Mark Billingham: Lifeless

He took a step forward and stared into the plate glass at the reflection of the man he’d become in such a short time. His hair seemed to be growing faster than usual, the gray more pronounced against the black. The neatish goatee he’d been cultivating had been subsumed under the scrubby growth that sprouted from his cheeks and spilled down his throat. His red nylon backpack, though already stained and grubby, was the only flash of real color to be seen in the picture staring back at him from the shop window. The grease-gray coat and dark jeans were as blank, as anonymous, as the face that floated above them. He leaned toward the glass and contorted his features; pulling back his lips, raising his eyebrows, puffing out his cheeks. The eyes, though-and it was the man’s eyes that told you everything -stayed flat and uninvolved.

A vagrant. With the emphasis on vague… He turned from the window to see someone he recognized on the other side of the road. A young man-a boy-arms around his knees, back pressed against a dirty white wall, sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders. He’d spoken to the boy a couple of nights before. Somewhere near the Hippodrome, he thought. Maybe outside one of the big cinemas in Leicester Square. He couldn’t be certain. He did remember that the boy had spoken with a thick, northeast accent: Newcastle or Sunderland. Most of what the boy had said was indecipherable, rattled through chattering teeth at machine-gun speed. Head turning this way and that. Fingers grasping at his collar as he gabbled. So completely ripped on Ecstasy that it looked as though he was trying to bite off his own face.

He waited for a taxi to pass, then stepped into the road. The boy looked up as he approached and drew his knees just a little closer to his chest.

“All right?”

The boy turned his head to the side and gathered the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. The moisture along one side of the bag caught the light, and gray filling spilled from a ragged tear near the zip.

“Don’t think there’s any rain about…”

“Good,” the boy said. It was as much a grunt as anything.

“Staying dry, I reckon.”

“What are you, a fucking weatherman?”

He shrugged. “Just saying…”

“I’ve seen you, haven’t I?” the boy asked.

“The other night.”

“Was you with Spike? Spike and One-Day Caroline, maybe?”

“Yeah, they were around, I think…”

“You’re new.” The boy nodded to himself. He seemed pleased that it was coming back to him. “I remember you were asking some fucking stupid questions…”

“Been knocking about a couple of weeks. Picked a fucking stupid time, didn’t I? You know, with everything that’s going on?”

The boy stared at him for a while. He narrowed his eyes, then let his head drop.

He stood where he was, kicking the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other until he was certain that the boy had nothing further to say. He thought about chucking in another crack about the weather, making a joke of it. Instead, he turned back toward the road. “Be lucky,” he said. He moved away, his parting words getting nothing in return.

As he walked north it struck him that the encounter with the boy had not been a whole lot friendlier than the one earlier with the man in the green suit who’d been so keen to avoid him. The boy’s reaction had been no more than he’d come to expect in the short time he’d spent living as he was now. Why should it have been? A wariness-a suspicion, even-was the natural reaction of most Londoners, whatever their circumstances. Those who lived and slept on the city’s streets were naturally that bit more cautious when it came to strangers. It went without saying that anyone who wasn’t abusing or avoiding them was to be viewed with a healthy degree of mistrust until they’d proved themselves. One way or another…

It was a lot like prison. Like the way a life was defined behind bars. And he knew a fair bit about how that worked.

Those who slept rough in the center of London had a lot in common, he decided, with those sleeping in whitewashed cells at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Both were communities with their own rules, their own hierarchies, and an understandable suspicion of outsiders. If you were going to survive in prison you had to fit in; to do what was necessary. You’d try not to eat shit, of course you would, but if that’s what it took to get by, you’d tuck right in. What he’d seen of life since he began sleeping rough told him that things were pretty much the same on the streets.

The cafe was a greasy spoon with ideas above its station. The sort of place that thought a few cheap sandwich fillings in Tupperware containers made it a delicatessen. The reaction, within a minute or two of him shambling in, sitting down, and showing no obvious intention of buying anything, was predictable.

“Hey!”

He said nothing.

“You going to order something?”

He reached across for a magazine that had been left on an adjacent table and began to read.

“This is not a doss-house, you know?”

He smiled.

“You think I’m joking…?”

He nodded toward a familiar figure outside the window as the fat, red-faced proprietor came around the counter toward him. With impeccable timing, the man he’d been smiling at pushed through the door, just as the cafe owner was leaning in menacingly.

“It’s okay, he’s with me…”

The threatening expression on the proprietor’s face softened, but only marginally, when he turned from the tramp’s table and looked at the Metropolitan Police warrant card that was being thrust at him.

Detective Sergeant Dave Holland pocketed his ID, reached across, and dragged back a chair. “We’ll have two teas,” he said.

The man sitting at the table spoke in earnest. “ Mugs of tea.. .”

The owner shuffled back toward the counter, somehow managing to sigh and clear his throat at the same time.

“My hero,” the tramp said.

Holland put his briefcase on the floor and sat down. He glanced round at the two other customers: a smartly dressed woman and a middle-aged man in a postal uniform. Back behind his counter, the owner of the place glared at him as he took a pair of white mugs from a shelf.

“He looked like he was ready to chuck you out if I hadn’t come in just then. I was tempted to stand there and watch. See what happened.”

“You’d have seen me deck the fat fucker.”

“Right. Then I’d’ve had to arrest you.”

“That would have been interesting…”

Holland shrugged and pushed dirty blond hair back from his forehead. “Paddy Hayes died just after eleven-thirty last night,” he said.

“How’s the son doing?”

“He was pretty upset beforehand. Wrestling with it, you know? Once he’d decided, once they turned off the machines, he seemed a lot calmer.”

“Probably only seemed.”

“Probably…”

“When’s he going home?”

“He’s getting a train back up north this morning,” Holland said. “He’ll be getting home around the time they start the PM on his old man.”

“Won’t be too many surprises there.”

They both leaned back in their chairs as the tea arrived with very little ceremony. The fat man plonked down two sets of cutlery, wrapped in paper serviettes. He pointedly nudged a laminated menu toward each of them before turning to empty the ashtray on the adjoining table.

“You hungry?” Holland asked.

The man opposite glanced up from the menu he was already studying. “Not really. I had a huge plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs first thing.” His eyes went back to the menu. “Of course I’m fucking hungry.”

“All right…”

“I hope you’ve brought your checkbook. This could get expensive.”