Scaredy Cat (36 page)

SLEEPYHEAD 347

to the mattress on the floor, they bit and scratched and cried, and went somewhere far better with their tiny fingers clawing at the flesh of those strong, cal used hands.

Thorne has to believe that. He cannot accept that they smiled at their daddy as he laid the pil ow across their faces.

He wil not accept that.

It might be thirty minutes later when he finds Calvert. He has no idea how long he's spent in that tiny box room trying to understand. Thinking about Jan. The child they are desperate for.

He pushes open the door to the living room and his senses are immediately bludgeoned. He smel s whisky, so strong he almost chokes on it, and the pungent aroma of gunpowder, which until this moment he has only ever known on a firing range.

He sees the body on the floor in front of the hearth.

The brain caked to the mirror above the tiled mantelpiece.

Francis John Calvert. 3 7. Suicide by gunshot.

Thorne walks across the grimy mushroom-coloured carpet like a sleepwalker. Not looking down as his foot sends an empty" whisky bottle clattering into the skirtingboard. Not taking his eye off Calvert. The outstretched arm is stil holding the gun. The underpants are brown with congealed blood. When had this happened? Last night or first thing this morning?

The hands are unmarked by smal fingers.

Thorne stands above the body, his arms hanging heavy by his sides, his breathing deep and desperate. He leans forward, knowing what's going to happen, amazed considering that he's had no breakfast. The spasm, when it comes,.

348 MARK BILLINGHAM

moves swiftly from guts to chest and then throat, and he vomits, steaming, wet and bitter, across what's left of Francis Calvert's face.

'It wasn't your fault, Tom. I know it must have been horrible, but you can't think it happened because of you.'

Thorne lay on the settee and stared at his dul magnolia ceiling. Somewhere in the distance the siren of a fire engine or an ambulance was wailing desperately.

Anne squeezed his hand, feeling like a doctor. She thought quickly of Alison. 'You were right when you thought it was an aberration. You finding them was just a coincidence. A hqrrible coincidence...'

Thorne had no more to say. The tiredness that had been clutching at him al day now had a firm grip and he didn't feel like struggling any more. He craved unconsciousness, a blackness that would see everything he'd remembered and described put back where it belonged. The rusty bolts slammed back into place.

He closed his eyes and let it come.

Anne had kept it together while Thorne was tel ing his story, wil ing her face to show nothing, but now she let the tears come. Thinking about the little girls. Thinking about her own daughter's tiny white feet.

It was easy to see what drove this man. What had created this obsession with.., knowing. She hoped in time that he would see his feelings for Jeremy as no more than phantoms.

Distorted echoes of a past horror. She hoped they could al move on.

She would be there to help him.

She shivered slightly. The shadow was stil moving across them and its chil gathered at her shoulder. She laid SLEEPYHEAD 349

her head on Thorne's chest which, within a few moments, began to rise and fal regularly, in sleep.

The pictures are stil fuzzy but the words are clearer now. Like watching a film I've seen before, but since the last time I saw it my eyesight's gone funny and it's al a bit jumpy.

We're in the kitchen. Me and him.

I tel him to put his bag down anywhere and I'm stil swigging the champagne and asking him if he wants a cup of coffee or a beer or something. He says nice things about the flat. I grab a can of beer that Tim's left in thefridge. He opens it andI'm stil talking about the party. lbout the wankers in the club. Blokes on the sniff. He's sympathetic, saying he knows what men are like, and that I can hardly blame them, can I?

Music comes in for a few seconds as I turn the radio on, and then some static as I try to tune it in to something good, and then I give up.

He says he needs to make a phone cal and he does, but I can't hear him saying anything. He's just muttering quietly. I'm stil rabbiting on but I can barely make out what I'm saying now.

Just gabbling. Something about starting to feel a bit sick but I don't think he's real y listening.

I'm apologising for being so out of it. He must think I'm real y fucking sad, slumped on the kitchen floor, leaning against a cupboard, hardly able to speak. Not at al , he says, and I can hear him unzipping his bag. Rummaging inside. There's nothing wrong with having a good time, he says. Going for it.

Fucking right I tel him, but that's not how it comes out of my mouth.

I can hear my shoes squeak across the tiles as he drags me to

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the other side of the kitchen. My earrings and my necklace

clinking as he drops them into a dish.

The groaning noise is me.

I sound like I can't actual y speak at al . Can't. Like a baby. Or an old person with no teeth in, and half their brain gone. I'm trying to say something but it's just a noise.

He's tel ing me to be quiet. Tel ing me not to bother trying. His hands are on me now and he's describing everything he's doing. Tel ing me not to worry and to trust him. Talking me through it. He tel s me the names of muscles when he touches them.

Stupid names. Medical.

He catches his breath and then he's quiet for a while. A couple of minutes.

And I can't hear myself saying a single thing about it. Not a word of complaint, ffust the drip, drip, drip of my dribble as it spil s out of my mouth and plops on to the tiles in front of me. I can make a sort of gargling sound.

There's a couple of grunts but now the sound starts to fade as I begin to slip away from everything.

Then something important. The last thing I can hear. Three words, echoey and strange as if they're from a long way away. Like he's whispering them to me from the end of a long pipe, like my friend saying hel o down the vacuum-cleaner tube when we were kids.

I need to tel this, I think.

He says goodnight. Night-night...

It's almost sil y, what he says. Sweet-sounding and gentle. A

word I've heard again since.

1 word I heard when I woke up and was like this.

A word that says pretty much everything about what I am.

TWENTY-TWO

When Thorne woke up it was already dark. He looked at his watch. Just after seven o'clock. He'd been out of it for two and a half hours.

He had no way of knowing it, but two hours more and

it would al be over.

Anne had gone. He got up off the settee to make himself coffee and saw the note on the mantelpiece.

Tom,

I hope you're feeling better. I know how hard it was

for you to tel me.

You mustn't be afraid to be wrong.

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to see Jeremy tonight to tel him that everything's al right. I think he deserves to feel better too.

Cal me later.

Anne. X

He made himself the coffee and read the note again. He was feeling better and it was more than just the couple of hours' sleep. Talking about what had happened al those years ago had left him feeling cleaner. Purged was probably putting it a little strongly but, considering that his case had gone to SLEEPYHEAD 353

shit, he had no friends and he was headed for al manner of

trouble with his superiors, he might have felt much worse. Tom Thorne was resigned.

It wasn't so much that he'd been afraid to be wrong. He hadn't even considered it. Now he had to do a lot more than consider it. He had to live with it.

Anne was going to see Bishop to tel him that he was out of the frame. That was fair enough. He'd never real y been in the frame, if truth were told. Only in Thorne's thick, thick head. It was time to face a few harsh realities.

Anne was doing a good thing. Bishop deserved to know

what was going on. He deserved to know how things stood. He was not the only one.

Thorne picked up the phone and dial ed Anne's number. Maybe he could catch her before she left. Rachel answered almost immediately, sounding out of breath, annoyed and distinctly teenage.

'Hi, Rachel, it's Tom Thorne. Can I speak to your

mother?' 'No.' 'Right...'

'She's not here. You've just missed her.'

'She's on her way to Battersea, is she?'

Her tone changed from impatience to something more strident. 'Yeah. She's gone to tel Jeremy he's not public enemy number one any more. About time as wel , if you ask me.'

Thorne said nothing. Anne had told her. It didn't matter now anyway.

'How long ago did she--'

'I don't know. She's going shopping first, I think. She's cooking him dinner.'

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'Listen, Racheln'

She cut him off. 'Look, I've got to go, I'm going to be

late. Cal her on the mobile or try her later at Jeremy's. Have you got the number?'

Thorne assured her that he had, then realised she was being sarcastic.

He tried Anne's mobile number but couldn't get connected. Maybe she had it switched off. She wouldn't have a signal anyway if she was on the tube. Then he remembered that she was on cal and guessed that she'd probably be driving. He had her bleeper number somewhere...

He picked up his jacket. He'd do what Rachel had suggested and get her later at Bishop's. This time he wouldn't have to withhold his number.

how late Alison Wil etts could receive visitors.

He was wearing one of the crisp white shirts he knew she liked so much. He'd stared at himself in the ful -length mirror as he slowly did up the buttons. Watching the scars disappear beneath the spotless white cotton.

Now he looked at his watch as the car cruised sedately north across Blackfriars Bridge. He was going to be a little late. She would be on time as always.

She was very, very keen.

He was meeting her outside the Green Man as usual. It

.was a bit of a slog to drive al the way across the river just to turn round and drive back south again, but he'd rather do it this way than let her get on the tube or bus. He wanted to be in control of things. If she was late or missed a bus or something it could throw the timing of everything off.

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When he'd told her that they would be going back to his place, he knew that she was thinking, Oh, my God, tonight's the night. He could almost smel the rush of teenage oestrogen and hear the cogs in her sil y little brain whirring as she tried to decide which perfume to dab between her tits and which knickers would turn him on the most.

Wel , yes, it would be a night to remember for certain. Back at his place.

It might be a little crowded...

On the drive to Queen Square, Thorne didn't real y need to think. He'd worked out what he was going to say to Alison Wil etts. Now he just needed to be a little more relaxed in order to say it.

He popped out the Massive Attack tape and slid in Merle Haggard.

Getting relaxed enough to apologise.

' Tommy?'

' Yes, and to you too:

After circling the square for nearly ten minutes, swearing loudly, he double-parked and stuck a dog-eared piece of cardboard with 'Police Business' scrawled on it in the front window of the Mondeo.

The evening was turning chil y. He wished he'd grabbed a warmer jacket on his way out. As he walked quickly towards the hospital's main entrance, he felt the first drops of rain and remembered making this same journey in reverse two months earlier. It seemed a lot longer ago, that day in August when he'd first met Alison Wil etts. He'd run through the rain towards his car and found the note. He'd begun to understand the nature of the man he was dealing with.

356 MARK BILLINGHAM

Today, on the same spot, with the rain starting to fal , Thorne was coming to terms with the fact that he stil had no idea who that man was.

Nearly eight o'clock. The latest that Thorne had been inside the hospital. It was a very different place after dark. His steps echoed off century-old marble as he strode through the older part of the building towards the Chandler Wing. There were few people around and those he passed, nurses, cleaners, security staff, looked at him closely. They seemed to be studying his face. He'd never been aware of such scrutiny during the day.

Somewhere in the distance he thought he could hear what sounded like somebody weeping softly. He stopped to listen but couldn't hear it any more.

Even the modern part of the hospital seemed spookier. The lights that normal y bounced off the bleached wood in the Medical ITU reception area, had been dimmed. The only sounds were the muted tones of a faraway conversation and the low hum of distant equipment of some sort. It might have been cleaning carpets. It might have been keeping somebody alive.

He looked at the row of payphones in Reception. He'd try Anne again as soon as he'd been to see Alison. He'd forgotten to bring his mobile..

As he walked from the lift, he caught the eye of a woman in the glass-fronted office in Reception. She waved at him and he recognised her as Anne's secretary. He couldn't remember her name. He pointed at the doors and she nodded, signal ing at him to go on through. He remembered the three-digit code that opened the heavy wooden doors and stepped through them into the Intensive Therapy Unit.

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He let the sister on duty at the nursing station know where he was going and set off down the corridor towards Alison's room. As he walked past the other rooms he realised that he knew nothing about the people inside. He'd never spoken to Anne about her other patients. He presumed that none were suffering in quite the same way as Alison was, but that al had seen their lives changed in a few short seconds. The time it takes to trip on the stairs or mistime a tackle or lose control of a car.

The time it takes for a brain to short-circuit.

He listened at the door of the room opposite Alison's. The same tel tale hum of machinery from within, like the lazy throb of a dozing beehive coming slowly to life after a long winter.