Mark Billingham: Lazybones

Becke House, where Thorne and Brigstocke were based, was part of the same complex. Half an hour earlier, on the five-minute walk across to the gym, Thorne had moaned without drawing breath.

'If it's an invitation, how come I'm not allowed to turn it down?'

'Shut up,' Brigstocke said. They were late and he was walking quickly, trying not to spill hot coffee from a polystyrene cup that was all but melting. Thorne lagged a step or two behind.

'Shit, I've forgotten the bit of paper; maybe they won't let me in.'

Brigstocke scowled, unamused.

'What if I'm not smart enough? There might be a dress code…'

'I'm not listening, Tom…'

Thorne shook his head, flicked out his foot at a stone like a sulky schoolboy. 'I'm just trying to get it straight. This piece of pond life ties an old couple up with electrical flex, gives the old man a kick or two for good measure, breaking.., how many ribs?'

'Three…'

'Three. Thanks. He pisses on their carpet, fucks off with their life savings, and now we're rushing across to see how sorry he is?'

'It's just a trial. They've been using RJC's in Australia and the results have been pretty bloody good. Re-offending rates have gone right down…'

'So, basically, they sit everybody down pre-sentence, and if they all agree that the guilty party is really feeling guilty, he gets to do a bit less time. That it?'

Brigstocke took a last, scalding slurp and dumped the half-full cup in a bin. 'It's not quite that simple.'

A week and a bit into a steaming June, but the day was still too new to have warmed up yet. Thorne shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his leather jacket.

'No, but whoever thought it up is.'

In the gym, the audience watched as Darren Ellis moved balled-up fists from in front of his face to reveal moist, red eyes. Thorne looked around at those watching. Some looked sad and shook their heads. One or two were taking notes. On the front row, members of Ellis's legal team passed pieces of paper between them.

'If I said that I felt like a victim, would you laugh?' Darren asked.

The old man looked calmly at him for fifteen seconds or more before answering flatly. 'I'd want to knock your teeth out.'

'Things aren't always that clear-cut,' Darren said. The old man leaned across the table. The skin was tight around his mouth. 'I'll tell you what's clear-cut.' His eyes flicked towards his wife as he spoke. 'She hasn't slept since the night you came into our house. She wets the bed most of the time.' His voice dropped to a whisper.

'She's got so bloody thin…'

Something between a gulp and a gasp echoed around the gymnasium as Darren dropped his head into his hands and gave full vent to his emotions. A lawyer got to his feet. A senior detective stood up and started walking towards the table. It was time to take a break. Thorne leaned across and whispered loudly to Brigstocke. 'He's very good. Where did he train? RADA?' This time, several of the faces that turned to look daggers at him belonged to senior officers… Ten minutes later, and everybody was mingling in the foyer outside. There was a lot of nodding and hushed conversation. There was mineral water and biscuits.

'I'm supposed to write a report on this,' Brigstocke mumbled. Thorne waved across the foyer to a couple of lads he knew from Team 6. 'Rather you than me.'

'I'm trying to decide the right word to use, to describe the attitude of certain attending officers on my team. Obstructive? Insolent? You got any thoughts…?'

'I think that was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I can't believe people sat there anti took it seriously and I don't care what the results were in sodding Australia: Actually, no, not stupid. It was obscene. All those silly bastards studying every expression on that little prick's face. How many tears? How big were they? How much shame?' Thorne took a swig of water, held it in his mouth for a few seconds, swallowed. 'Did you see her face? Did you look at the old woman's face?'

Brigstocke's mobile rang. He answered it quickly, but Thorne kept on talking anyway. 'Restorative Justice? For who? For that old man and his skeletal wife?'

Brigstocke shook his head angrily, turned away. Thorne put his glass down on a window sill. He moved suddenly, pushing past several people as he walked quickly towards where he'd seen a group emerging from a doo on the other side of the foyer. Darren Ellis had taken his jacket and tie off. He was handcuffed, a detective on either side of him, their hands on his shoulders.

'Good show, Darren,' Thorne said. He raised his hands and started to clap.

Ellis stared, his mouth opening and closing, an uneasy expression that had definitely not been rehearsed. He looked for help to the officers on either side of him.

Thorne smiled. 'What do you do for an encore? Always best to finish on a song, I reckon…'

The officer to Ellis's left, a stick-thin article with dandruff on his brown polyester jacket, tried his best to look casually intimidating.

'Piss off, Thorne.'

Before Thorne had a chance to respond, his attention was caught by the figure of Russell Brigstocke marching purposefully across the room towards him. Thorne was hardly aware of the two detectives leading Ellis away in the other direction. The look on the DCI's face caused something to clench in his stomach.

'You want to restore some justice?' Brigstocke said. 'Now's your chance.' He pointed at Thorne with his mobile phone. 'This sounds like a good one…'

It was called a hotel. They also called MPs 'right', 'honourable' and

'gentlemen'…

The sign outside said 'Hotel', but Thorne knew full well that certain signs, in less salubrious parts of London, were not to be taken too literally. If they all meant exactly what they said, there would be a lot of frustrated businessmen sitting in saunas, waiting for hand-jobs they were never going to get.

The sign outside should have read 'Shithole'. It was as basic as they came. The maroon carpet, once the finest off cut the warehouse had to offer, was now worn through in a number of places. The green of the rotting rubber underlay beneath matched the mould which snaked up the off-white Anaglypta below the window. A long-dead spider plant stood on the window ledge, caked in dust. Thorne pushed aside the grubby orange curtains, leaned against the ledge, and took in the breathtaking view of the traffic inching slowly past Paddington Station towards the Marylebone Road. Nearly eleven o'clock and still solid.

Thorne turned round and sucked in a breath. Opposite him in the doorway, DC Dave Holland stood chatting to a uniform – waiting, like Thorne, for the signal to step in and start. To sink both feet deep into the mire.

In different parts of the room, three Scene Of Crime Officers crouched and crawled – bagging and tagging and searching for the fibre, the grain that might convict. The life sentence hidden in a dust ball. The truth lurking in detritus.

The pathologist, Phil Hendricks, leaned against a wall, muttering into the new, digital voice recorder he was so proud of. He glanced up at Thorne. A look that asked the usual questions. Are we up and running again? When is this going to get any easier? Why don't the two of us chuck in this shit and sit in a doorway for the rest of our lives drinking aftershave? Thorne, unable to provide any answers, looked away. In the corner nearest him, a fourth SOCO, whose bald head and bodysuit gave him the look of a giant baby, dusted the taps of the brown plastic sink with fingerprint powder.

It was, at least, a shithole with en suite facilities. Altogether, seven of them in the room. Eight, if you counted the corpse.

Thorne's gaze was dragged reluctantly across to the chalk-white figure of the man on the bed. The body was nude and lay on the bare mattress, the spots of blood joining stains of less obvious origin on the threadbare and faded ticking. The hands were tied with a brown leather belt and pushed out in front of him as he lay, prostrate, his knees pulled up beneath him, his backside in the air. His head, which was covered in a black hood, was pressed down into the sagging mattress.