Mark Billingham: Death Message

‘It’s a Carphone Warehouse phone,’ Holland said.

‘Is that good news?’

‘Take a guess. According to this geeky DC at the Telephone Unit, their merchandise can never be traced further than the warehouse it was shipped out from. If our man had got it somewhere else, we might have been in with a shout, but all the retailers have different ways of keeping records.’

‘Fuck…’

‘I reckon he just landed on his feet in terms of where he bought his kit. I don’t see how he could have known any of that. Not unless he works for a phone company, or he’s one of the anoraks I’ve spent all morning talking to.’

‘Thanks, Dave.’

‘I’ll keep trying,’ Holland said. ‘We might get lucky.’

Thorne nodded, but was already thinking about other things. About the nature of the message he’d been sent. He knew what it was, but not what it meant.

Was it a warning? An invitation? A challenge?

Thinking that, if the powers-that-be ever wanted to change that motto of theirs, he had the perfect replacement. One that gave a far more accurate picture of the job. Thorne imagined the scrap of headed notepaper on the desk in front of him with that tired, blue logo erased from the top. Pictured a future where all Metropolitan Police promotional material came emblazoned with a new catchphrase.

We might get lucky.

‘Everyone’s got one of these.’ The shop assistant pressed the gleaming sliver into Thorne’s palm. ‘You see the celebs with ’ em in Heat and Loaded and all the papers. We got some in black, but the silver one’s wicked…’

The phone was not much bigger than a credit card. Thorne stared down at the tiny keys, thinking that his fat, stubby fingers would be punching three of them at a time whenever he tried to press a button. ‘I think I need something chunkier,’ he said. ‘Something that’s actually going to make a noise if it falls out of my pocket.’

The salesman, whose name-tag identified him as Parv, was a moon-faced Asian kid with spiky hair. He rubbed at a pot belly through a polo shirt that was a couple of sizes too small for him and embroidered with the shop’s logo. ‘OK, what about a G3? These are bigger because of the keyboards, right? You can do all your email, browse the Internet, whatever.’ The kid started to nod knowingly when he thought he saw something approaching genuine interest in his customer’s face. ‘Oh yeah, high-speed access. Plus you got your live video streaming, your one-to-one video calling, whatever.’

‘I don’t know anyone else who’s got one,’ Thorne said.

‘So?’

‘So who am I going to have a one-to-one video call with?’

Parv considered it. ‘OK, this is a pretty basic phone,’ he said, reaching for another handset and passing it over. ‘Nothing flashy. You got your WAP, your Bluetooth, a voice recorder, a 1.3-megapixel camera – or a 1.5 with a better zoom on the flip-top model – and a built-in MP3 player.’

‘Sounds good,’ Thorne said. ‘Does it send and receive calls?’

Parv stroked his belly again, and did his best to smile, though his eyes made it clear he thought he was dealing with a customer who might produce an automatic weapon from his jacket, or maybe get his cock out at any moment.

‘It’s just to have as a spare, really.’ Thorne was looking around, helpless. ‘I don’t need any of the flashy shit.’

‘Sorry.’ The kid took back the handset and began scanning the shop for another customer. ‘Everything comes with… some shit.’

It sounded to Thorne like the second fantastic motto he’d heard so far that day. Maybe he should get off the force and start a company selling greetings cards with realistic messages.

‘Let me know if you need any more help,’ Parv said, sounding almost like he meant it.

Thorne couldn’t help but feel guilty at being the black hole into which the kid had poured his considerable knowledge and enthusiasm. Quickly assuring him that he would buy something, but had just a few more questions, Thorne took a step back towards the display of G3 handsets and asked if it was possible to play online poker by phone.

It was four-fifteen, over an hour past the end of his shift and already starting to get dark. The clocks had gone back the week before and, as always, there had been the usual complaints from those trumpeting the trauma of seasonal affective disorder. Thorne was less than sympathetic. Glancing up from his desk, he decided that the darkness certainly improved the view from his window. Besides, who needed SAD, when ten minutes on the phone with a tiny-cocked jobsworth could depress even the happiest of souls so effectively?

It had taken Thorne a little over an hour to set up and register his new phone; now all that remained was to divert calls to his newly issued prepay number. Unfortunately, the mobile from which he needed to activate the divert had already been couriered to a properly equipped laboratory so that the photograph could be examined in detail. Thorne had put a call through to Newlands Park, the technical facilities base in Sidcup that handled image manipulation, audio/visual enhancement and other such tasks beyond the wit of those who could barely programme a VCR.

‘It’s easy enough,’ Thorne had said. ‘I’ve got the manual in front of me and I could talk you through it in ten seconds. I just don’t want to miss any calls, you know…’

‘Really, you don’t need to talk me through it.’ The technician had been unable, or hadn’t bothered trying, to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. His name was Dawson, and Thorne immediately pictured bad skin and overlarge ears, a tie with egg stains and a vast collection of porn. ‘I can’t make changes to the settings, d’you see?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘The phone has been submitted to us as evidence.’

‘No, it hasn’t,’ Thorne had said. ‘The picture is the evidence.’

‘And the picture is on the phone. I can’t tamper with the phone.’

‘It’s just setting up a simple divert on my personal calls. How’s that tampering?’

‘All I’m permitted to do is extract and enlarge the photograph, which is what we’ve been requested to do. I’ve got it in writing.’

‘I’m sure you have, but this is just about common sense, right? If I get sent a videotape with footage of a murder on it, and I watch it, it doesn’t mean I can’t change the settings on my video recorder, does it?’

‘We’re not talking about what you do,’ Dawson had said. ‘There are set procedures here.’

Thorne’s favourite word. It could only get worse from this point.

‘We have to remain sensitive to the integrity of evidence.’ It had sounded like Dawson was reading from a printed card. ‘We need to be aware of any forensic issues.’

‘There aren’t any forensic issues,’ Thorne had said. He had done his best to sound joky, but it was a tall order. ‘It’s my phone. It’s not like you’ll be smudging the killer’s fingerprints, is it?’

There had been a pause. ‘All I’m permitted to do-’

‘This is fucking ridiculous.’

‘Bad language isn’t going to help anybody.’

It had helped Thorne immensely. ‘Who else can I speak to?’ Waiting for an answer, he had pictured Dawson leaning casually against a workbench, with a Rubik’s cube and an erection.

‘I’m guessing that your senior officer needs to make an official request to my shift manager.’

‘It’s a very thin line,’ Thorne had said.

‘What is?’

‘Between loving your job and bending over while it fucks you up the arse…’

Thorne had only given Brigstocke the edited highlights of the conversation when he’d spoken to him. Though his new phone still hadn’t rung yet, he presumed that the DCI had got straight on to Dawson’s boss to authorise the divert, and Thorne sat trying to choose one of several dozen equally irritating ringtones while he waited.