Mark Billingham - Bloodline

Thorne glanced across, searching in vain for something in her face that might give him a clue as to how she felt about it. He hedged his bets. ‘It’s a hell of a big team, so we’ll have to see.’

‘OK…’

‘Listen, shall I open some more wine?’

‘I really don’t mind.’

Thorne looked again and saw nothing to contradict what she’d said. He carried the plates back to the kitchen and fetched another bottle. They settled down on the sofa and watched TV in silence for a few minutes, Louise laughing more readily than Thorne when a former glamour model went sprawling on the ice. Once the show had finished, Thorne flicked through the channels, finally settling on a repeat of The Wild Geese, a film he had always loved. They watched Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris charging about in the African bush, the three just about believable as ageing mercenaries.

‘I talked to Phil,’ Thorne said. ‘I meant to say.’

‘Did you tell him what happened?’

‘I didn’t have to.’ Thorne waited to see if she would pick up on it, say something about having confided in Hendricks about the pregnancy. ‘He said you should call him, you know, if you want to talk.’

‘I spoke to him last night,’ she said.

‘Oh, right.’

‘He was really sweet.’

On the television, Harris was begging Burton to shoot him before he was hacked to death by the enemy, but the shouting and gunfire were little more than background noise.

‘Why did you tell him you were pregnant?’ Thorne asked. ‘I thought we’d agreed to keep it a secret.’

Louise stared into her glass. ‘I knew he’d be chuffed.’

‘We decided we wouldn’t, though, just in case this happened.’

‘Right, well, it has happened, OK? So arguing about whether I should or shouldn’t have told anyone is a bit pointless now, don’t you think?’ She shuffled along the sofa, a foot or so away from him, and lowered her voice. ‘Christ, it’s not like Phil’s going to run around announcing it.’

There were a few grains of rice and some crumbs on the carpet. Thorne inched away in the other direction and started picking them up, collecting them in his palm.

‘I honestly wouldn’t have minded if you’d told anyone,’ Louise said.

‘I did think about it.’

‘Who would you have told?’

Thorne smiled. ‘Probably Phil.’

They moved back to each other and Thorne asked if she’d mind if he turned off the TV and put a CD on. Normally she might have rolled her eyes and insisted that it was one of hers, or repeated a joke she’d heard from Holland or Hendricks about Thorne’s dubious taste in music. Tonight she was happy enough to nod and stretch out. Thorne put on a Gram Parsons anthology and returned to the sofa, lifted up Louise’s legs and slid in underneath. They listened to ‘Hearts on Fire’ and ‘Brass Buttons’, poured out what was left of the wine.

‘So, what did Phil say?’

‘Stuff you’d expect, really,’ Louise said. ‘How there’s usually a good reason for these things and how the body knows what it’s doing. Knows when there’s something wrong.’ She took a healthy slurp of wine and was struggling suddenly to keep a straight face.

‘What?’

‘He said it might well have been because the baby was going to look like you.’ She was laughing now. ‘That a miscarriage was the preferred option.’

‘Cheeky bastard.’

‘He made me laugh,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘I needed that.’

She began to drift off soon after that and Thorne was not too far behind. He was sound asleep before ten-thirty, with Gram and Emmylou singing ‘Brand New Heartache’, the clink of cutlery from the kitchen as Elvis licked the plates clean, and Louise’s feet in his lap.

The band playing at the Rocket earlier that evening had been fantastic, easily as good as any of the so-called indie bands Alex had heard in the charts recently. They had something to say, and decent songs, and there was a bit more about them than the right kind of skinny jeans and nice arses. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the guitarist was a dead ringer for the lead singer from Razorlight…

She loved the heat and the noise; how it felt being in a crowd. She’d been soaked in sweat each time she’d gone outside for a cigarette, and shivering by the time she’d finished it. Afterwards, when the band had packed up, they’d set up some decks and the dance music had started. Some of her friends had stayed on, and were still there as far as she knew, but she’d been about ready to head home by then.

What was it Greg had said about caning it?

She pushed open the door to the flat and listened for voices.

Alex had seen her brother earlier in the bar, but only for a few minutes. Long enough for him to tell her he’d rather die than watch a band called The Bastard Thieves, and for her to clock the figure with whom he was exchanging the lingering, lustful stares. There’d been no sign of him once the gig had finished, but she wasn’t surprised.

She guessed he’d decided to get an early night.

There were lights on upstairs, but she couldn’t hear anything and wondered if perhaps she’d interrupted something. If they’d heard her coming in and were lying there in Greg’s bed, giggling and whispering to each other.

She climbed the stairs, singing softly to herself and keeping a good grip of the handrail. At the top, she threw her coat across the banister then stood there for a few moments, pissed and stupidly gleeful.

Then she crept along the corridor to Greg’s door.

There was no light coming from underneath. She pressed her ear to the flaking wood, but couldn’t hear anything: no giggles and certainly no creaking bed-springs. She reached down and slowly turned the handle. The door was locked.

Alex turned and walked back towards the kitchen, her steps not quite as gentle as she thought they were, trying to decide if she could be bothered making the cheese on toast she was suddenly craving.

She felt genuinely pleased for Greg, and hoped, even if it turned out to be no more than a one-night stand, that he at least enjoyed himself. That he took full advantage.

Her brother did not get lucky very often.

MY JOURNAL

28 September

I’m tired, of course, more or less all the time, because there’s an awful lot of rushing about, keeping all the balls in the air, but when each new challenge has been successfully met, when a tick goes next to a name, there’s a buzz which makes me forget how wiped out I am and makes every ounce of blood, sweat and tears worth it.

And there’s been plenty of all three!

I was thinking earlier about something my father said. He told me once that setting goals and achieving them had been the only thing that had got him through some of the tougher times towards the end. Reading a book all the way through, finishing a crossword, whatever. Obviously, bearing in mind his situation, they were small things, things which the rest of the world would take for granted, but they meant a hell of a lot to him at that time. These goals I’ve set for myself are rather grander, I can see that. A bit more difficult to set up and pull off. But, Christ, the feeling when it all comes together is like nothing on earth. After it’s done – even though I’m already thinking about the other places I need to be and the people I need to be when I get there – I just feel so fired-up and full of it. So desperate to get back and get the words down, to describe how it all went, that I’m scribbling away on these pages before I’ve even bothered to wash off the blood.

‘Journal’, not ‘diary’, and that’s deliberate. A collection of thoughts and ideas and reflections on this weird bloody world. How we end up where we are. Something to be read one day and hopefully enjoyed. Not just what I had for breakfast or watched on TV or any of that.