Mark Billingham - Bloodline

The rain was getting heavier, and as Thorne opened his mouth to talk, he heard her say, ‘There’s been another one, hasn’t there?’

He turned to look at her, with Holland still passing on the details, and spotted Jason Mitchell creeping through a doorway down the hall, peering past his mum to see what was happening.

Holland said, ‘Sir?’ and Debbie Mitchell said something else before taking a step back, out of the rain. For a few seconds Thorne remained silent. He could not tear his eyes away from the boy in the hall, wide-eyed and shiny-lipped in red-and-white pyjamas, his teeth sliding back and forth across his bottom lip.

MY JOURNAL

10 October

Not sure if they’ve found him yet, but if they haven’t, it can’t be very far away. My money’s on someone walking a dog. How many times do you read that? Or kids, playing where they shouldn’t. I was thinking that, if I had the chance, if I could somehow find out when it was going to happen, I might pop down to have a look at the fun and games. Mind you, unless you don’t have a television or you’re living in a cave, it’s not hard to imagine what it would be like. Dozens of them swarming about in their plastic masks and paper suits, lights and tents and tape, and some chain-smoking detective standing off to one side, shouting at his sidekick or moaning about his boss.

I can’t help thinking that if they’d made that sort of effort fifteen years ago, they might have figured out what was really happening a lot quicker. They might have saved a few women’s lives and might even have worked out that their ‘vicious killer’ was a man who could not help himself. Who was as much a victim as any of them.

They might have prevented all this.

Even if I did have the chance to get down there and join the gawkers, I’d almost certainly not get to see the body being brought out, but I bet they have an easier job shifting it than I did. It’s only when you’ve tried to move one that you discover why they call it a ‘dead weight’. Lugging him into and out of the car was a nightmare, so it was amazing to watch him slip into the water a bit later, when I’d found the right spot. Then, he looked almost weightless, drifting down into the murk. Graceful.

I’m not really sure why I’d like to go, if I’m honest. It certainly wouldn’t be about gloating, nothing like that. I suppose I just want to feel that I’m part of it. That might sound odd, considering that none of this would be happening were it not for me, but it’s easy to feel… removed from what’s going on. Stating the bloody obvious, I know, but I have to be one step ahead of the game and I can hardly pour my heart out to some stranger in the pub, can I?

It always makes me laugh, reading about ‘crazed loners’. Well, yes, and there’s usually a pretty good reason for it! Not that it isn’t a major drawback when it comes to humping those ‘dead weights’ around, mind you.

It’s not like I’m desperate for attention. I know, so what am I putting all this down on paper for? Well, I suppose that when everything’s finally wrapped up, I just want there to be some basic understanding of the whys and wherefores. Not that I’m expecting a great deal on that score, to be honest. There’s always the ghouls and the academics, I suppose, and the odd religious nutcase who comes on side with blather about forgiveness. But apart from them, the reaction will be so hysterical that almost nobody will give a toss about the reasoning.

All the more reason for me to get it down in black and white then, yes? Besides which, when the Nick Maiers of this world sit down to write their blockbusters, they’ll have a little more to go on than usual.

Hopefully they’ll make a better job of it than they did last time.

Shock, horror: it’s all gone very quiet in the newsagent’s these days. He’s too worried about keeping children out of his shop and it doesn’t take much to knock a story off the front page. Too many kids stabbing each other, too much sleaze. A celebrity scandal or a decent terrorist story will trump an honest-to-goodness murder every time.

Once they find this latest one, though, he’s bound to kick off again, waving his rolled-up tabloid like some sword of justice and ranting about how the streets aren’t safe. I’d better make a point of going in as soon as I can. With a bit of luck, the self-righteous old bugger might burst a blood vessel while he’s handing over my Bensons.

‘On top of which, the victim appears to have had a sex change quite recently, and been murdered with a priceless, jewel-encrusted cross-bow. ’

‘What?’

‘Good, so you’re still with us, then?’

‘Sorry, Phil.’

Thorne was feeling the ill effects of sleep deprivation. He had not got home from the crime scene until late the night before, Louise dead to the world when he got in and dead to the world when he’d crept out again, into a street no less dark and damp than it had been four hours earlier.

By eleven in the morning he was ready to go back to bed, a heaviness having settled in his arms and legs. The cold, metal slabs of Hornsey Mortuary were looking every bit as inviting as the comfiest Slumberdown.

‘Pro-Plus is good,’ Hendricks said. ‘Or Red Bull, though I wouldn’t recommend the two together.’

‘Unless you’ve got a few cans stashed in one of your fridges, you’re not helping.’

‘It’s illegal in France, did you know that?’

‘What is?’

‘Red Bull. And in Norway and Denmark.’

‘The French drink absinthe. Doesn’t that stuff kill you?’

‘God knows, but it makes the heart grow fonder.’

It took Thorne a second or two to get it; even then, a sarcastic smirk used up a lot less energy than laughing.

Outside the post-mortem suite, Thorne studied the health and safety posters on the wall. A yawn provided the cover for an unusually delicate fart, as he read up on the ways to avoid AIDS and MRSA, while Hendricks stripped off his protective gown and surgical scrubs and tossed them into a communal bin. Then they walked along the narrow corridor towards the coroner’s office, which the pathologist on call could use whenever he was in the building.

‘Silent but deadly,’ Hendricks said.

For a few seconds, Thorne thought that his friend was talking about MRSA, but then he saw the grin. ‘Sorry.’

‘Dirty bastard…’

The office was fractionally larger than Pavesh Kambar’s but a lot more chaotic. A stack of green lever files was piled up on one of the three desks, and there were sticky notes on each computer screen. Hendricks pulled out a chair for Thorne, then dropped into his own. The Arsenal ‘Seventies Legends’ calendar above the desk was the sole demarcation of territory in the shared space, and Thorne could see that a fortnight from now Hendricks would be attending a seminar on ‘gene regulation’. The date was highlighted in red, beneath a picture of Charlie George, flat out after scoring the winner in the 1971 Cup Final.

Hendricks gestured towards the other desks. ‘Most of the people who work in here have pet hates as far as the “customers” go, and it’s always been water for me. What it does to the body. I’d take a jumper or a decent car accident any day.’

Thorne could not remember too many lovely murder scenes, but on arriving at the canal bank the previous afternoon even he had been grateful that he had not found time for lunch.

They had pulled the body out of the water near Camden Lock, within spitting distance of the shops and bars of the sprawling market, though as yet it was impossible to tell where it had gone in. It lay on the bank beneath a hastily erected tent: one hand formed into a fist, stiff around the expected sliver of X-ray; the other, pale palm upwards and purplish fingertips, as though the victim were black but wearing white fingerless gloves; a shoe missing, a bracelet of weed around the foot; and the belly straining with gas against a waterlogged denim jacket.