Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

The bleached hair, the pale, powdered skin fight against those perfect cheekbones, her long nails scraping against the heavy Smith amp; Wesson revolver. Twenty-eight years old and nowhere left to go. Fingers in the bullet-holes – as spiritual moments go, it was hardly thrusting a hand into Christ's wounds, but fuck it, when you've had a few of a lifetime…

Easter Sunday, 10 April, 1955. A moment of madness, of judgment, on a Hampstead pavement: the first step on a journey to the long drop in the execution chamber at Holloway Prison. Forty-seven years later, nearly half a century after they hanged Ruth Ellis, and life for those who kill for pleasure didn't always mean life. Now, Thorne sat and waited for DCI Russell Brigstocke, wondering just how fight they were going to fie the noose around his neck. Staring into his glass and looking at a few highlights of the past few days. The pre-sentence proceedings.

The early hours of Thursday morning: gazing down at bits of a teacher's brain on the carpet, Jesmond making his grand entrance, his face set in a reasonable facsimile of horror and grim determination. The smile that the Detective Superintendent had saved just for him. 'I think it might be best if you took things easy for a couple of days…'

'Best for who?'

Thursday evening: Hendricks ringing with the results of the postmortem. As usual, nothing of any real use, but a reference finally explained. 'The tiny wooden splinters embedded in what was left of Bowles's skull. They were willow.'

'A cricket bat…'

'Right. Night Watchman. Ha, fucking ha…'

Friday afternoon: His father. 'Oh… I didn't think you'd be there. I was going to leave a message on your machine… I need a bit of info. By body count, who were the three greatest killers in British history?'

'Greatest? Jesus, dad…'

'It'll be a trick question see, to wind up some of the lads down the Legion. I ask them for the greatest killers. They say Christie or whoever, and I tell them the greatest killers were actually bubonic plague or smallpox or what have you. See?'

'Right…'

'But I need the names. I reckon Shipman's got to be first hasn't he…?'

Saturday morning: Holland with an update. 'Nobody knows what the hell's going on to be honest. There's one or two new faces around, but everything's all over the place. There's a meeting on Monday, the DCI, Jesmond, you know…'

'Right, thanks. McEvoy OK?'

'How the fuck should I know?'

Thorne looked up to see Brigstocke walking quickly towards him. He downed the rest of his pint. What had Holland been so tetchy about anyway?

Brigstocke slid in next to him, leaned in close. The quiff had looked better. His breath smelled of the cheap cigars he was so fond of.

'You owe me a drink. You owe me lots of drinks.'

Fighting the urge to punch the air like a goal scorer, Thorne nodded, made his way to the bar and bought them both a couple of pints each. Halfway through the second, Brigstocke gave Thorne the headlines.

'You're still on the case. Just.' "

'Why do I get the feeling that's the only bit of good news?'

'Depends how you look at it. People are very pissed off.'

'I assume you're including Ken Bowles's family?'

Brigstocke struck a match, held it to the end of one of his cheap cigars. 'I'll ignore that, but strictly as a mate, shut your silly mouth, Tom.'

'Sorry, Russ.' Thorne was. He knew that Brigstocke had stuck his neck out for him. He would try to remember it. 'So, what's next?'

'Damage limitation.' Thorne opened his mouth, remembered, shut it again. 'The case proceeds as normal,' Brigstocke said slowly.

'Emphasis on normal. No more fucking about. We work crime scenes, we make enquiries, we gather evidence. It proceeds, as in procedure.' 'What about Palmer?'

'Martin Palmer was taken into custody and charged with the murder of Ruth Murray this morning. Highbury Corner Magistrate's Court this afternoon. Belmarsh or Brixton by teatime. By the numbers, Tom.'

Thorne had no argument. There simply wasn't one. Nicklin had killed Bowles as a warning. He must have. He knew that Thorne and Holland had gone to the school and that they could only have been led there by Palmer. There was no point in any further pretence. Having said that…

'Why did he send the e-mail to Palmer, when he knew we had him?'

Thorne asked this question of Brigstocke, as they had all asked it of each other, as he had asked it of himself a hundred times in the last few days. The reply he got was pretty much the best that anybody could come up with.

'He's playing some kind of game. Dicking us about.'

'Dicking me about. It was me that went to the school. Me he must have been watching…'

Brigstocke leaned forward to flick ash into a vast plastic ashtray. He shook his head. 'He's a clever sod, that's all. He wants us to be doing this, to be asking these questions.'

Thorne shrugged, picked up his pint, looked at it. He couldn't help feeling that in killing Ken Bowles, somebody he had spoken to, Nicklin had been sending him some sort of message. He wasn't sure whether thinking this was ego or instinct. He'd confused the two before.

He emptied his glass, put it down. He didn't know whether he wanted to stay at that table and swallow down beer until he couldn't feel anything any more, or rush home and shut the door tight. 'Are they giving Palmer to the press?'

'That's still being decided. Jesmond and a few higher up are in with the press office. It would be a good move in some ways, you know killer in custody, get a few old dears worked up, ready for a bit of banging on vans outside the Bailey come the trial. Do us all a bit of good, so soon after…' He left an appropriate pause which Thorne filled in his head. .. I got Ken Bowles killed.

'It's hard, without admitting we fucked up.'

Thorne scoffed. 'Thanks for the we: 'Don't blame yourself for Bowles, Tom.'

'Why not?'

Brigstocke blinked, reached for his drink. He hadn't got an answer. Thorne asked the only appropriate question. 'Another pint?'

Brigstocke finished off the one he was drinking, shook his head as he swallowed. Thorne reached behind for his jacket. It looked like he was going home.

'You're off the hook for the same reason they let you get on it, you know,' Brigstocke said. Thorne raised his eyebrows, asking the question.

'Fear. They were afraid of being wrong, afraid of fucking up. Now they're afraid of being seen to fuck up, which is a thousand times worse.'

Thorne stood and pulled on his jacket. Brigstocke stayed seated, his cigar down to nothing. 'They've got sod all to be afraid of. I'll be taking responsibility.',

Brigstocke ground out his nub-end. 'Oh, don't worry, you have.'

They both laughed, a little louder and longer than was necessary.

'What happened to being off the hook?'

'You are,' Brigstocke said. 'But it's only a matter of time until you're on it again…'

'A stay of execution.'

Brigstocke looked at him, smiling, not understanding the reference.

Thorne was already wondering how many more he would need to drink. How much before he would be able to wrap himself inside his duvet and crawl deep down into the darkness without seeing Ken Bowles, eyes open and swimming in blood, hands clawing at the carpet, bits of his own cerebellum beneath his fingernails. Without seeing Martin Palmer, huge and hunched against the white wall of a cell.

When the adverts came on – cheaply made sound bites for pension or blame-and-claim companies – he got up and went to make himself tea. The show wasn't very interesting tonight anyway, which was a shame. He'd been looking forward to the calls even more than usual. He'd had a pig of a day at work. It was a busy time: lots to do and he, as usual, the one to do most of it. It was his own fault if he was honest. He was something of a control freak. While he complained of the workload, he didn't trust anybody else to do it as efficiently as he would, so he got on with it himself.