Mark Billingham: Sleepyhead

She gasped.

She didn't even feel the needle slip into her arm. Thorne tried to stay calm. The rain had slowed up the traffic as per usual and it had taken an infuriating twenty-five minutes just to get the half a mile or so from Queen Square to Waterloo Bridge. Now it had eased off a little and the Mondeo was testing every speed camera it passed as Thorne pushed the car south, through the spray towards Battersea.

The clock on the dashboard said eight forty-five and Merle Haggard was complaining about being let down by the bottle as Thorne drove past St Thomas's Hospital. He thought about a pathologist whose skill, whose observation, whose curiosity, months before, had started it all. He might be working late at this very minute, in one of those lit offices, those bright white squares that Thorne could see as he drove past. Getting tired now, probably, as he stared down into a microscope, then excitement mounting as he spotted some inconsistency, some curious detail that might change the lives of hundreds of people for ever. He didn't know whether, if he ever met that man, he should thank him or spit in his face. What was certain was that, without him, he would not be on his way right now to confront a killer. He had no idea what might really happen between him and Bishop. Confront him, yes, and what else? Arrest him? Intimidate him? Hurt him?

Thorne would know when he got there.

He hit the brakes too late and too hard approaching the big traffic lights at Vauxhall Bridge. The car skidded a little before stopping, the squeal of tires attracting the attention of the evening's traffic-light cabaret. Those cleaning windscreens in return for a few coins and a great deal of abuse had now been replaced, bizarrely, by street entertainers. One such, wearing a large, multicoloured jester's hat and juggling three balls, stepped jauntily through the rain towards Thorne's car with a broad grin.

The juggler took one look at Thorne's face and backed away again quickly, dropping balls as he went. The light, reflected in the puddles of oil and water, turned from red to green, and the Mondeo sped away.

The lights were with him along Nine Elms Lane and Battersea Park Road. He turned left on amber at the Latchmere pub, put his foot down all the way to Lavender Hill, and a few minutes later was turning almost casually into Jeremy Bishop's quiet road.

He turned down the music and began to breathe deeply. There were cars parked along both sides of the street and Thorne drove slowly, looking for a parking spot. The rain was heavier now, and even with the wipers on double speed he had to lean forward, and squint hard through the windscreen to see anything at all.

Suddenly, fifty yards ahead, lights came on and dazzled him as a large dark car pulled out and accelerated. Thorne's first thought was that he'd got a parking space, but a second later he could see that he was in trouble. The car rushed towards him on the wrong side of the road. With one hand shielding his eyes, which closed at the last second in anticipation of the impact, he yanked the wheel sharply to the right to avoid being hit as the car rushed past him with barely inches to spare.

A car with Anne Coburn sitting in the passenger seat. Thorne slammed on the brakes and watched in his mirror as the Volvo stopped at the end of the road and turned left. They were heading west.

He might have been wrong but he didn't think that either Anne or Bishop had seen him. Both had been staring straight ahead. Where were they going? He hadn't got room to turn the car round quickly. Without thinking, he ground the gearstick into reverse and put his foot down.

For the first few minutes, past the north side of Clapham Common, Thorne was happy to cruise along two or three cars behind the Volvo, watching for its distinctive rear lights, keeping it close. He was sure now that Bishop had no idea he was being followed. Thorne wanted to keep it that way and was content to maintain a relaxed pace. Let them get where they were going. Following procedure for once in his fucking life. Keep it safe, he thought. Keep it sedate.

Sedate. As the word formed in his mind, the car in front turned away giving him a clear view through the Volvo's rear window.

There was something very wrong with the picture. It took half a second and then he got it. He couldn't see Anne any more.

The car hadn't stopped he was certain of that. She had been there a few minutes earlier, her head against the window. There was only one explanation.

She had to be unconscious.

Things began to speed up in every sense. There was another car between Thorne and the Volvo. He tried to get past it as the traffic swung right on to Clapham Park Road, and as he overtook on the inside, he watched the Volvo accelerate away. It looked as though Bishop knew he was there after all.

Thorne had never been good at this. He'd been in plenty of pursuits but he'd never been the one with his foot on the pedal. Forty-five miles an hour, along busy built-up streets at nine o'clock at night in the driving rain was fucking terrifying.

Why would Bishop hurt Anne? Why now? Thorne knew he should call this in. There was no radio in the car.

His mobile was back at the flat. He thought about pulling over, using a payphone. By the time a unit picked up Bishop's car it might be too late. He had to keep following. Fifty miles an hour along Acre Lane. The rear fog-lights of the Volvo blinding, the horns of other cars blaring. Without taking his eyes off the Volvo for a second, Thorne switched tapes and turned up the volume. One type of music for another. Song replaced by sound. Melody by a pumping rhythm that seemed instantly to be emanating from inside his own head. The noise, the beat becoming a low, almost Zen-like hum, pulsing through his skull like the soundtrack to an arcade racing game. Focusing. The wheel vibrating beneath his fingers. The car in front. The target. Speeding down the hill now towards the lights and the cinema ahead and pedestrians shouting and the wheels squealing as they turn left much too fast on to Brixton Road.

And suddenly, Thorne knows where they're going. Brixton. SW2. He remembers the address from a page in his notebook. The page headed 'children'. Thorne's never been to this address but why on earth would he have?

Thorne knows now that, even with a warrant, he'd have found nothing at the house in Battersea. Where they're going now is Bishop's place of work. It's where he would have brought Helen and Leonie. A place to which he would have a key. A flat for which he helped pay the deposit. Somewhere almost certainly empty late at night if the occupant is working. Easily established with a phone call…

The beat and the speed increasing and rain lashing the windscreen, and Thorne's hands on the wheel guided solely by the movements of the two red lights ahead of him. His eyes fixed on those two red lights, which flash as the Volvo brakes suddenly, like the eyes of some sleek, dark monster, which roars and is away from him quickly as the Page Volvo jumps the traffic lights and he has no choice but to do the same.

From the corner of his eye he sees the blue and red of the traffic patrol car to his left, and a thousand yards further on the second one pulls out in front of him. The last thing he needs. A pair of fucking black rats, working in tandem.

As Thorne slowed down, hammering his fists on the steering-wheel, he watched the eyes of the dark monster ahead of him get smaller and smaller.

When the constable, a fat fuck with a pockmarked face and a walrus moustache, finally sauntered up to the Mondeo's passenger door, the first thing he saw was an ID pressed hard against the window. The first thing Thorne saw when he removed it was the smug look the constable gave to his colleague in the patrol car: Look what we've got.

– Thorne took a deep breath. This was going to be interesting. The walrus made a casual winding motion with his forefinger. Window down. Thorne counted to three and wound down the window like a good boy.