Mark Billingham - Death Message

It was Brigstocke calling: ‘We’re in big fucking trouble.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Skinner’s dead.’

Thorne felt something jump against his ribs and instinctively stepped further away from Adrian Nunn. ‘ What ? How the fuck-?’

‘Right now, you know as much as I do.’

Thorne started slightly when Nunn’s phone rang behind him; turned to see the DPS man walking away to take his own call.

‘I don’t understand. We had men on Skinner’s house.’

‘I know. Do you not think I fucking know?’

‘Who found the body?’

Thorne could hear the anger, the tension in Brigstocke’s silence. In the background there were raised voices; none he recognised, the words indecipherable as they were shouted one over another. He listened to the fractured breathing that told him Brigstocke was on the move; heard him tell someone to wait.

The runner jogged past a few feet away.

‘Russell?’

‘Just get over there, Tom.’

Thorne hung up and turned. It was clear from the look on the face of the man marching towards him that they had been having much the same conversation.

‘We might as well take the one car,’ Nunn said.

It always amazed him. How death drew a crowd.

Though it was obviously less of a novelty for him than it was for most people, Thorne still found the fascination strange. It wasn’t as though any of them were actually going to see anything. The men in the shiny suits like the ones off the telly weren’t suddenly going to come trotting out and carry the body across. They weren’t going to pull back the sheet and invite everyone to take a good look, maybe fire off a few quick snaps for friends and neighbours.

And yet, there they were.

While those in the adjacent streets of Stoke Newington laid out school uniforms, ironed shirts for the morning or just drank tea and grew miserable as Sunday fizzled out, a few lucky punters were outside, making their own entertainment. Thorne pushed his way through them: the cluster of gawpers fragmenting for just a moment; one or two exchanging snippets of whispered guesswork as they came back together; as a pissed-off uniform raised the tape for Thorne to duck under.

‘Shouldn’t this lot be indoors watching Antiques Road-show?’ the copper asked.

Thorne pressed on towards the house, heard a child somewhere behind him asking if he was the man who’d come to chop up the dead body…

There was as much of a gathering inside, and at the back of the house. Inside, it was as though there were at least two teams of SOCOs working the scene; investigators squeezing past one another in the narrow hallway that ran between the kitchen and the living room, where Paul Skinner’s body had been found. In the first few minutes Thorne spoke to three different photographers and video cameramen and, approaching the body, he half expected to see Phil Hendricks battling it out with rival pathologists for prime position.

Hendricks looked up from his Dictaphone. ‘Head smashed in, I’d guess with a hammer, much the same as the first victim. Dead at least twenty-four hours. And you need to call your girlfriend.’

‘Still pissed off?’

Leaning to one side, Hendricks pointed to what was left of Skinner’s head. ‘What do you think?’

‘You crack me up,’ Thorne said, stony-faced.

Hendricks grinned, pleased with himself. ‘OK, she’s probably happier than our friend with the hammer, but then she did eat a lot of ice-cream. I’m not an expert, obviously, but isn’t that supposed to be a major giveaway?’

‘I’ll ring later on, if I get a chance…’

Thorne pushed on towards the back of the house, stepped through sliding patio doors on to a small paved area: a round table, umbrella and chairs; a rotary washing-line; a grime-covered barbecue on wheels.

There was barely room to move.

The patio was heaving with the overspill from the crime scene and more besides: ambulancemen and a mortuary crew, waiting until they were needed; a CSE or two catching their breath, or using it to smoke a crafty fag; a woman dispensing tea and coffee from catering-sized flasks.

But the majority were in the Job.

A few in uniform, but most wearing whatever they’d had on when the call had come through: Sunday best on one or two; jeans and puffa jackets; black tie on the poor bugger who had been dragged from a charity dinner. They stood around, muttering to one another in awkward groups of two and three. Like guests at an unconventional barbecue party.

Thorne’s team were all there, obviously, and he saw several officers from others on the same unit. He also recognised DS Richard Rawlings, with a group he guessed were from Albany Street. Nunn had joined a couple of officers he seemed to know well. And there was no shortage of brass: Trevor Jesmond was one of two chief superintendents; making the rounds, doing his level best to smile when he caught the eye of the area commander.

There were more coppers than Thorne had clapped eyes on at any crime scene he’d ever attended.

Especially if you included the dead one.

Eventually Thorne managed to grab Russell Brigstocke and guide him towards a corner of the patio. The light from a pair of carriage lamps attached to the back wall made the DCI’s face look even paler than it had been earlier in the day.

‘Skinner told you he didn’t want protection, didn’t he?’ Brigstocke said. ‘Was adamant about it, according to Holland.’

‘He wasn’t hugely keen, no,’ Thorne said. With so many experts around, he was not surprised that the process of covering arses had already begun.

‘Right. And actually, we got protection officers in position pretty quickly, all things considered.’

‘You don’t need to convince me, Russell.’

‘The wife’s screaming blue murder, saying we should have done more, but I think we did all we could.’

A uniformed officer brought them both teas in Styrofoam cups.

Skinner’s body had been discovered by the very men put outside his house, front and back, to protect him. Anne Skinner, alarmed at not being able to raise her husband on the phone, had called one of his mates at Albany Street. He’d got hold of someone at Homicide and, a few calls later, the protection officers were kicking in the front door.

‘Brooks must have got inside some time between your visit and the surveillance team being put in place late afternoon.’

‘Maybe he was watching the house,’ Thorne said.

Brigstocke nodded towards the cordoned-off area around the back door. ‘Easy enough for him to get in,’ he said. ‘Broke a window and reached inside.’ He looked as though he wanted to spit out something bitter. ‘You’d have thought a fucking copper would have known better.’

‘Any prints?’

‘Plenty, apparently.’

They drank their tea, and Brigstocke filled Thorne in on a few more unpleasant details. Looking around as they talked, Thorne caught Rawlings looking his way more than once; and Nunn drawing a colleague’s attention to him before turning back to mutter something.

When Brigstocke was beckoned by the smallest of nods from Jesmond, he walked slowly back towards the house, like a man on his way into an oncologist’s office.

A little later, Thorne caught up with Hendricks when the pathologist came out to get coffee.

‘Your man’s on a roll,’ Hendricks said. ‘That’s three bodies in a week. He’s paying for my holiday.’

Thorne stared towards the back door and spoke as much to himself as to his friend: ‘They didn’t find the murder weapon.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He took it with him this time.’

‘So, he’s being careful.’

‘He’s left prints at every murder scene, left the weapon behind every time. It’s a bit bloody late to start being careful, isn’t it?’