Mark Billingham: Scaredy cat

The good copper and the good person. Probably not mutually exclusive, just fucking difficult to reconcile. Like one of those things in physics that is theoretically possible but that nobody has ever seen. A silence had settled briefly across what was laughably described as the conference room. It was actually little more than a slightly bigger office, with a jug of coffee and a few more uncomfortable plastic chairs than normal. Thorne considered what he knew about the man who had killed Carol Garner. A man who liked, who needed to be in control. A coward. Perhaps not commanding physically

… Christ, he was starting to sound like one of those forensic psychiatrists he thought were so overpaid. What he did know of course, was that this killer was far from ordinary.

Extraordinary, and with a greater potential, than Holland or McEvoy yet understood.

Then of course there was the why. Always the why. And, as always, Tom Thorne didn't give a flying fuck about it. He would confront it if it presented itself. He would grab it with both hands if he could catch the killer with it. But he didn't care. At least, not about whether the man he was after had ever been given a bicycle as a child… McEvoy was shifting on the chair next to him. She had finished looking through her file and he could sense that she had something to say.

'What is it, Sarah?'

'This is horrible, no question.., and the stuff with the kid, it's very fucking nasty, but I still can't quite see why it's us. As opposed to anybody else. I mean, how do we know she wasn't killed by someone she knew? There were no signs of forced entry, it might have been a boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend.., so, why us? Sir.'

Thorne looked towards Brigstocke who, with the timing of an expert, lobbed another sheaf of photographs into the middle of the table.

Holland casually reached out to take a photo. 'I was thinking the same thing. I don't understand what makes-' He stopped as he took in the image of the woman on her back, her mouth open, her eyes bulging and bloodied. The woman lying among the rubbish bags in a cold dark street. The woman who was not Carol Garner. It was a dramatic gesture and meant to be. Brigstocke wanted his team fired up. He wanted them shocked, motivated, and passionate. He certainly had their attention.

It was Thorne who explained exactly what they were up against.

'What makes this different, Holland' – he looked at McEvoy – 'what makes it us, is that he did it again.'

Now, it was as if the previous silence had been a cacophony. Thorne could hear nothing but the distant echo of his own voice and the hiss of the adrenaline fizzing through his bloodstream. Brigstocke and Hendricks sat frozen, heads bowed. Holland and McEvoy exchanged a horrified glance.

'It's the reason we know he followed Carol Garner from Euston station. Because as soon as he'd finished killing her, that same day, he went to King's Cross. He went to a different station, found another woman, and did it all over again.'

Karen, it happened again.

Please, let me tell you what happened. I couldn't bear it if you thought badly of me. I know that you can't possibly forgive or condone what I've done.., what I'm doing, but I know that you'll understand. I've always thought that if I had the chance to explain myself to you, confide in you, that you would be the one person who would truly understand. You always saw me for what I was. You always knew what I thought about you. I could see it in that shy smile.

You knew that you had a power over me, didn't you, but I was never angry with you because of it. Part of me enjoyed the teasing. I wanted to be the one you teased. It felt like I was needed anyway. It just made you more attractive to me, Karen…

Jesus, though. Jesus. I did it again. What I was told. She was alone and frightened of nothing. I could tell by the way she was walking when I followed her out of the station. Not a cocky fearlessness, just a sort of trust. She saw the good in everyone, I could tell that. It was dark and she couldn't see how weak and vile I was. There was no fear in her eyes when I spoke to her.

She knew though, what was going to happen, when she saw the fear in mine.

As soon as she knew, she struggled, but she wasn't strong enough. She was less than half my size, Karen, and I just had to wait for her to fade a little. She was scratching and spitting and I couldn't look at her. And when it was over, I couldn't bear it that her face, which had been so open and warm like yours, now looked like something behind glass, or frozen for a long time inside a block of ice, and l was the one who had made it like that. And I was hard, Karen. Down there. While I was doing it, and again afterwards, while I was hiding her. I stayed excited until the hissing in my head began to die down and the scratches on my hands started to hurt. I was hard like I never am, even when I'm thinking about the past. I don't want to embarrass you by talking like this, but if l can't be honest with you about these things then there's no point to anything. I never really told you what I was thinking when I had the chance, so I'm not going to hide things now.

And I will never lie to you, Karen, I promise you that. Of course, you're not the only one who knows what I really am but you're the only one who can see what's inside. I'm not making excuses, I know that I deserve nothing, but at the very least I'm being open about everything. Open and honest.

She was nothing to me, this woman from the station. She was nothing to me and I squeezed the life out of her.

I'm so very sorry, and I deserve what is surely coming. I hate to ask a favour, Karen, but if you see her, the woman I killed, will you tell her that for me?

1982

The kids called it 'the Jungle Story'.

The victim was pinned to the tarmac with one boy holding down each arm and another sitting astride his chest. The fingers were the weapons – tapping, prodding, poking – jabbing out the rhythms of the story on the breastbone. The steps of each new animal marching through the jungle. The story was a very simple one; a straightforward excuse to inflict pain.

The wiry, black-haired boy leaned against the wall, his small dark eyes taking in every detail. Watching as the torment began. When it was just the monkeys, or whichever of the small creatures the storyteller introduced early on, it was not really much more than a tickle. The victim would writhe around, telling them to stop, to get off; the fear of what was to come worse than anything. Then would come the lions and tigers. Heavier steps, the fingers jabbing harder, tears beginning to prick in the corners of the eyes. Everything, of course, leading up to the seemingly endless herd of elephants tramping through the jungle, the fingers slamming into the chest, the pain excruciating.

The big kid on the floor was screaming now.

The boy pushed himself away from the wall, took his hands from his pockets and moved across the playground to where the crowd of onlookers stood in a circle, jeering and clapping. It was time to intervene.

The one telling the 'story' was called Bardsley. The boy hated him. He shoved his way through the crowd, which was not difficult as most of the other third formers were scared of him. He was, after all, the 'mad' one, the one who would do anything. The kid who would throw a desk out of the window or wave his tiny cock around in class, or let a teacher's tyres down. He'd had to suffer a great many detentions in his time to earn his reputation, but it was worth it in terms of the respect it won him.

He didn't care about geography or French grammar but he knew about respect.

He reached down, casually took hold of Bardsley's hair and yanked him backwards. There was a gasp from the crowd, which quickly turned to nervous laughter as Bardsley jumped up, furious, ready to transfer his aggression onto whoever was responsible for the terrible stinging on his scalp.