Sleepyhead

by Mark Billingham

  Now nobody seemed to know where Thorne was, or even if he’d be back at all.

  Those who had been there this morning and seen the state of the DI as he’d walked into the lift, staggered, somebody had said, had been only too keen to pass on the details when Holland eventually got into work. ‘You’ll be interested in this . . .’ they said sarcastically. It seemed that a line of inquiry, developed by Detective Inspector Thorne, had now been officially discredited.

  It sounded like he’d had the shit kicked out of him.

  Holland had gone quietly back to work. Every half an hour or so since, he’d checked his mobile, looking for a message.

  Suddenly he noticed that the picture on the TV screen was frozen. Paused. He turned to see Sophie, the remote in her hand, talking to him. Was there really any point in her going to the video shop? Or cooking dinner? Or bothering to talk to him?

  He apologised and told her that he was still feeling a bit rough, the worse for wear after his drinking session with the lads last night. Sophie had a go at him, but secretly she didn’t really mind. She didn’t begrudge him a night out on the beer with the lads. As long as he didn’t make a habit of it and had worked out which side his bread was buttered on.

  As long as he’d finally decided against throwing in his lot with that loser Thorne.

  Anne was annoyed. She had a bag full of shopping – food for the dinner she was going to cook for Jeremy – it was pouring with rain, and she couldn’t find a single parking spot on his street. She eventually squeezed into a tight space round the corner and ran back, doing her best to avoid the rapidly growing puddles.

  She was amazed to see him sitting in the car outside the house.

  She tapped quickly on the glass and laughed as he jumped. The electric window on the Volvo slid down and she leaned in. ‘What are you doing sitting out here?’

  ‘Just thinking about things. Waiting for you.’ The rain was blowing in through the open window on to his face.

  Anne grimaced, confused. ‘It’s a lot warmer in the house.’ He said nothing, staring blankly forward through a windscreen running with rainwater. Anne moved the handles of the plastic shopping-bag round in her hand. It was starting to get heavy. ‘Are you coming inside?’

  ‘Can you get in here first? Please, Anne, I need to talk to you about something. Just for a minute.’

  Anne wanted to go into the house. She was wet, and very cold. She wanted a cup of tea or, even better, a large glass of wine before she got started on dinner. Still, he seemed upset about something. She hurried round to the passenger side and, dropping the shopping bag on to the floor at her feet, got into the car.

  It was nice and warm: the heater had obviously been on for a while. He didn’t look at her. She began to think something was seriously wrong.

  ‘Is everything all right? Has something happened?’

  He didn’t answer and instinctively she began to look around her. Was the answer to whatever was going on here with them in the car? There was something on the back seat, covered with a tartan picnic blanket.

  She looked at him. ‘What’s . . .?’

  Instinctively she knew that she wasn’t going to get an answer and, with a grunt of effort, she lifted herself off her seat, reached across into the back of the car and pulled off the blanket.

  She gasped.

  She didn’t even feel the needle slip into her arm.

  Thorne tried to stay calm. The rain had slowed up the traffic as per usual and it had taken an infuriating twenty-five minutes just to get the half a mile or so from Queen Square to Waterloo Bridge. Now it had eased off a little and the Mondeo was testing every speed camera it passed as Thorne pushed the car south, through the spray towards Battersea.

  The clock on the dashboard said eight forty-five and Merle Haggard was complaining about being let down by the bottle as Thorne drove past St Thomas’s Hospital.

  He thought about a pathologist whose skill, whose observation, whose curiosity, months before, had started it all. He might be working late at this very minute, in one of those lit offices, those bright white squares that Thorne could see as he drove past. Getting tired now, probably, as he stared down into a microscope, then excitement mounting as he spotted some inconsistency, some curious detail that might change the lives of hundreds of people for ever.

  He didn’t know whether, if he ever met that man, he should thank him or spit in his face. What was certain was that, without him, he would not be on his way right now to confront a killer. He had no idea what might really happen between him and Bishop. Confront him, yes, and what else? Arrest him? Intimidate him? Hurt him?

  Thorne would know when he got there.

  He hit the brakes too late and too hard approaching the big traffic lights at Vauxhall Bridge. The car skidded a little before stopping, the squeal of tyres attracting the attention of the evening’s traffic-light cabaret. Those cleaning windscreens in return for a few coins and a great deal of abuse had now been replaced, bizarrely, by street entertainers. One such, wearing a large, multicoloured jester’s hat and juggling three balls, stepped jauntily through the rain towards Thorne’s car with a broad grin.

  The juggler took one look at Thorne’s face and backed away again quickly, dropping balls as he went. The light, reflected in the puddles of oil and water, turned from red to green, and the Mondeo sped away.

  The lights were with him along Nine Elms Lane and Battersea Park Road. He turned left on amber at the Latchmere pub, put his foot down all the way to Lavender Hill, and a few minutes later was turning almost casually into Jeremy Bishop’s quiet road.

  He turned down the music and began to breathe deeply. There were cars parked along both sides of the street and Thorne drove slowly, looking for a parking spot. The rain was heavier now, and even with the wipers on double speed he had to lean forward, and squint hard through the windscreen to see anything at all.

  Suddenly, fifty yards ahead, lights came on and dazzled him as a large dark car pulled out and accelerated. Thorne’s first thought was that he’d got a parking space, but a second later he could see that he was in trouble. The car rushed towards him on the wrong side of the road. With one hand shielding his eyes, which closed at the last second in anticipation of the impact, he yanked the wheel sharply to the right to avoid being hit as the car rushed past him with barely inches to spare.

  A car with Anne Coburn sitting in the passenger seat.

  Thorne slammed on the brakes and watched in his mirror as the Volvo stopped at the end of the road and turned left. They were heading west.

  He might have been wrong but he didn’t think that either Anne or Bishop had seen him. Both had been staring straight ahead. Where were they going? He hadn’t got room to turn the car round quickly. Without thinking, he ground the gearstick into reverse and put his foot down.

  For the first few minutes, past the north side of Clapham Common, Thorne was happy to cruise along two or three cars behind the Volvo, watching for its distinctive rear lights, keeping it close. He was sure now that Bishop had no idea he was being followed. Thorne wanted to keep it that way and was content to maintain a relaxed pace. Let them get where they were going. Following procedure for once in his fucking life. Keep it safe, he thought.

  Keep it sedate.

  Sedate. As the word formed in his mind, the car in front turned away giving him a clear view through the Volvo’s rear window.

  There was something very wrong with the picture.

  It took half a second and then he got it. He couldn’t see Anne any more.

  The car hadn’t stopped he was certain of that. She had been there a few minutes earlier, her head against the window. There was only one explanation.

  She had to be unconscious.

  Things began to speed up in every sense. There was another car between Thorne and the Volvo. He tried to get
past it as the traffic swung right on to Clapham Park Road, and as he overtook on the inside, he watched the Volvo accelerate away. It looked as though Bishop knew he was there after all.

  Thorne had never been good at this. He’d been in plenty of pursuits but he’d never been the one with his foot on the pedal. Forty-five miles an hour, along busy built-up streets at nine o’clock at night in the driving rain was fucking terrifying.

  Why would Bishop hurt Anne? Why now? Thorne knew he should call this in. There was no radio in the car. His mobile was back at the flat. He thought about pulling over, using a payphone. By the time a unit picked up Bishop’s car it might be too late. He had to keep following.

  Fifty miles an hour along Acre Lane. The rear fog-lights of the Volvo blinding, the horns of other cars blaring.

  Without taking his eyes off the Volvo for a second, Thorne switched tapes and turned up the volume. One type of music for another. Song replaced by sound. Melody by a pumping rhythm that seemed instantly to be emanating from inside his own head. The noise, the beat becoming a low, almost Zen-like hum, pulsing through his skull like the soundtrack to an arcade racing game.

  Focusing. The wheel vibrating beneath his fingers. The car in front. The target. Speeding down the hill now towards the lights and the cinema ahead and pedestrians shouting and the wheels squealing as they turn left much too fast on to Brixton Road.

  And suddenly, Thorne knows where they’re going.

  Brixton. SW2. He remembers the address from a page in his notebook. The page headed ‘children’. Thorne’s never been to this address but why on earth would he have?

  Thorne knows now that, even with a warrant, he’d have found nothing at the house in Battersea. Where they’re going now is Bishop’s place of work. It’s where he would have brought Helen and Leonie. A place to which he would have a key. A flat for which he helped pay the deposit. Somewhere almost certainly empty late at night if the occupant is working. Easily established with a phone call . . .

  The beat and the speed increasing and rain lashing the windscreen, and Thorne’s hands on the wheel guided solely by the movements of the two red lights ahead of him. His eyes fixed on those two red lights, which flash as the Volvo brakes suddenly, like the eyes of some sleek, dark monster, which roars and is away from him quickly as the Volvo jumps the traffic lights and he has no choice but to do the same.

  From the corner of his eye he sees the blue and red of the traffic patrol car to his left, and a thousand yards further on the second one pulls out in front of him.

  The last thing he needs. A pair of fucking black rats, working in tandem.

  As Thorne slowed down, hammering his fists on the steering-wheel, he watched the eyes of the dark monster ahead of him get smaller and smaller.

  When the constable, a fat fuck with a pockmarked face and a walrus moustache, finally sauntered up to the Mondeo’s passenger door, the first thing he saw was an ID pressed hard against the window. The first thing Thorne saw when he removed it was the smug look the constable gave to his colleague in the patrol car: Look what we’ve got.

  Thorne took a deep breath. This was going to be interesting.

  The walrus made a casual winding motion with his forefinger. Window down. Thorne counted to three and wound down the window like a good boy.

  ‘Detective Inspector Thorne. SCG West.’ There was no reaction. Thorne certainly hadn’t been expecting a tug on the forelock and a polite ‘On your way, sir’, far from it, but this was going to be a bad one.

  Age-old animosities. Uniform and plainclothes. Anyone and Traffic.

  ‘Fifty miles an hour plus, through a red light, in the pissing rain. Not clever was it?’ The estuary accent trying its very best to drip with sarcasm.

  ‘I’m in pursuit of a suspect,’ said Thorne, flatly. The constable turned casually to watch the traffic disappearing into the distance and smiled, the rain dripping off the peak of his cap. Thorne tried to keep his temper. ‘I was in pursuit of a suspect.’

  ‘You were driving like a twat.’

  Thorne was out of the car, the red mist ready to come down. ‘Is this how you normally deal with members of the public?’

  Another sly smile, another glance to his mate in the car. ‘You’re not public, are you?’

  Thorne stood, staring straight ahead, the rain running down the back of his jacket. He thought about the killer’s first note again. He thought about Anne lying across leather seats, unable to move. Bishop was probably playing classical music . . . Fuck, they’d probably be there by now.

  Jesus fucking Christ . . .

  ‘Have you been drinking, sir?’

  ‘What?’ Starting to lose it.

  ‘Simple enough question. You fuckers obviously think you’re above the law—’

  Thorne grabbed his jacket, spun him round, and pressed him hard against the car, sending his cap tumbling into the gutter. From the corner of his eye, Thorne could see the other one step out of the patrol car. Without even turning to look, he shouted through the rain, ‘I’m a DI, now get back in that fucking car.’

  The walrus’s mate did as he was told. Thorne turned his attention back to the man himself, leaning in close, the rain beating down on the two of them, nose to nose at the side of the road. Passing cars honked their approval, the drivers of Brixton pleased to see a copper getting what was coming to him from an innocent motorist.

  Thorne raised his voice just enough to make himself clearly understood over the noise of the rain, spattering off the PC’s reflective plastic tabard. ‘Listen, you fat, scabby arsehole, I’m getting back into my car now and driving away, and if you so much as raise an eyebrow, you’ll be pissing blood for a week. That was a threat. The next bit is an order. Are you following this?’

  The walrus nodded. Thorne released his grip but only slightly. ‘This is an instruction, understand? Get back into your car right now and get on your radio. I want you to contact someone at Operation Backhand out of Edgware Road. You need to get hold of DC Dave Holland . . .’

  In my dream I’m running.

  It’s nowhere dramatic. Not across a cornfield or through the surf on a storm-lashed beach or anything. And I’m not running towards anybody. There’s nobody in the distance with arms thrown wide, aching to kiss me. Not a soldier returned from the war or a film star. Not Tim. It’s just me.

  Just running.

  It’s funny because I’ve always hated running, always done whatever I could to avoid it. Skinny little legs and knock knees. I was always rubbish at any kind of sport and I’m totally unfit. Running for the bus, if I absolutely have to, is about my limit, and that will fuck me up for the rest of the day. But here I am . . .

  I’m running, sprinting, and it feels easy.

  I don’t know what I’m wearing or what the weather’s like. None of that seems important. I suppose the wind must be blowing in my hair but, to be honest, I don’t really notice. What I do notice is the wind rushing into my open mouth and inflating my lungs. I notice my lungs pushing the air back out through my mouth.

  I’m running.

  I notice my legs moving me along and my arms pumping, and I notice that the muscles in my mouth are working overtime, every last fucking gorgeous one of them. Each muscle working in harmony with the others. Meshing perfectly with its neighbour. Forcing my lips to part, raising the corners of my mouth up, pushing my tongue out slightly against my top teeth. Making me smile.

  I’m running away.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was a narrow green door without a window.

  Easy to miss between a greengrocer’s and a shoe shop in a small street behind the busy Brixton Road. Thorne couldn’t see the Volvo anywhere. Maybe there was another way to get in. That would make sense, after all. A back entrance that was easier to carry bodies into unseen.

  Yes, and maybe he was wrong about the w
hole thing. Maybe it had just been coincidence that they’d seemed headed for this address and even now as Thorne was standing in the rain, staring at a narrow green door without a window, Bishop was spiriting Anne away to a place where he would never find her.

  Was all this just to hurt him?

  Thorne put his ear against the door and listened. Not a sound.

  He was certain that Bishop had known he was being followed. Thorne had half expected the door to be open. Six inches ajar, tempting him inside. Not a trap, nothing so vulgar.

  More like an invitation.

  He pressed his hand against the door. It was locked.

  Back off now and wait for Holland to arrive with troops. It ­wouldn’t be long, presuming those idiots in the Traffic car had done as they’d been told. Get back into his car and sit tight, that would be best.

  He put the side of his head to the door again and this time added the heft of his shoulder. Not a violent movement. Just a sustained pressure, using his weight.

  The door gave as easily as if he’d used a key. There was barely any noise.

  Ahead of him, by the light from a shopfront opposite, Thorne could see a long straight hallway leading to a staircase that climbed away into darkness. Everything else looked to be on the upper levels, above the greengrocer’s.

  He stepped smartly inside and tried to shut the door behind him. The lock wouldn’t catch against the jamb where he’d forced it, so he just pushed it to. Then he turned inside and listened.

  Nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the rain outside and the rumble of the traffic from the main road. He felt for a light switch and found one of those press-in jobs designed to save money. He started up the stairs.

  The place was messy. Scattered about on the torn stair-carpet were various bits of junk mail and unopened letters. He could smell fast food of some kind, Chinese maybe.