Mark Billingham - Death Message

Thorne’s eyes widened with sarcasm. ‘I promise I’ll pass on anything from the murderer. Anything that isn’t a final demand or a pizza menu.’

‘It doesn’t work like that, Tom.’

Thorne sighed, shook his head. ‘Whatever.’

‘We need this sorted,’ Brigstocke said. He looked towards the phalanx of police officers, and beyond, at the house of the one that was on his way to the mortuary. ‘Things have got very bloody serious now…’

Later, Thorne would reflect on the perfection of the timing, and wonder if Marcus Brooks had been watching them at that moment. Staring down from the window of a nearby house.

The tone sounded from his jacket pocket just as Brigstocke was out of earshot. He thought the message might be from Louise. When he saw that it wasn’t, saw the unidentified number appear, he scrolled down quickly; wondered whose picture he would be looking at this time.

There was no photograph. Just a simple text message: He was dead when I got there.

Brooks. Telling Thorne the same thing he’d told Sharon Lilley all those years before.

Not hoping for anything, Thorne dialled the number from which the message had come. He tensed when it rang and almost shouted out loud when the call was answered.

‘Marcus…?’

There was just the faintest breath, and the sound of distant traffic for a few seconds before the connection was broken. As Thorne thrust the phone back into his pocket, he turned to look at the house and suddenly understood something.

He was dead when I got there.

Brooks hadn’t been describing the murder for which he’d been arrested in 2000. He’d meant this one. The message was about Skinner.

Looking back later, when arrests had been made and bodies buried, and regret had been fuelled by cheap lager, Thorne would be unable to put his finger on exactly why he did what he did next.

It was nothing specific…

Stupidity, instinct, a tendency towards self-destruction… because the fuckers weren’t going to let him open his own letters. Whatever the reason, Thorne watched Nunn, Rawlings, Brigstocke and the rest moving slowly towards their cars, and he was no longer sure he could trust anyone . The copper who, together with Paul Skinner, had set up Marcus Brooks for a murder he may well have committed himself had got away with so much for so long. He was obviously very accomplished when it came to covering his tracks.

Thorne at least had to consider the possibility that the man might be closer than he realised.

There were long stares at the roadside now; nods exchanged between the ranks. There were promises made and a deal of gung-ho back-slapping. These people shared this terrible loss equally and were bound together by a determination to nail whoever had murdered one of their own. A copper’s death seemed to count for so much, relatively. Seemed, on the surface at least, to mean more than that of a biker, or those of a young mother and her child. Was the suffering of Paul Skinner’s family really any worse than that of Ray Tucker’s or Ricky Hodson’s? Or of Marcus Brooks?

If a copper’s death was so important, then catching a copper who was also a killer should carry equal weight, shouldn’t it?

Thorne looked at them, fired-up and full of it. And knew that, standing where he was at that moment, he was not one of them.

That was when he made the decision.

He knew he didn’t have much time: Brooks might well be disposing of the SIM card at that precise moment. He had probably done so already. For the best, Thorne thought. It was a fucking insane idea anyway…

He couldn’t use his usual mobile; they’d be checking it. And the new one, the safe one, was back at his flat…

Hendricks was just climbing into his old, silver Renault estate, when Thorne all but pulled him out, on to the pavement. ‘I need to borrow your phone.’

‘What?’

Thorne snapped his fingers, fought the urge to reach into Hendricks’ pockets and search for it. ‘Just give it here, Phil…’

He walked away fast up the street, navigating through the phone’s menu as he went. His hand trembled a little as he keyed in the text, then the eleven digits of his unmonitored, pay-as-you-go phone number. Then he leaned against a low wall and entered the number Brooks had called from.

He pressed ‘SEND’ and waited. Watched as the graphic of an envelope span across the screen and the words appeared: Message sent.

Almost breathless, Thorne stabbed at the keypad, dialling the number once more.

He got a dead line.

Jennings had led him into the pub where Squire was already waiting, then gone off to get the drinks in.

He toyed with getting bolshie, maybe asking to see warrant cards, but there was really no need. He knew the Old Bill when he saw them, and these two had the look. Had the chat.

It was lunchtime and there weren’t too many other customers about. They sat around a large wooden table next to the gents’ toilets; the smell of piss and bleach-blocks wafting out whenever the door was opened. Jennings came back with beers for himself and his mate, water for him; tossed a couple of bags of peanuts across, and they got down to it.

‘Keeping busy, Marcus?’

‘You know…’

‘Yeah, course we know. Nice little racket you and your old woman have got going.’

It was nice, had been working out a treat, as a matter of fact. He’d been looking for something ever since he’d got out of the game. Had tried and failed to hold down any number of ordinary jobs, but he wasn’t cut out for life on the up and up. Then Angie had started doing some cleaning work, making a decent job of it, doing more houses on word of mouth and what have you. Bigger houses, where people were that much better off and didn’t seem bothered about the cleaner having a set of keys; letting herself in while the owners were out having long lunches and getting their nails done.

It had been Angie’s idea and it had worked out right from the off.

Once she was in there, trusted enough, and knowing all the family’s comings and goings, he’d turn the place over. Go in with the keys, put a window through when he was finished, maybe kick a back door in or whatever to make it look kosher. Usually Angie would leave a few weeks afterwards, start in a new area, although there were a couple of houses he’d robbed where she was still cleaning. Because she liked the people, and the money was so bloody good…

‘Very nice,’ Jennings said. He licked his lips. ‘Sweet as you like and, you know, I’d hate to be the one to fuck it up for you. But I will.’

Squire threw a fistful of peanuts into his fat mouth. ‘You’ve got a job to do, and so have we.’

‘Livings to make.’

‘Not sure how good Angie’s going to look after a few months in Holloway.’

‘Tasty enough for most of the slags in there, mind you…’

He wasn’t stupid. He’d come across plenty of coppers like these two before, when he was working with other people. The sort who’d tip you the wink about a raid; come in and help themselves to a bundle of twenties when a take was being divvied up.

‘How much are we talking?’ he asked.

Squire finished the nuts, wiped his palms against his jeans. ‘It’s not about money. We just need a favour.’

‘Something up your street,’ Jennings said.

‘Be a real shame if things went tits-up for you now. Especially with a kid and all that.’

Then they explained about the job, Jennings getting excited and licking his lips all the bloody time, some kind of nervous habit; Squire leaning across the table, quieter and scarier. They told him where the house was, when the owner was likely to be out; that they just needed him to go in there and grab whatever paperwork he could find.