Mark Billingham - Bloodline

‘It must get pretty busy on match days,’ Kitson said.

‘Hang on a minute, this is Barnet we’re talking about,’ Thorne said. ‘They’d probably think the four of us was a pretty decent crowd.’

Only Kitson smiled as Thorne turned back to the window. Looking the other way, he could see the main road, the green belt rolling away beyond a petrol station and an enormous branch of Carpet Express.

‘Vision Express I can just about understand,’ he said, pointing. ‘Even Shoe Express, at a push. You know, you lose a shoe, you’re late for a party, whatever. But who could possibly need a carpet… really fast?’

‘What’s he on about?’

‘I mean, in how much of a hurry does someone have to be?’

One of the two women sitting close together on the sofa nodded towards Thorne, then turned to address Kitson who was perched on the edge of a dining chair near the door. ‘I get it,’ she said. ‘They’ve not got anywhere with the sensitive ones, or the ones who marched in here shouting the odds, so now they’ve sent the copper who thinks he’s a bloody comedian.’

Nina Collins was a good few years older than Debbie Mitchell, early forties, probably, and she had done most of the talking since Thorne and Kitson had arrived. She had opened the door, told them she was a friend of Debbie, her best friend, and that Debbie was inside, trying to get some rest and keep Jason calm. That she was frazzled, and who the hell wouldn’t be, with coppers ringing up every ten minutes telling her she had to get out of her home?

‘I suppose you’ve come to have another bash,’ she’d said, blowing cigarette smoke at them, before turning and walking back inside.

In the living room, Thorne turned from the window again and shrugged. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘quite a few people tell me I’m pretty funny.’

Collins stubbed out her cigarette. ‘They’re wrong,’ she said.

Thorne dragged a footstool across and sat down on it in front of the television. He looked at the two women. Collins was short and large-breasted, with black hair tousled into spikes, red at the tips when it caught the light. She wore a tight, striped rugby shirt that showed off her chest and there was a softness in her face, at odds with the body language and the brittle, Benson & Hedges voice. (Later, when there were new cases to worry about, Thorne would confess to Kitson, after a couple of pints, that he’d secretly quite fancied Nina Collins.)

‘He’s got a point,’ the woman next to Collins said. ‘It is a bloody stupid name. The carpets are seriously cheap, though, I’ll give them that.’

Debbie Mitchell was taller and skinnier than her friend. Her hair was long and dirty-blond, cut very straight on either side of a face that was drawn and blotchy, the foundation failing to hide an angry cluster of whiteheads around one nostril. She was barefoot, with her legs pulled up beneath her and one arm trailing over the edge of the sofa, in almost permanent contact with the boy playing on the carpet at her side.

‘He seems happy,’ Kitson said.

Collins turned as though she’d forgotten Kitson was there. ‘He is happy. He’s always happiest when he’s with his mum.’

‘Does he have any kind of… carer?’

‘Just me,’ Mitchell said. ‘There’s just us.’

Jason was tall for his age – eight, according to his mother’s file – and the pyjamas he was wearing looked a year or two too small for him. He pushed a large plastic train – the sort a slightly younger child might ride around on – up and down in a straight line along the side of the sofa. It was obviously a game he played a lot. There were track marks worn into the brown carpet.

‘What about school?’ Thorne asked.

‘He goes to a special place three days a week,’ Mitchell said. ‘Up in Hatfield. I have to stay with him, though, because he screams the place down if I’m not there.’

Collins held up two fingers. ‘Twice social services have taken Jason away from her and every time it’s been a nightmare for him.’ Mitchell shook her head, eyes down, as though she didn’t want her friend to continue, but Collins raised her hand again, determined to have her say. ‘Supposed to be for his own good, being separated from his mum, and of course he bloody hates it.’ She reached across and squeezed Mitchell’s hand. ‘Every time she’s cleaned herself up and sorted her life out, though, haven’t you, darling?’

‘We’re fine now,’ Mitchell said.

‘Three bloody buses and a train to get out to Hatfield,’ Collins said. She shook her head, disgusted. ‘You’d think the council would lay on some sort of transport, wouldn’t you? But they’re too busy funding lesbian play centres and that sort of shit.’

‘We don’t mind,’ Mitchell said. ‘It’s always an adventure, providing the weather’s OK.’ She looked round at Kitson. ‘He doesn’t get bored like other kids, you know?’

‘Is it autism?’ Kitson asked.

Mitchell shrugged. ‘They don’t think so. I don’t think they know what it is, tell you the truth, and we’ve given up worrying about it. Whatever it is, nobody can do anything about it, so we just get on with things.’

Thorne watched as the boy pushed his train back and forth, his chin quivering as he made barely audible ‘chuffing’ noises. He had the same wide blue eyes as his mother, though his lips were fuller, redder. When he smiled, which for no reason that was obvious he did every minute or so, his front teeth slid down over his bottom lip and he moved them quickly from side to side. There was no way of knowing if Debbie Mitchell did the same thing, as Thorne had yet to see her smile.

‘How much does he understand?’ Thorne asked.

Nina Collins was lighting up again. ‘Bloody hell, are you pair coppers or social workers?’

‘I just don’t want to upset him,’ Thorne said. ‘When we get started.’

Mitchell shook her head, like it was OK, but her hand drifted across to her son’s head, moved through his hair.

‘You going to tell us about this man again?’ Collins said.

Thorne nodded. ‘What have they told you so far, the sensitive coppers and the shouty ones?’

Mitchell took a deep breath. ‘They talked about this weirdo who might want to hurt me because of what happened to my mum.’

Thorne nodded again. ‘Right, and they probably said stuff like, “We have reason to believe that you might be in danger.”’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well, here’s the thing. There’s no might about it, OK? Not if you stay where you are.’

Kitson moved her chair forward. ‘You mustn’t underestimate the man we’re talking about here, Debbie.’

‘She’s had weirdos like this floating around all her life,’ Collins said. ‘Wanting to know about what happened to her mum, getting some cheap thrill out of it or something.’

‘This particular weirdo has already killed four people, Debbie,’ Thorne said. ‘Four people whose mothers died the same way yours did.’

Collins’ hand was in her hair, pulling at the spikes. ‘They never said four…’

‘A couple, I thought,’ Mitchell said. ‘You know, that might have been by this same man.’

Thorne looked at Kitson. He wondered who had taken the decision about what this woman should be told. Had they deliberated over how many previous murders they could mention? Was two deemed to be OK and three unacceptable? It seemed ridiculous, not least because one should have been enough to send anyone scurrying for cover without looking back. But whatever was preventing Debbie Mitchell from doing the sensible thing, and however much trouble he might be in for taking a unilateral decision, Thorne could see no point in pussyfooting around.

‘Would you like to know how he did it?’ Thorne asked.