glass close to his face. Said, ‘Yeah, well obviously we both do.’

  ‘So, we’re both buggered.’

  Hendricks looked at her. ‘You worried this is going to come back on you? Job-wise, I mean.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Helen said. ‘A bit. Does that make me a terrible girlfriend?’

  ‘Makes him a terrible boyfriend,’ Hendricks said. ‘Like that’s something we didn’t both know already.’

  A group crowded round a table in the adjoining room began singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Most of the pub joined in and afterwards the birthday girl stood on the table and took a drunken bow.

  ‘I reckon it’s too late, anyway,’ Hendricks said, once the hubbub had died down a little. ‘I mean at the kick-off, it was a pride thing, wasn’t it? He went to those twats in the Murder Squad and they knocked him back. Made him look stupid. He’s not awfully good with that.’

  Helen rolled her eyes. She didn’t need to be told.

  ‘Now though, it’s all gone much too far to pull out, because the summit fever’s kicked in.’

  Helen asked him what he meant.

  ‘It’s the reason so many people die on mountains,’ Hendricks explained. ‘They know they’ve only got a certain amount of oxygen or whatever and they know that at a certain point, when they don’t have enough and the weather’s turned to shit, they need to give up and turn back. That’s the logical thing to do, right? But a lot of them don’t do the logical thing, because the summit’s in sight and something gets switched off in their brains and they kid themselves they can make it.’ He puffed out his cheeks, reached for his pint. ‘Only they don’t make it, do they? The stupid sods just curl up and die in the snow.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Helen said.

  Hendricks shrugged. ‘Tom’s way past that point already. He’s got the summit in sight. He’s put a name to it.’

  They waited as a police car or an ambulance went past outside, the siren almost deafening for a few seconds, then slowly fading away.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We’ve just got to wait and see what happens. Hope he doesn’t freeze to death.’ Hendricks smiled, the warmth of it belying the armoury of tiny studs and rings he had pressed into his flesh. ‘At the very least we can try and make sure the silly bastard’s wrapped up nice and warm.’

  Helen nodded slowly. Said, ‘OK.’ She might have hoped, but she hadn’t really believed that Tom’s best friend would know what they should do about the mess that Tom was in; that he had dragged them all into. But at least now she understood why he had done it. Understood better.

  ‘As for what we do tonight…’ Hendricks sighed heavily.

  Helen turned and followed his gaze, saw the three boys who had been standing at the bar on their way out; the best-looking of them throwing a small but resigned nod at Hendricks just before he left.

  ‘Sex is obviously out of the question for either o
f us,’ Hendricks said. He downed the rest of his drink. ‘So, I suggest we make the best of it and just get thoroughly hammered.’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  She says, ‘It’s not fair on the kids.’

  ‘What isn’t fair?’

  She swallows and says, ‘Coming here, every week. Dragging them up here, or to God knows where else, so they don’t forget what you look like. I mean they’re bound to keep moving you about.’

  ‘It’s been all right so far, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Every week though.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I can’t do it…’

  He stares at her through the square of scratched, greasy Perspex between them. He sees those big hoop earrings sway as she shakes her head and it’s like there’s someone standing on his chest. Her voice has barely risen above a whisper, but still he can feel the eyes of the cons and visitors at other tables on them. The knowing smiles of the screws watching from each corner.

  He leans in close until his lips are almost touching the screen. He says, ‘You were happy enough before, when the money was coming in.’

  ‘I was never happy—’

  ‘Happy with what it could pay for.’

  Those earrings start to move again.

  ‘You always knew this might happen, but that didn’t matter long as you had decent holidays and a nice car. Long as you had other women kow towing to you because of who you were married to. Then as soon as the worst happens, soon as it’s time for you to do your bit, you want to bolt… like a fucking child.’

  There are tears in her eyes when she raises her head, but she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. ‘I did my bit,’ she says. ‘I did it for years, but this is something else. I don’t have to worry about you any more, do I? About feeding you and washing your clothes, about what you might be up to. I can’t worry about you. I’ve got to think about the kids now, can’t you see that? Our kids.’