Mark Billingham - Death Message

Thorne was a little taken aback to see Rawlings stand up when he walked in; almost as though they were on a date and he were trying to appear gentlemanly. Rawlings had an empty cup in front of him, so Thorne asked if he wanted another. Rawlings said he’d been hoping they might be going on to the pub opposite. Thorne told him he was pushed for time, and went to fetch his drink.

‘Why here?’ Rawlings asked when Thorne came back to the table.

Thorne spooned up the froth from his coffee. ‘You said anywhere that suited me.’

‘I just wondered. It’s not a problem.’

‘I’m stopping with a friend round the corner,’ Thorne said. Rawlings waited, but Thorne wasn’t about to say any more.

He was cagey enough when it came to discussing his private life with those he worked with every day. Kitson knew what was happening, more or less, and Holland, but Thorne wasn’t comfortable with the idea of too many people knowing his business. It was why he hated the thought of someone listening in on his phone conversations, whether he was talking dirty on chat lines or ordering pizza.

There were still gags and gossip, of course, however much he tried to keep a lid on it. Andy Stone had cut out a magazine article and put it on Thorne’s desk: a company that specialised in ‘unusual’ gifts and ‘once in a lifetime’ events was offering a service whereby women paid to be ‘kidnapped’. Anyone who fancied it, and was willing to cough up several hundred pounds, would be snatched from the street and bundled into a van. Their partner, who was tipped off as to their whereabouts, would then get to play the hero and rescue them. According to the company responsible, the excitement of this ‘uniquely thrilling’ scenario could reinvigorate the most mundane of love lives.

Stone had waited until he was sure Thorne had seen it. ‘Thought you might be interested. You and your missus, a bit of role-play, whatever.’

‘Why don’t you try playing the role of someone doing his job?’ Thorne had said.

He’d taken the article home that night and shown it to Louise. She hadn’t seen the funny side and was all for tracking down whoever ran the company and explaining exactly what kidnap was like. Giving them a uniquely thrilling experience of their own…

‘What’s so urgent?’ Thorne asked.

Rawlings was edgy. ‘I’ve got your mate Adrian Nunn on my fucking case.’

‘He’s not my mate.’

‘I saw you talking to him at Paul’s place, the night they found the body.’

‘I talked to a lot of people.’

‘Come on, I know he’s been cosying up to you. It’s how those fuckers work, isn’t it?’

‘Shit. I thought he really wanted to be my friend.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘What do you want?’

Rawlings waved to get a waitress’s attention, asked her for an ashtray. She told him there was no smoking and he shook his head as though the world had gone mad. ‘I want to make sure I know whose side you’re on,’ he said.

Thorne gave it a second. ‘I’m Spurs, you’re Millwall, I would have thought.’

Rawlings tensed and pointed a finger, angry at Thorne’s refusal to take him seriously. But then he softened, sat back, as though he’d realised that aggression wasn’t going to get him anywhere. ‘Come on, you know the game, same as I do. It’s us and them, always has been.’

‘It’s all about which is which though, right?’ Thorne said. ‘That’s the whole point .’

Rawlings grimaced; close enough to an acknowledgement. He looked around, glared at the waitress. ‘There’s hardly any fucker in here,’ he said. ‘Why can’t I smoke?’

‘What’s Nunn been saying?’

Rawlings pulled the face most coppers reserved for paedophiles. ‘He’s slick as fuck.’

‘Slicker.’

‘He’s giving it, “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, DS Rawlings?” Which you know as well as I do means, “We’ve got you by the knackers, so tell us what we already know and save us a lot of pissing about.”’

‘So, what do they know?’

‘Fuck all. He’s fishing. Whatever they think they’ve got is obviously not enough to do anything about, so he’s trying it on.’

‘Fine, so what’s your problem?’ Thorne asked.

‘He is. Nunn. I just want him to fuck off out of my face. I’ve got half a dozen jobs on the go, a twat of a guvnor who wants them sorted yesterday, and I’ve still got Paul’s widow calling me every half an hour in pieces. Fair enough? I really don’t need that smarmy strip of piss on top of everything else.’

If Rawlings was half as stressed out as he appeared, Thorne thought he needed a lot more than a cigarette. ‘What makes you think I can do anything about it?’

‘You’ve been working with him, haven’t you?’

‘That’s putting it a bit strong.’

Rawlings waved his hands, impatient. ‘Whatever. You’ve got some sort of a relationship with the bloke; as much as you can have with their sort.’

‘And?’

‘And maybe you can get him to ease off or something.’

‘Now who’s not being serious?’

‘I don’t know… find out what the fuck he’s after.’

‘Nunn wouldn’t tell me what he’d had for breakfast,’ Thorne said.

Rawlings just sat there, looking gutted, waiting for Thorne to stop laughing. When Thorne caught his eye, he saw a man trying hard to work something out. Trying to work him out, certainly.

‘Sounds to me like you’re stuck with it,’ Thorne said. ‘Sod all I can do, I know that much…’

The waitress stopped on her way past the table, asked if there was anything else they wanted. Rawlings said nothing, waved his cigarette packet at her. She reddened and walked away.

‘She’s just doing her job,’ Thorne said. ‘She doesn’t need wankers like you any more than you need wankers like Adrian Nunn.’

Rawlings nodded; muttered something. When he saw Thorne downing what was left of his coffee, he leaned forward. ‘Look, here it is. I’m starting to think that Paul… might have been into a few things.’

Thorne slid the empty cup to one side. ‘What sort of things?’

Rawlings looked down at the table, took a few seconds, then looked up. Lowered his voice, said it slowly: ‘All sorts.’

‘And you reckon Nunn wants you to help him build the DPS’s case?’

Rawlings nodded; solemn, but pleased to see that Thorne was finally getting it.

Thorne wasn’t certain what he was getting, but it was all useful. He hadn’t exactly dragged this information from the man sitting opposite him and wondered what Rawlings was up to. If he was up to anything. He knew that people reacted oddly when they were threatened, and Rawlings obviously felt under threat.

Thorne glanced at his watch.

‘You sure you don’t fancy nipping over the road?’ Rawlings asked.

Thorne was certainly warming to the idea of continuing their conversation. Not so much for what else he might glean about Paul Skinner – he already knew enough – but rather for what half an hour’s more chat might tell him about a man who was suddenly willing to grass up his dead friend.

He looked at his watch again.

Said: ‘Just the one.’

The nature of kidnap investigations meant that when Louise Porter caught a big case, it tended to be full on. There were no such things as ordinary working hours, and leaving the job in the office was never really an option. Simply leaving the office at all was hard enough. Happily, the case involving the drug dealer who had kidnapped himself had been judged unlikely to make it past the CPS and scaled down. The wife of the Albanian gangster had turned up with no more than cuts and bruises and with no one willing to press charges. With little else coming in, things had been mercifully quiet for the past few days, and she was feeling pretty relaxed.