Scaredy Cat (35 page)

And boom! There it was. The tune he'd been unable to place. That had been what was bothering him al along, lurking at the back of his brain, slippery and elusive. She was right, of course. Why had none of them ever real y sat down and spoken to a fucking doctor? How could they

have missed it? How could he have missed it?

Easy: he hadn't wanted it to be there.

Hendricks: You've got blinkers on and I'm fucking sick of

it.

He felt like the breath had been taken from him. Beaten.

338 MARK BILLINGHAM

out of his body. Christ, it was al coming apart in front of him.

'I'm sorry, Tom.'

He closed his eyes. Screwed them shut. He knew it wasn't Anne who should be apologising. There were people he needed to say sorry to.

The first time he'd laid eyes on him, he thought he'd looked like the doctor from The Fugitive. That doctor had been innocent as wel .

'I got thinking it was him and wanting it to be him mixed up, I think...'

'Ssssh...' She was kneeling beside the settee, stroking

his hair.

'It got too personal. There wasn't enough distance.'

'Tom, it doesn't matter now. Nobody was hurt.'

'I was so sure, Anne. So sure Calvert was the kil er...' He felt her hand stop moving. Shook his head. Tried to laugh it off.

Slip of the tongue. 'Bishop, I mean. Bishop.' 'Who's Calvert?'

Whisky, piss and gunpowder. And freshly washed nightdresses. Oh, luck, no...

'Tom, who's Calvert?'

Then the tears came. And he dredged it al up, every heartstopping, malodorous moment of it. For the first time in fifteen years he took himself back completely. Jan never had the time or the stomach for al of it but now he was going to skip nothing. No edited highlights with a warning for those of a sensitive nature.

Thorne fought to bring the sobbing under control.

Then he told her.

TWENTY-ONE

Friday, 15 June 1985. Nearly going-home time.

It's a big one. The biggest since the Ripper. Fifteen thousand interviews in eighteen months and they've got nothing. The press are going mental, but not that mental, obviously. It's not like he's kil ing women or straight blokes, after al . Just the right amount of moral outrage with a smattering of self-righteousness and occasional comments about 'the risks inherent in choosing that kind of lifestyle'.

No lurid nicknames, though if the Sun could have got

away with 'Poof Kil er' they would certainly have used it. Just 'Johnny Boy'.

The fourth victim had told a friend he was meeting a man cal ed John for a drink. This was an hour or so before his heart was cut out and his genitals were removed. An approximation of what might be Johnny Boy's face stares down from the wal of every nick in the country. He's got dirty-blond hair and a sal ow complexion. His eyes are blue and very, very cold.

It's a big one.

Detective Constable Thomas Thorne leans against the wal of the interview room at Paddington station and stares at a man with dirty-blond hair and blue eyes.

340 MARK BILLINGHAM

Francis John Calvert. Thirty-four. Self-employed builder from North London.

'Any chance of a fag? I'm fucking gasping...' Calvert smiles. A vinning smile. Perfect teeth.

Thorne says nothing. Just watching him until DI Duffy comes back.

'Surely I'm al owed one poxy fag?' The film-star smile

fading just a little.

'Shut up.'

"I]qen the door opens and Duffy comes back in. The interview resumes and Tom Thorne doesn't say another word.

None of it is riveting stuff. Duffy is way past his best.

It's purely routine anyway. Calvert is only there because of what he does.

A week before he died, the third victim told a flatmate

that he'd met a man in a club. The man had said he was a builder. The flatmate made a joke about tool-kits and builders' bumcrack. Seven days and one body later, the joke wasn't funny any more but the flatrnate remembered what his dead friend had said.

Thousands and thousands of builders to be interviewed. Some are seen at their home. Some are questioned at their place of work. Calvert gets a phone cal and comes into Paddington for a chat.

Later, of course, it wil emerge that he'd been chatted to before.

Duffy and Calvert get on like a house on fire. Duffy gives Calvert his fag.

He wants to get home.

Thorne wants to get home too, he's been married less

than a year. He's only got one ear on the answers Calvert

reels off.

SLEEPYHEAD 341

At home with his wife.., three little girls are a right handrid.., wishes he could go out at night gal ivanting about... not to those sort of places obviously. Another flash of that smile. He's helpfid, concerned. Wife only too happy to talk to yoz if you want. He hopes they find this nutter and string him tp. It doesn't matter what these pervs get up to in their private lives, what this kil er's doing's disgusting...

Duffy hands Calvert the short statement to sign and that's that. Another one crossed off the list. He thanks him. One of these days they'l strike it lucky.

Duffy stands and heads for the door. 'Show Mr Calvert out, would you, Thorne?' The DI leaves to begin the tedious process of writing it al up. The investigation is awash with paperwork.

There are distant rumblings about the arrival of computers that, one day, wil simplify al this. But that's al they are. Distant rumblings.

Thorne holds open the door and Calvert steps out into the corridor. He strol s casual y past more interview rooms, hands in pockets, whistling. Thorne fol ows. He can hear a distant radio, probably in the locker room, playing one of his favourite songs - 'There Must Be An Angel' by the Eurythmics. Jan bought the record for him last week. He wonders what she'l have organised for dinner. Maybe he can go and get a takeaway.

Through the first set of swing doors and a left turn along another corridor, which sweeps round towards main reception. Calvert waits, al owing Thorne to catch up. He holds the doors for him. 'Bet you lot are making a fucking mint in overtime.'

Thorne says nothing. He can't wait to see the back of the cocky little fucker. Past another Johnny Boy poster. Somebody's drawn a speech bubble. It says, 'Hel o, 342 MARK BILLtNGttAM

sailor.' Thorne's humming the Eurythmics song as he walks.

Then the final set of doors. The desk sergeant gives Thorne a nod. Thorne steps ahead of Calvert, pushes open the doors and stops. This is as far as he goes. This isn't a hotel and he isn't a fucking concierge. Calvert steps through the doors, stops and turns. 'Cheers, then...'

'Thanks for your help, Mr Calvert. We'l be in touch if we need anything else.'

Thorne holds out his hand without thinking about it. He's looking towards the desk sergeant, who's trying tO catch his eye and mouthing something about a party for one of the secretaries who's leaving. Thorne feels the large, cal used hand take his and turns to look at Francis John Calvert.

And everything changes.

It isn't the resemblance to the photofit. He'd registered that the instant he'd clapped eyes on Calvert and forgotten it again moments later. It isn't the resemblance but it is the face.

Thorne looks at Calvert's face and knows.

He knows.

It lasts no more than a second or two but it's enough. He can see through to what lies behind those deep, blue eyes, and what he sees terrifies him.

He sees boozing, yes, and footbal on a Saturday and wolf-whistles with the lads and an incandescent rage that is barely kept in check inside the cosy conformity of a loveless, sexless marriage.

He sees something deep and dark and rotting. Something fetid. Something spil ing into the earth and bubbling with blood.

SLEEPYHEAD 343

He cannot explain it but he knows beyond a shadow of the smal est doubt that Francis John Calvert is Johnny Boy. He knows that the man in front of him, the man shaking his hand, is responsible for stalking and slaughtering half a dozen gay men in the last year and a half.

Thorne is al but frozen to the spot, not sure how he wil ever be able to move. He is rigid with fear. He is going to piss in his trousers any second. Then he sees the most terrifying thing of al .

Calvert knows that he knows.

Thorne thinks his face is frozen, expressionless. Dead. Obviously he's wrong. He can see the change in Calvert's eyes as they meet his own. Just a slight flicker. The tiniest twitch...

And the smile that is beginning to die a little.

Then it's over. The grip is released and Calvert is moving away through the lobby towards the main station doors. He stops for a second and turns, and now the smile is gone completely.

The sergeant is wittering at him about this party but Thorne is watching Calvert walk out of the doors. The look he sees on his face is something like fear. Or perhaps hate.

And, somewhere in the distance, a sweet, high voice is stil singing about imaginary angels.

He tel s nobody. Not Duffy. None of his mates or fel ow officers. What's he supposed to tel them? Certainly not Jan. Her mind's on other things, anyway. They're trying for a baby.

At home with her that weekend, he knows he's distant. On Saturday afternoon as they strol around Chapel Market she asks if there's anything wrong. He says nothing..

344 MARK BILLINGHAM

On Sunday night she's keen to make love, but every time he shuts his eyes he sees Francis Calvert, one arm round the neck of the young boy he's kissing deeply, pul ing at him, holding the soft mouth against his own. As he groans, and comes inside his young wife, he sees Calvert's other hand, strong and cal used, reaching for the eight-inch serrated knife in his pocket.

While Jan sleeps soundly next to him, he lies awake al night. By morning he's convinced himself that he's being stupid and within an hour he's sitting in his car in a smal street off Kilburn High Road. Watching Francis Calvert's flat.

Monday 18 June 1985.

He just needs to look at him again, that's al . Once he watches him step out of that front door he'l see him for what he real y is. A nasty piece of pondlife for sure, but that's about al . A slimy little shit who's probably been done for driving without insurance, almost certainly doesn't

have a TV licence and maybe slaps his wife around.

Not a kil er.

One more look and Thorne wil know he was being stupid. He'l know that what happened in that corridor was an aberration. What Jan likes to cal a mindfuck.

He's here in plenty of time. People in the street haven't started leaving for work yet. Calvert's white Astra van is parked outside his flat.

For the next hour he sits and watches them leave. He watches front doors open up and down the street, spitting out men and women with bags and briefcases. They climb into cars or hop on to bikes or stride away towards buses and tubes.

Calvert's door stays resolutely shut.

SLEEPYHEAD 345

Thorne sits and stares at the dirty white van. Letters on

the side: E J. CALVER'I\ BUI .DER.

Butcher...

Stupid! He's being so stupid. He needs to start his car and get himself to work, and have a laugh with some of the other lads and maybe help to organise this leaving party and forget he ever met Francis John Calvert, and instead he finds himself walking across the street.

He finds himself knocking on a dirty green front door.

He finds himself starting to sweat when he gets no answer.

In the respectful y muted euphoria of the days to come, before the astonishing truth that Calvert had been interviewed on four separate occasions emerges, before the resignations, before the national scandal.., there wil be words of praise for Detective Constable Thomas Thorne. A young officer using his initiative. Doing his job. Putting any thoughts for his own safety out of his mind.

Out of his mind...

It is as if he is watching himself, like a nosy bystander. He has no idea why he tries the front door. Why he leans against it. Why he runs back to his car and takes a truncheon from the boot.

Calvert's wife looks surprised to see him. Her eyes are wide as he walks into her kitchen, breath held, heart thumping. She lies on the floor, her head against the dirty white door of the cupboard underneath the sink. The bruise around her neck is beginning to turn black. She stil has a wooden spoon in her hand.

She was the first to die. She had to be. The children would tel him that much.

Denise Calvert. 32. Strangled.

346 MARK BILLINGHAM

Thorne moves through the flat like a deep-sea diver exploring a wreck. The silence is pounding in his ears. His movements feel slow and oddly graceful, and there are ghosts in the water al around him...

He finds them in the smal bedroom at the back of the flat. They are laid out next to each other on the floor, between the bunk beds and the smal , single mattress. He cannot take his eyes off the six tiny white feet. Unable to fil his lungs, he drops to his knees and crawls across the floor. He takes in what he is seeing but there is a blunt refusal to process the information correctly. Grabbing at a breath he lets out a scream. He screams at the dead girls.

He pleads with them. Please... you'l be late for school

He is actual y begging them to save him.

With that breath he smel s the shampoo in their hair.

He smel s the freshly washed nightdresses and the urine that has soaked them. He sees the stain on the mattress on the floor where he must have taken each of them. The girls have been laid out side by side, their arms across their chest in some grotesque approximation of peacefulness.

But they did not die peaceful y.

Lauren Calvert. 11. Samantha Calvert. 9. AnneMarie

Calvert. 5. Suffocated.

Three little girls, who screamed and fought and kicked and ran to find their mummy and then screamed even louder - their mother already dead, the only state in which she wil al ow this horror to be visited upon her children then the man they love and trust closed the bedroom door, and they fluttered around in a panic, like moths trapped inside a light fitting. They crashed into wal s, and clutched each other and when he grabbed one and pul ed her down