Lifeless tt-5

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne waited for a couple of seconds. “Well done,” he said. “You’ve just stomped the shit out of a Jim Carrey movie.”

  “I don’t believe you…”

  “Not that we couldn’t have tied you to these latest killings without the tape anyway, but did you really think we’d only have one copy?”

  Ward turned angrily to Spike.

  “Since when do junkies tell the truth?” Spike asked.

  Ward’s unsettling calmness had all but vanished now. Thorne was aware only of the adrenaline, of a readiness, in the man opposite him. And something else at the furthest edge of the rush: Ward’s barely concealed fury at the hopelessness of his situation.

  There was nothing practical to be gained by it, but still there were many reasons why Thorne felt the need to push and to bait. To glory, and to let Ward see him glory at his impotence.

  “So, lucky or unlucky, then?” Thorne said. “The day you came across that tank crew. What d’you reckon, Alan?”

  Ward seemed to find the question funny. Asked one in return: “For me or those Iraqis?”

  Thorne answered with a look.

  “Lucky for me, definitely,” Ward said. “Very lucky. And you can make your own luck up to a point, but it’s what you do with it that makes the difference.”

  “What were you doing there?” Thorne asked.

  “I was driving around, monitoring radio transmissions, and I heard Callsign 40 radio through that they’d thrown a track.” Ward leaned back against the wall and looked hard at Thorne. This wasn’t reminiscence. It was education. “I heard REME telling them that the engineers couldn’t get out there for a couple of hours, and I was nearby, so I thought I’d head across and see what was happening. By the time I’d got there, the men in the Iraqi tank had just driven up and surrendered. Popped their lids waving fucking white flags…”

  “Very stupid of them.”

  “See, I had my nice bit of luck right there, and ordinarily that’s all it would have been. If all I’d wanted was to point my little camera and watch a few of our boys capturing a few of theirs, that would have been handy. But it was much more than that. Because I wanted much more than some boring bit of footage that might or might not have given me a bit of clout next time I was negotiating a pay rise.”

  “So you… encouraged them.”

  Ward was still, and focused, his eyes unblinking in the artificial light. When he spoke, it was clear to Thorne that what he said was deeply felt. The frigidity and scorn for life that Thorne knew to be at the core of this man were belied by the twisted passion of the words.

  “Have you ever thought you were about to die?” Ward asked. “Or even that you were about to be the one to take a life? Have you ever really experienced that sort of excitement?”

  Thorne had little intention of answering, and Ward had even less of giving him the opportunity.

  “I suppose, because of what you do, that you’ve felt it more keenly than most, and let me say straightaway that I admire what you do. Really. Perhaps you have been in the sort of situation I describe, but can you even begin to imagine feeling those things for days, for weeks, on end? Constantly. Can you imagine it becoming something that you live with?” He flicked his eyes to Spike, spat the words out at him. “That… heightened feeling in the body becomes something that’s more powerful than any drug. And when you come down from it, you fall a very long way and you fall very hard.”

  “What the fuck do you know about it?” Spike said.

  Ward just smiled and turned his attention back to Thorne. “Those boys were trained for it… And they were boys, emotionally at any rate. They were taught to expect it, whipped up into a state every day until eventually, not seeing combat became far worse than seeing it. They needed the high, can you understand that? They were sent over there to do a job and then some of them didn’t get a chance to do it. There were lads out there turning on each other. Shooting fucking camels. Anything to get close to that buzz.”

  “You wanted it, too, though, didn’t you?”

  Ward’s eyes widened. “I was… frustrated, yes,” he said. “And me and that situation were just fucking perfect for each other. They thought it was about to happen, Hadingham and Eales and the others. They’d been told that the enemy was close, that there was every chance of engaging at any fucking moment. Then the machine lets them down and they can do nothing but watch their mates disappear into the distance. Feel that buzz disappear with them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hardly had to do anything,” Ward said. “I was the catalyst, if you like; that’s all. They just needed someone to give them a nudge in the right direction, to tell them that what they were thinking about doing, what they wanted to do, was absolutely understandable. That it was all right.” His voice had become quieter, more intense, and when he paused there was a rattle in his breath. He nodded toward the plastic bag at Thorne’s feet, to the remains of the video inside. “I don’t know what you think you’ve seen on the tape, but I promise you that even the ones that weren’t so keen to begin with, the ones that needed a bit of persuading, they got the biggest thrill of their lives that day. Ryan Eales, for one, spent the rest of his life trying to recapture it.”

  “By killing for you?”

  “For me, among others. He was a professional.”

  “Usually…”

  Ward nodded his agreement. “Yes, you’re quite right, of course. Usually.”

  Thorne could sense Spike bristling next to him.

  “He did rather fuck things up,” Ward said. “When it came to getting you out of the picture…”

  Now this was practical. This was not about poking at the corpse of the case for personal gratification. This was something Thorne very much wanted to know.

  “How did you get my name?” he asked.

  Ward stared back at him.

  “Like that then, is it?” Thorne said. “No names, no pack drill. Right?”

  Thorne watched, enjoying it, as realization passed like a shadow across the face of the man opposite him.

  No names, no pack drill.

  The five words that Thorne had read on the transcript of the videotape. The same phrase that Ward had used when they’d spoken on the phone.

  That had told Thorne all he needed to know. “How did you get my name?” Thorne asked again. Ward said nothing, but in the smirk that transformed his features, Thorne suddenly saw exactly where the man standing opposite him had got his name. The source of the leak became obvious. Thorne filed the information away. He would deal with it when he had the chance.

  Spike’s reaction to Ward’s knowing smile was altogether different, and more dramatic. He pushed himself away from the wall, the growled mutterings turning to something almost feral as he launched himself across the width of the tunnel.

  It all happened before Thorne had the chance to do much more than cry out: “Spike…”

  Spike was off balance and throwing punches before he’d even reached his target, and by the time his hands, and Ward’s, had stopped moving, the two were locked clumsily together, side on to the tunnel wall.

  And there was a knife at Spike’s throat.

  Now Thorne could see real desperation, real danger in Ward’s eyes. His situation was hopeless, so there was little else for Ward to lose. Thorne knew that moments such as these were when lives were most easily, and most pointlessly, lost.

  “You know you have to put that down,” Thorne said. His eyes never left the blade. He watched it pressing against Spike’s neck and wondered if Ward was thinking about what lay ahead; about slaughtering a boy who meant less than nothing and seizing this one last chance to feel that buzz.

  “I can’t see that I have to do anything.”

  “Let me just get some officers in right now and they can take you out of here without any more fuss or any fucking about. Fair enough? Alan?” Thorne took a tentative half step toward them. “You know that’s the clever thing to do, right?”

  But Ward was
not the next one to speak…

  As Spike began to talk Thorne became aware of the one element in the bizarre tableau facing him that he had not taken in. The most crucial detail. Down at his side, poised delicately in his right hand, Spike was holding a blood-filled syringe.

  I’ve always got a weapon! Thorne had presumed Spike had been talking about a knife…

  Spike eased the flap of the long, leather coat aside and brushed the tip of the needle against Ward’s thigh. Scraped it across the material of the trousers. “This’ll go deep into your muscle every bit as quick as you can move that knife, like.” Spike’s mouth was pressed close to Ward’s cheek as he spoke. “I don’t give a fuck, really. It’s completely up to you, mate. Do you want dirty, junkie blood running around in there? Mucking you up inside? How much of a fucking buzz would that be?”

  With Ward’s focus now down to where he could feel the needle, Thorne inched closer. “Get rid of the knife and we can sort this out.”

  “Do you want AIDS?” Spike whispered.

  “For Christ’s sake, take it easy,” Thorne said. “Both of you.”

  “How d’you fancy that?”

  “Shut up, Spike…”

  Without moving the knife, Ward leaned his head as far away as he was able from Spike’s. “Please. Keep still…”

  “I think that should be exciting enough for you,” Spike said. “And it’ll certainly be something you’ll live with every day. Though not for very long, like.”

  “Don’t…”

  “What? Don’t ’cause you’ll kill me if I do? Or don’t ’cause you’re shitting yourself?”

  “Drop the knife and let me bring officers in here,” Thorne shouted.

  “Bring ’em in now. You can bring ’em in right now and he’ll do fuck-all.” Spike was gabbling, loud and high-pitched; his eyes fixed on Ward, rattling out the words on fractured breaths. “He’ll do jackshit, I swear, whatever happens, because he’s fucking terrified. Because he’s a coward. He’s a fucking coward who lets someone else clear up his mess, who pays somebody to kick men to death when they’re asleep. He’ll do nothing because he’s all talk. Because he wants the high, but he hasn’t got the bottle to do what it takes to get it. I’ve met his sort loads of times, like. They love to be around it, they fucking love the idea of it, but when it comes to shooting up, they’re afraid of the needle. They’re shit scared of it. Like he’s afraid of this one. So bring the others in. He’ll do nothing.” Spike leaned in to Ward, yelled up into his face. “Bring them in!”

  Within a few moments of the echo dying, Thorne had made his decision. He knew that they’d be hanging on every word. That, were it not for the layout of the tunnels, which made it impossible to get close without being seen, they would have been all over Ward already. He knew that there’d be armed officers standing by. That nobody would need asking twice…

  He looked up at the speaker and gave the order, not needing to raise his voice very much. “Get down here…”

  Immediately there were distant voices raised, then footsteps, and Thorne turned to see Holland, Stone, and half a dozen other officers tearing along the tunnel toward them. They shouted as they ran. Making sure Ward knew they were there, telling him to drop the knife and to lie down on the floor.

  Ward did exactly as he was told, as Spike had predicted he would. He dropped the knife and threw himself to the floor the instant that Spike stepped away from him. But almost as soon as his face hit the concrete, Spike was on him again, flipping him over, kneeling across his chest, and holding the tip of the needle an inch from his eye.

  Thorne shouted Spike’s name.

  Holland bellowed a warning.

  The rest of the team were no more than thirty feet away, and approaching fast…

  It was a toss-up as to whether Thorne or one of the others would get there first, but before any of them had a chance, Spike had fired a fine jet of blood into Ward’s eyes, and, with the smallest movement of his wrist, directed it down, across Ward’s lips, and into the mouth that had opened to scream.

  “That’s for Terry,” he said. “For Bob and all the rest…”

  The second Spike had tossed the syringe and begun to move, Ward was seized and turned back onto his belly. An officer ran around and made a grab for Spike, but Thorne stepped quickly across and ushered the boy away. Led him down the tunnel and pressed him hard into the wall. “Jesus… What d’you think you’re doing?”

  Spike said nothing. Regaining his breath, looking back down the tunnel to where Ward was being pulled to his feet. His hands cuffed behind him. Unable to wipe away the blood that was running down his face and chin.

  Thorne was looking, too. He nodded toward Ward. “What you threatened him with… Are you-?”

  “ ’Course I’m fucking not,” Spike said. “We get tested every month, me and Caroline. But he doesn’t know that, does he?”

  Thorne watched, listened as Ward begged the officers around him for a tissue, a rag, a scrap of paper. Anything. “Not unless somebody tells him,” he said.

  Spike was calm again.

  That grin.

  “We’ve been scared to death for weeks. Now it’s his turn to see what that’s like. Let the bastard sweat for a while…”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  If the sea down below him wasn’t quite as smooth as glass, it was still blue. It sounded good, like a hush, and the sun was hot and Ryan Eales was happy enough. He lay and soaked it all in. Feeling, for the third or fourth day on the trot, that he was finally starting to get his breath back. It was a fortnight since he’d been forced to cut and run, which was longer than it would normally have taken him to recover and relax, but then it had been a kick-bollockscramble.

  Cut and run…

  He’d had to think so fast when he’d come strolling up and seen the car outside the house, and right until the moment when he’d pictured the bayonet under the bed and had the idea, he hadn’t been sure if admitting who he was and bringing him inside had been the cleverest decision of his life or the most stupid. Even when it was done, when the copper had slid back off the blade, he’d known that the other one was on his way. That he had to move double bloody quick.

  It had taken him only minutes to get packed up and out of there, and he was proud of the way he’d done it: moving through the place at speed, but taking everything in; taking a mental inventory as he’d walked around the bedroom, gathering up only what was essential. Passports and papers; a few clothes and all the cash. As long as he had money, he was always able to pick up the pieces.

  It hadn’t been the first thing he’d done, of course. He’d realized straightaway that he needed to get the car out of sight; how important it would be in buying him a little time. He’d dug around in the copper’s pocket for the keys; dropped the Volvo off in a side street and walked back to the flat. He’d still been in there getting his things together when the second copper had come knocking. He’d frozen then; crept to the front door and stood there until he’d heard the footsteps going back down the stairs.

  “Be careful with that…”

  A family with small children was arranged on the other side of the pool. He heard a ball bouncing toward him and the feet of one of the kids slapping on the tiles as he ran to retrieve it. Eales raised his head, reached for the ball and threw it back. The boy smiled at him. Said, “Thank you,” when prompted by his mother.

  “You’re very welcome,” Eales said.

  Definitely starting to relax…

  He felt a tickle, and looked to see sweat rolling across the indigo letters on his shoulder. He thought, as he did often-as he did long before Ward had contacted him with the offer of a job-of the other three men whose bodies bore the same design. They could not have known, on the drunken evening they’d all stumbled into that tattoo parlor and gone under the needle, anesthetized by strong German lager, how bound to one another they were destined to become.

  They would live and die as a crew.

  All those years before in the desert, t
here’d been a couple who hadn’t wanted things to go as far as they ultimately had. But it never mattered. It was ironic really, he reckoned, and maybe even a bit sad, because the ones who didn’t fire a shot that day ended up paying the same price anyway, thanks to one person being stupid and greedy.

  It just proved, he thought, how some decisions were best taken for you by others…

  Ryan Eales lay back down and tried to sleep.

  A white spot-the retinal memory of the sun, high above him-darted behind his lids like a tracer bullet; like the point of light he’d seen two weeks earlier in the police officer’s eyes, bright before shrinking.

  He rolled his eyeballs, and watched as the pinprick danced across the black.

  The lift carried him up toward the top floor of Colindale police station. The CID and the Burglary Squad were on the first floor, the Criminal Justice Unit and CPS offices on the second, but Thorne was heading for none of these.

  He let the empty cardboard box he was carrying bounce off his knee; pictured Spike slapping out a rhythm against his legs or drumming his fingers on a tabletop in McDonald’s…

  Though it was far from official policy of any sort, Thorne had persuaded Brigstocke to dig up some money for Spike. There was a fund to pay informants, to cover the expenses of those who gave their time to help police operations, so it seemed reasonable to reward Spike for his efforts. He’d certainly earned it in that subway.

  There had, of course, been the business with the blood, and once the scene in the tunnel had been cleared, it had required a major effort to keep Spike from being arrested. Thorne had worked hard to convince the team that Spike had been provoked, while at the same time admitting that the boy had exceeded the boundaries that had been laid down…

  “I can’t think where he gets that from,” Brigstocke had said.

  It was hardly a fortune, but the money Thorne had wangled might pay for the deposit and first month’s rent on a flat. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that it would stop Spike’s feeling guilty about his sister’s death, or help get Caroline’s son back, and he was even less starry-eyed after a lesson from someone who knew how it worked far better than he did.