Lazybones (11 page)
Authors: Mark Billingham
“No need. I'm paying cash.” He signed the form and reached into the pocket of his jacket for the roll of tenners.
“That's fine, sir⦔
Welch took out the money. He had a card he could have used if he'd felt like it, but he wanted her to see the cash. He slipped off the elastic band, started counting it out. The hostel was fucking horrendous, but being released NFAâhaving No Fixed Abodeâdid have its advantages. The discharge grant was more than double what you'd get normally.
“No payment in advance, sir. You settle the bill when you check out.” She placed a key card on top of the pile of cash and pushed the lot back toward him. “Room 313. Third floor.”
He grabbed his money, tried not to shout. “I do bloody well know. I know what you're supposed to do, all right?”
The receptionist reddened and turned away from him.
Welch picked up the plastic bag that contained a toothbrush, condoms, clean pants and socks for the morning. He thought about joining the gang from Thompson Mouldings in the bar, having a quick one. On second thought, he'd go straight to the room, maybe have a shower, try to enjoy every single minute of itâ¦
Grinning at nobody in particular, he walked toward the lift.
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This was stuff that only went on at family weddings. That Thorne knew could never happen anywhere else: an old woman, seventy if she was a day, dancing awkwardly in the corner with a small boy; two women in their forties shouting at each other across the table, raising their voices so that their comments about the food/dress/service could be heard above the Madonna/Oasis/George Michael; small children sliding on their knees across the polished dance floor, while smaller ones screamed or struggled to stay awake in spite of the loud music.
Some related by blood, forever, and some for only an hour or two. Eyeing one another up and staring one another down. A fuck or a fight not much more than a look or a lager awayâ¦
Twenty minutes since the happy couple had taken to the floor to dance the first dance to “Lady in Red,” and Thorne hadn't moved from his seat in the corner. From there he could watch what was happening in the main hall and keep an eye on his old man.
He looked across. His father was no longer sitting at the bar. Thorne got up, ordered himself another Guinness, and while he was waiting for it to settle, wandered through into the main hall.
He passed people he knew not well or not at all, their faces colored by the DJ's piss-poor lighting rigâred, then green, then blue. At the far end of the hall, Thorne looked to his right, and through the archway that led to another, smaller room, he could see his father shuffling along the buffet table, muttering to himself, piling food he would never eat onto a paper plateâ¦
“Go easy, Dad. How many chicken legs can one man eat?”
“Mind your own fucking business⦔
“It's too muchâ¦look, get your hand underneath it⦔
“Shit⦔
The flimsy cardboard unable to sustain so much food. The plate collapsing in on itself.
The mattress sagging beneath the weight of the dead man
â¦
Thorne was suddenly angry with his father, at having to play nursemaid. Then angrier still at knowing that if he
were
at home there would be fuck all happening, the leads dried up, the new angles nonexistent. There was no reason for him to be missed.
He bent to pick up the food that had spilled onto the floor, thought better of it, and kicked it under the table.
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The room was absolutely fucking huge. Or perhaps it just
seemed
huge. He knew that his sense of perspective was still a little skewed. Christ, having a crap without company felt like luxuryâ¦
It was all Welch could do to stop himself running into the bathroom to rub one off. That had been exactly what he'd done when Jane had got in touch with him at the hostel. Grabbed one of her photographs and thrown one off the wrist, hardly able to believe what she was suggesting.
He'd been amazed, how had she known where he was? He didn't bloody care, mind you, he'd been fucking delighted. He hadn't thought he'd hear from her again. He'd presumed she was one of those silly tarts who got off on writing to cons while they were inside, but would run a mile once they got out. He'd been so sure that he'd actually chucked away the letters she'd sent him in prison when he got out. He kept the photos, obviously. No way was he getting rid of
them
â¦
He pulled out the one photo of Jane that he'd brought with him. God, she looked gorgeous. He dreamed that perhaps she would bring the hood with her, maybe even
the handcuffs. He'd secretly brought the picture along in the hope that they could try to re-create it.
He'd spent such a long time imagining what she looked like underneath the hood, or with her face lifted up out of the shadow, and now, when he was about to see her, the truth was that he didn't care. He knew what her body was like, that she would surrender it to him, allow him to take it. Besides, when it came to it, he'd always been a firm believer in not looking at the mantelpiece when you were poking the fire.
Welch let out a long, slow breath. Looked at his watch. He stroked himself through his trousers, unsure that he'd be able to contain himself if she didn't get a bloody move onâ¦
Somebody knocked at the door. Three times. Softly.
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On the way back to the bar, his father out of harm's way, Thorne had been collared by his auntie Eileen, who asked if he was having a good time and would he mind having a quick word with one of her nephews who was thinking of joining the police force? Thorne thought that he'd rather wash a corpse and said that yes, of course he would, and pushed his way back toward where he hoped his drink would still be waitingâ¦
He downed a third of the pint in one, and as it went down, he watched as hard glances were exchanged on the other side of the bar. Some cousin or other and the bride's mate, looking like they wanted trouble. Thorne decided that even if they started punching seven shades of shit out of each other right there and then, he wasn't going to raise a finger.
He realized that he was wrong about this stuff only happening at family weddings. With the possible exception of the disco, you could get it all at family funerals as well. The key word was
family,
that first syllable stretched out and said with a metaphorical jab of the finger, if you
were a character on
EastEnders,
or a fake Cockney TV celebrity, or from a particular part of Southeast London.
Thorne looked across. He guessed that the trouble would kick off a little later. In the car park, maybe.
It was events like these, he thought,
births, marriages, and deaths,
that saw the undercurrents rise to the surface and become unstable. Bubbling up and swirling in eddies of beer and Bacardi. Sentimentality, aggression, envy, suspicion, avarice.
History.
The ties that bind, twistedâ¦
This was the stuff that was reserved for those closest to us, that was hidden away from strangers, even when that was
exactly
what most of your family were.
Thorne saw a lad, sixteen or seventeen, walking across the bar toward him. This was probably the nephew in search of career advice. On second thought, Thorne was in just the mood to give him someâ¦
He might start with a few statistics. Such as the number of murders committed by persons unknown to the victim, and how tiny they were compared to those committed by persons to whom the victim was actually
related.
He would tell the boy that when it came to families, to the tensions within them and the acts carried out in their name, he should never,
ever
be surprised. He would tell the stupid, eager young idiot that families were dangerous.
That they were capable of anything.
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When the man had come through the door, Welch could see straightaway that he was in trouble.
There was a look on the man's face that Welch recognized, that he'd spent years in prison trying to avoid. It was the look he'd seen often on the faces of ordinary honest-to-goodness murderers and armed robbers. The same look of contempt, of threat, that Caldicott must have seen down in that laundry room before they flash-fried his faceâ¦
Welch thought that perhaps he should have struggled more, but there was little he could do. The man was far stronger than he was. The years inside had toughened him up mentally, but his body had gone soft and flabby. Too much time reading and not nearly enough in the gymâ¦
Welch spent his last moments thinking that pain was so much worse when you were unable to fight it, when you could not protest its presenceâ¦
The scream in his throat was stopped by whatever had been thrown around his neck and pressed back into a strangled, bubbling hiss. His body, too, could do nothing. It drew itself instinctively from the agony, but each jerk away from the tearing, from the stabbing, just tightened the grip of the line that was crushing the breath out of him.
Welch pushed his head down toward the carpet, feeling the line bite farther into his neck, his teeth deeper into his tongue. He strained against the hands that dragged his neck back, contorting himself, his body fetal in the seconds before death.
I'm dying like a baby,
Welch thought, his eyes wide but seeing nothing inside the hood, a softer, blacker darkness beginning finally to come over himâ¦
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Thorne had just put his father to bed. He was walking across the corridor to his own room when the phone rang. He let it ring until he was inside the room.
“You're up late⦔
“Great, isn't it?” Eve said. “Lie-in tomorrow. So, how was the wedding?”
“Perfect. Dull speeches, shit food, and a fight.”
“What about the actual
wedding
â¦?”
“Oh,
that
? Yeah, that was okay⦔
She laughed. Thorne sat on the bed, wedged the phone between shoulder and chin, and started to take his shoes off. “Listen, I'm really sorry about last night⦔
“Don't be silly. How's your dad?”
“You know, annoying. Mind you, he was annoying before⦔ Thorne thought he could hear the sound of traffic at the other end of the line. He guessed Eve was out somewhere, but thought better of asking where. “Seriously, though, sorry about rushing off. Did the food get eaten?”
“Don't worry, it will⦔
“Sorry⦔
“It's fine, there would have been tons left anyway. I'd made loads and Denise eats nothing, so I wouldn't worry about it.”
Thorne began to unbutton his shirt. “Say thanks to her and Ben for the entertainment, by the way⦔
“Good, wasn't it? I think I broke it up too early, though. Another minute, and I'm sure we'd have seen a glass of wine thrown in someone's face⦔
“Next time.”
She yawned loudly. “God, sorry⦔
“I'll let you get to bed,” he said. He was imagining her in the back of a cab, pulling up outside her flat.
“Sleep well, Tom.”
Thorne lay back down on his bed. “Listen, you know that scale of one to ten? Can I move up to an eightâ¦?”
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Thorne's phone rang again eight hours later. Its insistent chirrup pulled him up from the depths of a deep sleep. Dragged him from a dream where he was trying to stop a man bleeding to death. Each time he put his finger over a hole, another would appear, as if he were Chaplin trying to plug a leak. Just when it seemed he had all the wounds covered, the blood began to spurt from a number of holes in
him
â¦
“You'd better get back, sir,” Holland said.
“Tell me⦔
“The killer's ordered another wreath⦔
November 27, 1996
Stooping to pick up the car keys he'd dropped, Alan Franklin winced in pain. A fortnight shy of retirement, and his body, like a precision alarm clock, was telling him that it was just the right time. The back pain and the talk of retirement cottages abroad had begun on almost exactly the same dayâ¦
He straightened up, his noisy exhalation echoing around the almost deserted car park. They'd probably talk about it again tonight, the two of them, over a bottle of wine. Sheila was leaning toward France, while he fancied Spain. Either way, they would be off. There was nothing to keep them, after all. The children he'd had with Celia were grown up with kids of their own. Not that he had any contact with his boys anymore, and he'd never seen the grandchildren they'd produced. There were friends, of course, and they'd be missed, but it wasn't like he and Sheila were going to be far away. They had no real tiesâ¦
He fumbled for the key to the Rover, pushed it toward the lock.
Sheila would probably get her way in the end, of course, she usually did. It had to be said that more often than not she was right. She'd been right this
morning, telling him that it was going to freeze, that he needed to wrap up warm.
He turned the key, popped up the central locking.
As he reached for the door handle, something passed in front of his eyes with a swish and bit back, hard into his neck, pulling him off his feetâ¦
He hit the floor before his briefcase did, before he had a chance to cry out, one leg broken and bent behind, the other straight out in front of him, hands flying to his throat, fingers wedging themselves between line and neck.
Hands scrabbled at his own, tearing at his fingers, pulling them away. A fist crashed into the side of his head, and as he rocked with the impact, he felt his fingers, numb and running with blood, slipping from beneath the line. And hot breath on the back of his neckâ¦
He watched his leg shooting out, the foot kicking desperately against the Rover's dirty gray hubcap.
He remembered suddenly the face of the woman underneath him. Smelled himself, the aftershave he used to love. Felt again that strength in his arms.
He saw her legs kicking out against the boxes piled high on either side of the stockroom. Heard the dull thud of her stockinged feet on the cardboard. He felt the movement beneath him die down and then stop, saw her eyes close tight.
It seemed to be getting dark very quickly. Perhaps the lights in the car park were on some sort of timer. Fading to save electricity. He could just make out his foot, the heel of his brogue still crashing into the hubcap, again and again. Cracking the cheap plastic.
Then, just black and the rushing of his blood, and the sound of his heartbeat, which thumped inside his eyeballs as the line tightened.
He saw his wife, smiling at him from the garden, and the woman beneath him trying to turn her head away, and his wife, and then the woman, and finally the woman where his wife should have been, telling him how cold it was going to get.
Laughing, and reminding him not to forget his scarfâ¦
