Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

All day at work he imagined it, alone or with colleagues, at his desk or about the place. Each new thought, each fresh image, entertaining the hell out of him.

He couldn't quite conjure up an image of Thorne, though. His face, yes, but not its expression. Not the set of him. Thorne was definitely not the headless chicken type, but neither was he the sort to brood and wait, powerless and hog-tied. He knew that Thorne would be the one to feel it the most when the body was found. When the call came through and the sparks started to fly.

That certainly couldn't be too far away.

For him, the day was just rushing by. He doubted that it was passing quite as quickly for Tom Thorne.

'Fuck fuck bollocks fuck…'

On the way back to his office with two steaming cups of coffee, Thorne had been ambushed by the lethal corner of the desk that hated him. The pain of a bloody graze across an already existing bruise along with the scalding to both hands was intense. For a second, he felt as though he was going to be sick.

'Hand me that fucking Sellotape.'

The passing uniform did as he was told while Thorne grabbed a handful of paper from the desk and sank grimacing to the floor. Brigstocke, alerted by the industrial-strength exclamations, emerged from his office to find Thorne on his knees, screwing up wads of A4 and taping them clumsily across the corner of the offending desk.

'I'll get my own coffee then, shall I?'

'Bollocks!'

Brigstocke laughed. This was a piece of slapstick that would probably do them all a lot of good. 'I hope you've checked that isn't important…'

'What?'

Brigstocke pointed to the corner of the desk. 'That paper. Six months from now we don't want the prosecution case collapsing because a vital witness statement is taped to the corner of a desk in Hendon.'

'I don't care…'

There was more laughter, this time from Holland and McEvoy, who stood giggling like children in the doorway of the smaller office. Thorne stood up and threw them a filthy look. He rubbed his leg.

Christ it hurt…

Thorne realised abruptly that this pain, laughable though the cause of it might be, was actually the first thing he'd really felt in hours. The agonising stab woke him up and reminded him where he was. All at once, the sting of the graze, the tingle of the burn, shook something loose in his brain and shoved it roughly into focus. A jumble of indistinct words and blurred images formed themselves into a question. Something slippery became graspable and he seized upon it.

Suddenly, Thorne was knocking hard.

'Keeping Palmer on the outside, keeping him visible, was so as the pattern wouldn't change. So that the other killer wouldn't panic and bolt. So that he might carry on as normal. Now he's changed the way he does things. Why?' Gritting his teeth, Thorne marched back into his office. Brigstocke, Holland and McEvoy followed him.

'He hasn't changed it really,' Brigstocke said, shutting the door behind them. 'I mean the details have always changed, from one killing to the next. The murder weapons, the locations…'

Thorne crossed to the far side of the office. He leaned back against the window, looked hard at the other three. 'Always a woman though.'

Holland shrugged. 'Three times, yeah. I suppose that's always.'

'Yes, Holland, that's always.' He spoke slowly, emphatically, his next sentence as complete a description of the man they were after as he needed or cared about. 'He kills women. He got Palmer to kill women. So why a man suddenly?'

McEvoy sniffed, then replied, her voice casual, her answer much the same as it had been earlier. 'I think he likes to vary things, keep them fresh. He makes that stupid joke about being predictable in the email…'

'That's another thing. The joke feels wrong. The tone of the whole thing is forced. None of what he's doing is casual. He wants us to think it's random, like it's whimsical, like it doesn't matter to him who he targets. He doesn't want us to know that maybe, for the first time, he's got an agenda.' He made eye contact with each of them. 'I think there's a good reason for this, for today…'

McEvoy was the first to see it. 'Fuck!'

Brigstocke and Holland looked at her, desperate to know what she was thinking, annoyed they weren't already thinking it.

'We were too late,' McEvoy said.

Thorne nodded, pushed himself away from the window and moved quickly across to his desk. 'He's pissing around. He knows we've got Palmer.'

Brigstocke stiffened. 'What?'

Thorne grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and headed quickly for the door. The pain in his leg was gone. 'I got it wrong. He knows all about Palmer. We need to get him away from work now, get him home. It's Martin Palmer who Nicklin's planning to kill today…'

Brigstocke picked up the phone, shouted after him. 'Hang on, Tom. There must be at least half a dozen officers there…'

Thorne walked out without looking back. 'I'm not there.'

Thorne thought that Palmer looked scared, then realised it was the way he always looked. Certainly, Palmer's laughter when Thorne told him what was going on – why he'd been forced to take the rest of the day off 'sick'-seemed genuine enough.

He'd taken off his thick glasses, wiped his eyes and squinted at Thorne. 'Whatever else he is, Inspector, he's still my friend. I'm sure he still thinks of himself that way at any rate. He wouldn't try to kill me…

Thorne had said nothing, dragged a chair across to the window. That had been many hours ago. Since then they'd sat, or moved slowly around each other, saying virtually nothing as it grew dark, Thorne occasionally talking on the radio to the officers in the unmarked cars at the front and rear and to those on foot. Six officers were present, seven including Thorne. Still, the sudden crackle of static from the radio, the shrill ring of the telephone or a shout from an adjacent flat were enough to tighten something momentarily in his guts, to increase the beats per minute by a couple.

'What do you think of me, Mr. Thorne?'

Palmer had been perched close to the television. Thorne had turned the sound right down. Palmer leaned forward, switched the set off and swung round to look at Thorne who was sitting straight-backed on the sofa, eyes closed. He had his mobile in one hand, his radio in the other.

He spoke without opening his eyes. 'Nothing. I think.., nothing of you.'

'Sorry, I'm being dim. You think nothing of me or you don't think of me at all? It's confusing. Which do you mean?'

Now Thorne opened his eyes and his voice was tight with what might have been irritation. 'Either. Both. Turn the television back Palmer got up and moved across to take the chair opposite Thorne. As he sat down, Thorne stood and stretched, produced a yawn from somewhere. 'I'm going to get another coffee…'

'You must have seen a lot of killers, Inspector.' Palmer's voice was quiet, a whisper almost, but as always, he sounded like he had a heavy cold: nasal and laboured, the chest faintly wheezy between phrases.

'You've been in rooms with plenty of people who've done the same as me. Breathed the same air as a few who've done a lot worse I should think. I don't know, kids.., what have you.' Thorne said nothing, but the coffee seemed forgotten. He wasn't going anywhere. 'So why do I make you so uncomfortable?'

Thorne took a step towards Palmer, annoyed suddenly that he seemed so relaxed. Palmer drew back in his chair a little. 'You know that I'm here to catch him. Not to protect you. You do fucking well know that, don't you?'

Palmer nodded. Thorne stayed angry, groping for words. 'By the way, my dodgy knee makes me uncomfortable, one or two of my superiors often make me uncomfortable, wind makes me fucking uncomfortable. You