In the Dark

by Mark Billingham

  It wasn’t any big retro thing. There were plenty of grime DJs and rap outfits laying down the illest beats and he liked to get out of it, same as anyone else, and lose himself. But he found something in these old albums that he couldn’t get from the imitation-American stuff so many of his mates were listening to. How big their guns were, how many bitches they’d smacked, all that rubbish.

  It went seriously well with a spliff too. His dad had been right about that much.

  He lay down on the bed, closed his eyes and thought about how stupid everything had got since Mikey had been killed.

  There had been more police around than ever. The High Street was still thick with the vans and conspicuously armed foot patrols. There were staring contests on every street corner and, for a while, Theo had felt relieved that at least they weren’t out there looking for him.

  Not all of them, anyway.

  He’d even spoken to a couple. Not that he’d had any choice about it - they were talking to everyone. He hadn’t said much, just given a name and address and told them that he didn’t know anything. Got that look back like they’d heard the same thing a hundred times already that day.

  One of them, a woman, said, ‘Don’t you lot want this shit sorted out?’

  Theo knew enough, course he did. Suspected, at any rate . . .

  There were always gangs who went up against others for business reasons, who targeted crews like theirs because of the drugs, because there was money knocking around to be taken. More often than not, though, it was all about territory. About ends, and the borders between them.

  Easy had been overstepping those boundaries, and Theo knew it because he’d been fool enough to tag along. Breaking into houses and robbing from whores. They’d been slipping, no question, going into other areas, and it wasn’t like Easy hadn’t known what he was doing. Most of the time the lines were clearly marked - a particular tag sprayed on a wall; a pair of old trainers strung across a telephone line - but even where there wasn’t a sign, people knew. Which pubs to avoid, the streets you did not want to wander onto.

  Easy thought he could go where he liked, though, stupid fucker. Thought he had some kind of special visa or whatever, and now he had started something serious.

  Now it was coming back to bite them all, wicked and hard.

  Theo hadn’t seen too much of him over the last couple of days, but he could see his friend was rattled. He didn’t know if the rest of the crew could tell, but he saw it. Wave had been keeping his head down as well. Probably getting major grief from those in the triangle above him, worried that people would start buying their rocks from a crew that wasn’t being shot up.

  ‘Wolves and leopards are trying to kill the sheep and the shepherds . . .’

  He got up and went back into the kitchen, threw away his empty beer-can and stared into the fridge, thinking about lunch.

  Javine wouldn’t be back for a while. She was happy to stay out and Theo was happy to let her. Things had been tricky the last couple of days, since Mikey. It was always the same when somebody died.

  It wasn’t like she said too much. She just looked at him. Held on to the baby and looked, like ‘Now will you think about it? Think about getting us out of this shit-hole?’

  Theo closed the fridge.

  How was he supposed to do that? It wasn’t like he was exactly minted as it was, plus there was his mum and Angela to think about. There’d never been any sort of promise made about looking after them, no quiet moment with his dad towards the end, but there hadn’t needed to be. It was just assumed.

  The track faded out and was replaced by another: drum and bass intro, with the soft horns coming in underneath. He remembered his father singing along with these songs, his voice high and hoarse; the old man still convinced he could sell it like a lover-man, swaying on the spot.

  Growing up, Theo had felt like a freak having his dad around, but now he was the same as the rest of them. Most of the boys in the crew, at any rate. Absent fathers. That’s what the papers were always banging on about, and the white people in colleges who did reports and all that nonsense. That’s what they reckoned caused the trouble. Why the likes of Easy and Mikey, and Theo himself, went off the rails. They’d been robbed of guidance, that was the jist of it; by men who’d walked away or been taken. By cancer or a bullet.

  Walking into the living room, Theo found himself thinking about the dead copper’s kid, the one who hadn’t even been born yet. He wondered how he would handle things. The kid Theo had robbed.

  He turned the music up louder and stood by the open window. It wasn’t like he could see it happening any time soon, but if there was ever to be a chance, for Javine to get what she wanted for the three of them, he needed money. Plenty of it.

  He needed to get out of the flat. To go down and walk right past those blue uniforms and through the lines of vans with bars on the front and blacked-out windows. To go to work.

  Frank picked up his mobile to check he still had a signal. He didn’t want to miss Clive’s call. The replacement driver, one of Clive’s boys, came into the beer garden, or what would be a beer garden when all the work was finished, and reached for his sunglasses.

  ‘Do you need a drink or anything, Frank?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Sure?’

  Frank held his hand up against the glare. Said, ‘A lemonade or something.’

  The driver went back inside the pub and Frank went back to the Sunday papers, the gentle but welcome breeze nagging at their pages.

  The rear of the pub was something of a sun-trap, and there’d be no umbrellas until someone bought the place, but he had eventually found some shade tight against the fence at one side. There was still some decking to be laid and some potted plants to come, but it was already a pleasant enough place to spend a Sunday morning, and Frank felt it was important to be there. To make sure the work on the pub was progressing as it should, while Clive was busy with more important business elsewhere.

  There was still plenty of stuff in the papers about the gang problems, but it was more general now. Paul wasn’t front-page news any longer. There was a cursory mention in a leader or two, but only in so far as his death was symptomatic of a wider problem; one that had been highlighted by the latest gang shooting, that of Michael Williamson, aged sixteen, in Lewisham two days before.

  It was the conclusion Clive had said they’d come to. Made sense. Made their lives nice and easy.

  He was turning to the sports pages of the Mail when the driver returned with his drink: a tall one, with ice and lemon. ‘No lemon next time,’ Frank said. He felt sorry for the bloke, sweating like a pig in a dark suit and tie, but appearances were important. No such thing in his line of work as a casual day. That didn’t apply to Frank himself, of course, who was happily wearing swimming shorts, sandals and a shirt he’d been saving up for the hot weather. Hawaiian, he called it, but Laura had said it looked like someone had been sick on it. ‘Do people throw up a lot in Hawaii?’ she’d asked.

  Frank read the report on the West Ham game. He didn’t really follow them any more; it was just a reflex. There was a midweek fixture he might try to catch, and some golf for which he made a mental note to set the Sky Plus.

  He took a drink, then looked at the front page of the Sunday Mirror: pictures mostly, and though he tried he couldn’t really take in the story. It was hard to concentrate on much with all the noise from inside; hammering and drilling. He was glad to hear it, mind you. He was paying these buggers time and a half to work Sunday and was there to make sure nobody was sitting on their arse, drinking tea.

  ‘Give them half a chance,’ Clive had said. ‘Fucking sugar they get through as well. I reckon they should build a price for sugar and chocolate biscuits into their quotes.’

  He wondered if he would hear the phone over the racket and moved it a little closer. He didn’t want to risk missing the call so he set it to vibrate as well, in the hope that if he didn’t hear the ring, he might at least see the handse
t jumping about on the table.

  Looking at the story in the paper again, it became clear that some ex-reality-TV slag was sleeping with some other loser’s boyfriend. She posed in a bikini to show everyone what her new lover was getting. Frank knew that it was all about shifting copies, business being business, but it still made him sick.

  The priorities . . .

  He downed the rest of his lemonade and started searching for the crossword. Paul might not be front-page news any more, but it cheered Frank a little to think that he was busy making some on his friend’s behalf.

  TWENTY-ONE

  SnapZ could not remember what he had been dreaming about.

  It had drifted away from him as soon as he had opened his eyes, like the face of someone he loved waving from the back of a fast car. But he knew it had been nice, something that left him feeling warm and had him wriggling beneath the duvet, until the banging came again. The noise that had crashed into his dream and dragged him from it; each knock ringing through the flat like a gunshot.

  He looked at the clock on his bedside table. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet and the night before had been seriously heavy. Most of the crew out on the lash; partying hard for Mikey. His head was still fuzzy and he could taste the drink on his tongue, the bite of the weed at the back of his throat. Could still taste that girl who’d got on her knees in the car park behind the Dirty South.

  ‘Bitch couldn’t wait to go down south,’ he told Easy afterwards. ‘And she was well dirty.’

  Whoever was outside knocked again, louder. SnapZ threw back the duvet, swung his feet to the floor, took a deep breath.

  Fuck’s sake, wasn’t lying in on a Sunday morning - any morning, if he wanted - one of the best things about this business? Flexible hours. That was why he’d moved out, got his own place. Before, his mum would have had him out of bed well before this; dressed up ready for her Sunday; forcing fried eggs and shit on him and telling him not to waste the day.

  More knocking. This was no knuckles, either; this was the side of a fist, hard and heavy like it was going to splinter the door or something. Someone hammering, for real.

  SnapZ started to curse, raising his voice above the noise, then swallowed it. There was always a chance it was Wave. Or Easy, maybe.

  He shouted that he’d be there in a minute, reached for his pants, then for the rest of his stuff, slung across a chair the night before. It wasn’t like Easy was any higher than him, had any more sway in the crew, and he certainly didn’t fear him, nothing like that. But SnapZ had seen him snuggled up in corners with Wave enough times. He knew that Easy was keen, that he might just move up through the ranks faster than most if he kept licking the right arses. And it never hurt to keep your options open. It was always best to piss as few people off as possible, and the wrong word could do it. The wrong look, the wrong toes stepped on, something shouted out when you were still half asleep.

  Could get you a blade in the guts a week later, just when you thought it was all forgotten.

  He climbed into his jeans, pulled on a vest as he walked into the living room. He grabbed the gun from beneath the sofa cushion and stepped to the door. Put his eye to the spy-hole.

  ‘Fuck are you?’

  He didn’t recognise the large black man on the step, but the look was familiar. Hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders hunched, lips tight in desperation. Nothing he didn’t see a dozen times a day.

  ‘I need a couple of rocks.’

  ‘Can’t help you.’

  ‘You SnapZ or what?’

  ‘Who gave you the name?’

  ‘Ollie and Gospel said you could sort me out. Come on, man . . .’

  ‘This ain’t fucking KFC, you get me?’

  ‘Ten each, they said.’

  SnapZ waited. He’d need to have serious words with that white boy about sending punters to his door instead of going to the stash house like he was supposed to. Cut off the pasty-faced little fucker’s dread-locks and shove them up his arse.

  ‘I’ll give you fifteen. I’m in a hurry, man.’

  Like any of them weren’t. Like anyone ever said, ‘No rush, I’ll pop back some time next week and pick them up.’

  ‘Show me.’

  The man dug around in his pocket, produced a crumpled ball of notes and separated out three tens.

  ‘Downstairs,’ SnapZ said.

  ‘Come on, just two, that’s all.’

  ‘Wait for me outside the betting shop.’ Commission on twenty plus ten clear profit for himself was a decent kick-off to the day. It was time he started finding a few customers of his own anyway. They all did it, and Wave looked the other way as long as it wasn’t too obvious and there was still plenty going into the cash box.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Up to you, man. I haven’t even had a piss yet.’

  SnapZ watched as the man backed slowly away from his door and moved towards the stairs. Yeah, worth getting out of bed for; and even better, some of that warm feeling from the dream started coming back, moving up, smooth inside his belly.

  More good news: there was half an inch of spliff in the ashtray on the table. He reached for his lighter and fired up what was left, clicking his fingers as he walked into the bathroom.

  It was no more than a few seconds before anyone spoke, but that was long enough for both women to get a good look at each other. To form an impression.

  Helen saw a face that would probably have been beautiful were it not for the stitches; for the bruising, yellow-green around the eyes, fading to reveal the dark circles underneath, and something else that took every ounce of softness from its features. When the woman stepped, a little warily, around the door, Helen saw the sling supporting her left arm. The bandage looked more than a little grimy.

  It was clear that the woman knew exactly who Helen was. Her eyes widened and started to fill almost as soon as they moved up from Helen’s belly. But the expression changed when Helen introduced herself formally. When the woman who had been using her front door like a shield found out what she was.

  ‘I probably should have called,’ Helen said.

  Sarah Ruston shrugged, as though she didn’t know what to say, and asked Helen inside. She backed away so that Helen had to close the door behind herself, and she was reaching into her pocket for tissues as she led the way into the living room.

  It was a double-fronted Victorian house on the north side of Clapham Common. It was a great location on a quiet, tree-lined street, and once inside, the envy Helen had started to feel walking from the car was ratcheted up another notch or two. There were original tiles in the hall and framed prints on the walls; and she glimpsed an enormous stainless-steel range in the kitchen. Even better than Jenny’s. The living room had stripped floors and a pair of deep, artfully battered-looking leather sofas. There was more art in wooden frames, candles in the empty fireplace, a plasma TV and sleek, black up-lighters in two corners.

  It was the kind of place she and Paul had talked about buying, dreamed about buying.

  When Helen sat down, she said what a nice house it was. Sitting opposite her, Ruston smiled but said nothing. Just rubbed at the leather of the empty seat next to her. Helen could hear music drifting down from the kitchen, something folksy; and there was more music, louder, coming from upstairs.

  ‘Two coppers living together. Was that easy?’

  ‘Not always,’ Helen said. She waited but again got no response. ‘Listen, I just wanted—’

  Ruston turned at the noise of footsteps on the stairs and stayed watching the door until a man walked in. He was around forty, maybe ten years older than Ruston herself; tall and carrying a little too much weight. She introduced him as Patrick. Husband or boyfriend? Helen didn’t know which; there hadn’t been that much detail in the detective’s notebook. She did know that Ruston worked at Canary Wharf, in one of the big overseas banks.

  She didn’t need to ask if it paid well.

&nb
sp; Patrick stepped across and shook her hand. Like his partner, he was wearing Sunday casuals - designer jeans and a T-shirt - though Ruston was wearing a thin black cardigan over hers. After Deering had dropped her back at the flat, Helen had changed into the baggiest summer dress she could find, not really sure why she was bothering to dress up. Now, she felt like an overdressed fat girl who’d arrived too early at a posh summer party.

  ‘Helen’s a police officer,’ Ruston said.

  Patrick’s smile became a sigh. ‘Jesus, haven’t we done all this?’ He nodded towards Ruston. ‘She must have given a dozen bloody statements. It might be nice if she could have some time on her own to . . . get over it, you know?’

  Helen stared at the floor. Patrick was wearing Chinese-style slippers and she could see that the tops of his feet were hairy.

  ‘It was her husband who was killed at the bus stop.’

  Helen looked up but didn’t bother to correct her. She saw Patrick’s face change again. Saw the cogs turning and watched him fight the urge to ask the obvious question: Why are you here?

  Helen was grateful for his reserve, his awkwardness; almost as grateful as he clearly was when Ruston asked if he fancied putting some coffee on. He took the orders - one coffee, one tea - and was gone, the door shutting loudly enough behind him to make Ruston start a little.

  ‘Like I said, I really should have phoned or something.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Ruston said. ‘I understand.’

  Helen nodded, thinking that it was good of her. Thinking that Sarah Ruston sounded almost as if she understood everything. ‘When are you going back to work?’

  ‘End of next week, maybe.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I’ll give it a few more days. The collarbone’s pretty good, but I don’t want people thinking Hallowe’en’s come early.’