Mark Billingham: Lazybones

He'd called Sophie as soon as he'd left Irene Noble's house, explain why he hadn't come home. He'd told her that something important had come up, grateful that it was no longer a lie. She had told him that she was fired, that she would be getting an early night, but he could hear in her voice that she was less than thrilled. He managed to tell her that he loved her before she put the phone down. Holland tried phoning Thorne's home number. It was still engaged. He dialed the mobile again, hung up as soon as he heard Thorne's recorded message…

He was doing fifty on the long, straight road that cut across Hackney Marshes. It was another area in this strange part of the city that was green enough on the page of the A-Z, but seemed grim and far from welcoming after dark. He'd feel happier once he picked up the A107 at Clapton. He could see it at the bottom of the page, only a fingernail away from where he was now. Then it was pretty much a straight line up through Stamford Hill and on to the Seven Sisters Road. Ten minutes more, past Finsbury Park and across the Holloway Road, and he would be at Thorne's place.

Once again, he thought about doing the simple thing, and calling Brigstocke. It was probably the correct thing to do, but his first loyalty, as always, was to Thorne. He recalled an American cop show he and Sophie had watched one evening: NYPD Blue maybe, or Homicide. An officer had talked about giving his partner a 'heads up' on something, when really he should have taken the matter higher. Thorne wasn't his partner, of course, but it was still more or less how Holland felt. Thorne would be grateful for a heads up on this one… Surer now of his bearings, Holland laid the A-Z down on the passenger seat and dialed Thorne's flat again. He listened to the monotonous beep of the engaged signal, wondering why he wasn't hearing the usual, irritating 'call-waiting' message. Holland had a good idea who Thorne would be talking to. He remembered a night in the Royal Oak when Thorne had been talking about himself and his father, and their forty-five-minute conversations about fuck all. Tonight it was likely to be fuck all and a Spurs win in the opening game of the season. Holland could picture Thorne sitting there listening, a can of supermarket lager on the go, desperately trying to get his old man off the line so that they could both settle down and watch the goals on TV.

Two-one against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Thorne should at least be in a good mood.

Holland reached across and retrieved the photographs from beneath the A-Z. He wondered what sort of mood Thorne would be in, twenty minutes or so from now, after he'd taken a look at them… Thorne froze, in confusion as much as anything, when he turned and saw the man taking off his crash helmet.

'How the fuck did you get in?' Thorne said. For a few dizzy and bewildering seconds, all he could think of was that this was some sort of jealous-boyfriend situation he'd unwittingly got caught up in, and that he was about to get involved in a very embarrassing fist-fight. It was the look on the man's face, as much as the knife he was pulling from his rucksack, that told Thorne something altogether different was happening.

Thorne turned to Eve, whipping his head around fast, and straight into the knife that she held, pointed towards him. The blade sliced a clean line across his chin, the point sinking itself half an inch or so into the soft flesh beneath his jaw.

He cried out, threw himself sideways and began to bleed on to the pillow.

The man took a step towards the bed.

One small part of Thorne's brain continued to function rationally, to formulate a thought. The knife was in her bag. The rest of it began to give shape to something dark, to a fear he'd felt before only as something fleeting and skittish, but which was now borne inside him, heavy and hooked beneath his breastbone. He pictured it, alive and feeding in his chest. He felt its strong, thin fingers wrapped around his rib, hanging from them, pulling him down..

Thorne lifted his head up and pressed a hand to the gash across his chin. He tried not to let the terror sound in his voice when he spoke.

'Mark and Sarah…'

At the mention of his real name, a shadow fell across the man's face.

'Move away from my sister, now.'

Thorne shuffled across the mattress, oddly uncomfortable with his nakedness. He watched the woman step, nude and smiling, from the other side of the bed and gather up her clothes.

'Eve, this is so stupid…'

Ben Jameson's eyes moved quickly, from his sister's body back to Thorne. 'Get on to the fucking floor…'

While they were preparing him, Thorne tried to take the growing fear, the blood, the pain and keep them somewhere separate. Somewhere he could store them up, stole them into a rage he might be able to use. The rest of his brain was focusing; coming up with answers, putting it together. Adrenaline causing the engine to race… The two of them worked together quickly and efficiently. Before Thorne could even think about how he might move against them, against the two knives, it became an impossibility. Eve slipped the belt from Thorne's chinos, wrapped it around his wrists until it hurt. Ben manipulated his body, pushing the head down towards the carpet, hiking up the knees, spreading the calves. They operated as a team, movement and stillness in sync, one busy while the other held a knife close. Thorne was never more than a few inches away from a blade. Any move, other than those he was instructed to make, was out of the question. Now his body mirrored those he'd seen before. Distorted and dis coloured. In hotel rooms and in dreams…

Thorne lay naked, face down on the floor, knees pulled up beneath him and hindquarters raised. His head and hands pointed towards the bedroom door. Blood from the knife-wound soaked into the carpet and grew sticky beneath his cheek.

'It didn't matter in the rest of the room,' Thorne said. 'In those hotels, traces just got lost among everybody else's. But you had to get rid of the bedding, didn't you, Eve? That would have been clean, that would just have had traces of you and the victim…'

Though Thorne couldn't see it, Eve smiled. 'Once I got them into bed, they were helpless. Same as you.'

'I never raped anybody, Eve…'

'It's a bit late, don't you think,' Jameson said. 'To be slotting pieces into your little puzzle? It's rather fucking pointless, considering where you are.'

'Who wants to die ignorant?'

'You can't do much about that,' Jameson said, 'however many answers you get…'

'Is this the pet project you talked about? These killings? The thing of your own you wanted to get off the ground…'

Jameson laughed. 'That's quite funny. Be a damn sight more interesting than local authority training videos, that's for sure. There you go, there's one more piece of your puzzle. One more thing to make you a bit less ignorant…'

Thorne was already trying to work it out. 'It's how you got into the Register, isn't it? Not sure where the connection is. Social services?'

Eve provided the answer. 'The National Probation Directorate. Specifically the Sex Offenders and Corrections Unit…'

' Towards a National Information Strategy isn't Citizen Kane; Jameson said. 'But they were more than happy for me to do all the research I needed and their security was very sloppy. They were somewhat lax about unattended computers, access to databases, that sort of thing. Mind you, that was exactly why they wanted the video made in the first place…'

It suddenly struck Thorne that Jameson had probably been on the list that was compiled of contact numbers for Charlie Dodd. A video production company would not have seemed suspicious, bearing in mind the nature of Dodd's business. Never having known it, Thorne would not have recognised the name of Jameson's company anyway. It didn't matter a great deal now…