Scaredy Cat (19 page)

'No problem. I'm sure we'l run into one another soon.' Thorne slammed the door. The electric window slid

down.

'Don't forget your briefcase...'

He drove slowly through Covent Garden, up to Holborn, then doubled back towards Soho. Cutting through smal streets lined with newly opened shops, their chrome cluttered interiors bathed in the glow of lava lamps. 'Scouting for locations', he believed this was cal ed in the film world. Locations where he might find the next one. There were many to choose from and he'd have a better selection once it was dark, but he was just getting the feel of things.

He tightened his grip on the steering-wheel. He was stil unsure what game Thorne was playing. He was making it al so easy for him and stil things were far from satisfactory. The one thing he hadn't bargained for was ineptitude. He should have. He knew what was going on most of the time, and the control he felt at those moments was what would keep everything moving towards the correct and proper outcome. But there were seconds of doubt tOO. Then he felt as if the unexpected might be round the corner and come rushing at him and send everything spinning into confusion. He did not like surprises.

He hadn't liked them for years.

He'd decided to stick to roughly the same pattern but he fancied a bit of a change. Pubs had proved successful and, of course, the discoth+que in south London, but he wanted 182 MARK BILLINGHAM

tO adjust the demographics. Perhaps he'd move upmarket a little. Somewhere beset with lacquered wood and polished steel, where decibels inhibited conversation to bel owed soundbites. Set about treating some young thing ful of pil s and alcopops. Half the job would be done for him already.

Al he'd need to do would be to cruise along behind the night bus...

Yes, she would probably be very young. Younger than Helen, even. And so much luckier. Success would mean relief from many more years of struggle and stretchmarks. He would get this one right, like Alison. If her heart had the strength, even near death, to keep pumping the blood around the body, then she would be cared for.

He looked around at the other drivers drowning in their cars, the pedestrians choking, the shopworkers being slowly suffocated. Al of them dying a little, day by day. He couldn't help al of them, but one was going to be given a fighting chance very soon.

Then Thorne might start doing his job properly.

The kiss, when Anne opened the door to her office, felt awkward. The smiles were genuine and unprofessional. They both wanted more. They'd have to wait.

The blackboard stood against the wal . Thorne took a step towards it. 'This would bethe communications device that Jeremy was tel ing me about?'

She looked stunned. 'You've seen him?'

He shrugged. 'He gave me a lift into town this morning.' Now he had one or two bits and pieces in his briefcase.

'Oh.' She walked over and self-consciously rubbed out some of the scrawlier chalk marks. Now, under the lines of SLEEPYHEAD 183

letters, there were two smal arrows, one pointing forwards, the other backwards.

'It's... evolving. I'm hopeful.'

He wished he'd made a move on her that night after dinner. For al sorts of reasons. Now things were so difficult. 'I got one of the blokes at work to have a look on the Internet for me,' he said. 'There were al sorts of... gizmos.'

She smiled. 'Oh, there are. If Alison ever recovers significant movement there are powerchairs that are incredibly sophisticated. Even as she is now there's the Eyegaze system, which can be operated by the tiniest eye movement. She could manoeuvre a mouse and type into a computer with vocaliser software. She could speak. She could control virtual y any element within her immediate environment.' 'Al horribly expensive, I suppose?'

'Believe me, I was lucky to get the blackboard. Do you want a coffee?'

Thorne wanted al manner of disgusting things. Right there on her desk. He wanted to be pushed backwards across it scattering notes on to the floor. He wanted to unzip himself and watch as she walked towards him smiling, hitching up her skirt...

'I'd real y like to go and see Alison.'

'Wel , you go on up and I'l grab us a couple of coffees from the canteen. You remember where it is, don't you?'

The room was not so cluttered with. hardware as the last time he'd seen it. It stil felt as if he'd taken the lift to the basement and stumbled into the generating room, but there was a lot less of it. Alison seemed less attached. There were fresh flowers - from her boyfriend, he supposed. It suddenly struck him that he'd never met Tim Hinnegan.

184 MARK BILLINGHAM

He had no idea what he looked like, what he did for a living. He'd ask Hol and.

Fuck that. He'd ask Alison. When he had time.

He needed a piss and hurriedly availed himself of Alison's en-suite facilities. A low metal pan, a sink, a sharps bin. Handles screwe&at a variety of heights and angles into the insipid yel ow wal s. He flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on to his face.

Thorne sat in the chair nearest the bed and looked at

her. Her eyes were wide open, the right eye flickering. The smal est movement but seemingly constant. It was incredibly difficult to maintain eye-contact with her. There was a chal enge in that unflinching stare - he was imagining it, he knew, but he stil felt embarrassed. How long did you ever hold eye-contact with anyone? Even someone with whom you were intimate?

A few seconds? Alison would look deep into his eyes for as long as he was comfortable with it. He quickly realised, with something like shame, that this wasn't very long.

He took her hand and held it tight against the blanket.

To have lifted it clear of the bedclothes would have felt like.., taking advantage.

'Hi, Alison. It's Detective Inspector Thorne.' He reddened, remembering that she'd just been staring at him for nearly a minute. He was starting to sweat. He shuffled the chair a little closer to the bed and squeezed her hand. 'You must be sick of people being as stupid as me.'

Alison blinked. The sluggishness of the eyelid's downward movement was probably normal but, to Thorne, it implied a weary amusement in her answer. He thought he felt a split-second tremor in her fingers and looked into her eyes for confirmation. There was none. How many of her

SLEEPYHEAD 185

friends had sat where he was and felt the same things? How many had shouted for a nurse and gone home feeling stupid?

He was actual y starting to feel genuinely relaxed. The low hum of the machines was soothing and soporific. It wasn't unlike being pissed. There was an enjoyable conversation to be had. But he knew that Anne would arrive with the coffee at any time and there was one question he couldn't ask with her in the room.

Letting go of the smal , warm hand was difficult but he needed to open the briefcase. From the stiff-backed manil a envelope he produced the ten-by-eight black-andwhite photo, and held it down by his side wondering how best to phrase the question.

She'd recognise Bishop, of course she would. He'd been in the room with Anne the day before, hadn't he? He wasn't real y looking for anything like an identification. He just hoped he might learn something else. Get a sense of something else. A recognition beyond the one he knew would be there anyway.

He knew that nothing that happened in this room would ever be admissible as evidence. He also knew instinctively that he couldn't ask her straight out if the face she was about to see belonged .to the man who'd put her here. Christ alone knew how fragile she was feeling. She was almost certainly confused, disoriented, even now. He'd have to take it slowly.

Much as he wanted this, he couldn't hurt her.

'Alison, I'm going to show you a picture.' He held up the photo. For a moment he said nothing. There was just the relentless hum. 'You've seen this man before, haven't you?'

186 MARK BILLINGHAM

His eyes didn't shift from hers for an instant. She blinked.

His phone rang.

Anne didn't want the coffee to go cold and had tried to keep the conversation with the administrator as brief as possible. He'd col ared her at the til and even the few fragments of his monologue that had got through to her had bored her rigid instantly. He was a pathological y dul individual who, were he ever to become a hospital visitor, could set back the treatment of coma patients by decades. She'd smiled and nodded. God knows what she'd actual y agreed to.

Now, as she walked towards Alison's room, she wondered if Thorne felt as she did - as though this was some sort of bizarre date, sharing a cup of coffee with Alison as a chaperone.

It was kind of him to have looked into Alison's condition on the Internet. She'd have to check it out for herselfi she was wel briefed, of course, on al the technological advancements that were making the lives of those with permanent disabilities easier - at least, those with a substantial private income. Things were moving quickly, though, and she was likely to be better informed by the Net than she would be by current medical literature.

She had no idea whether Or not Thorne was good at what he did. It as obvious that he cared, that he got involved. As far as his job was concerned, caring might not necessarily be a good thing. She knew what Jeremy would say about it.

Holding a cup in each hand she pushed open the door to Alison's room with her backside and nudged it shut with SLEEPYHEAD 187

her hip. She turned to see Thorne standing by the window, staring into space. She looked at the empty chair by Alison's bed and knew instantly that something was wrong. 'Tom?'

She could see the tension in his iaw. His face was the colour of a corpse.

'Someone has contacted my office.., my former office, anonymously.'

He turned his head slowly towards Alison, but Anne could see that he was looking at a space on the back wal , above her head; His eyes dropped to the girl's face and stayed there for a second or two before he turned and walked slowly out of the room.

Anne put the coffee on the table next to Alison's bed and fol owed him. He was waiting outside the door. The moment the door was closed, he took a smal step towards her and spoke calmly, the fury just held in check.

'I have been accused of molesting Alison.'

The screaming, hypnotic pulse of the music had focused Thorne's mind and steered his thoughts into the dark places in his head that were usual y best avoided. He was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the sofa, the beer can cool against his cheek.

Keable had tried to set his mind at rest. 'Don't worry, Tom, it's obviously nothing. Just some nutter who claimed to have heard it from somebody in the hospital. Nobody's taking it seriously - it's not like he could have heard it from Alison Wil etts, is it?'

Insensitive to the last, but Thorne was relieved that he couldn't argue with the reasoning. He let his head fal back on to the sofa cushion and stared at the ceiling.

188 MARK BILLINGHAM

He thought about touching Alison.

He thought about hearing Jeremy Bishop beg.

The doorbel rang. He got slowly to his feet. He opened the door and went straight back to his spot on the floor by the sofa. Formalities seemed pointless. Anne walked in and stood by the fireplace. She dropped her bag, took off the thin raincoat and spent five seconds taking in the room. The first thing she noticed was the beer. 'Can I?'

She walked over, smoothing down her long black skirt. Thorne handed her a can of lager from the broken fourpack by his side. 'Not a brand I'm familiar with.'

'I know. Expensive wine and cheap, piss-weak lager. Don't ask me why.'

'So you can enjoy the drinking without the sensation of being drunk.'

'That's definitely not the reason.'

She sat down on the sofa behind and to his right. 'Tom, that phone cal . It's just a crank.'

He half crushed his empty can then stopped and put it

down gently next to the others. 'I know exactly who it is.' 'Wel , it's stupid to let it upset you.'

He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. 'No. Not upset.'

Anne could see in his eyes that the nice side of him, the side that bought Alison flowers, was far from being the whole story. Though it was difficult to contemplate such a thing, she would not want this man as an enemy.

She took a long swig of beer and gestured towards the stereo. 'Who's this?'

'Leftfield. The track's cal ed "Open Up".'

She listened for a minute. Hated it.

SLEEPYHEAD 189

'That's John Lydon doing the vocal,' Thorne said, as if

it made a difference.

'Right...'

'Johnny Rotten... the Sex Pistols?'

'Sadly, I was a little too. old even for them. What are you, then? Forty?'

'Forty a few months ago. I was seventeen when "God Save The Queen" came out.'

'God. I was already a third-year reed student.'

'I know. Pushing beds into rivers.'

She gave him what his dad would certainly have described as an old-fashioned look. 'So what were you doing?'

Not going to university, thought Thorne. For so many reasons, he wished he had. 'I was about to join the force, I suppose, and managing my ache.' Wanting to be a policeman more than anything. Trying to make his mum and dad proud. Wanting to do good, and al the other stupid ideas of which he'd been so brutal y disabused.

Anne drained her can and Thorne passed her another. They sat in silence for a minute, remembering, or pretending to remember.

'Thanks for coming over by the way. Did you drive?' 'Yes. Bugger to park, though.' Thorne nodded. 'It's good to get out actual y. Rachel and I are getting on each other's nerves a bit at the moment.'

'Yeah?'

:She's got a couple of resits to do and she thought the whole exam thing was behind her. So she's being a bit... spiky.'

Thorne remembered his first encounter with Anne Coburn in a lecture theatre at the Royal Free. Spiky obviously ran in the family.

190 MARK BILLINGHAM

Anne took another long slug of beer. Enjoying it. 'Just run-of-the-mil teenage angst, I suppose. She hasn't pierced her bel y-button or painted Ier room black yet, but it's probably just a matter of time.'