Mark Billingham - Lazybones

Twenty minutes since the happy couple had taken to the floor to dance the first dance to 'Lady in Red', and Thorne hadn't moved from his seat in the corner. From there he could watch what was happening in the main hall and keep an eye on his old man. He looked across. His father was no longer sitting at the bar. Thorne got up, ordered himself another Guinness, and while he was waiting for it to settle, wandered through into the main hall. He passed people he knew not well or not at all, their faces coloured by the DJ's piss-poor lighting rig – red then green then blue. At the far end of the hall, Thorne looked to his right and through the archway that led to another, smaller room, he could see his father shuffling along the buffet table, muttering to himself, piling food he would never eat on to a paper plate…

'Go easy, Dad. How many chicken legs can one man eat?'

'Mind your own fucking business…'

'It's too much.., look, get your hand underneath it…'

'Shit…'

The flimsy cardboard folding, unable to sustain so much food. The plate collapsing in on itself. The mattress sagging beneath the weight of the dead man…

Thorne was suddenly angry with his father, at having to play nursemaid. Then angrier still at knowing that if he were at home there would be luck all happening, the leads dried up, the new angles nonexistent. There was no reason for him to be missed.

He bent to pick up the food that had spilled on to the floor, thought better of it, and kicked it under the table.

The room was absolutely fucking huge. Or perhaps it just seemed huge. He knew that his sense of perspective was still a little skewed. Christ, having a crap without company felt like luxury… It was all Welch could do to stop himself running into the bathroom for a wank. That had been exactly what he'd done when Jane had got in touch with him at the hostel. Grabbed one of her photographs and thrown one off the wrist, hardly able to believe what she was suggesting. He'd been gobsmacked, how had she known where he was? He didn't bloody care, mind you, he'd been fucking delighted. He hadn't thought he'd hear from her again. He'd presumed she was one of those silly tarts that got off on writing to cons while they were inside, but would run a mile once they got out. He'd been so sure that he'd actually chucked away the letters she'd sent him in prison when he got out. He kept the photos, obviously. No way was he getting rid of them… He pulled out the one photo of Jane that he'd brought with him. God, she looked gorgeous. He dreamed that perhaps she would bring the hood with her, maybe even the handcuffs. He'd secretly brought the picture along in the hope that they could try to recreate it. He'd spent such a long time imagining what she looked like underneath the hood, or with her face lifted up out of the shadow and now, when he was about to see her, the truth was that he didn't care. He knew what her body was like, that she would surrender it to him, allow him to take it. Besides, when it came to it, he'd always been a firm believer in not looking at the mantelpiece when you were poking the fire.

Welch let out a long, slow breath. Looked at his watch. He stroked himself through his trousers, unsure that he'd be able to contain himself if she didn't get a bloody shift on…

Somebody knocked at the door. Three times. Softly. On the way back to the bar, his father out of harm's way, Thorne had been collared by his Auntie Eileen who asked if he was having a good time, and would he mind having a quick word with one of her nephews who was thinking of joining the police force? Thorne thought that he'd rather wash a corpse and said that yes, of course he would, and pushed his way back towards where he hoped his drink would still be waiting…

He downed a third of the pint in one and as it went down, he watched as hard glances were exchanged on the other side of the b. Some cousin or other and the bride's mate, looking like they fancied it. Thorne decided that even if they started punching seven shades of shit out of each other right there and then, he wasn't going to raise a finger. He realised that he was wrong about this stuff only happening at family weddings. With the possible exception of the disco, you could get it all at family funerals as well. The key word was family, that first syllable stretched out and said with a metaphorical jab of the finger, if you were a character on East Enders, or a mockney TV celebrity, or from a particular part of South-east London.

Thorne looked across. He guessed that the trouble would kick off a little later. In the car park, maybe.

It was events like these, he thought, births, marriages and deaths, that saw the undercurrents rise to the surface and become unstable. Bubbling up and swirling in eddies of beer and Bacardi. Sentimentality, aggression, envy, suspicion, avarice.

History. The ties that bind, twisted…

This was the stuff that was reserved for those closest to us, that was hidden away from strangers, even when that was exactly what most of your family were.

Thorne saw a lad, sixteen or seventeen, walking across the bar towards him. This was probably the nephew in search of careers advice. On second thoughts, Thorne was in just the mood to give him some…

He might start with a few statistics. Such as the number of murders committed by persons unknown to the victim, and how tiny they were compared to those committed by persons to whom the victim was actually related. He would tell the boy that when it came to families, to the tensions within them and the acts carried out in their name, he should never, ever be surprised. He would tell the stupid, eager young sod that families were dangerous.

That they were capable of anything.

When the man had come through the door, Welch could see straight away that he was in trouble.

There was a look on the man's face that Welch recognised, that he'd spent years in prison trying to avoid. It was the look he'd seen often on the faces of ordinary, honest-to-goodness murderers and armed robbers. The same look of contempt, of threat, that Caldicott must have seen down in that laundry room before they flash-fried his face…

Welch thought that perhaps he should have struggled more, but there was little he could do. The man was far stronger than he was. The years inside had toughened him up mentally but his body had gone soft and flabby. Too much time reading and not nearly enough in the gym…

Welch spent his last moments thinking that pain was so much worse when you were unable to fight it, when you could not protest its presence…

The scream in his throat was stopped by whatever had been thrown around his neck and pressed back into a strangled, bubbling hiss. His body, too, could do nothing. It drew itself instinctively from the agony, but each jerk away from the tearing, from the stabbing, just tightened the grip of the line that was crushing the breath out of him. Welch pushed his head down towards the carpet, feeling the line bite further into his neck, his teeth deeper into his tongue. He strained against the hands that dragged his neck back, contorting himself, his body fetal in the seconds before death.

I'm dying like a baby, Welch thought, his eyes wide but seeing nothing inside the hood, a softer, blacker darkness beginning finally to come over him…

Thorne had just put his father to bed. He was walking across the corridor to his own room when the phone rang. He let it ring until he was inside the room.

'You're up late…'

'Great, isn't it?' Eve said. 'Lie-in tomorrow. So, how was the wedding?'

'Perfect. Dull speeches, shit food and a fight.'

'What about the actual wedding…?' 'Oh that? Yeah, that was OK…'

She laughed. Thorne sat on the bed, wedged the phone between shoulder and chin and started to take his shoes off. 'Listen, I'm really sorry about last night…'