Sleepyhead tt-1

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne went into the kitchen and watched as his visitor hovered in the middle of the living room. 'James is it, then?

  Or Jim?'

  'James.'

  Right, thought Thorne, spooning the coffee into a mug. Jim to your trendy mates but James when you're trying to borrow money off Daddy. He carried the coffee through and handed the mug to him. 'So?'

  Bishop looked disarmed. Evidently, this wasn't how he'd wanted things to go. He tried to sound as dangerous as he could, which wasn't very. 'I want you to leave my old man alone.'

  Thorne sat down on the arm of the sofa. 'I see. What is it you think I'm doing exactly?'

  'Why are you hassling him?'

  'Hassling?'

  'There was a bloke taking photos outside his house the other day, then when you turn up with some bollocks about scrounging a lift you tell him it was probably reporters. He might have fallen for that, but I think it's crap. What were you doing there anyway?'

  'I'm a policeman, James, I can go pretty much wherever I want.'

  Bishop was starting to enjoy himself a little. That made two of them. He took a step towards the mantelpiece then turned to Thorne, smiling. 'Shouldn't you call me "sir"?'

  Thorne returned the smile with interest. 'If this conversation formed part of an investigation then perhaps I might, yes. But it doesn't, we're in my flat and you're drinking my fucking coffee.'

  Bishop's hands tightened around his mug. Wondering what to say next. Thorne saved him the trouble. 'I think your father's overreacting somewhat.'

  'He doesn't even know I'm here.'

  Right. No. Course not.

  'He got these phone calls.'

  'When?'

  'Last night. In the middle of the night. Four or five, one after the other. He phoned me up in a right panic.'

  'What sort of phone calls?'

  'You tell me.'

  The cockiness had started to return. He needed slapping down harder. 'Listen, I questioned your father as part of an investigation that I'm no longer even part of, all right?' As Bishop's mouth fell open, Thorne felt a twinge of something approaching sympathy. 'Now tell me about the phone calls.'

  'Like I said, in the middle of the night. He could hear somebody there. Whoever it was had withheld their number and that was it. One after the other. He's upset no, he's frightened. He's fucking shit-scared.'

  I seriously doubt it.

  'So what are you going to do about it?' Bishop was starting to sound genuinely angry.

  'I'll tell you what I told him about the photographer. I'll look into it. That's the best I can do.'

  'Are you seeing Anne Coburn?'

  It was Thorne's turn to be genuinely angry. 'Behave yourself, James…'

  'Seeing as you're off the investigation it could be that, though, couldn't it?'

  'What?' Thorne took a deep breath. Trying not to lose it, knowing it was the father, not the son, he needed to save it for.

  'If you and Anne were.., you know.., it would be a reason to get at my father.'

  Thorne stood up and moved towards Bishop. He saw the slightest flinch, but only shook his head and reached for the empty coffee cup.

  'As far as I can remember, Dr Coburn, as your godmother, was responsible for your spiritual well-being. Looking at you, she's obviously failed miserably but that is, I believe, where your relationship with her ends. You probably got a silver christening spoon and the odd birthday present, but who she's sleeping with is not part of the deal.'

  Bishop nodded, impressed. Then he broke into a grin.

  'So you are, then?'

  Thorne smiled as he carried the empty mugs through to the kitchen. 'What do you do, James, when you're not worrying about your father?'

  Bishop moved aimlessly around the living room. He stopped to study the pile of CDs.. 'I always worry about my father. We're very close. Are you and yours not, then?'

  Thorne grimaced. 'Well?'

  'I move about a lot. Bit of writing. Tried being an actor. Anything that pays the rent, I suppose.'

  Thorne was starting to feel that he understood this young man. Not that he understood many of them any more. This one wasn't quite the good-for-nothing he'd thought Anne had described. Beneath the attempts at nonconformity there was almost certainly an inherited conventionality, which he was trying desperately to escape. Which was why he was trying to escape. He was misguided for sure, but essentially harmless. James Bishop had no idea of the poisonous gene pool in which he was splashing around. He could piss in the water as much as he liked, but in all the ways that didn't matter, the poor sod was his father's son.

  'Did you study?'

  'I wasted a couple of years at college, yeah. I'm not the ivory-tower type.'

  Thorne came back into the living room and picked up his jacket. 'Tower Records type, though?'

  'Oh, yeah…' Bishop self-consciously fingered the T-shirt that carried the shop's logo. 'I'm working there at the moment.'

  Thorne gestured towards the hallway. It was time to go. Bishop moved quickly towards the front door, in no hurry to hang about.

  'Well, maybe I'll see you in there,' said Thorne. 'What's your country section like?'

  Bishop laughed. 'Fuck should I know?'

  Thorne opened the front door. It was starting to rain.

  'Stupid question. What – you more into ambient?

  Trance? Speed-garage? Could you get me a discount on the new Groove rider twelve-inch?'

  Bishop looked at him.

  Thorne pulled the door shut. 'You've had quite a few surprises this morning, haven't you?'

  Margaret Byrne lived on the ground floor of a small terraced house in Tulse Hill. She was not what Holland and Tughan had been expecting. A plain and prematurely grey-haired woman, she was probably in her late forties and considerably overweight. Tughan could not conceal his surprise as she peered round her front door at them, one foot held in place against the jamb to prevent a large ginger cat escaping. Once the IDs, which she'd asked to see, had been produced, she. was happy to invite them in. She insisted on making them tea, leaving Tughan and Holland to negotiate a route round at least three more large cats before arriving at comfortable chairs in her front room. Holland was thinking it, but it was Tughan that said it.

  'This place fucking stinks,' he hissed, before adding drily, 'No wonder he changed his mind and pissed off.'

  After the tea, and a good selection of biscuits, had appeared, Holland sat back, as he'd been instructed to do, and let Tughan run things.

  'So you live alone then, Margaret?'

  She pulled a face. 'I hate Margaret. Can we stick to Maggie?'

  Holland smiled, thinking, Go on, don't make it easy for him.

  'Sorry. Maggie…'

  'My husband left a couple of years ago. Don't know why I call him that, he could never be arsed to marry me, but anyway…'

  'No children?'

  She wrapped her grey cardigan tight across her chest.

  'Got a daughter. She's twenty-three, lives in Edinburgh, and I haven't got the first idea where her father is.'

  She took another biscuit and began stroking the black and-white cat that had jumped on to her lap. She muttered to it softly and it settled down. Holland thought she was a bit like his mum. He hadn't seen her for ages. Maybe he'd talk to Sophie about asking her down to stay for a bit.

  'Right, tell us about the man with the champagne, Maggie.'

  'Didn't you write it down when I phoned up?'

  Holland smiled. Tughan didn't.

  'We just need a few more details, that's all.'

  'Well, it was about eight o'clock, I think. I answered the door and this bloke was standing there waving a bottle about. He asked me if this was where Jenny was having a party?'

  'Have you got a neighbour called Jenny?'

  'I don't think so. He said he was sure he'd got the right address and we had a bit of a laugh about something or other and he started being a bit naughty, you know, saying how it was a shame to waste a bottle of cham
pagne. He was flirting… I think he was a bit tipsy.'

  'You said when you called that you could give us a very good description.'

  'Did I? Oh, bloody hell. Right, well he was tall, definitely over six feet, glasses, and very well dressed. He had a very nice suit on, you know, expensive…'

  'Colour?'

  'Blue, I think. Dark blue.'

  Holland was jotting it all down and keeping his mouth shut like a good boy.

  'Go on, Maggie.'

  'He had short, grayish hair…'

  'Grayish?'

  'Yeah, you know, not silver, just graying, but he wasn't that old, I don't think. Well, not as old as me at any rate.'

  'How old?'

  'Thirty-six… thirty-seven? I've always been rubbish at that. Well, I think most people are, aren't they?' She turned and looked at Holland. 'How old d'you reckon I am?'

  Holland could feel the colour coming to his cheeks. Why the hell had she asked him? 'Oh… I don't know… Thirty-nine?'

  She smiled, acknowledging the kindness of the lie. 'I'm forty-three, and I know I look older.'

  Tughan, anxious to get back on track, cleared his throat. The cat, startled, shot off Margaret Byrne's lap and flew out of the door. This, in turn, made Tughan jump, which Holland would later remember as the only amusing thing about the entire interview.

  'What did he sound like? Did he have an accent?'

  'Pretty posh, I'd say. A nice voice.., and, you know, very good-looking. He was handsome.'

  'So you invited him in?'

  She brushed more cat hair than there was from her skirt. 'Well, I think he was dropping hints. Like I said, he was waving this bottle around.' She looked at Tughan and held eye-contact. 'Yes. I invited him in.'

  Tughan smiled thinly. 'Why?'

  Holland was starting to feel uncomfortable. This woman could help them. She might well be the only person who could help them. Why she had invited the man who might have killed her into her home was information they didn't need now. This woman wasn't mad or desperate or sex-starved, for Christ's sake. Loneliness was not a crime, much as Tughan seemed to be enjoying touching the tender spot of it. She hadn't answered him anyway. He let it go.

  'What happened then?'

  'Like I said on the phone, this was the funny part. He opened the champagne – I remember being disappointed because there wasn't a pop – and I said I'd go and get some glasses. He said great and he was just going to make a quick phone call.'

  Tughan looked at Holland then back at Margaret. 'You didn't mention that when you called.'

  'Didn't I? Well, he did.'

  Tughan sat forward in his chair. 'He made a call from here? From your phone?'

  'No. Just as I was going off to the kitchen I saw him take out one of those horrible little mobile things. I hate them, don't you? Always beeping and playing daft tunes when you're sitting on a train.'

  'And you were in the kitchen?'

  'And I was in the kitchen, and I'd just got the glasses down and given them a wipe out because they were a bit dirty, and I heard the front door slam. I came back out and he'd buggered off. I opened the front door but I couldn't see him. I heard a car pull away up the road, but I didn't really see it.'

  Tughan nodded. Holland had finished writing. Margaret Byrne looked quickly from one to the other.

  'You reckon he was the bloke who killed that girl up in Holloway, then?'

  Tughan said nothing. He stood up and threw Holland a look, telling him to do the same. 'If we send a car for you tomorrow could you come down to Edgware Road and work with one of our computer artists?'

  She nodded, and picked up a passing cat as she got to her feet.

  When they reached the front door Tughan stopped and looked at her. She smiled nervously at him.

  'Why did you wait so long before reporting this matter?'

  Tughan said. 'I mean, you even waited for four days after the reconstruction went out on TV.'

  She pulled the cat close to her neck. Holland stepped forward, putting a hand a little too forcefully on Tughan's shoulder.

  'We'd better get going. Thanks for all your help.'

  The gratitude in her eyes was obvious. She took hold of his sleeve. 'Was it him?'

  Tughan was already on his way to the car. Holland watched him deactivate the alarm, climb in and slam the door. He turned back to her. 'I think you were very lucky, Maggie.'

  She smiled and gripped his sleeve a little fighter as her eyes began to fill with tears. 'It would be the first time…'

  I'm in a much better mood now. I don't mean generally, that's still up and down. Tim said l was moody before and he's probably right. But now, in here, I can be a right bitch. I think that's fair enough, though. I think I deserve a medal for the few nice moods I do have. anyway…

  Eve in here there's always something that can cheer you up. It's not exactly Carry On Doctor but there's laughs to be had if you look for them. Sick ones, usually, but you can't be too fussy. There's this nurse, Martina, who's taken it upon herself to make sure I look pretty all the time. Under normal circumstances, of course, I'd tell her that you can't improve on perfection, but granted, she's got a job on her hands. To be honest, I think she's doing it to get a break from the catheter and arse work, which is hardly brimming with job satisfaction, is it? At first I didn't mind when she was trimming my hair and cutting my toenails but she's started getting a bit ambitious. I think she's a failed beauty therapist or something. She painted my nails the other day and the colour was fucking revolting and yesterday afternoon she decided that a bit of lippy might cheer me up. Putting lipstick on somebody else is like trying to have a wank with your left hand. Forget it. I looked like a clown in a coma, or a tit in a trance, as my Nan used to say. I think she was trying to make me look like one of those hideous women who work on the makeup counters in department stores – you know, the ones who spend all day surrounded by cosmetics and haven't got a fucking clue how to put them on.

  Here's a tip. Don't use a trowel. I always want to creep up behind them and shout, 'Mirror! Use a mirror!'

  I didn't plan what happened this morning, I swear, but I quite wish I had. Obviously some of the other nurses had noticed that Martina was spending all her time tatting me up instead of doing any of the dirty work and she got lumbered with cleaning out my breathing tube. I can fully understand not wanting to do it, it's bloody foul. So Martina is supposed to pull it out and clean out all the muck or something so it doesn't get blocked. Imagine somebody was waggling, a tube around in your mouth. Well, it's pretty much the same when it's straight into your neck. You'd want to cough, wouldn't you?

  Coughing isn't one of my best things, these days, but I must have been saving it up. There's Martina trying to be all efficient and [just let one go. I couldn't help it. I coughed out of my neck, for Christ's sake.

  Like I said, it wasn't on purpose and she didn't help by screaming the place down, but this enormous lump of phlegmy glop just splattered on to her forehead.

  I hope she might stay away for a bit now. Or maybe just stick to the rear-end stuff. At least you know what's coming at you. Come on, though, pearl nail polish?

  Everything's moving along on the blink front. Another small complication is that sometimes I screw things up by blinking just because my brain thinks it's high time I did. Same reason you do. That doesn't help. I'm spelling away, then I suddenly throw in an X or a J for no good reason. Like suddenly shouting,

  'Bollocks," in the middle of a conversation. It's like Newcastle on a Saturday night.

  TWELVE

  Rachel sat at the desk in her room, the chemistry textbook in front of her long since invisible. She knew that this was what being involved with someone was about. Highs and lows. She'd gone out with a boy for nearly six months when she was a fourth-former and still remembered the dull ache of the phone that didn't ring and the stabbing agony of the undelivered note. This was much worse, though.

  She had her own locker now in the sixth-form common room, and h
ad to fight the urge to run and open it every five minutes to check her phone. By the end of the day there would always be at least a text message. She saved them all and reread them constantly. A voice message was always better, though. She loved his voice especially. She walked over and slumped down on the bed, picking up her phone from where it was recharging as she went. She listened to the message again, that strange part of her that she knew was common to everybody, savouring the pain of it. Like gnawing at a mouth ulcer.

  He wasn't sure if he could make it tonight. He might be able to but he didn't want to let her down at the last minute. He was sorry. It was a work thing he couldn't get out of. They'd better cancel. He'd call tomorrow.

  As always, she was offered the option to delete the message. She saved it, although it was saved, anyway, in her head. She lay there endlessly pulling to pieces every phrase and analysing every nuance. Had he sounded distant?

  Was this the start of letting her down gently? He'd call tomorrow, he said, not later tonight. She wanted to call him but knew she wouldn't. The idea of being clingy made her sick. But she knew that if it came to it she would be.

  She desperately wanted a cigarette but couldn't risk it. She'd had a couple in the garden the night before when her mum had been out screwing the policeman. She sometimes climbed up on the desk and opened a window to blow the smoke out but her mum would be coming to bed any time. Her mum who smoked, but said that she couldn't. Very fucking fair.

  She'd speak to him tomorrow and everything would be fine and she'd feel like a pathetic sad cow. She wasn't a stupid little girl any more. That was why he wanted her.

  The carpet fibres that Thorne had scraped from the inside of Bishop's boot were in a small plastic bag. He knew he couldn't take them to Forensics himself and he didn't feel he could ask Holland yet. But there was somebody he could ask.

  When the plastic bag dropped on to the pool table, Hendricks didn't shift his gaze a millimetre as he lined up the shot, the cue sliding easily back and forth along the cleft of his chin. He casually potted the eight ball and straightened up. 'That's another river.' His eyes shifted to the bag and its contents. 'Where did you get 'em?'