Mark Billingham - Death Message

‘Judging by how much force he used on that poor bastard’s head, he’s not exactly thinking rationally.’

‘He’s cool. That’s what you said.’

Hendricks shrugged. ‘Maybe I should stick to what’s going on inside dead people.’

Thorne let out a long, slow breath. Watched it drift up into the fug of blue-grey cigarette smoke that had formed above the patio. He noticed that several empty cups had been tossed into the narrow flower beds around its edge. Something else for the widow to complain about. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, eventually.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Please yourself.’

‘I’m not sure I want to know.’ Over Hendricks’ shoulder, Thorne saw Rawlings moving past people, making his way, grim-faced, in their direction. He glanced back at Hendricks. ‘This should be fun.’

Hendricks saw what was coming and stepped away, suddenly fascinated by a hover-mower leaning against the fence.

‘Rawlings.’ Thorne had been prepared for some hostility as he proffered a hand, but saw that Skinner’s friend was fighting back tears as much as the urge to punch somebody.

‘I can’t decide,’ Rawlings said. ‘I don’t know whether I’d rather have ten minutes alone in an interview room with the cunt who did this or fifteen with the cunt who organised the fucking protection.’

‘It’s a tough one.’

‘It’s OK, I know it wasn’t your call.’ He turned and stared blackly towards the corner where Trevor Jesmond and the area commander were deep in conversation. ‘The fuckers with the pips tell the likes of us what to do, right?’

Thorne said nothing.

‘Knew him ten fucking years. More. Only worked together for a couple of months, but we really hit it off, you know? Don’t know if it was the football or something else, but we clicked.’

‘Where was that?’

‘What?’

‘You and Paul working together.’

‘Flying Squad, late nineties. I was just moving on and he was getting his feet under the table. Like a fucking lifetime ago now…’

Thorne nodded sympathetically; watched as Rawlings looked back towards the house again, as he muttered ‘cunts’ and gave the dampcourse a kick. He couldn’t help thinking that Rawlings swore too much and wondered if he might be one of those coppers who was equally excessive when it came to sentiment; to showing it at moments like this. The righteous anger at the death of a fallen comrade; a great mate, a good copper; ‘just let me get hold of the bastard’… all that cobblers.

He remembered seeing Rawlings stroll into Skinner’s house thirty-six hours before, being greeted warmly by the wife. It had crossed Thorne’s nasty, suspicious mind for a moment or two then, that it wasn’t just Millwall FC that Rawlings and his friend had in common.

‘What happened yesterday morning?’ Thorne asked. ‘After we saw you.’

‘Come again?’

‘Did you stay long?’

Rawlings took a second, then smiled sadly. ‘Paul was all over the place, in a right old fucking state. Trying to persuade Annie to take the kids and piss off to her mum’s. She started kicking up a fuss and Paul was shouting the odds, so I thought I’d best make myself scarce. I couldn’t have been there more than half an hour, forty-five minutes, after you left. He said he’d bell me later, after the game. We’d usually talk about the match on the phone if we weren’t watching it together, you know? But he never did…’

Thorne nodded. He and his father had done the same thing until the Alzheimer’s had got too bad. Before social niceties had gone out of the window, and the old man had begun to swear almost as much as Richard Rawlings. ‘So did you go?’ Thorne asked. Rawlings blinked, not understanding. ‘The game?’

Rawlings shook his head. ‘Listened to it on the radio in the end. Bleeding Doncaster equalised in the last fucking minute…’

The crowd at the front had dispersed by the time the body was brought out just before ten-thirty. The area commander and the DCIs were a picture of solemn outrage, while Nunn and his DPS cronies pulled the right faces, even if they knew rather more about Paul Skinner than most people. Rawlings stood with his head bowed and his fists clenched. A couple of the boys in Met Police baseball caps took them off as the stretcher went past.

Once the mortuary van was on its way, Thorne took his final chance to speak to Hendricks, who immediately asked if he had called Louise yet. Thorne admitted that he hadn’t, neglecting to add that it would probably be better for both of them if they didn’t talk until the following day.

‘Shouldn’t go to bed on an argument,’ Hendricks said.

‘She could always call me …’

Brigstocke came quickly down the path towards them, a look on his face when he caught Thorne’s eye that said ‘private’. Thorne passed the message on to Hendricks, who was happy enough to leave them to it. He said that he’d phone mid-morning with the PM results, try to provide the team with a more accurate time of death.

‘He was dead by full time,’ Thorne said. ‘If that’s any help.’

Brigstocke watched Hendricks move away, then stepped closer to Thorne. ‘They’ve authorised live listening.’

It wasn’t a phrase Thorne had heard often, but he knew what it meant – that it was a serious step. ‘Who’s the subject?’ Brigstocke stared at him like it was a stupid question, and Thorne realised that it was , a second after he’d asked it. ‘Me. Right?’

Since the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, intelligence gathering had changed as radically as anything else. RIPA had laid down strict guidelines about such things as unlawful interception and monitoring of transmissions, with heavy penalties for those in breach of them. Thorne knew well enough that, when it was deemed necessary – when there was ‘imminent threat to life’, for example – such things went on. But the public, and indeed the majority of police officers, remained unaware of the covert technical support unit, on call to any branch of the Met, that installed the bugs and then listened in. The unit that gathered information which was totally inadmissible as evidence but would be given to those working on the case to use as they saw fit.

A unit, like a handful of others, that existed but didn’t exist.

Thorne wasn’t a suspect, and, crucially, would be giving his consent to such ‘intrusive surveillance’. But there were others whose privacy would be compromised, whose consent would never be sought, and Brigstocke was at pains to point out that the operation would therefore remain extremely sensitive. He told Thorne that so much as mentioning it to anyone outside the senior command structure could result in a prison sentence. ‘You OK with that?’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’ The thought of prison was enough to give anyone pause for thought, but Thorne was as worried about how much his life, its details, its ordinariness , would become a mundane aspect of someone else’s day at work. He winced at the idea of sweaty coppers wearing headphones, pissing themselves as Louise called him a nutter.

It was only a small step up from someone going through your rubbish.

‘What are we talking about?’ he asked.

‘Home, office and mobile phones,’ Brigstocke said. ‘You still have that pay-as-you-go?’

‘Yeah, but I’ve only just bought it, haven’t I? There’s no way Nicklin could have given Brooks that number.’

Brigstocke nodded. ‘Well, that’s good. At least you’ll have some privacy. They’ll do email as well, obviously. And intercept the post.’

‘Can’t I open my own sodding post?’

‘I don’t think so.’