Sleepyhead tt-1

by Mark Billingham

  'I just think that maybe you're rushing things a bit.'

  'I'm following well-established guidelines, Steve. The ECG shows normal brain activity.'

  'Nobody's arguing with that but it doesn't mean she's got the ability to communicate. I agree that there is movement but I've seen nothing to convince me that it isn't involuntary.'

  'This isn't just me, Steve. You can talk to the nursing staff. I'm sure she's ready to communicate.'

  'She might be ready-'

  'And she's able. I've seen it. She indicated to me that she was in pain, that she was tired. She… greets me, Steve.'

  Clark opened the door. He was eager to be on his way.

  'Maybe she's not comfortable with the pressure of… performing.'

  Later, when she felt calmer, Anne would realise that he'd been trying to be genuinely sympathetic. At that moment she was angry and frustrated, for herself and for Alison. 'She isn't a performer and these are not cheap theatrics…'

  But that's exactly what it felt like.

  As Holland steered the unmarked Rover into a quiet tree lined street in Battersea, he took a deceptively vicious speed bump just fast enough to take several layers off the underside of the car and to awaken his boss somewhat rudely.

  'Jesus, Holland…'

  'Sorry sir…'

  'I know it's only a company car, but for Christ's sake!'

  The sunshine was dazzling and Thorne felt every one of the twenty-eight hours since he'd last slept. Holland actually held the car door open for him! Thorne felt that it wasn't so much in deference to his rank as a subtle reminder that the fifteen years he had on the younger man were starting to show.

  Jeremy Bishop lived in an elegant three-storey house with a small but well-maintained front garden. Probably four bedrooms. Probably tastefully decorated Thorne guessed, and crammed with what the slimier estate agents, if you could quantify slime, would refer to as 'periods'. Probably worth a piffling half a million. All this, and a nice Volvo parked outside. Clearly Bishop was not struggling. Holland rang the bell. Thorne looked up at the windows. The curtains were still drawn. After a minute or two the door was opened, Holland made the introductions and he and Thorne were ushered into the house by a sleepy looking Jeremy Bishop.

  While Holland stood efficiently with his notebook at the ready, Thorne slumped into a chair, gratefully accepted a cup of coffee and racked his brain as to why Jeremy Bishop looked so familiar. He was, Thorne guessed, in his mid-to late-forties and, despite the stubble and redness round the eyes, looked ten years younger. He was tall, six two or three, and he reminded Thorne of Dr Richard Kimble, the character played by Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. There was plenty of grey in the short hair, but along with the wire-rimmed glasses, it served only to make him look 'distinguished'. This irritated Thorne enormously: his own grey hair simply made him look 'old'. Bugger probably didn't even have grey pubes. Bishop would, without question, be a regular performer in student nurse fantasies 'Oh, Doctor! Here in the sluice room!?' He thought about Anne Coburn. He tried not to think about her stripping in the sluice room. Weren't doctors ugly any more? He remembered the rancid old GP he'd been dragged to see regularly as a boy: a hideous crone with a man's haircut and moustache, who smelt of cheese and always had a Craven A dangling from the corner of her mouth as she mumbled in an incomprehensible eastern-European accent. No such worries with Jeremy Bishop. His modulated tones would have calmed a thrashing epileptic in an instant.

  'I presume this is about Alison Willetts,' he said.

  Holland looked at Thorne, who sipped his coffee. Let the constable handle it.

  'And why would you presume that, sir?'

  Thorne stared at Holland through the steam from his coffee-cup. Nice start: sarcasm, superiority, and a hint of aggression. Make your subject feel at ease. Bishop wasn't fazed at all. 'Alison Willetts was attacked and seriously injured. I treated her, and they don't send detective inspectors round when you haven't paid your par-king fines.' He smiled at Holland who could do little else but move on to item two in the do-it-yourself guide to interviews.

  'We are investigating a very serious crime, which-'

  'Has he done it again?'

  Thorne almost spilt his coffee as he sat bolt upright in his chair. Holland looked across at him, thoroughly non plussed.

  Bishop's amusement at the look on Holland's face was not lost on Thorne. He guessed that Bishop had seen that look many times as a junior doctor found themselves suddenly out of their depth and sought reassurance, or preferably hands-on assistance, from a senior colleague. Thorne decided that the hands-on approach was best.

  'Done what again, sir?'

  'Look, I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to know about the other victims. As far as I'm concerned it's simply a question of putting my patient's condition in context. I was informed that there had been other attacks. Anne Coburn and I are very old friends, Inspector, as I'm sure you're well aware.'

  Thorne was very well aware that, despite Frank Keable's best intentions, the lid was not going to stay on this case for very long. Not that he ever really thought of cases as having lids.., saucepans had lids.., cases had… what?.., locks?.., well, only open and shut ones. Mind you, was there any point in a case that didn't open and shut. God he was fired…

  'I'm sorry if we got you out of bed, sir.'

  Bishop spread his arms across the back of the sofa. 'Oh, well, I obviously look as rough as you, Inspector.' Thorne raised an eyebrow. 'I spend a lot of time with people who don't get much sleep for one reason or another. The eyes give it away instantly. I've been on call all night. What's your excuse?' His laugh was somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.

  Thorne laughed back at him through a good impression of a yawn. 'Yep… busy night. What about you, sir?'

  Bishop stared at him. 'Oh… no, not really. Went in to treat an overdose at about three o'clock and got home about five thirty. But even when you're not called in, it's hard to relax when you're bleeper-watching. Thank God for cable TV.'

  'Anything good on?'

  'I'm a confirmed channel-hopper, I'm afraid. A lot of old sitcoms, the odd black-and-white film and a fair bit of smut.' He looked up and grinned in disbelief at Holland.

  'Are you actually writing all that down, Constable?'

  Thorne had been asking himself the same question.

  'Only the bit about smut. Detective Constable Holland's life lacks excitement.' Thorne was astonished to see Holland actually blush.

  Bishop stood up and stretched. 'I'm going to get another coffee. Anybody else?'

  Thorne followed him into the kitchen and they chatted over the growing grumble of the kettle.

  'So what time did you go in the night you treated Alison Willetts?'

  'I was bleeped at about three o'clock, I think. One sugar, wasn't it?' Thorne nodded and waited for Bishop to continue.

  'The patient was found outside by a service entrance… I'm sure you know all this.., and brought straight into A and E.'

  'Did you call in when you were bleeped?'

  'No need. It was a message saying red trauma. You just go. Sometimes you might get an extension number to ring, or sometimes it's just a message to phone in, but with a trauma call you just get in the car.'

  'And when Alison Willetts was brought in, you were the first person to treat her?'

  'That's correct. I checked her pupils – they were reacting. I bagged and masked her, intubated her, Midazolam to sedate her, ordered a CT of her head and an ECG, and handed it over to the junior anaesthetist.' Bishop took a sip of his coffee. 'Sorry, I must sound like an episode of Casualty.'

  Thorne smiled. 'More like ER. On Casualty it's usually a cup of sweet tea and a couple of aspirin.'

  Bishop laughed. 'Absolutely right. And the nursing staff aren't quite so attractive.'

  'So if you were bleeped at three o'clock you got there, what, about half past?'

  'Something like that, I suppose.'

  'And Alison, the patient, was brought in a
bout quarter to four?' Bishop sipped and nodded. 'So why were you bleeped in the first place?'

  'I really couldn't tell you, I'm afraid. It isn't unusual sometimes you can spend ages trying to find out why you've been called in. I've been bleeped before when I shouldn't have been. As for that particular night, I've never really thought about it. I mean, if I'd known exactly what had happened – or, rather, what we'd later discover – I might have a better grasp of the sequence of events that night. It was just a routine emergency at the time. Sorry.'

  Thorne put down his coffee-cup. 'Not to worry, sir. I'm sure we can find out.'

  Bishop smiled as he picked up Thorne's cup, poured the unfinished coffee into the sink and opened the door of the dishwasher. 'Why I might, have been bleeped four Tuesdays ago? Good luck, Inspector)

  As the car moved slowly through the traffic on Albert Bridge, Holland chose not to ask his superior officer a number of questions. Why did we bother driving all that way? Do you think Jeremy Bishop is giving Anne Coburn one? Why do you take the piss out of me all the time? Why do you think you're so much better than everybody else?

  He looked across at Thorne, who was slumped in the passenger seat with his eyes shut. He was wide awake. Thorne spoke only once, to tell Holland that they weren't going back to the office just yet. Without opening his eyes he told him to turn right and drive along the river towards Whitechapel. They were going to call in at the Royal London Hospital first, to see just how cast-iron this alibi of Jeremy Bishop's really was.

  Just call me the Amazing Performing Eyelid Woman. Only I can't sodding well perform, can I?

  I went out with this actor once. He told me about a recurring dream where he was onstage ready to do his luvvie bit and then all the words just tumbled out of his head like water running really fast down the plughole. That's what it felt like when Anne was asking me to blink. Christ, I wanted to blink for her. No… I wanted to blink for me. I can do it, I know I can. I've been doing it all the fucking time when there's nobody there and I've been blinking when Anne's asked me to before. She asked me if I was in pain and I blinked once for yes. One blink. A fraction of a movement in one poxy eye and I felt like I'd just won the lottery, shagged Mel Gibson and been given a year's supply of chocolate.

  Actually, I felt like I'd just run the London Marathon. A couple of blinks and I'm knackered. But when that therapist was watching I couldn't do it.

  I was screaming at my eyelids inside my head. It felt like the signal went out from my-brain. But slowly. It was like some dodgy old Lady beetling along the circuits, or whatever they're called. Neuro-highways or whatever. It was on the right road and then it just got stuck at roadwork's somewhere. Like it lost interest. I know I can do it but I haven't got any control over it. When I'm not trying I'm blinking away like some nutter, but when I want to I'm as good as dead.

  If blinking is all I've got left, I'm going to be the greatest fucking blinker you've ever seen. Stick with me, Anne. There's so much I want to tell you. I'll be blinking for England, I swear.

  I could feel the disappointment in her voice. I wanted to cry. But I can't even do that…

  S I X

  'Where to, sir?'

  'Muswell Hill, please.'

  'No problem, sir. Where is that, please?'

  Thorne sighed heavily as the simple journey from his flat in Kentish Town suddenly became an altogether trickier proposition. It was his own fault for calling a minicab. Why was he such a bloody cheapskate?

  He was trying not to think about the case – this was a night off. He fooled himself for about as long as it took the cab to reach the end of his road. He would have loved to spend an evening without his curious calendar girls, but it was going to be hard, considering where he was going and who he was going to see. The subject of Jeremy Bishop might be strictly off limits with Anne Coburn. It was becoming clear that they were extremely close. Were they perhaps more than that? Thorne tried not to think about that possibility. Whatever, their relationship made things awkward in every sense, not least procedurally. Thorne hated the cliche+ of the instinctive copper as much as he hated the notion of the hardened one. But the instinctive copper was only a clich6 because, he knew, it contained a germ of truth. Hunches were nothing but trouble. If they were wrong they caused embarrassment, pain, guilt and more. But the hunches that were right were far worse. Policemen… good policemen, weren't born with these instincts. They developed them. After all, accountants were only good with numbers because they worked with them every day. Even an average copper could spot when someone was lying. A few developed a feel, a taste, a sense about people.

  They were the unlucky ones.

  'Here you go, sir.'

  The minicab driver was thrusting a tattered A-Z at him. Christ on a bike, thought Thorne, do you want me to drive the bloody car for you?

  'I don't need the A-Z. I'll give you directions. Straight up the Archway Road.'

  'Right you are, sir. Which way is that?'

  Thorne looked out of the window. Another warm late August evening and a T-shirted queue of eager Saturday night concert-goers was waiting to go into the Forum. As the cab drove past he strained his head to see the name of the band but only caught the word '… Maniacs'. Charming.

  He now lived no more than half a mile from where he'd grown up. This had been his adolescent stamping ground. Kentish Town, Camden, Highgate. And Archway. He'd worked out of the station at Holloway for six months. He knew the road Helen Doyle had lived in. He'd drunk in the Marlborough Arms. He hoped she'd enjoyed herself that night…

  Jeremy Bishop.

  Yes, it had started as a strange familiarity, which he still couldn't fathom, but it had become more than that. In the few days since he'd first laid eyes on the man, his feelings had begun to bed themselves down on more solid foundations. Thorne had found out quickly why Bishop had smiled when he'd told him he was going to check out why he'd been bleeped the night that Alison had come in. He was amazed to find that the calls put out to bleep doctors were untraceable. There were no official records. The call could have been made from anywhere by all accounts. It was even possible to bleep yourself. None of the likely candidates could recall bleeping Bishop on the night that Alison Willetts came in. He'd spoken to the senior house officer, the registrar and the junior anaesthetist and their recollection of events that night was as fuzzy as Bishop had known it would be. He was certainly there when she was brought into A and E but his alibi, as far as when she was attacked and when she was dumped at the hospital, was not quite as solid as Anne Coburn had first thought.

  He couldn't put any of it together yet, nowhere near, but there were other.., details.

  The canvas of the area in which Helen Doyle had disappeared had started to yield results. She had been seen by at least three people after leaving the pub. One was a neighbour who knew her well. All the witnesses described seeing her talking to a man at the end of her road. She was described variously as 'looking happy', 'talking loudly' and 'seeming as if she was pissed'. The descriptions of the man varied a little but tallied in a number of areas: He was tall. He had short, graying hair and wore glasses. He was probably in his mid-to late-thirties. They thought he was Helen Doyle's new boyfriend. Her older man.

  All the witnesses agreed on something else. Helen was drinking from a bottle of champagne. Now they knew how the drug was administered. So simple. So insidious. As the victims' capacity to resist had melted away they'd each felt.., what? Special? Sophisticated? Thorne sensed that the killer thought of himself in exactly those terms. The driver turned on his radio. An old song by the Eurhythmics. Thorne leaned forward quickly and told him to switch it off.

  The cab turned right off the A1 towards Highgate Woods.

  'It's just off the Broadway, OK?'

  'Broadway…'

  Thorne caught the driver's look in the mirror. Apologetic yet not really giving a toss.

  'If black-cab drivers do the Knowledge, what do you lot do?'

  'Sorry, mate?'

&nb
sp; 'Doesn't matter.'

  He'd waited a day before talking to Frank Keable. Stepping into the DCI's office he'd been thoroughly prepared to outline his suspicions – the details that pointed towards Bishop. Ten minutes later he'd walked out feeling like he'd just left Hendon.

  'I have to be honest, Tom. No, he doesn't have a rock solid alibi but…'

  'Not for any of the murders, sir. I checked with-'

  'But all you've got is a lot Of stuff that, well, it doesn't rule him out, and what about the description? Two of the witnesses say he's early-to mid-thirties.'

  'The height's right, Frank, and Bishop looks a lot younger than he is.'

  It was at that point that Thorne had become aware that it was all starting to sound unconvincing. He decided to stop before he said something that might make him look vaguely desperate. 'And he's a doctor. And I don't really… like him very much…'

  The same night he'd walked into his flat and heard a woman's voice coming from the living room.

  '… at the office. God, I hate these things – sorry. Anyway, please give me a call, I'm very excited about it.'

  He grinned. How could a woman who probed about in people's brains be so out of her depth with an answering machine?

  He found it endearing, then knew that she'd think he was being patronising. He picked up.

  'Tom?'

  What was she asking? 'Is that Tom?' Or 'Is it OK if I call you Tom?' Either way his answer was the same.

  'Yes. Hi…'

  'This is Anne Coburn – sorry, I was just waffling away. I tried to get you at the office, I hope you don't mind.'

  He'd written his home number on the back of the card he'd given her. He threw his coat on to the sofa and dragged the phone over to the chair. 'No, that's fine. I've just this second walked in the door. So, what are you excited about?'

  'Sorry?'

  'You said you were excited. I heard it on the machine as I was coming in.'

  'Oh, right. It's Alison. I think she's really starting to communicate.'