Scaredy Cat (16 page)

He was being judged every day by the dead.

He needed to be outside an operation that was stifling

him. He had to get out and make things happen. While he

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dicked about fol owing leads and smiling the right smiles,

Jeremy Bishop was making a fool of him.

It was time to turn things round.

He had to go to bed. The fol owing morning was not going to be pleasant and he'd need to be as sharp as he could be. But he stil needed to make one more cal . He got up and went to the mantelpiece for his address book. He couldn't remember the numbers of many pornographers offhand.

I'm glad Anne's spending more time with me again. I'd sort of started thinking that she'd moved on a bit, that the novelty had maybe worn off. I wouldn't have blamed her, but I can't believe she's got many like me. She told me her workload had built up and that the administrator was an arsehole, so fair enough. Mind you, if I don't start making some progress I might find myself out on my ear. Somebody's bound to need the bed.

We've pretty much got 'yes'and "no' sussed, and 'in pain'is one of my specialities but blinking is hardly Esperanto. One for yes and two for no is al very wel in theory but it's the control that's letting me down. And the gaps between the blinks are al over the shop. I try to blink twice but it's hard for Anne to know if I'm saying "no'or saying "yes, yes'. There's a lot of "Is that a yes, Alison? No? Is that a no, then?" We're like a pair of comical foreigners on Benny Hil . This chicken is rubbery,t Dad used to piss himself at that. Mum was never much for comedy shows, but he loved it. Maybe the old sod just fancied the women in bikinis. I caught Mum watching one of the videos a couple of weeks after my dad died. She must have got it out of the video shop. I was doing my NVQs, I think, and I cane back from col ege early one day. She was sitting there watching this sad old fat bloke chasing these dol y-birds round and round a garden and crying her eyes out.

Tim had better buck up his sodding ideas as wel . He just sits there holding my hand. I know he can't come much in the daytime because of work but he should make more of an effort SLEEPYHEAD 153

in the evenings. I don't know anything. He doesn't tel me. What's happening on Brookside? Is he stil playing footbal on Sundays? Has he put that shower curtain up yet? If Dad was here he'd kick him up the arse.

He's stupid, real y, because the weight's dropping off me and if everything else is knackered then there's every chance I might actual y have stopped ageing! I'l be walking out of here a slim and sexy shadow of my former self. There's one very tasty male nurse. Probably gay, but fit as fuck. If Tim's not careful l might have to start looking elsewhere.

NINE

When he woke up he was stil angry. The previous night's amateur dramatics had been hugely disappointing. And where the hel was Thorne? At least it conftrmed what he'd suspected for a while - that the rigorous, high-priority investigation had got precisely nowhere. Perhaps they'd have the car by now, or a slightly better description, but it was stil painful y slow. There wasn't even a sniff of the number plate. It was stolen, of course, but come on! It was nearly a fortnight since he'd given them Helen's body to play with and they were stil begging for the help of the general public.

Useless wankers.

Thorne. Nowhere to be seen when he should have been grabbing his bit of televisual glory. He hadn't believed for a second that Thorne had stil been recovering. No, there was something afoot among the jol y coppers for sure. This was unforeseen but easily dealt with. If al that his thuggish theatrics and beautiful y arch little note had done was cause the boys in blue to have some sort of queeny tantrum, then he'd just have to find another way to chivvy them along, wouldn't he?

It was about time anyway. Maniacs were supposed to speed up as the frenzy took hold, weren't they? They'd

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expect nothing less. He'd considered livening things up a little. Perhaps a gay man or an old person next time. No... that would be bound to confuse them and he didn't want them confused. Al things considered, he was ready for another bash. Keen as mustard to try, try, try again.

He'd tried kicking Thorne in the shins. It was time to aim for the heart.

Thorne looked around the pub. Businessmen in shirtsleeves using a basket of scampi or a microwaved chil i con carne as an excuse to sink a couple of pints at lunchtime. It was probably as good a place as any. Informants didn't like to meet too close to home and as it was, of al the people upstairs in the Lamb and Flag, Thorne looked the most likely vil ain. He was comfortable with that. He knew he looked.., useful. It hadn't done him any harm by and large, though he would've liked to be tal er.

A surly Australian barman emptied the ashtray Thorne wasn't using. 'Are you eating, mate? We need the table.'

Thorne opened his wal et. 'I'l have another mineral water.' He made sure his identification was visible. With a tut the barman wiped the table and went to fetch Thorne's drink.

The Perrier was the one thing slightly at odds with the image he knew he was presenting, but the booze was, as yet, strictly confined to Little IKEA. Besides, he could do with getting straight back to work afterwards. He didn't think rol ing in bladdered on his first day would go down too wel .

The meeting with Frank Keable the day before hadn't been as prickly as he'd expected. Keable had wanted him to stay on the investigation, but for none of the right 156 MARK BILLINGHAM

reasons. He talked about the integrity of the case, whatever that was, and how he could il afford to lose an officer with Thorne's outstanding record. As far as the notes and the attack on Thorne, which Keable assured him was being viewed as an attempted murder, were concerned, Keable was predictably vague. He was adamant that this facet of the case would be monitored closely, but Thorne could sense a real fear on Keable's part that, were he to leave, Keable himself might become the object of the kil er's bizarre attention.

Thorne knew that this was never going to happen. The simple truth was that, if Thorne left, Keable was terrified of the press getting hold of it and understandably he did not relish explaining to the detective superintendent why one of his senior officers was jumping ship. Thorne had told him to put it down to a clash with Tughan. Or him. Anything he liked.

Keable asked him to reconsider. Thorne had looked into the bored brown eyes of the Exmoor stag and stood his ground.

By lunchtime he'd been transferred back to the Serious Crime Group (West) out of Hendon, effective from nine o'clock the fol owing morning.

He hoped things were a little clearer than when he'd left.

The Met was in a serious state of flux. Not only was it now under the direct auspices of the GLA and Mayor Livingstone, it was also undergoing major operational restructuring. NHS red tape was impressive, but it didn't even come close.

The old area system had gone. Five areas of London (NW, NE, SW, SE and Central), each with its own Major

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Incident Team (AMIT), which had in turn replaced the Area Major Incident Pools (AMIPs) and al now superseded by three Serious Crime Groups (East, West, South) encompassing al existing OCUs as wel as the old Organised Crime Department, the Fraud Squad and the Firearms Unit.

The result? Hundreds of officers without a clue what was happening. Or indeed, why. The official line was that the new SCGs were supposed to be more proactive. The Met would no longer sit back and wait for crime to happen.

It was a good theory.

But you couldn't anticipate the likes of Jeremy Bishop. As the DI on Team 3 out of Beck House in Hendon, Thorne had landed on his feet. He'd worked with DCI Russel Brigstocke for six months at Serious Crime and he knew that, barring-anything major going down, Brigstocke wouldn't kick up a fuss should Thorne be unavailable from time to time.

Like since nine o'clock that morning.

'Kodak!'

If Thorne looked useful, the man in his early forties nodding and strol ing over to join him was positively indispensable. Six feet four and built like a barn, with bleached blond hair, a nose-ring and, today, a bright yel ow puffa jacket. But it wasn't al good ne.ws. Dennis Bethel 's voice could start a fight at a hundred yards. It was a spilt pint waiting to happen.

'Can I get you one, Mr Thorne?'

Thorne always smiled the first time he heard the incongruous, high-pitched squeak. Whoever was responsible for these things had screwed up big-time or else had a great 158 MARK BILLINGHAM

sense of humour. Somewhere there was an extremely irate

cartoon mouse who sounded like Frank Bruno. He pointed to his water. 'No, I'm fine.' Bethel nodded for about ten seconds.

Thorne emptied his glass as the barman final y brought

over a new one and took the money. Bethel , if anything,

was even bigger than the last time he'd seen him. 'Steroids give you cancer, you know, Kodak.' 'Bol ocks,' squeaked Bethel . 'They make you infertile. Anyway, this al right for you, Mr Thorne? I know it's a bit busy, but coming up West is handy for me. I do a lot of business round here.'

'Course you do, Kodak...'

As porno merchants went, Dennis Bethel was among

the least unpleasant. For twenty years Thorne had monitored his career with interest. He was purveyor of everything from soft-focus glamour snaps for car magazines to the more brightly lit and clinical stuff for those publications a little harder to reach. In the eighties his top quality cumshot work had been much in demand, and his occasional foray into blackmail had caused the abrupt termination of at least one prominent political career. Dennis was old school. In an age where hard-core videos were a tenner and any mug punter with a PC could watch dwarfs doing it with donkeys at the drop of a hat, or the click of a mouse, he was stil a firm believer in the power, the truth, of the single stil photograph. Deep down, Thorne admired the filthy piece of pondlife.

'This boozer used to be the Bucket of Blood you know.' Thorne did know. Two hundred and fifty years earlier this had been a brawler's pub. Whores and cutthroats doing business and slicing each other up for pennies while

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Hogarth sat in the corner jotting it al down and doing sketches. Thorne looked around him. He couldn't help but wonder if he might not have felt a little more at home. 'Business going wel , then, is it?'

Bethel was lighting a Silk Cut. 'Oh, not too shabby. I've got a website, you know...'

'You're shattering al my il usions.'

'You've got to move with the times, haven't you? Have you seen the stuff that's out there?'

Thorne had. Plenty of it. 'And you think the stuff you do is any different?'

'I don't do anything with kids, Mr Thorne, you know that. I won't be doing with that filth. Besides, my stuff's a bit more exclusive, I reckon. It's harder to get hold of.'

'Yeah. You've got to stand on tiptoe in the newsagent.' Bethel looked uncomfortable. Stubbed out the fag long before it was finished. Lit another. 'Can we get this over with, Mr Thorne?'

'Of course. I'm sorry to have kept you.'

'Listen, Mr Thorne, I don't real y hear a great deal these days. I've been getting this webcam thing off the ground and apart from that it's just the usual stuff with the models. I don't hang around as much as I did...'

The barman returned with Thorne's change. From the table behind him Thorne could hear muffled sniggering. He real y hoped it wasn't aimed at the big man sitting opposite him.

Bethel mistook Thorne's silence for disappointment. 'There's a bit of drugs business I could put your way. These young girls are dropping Es and putting Charlie up their beaks like there's no tomorrow. They don't want to eat, see...'

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More sniggering, and this time Bethel heard it too. Thorne turned round. Four media types. Short hair, square glasses and training shoes that probably cost more than his suit. They wouldn't look at him. He turned back round, lowering his voice as a cue for Bethel to do the same.

'I don't need information, Kodak.'

'Right.'

'I wish to avail myself of your high-quality professional services, which you wil provide in return for me not sending Vice to go trampling through your darkroom.'

Bethel thought for a moment or three. 'You want me to take some photos?'

'Simple black and white portrait from as close as you can get. The subject wil be unaware that he is being photographed.' Bethel was hardly inconspicuous, but Thorne knew that the man had a great deal of experience in maintaining a low profile. In a paral el universe he might have been a highly paid paparazzo.

'No sweat, Mr Thorne, I've got this blinding new three hundred mil Nikon zoom.'

Thorne leaned in close. 'Listen, Bethel , this is a piece of piss, al right? A simple head shot. Coming out of his house, getting into his car, it doesn't matter. Should be simple for you. No beds. No animals. No drugged-up teenage girls.'

He thought about Helen Doyle, sitting in the pub, laughing.

'I never did anything like that, Tommy. Strictly a Bacardi Breezer girl...'

He gave Bethel the address and finished his drink while the photographer enthused a little more about lenses SLEEPYHEAD 161

before lumbering off towards the gents'. As he went, Bethel gave the quartet on the table behind them a good hard look.

Thorne felt pretty sure that Bethel would do a decent job for him. It wasn't just because he'd make his life hel if he didn't, he could sense that the man would take pride in the work. Not for the first time Thorne thought about how much better he functioned with professional criminals. It was a game he was good at. Even the real y nasty bastards he had squared up against in his eighteen months on the Flying Squad weren't hard to figure out. Some he caught and some he didn't, but he never had to waste his time wondering why they were doing it. Money, usual y. Sex, occasional y. Because they couldn't be arsed doing anything else, often. But the rules of the game were simple: stop them doing it and let somebody else work out why afterwards.