Mark Billingham - Death Message

Kitson told him about her meeting with Harika Kemal. The name of the man she’d identified as her boyfriend’s killer.

‘How does she know for sure?’ Thorne asked. ‘She said before she didn’t see it happen.’

‘I’m not sure about that any more.’

‘Going to be iffy without a witness.’

‘I’ll worry about that later.’

‘Did she say why her brother did it?’

‘I wasn’t getting that out of her without thumbscrews,’ Kitson said.

‘There must be some knocking around somewhere.’

Kitson rummaged in her bag and took out a small jar. ‘Hakan runs a dry cleaner’s on Green Lanes.’ She pursed her lips, ran a dab of balm across each. ‘Up near Finsbury Park…’

Thorne knew that many businesses in that area paid local drug gangs for protection; that some operated as fronts for the dealers and heroin traffickers. Restaurants, minicab firms, supermarkets. He wondered if Hakan Kemal might be laundering more than shirts and blouses.

Kitson had obviously been thinking along the same lines. ‘Maybe S &O had it right all along, and it was gang-related.’

‘Not the smoothest hitman I’ve ever come across,’ Thorne said, ‘but what do I know?’

Kitson was happy to agree on both counts.

Thorne looked across at her, deadpan: ‘Have you ever seen a film called Shy and Shaven …?’

He was trying to give an accurate description of the smell in Davey Tindall’s office when his mobile rang. He looked at the caller display, thought about dropping the call, but felt immediately guilty. Sighing, he hit the green button.

‘Tom?’

‘Hello, Auntie Eileen, I was going to call you tonight.’

‘Sorry if you’re busy, love. I don’t like to phone when you’re at work.’

‘It’s OK…’

‘Only I’m trying to get numbers organised for Christmas, you know?’

‘Right.’ It was the conversation Thorne knew had been coming. He winced inwardly at the thought of that technician listening in his cupboard; pissing himself.

‘Obviously it’d be smashing to see you, love. We’ve asked Victor if he’d like to come over for Christmas lunch.’

‘That’s good of you,’ Thorne said. Eileen, his father’s sister, had semi-adopted the old man who had been her brother’s only friend in the last year of his life. ‘I’m sure he’ll like that.’

There was a long sigh. ‘Poor old bugger…’

Thorne wasn’t certain if she was talking about Victor or his father.

‘So, anyway, you have a think about it,’ Eileen said. ‘Only I’d hate to think you were sitting on your own, like you were last year.’

In fact, Thorne had spent the previous Christmas – the first since his father had died – with Hendricks and his then boyfriend, Brendan. Now that the boot was on the other foot, and Hendricks was the single one, Thorne had been wondering if he should offer to return the favour.

‘The first few Christmases are always the worst, love. That’s why I thought you might want family around.’

‘OK, thanks.’

‘You’re welcome to bring your new girlfriend, of course…’

Louise had already raised the idea of spending Christmas with her parents, which was problematic in itself. At the time, Thorne had attempted that trickiest of manoeuvres – appearing keen while hedging his bets – and he knew it hadn’t gone down too well. They’d agreed to talk about it properly later, which was another conversation he wasn’t much looking forward to. He’d never met Louise’s parents, but her father had been in the army and Thorne had already formed a daunting mental image of the man. He wasn’t sure he fancied a Christmas Day spent listening to war stories, or a long walk with the family dog after lunch. Much as he wanted to spend the time with Louise, he was starting to think that getting pissed with Hendricks and watching The Great Escape sounded pretty good. He needed to check and see who Spurs were playing on Boxing Day, come to that.

‘Everything’s up in the air, to be honest,’ he said. ‘They don’t sort the work rotas out until the last minute and even then, you know, if we catch a big job…’

‘That doesn’t matter. You turn up on the day and we’ll cope.’

‘I don’t want to mess you about.’

‘Don’t be silly, love. You know I always get too much in anyway.’

‘I can’t hear you very well, Eileen.’

‘Tom?’

‘Sorry… the signal’s terrible in here…’

‘Don’t worry, love. I’ll try you again next week-’

When Thorne put the phone away and looked up, Kitson was staring at him. She shook her head, and he couldn’t tell if she was shocked or impressed.

‘You are a frighteningly good liar,’ she said.

‘It’s better than digging a ditch.’

In his more lucid moments, Thorne’s father had been fond of trotting that old saw out, whenever Thorne had moaned about his particular lot being a far from happy one. There had been plenty of occasions when Thorne would have swapped places with any ditch-digger alive, but he knew what the old man had meant.

It was usually just a question of perspective.

On the Victoria Line rumbling south, Thorne had kept his head buried in the paper. He’d stared at the same page for twenty minutes, the story and the pictures becoming meaningless, and decided that he was better off than some. Even allowing for the situation he’d got himself into – ‘sticky’ or ‘career-threatening’ depending on his mood – he knew that life could be a damn sight worse.

And was for a great many people.

Russell Brigstocke, slowly collapsing beneath the weight of whatever he was keeping to himself; Harika Kemal, who was paying for giving it up; the families of Raymond Tucker, Ricky Hodson and Martin Cowans; Anne Skinner and her daughter…

And Marcus Brooks. Whether or not he spent it in a prison cell, Thorne guessed that the man responsible for most of the misery would probably suffer the most wretched Christmas of all.

It was a thin line, Thorne knew that; between counting your blessings and using the distress of others as a sticking plaster. But whichever side of the line he was on, he wasn’t alone in being altered. He knew that the things they saw and did every day affected how those he worked with behaved when they clocked off.

There were nights when Dave Holland got in and held his daughter that little bit tighter. When Phil Hendricks couldn’t get his hands clean enough. Hours when Louise had clung to Thorne, sweating and near to tears, after the only way she’d been able to get a traumatic day out of her system had been to come home and fuck his brains out. Drink, sex, jokes…

Coping mechanisms.

Thorne also knew very well that whatever you used to change the way you felt, it was only temporary. That you’d be back again the next day, moving through it and trying to keep clean; picking up dark bits on the soles of your shoes.

Digging in the shittiest ditch of all.

He stepped off the train smiling, thinking that, towards the end, his old man would not have bothered with homilies at all and would just have called him a moaning little fucker. He walked up and on to the street, checked his watch. It was a little after six-thirty, but in a city where the ‘rush hour’ was nearer three, the pavement was still thick with people hurrying to get home.

Thorne joined them.

There was someone he had to see first, just for a few minutes, but he would be keen to get back to Louise’s place as quickly as he could after that.

Part of him was hoping she’d had a traumatic day.

He’d arranged the meeting in an upmarket coffee bar behind Pimlico station. The sort of place with a loyal clientele of locals that clung on in one of the few streets in the city that didn’t have a Starbucks every twenty yards.