Mark Billingham - Good as Dead

Now, he stopped and stood a few feet in front of her, holding the gun.

Waiting.

‘I can’t say for certain that Paul was Alfie’s father,’ Helen said. ‘That’s it, basically.’ She looked up at him. ‘That’s the truth of it. I know I’ve been talking as though he is, and that’s the way I always talk, even to myself, but the fact is I can’t be certain. Paul wasn’t certain either, which was why things were so difficult between us when he was killed. He died not knowing one way or another.’

Akhtar backed slowly away until he reached the desk and lowered himself on to the chair. ‘Why are you telling me these things?’

‘I don’t really know,’ she said.

Why was she telling a man who had threatened to kill her, knowing full well that at the same time she was announcing it to whoever was listening in on the outside? Why did she feel the need suddenly to get this stuff off her chest? Did she really think she would absolve herself?

Because she knew that Akhtar was right and it was only a question of how and not when they would be coming in. Because although the men with the guns would do everything they could to avoid discharging their weapons and to keep her safe, things did not always go according to plan. Because people got over-excited and accidents happened.

Because she did not want to die without saying it.

‘Because I need to tell someone,’ she said.

Akhtar looked at her, cocked his head slightly. He rested the gun on his knee, the barrel pointing towards her. ‘I am a newsagent,’ he said. ‘Not a priest.’

Helen’s impulse was to smile back, but her mouth could do no more than say the words. Her tongue felt thick and heavy and her heart was thundering against her chest.

‘I met a man on a course,’ she said. ‘A firearms officer, of all things. Right now, I’d be seriously thinking that he might be one of the ones out there with a gun in his hand, except that he moved away, after what happened to Paul…

‘It was a fling, that’s all. Stupid. Just half a dozen times in some hotel or other and I’m not saying that as any kind of excuse. I still did what I did, and at the time I wanted to do it. He was everything Paul wasn’t, in all sorts of ways. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed being wanted that much. I’m just saying that I never actually thought about leaving Paul, that’s all. He was the one who talked about leaving, when he found out. It was awful for a while and things never got back to how they’d been before, but we decided we were going to carry on.

‘For the baby’s sake.

‘Things were said when it all came out. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. Horrible things, but I knew he was only saying them because he’d been hurt and because he wanted to hurt me back. I was happy to take whatever he was dishing out, because I knew I deserved it, and I thought everything would be all right because of the baby. I just kept telling myself that it would all be OK once the baby came along.

‘After Paul was killed, guilt was one of the things that made me so desperate to find out what had happened. The main thing, if I’m honest. Just like I’d been kidding myself about the baby solving all our problems, I told myself that if I found out what had happened to Paul, if I found out the truth, I might feel a bit less guilty about what I’d done to him.

‘Like I say, kidding myself.’

Helen was leaning back with her head against the radiator, her eyes fixed on a space a few feet above Akhtar’s head, and she did not see him grimace and look away.

However unafraid Prosser might have appeared at the party, it was clear from his face, from the occasional whimper that escaped his lips, that he was a little less bullish when it came to being driven at seventy miles an hour through the dark of busy urban streets, with rain lashing against the windscreen, a siren wailing and a blue light flashing on the roof.

‘You’re a bit pale,’ Thorne said. ‘A bit quiet.’

Prosser turned to him. His left hand was braced against the dashboard and his right held tight to the seatbelt across his chest. ‘I’m just trying to decide which lawyer I’m going to get to tear you a nice new arsehole.’ He did his best to smile. ‘Professionally speaking, of course.’

Thorne drove away from the river, pushing the Passat south on Battersea Bridge Road. In regular traffic, on a good day, they were no more than twenty-five minutes from Tulse Hill. The traffic was bad thanks to the rain, but with the blue light and the siren clearing the way Thorne was hopeful that they would make it in fifteen minutes or less.

‘I spoke to Amin Akhtar’s lawyer,’ Thorne said, raising his voice to be heard above the siren.

‘Congratulations.’

‘He reckoned they had a good shot at winning the appeal. Getting the ridiculous sentence you handed out reduced. That can’t have been good news.’

‘Neither good nor bad,’ Prosser said. ‘It would have been the decision of another judge. I remain happy with the sentence I gave.’

‘I bet you do.’

‘A sentence that the law fully entitled me to pass. You should remember that.’

‘Akhtar’s lawyer told me he had grounds to pursue you for professional misconduct.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘For ignoring all the statements made about Amin’s good character, the circumstances of his offence. For all that rubbish about “dangerousness” you peddled to the jury.’

‘He stabbed a boy to death.’

‘Bollocks,’ Thorne said. ‘The only person Amin was dangerous to was you.’ He tore past a van that had been slow to pull over, swung the wheel to the left and accelerated into the bus lane. ‘God, I’d love to be back in that courtroom. See your face when you got your first look at that boy in the dock. I’m betting you went as white as your fucking wig.’

Prosser sighed. ‘I did not recognise the boy, because I had never seen him before. You see how that works?’

‘Despite having been at a party with him. At least one party.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Or perhaps it was just that you didn’t recognise him from the front.’ Thorne was thrilled to see a flash of anger from Prosser, a glimpse of small white teeth biting down on his fat lower lip. ‘Then again, it might have been the name that you recognised. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, and I don’t know if rent boys are in the habit of using their real names, but I suppose Amin might have done. I mean do you use your real name?’ He looked at Prosser, shook his head. ‘No, I doubt it very much. Do you have a special name you like to use when you’re letting your hair down? A secret identity? Or do you just like the boys to call you “your honour” while you’re fucking them?’

Thorne slowed to fifty around the one-way system at the southern corner of Battersea Park, then let the needle climb as he followed the Latchmere Road towards Clapham. The rain had worsened. Through the beating wipers, the brake lights and indicators of the vehicles in front were no more than smears of orange and red.

‘You were probably putting it together before the trial had even finished,’ Thorne said. ‘The perfect three-part solution to your awkward little problem and the three perfect people to carry out the plan. Yes? Had it all worked out by the end of the first day, I reckon.’ Another quick glance across at his passenger got no response. He shrugged. Thorne had never done a high-speed driving course and he told Prosser as much, then winced as he put his foot down and took the car across a busy junction on red.

‘Jesus,’ Prosser whispered.

‘Once you’ve put Amin away for as long as you can get away with, it’s just a question of making sure he gets sent to the right place. So that’s where our friend Mr Powell at the Youth Justice Board comes in. He’s the only one of the three musketeers I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, but it won’t be long because he’ll have been picked up by now. Probably sitting in an interview room next door to Dr McCarthy, while my sergeant takes bets on which one of them is going to start blubbering and shooting off his mouth first…