Scaredy Cat

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Well, we have been reading our pamphlets haven’t we?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘What do you think? Do you think I take drugs at work? Do you not think I can do my job?’

  ‘Not if you’re using at work, no.’

  McEvoy cocked her head, as if she was thinking about his answer. For a few moments they stood there, saying nothing, the small bathroom starting to fill with steam. She ran a hand through her wet hair and sniffed. ‘So, now what happens, Constable?’

  Holland had no answer. Her dressing gown was starting to gape and his eyes dropped, just for a second, to her breasts. He felt himself harden immediately. She saw it at once and smiled, opening the dressing gown completely.

  ‘Well, I’m still up for it if you are. I mean cocaine doesn’t make you quite as horny as ecstasy but still . . .’

  Before he could stop himself, Holland was moving across the bathroom, ripping the dressing gown from her shoulders and pushing her down on to the floor.

  It was far better than when they had done it an hour earlier, better than it had ever been. Their voices, as they moaned and shouted and swore, echoed off the tiles. The hiss and spatter of the shower was not loud enough to drown out the noise.

  In Martin Palmer’s bathroom, Thorne stared at himself. Weighing up his options if, when, he walked away.

  Thorne the pub landlord. Quite a few went down that road anyway, why not sooner rather than later? A couple of extra pounds and a beard maybe. Early mornings, changing the barrels, a free bottle or two for the local uniforms. Piece of piss . . .

  Thorne the shopkeeper. Why the hell not? The greying hair slicked back and someone else to do the accounts. No need to kowtow either. Curmudgeonly, characterful, with a faithful clientele . . .

  Thorne, forty-one and fucked. The copper who was fooling nobody.

  He leaned forward slowly until his forehead was flat against the cool mirror. Opening his brown eyes wide, he stared at the long, thin snakes of blood crawling across the whites, the creamy crumbs of sleep still trapped in the lashes and the lines underneath, up close, like the skin of an old man.

  Like his father’s skin.

  Thorne opened his mouth. A long, low moan escaped and was swallowed by the splash of the cold water that poured into the sink. The breath he pushed out to follow it rose and fogged up the mirror. He pushed himself away from the glass, raised a hand to wipe away the condensation and looked at the face of a man who was dead-on-his-feet tired. Tired of waking up and needing a minute or two. Of bodies in baths and in student bedsits, of chit-chatting to killers and of needing to remind himself who and what they were.

  Tired of being on his own. Tired of being so fucking angry. Tired of waiting.

  The noise of the running water faded away until it was no more than a faraway hum, and for a moment his mind was wonderfully clear and empty. It was just a moment . . .

  Then, in a rush: the gulp and rumble of the plumbing, the shock of the ice-cold water on his hands and face, Charlie Garner still there, hammering when he closed his eyes, and somewhere, the sound of a phone ringing . . .

  When Thorne ran back into the living room, Palmer was holding out the chirruping mobile like an extremely bright dog with a stick of dynamite in its mouth. As Thorne reached for it, the ringing stopped.

  ‘Shit . . .’

  He snatched the phone, punched at it, called up the last number received. It wasn’t one he recognised.

  The voice that answered was terse, professional. A man’s voice. A police officer’s voice.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Tom Thorne. You just . . .’

  ‘Oh, right. This is DS Jay from Harrow Station here. I’m in attendance at a murder scene, and I know some of your lads are on their way, but I thought I might as well try you, because my victim has got your card in his jacket pocket.’

  Thorne’s mind began to race. ‘Have you got an ID on the body?’ He looked across at Palmer whose fingers were entwined across the back of that thick neck, his head shaking, his eyes glassy.

  ‘Yes, nice easy one,’ Jay said. ‘Everything here in the wallet, which is handy. The poor bastard’s head has been battered into the middle of next week. Looks like he was a teacher at a local grammar school.’

  The realisation was instant then, and dreadful. Something that did not belong, dropping, slapping, crunching into place. Like a coffin toppling from the shoulders of pallbearers and smashing onto a concrete path. For no particular reason, Thorne saw the smiling face of the English teacher who had showed him and Holland around the school.

  ‘Cookson . . . Andrew I think . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Medium height, dark hair, mid-thirties.’

  ‘Sorry. This bloke’s a damn sight older than that . . .’

  The telephone line crackled, but Thorne heard only the terrible noise of the coffin hitting the ground, the deafening sound of the wood splintering as it hit. Before DS Jay had a chance to speak the name of the dead man out loud, Thorne knew that Ken Bowles had been right to be afraid of the future.

  Now, so was he.

  SEVENTEEN

  This time, Thorne wasn’t even allowed at the meeting . . .

  There are dozens of pubs in London with what can only be described as a less than salubrious past. Places where strong drink and acts of violence have come together, often infamously, to create moments of history.

  The Ten Bells in Spitalfields, which used to be called The Jack the Ripper. Where the man himself is thought to have drunk, where several of his victims plied their trade, where, over a hundred years after five local prostitutes were butchered in three months, you could buy Jack the Ripper books, mugs and baseball caps and, most bizarre of all, you could watch strippers a couple of lunchtimes a week.

  The Blind Beggar in Bethnal Green, where, if people are to be believed, at least a hundred thousand East Londoners saw Ronnie Kray shoot George Cornell, allegedly for calling him a ‘big fat poof’.

  And the Magdala Tavern in Hampstead, where Ruth Ellis put five bullets into the pointless prick of a man who told her he loved her, three months before she became the last woman in Great Britain to go to the gallows. The Magdala Tavern, where Tom Thorne was sitting, early on a Monday evening, nursing a pint, waiting to hear what his sentence would be.

  It was a pub he was fond of anyway; somewhere to pop into after spending an hour tramping across the Heath and marvelling at the stupidity of grown men wanting to spend their free time flying kites. The beer was good, the landlord was amiable enough and the food was passable. It was the dark history of the place though, its associations, that drew Thorne, that engaged him. He could never resist putting a finger into those bullet holes that still cratered the tiling on the wall outside. It made him feel connected somehow. He would inevitably turn then, and imagine her.

  Always in black and white.

  The bleached hair, the pale, powdered skin tight against those perfect cheekbones, her long nails scraping against the heavy Smith & Wesson revolver. Twenty-eight years old and nowhere left to go. Fingers in the bullet-holes – as spiritual moments go, it was hardly thrusting a hand into Christ’s wounds, but fuck it, when you’ve had a few of a lunchtime . . .

  Easter Sunday, 10 April, 1955. A moment of madness, of judgement, on a Hampstead pavement: the first step on a journey to the long drop in the execution chamber at Holloway Prison. Forty-seven years later, nearly half a century after they hanged Ruth Ellis, and life for those who kill for pleasure didn’t always mean life.

  Now, Thorne sat and waited for DCI Russell Brigstocke, wondering just how tight they were going to tie the noose around his neck. Staring into his glass and looking at a few highlights of the past few days.

  The pre-sentence proceedings.

  The early hours of Thursday mornin
g: gazing down at bits of a teacher’s brain on the carpet, Jesmond making his grand entrance, his face set in a reasonable facsimile of horror and grim determination. The smile that the Detective Superintendent had saved just for him. ‘I think it might be best if you took things easy for a couple of days . . .’

  ‘Best for who?’

  Thursday evening: Hendricks ringing with the results of the post-mortem. As usual, nothing of any real use, but a reference finally explained. ‘The tiny wooden splinters embedded in what was left of Bowles’s skull. They were willow.’

  ‘A cricket bat . . .’

  ‘Right. Night Watchman. Ha, fucking ha . . .’

  Friday afternoon: His father. ‘Oh . . . I didn’t think you’d be there. I was going to leave a message on your machine . . . I need a bit of info. By body count, who were the three greatest killers in British history?’

  ‘Greatest? Jesus, dad . . .’

  ‘It’ll be a trick question see, to wind up some of the lads down the Legion. I ask them for the greatest killers. They say Christie or whoever, and I tell them the greatest killers were actually bubonic plague or smallpox or what have you. See?’

  ‘Right . . .’

  ‘But I need the names. I reckon Shipman’s got to be first hasn’t he . . . ?’

  Saturday morning: Holland with an update. ‘Nobody knows what the hell’s going on to be honest. There’s one or two new faces around, but everything’s all over the place. There’s a meeting on Monday, the DCI, Jesmond, you know . . .’

  ‘Right, thanks. McEvoy OK?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  Thorne looked up to see Brigstocke walking quickly towards him. He downed the rest of his pint. What had Holland been so tetchy about anyway?

  Brigstocke slid in next to him, leaned in close. The quiff had looked better. His breath smelled of the cheap cigars he was so fond of.

  ‘You owe me a drink. You owe me lots of drinks.’

  Fighting the urge to punch the air like a goalscorer, Thorne nodded, made his way to the bar and bought them both a couple of pints each. Halfway through the second, Brigstocke gave Thorne the headlines.

  ‘You’re still on the case. Just.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling that’s the only bit of good news?’

  ‘Depends how you look at it. People are very pissed off.’

  ‘I assume you’re including Ken Bowles’s family?’

  Brigstocke struck a match, held it to the end of one of his cheap cigars. ‘I’ll ignore that, but strictly as a mate, shut your silly mouth, Tom.’

  ‘Sorry, Russ.’ Thorne was. He knew that Brigstocke had stuck his neck out for him. He would try to remember it. ‘So, what’s next?’

  ‘Damage limitation.’ Thorne opened his mouth, remembered, shut it again. ‘The case proceeds as normal,’ Brigstocke said slowly. ‘Emphasis on normal. No more fucking about. We work crime scenes, we make enquiries, we gather evidence. It proceeds, as in procedure.’

  ‘What about Palmer?’

  ‘Martin Palmer was taken into custody and charged with the murder of Ruth Murray this morning. Highbury Corner Magistrate’s Court this afternoon. Belmarsh or Brixton by teatime. By the numbers, Tom.’

  Thorne had no argument. There simply wasn’t one. Nicklin had killed Bowles as a warning. He must have. He knew that Thorne and Holland had gone to the school and that they could only have been led there by Palmer. There was no point in any further pretence.

  Having said that . . .

  ‘Why did he send the email to Palmer, when he knew we had him?’ Thorne asked this question of Brigstocke, as they had all asked it of each other, as he had asked it of himself a hundred times in the last few days. The reply he got was pretty much the best that anybody could come up with.

  ‘He’s playing some kind of game. Dicking us about.’

  ‘Dicking me about. It was me that went to the school. Me he must have been watching . . .’

  Brigstocke leaned forward to flick ash into a vast plastic ashtray. He shook his head. ‘He’s a clever sod, that’s all. He wants us to be doing this, to be asking these questions.’

  Thorne shrugged, picked up his pint, looked at it. He couldn’t help feeling that in killing Ken Bowles, somebody he had spoken to, Nicklin had been sending him some sort of message. He wasn’t sure whether thinking this was ego or instinct. He’d confused the two before.

  He emptied his glass, put it down. He didn’t know whether he wanted to stay at that table and swallow down beer until he couldn’t feel anything any more, or rush home and shut the door tight. ‘Are they giving Palmer to the press?’

  ‘That’s still being decided. Jesmond and a few higher up are in with the press office. It would be a good move in some ways, you know – killer in custody, get a few old dears worked up, ready for a bit of banging on vans outside the Bailey come the trial. Do us all a bit of good, so soon after . . .’ He left an appropriate pause which Thorne filled in in his head.

  . . . I got Ken Bowles killed.

  ‘It’s hard, without admitting we fucked up.’

  Thorne scoffed. ‘Thanks for the we.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself for Bowles, Tom.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Brigstocke blinked, reached for his drink. He hadn’t got an answer. Thorne asked the only appropriate question. ‘Another pint?’

  Brigstocke finished off the one he was drinking, shook his head as he swallowed. Thorne reached behind for his jacket. It looked like he was going home.

  ‘You’re off the hook for the same reason they let you get on it, you know,’ Brigstocke said. Thorne raised his eyebrows, asking the question. ‘Fear. They were afraid of being wrong, afraid of fucking up. Now they’re afraid of being seen to fuck up, which is a thousand times worse.’

  Thorne stood and pulled on his jacket. Brigstocke stayed seated, his cigar down to nothing. ‘They’ve got sod all to be afraid of. I’ll be taking responsibility.’

  Brigstocke ground out his nub-end. ‘Oh, don’t worry, you have.’

  They both laughed, a little louder and longer than was necessary. ‘What happened to being off the hook?’

  ‘You are,’ Brigstocke said. ‘But it’s only a matter of time until you’re on it again . . .’

  ‘A stay of execution.’

  Brigstocke looked at him, smiling, not understanding the reference. Thorne was already wondering how many more he would need to drink. How much before he would be able to wrap himself inside his duvet and crawl deep down into the darkness without seeing Ken Bowles, eyes open and swimming in blood, hands clawing at the carpet, bits of his own cerebellum beneath his fingernails.

  Without seeing Martin Palmer, huge and hunched against the white wall of a cell.

  When the adverts came on – cheaply made soundbites for pension or blame-and-claim companies – he got up and went to make himself tea. The show wasn’t very interesting tonight anyway, which was a shame. He’d been looking forward to the calls even more than usual.

  He’d had a pig of a day at work. It was a busy time: lots to do and he, as usual, the one to do most of it. It was his own fault if he was honest. He was something of a control freak. While he complained of the workload, he didn’t trust anybody else to do it as efficiently as he would, so he got on with it himself.

  He’d actually been glad of the extra work. He’d needed something to focus his mind a little for the past few days. He’d been struggling to adjust, to adapt to the new way of things.

  Palmer was gone: it was just him again.

  However much he’d wanted to be in control, to be the one to change things, he couldn’t be too angry about what had happened. Palmer was always going to be taken out of circulation after this last murder, and that, after all, had been his choice. He had decided to kill Bowles. Jus
t when he’d been getting into Thorne’s little game, enjoying it even, it had become necessary to change direction and now he had to live with the repercussions.

  Back on his own. He liked it like that, yes, but still, he’d have to find some other way now to up the ante. He couldn’t bear to be bored, to be still. Stillness meant sinking, and he’d do anything to avoid that. He needed to find the next thing quickly, the something, the new thing, the bright spot on the horizon. He’d found it with Palmer, but now, with him out of the picture, he’d need to find some different way to jack up the rush a little. While he waited for inspiration, he got his head down at work.

  Work work work, home, chat, dinner with Caz, and then an hour or two next to the radio with a bottle of wine, enjoying the wit and wisdom of the country’s more opinionated insomniacs. Later, he might wake Caz up and fuck her. Stick it in and move it around, while he closed his eyes and thought about Bowles’s brain like undercooked porridge, or the nice neat hole in the student’s head, or perhaps the way the woman with the little boy had stiffened when he put his hand over her mouth.

  While the kettle boiled, he thought about Thorne.

  He wondered how the Detective Inspector relaxed after a tough day. After a tough few days. It couldn’t get harder than a fresh body could it? The body of someone he’d connected with. How quickly did a man like Thorne get over that, especially when it was . . . unnecessary? Who did he talk to about those things? Family? Friends? He was suddenly hugely amused by the idea of turning on his radio and hearing Thorne himself phoning in.

  ‘We’re going to Tom in London, who has a problem. How can we help you, Tom?’

  Then that voice, recognisably London. A little rough around the edges, just like the man himself. Deep and impressive, certainly. Soothing or stentorian, depending on his mood, or the impression he was trying to create. Tonight though, the voice a little higher, nervous, a catch in it . . .