Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out his wallet and removed a small, tattered, passport-size photo. Two young boys, on an afternoon much like this one, pulling faces in a photo-booth. Two boys he used to know, pissing about in Woolworths, more than fifteen years earlier. Now, he bore only the faintest physical resemblance to the smaller of the boys in the photo. Just the eyes, really. He was a world away. He was nearly thirty, and considering the somewhat bumpy start, had achieved a hell of a lot. Anybody would have to admit that. Life was good, he was still on the up, and in Caroline, he seemed to have found the perfect wife. She was someone suitable in every sense, the ideal person to have by his side. They'd met seven years before, during training, and clicked straight away. They found the same things funny, they each had their own interests, and in the five years they'd been married, he could barely remember a cross word. Yes, he felt good about sharing his life with Caroline. Sharing most of his life.

She never questioned the late nights, or the time away from home, or the occasional lack of interest in the bedroom. Perhaps she'd already convinced herself he was having an affair. If so, that was no bad thing. He was seeking excitement of course; it was what he'd always done, but he'd never have found what he needed in furtive liaisons, in the willing arms of some young tart or other. He needed a hit, a high, a buzz. He needed something far deeper and longer-lasting than he could find in simple adultery.

He wanted no part of anything consensual.

He'd always managed to get what he wanted, eventually, and this had been no different. It had become surprisingly easy actually. He was always careful – travelling widely, never repeating himself, taking no chances. Now, if he was being honest, he was becoming a little bored. He wondered if perhaps it went in cycles. Exactly ten years before, hadn't he become bored with who he was? He'd made the decision then to start again, to change everything, to become someone else. Now, he was happy with who he was, who he'd become, but what he was doing, for pleasure, had started to excite him less and less. It was a drug to which he was rapidly becoming inured, and it was not acceptable. It was something that needed to change. Happy with who he was…

There was a knock on the door and a colleague put his head round, pale-faced and sweating, to remind him he was needed elsewhere. He pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. He picked up his wallet from the desk and slid the small photo back inside.

He stared at the credit cards that carried his name. Not his real name, of course, but the name he'd been known by for more than ten years. His real name belonged to someone he'd last seen in a first-floor flat in Soho, a long time ago. If he was walking along the street now, and heard his old name, heard those two words being shouted at him, he'd know he was being shouted at by someone who didn't know him. Someone he'd been at school with…

He looked at his watch. Late for a meeting. His mind racing backwards and forwards in time. Remembering, imagining… Moments later, striding briskly away down the corridor, he reached for his wallet a second time. Smiling, he took out the photo again, and looked at the two young faces.

Fifteen years was a very long time.

Date: 16 December

Target: Fern

Age: 20-30

Pickup: Pub, club, wine bar etc.

Site: TBA

Method: Firearm (prefer not silenced)

Sunday. Thorne's first real day off in nearly a fortnight. Lunch with the old man had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. A distraction, something to wash over him, a time-killer. Now, driving back down the M 1, he really wished he hadn't bothered. Aside from anything, he was starving. Of his parents, it had been his dad who'd done most of the cooking. Once upon a time, he'd enjoyed it, but his enthusiasm for that, along with everything else, had waned at the same rate as his fascination for pointless trivia and old jokes had rocketed. While Thorne had pushed a lump of overcooked chicken and a few pallid, underdone vegetables around his plate, his dad had waffled on at absurd length about everything and fuck all. He'd quizzed him about what he thought the five top-selling soap powders in the country were, and giggled through countless stories about men walking into pubs. In fact, he'd barely drawn breath for the entire time Thorne had been there, except for a few uncomfortable minutes when, in the middle of a story about nothing, his eyes had filled with tears, and he'd calmly got up from the table, walked through into the kitchen and closed the door. Thorne could do nothing but sit there, hating himself for thinking that he'd have been happier at a murder scene. The big Christmas discussion had never really materialised until Thorne was about to leave, and even then, it was just the usual tiresome dance, a frustrating bit of back and forth on the doorstep.

'So, dad.., are you coming, or what?'

'What d'you need to know now for? It's not for numbers is it?'

'It's only a week away and…'

'Nine days.'

'I just want to know what's happening.'

'I don't know.., it might be good to do something different.'

'Well it's up to you, but…'

'I might go to Eileen's…'

'Right. Have you asked her?'

'Name the last six Prime Ministers…'

'Dad…'

'Blair, Major, Thatcher.'

'Have you asked Eileen?'

'They're the easy ones. Callaghan…'

It was starting to get dark so Thorne flicked on the headlights. He let the Mondeo drift slowly across into the inside lane. The drive home was relaxing him, calming him down, and he was in no great hurry. He turned on the radio and tuned it in to Radio 5 Live. The second half of Ipswich versus Leicester City. Hardly a glamour fixture, but the commentary soon engaged him as he pushed on along the all but empty motorway towards north London. Moving: out of the semi countryside and into the unlovely and reassuring urban sprawl of Brent Cross, Swiss Cottage and Camden. Moving: from one old man's life going slowly down the tubes, to thoughts of four young women who would never even have that golden opportunity. Moving, towards the possibility of more…

Moving, away from an afternoon and towards an evening. They rolled apart from each other and lay there, sweating, exhausted, each of them trying to think of a good thing to say. Something that might help. Eventually, Holland came up with something, but Sophie was already turning over, ready for sleep. The sex had been good, better than good, but then it usually was after an argument. They'd spent the best part of the day fighting, then fucked away the rest of it, trying to pretend the fight had never happened. The row came at them with the slow, graceful horror of a lorry skidding on black ice. With the arse-end of a dull Sunday just around the corner, the boredom had slowly given way to irritation and finally, anger. It was an anger that had been there all the time of course, like a bad smell in a locked room, and, once it escaped, it got everywhere, and into everything. It followed them around the flat, as each of them took turns in chasing the other from room to room, swearing and screaming and pounding on walls. It was still there, all over both of them, two hours later, as they cried and squeezed each other until finally, the kissing began.

Then mouths devoured each other which, only moments before, had ranted and shouted, wounding with words. Some were used far more than others. Work, job, support, wanker, selfish, bitch, children, choice, Thorne…

Sophie's breathing quickly settled into a pattern that told Holland she was asleep, but he knew that he wasn't going to follow her quickly. There were far too many thoughts rattling around in his head. He wondered how much damage each of these weekly sessions was doing to them, and if the money they'd spent, the time and trouble they'd taken moving into a new flat, would end up being wasted. He wondered why, considering that "it was usually the other way round, he still fancied Sophie, but didn't much like her any more. Why, if he still fancied Sophie so much, had he spent most of the time they were making love thinking about Sarah McEvoy?