Scaredy Cat (9 page)

80 MARK BILLINGHAM

rid. They'd have a description of sorts by now. So what? They might even have seen the car. So much the better.

He chewed his toast and stared out of the window at the view across London. The mist was starting to lift. It would be another glorious day. Helen had been just as easy as the others to prepare. Easier. He was getting better at it. There had been those couple of disastrous attempts earlier on, but he was more relaxed about it these days.

Christine and Madeleine had been cautious at first. They were natural y reluctant to let him in but they were lonely women and he was an attractive man. They wanted to talk. And more.

And he was very persuasive. Susan and Alison had both invited him in almost instantly and happily drunk themselves into oblivion. Literal y. He giggled to himself. The champagne had been an inspired idea. He'd thought about a jab but it would have been messy and he didn't want any sort of struggle. The wait was a little longer with the champagne, natural y, but he liked watching them go slowly. He savoured the frisson of their impending mal eabili. The other one - the one whose name he hadn't had time to find out - had positively guzzled it down.

But then he'd had to leave because the timing had not been... judicious. Stil , he felt sure that she'd said nothing about it. She would have had a hard enough time explaining to her husband or boyfriend or girlfriend why she was so utterly out of it when they got home. She certainly wouldn't have mentioned inviting a strange man into the house.

It had been such a relief to be able to work on Helen in his own home. He so hated dissembling. He'd hated creeping about in those dreary houses. It had made his flesh crawl to leave the bars of soap and bottles of pil s in those dirty, greasy bathrooms. Rol ed-up tights and shit stripes in

SLEEPYHEAD 81

the lavatory bowls. He hated putting his hands on them. On their heads. Even through the gloves he could feel the dirt and grease in their hair. He could swear he almost felt things.., moving. But now he could work in clean, comfortable surroundings. Now he knew that they knew that he knew that...

He whistled his own invented melody to accompany this comforting refrain as he tried his best to stay awake. Thorne wasn't the only one feeling the strain. He needed more coffee. For a moment he closed his eyes and thought about Alison. She hadn't let him down. She'd wanted to live. He thought about going to visit her again, but it was perhaps a little risky. Security in ITUs was fairly tight, these days. The flood had been an inspired idea but could only be a one-off. He began to drift away. Yes, he'd need to think of something else if he wanted to go and see Alison again without getting caught.

Without bumping into Anne Coburn.

'Are you in any pain, Alison?' Doctors Anne Coburn and Steve Clark watched the pal id, peaceful face intently. There was no response. Anne tried again. 'Blink once for yes, Alison.'

After a moment there was the tiniest movement - the ghost of a twitch around Alison's left eye. Anne looked across at the occupational therapist who scribbled notes on his clipboard. He nodded at her. She carried on. 'Yes, you are in pain? Was that a yes, Alison?' Nothing. 'Alison?' Steve Clark put his pen away. Alison's left eyelid fluttered three times in rapid succession. 'OK, Alison.'

'Maybe she's just tired, Anne. I'm sure you're right. It's just a question of her gaining sufficient control.' Anne Coburn had a lot of time for Steve Clark. He was 82 MARK BILLINGHAM

a bril iant therapist and a nice man, but he lied very badly. He wasn't at al convinced. But she was. 'I feel like somebody who's cal ed out the TV repairman and then there's nothing the matter, only the other way round.., oh shit, you know what I mean, Steve.'

'I just think that maybe you're rushing things a bit.'

'I'm fol owing wel -established guidelines, Steve. The ECG shows normal brain activity.'

'N0body's arguing with that but it doesn't mean she's got the ability to communicate. I agree that there is movement but I've seen nothing to convince me that it isn't involuntary.'

'This isn't just me, Steve. You can talk to the nursing

staff. I'm sure she's ready to communicate.'

'She might be ready--'

'And she's able. I've seen it. She indicated to me that she was in pain, that she was tired. She... greets me, Steve.'

Clark opened the door. He was eager to be on his way. 'Maybe she's not comfortable with the pressure of... performing.'

Later, when she felt calmer, Anne would realise that he'd been trying to be genuinely sympathetic. At that moment she was angry and frustrated, for herself and for Alison. 'She isn't a performer and these are not cheap theatrics...'

But that's exactly what it felt like.

As Hol and steered the unmarked Rover into a quiet treelined street in Battersea, he took a deceptively vicious speed bump just fast enough to take several layers off the underside of the car and to awaken his boss somewhat rudely.

SLEEPYHEAD 83

'Jesus, Hol and...'

'Sorry sir...'

'I know it's only a company car, but for Christ's sake!' The sunshine was dazzling and Thorne felt every one of the twenty-eight hours since he'd last slept. Hol and actual y held the car door open for him! Thorne felt that it wasn't so much in deference to his rank as a subtle reminder that the fifteen years he had on the younger man were starting to show.

Jeremy Bishop lived in an elegant three-storey house with a smal but wel -maintained front garden. Probably four bedrooms. Probably tasteful y decorated Thorne guessed, and crammed with what the slimier estate agents, if you could quantify slime, would refer to as 'periods'. Probably worth a piffling half a mil ion. Al this, and a nice Volvo parked outside.

Clearly Bishop was not struggling.

Hol and rang the bel . Thorne looked up at the windows. The curtains were stil drawn. After a minute or two the door was opened, Hol and made the introductions and he and Thorne were ushered into the house by a sleepylooking Jeremy Bishop.

While Hol and stood efficiently with his notebook at the ready, Thorne slumped into a chair, grateful y accepted a cup of coffee and racked his brain as to why Jeremy Bishop looked so familiar. He was, Thorne guessed, in his mid- to late-forties and, despite the stubble and redness round the eyes, looked ten years younger. He was tal , six two or three, and he reminded Thorne of Dr Richard Kimble, the character played by Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. There was plenty of grey in the short hair, but along with the wire-rimmed glasses, it served only to make him look 'distinguished'. This irritated Thorne enormously: his own

84 MARK BILLINGHAM

grey hair simply made him look 'old'. Bugger probably

didn't even have grey pubes. Bishop would, without ques tion, be a regular performer in student nurse fantasies 'Oh, Doctor! Here in the sluice room!?' He thought about Anne Coburn. He tried not to think about her stripping in

the sluice room. Weren't doctors ugly any more? He

remembered the rancid old GP he'd been dragged to see " '

regularly as a boy: a hideous crone with a man's haircut

and moustache, who smelt of cheese and always had a

Craven A dangling from the corner of her mouth as she

mumbled in an incomprehensible eastern-European

accent. No such worries with Jeremy Bishop. His modu ]

lated tones would have calmed a thrashing epileptic in an ,

instant.

'I presume this is about Alison Wil etts,' he said. i!

Hol and looked at Thorne, who sipped his coffee. Let

the constable handle it.

'And why would you presume that, sir?'

Thorne stared at Hol and through the steam t�om his

coffee-cup. Nice start: sarcasm, superiority, and a hint of

aggression. Make your subject feel at ease.

Bishop wasn't fazed at al . 'Alison Wil etts was attacked

and seriously injured. I treated her, and they don't send

detective inspectors round when you haven't paid your

par-king fines.' He smiled at Hol and who could do little else

but move on to item two in the do-it-yourself guide to

interviews.

'We are investigating a very serious crime, which--'

'Has he done it again?'

Thorne almost spilt his coffee as he satbolt upright in

his chair. Hol and looked across at him, thoroughly non plussed. Bishop's amusement at the look on Hol and's face SLEEPYHEAD 85

was not lost on Thorne. He guessed that Bishop had seen that look many times as a junior doctor found themselves suddenly out of their depth and sought reassurance, or preferably hands-on assistance, from a senior col eague. Thorne decided that the hands-on approach was best. 'Done what again, sir?'

'Look, I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to know about the other victims. As far as I'm concerned it's simply a question of putting my patient's condition in context. I was informed that there had been other attacks. Anne Coburn and I are very old t�iends, Inspector, as I'm sure you're wel aware.'

Thorne was very wel aware that, despite Frank Keable's best intentions, the lid was not going to stay on this case for very long. Not that he ever real y thought of cases as having lids.., saucepans had lids.., cases had... what?.., locks?.., wel , only open and shut ones. Mind you, was there any point in a case that didn't open and shut. God he was fired...

'I'm sorry if we got you out of bed, sir.'

Bishop spread his arms across the back of the sofa. 'Oh, wel , I obviously look as rough as you, Inspector.' Thorne raised an eyebrow. 'I spend a lot of time with people who don't get much sleep for one reason or another. The eyes give it away instantly. I've been on cal al night. What's your excuse?' His laugh was somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.

Thorne laughed back at him through a good impression of a yawn. 'Yep... busy night. What about you, sir?'

Bishop stared at him. 'Oh... no, not real y. Went in to treat an overdose at about three o'clock and got home about five thirty. But even when you're not cal ed in, it's 86 MARK BILLINGHAM

hard to relax when you're bleeper-watching. Thank God

for cable TV.'

'Anything good on?'

'I'm a confirmed channel-hopper, I'm afraid. A lot of

old sitcoms, the odd black-and-white film and a fair bit of smut.' He looked up and grinned in disbelief at Hol and. 'Are you actual y writing al that down, Constable?'

Thorne had been asking himself the same question. 'Only the bit about smut. Detective Constable Hol and's life lacks excitement.' Thorne was astonished to see Hol and actual y blush.

Bishop stood up and stretched. 'I'm going to get another coffee. Anybody else?'

Thorne fol owed him into the kitchen and they chatted

over the growing grumble of the kettle.

'So what time did you go in the night you treated Alison Wil etts?'

'I was bleeped at about three o'clock, I think. One sugar, wasn't it?' Thorne nodded and waited for Bishop to continue. 'The patient was found outside by a service entrance... I'm sure you know al this.., and brought straight into A and E.'

'Did you cal in when you were bleeped?'

'No need. It was a message saying red trauma. You just

go. Sometimes you might get an extension number to ring, or sometimes it's just a message to phone in, but with a trauma cal you just get in the car.'

'And when Alison Wil etts was brought in, you were

the first person to treat her?'

'That's correct. I checked her pupils - they were reacting. I bagged and masked her, intubated her, Midazolam to sedate her, ordered a CT of her head and an ECG, and

SLEEPYHEAD 87

handed it over to the junior anaesthetist.' Bishop took a sip of his coffee. 'Sorry, I must sound like an episode of Casualty.'

Thorne smiled. 'More like ER. On Casualty it's usual y a cup of sweet tea and a couple of aspirin.'

Bishop laughed. 'Absolutely right. And the nursing staff aren't quite so attractive.'

'So if you were bleeped at three o'clock you got there, what, about half past?'

'Something like that, I suppose.'

'And Alison, the patient, was brought in about quarter to four?' Bishop sipped and nodded. 'So why were you bleeped in the first place?'

'I real y couldn't tel you, I'm afraid. It isn't unusual sometimes you can spend ages trying to find out why you've been cal ed in. I've been bleeped before when I shouldn't have been. As for that particular night, I've never real y thought about it. I mean, if I'd known exactly what had happened - or, rather, what we'd later discover - I might have a better grasp of the sequence of events that night. It was just a routine emergency at the time. Sorry.'

Thorne put down his coffee-cup. 'Not to worry, sir. I'm sure we can find out.'

Bishop smiled as he picked up Thorne's cup, poured the unfinished coffee into the sink and opened the door of the dishwasher. 'Why I might, have.been bleeped four Tuesdays ago?

Good luck, Inspector)

As the car moved slowly through the traffic on Albert Bridge, Hol and chose not to ask his superior officer a number of questions. Why did we bother driving al that way? Do you think Jeremy Bishop is giving Anne Coburn

88 MARK BILLINGHAM

one? Why do you take the piss out of me al the time? Why do you think you're so much better than everybody else?

He looked across at Thorne, who was slumped in the passenger seat with his eyes shut. He was wide awake.

Thorne spoke only once, to tel Hol and that they weren't going back to the office just yet. Without opening his eyes he told him to turn right and drive along the river towards Whitechapel.

They were going to cal in at the Royal London Hospital first, to see just how cast-iron this alibi of Jeremy Bishop's real y was.

Just cal me the Amazing Performing Eyelid Woman.t Only I can't sodding wel perform, can I?

I went out with this actor once. He told me about a recurring dream where he was onstage ready to do his luvvie bit and then al the words just tumbled out of his head like water running real y fast down the plughole. That's what it felt like when Anne was asking me to blink. Christ, I wanted to blink for her. No... I wanted to blink for me. I can do it, I know I can. I've been doing it al the fucking time when there's nobody there and I've been blinking when Anne's asked me to before. She asked me if I was in pain and I blinked once for yes. One blink. A fraction of a movement in one poxy eye and I felt like I'd just won the lottery, shagged Mel Cn'bson and been given a year's supply of chocolate.