The Dying Hours

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne knew what was coming. Those nagging suspicions had been spot on. He nodded. He had no right to be angry, no right to judge. He had no right to shout or smash Holland’s face down into the dashboard.

  He said, ‘Let’s hear it then.’

  ‘When you asked me to put Mercer’s car into the ANPR?’ Holland turned to look at Thorne and shrugged. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I thought not,’ Thorne said. He was relieved that Holland’s confession had not been the one he was expecting. The relief quickly gave way to guilt that he had expected it at all. ‘So many of those cameras around, we’d surely have got a few hits.’

  ‘Yeah, we would, and we might have caught him by now, and I feel shit about it. I fucked up.’ Holland smacked a fist against his leg. ‘I chickened out.’

  ‘Dave—’

  ‘So, I’ve been working on it today.’ Holland turned further round in his seat. ‘I thought I might be able to get some hits another way. You know, see if we might at least be able to find out where he’d been. I ran the registration number through every system we’ve got. Borough databases, MIT, Traffic, everything… CRIMINT, HOLMES, the lot.’

  ‘Dave, it’s OK.’

  ‘I got something,’ Holland said.

  Thorne saw the excitement on Holland’s face and the spark passed between them. He lifted his hand to what he thought was a raindrop crawling down past the nape of his neck. He waited.

  ‘PC on a night shift out of your place, a couple of weeks ago. A routine sweep of dogging sites.’

  Thorne nodded. He knew what that meant, having done it himself with Christine Treasure when they were bored. Something to do when there was nothing important happening. Half an hour spent putting the wind up a pervert or two.

  ‘There’s a car park behind the industrial estate in Addington,’ Holland said. ‘Well known for it apparently.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘So, this PC approaches two men in a red Vauxhall Astra… our Vauxhall Astra. Nothing to get excited about, so he has a word, sends the pair of them on their way. Does the sensible thing and makes a note of the registration numbers, the Astra and the other bloke’s car on the other side of the car park.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  Holland told Thorne the colour, make and model.

  ‘My first thought was it must have been Jeffers, right? Meeting up so Mercer could get addresses off him, photos or whatever. Then I remembered that Yvonne had found a Travelcard, when she was looking through the clothes Jeffers left at that flat, so maybe he didn’t even have a car.’ He looked at Thorne. ‘Long story short, I traced it and it’s… interesting.’

  Thorne tried to swallow but it was tricky. ‘Interesting’ was not the word he would have chosen himself.

  ‘Guess who that car belongs to,’ Holland said. ‘Who was meeting up with Terry Mercer.’

  But Thorne did not need telling. He had recognised the car as soon as Holland had described it.

  It was one he had seen several times before.

  Now, Thorne knew exactly where Neil Hackett had been getting his information.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Thorne put his shoulder against the door the moment it was opened and the man behind it staggered back, shouting and swearing, into his hallway. Thorne stepped in and slammed the door behind him. He watched Ian Tully clamp his hand to the side of his head where the edge of the door had made contact, then remove it and stare down at the blood on his fingers.

  ‘Fucker,’ Thorne said.

  Tully’s dog appeared behind him and began to bark.

  The ex-DCI’s hands became fists and his shoulders went back as if he were about to take Thorne on. Then he saw the look on Thorne’s face and turned towards the kitchen instead. Thorne stayed close behind him as he lurched away into the kitchen, shouting at the dog to be quiet, then snatching up a tea towel from the worktop before dropping down into a chair.

  Thorne stepped to within a few feet of him and Tully moved as far back in the seat as was possible. He kept his head down, the tea towel pressed to the wound on the side of it. Even the dog, who had happily come to Thorne the last time he was in this room, now stayed close to the man in the chair, muzzle against his leg.

  Thorne took a breath and jammed his fists into the pockets of his jacket.

  ‘So, here’s what I think you did,’ he said. ‘From the first time I told you what I was doing, you saw me as your way back in. God knows when, but you went to the MIT at Lewisham, because you knew that was the place I’d taken this in the first place. You told them you were on to a nice big murder case, but you didn’t tell them everything, because you wanted something to bargain with. Something you could use to wheedle your way back into the Job. You told them just enough, told them that I was putting it together, that I’d connected the murders, but you didn’t tell them about Mercer.’ He paused, moved a little closer. ‘Are you listening?’

  Tully raised his head.

  ‘Problem was, you weren’t quite as indispensable as you thought, because you’d given Hackett plenty. He knew he could get the rest himself just by sticking close enough so that I’d lead him to the killer. He didn’t need you, did he? Didn’t need to offer you anything. Told you to piss off, I’m guessing, same way he told me.’

  Tully muttered something.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Arrogant arsehole.’

  ‘Oh for sure, but he’d got your number, hadn’t he?’

  ‘Same as he had yours.’

  ‘This isn’t about me.’

  ‘I just wanted to be useful again,’ Tully said. ‘Don’t tell me that doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘Don’t try and make me feel sorry for you.’ Thorne spat the words out and moved closer still. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  Tully sat up a little straighter. He took the tea towel away from his head and tossed it aside. ‘You’re younger than me and probably a bit fitter, so if it’s going to make you feel better to give me a pasting then you might as well get on with it.’ He held out his arms in invitation. ‘See, I couldn’t care less how upset you are because I was only doing what I had to. Trust me, the last thing I want is sympathy from the likes of you, but look at this place! I’m skint and I’m bored stupid and yeah, I’m pissed off at being ignored and stepped over and looked down on by kiddie coppers with poncy degrees. I saw a way out, so I took it. I tried to take it.’ Tully dropped a hand down to his dog’s head. He was starting to sound a little more relaxed. ‘I went to the proper authorities and told them that a rogue officer was making illicit enquiries. I offered to help. I don’t think I’m the one that’s done anything wrong. I’m certainly not the one who’s done anything he might get arrested for.’

  The dog lay down with a contented sigh. The boiler in the corner of the room was grumbling quietly.

  ‘You think that’s why I’m here?’ Thorne asked. ‘You think that’s the reason I’m this close to redecorating this shithole with your face?’

  Tully looked at him.

  ‘Hackett wasn’t the only one you talked to, was he?’

  Thorne stepped away and began to walk slowly around the room, into the kitchen area and then back. It was the sort of thing he’d done in interview rooms, that Tully had almost certainly done in his time. It was something coppers did, a tactic designed to intimidate, but Thorne’s reasons were purely practical. Standing as close to Tully as he had been, the desire to punch him into the middle of next week had become overwhelming. Thorne certainly had every intention of doing so, but not before he’d said what he’d come to say.

  Not before Tully understood why.

  ‘Once Hackett had knocked you back, you found yourself another way to make some money. A lot more money, I’m guessing. Playing both sides against the middle, that’s probably the nicest way I can think of putting it.’

  ‘Hang on a minute—’

  ‘The only thing I’m not quite sure of is what Terry Mercer was thinking,’ Thorne said. ‘Maybe he just thought
you were more useful to him alive, though I’ve got to tell you it’s looking like he might well have changed his mind about that.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Or maybe it was because you were the one person he couldn’t threaten. Not the same way he threatened all the others anyway, because the fact is there isn’t a single soul that gives a toss about you, is there? Nobody you care about, either. I mean, yeah, you’ve got your poor old mum tucked up in some care home, but getting rid of her would have been doing you a favour, far as I can tell. So Terry Mercer came to you knowing you could help him or you offered to help in exchange for your life. Either way, he paid you for information.’

  ‘With what?’ Tully raised his arms again and stared wildly around the room. ‘Where’s the money?’

  ‘You found out where his brother was, didn’t you? You gave him the address.’

  ‘What brother?’

  ‘The one who helped you put him away in the first place. The one you put into Witness Protection. What was it you said to me, first time we met? “I’ve still got plenty of contacts. Plenty of favours I can call in.” You called one in and gave the information to Mercer.’

  Tully could do no more than shake his head.

  ‘OK, forget putting it nicely,’ Thorne said. ‘Accessory to murder, that’s what we’re talking about.’

  ‘I can’t see you having an easy time proving it.’ Tully was trying desperately to muster some last-gasp confidence. ‘Hackett told me you weren’t a great believer in evidence.’

  Thorne walked slowly past him into the kitchen, stopped and stared out of the back door. ‘Well, he’s right. Aside from the report of the copper who took your registration number down when you met up with Mercer in that car park, I’ve got sod all.’ He began to walk back. ‘But who says I want to prove anything? Be a damn sight easier to let nature take its course. Lay off Mercer for a while and give him time to catch up with you. You know Jeffers is dead, right?’

  ‘Jesus…’

  ‘So I don’t think you’ll have very long to spend that money.’

  As he passed Tully again, Thorne could see that he was about to cry. Or was doing his very best to make himself cry.

  ‘It just got out of hand,’ Tully said. ‘I swear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought he was just blowing off steam, you know?’

  ‘You knew him,’ Thorne said. ‘You knew what he was capable of.’

  ‘Yeah, but… I didn’t know there’d be that many.’

  Thorne stopped, took a second, then turned fast and kicked Tully’s legs from beneath him as hard as he could, the tip of his DM flattening the meat of one calf and smashing into the back of the shinbone. Tully screamed as the dog jumped to its feet and began barking again.

  Thorne heard his mobile chime in his pocket.

  He stepped away and watched Tully slip, moaning, to the floor, pulling his legs up to his chest and pushing away the dog that continued to bark while it was scrambling to lick his face. Thorne pointed at the animal and yelled above the noise. ‘That is the only fucking friend you’ve got…’

  He reached for his phone.

  Thorne opened the message and felt his own legs begin to weaken when he looked at the single image it contained.

  A photograph of Helen and Alfie.

  There were other children in the background, standing on the path with parents or waiting in the doorway of the childminder’s house. Helen was waving to someone, her other hand holding tight to Alfie’s as they walked away, heading home.

  The photo had been taken from the other side of the road.

  Thorne leaned forward, readying himself for one more kick at Tully’s face.

  Tully groaned and wrapped his arms around his head.

  Thorne turned and ran for the door.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  The seat he is lying on is sticky, smells of vomit, wet beneath his face.

  Face down, back of a car.

  A series of bumps and a swerve to the right, then a seemingly endless corner and his head is pressed into the door, the handle sharp against his skull. He struggles to inch away and is sick again.

  He turns his face into the rank, sweating cushion, fighting to breathe.

  Can’t move his hands…

  He hears voices, distorted… two men. Two men in the front of the car, arguing. A voice he knows. One man says he doesn’t want to do this, says it’s stupid, keeps saying it until the other man tells him to shut up. The backs of their heads are washed orange every few seconds, light sliding across the cabin as the car passes beneath streetlamps, then light and weight shift as someone turns to look at him.

  ‘He’s coming round.’

  He feels the moan vibrate in his throat, something tight inside his skull and burning where his arms are pulled back and held.

  Tongue too thick to spit.

  ‘Hit him again.’

  A shape looms, rises up from the front seat. An arm comes down and the pain explodes in a cascade which blazes for just a moment behind his eyes before it fades.

  A grunt and a warm trickle running into his eye, and a phone starts to ring somewhere as he sinks back into the blackness, the sound warping as he falls fast away from it…

  Helen’s face, and Alfie’s. A picture he thinks he should recognise, but he can’t quite place it and he doesn’t know why Helen is waving.

  Hiss and babble, like voices from his radio.

  do your bloody job

  playing detective

  listen to yourself

  I know what you’re doing by the way

  the whole lot’s going to unravel…

  Drifting now through a dream or a memory; a bleached-out film of his mother and father at the beach. Jim Thorne’s looking at the paper while Maureen holds the towel in front so the boy can wriggle out of his trunks and back into his underpants and trousers. Sand sticking to his arms and legs and belly. Then his mother moves the towel just for a second, a quick flash of the boy’s pale backside which makes his father laugh and the boy shouts at him to be quiet and tells his mother not to be so bloody stupid.

  Screaming at them both and there’s sand in his mouth.

  Her favourite summer dress, white with small blue flowers.

  The one she’s had since she was in her twenties, that she wears while she dances to Hank and Merle and Willie. That still fits her perfectly, but not for long. Nothing left of her by the end, so the funeral directors have to gather the material up, fasten it behind her back like she’s a shop dummy.

  His father’s huge, smooth hands around the pages of the Daily Mirror.

  Moving like a conductor’s, long fingers delicate through the air as he curses in the bar or at the bingo. Clawed with rage while he stamps around his kitchen, because no, he didn’t leave the stove on, Tom, because he isn’t a child and he knows how to work a fucking stove.

  Faces floating in and out of shadow. His own name on lips that are twisted in fury, tight with despair, slack in confusion.

  Hendricks, Holland, Helen, Alfie, Helen…

  … and the face of a child he doesn’t recognise, as he tumbles mercifully further down into sludge and silence.

  Moments or minutes or hours later, there are flickers of light again and suddenly there’s rain on Thorne’s face as he’s pulled from the car. Hands slide beneath his arms and haul him roughly to his feet. The two men drag him along in the dark, through long, wet grass and across concrete walkways.

  His arms are still tied behind his back.

  ‘Stupid,’ says the man whose voice is familiar.

  ‘Five minutes, then you’re done,’ says the other one.

  Thorne tries to struggle but there is nothing, not an ounce of strength in him.

  There is traffic moving close by, lights somewhere above him, and suddenly it gets a lot brighter as he’s bundled through an entrance of some kind. A dirty white space with metal doors. They stop, waiting for something, holding him up as his feet paddle against
the floor before urging him forward again into a space that’s even smaller.

  Piss smells and spray paint.

  The man in charge says, ‘Press it.’

  Thorne’s guts lurch and heave suddenly and they let him drop to his knees, stepping back while he spits and coughs up what little is left in his stomach. He stays there for perhaps half a minute then is hauled back to his feet and out when the metal doors slide open.

  ‘Over there.’

  One man steps forward to open a door in the corner, then comes back and helps the other one to bundle Thorne along a corridor that smells of damp and disinfectant. They crash through a second door, then moments later they’re moving up and Thorne’s shins smash against metal treads as he’s dragged up a short flight of stairs.

  Now they’re in the open air, it’s blowing a gale and, save for the noise of the wind and the rain, it’s suddenly very quiet.

  ‘There.’

  Thorne has a little more strength in his legs suddenly, but not quite enough to raise his head as he’s marched across a slippery cement floor and dropped on to his knees in front of a low wall. He takes a deep breath, then another. His eyes slowly begin to focus on the rough patterns of the brick, the shallow puddles of rainwater gathered around him.

  ‘Now you can piss off,’ says the man who was driving the car.

  Thorne hears footsteps hurrying away, the clatter of them descending the metal staircase. Slowly, he shifts his shoulders, which have begun to cramp and spasm. He breathes through the pain in his arms and skull.

  He starts to raise his head, then stops when something is jammed hard into the back of it.

  A voice close to him says, ‘Know where you are?’

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Hendricks sounded as though he had been asleep, but when Helen apologised for calling so late, he said that it was fine. He told her he would probably be up for hours yet, making notes for a lecture he was giving to students first thing the following morning.

  ‘Cellular adaptation to injury, regeneration and healing, and it’s not as interesting as it sounds. Trust me, it’s taking a lot of coffee to keep me awake.’