Mark Billingham - Death Message

Thorne had lain awake most of the night, pondering how near he’d come to losing his closest friend. Had realised that he might have lost him anyway; that he might lose a good deal more. ‘I think we were lucky last night,’ he said. ‘I think we should be… thankful.’

‘I am,’ Louise said. ‘There’s a few other things I’m not so sure about.’ She met his stare, flicked her eyes to Hendricks and back again. ‘I’m guessing you’d rather talk about that later.’

Thorne shook his head, pushed his knife and fork closer together. ‘None of this is exactly straightforward, you know. This case.’

‘Never is with you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You can never take the easy road, can you? Everything has to be a fucking struggle. Like nothing’s worth doing unless it hurts. If you want to suffer, that’s fine, just don’t drag the rest of us down with you.’

Thorne pointed at Hendricks. ‘Christ, if it wasn’t for me…’

Hendricks looked at him, up for it. ‘What?’

‘If it wasn’t for you playing silly buggers, they might have caught this fucker by now,’ Louise said. ‘Last night would never have happened. How easy would that have been to live with?’ She stabbed at something in front of her, the fork squealing against the plate. ‘Would that have hurt enough for you?’

‘You think it was my fault?’ Hendricks asked.

‘I never said that,’ Thorne said.

‘You think I should have remembered?’

‘I was surprised, that’s all…’

‘It was a body I saw six years ago, OK? A PM I assisted on. Have you got any idea how many bodies I work on every week? If I ever did know the name, then I’d certainly forgotten it and I never knew the name of the bloke who was accused of killing him.’ Hendricks was getting worked up and Louise reached over to put a hand on his arm. ‘As it happens, when you’re elbows deep in somebody’s guts, it helps most of the time if you don’t think of them as a person, all right? If you forget that they’re called John or Anne or whatever. It makes it that much easier when you’re scrubbing them from under your nails afterwards and they’re wheeling the next one in…’

Thorne held up his hands. ‘Phil…’

‘Can you remember them all?’ Hendricks had tears in his eyes, and pushed at them, furious. ‘Every single body, and the name of every fucker responsible for them?’

Thorne thought about what Louise had said. Forgetting those things would have meant taking the easy road. He picked up his plate and carried it out to the kitchen.

Later, with Hendricks crashed out in front of the television, Thorne and Louise talked in the bedroom. There were no more histrionics. Louise’s tone was measured, reasonable. Thorne found it harder to deal with than the shouting.

‘You really think Phil’s got nothing to worry about?’

‘He’ll worry no matter what,’ Thorne said. ‘But Brooks told me he was moving on.’

‘Nice that you trust him so much.’

‘I never said that.’

‘OK, then. Let’s just say more than you trusted me.’ She smiled sarcastically at Thorne’s reaction; counted off on her fingers. ‘You thought it was for the best, you didn’t want to get me involved and you were trying to protect me. I thought I’d get those out of the way early, save you the trouble.’

‘All those things are true.’

‘Course they are.’

‘It’s not like I actually lied.’

Louise slapped the edge of the bed in mock frustration. ‘Fuck, I knew there was one I’d forgotten.’

Thorne felt cornered, because he was. He knew he had nowhere to hide. ‘I wanted to go to Brigstocke yesterday,’ he said. ‘You talked me out of it.’

‘When I saved your job, you mean? Yeah, that was very selfish of me.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Say whatever you like.’

‘“Sorry”? “Thank you”? What?’

Louise turned away and sat on the edge of the bed. She took a jar of hand-cream from the bedside table, began to rub it in. Thorne leaned back against the wall. He could hear the television from next door; classical music from the flat upstairs. He thought about how much he’d been looking forward to a day off.

‘Brooks say who he’d be moving on to?’

Thorne seized on the question greedily. Oh fuck, yes, he thought, let’s talk like coppers. ‘Whoever helped Paul Skinner set him up, I suppose. “Squire”.’

‘That’s what it’s all been about for you, hasn’t it? Trying to get the other one.’

The professional conversation hadn’t lasted very long. ‘He’s not your average bent copper,’ Thorne said. Reaching for the right words, he tried to explain that there had been no grand plan, as such, that there never was with him. Just a series of stupid decisions. But he could see from the look on her face that she knew she’d nailed him.

‘And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you?’ she asked. ‘Or what I did last night make me?’

‘We haven’t murdered anyone.’

‘What if Cowans had been killed later than he was? Or if we hadn’t got to Phil in time? Do you think any of your stupid decisions might have been just a little bit responsible?’

Thorne knew they would have been.

Louise put away the hand-cream and stood up. She was still rubbing her hands. ‘You need to learn from this. I mean it, Tom. About how you do things. About me …’

As Louise moved past him to the door, Thorne thought about reaching out, pulling her to him. At that moment, though, he couldn’t read her at all. ‘Is Phil going to hang around here?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Brendan’s coming round to pick him up. Phil called him earlier.’

‘Wouldn’t he rather stay with you?’

‘Not if you’re here, no.’

‘Sunday morning? I wished I’d studied that hard,’ Kitson said. Harika Kemal had said she had got a lot of reading to do; that she didn’t have time to talk. ‘I promise it won’t take very long…’

‘I’ve told you everything.’

‘I know, and I also know how hard it was.’

‘I don’t think you do.’

Kitson could hear voices in the background. She wondered if it was the pair she’d seen with Harika that day outside the university. ‘It’s a simple enough question, really. We think Hakan may have gone to Bristol.’ She waited for a reaction; didn’t get one. ‘I wondered if you had any idea why?’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Yes it is.’

Kitson was getting impatient. If Kemal had been in Bristol, he might have already moved on. He may well have realised that the parking ticket he’d received might give away his location. ‘I’m starting to wonder if you want us to find your brother at all.’

‘I called you, didn’t I?’

‘And maybe you’re wishing you hadn’t. Have you been speaking to your family?’

The answer was quick and earnest. ‘No.’

‘Well, one of us might have to.’ Kitson paused; waited to see if Harika’s sniffs were the prelude to tears. ‘We’re going to catch up with your brother sooner or later, you know. Your parents will have to find out. So, why prolong the agony?’

‘That will only be the start of it,’ Harika said.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help that.’ Kitson could hear music in the background now. She took her voice up a notch. ‘Look, I’m not going to pretend that Deniz was whiter than white and I’m bloody sure you knew that as well as anybody. But he had a family too, and I have to think about them. You should be thinking about them.’

She was starting to wonder if Harika Kemal was still there when the girl said quietly, ‘Cousin.’