Scaredy Cat (33 page)

Since I found out why I'm the way I am, since I was told that somebody planned this, I've been trying to remember. Trying so hard to remember. Something that might help. Anything that might help them get the bastard.

Now there's some stuff in my head that I know isn't a dream

or anything I've imagined. I don't know whether it wil help. It'l help me for sure.

It's memory and it's fighting to come out.

Memory about what happened after the hen party. It's not

so much pictures as words. Actual y, not even words. It's

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sounds. I'm hearing words but it's like they're being spoken to me under water. They're distorted and I can't quite make them out but I can guess the sense of them. I can make out the tone. Soon I'm going to work out exactly what the words are.

They're the words he said while he was doing it. The man who put me in here.

NINETEEN

A quarter to midnight and Tower Records was heaving. Dozens of late-night shoppers mingled with those who were just there to listen to the music or read the magazines or kil time.

The young man behind the til didn't even look up. '�eahcan'elpyou?'

'Yes, I'd like to pay for these, please,' said Thorne, 'and there's a Waylon Jennings import I'd like to order.'

James Bishop reddened furiously. 'What the fuck do you want? I shouldn't even be talking to you.'

Thorne dumped three CDs on to the counter in front of Bishop and fumbled for his wal et. He stared at Bishop until, with a face clouded by resentment, he began picking up the CDs, removing the security tags and running them through the til . He wouldn't look at Thorne, but instead glanced nervously towards his col eagues, thrusting the CDs clumsily into a plastic bag, trying to get it al over as quickly as possible.

Thorne leaned on the counter, waving his credit card. 'What's the matter? Don't want your workmates knowing you've got a friend who buys Kris Kristofferson albums? I did want to get the new Fatboy Slim single but you've sold out.'

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Bishop took the credit card, swiped it, and glared at Thorne. 'You're not my friend. You're just a wanker!'

'I don't suppose it's worth asking for the staff discount?' 'Fuck you.'

Thorne shook his head sadly. 'I knew I should have gone to Our Price...'

An assistant with a silver spike through his lower lip ambled over. 'Is everything al right, Jim?'

Bishop thrust the plastic bag at Thorne. 'It's fine.' He looked over Thorne's shoulder to the girl waiting behind him. 'Yeahcan'elpyou?'

Thorne didn't move. 'When does your shift finish?' The girl behind him tutted impatiently. Bishop looked at him with a defiant half-smile. He glanced at the enormous blue G-Shock on his wrist. 'Fifteen minutes. And?'

Thorne pointed towards the door. 'And I'l see you in Dunkin' Donuts. I'd recommend the cinnamon, but it's entirely up to you...'

Twenty minutes later, Thorne was just finishing his second coffee and his fourth doughnut when James Bishop strol ed in and sat down next to him. He was wearing a red Puffa jacket and the same black wool y hat he'd been wearing in the shop. Thorne took another doughnut and pushed the box towards him. Bishop pus-hed it back. 'Suit yourself,' Thorne said.

Bishop stared at him. 'I've not eaten al day. Do you want coffee?'

Bishop shook his head. Again the strange half-smile. 'So what is it, then? Do you want to know if my dad's flipped out yet, is that it? If you keeping him avake half the night with stupid phone cal s is affecting his work? Maybe

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costing someone their life? Pretty fucking irresponsible, wouldn't you say?'

Thorne stared at him for a few seconds, chewing. 'So

has he?'

'Has he what?'

'Flipped out.'

'Jesus...' Bishop took out a packet of Marlboro. Thorne's eyes drifted away to the left and Bishop fol owed them to the no-smoking sign on the wal . He threw the packet on to the table.

'He's pissed off that you're doing it and even more

pissed off that you're getting away with it. None of us are going to let it go, you know. Whatever happens, we'l keep making a fuss until you're back in fucking uniform.'

Thorne considered, for a second or two, the uncomplicated life of the woodentop. Domestics. D and D. Traffic.

He wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.

'None of the things that you and your father are accusing me of is against the law, James.'

'Don't hide behind the law, that's pathetic. Especial y

when you've got no respect for it.'

'I respect the important bits of it.'

'You're not a copper, Thorne, you're a stalker.'

Thorne took a napkin and slowly wiped the sugar from around his mouth. 'I'm just do!ng my job, James.'

Bishop was agitated. Had been since he'd walked in. Chewing his nails one second, drumming his fingers on the table the next. One part of his body always moving or twitching. Feet kicking, arms stretching. He was jittery. Thorne wondered if he had a drug problem. He didn't find it hard to believe. If he did it was almost certainly funded by his father. Maybe the doctor prescribed something...

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Another very good reason for wanting to protect him.

'Your sister thinks that you only pretend to be close to

your father so that you can keep sponging off him.' 'She's a sil y cunt.' Spitting the words out.

Thorne was shocked, but did his best not to show it. 'You do fairly wel out of him, though?'

'Look, he gave me a car and he helped with the deposit on my flat, al right?' Thorne shrugged. 'This is nothing to do with money. He's upset and that makes me upset, it's as simple as that. He's my father.'

'So he's not capable of... wickedness?' Thorne had no idea why he'd used that particular word. While he was wondering where it had come from, James Bishop was staring at him as if he'd just dropped down to earth from another planet.

'He's my father:

'So you protect him at al costs?'

'Against the likes of you, yeah.., using the law to act out a vendetta because he happens to have treated some woman who got attacked by the man you're after and because you're shagging somebody he once had a thing with. I'l protect him against that.'

'It's my job to get at the truth, and if that upsets people sometimes, then that's tough.'

Bishop scoffed. 'Christ, you real y think you're a hard man, don't you? Part misunder-stood copper and part vigilante. I'd cal you a dinosaur but they had bigger brains...' He stood up and turned to go.

Thorne stopped him. 'So what sort of copper would you be, James? What do you think it should be about?'

Bishop turned and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. He sniffed, pursing lips that were the same 322 MARK BILLINGHAM

as his father's. Thorne could see the smal boy hiding just beneath the arrogant posturing. 'What about justice?' Bishop sneered. 'I had the stupid idea that was fairly fucking important.'

Thorne pictured a young girl, in a bed with a pale pink quilt, trapped inside a body growing frail and flabby from lack of use. He pictured a face, the features partly shadowed, staring down at him from the second floor of a large house. Now he stared back, hard, at those same perfect features, set in the younger face of the man to whom they'd been passed on. 'Oh, it is, James. Very important...'

Thorne fol owed him to the door. 'Can I drop you anywhere?' Bishop shook his head and stared out of the doorway at the huge stream of people stil flowing round Piccadil y Circus in the early hours of a cold October morning. Without a word he stepped into it, and was immediately gone.

Thorne stood for a few seconds, watching the red Puffa jacket disappearing into the distance, before turning and heading in the opposite direction to pick up his car.

Thorne stopped when he saw the shape in the doorway. He froze when it began to move.

He breathed out, relieved, when the shape revealed itself to be the somewhat wobbly figure of Dave Hol and. Thorne's first thought was that he'd been hurt. 'Jesus, Dave...' He moved quickly, reaching to gather up the DC by the arms, and then he smelt the booze.

Hol and stood up. Not paralytic, but wel on the way. 'Sir... been sitting waiting for you. You've been ages...'

Thorne had given up the whisky a long time ago, at the same time as the fags, but it was stil a smel he'd recognise SLEEPYHEAD 323

anywhere. Instinctively he reeled from it, just needing a second or two. It was a smel that could overpower him. Pungent and pathetic. The smel of need. The smel of misery. The smel of alone.

Francis John Calvert. Whisky, piss and gunpowder. And freshly washed nightdresses.

The smel of death in a council flat on a Monday morning. Hol and stood, leaning against the wal , breathing too loudly. Thorne reached into the pocket of his leather jacket for his keys.

'Come on, Dave, let's get inside and I'l make

some coffee. How did you get here anyway?'

'Taxi. Left the car...'

There was real y no point in asking where Hol and had left his car. They could sort it out later. The key turned in the lock. Thorne nudged open the front door with his foot, instinctively turning the bunch of keys in his hand, feeling for the second key that would open the door to his flat.

There was a vhite envelope lying on the doormat in the communal hal way.

Thorne looked at it and thought: There's another note from the kil er.

Not 'What's that?' or 'That's odd' or even 'I wonder if...?'. He knew what it was immediately and said as much. Hol and sobered up straight away.

Thorne knew that neither the envelope nor the note inside it would trouble a forensic scientist greatly. They would be clean - not a print, not a fibre, not a stray hair. But he stil took the necessary precautions. Hol and held down the envelope with fingers wrapped in kitchen towel while Thorne used two knives to improvise as tongs and remove the piece of paper.

The envelope had not been sealed. Thorne would

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probably have steamed it open anyway, but the kil er had ,,

left nothing to chance. He'd wanted his note read straight

away. By Thorne.

He used the knives to flatten the paper out. The note

was neatly typed like the others. Thorne knew it was only

a matter of time before the typewriter it had been written

on was being wrapped up, label ed and loaded into the

back of a Forensic Science Services van.

This would be Jeremy Bishop's last note.

TOM,

I HAD CONSIDERED SOMETHING DIFFERENT, AN EMAIL PERHAPS, BUT I'M GUESSING THAT YOU'RE SOMETHING OF A LUDDITE AS FAR AS ALL THAT'S CONCERNED.

SO, INK AND PARCHMENT IT IS.

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE TV PERFORMANCE BY THE WAY, VERY INTENSE. DID YOU MEAN WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT IT ALL BEING OVER SOON, OR WAS THAT JUST

HOT AIR FOR THE CAMERAS? THERE'S NOTHING LIKE CONFIDENCE, IS THERE? OR ARE YOU JUST TRYING TO MAKE ME JITTERY IN THE HOPE THAT I'LL MAKE A MISTAKE ONE QUESTION...

WHAT I WAS WONDERING IS, WHAT WAS IT LIKE FINDING HER? BEING THE FIRST ONE THERE? WAS THAT YOUR FIRST TIME, TOM.

YOU GET USED TO BLOOD, DON'T YOU.9

ANYWAY, IF YOU'RE RIGHT, I SUPPOSE I'LL SEE YOU VERY

SOON.

REGARDS . . .

Hol and slumped on to the settee. Thorne read the note a second time. And a third. The arrogance was breathtaking.

L

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There seemed no great point to it. There was no revelation or announcement. It was al . o. display.

He went into the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and swil ed out a couple of coffee-cups. Why did Bishop feel the need to do this? Why was he baiting him about Maggie Byrne, when Thorne had so clearly risen to the bait a long time ago? He spooned in the instant coffee.

There was something skewed about the tone of the note that Thorne couldn't put his finger on. Something almost forced. Maybe the kil er was starting to lose the control he had over everything. Maybe his latest failure had tipped him over the edge. Or maybe he was starting to work towards the insanity plea he would obviously try to cop when the time came.

And the time was most certainly coming.

He stirred the drinks. There was nothing artificial about the madness. Nobody sane could do as this man had done, but stil Thorne would fight tooth and nail to prevent it cushioning his fal .

He wanted him to fal hard.

There would be pressure, of course, from those who would want to treat his il ness, to care for him. There were always those. There were always plenty for whom violent death was a hobby, or a study option or a gravy train. The lunatics who would write to him inside with requests for advice, or signed pictures, or offers of marriage. The campaigners. The writers of books - bestsel ers before the bodies had started to decompose. The makers of films. The old women with pastel hair hammering on the side of the van, spitting...

And the policemen who remembered the smel of the blood.

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Was that your first time?

Thorne carried the coffee into the living room, but stopped in the doorway the second he looked at Hol and, who was sitting on the settee and staring at the wal opposite. It was not the faraway look of drunkenness, or tiredness, or boredom.

Thorne felt his heartbeat increase.

He hadn't asked why Hol and had come here in the first place.

Hol and turned to him. 'We were trying to get hold of you...'

Thorne remembered his phone, chucked into the back of his car. 'What's happened, Dave?'

Hol and tried to shape an answer and now Thorne recognised the look. He'd seen it fifteen years before, in the bottom of glasses and in shop windows and in mirrors. The look of a young man who's seen far too much death.

Hol and spoke, his voice, his eyes, his expression dead. 'Michael and Eileen Doyle... Helen Doyle's mum and dad. The next-door neighbour noticed the smel .'

Apparently, the stroke affected only a very smal part of my brain. In the brainstem.

The 'inferior pons' this particular bit's cal ed, if you can believe that.