Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

In the end, his eyes always drifted back to Carol and Charlie, hand in hand and deep in conversation. Charlie was laughing, clutching tightly to his book, the hood of his anorak up. Thorne always found something horribly poignant about these CCTV pictures; these utilitarian clips of people in public places. The figures seemed real enough, close enough, that you could reach out and help them, prevent what you knew was about to happen. The fact that you couldn't, the fact that this recent past would inevitably become a terrible future, served only to increase the sense of sheer helplessness. The fuzzy, jumpy quality of the film touched him in a way that no album of treasured photos or home-video ever could. The jerky footage of Jamie Bulger being led away through that shopping centre to his death; or ten-year-old Damilola Taylor, skipping along a concrete walkway, minutes away from bleeding to death in a piss-spattered stairwell on a Peckham estate; or even a Princess – and Thorne was no great fan – smiling and pushing open the back door of a Paris hotel. These pictures clutched at his guts, and squeezed, every single time. The images of the dead, just before death.

Now, Carol and Charlie Garner strolling across a busy station concourse; relaxed and happy in a way that could only ever be captured on film when the subject was unaware they were being filmed at all. Unaware that they were being watched. By a camera, or by a killer. What should have been a ninety-minute train journey took closer to two hours, and nobody seemed hugely surprised. Thorne and McEvoy flicked through papers and chatted, and generally put the world to rights. The small talk was easy and enjoyable. It passed the time, and besides, each of them knew instinctively that they would not feel much like chatting on the return journey. They were still an hour from Birmingham, and McEvoy was on her way back from the solitary smoking carriage for the fourth or fifth time. She caught sight of Thorne, his head buried in the paper, as she weaved her way down the carriage and it struck her how, from a distance, he looked like somebody you would try and avoid sitting next to. Up close of course, once you'd been around him a while, there was a warmth in the eyes; something that drew you in, in spite of yourself. But at first glance, he was, to say the very least.., intimidating. As she sat back down and picked up her magazine, Thorne glanced up and gave her the look of the reformed smoker – jealous as hell, but trying to be disapproving. She wondered what their fellow travelers made of the pair of them. They were both dressed reasonably smartly: she in a blue wool coat and skirt, and Thorne in his ubiquitous black leather jacket. She was carrying a briefcase, but she seriously doubted that anyone would mistake them for business types. Not Thorne anyway. Her minder perhaps. Dodgy-looking elder brother, or even her dad, at a real push…

'What's so funny?'

She looked up. Still smiling. Maybe even her slightly older bit of rough. 'Nothing. Just an article in this magazine…'

Robert and Mary Enright, Carol Garner's parents, lived a few miles south of Birmingham city centre, in Kings Heath, a ten-minute cab ride from New Street station. Theirs was a purpose-built, two bedroom house on a modern estate, a short walk from shops and buses. The sort of place that a couple in their early sixties might move to. A quiet place where people like them could relax and enjoy retirement, with little to worry about, now that their children were settled. Settled perhaps, but never safe.

Mary Enright, whose world had so recently turned upside down, greeted them warmly and showed them into a small and unbearably hot living room. She was a short, contained woman. She produced tea almost instantly.

'Robert won't be long. He's taken Charlie over to the park. There's a nice playground, you know, a roundabout and some swings, it's very popular actually. To tell you the truth, I think Robert gets more out of it than Charlie does at the moment. He needs to get out of the house, you know, breathe a bit. Things have been a bit tense to be honest…'

McEvoy sipped her tea and nodded, full of understanding, or the appearance of it. Thorne looked around the stifling room, happy to let his sergeant keep the conversation going. Both just waiting to see the boy. Both dreading it.

The few child's books and toys, arranged neatly next to the sofa, seemed horribly out of place among the ornaments, antimacassars and gardening books. The house smelt of beeswax and liniment. It wasn't a place where a child was at home yet. Thorne noticed that there were already a few Christmas cards on the bookshelf in the corner. Greetings from those who didn't know. He wondered whether the Enrights would celebrate anyway, for their grandson's sake. Grief often came down to going through the motions. And often, so did investigating the cause of it. Charlie Garner had already been interviewed. As per procedure this had been done by specially trained officers under strictly controlled conditions. The interviews had taken place at a house in Birmingham owned and maintained jointly by local social services and West Midlands police. It was a simple modern house much like any other, except for the fully equipped medical examination suite and state-of-the-art recording facilities.

Charlie had been given toys to play with, and officers from the Child Protection Team had chatted to him while the entire process was monitored from an adjoining room. Thorne had watched recordings of all the interviews. Charlie had been a little shy at first, but once his trust had been won he'd become lively and talkative, about everything save what had happened to his mother…

Thorne wasn't sure he could get anything out of the boy. He didn't know if there was anything to get. He was certain that he had to try.

He was just summoning up the courage to ask if they might turn the radiator down a notch or two, when he heard the key in the front door. He and McEvoy stood up in unison and so quickly that Mary Enright looked quite alarmed for a moment.

Robert Enright shook hands and said, 'pleased to meet you', but his watery blue eyes told a different story. In stark contrast to his wife, he was very tall and had clearly once been fit, but where she was spry and alert, he seemed merely to drift, hollowed out and vague.

Death hit people differently. She was getting by. He had all but given up.

He slumped on to the sofa while his wife scuttled off to make more tea. 'Charlie's gone up to his room I think. He'll be down in a minute.'

His voice was deep and gentle, the heavy Brummie accent lending a weariness to it that it almost certainly didn't need. Thorne nodded. He had heard the thump thump of the boy's feet charging upstairs as soon as the front door had shut.

'Good time in the park?'

The old man shrugged. Stupid question. Fuck off out of my house, away from me and my family. 'It's starting to get cold…'

Mary bustled in, handed her husband his tea and attempted to kill the time until Charlie arrived with aimless chatter. She talked to Thorne and McEvoy about their journey up and how difficult their work must be, and how her friend had a son who was a sergeant in Leicester, and how she knew all about the pressures of the job. Thorne thought: it doesn't get any more difficult than this. The old man leaned forward suddenly and fixed Thorne with a hard look. 'What are you going to ask him?' Serious, unblinking… Thorne turned to McEvoy, sensing that this would be better coming from her. This, indeed, was why he'd wanted her along. She picked up her cue. 'We don't necessarily need to ask him anything. We just want to get an idea of what he remembers really. Has he talked about what happened at all?'

'No.' Quickly.

'Nothing at all? I mean he might have said something that just sounded like a joke, you know, or a-'