Mark Billingham: Lifeless

Russell Brigstocke had to have been pretty desperate to come to him for advice in the first place. From what Thorne had heard about the case, that desperation was well founded.

So, what do you think?

In the silence between the tracks, Thorne could hear the distant hum of traffic from the Kentish Town Road, the rumble of a train on the overground line that ran to Camden Town or Gospel Oak. He felt suddenly nostalgic for those few months earlier in the year when he’d shared the flat with Phil Hendricks, whose own place was being treated for damp. It had been cramped and chaotic, with Hendricks dossing down on the sofa bed, and there’d been a good deal of arguing. He remembered the two of them drunkenly rowing about football the day before Hendricks had moved out. That would have been a couple of weeks before the fire…

Before the fire. Not “before my father died.”

That was the way his mind tended to go: the comforting way, toward the absolute. There was a fire. The fire was a fact. So was his father’s death, of course, but even to form the phrase in his head was to invite in the doubt and the torment to fuck with him for a time. To crack open the carapace of everyday nonsense and force that fissure wider, until it gaped. Until Thorne could do nothing but shut himself down and wait for the churning in his guts and the pounding in his head to stop.

He guessed that Hendricks had done the postmortems on Mannion and the first victim. That he’d also do the PM on Paddy Hayes when the time came. Hendricks hadn’t mentioned the case when they’d spoken, but then Holland had been a bit cagey about it, too. Thorne knew that they were trying to protect him. They believed he was better off where he was. Uninvolved.

Grief and work, so everybody seemed to think, were mutually exclusive. Each got in the way of the other.

Any bright ideas?

Perhaps, though, he wasn’t sure how bright it was…

Moving to the window, Thorne could feel the draft creeping beneath the sash. Not so long ago the country had been at a standstill for a week as temperatures climbed toward three figures. Now, three weeks into August, the summer was on its last legs. He thought about how those who lived on the streets were at the mercy of the seasons. How that first hint of autumn would change everything. For those who slept outdoors, who had no other options, a harsh winter could be far more serious than any amount of burst pipes or shunts on black ice.

Not so long ago…

Thorne blinked and remembered the feel of the pew beneath him. The smell of himself, sweating in a black suit. No more than three rows filled and most of them there to support him. Feeling a bead of perspiration roll behind his ear and creep down inside the tight, white collar. Knowing he would soon have to stand up and say something

…

He couldn’t carry on with what he was doing now. He wasn’t ready to go back to what he’d done before. He could work through grief, or he could grieve at work, but guilt choked the life out of everything.

He moved quickly to the phone and dialed.

“You should think about sending an officer in undercover. Among the rough sleepers.” Thorne wasn’t sure if Brigstocke was thinking about his suggestion or had just been stunned into silence. “It makes sense,” he continued. “Nobody’s talking to you. I can’t see there are many other options.”

“It’ll take too long to set up.”

“I don’t see why; it isn’t complicated. You’re sending one officer onto the streets, into that community. All we need to set up is a simple line of communication with him.”

“I’ll talk to Jesmond, see what he thinks. See if he can find anybody. Thanks for the call, Tom…”

“Give it some thought, will you?”

A shorter silence this time and then a snort. “How much more have you had to drink since lunchtime?”

“I can do this, Russell. I did the course…”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid. An Undercover Two course?”

“Right…”

“And how many years ago was that?”

Thorne tuned Brigstocke out momentarily. Elvis was rubbing herself against his shins. He wondered who would feed her if he was away for a while. The woman upstairs would do it if he asked her nicely. She had a couple of her own cats…

“I’m hardly going deep inside an organized-crime firm, am I?” Thorne said. “I can’t see how this can be high risk. We’re talking about gathering information, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes…”

“So you haven’t really thought about this bloke who’s going round kicking people to death?”

“I want to help catch the fucker, yes.”

“What, you think you can… draw him out or something?”

“I don’t see how I could…”

“Some crap like that?”

“No.”

“How does putting yourself in danger help anyone, Tom? How does it help you?”

“I’m just going to sleep rough, for Christ’s sake,” Thorne said. “Presuming for a second that this killer is still around, how can it be dangerous if he doesn’t know I’m there?”

He heard the click of a lighter on the other end of the phone. There was a pause and then the noisy exhalation of smoke.

“The mouse doesn’t know there’s cheese on the trap,” Brigstocke said. “But we still call it bait…”

If a man jumped out in front of him with a severed head in one hand and a blood-spattered ax in the other, gibbering about how the voices in his head had made him do it, Detective Superintendent Trevor Jesmond would be a little out of his depth. He was not, however, a man who thought the Murder Investigation Manual was boring, and when it came to “Communications Strategy”-Chapter Seven, Section Seven, Subsection Two (Managing the Media)- there was nobody to touch him.

“Let me stress again that the victim of this despicable crime is among the most vulnerable members of our society. His attacker is someone whom we believe has killed twice already. Make no mistake, we will do whatever it takes to apprehend this man before he has a chance to kill again.”

They were gathered in the press room at Colindale Police Station; five minutes away from the Peel Centre, where the Murder Squad was based in Becke House. Thorne watched from the back. Staring across the heads of several dozen assembled hacks. Leaning one way and then another to get a clear view of the stage between an assortment of camera tripods.

“Is this latest victim expected to live?”

“Mr. Hayes is in a critical condition. He is presently on life support at Middlesex Hospital. Without talking further to those doctors caring for him, I’m not in a position to give any more information than that.”

There can’t have been too many people in the room who couldn’t work out that Paddy Hayes was fucked.

“You’ve suggested that the attempted murder of Mr. Hayes is connected to the two other murders of rough sleepers. That this latest attack is part of a series-”

Jesmond held up a hand, nodded. He was acknowledging that the journalist was right, but only up to a point. He was also stopping him before he ventured too far down that avenue of questioning. Of course, they’d had to come out and admit that the murders were connected. When the tabloids were putting two and two together, the Met could not afford to appear dim by looking as if they hadn’t.

“We must assume there’s a connection, yes,” Jesmond said.

“So we’re talking about motiveless killings, then? Random attacks?”

A grim half smile. “DCI Brigstocke and his team believe that they are hunting a killer who has struck before. The investigation is proceeding, vigorously, along those lines.”

He was playing it very nicely. Striking that essential balance between reassurance and warning. It was, of course, crucial not to alarm the public.