Mark Billingham: Death Message

He tried to swallow. Couldn’t.

Aware of Kitson’s eyes on him, of everyone’s eyes on him, Thorne slowly asked Hakan Kemal to say the name again.

Kemal could see that something was happening. He hesitated, then said, ‘Zarif…’

The speed camera got him doing fifty-five on the Camberwell Road. He swore and slammed his hands against the wheel; like his mood wasn’t bad enough already. He put his foot down again to make it through a set of lights, and left it there. He’d keep an eye out for any more cameras, but he certainly wasn’t worried about being pulled over. He could easily sort out any jumped-up fucker on traffic duty; was right up for a ruck, if it came down to it.

He turned left at the Green towards Peckham and New Cross.

He always got himself out of the shit; that was what he did . Whenever things had got sticky – and they had, plenty of times – he was the one who sorted it. And until a couple of weeks before, until Marcus Brooks turned up, things had been looking pretty good.

The cash from Martin Cowans and others like him; the pubs he drank in for free; the nods and the favours, and the saunas he could drop into for a late-night freebie at the end of a shitty day.

He always sorted it.

He had made the arrangements all those years before, when Tipper had got greedy and needed dealing with; and he had renegotiated an even more lucrative deal with Cowans afterwards. He had been the one to go into Tipper’s place and do the necessary. And he had been the one who had found Marcus Brooks. Lined him up nicely. After that, it was only fair that he’d taken a little more than half of whatever had come their way, and Skinner had known better than to argue.

Skinner could usually be talked into most things…

Jesus… as fast as he was going up the Peckham Road, there was still some boy-racer up his arse. He slammed on the anchors, two, three times for no good reason, until the tosser backed off. Then he floored it again.

Of course, Skinner had been shitting himself after Thorne had been round. Demanding to know what they were going to do; talking rubbish about leaving the country. Cashing in and fucking off.

He gripped the wheel even tighter, thought about the choice Thorne had given him earlier, when he’d called. The option he’d been offered. It wasn’t hard to work out what Skinner would have wanted to do, had he still been around.

A week before, there’d been no way of knowing what Skinner might have done; how silly he was likely to get. In the end, there’d only been one sensible option, and it had been easy enough to go in and sort. He’d known very well it would be another body chalked up to Brooks. That he was only saving him the trouble.

Cowans had been calling even before Skinner had started to panic. Him and the rest of those freaks begging for his help, running around like girls while their mates were dropping like flies.

Did he know what was happening?

Did he know why?

They paid him enough, so couldn’t he do something about it?

Yeah, well, once he’d found out who was knocking off the bikers, it was fairly obvious why, but he couldn’t do a fat lot, except tell them to keep their hairy fucking heads down.

It didn’t do them much good, obviously, and it was almost funny, considering how the Black Dogs never had anything to do with Brooks’ girlfriend getting done in the first place. That was certainly funny. Cowans getting irate, screaming about how it wasn’t fair; how when he found out who had done it, he was going to fucking kill them.

Brooks coming after himself and Skinner though, that was something he hadn’t considered.

He could do without the headache, no question, but he’d get it sorted. He wasn’t too worried about Brooks; he’d stitched up the toe-rag once already and this time he’d be waiting for him.

Thorne would be even easier to deal with.

He knew that the cocky fucker didn’t have anything concrete on him, and he also had a strong suspicion that he wasn’t exactly squeaky clean himself. That would be the way to go at him: he could dig up plenty of shit when he had to and he knew exactly how to make it stick.

Then he would offer Tom Thorne a few fucking options of his own.

He swung the car right towards Peckham Rye, then turned into a side street and eventually found a parking space fifty yards from his front door. He’d leave a note on the windscreen of the car outside his house; make sure the owner knew better than to park there again.

The other car turned into the road as he was stepping out. He’d just slammed his door when he saw the lights; was pressing himself back against the door to let the car past when he saw the headlights flick on to main beam and swing fast towards him.

He tried to move but couldn’t; knew that he didn’t have time.

The car’s engine screamed only a little louder than he did, for those few seconds before he was hit. The bumper squealed against the bodywork as it took his legs; spun him up and over the bonnet, into the glass, which smashed him into blackness.

Then, final moments in the air; fierce and crowded.

The dull crack of the screen shattering, and his own bones. The car speeding away.

His ex-wife and the two children he never saw.

His dog…

‘It’s me. Just calling to see how things were going really. Ring me when you get in, and we can see which one of us has had a shittier day.’

‘Hello, love, hope you’re well. Just wondered if you were any the wiser about Christmas…’

‘If you want to call me later on, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter if it’s late, OK?’

Messages on Thorne’s machine when he got home: Louise; Auntie Eileen; Yvonne Kitson.

Thorne hadn’t responded to any of them. He didn’t want to have any of those conversations; knew he wouldn’t be capable. There was only one person he was eager to speak to.

He could barely remember leaving work, the journey home, or walking through the front door and scattering food into a bowl for the cat. He drifted from room to room like someone waking up. He turned the TV on and turned it off again. He stood and stared at bits of the flat as if he’d never seen them before. The way the ceiling met the wall in one corner. The angle of a door striking him as odd and unfamiliar.

He walked around the flat and thought about Arkan Zarif.

Two and a half years before, Thorne had been working on a series of gangland killings; an inquiry which had then widened to include a search for the man who had set fire to a young girl in a playground in 1984.

It had been a case that had cost many more lives by the time it was over, and although a degree of justice had been meted out, the man responsible for most of those deaths had escaped it.

Had perhaps meted out a little of his own.

The Zarif family owned restaurants and minicab companies, but their main income came from elsewhere: extortion; human trafficking; the importation and distribution of heroin. The business was fronted by Memet, Tan and Hassan Zarif, but the decisions were all taken by their father: ‘Baba’ Arkan Zarif.

Zarif had seen many of those nearest to him die or go to prison, had seen his business suffer through the actions of Thorne and others. But he had taken care to protect himself and had continued to run his unassuming family restaurant: choosing the meat, carefully preparing the diced lamb and the delicately spiced milk puddings. He had remained untouchable.

And life, business , had carried on as normal…

Thorne had gone to see him just once, when the inquiry had all but run its course. He had tried to make it clear that he was not a man who liked leaving loose ends around. He had fronted the old man out, made empty threats and talked about honour.