Mark Billingham - Bloodline

‘I know what you’re saying.’

‘And there’s other things… things at home or whatever. They change the way you react to people. Make you angrier, sadder. Jack all your reactions up a few notches so you can’t switch off quite so easily.’

‘What things?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Thorne shook his head. ‘I’m talking shite, that’s all.’

Chamberlain waited, but Thorne waved the subject away as though it weren’t worth their time and effort. The music had dropped in tempo, like Clannad on Mogadon. They watched the barman flirting with the two girls as he gathered up their empties.

‘Are you driving?’ Chamberlain asked. She held up the spent wine bottle to let Thorne see how much they’d put away.

‘Well, I was.’ Thorne had driven home the previous night when he shouldn’t have, but aside from being a little further over the limit now than he had been then, he didn’t feel like calling it a night just yet. ‘Getting a cab shouldn’t be a problem, though.’

‘Shall we get another bottle, then?’

He had parked in an NCP, which meant that, on top of the taxi fare, he would probably need to take out a second mortgage if he was going to pick the car up the next morning. He could always try claiming it on expenses. ‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to order some food anyway.’

‘We could just go up to my room, if you like.’

‘Steady, Carol.’

‘Behave yourself.’ Chamberlain smiled, enjoying it. ‘I’ve got a couple of bottles up there, that’s all, so it’s free and it’s a damn sight nicer than this rubbish. I can always ring down for a sandwich.’

They gathered their stuff together and moved towards the lifts. Thorne made sure his voice was raised as he walked, not altogether steadily, past the table at which the Midlands girls were sitting. ‘Why do women keep asking me to go up to their hotel rooms with them?’ he said.

Chamberlain shrugged. ‘It’s a mystery to me.’

A minute or so later, Thorne was grinning as the lift doors closed. ‘Mind you, the last one did want me to pay for it.’

Thorne perched on the end of the bed while Chamberlain sat in the small chair next to the window. The wine, from plastic bathroom glasses, went down easily enough, though it was hard to say if it was really any better than what they’d been drinking in the bar. Thorne was rapidly reaching the point where he could not have distinguished between Merlot and meths.

The first few glasses were taken up with chat about the case, but it seemed like small talk. They had said all that needed saying downstairs and both had been in the Job long enough to know that speculation was ultimately pointless, even when it was all you had left.

‘I’ll call as soon as I’ve spoken to Sandra Phipps,’ Chamberlain said. ‘If she does turn out to be Garvey’s mother, I’m guessing you’ll want a few words yourself.’

Thorne nodded, that faraway bell ringing again.

‘And if she isn’t, do you want me to go back to Malcolm Reece, see if there’s anyone else he can think of?’

‘Might as well,’ Thorne said.

‘Actually, I think he took rather a shine to me.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Thorne spread his arms wide. ‘Attractive and mature lady, still got both her own hips. You have still got both your hips, haven’t you?’

‘Both fists as well,’ Chamberlain said. ‘And you should watch it, because I reckon you’ve drunk more than I have, so your reflexes are probably buggered.’

‘I wouldn’t fancy my chances stone-cold sober,’ Thorne said.

‘Long as you know.’

Thorne had thought about asking if there was any music, if he could turn on the radio, maybe, but he’d stopped himself. Fuzzy-headed as he was, he was still thinking clearly enough to sense that it might not be… appropriate, or at the very least that the connotations might be embarrassing, for one or other of them. The silences grew longer, or seemed to, broken only by the sound of yawns no longer stifled, and once by the laughter and muted conversation of people entering the room next door. For ten minutes, while Chamberlain talked about life in Worthing, Thorne sat in dread, waiting for those tell-tale bedtime noises to start coming through the walls. Would he and Chamberlain sit there mortified, he wondered, raising their voices and pretending they could hear nothing? Or would they piss themselves like naughty children and hold their plastic glasses to the wall? He poured himself another drink, concluding that, should it come to it, alcohol would clearly be the deciding factor.

With two and a bit bottles accounted for between them, Chamberlain said, ‘I told you how grateful I was for this, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, and you didn’t have to.’

‘I meant it, and you know it’s not just about the money.’

‘A chance to stay in a hotel, whatever… I know.’

‘I needed the break, Tom,’ Chamberlain said. ‘We both know the cancer’s coming back and I know Jack’s only trying to make the best of things, but we’re just drifting along, bored and talking rubbish like a pair of stupid teenagers.’

‘But it’s better to be… positive, surely?’

She shook her head, adamant. ‘The pretending’s doing my head in, tell you the truth. He’s doing my head in.’

Thorne took a deep breath. He was finding it increasingly hard to put the words in the right order. ‘I don’t quite know what you-’

‘I’m not saying I want to leave, anything like that.’

‘OK, because I thought you meant-’

‘It’s just that I want to slap him silly sometimes.’

Thorne was about to laugh, but Chamberlain cut him off.

‘Does that sound horrible?’

Thorne could manage no more than a shrug, a puff of boozy breath.

‘We were walking the dog the other week,’ Chamberlain said, ‘and obviously Jack needs to stop quite a bit and catch his breath. I just have to stand and wait, you know, listening to him wheezing and watching the dog disappear until he’s ready to carry on. So I was standing there this one day, thinking, I can run, you know? I can still run.’ She smiled sadly at Thorne. ‘Still got two good knees as well…’

Thorne returned the smile.

‘God knows where it came from, but I thought, I could just go, right now, turn away from him and leg it all the way up the beach until he couldn’t see me any more. Sprint up the beach for the hell of it, just because I still can, you know? And for a few seconds I stood there next to him, fighting the urge to do it. Listening to the wind and the dog barking somewhere, and the air through his lungs like sandpaper.

‘Now you’re thinking, Stupid, selfish cow, right?’

‘No,’ Thorne said.

She brought her glass to her mouth and tipped, but it was already empty.

Thorne could feel the pulse ticking in his temple as his eyes drifted away from her, finally settling on the card on top of the television: a menu of the various channels and pay-movies that were available. He scanned the titles, doing his best to focus, with trivial thoughts bubbling up through the gloop of more serious concerns that slopped inside his skull.

Would the Met pick up the tab for the movies?

Was Carol the sort to watch the dirty ones?

He turned to see Chamberlain unscrewing the cap from the wine bottle and said, ‘I think I should phone for a cab.’

Chamberlain nodded and cleared her throat. ‘I’ll do it.’ She sounded unnaturally bright suddenly, as though she were trying to distance herself from what she had just confessed. She reached for her handbag and pulled out her mobile. ‘Louise be waiting up, will she?’ She smiled, starting to dial. ‘You should think yourself lucky-’