Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

Nicklin whispered. 'Go on Martin…'

Palmer looked down at Bardsley's soft, spotty backside, afraid to so much as glance at the boy next to him. Afraid of his friend's excitement. He could see the twin rolls of sweaty, girlish fat on his chest shudder as his heart thumped beneath them. He could taste the perspiration that was running into his mouth. He knew that he should throw the pistol away and get to his feet and run through the park, without looking back, down past the bowling green and up and across the playground, not stopping until he was home… Nicklin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and as the mynah bird screeched raucously behind him, Palmer pulled the trigger. Bardsley screamed as the jet of compressed air fired the tiny lead pellet deep into his flesh.

The train journey back to London had been half an hour quicker than the outward leg, but had seemed infinitely longer. For the first twenty minutes or so, Thorne and McEvoy had tried to make conversation, then given up. He picked up the newspaper he'd already read and she made for the smoking carriage.

Thorne had closed his eyes and tried, without any success at all, to go to sleep.

McEvoy hadn't bothered coming back.

It was after six by the time Thorne finally got back to Hendon. Becke House was in the Peel Centre, a vast compound that also housed the Metropolitan Police Training College. Hundreds of fresh faced recruits buzzing about, learning how to put handcuffs on, learning procedure. Learning nothing.

A BBC film crew had been around for the past few months making a documentary on the new intake. Thorne had spoken to the director one day in the canteen, suggested that he might like to catch up with his subjects again in a year or two; see how those ruddy-cheeked recruits had matured into the job. The director had been hugely, stupidly enthusiastic. Thorne had walked away thinking: that'll be one show they'll need to put out after the watershed… Thorne headed for the office. He decided he wanted to put in another couple of hours. It would be a good idea to save the drive back to Kentish Town until the rush hour had died down a little. That was the excuse he gave himself anyway.

Holland was the only member of the team there, still hunched over a computer screen. In spite of the day he'd had, Thorne didn't envy him. He'd been forced to attend two courses and was still a computer illiterate. The only things he could access with any speed were the Tottenham Hotspur FC supporters' newsgroup and the technical support line.

'Where's the DCI?'

Holland looked up from his computer, rubbing his eyes. 'Meeting with the Detective Super.'

'Jesus Christ.' Thorne shook his head. 'We've only just started.'

'Where's McEvoy?'

'Probably soaking in a long hot bath by now…' Holland nodded. Thorne noticed how tired he was looking. 'Go home, Dave. Start again in the morning.'

'Yeah, I'd better, before I get RSI. My mouse finger's fucked.' He stopped laughing when he pictured Sophie's expression as he walked through the door. 'I'll just finish what I'm doing…'

One week into it, and neither of them wanting to go home. Both afraid of looks on faces.

Thorne pushed open the door to the office he shared with Brigstocke, and waited for a second or two before turning on the light. The room looked a damn sight better in the dark. Who the hell could be expected to work efficiently in an airless grey box like this, or the even smaller one next door that Holland and McEvoy worked out of?. Worn grey carpet, dirty yellow walls and a pair of battle scarred brown desks, like two rectangles of driftwood floating down a shitty river. No amount of potted plants or family photos, or knick-knacks on monitors could stop this room sucking the energy out of him, blunting him.

There were moments in this office, when Thorne almost forgot what he did for a living.

He flicked on the light and saw a post-mortem report sitting on his desk.

When he almost forgot…

Sarah McEvoy consoled herself with a glass of wine, another cigarette and the thought that crying was easy.

She couldn't think of the boy in Birmingham as anything other than a potential witness and she knew that perhaps she should. She knew that there were feelings missing. Not maternal ones necessarily, or even feminine. Just human. She felt angry at what had happened to the boy's mother all right. Anger was always instant and powerful. It made her feel light-headed. Anger was enjoyable, but sympathy never came as easily.

It wasn't fair. She felt that her behaviour was being judged. Maybe right now, Thorne was telling somebody else, Holland probably, how.., hard she was. There was no middle ground as a woman. She was used to it, but it still pissed her off. Frigid, or a slag. Girly, or one of the boys. Hard, or emotionally unstable. Actually, hard-faced was a favourite with female colleagues. Usually followed by bitch or cow. She was sure that Tom Thorne wouldn't be crying about anything. As it was, there had been quite a few times lately when she'd woken up and been pretty sure that she had been crying. She could never be positive of course, however puffy she looked, or fucked up she felt. She certainly wasn't going to ask whoever she might have woken up next to, for the details. Conversation of any sort, by that point, would be kept to a bare minimum in an effort to get rid of them as fast as possible.

She knew what those at work who guessed at her domestic arrangements would make of them. For this reason she did her best to ensure that it stayed as guesswork only. She wasn't frigid, so there was only one other option wasn't there? It was a small jump for a small brain from 'sexually active' to 'sexually active with superior officers'. There were still those who suspected that any woman rising through the ranks, did so on her back.

Right. Lying on her back and staring at that glass ceiling… It was nobody's business and it was her choice. A regular boyfriend was nice in theory and a bonus at parties, but in her experience it rarely meant regular sex, and she needed that. She needed to feel wanted, and if that occasionally meant used then that was fine, because it cut both ways.

All the time she was checking to see what was on TV and thinking about what she might eat, she knew perfectly well that she'd end up going out. She'd been thinking about it all the way back on the train. Staring at her own reflection in the blackness of the carriage window, smoking cigarettes down to the filter and wishing the hours away. She might even walk there. It was only fifteen minutes away. Following the path of the railway line all the way from Wembley Park to Harlesden.

She'd need to get changed first though. The people she was going to see, like those on the train earlier, almost certainly had no idea what she did for a living, but she didn't want to take any chances. In the single pool of light from a desktop lamp, Thorne sat, trying to keep his mind on death, but distracted constantly by an image that was full of life. Much as he tried to concentrate on Ruth Murray's postmortem report, he couldn't stop the animated features of Charlie Garner from intruding: staring up at him from beneath the gurney, or peeking around the mortuary door.

He had finally worked out what it was that had disturbed him so much when Charlie had looked up at him in that sitting room only a few hours before. He'd seen it instantly, but it took a while before he understood exactly what it was he'd been looking at when he stared into that child's eyes. There, in that face, in those shining brown saucers beneath long lashes, Thorne had seen doubt.

My mummy's asleep…

The smile had been broad and beautiful, but in those eyes had been the tiniest flicker of something like uncertainty. The smile hopeful, but the eyes betraying a knowledge Charlie Garner didn't even know he had. Who could blame him? Now, that child could never be really certain about anything ever again. It was too harsh a lesson and learned too early.