Thorne - Lifeless Part 1

LIFELESS.

Thorne.

Mark Billingham.

FOR MIKE GUNN.

And for his son, William Roan Gunn.

h.e.l.l is a city much like London. -Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley.

No one told me grief felt so much like fear. -C. S. Lewis.

Prologue.

January 12.

I won't waste any time asking how you've been, because I know, and I don't much care. I'm sure you care even less about me, plus you'd have to be stupid not to figure out that things have been less than rosy for some of us. You'd have to be stupid (which I know you're not), not to work out what I want.

I don't think I'm better than you. How could I? But I'm guessing you're a bit better off. So that's basically why I'm asking. I just need a bit of help. I don't have a lot left aside from unpleasant memories. Oh, and the one, more concrete reminder of course. The "evidence" that I'm sure each of us still has.

I can't afford to care how despicable it makes me sound, having to come to you like this. Desperation drives a steamroller across self-respect. Besides, you could never hate me more than I hate myself for what happened back there. For dredging it all up again now in search of a few hundred quid.

That's all I need . . .

You'll notice a lack of address. I'm not being mysterious; I just don't really have one at the moment. I'm busy wearing out the welcomes of what few friends and family I've got left.

4 Mark Billingham.

I'll write again to fix up the where and when. We can arrange a time and place to meet then, okay?

Anonymity is all very well, of course, all very James Bond, but unless you've been keeping tabs on each of us, I can't see why you should have a b.l.o.o.d.y clue who I am. Which one, I mean. You'll find out soon enough, obviously, but it can't hurt to keep the suspense going for a bit, can it?

Could be any one of four, right? Any member of the crew. I'd be amazed if a single one of us is particularly well-off.

So . . . for now, Happy New Year.

Part One.

Breakfast and Before.

The first kick wakes him and shatters his skull at the same time.

He begins to drift back toward unconsciousness almost immediately, but is aware of the intervals between each subsequent kick-though actually no more than a second or two-warping and stretching. It gives his brain, which is itself already beginning to swell, the time for one final, random series of thoughts and instructions.

Counting the kicks. Counting each smash of boot into flesh and bone. Counting the strange and, oh G.o.d, the glorious s.p.a.ces in between.

Two . . .

Cold, in the early hours of the morning and damp. And the attempt to cry out is agonizing as the message from the brain dances between the fragments of bone in what had once been his jaw.

Three . . .

Warm, the face of the baby in his hands. His baby. The face of the child before it grew and learned to despise him. Reaching in vain for the letter, dog-eared and greasy, in the inside pocket of his coat. The last link to the life he had before. Groping for it, his flappy fingers useless at the end of a broken arm.

Four . . .

Turning his head, trying to turn it away from the pain toward the wall. His face moving against the floor, the stubble-rasp like the breaking of faraway waves. Feeling the blood, warm and sticky between his cheek and the cold cardboard beneath. Thinking that the shadow he'd glimpsed, where the face of his attacker should have been, looked blacker than black. Slick, like tarmac after a shower. Thinking that it was probably a trick of the light.

Five . . .

Seeming to feel the tip of the boot as it breaks through the delicate network of ribs. Aware of it in there, stamping around, distorting his organs. Kidneys-are they his kidneys?-squeezed out of shape like water-filled balloons.

Sinking fast through six, seven, and eight, their impact like crashes at a distant front door, vibrating through his shoulder and his back and the tops of his legs. The grunts and growls of the man standing above him, of the man who is kicking him to death, growing quieter and farther away.

And, Christ, what a jumble, such a scramble of words. Riot of colors and sounds. All slipping away from him now. Fuzzing and darkening . . .

Thinking. Thinking that this was a terrible and desperate kind of thinking, if it could still be called such a thing. Sensing that the shadow had finally turned away from him. Luxuriating then, in the bliss as the s.p.a.ce grew, as the knowing grew that, sweet Jesus, the kicking had finally stopped.

Everything so strange now, and shapeless and bleeding away into the gutter.

He lies quite still. He knows there's little point in trying to move. He holds on tight to his name and to the name of his only child. Wraps what's left of his mind around these two names, and around the name of the Lord.

Prays that he might cling on to the shape of these few, precious words until death comes.

ONE.

He woke up in a doorway opposite Planet Hollywood, with a puddle of p.i.s.s at his feet that was not his own and the sickening realization that this was real, that there was no soft mattress beneath him. He exchanged a few words with the police officer whose heavy hand had shaken him roughly awake. Began to gather up his things.

He raised his face slowly skyward as he started to walk, hoped that the weather would stay fine. He decided that the emptiness at the center of him, which might have been simple fear, was probably even simpler hunger.

He wondered whether Paddy Hayes was dead yet. Had the young man charged with making the decision pulled the plug?

Moving through the West End as it shook away the sleep and slowly came to life was always a revelation. Each day he saw something he had never seen before.

Piccadilly Circus was glorious. Leicester Square was better than it looked. Oxford Street was even s.h.i.ttier than he'd thought it was.

There were still plenty of people about, of course. Plenty of traffic. Even at this time the streets were busier than most others in the country would be during the rush hour. He remembered a film he'd seen on DVD, set in London after most of the population had been turned into crazed zombies by some plague. There were bizarre scenes where the whole city appeared to be utterly deserted, and to this day he didn't really know how they'd managed to do it. Computer tricks, like as not. This-the hour or so when the capital showered, shaved, and shat-was about as close as it ever came. Far from deserted, but quite a few zombies shuffling about.

Most of the shops would be shut for another few hours yet. Very few opened their doors before ten these days. The caffs and sandwich bars were already up and running, though. Hoping to pull in pa.s.sing trade for tea and a bacon sandwich, for coffee and croissants, in much the same way that the burger vans and kebab shops had tempted those weaving their way home only a few hours earlier.

Tea and a sandwich. Normally he'd have spent the previous night gathering enough together to get himself something to eat, but today someone would be buying him breakfast.

Halfway along Gla.s.shouse Street, a man in a dark green suit stepped out of a doorway in front of him and tried to pa.s.s. They moved the same way across the pavement, and back again. Smiled at each other, embarra.s.sed.

"Nice morning for a dance . . ."

The sudden knowledge that he'd clearly encountered a nutcase caused the smile to slide off the man's face. He turned sideways and dropped his head. Shuffled quickly past, muttering "Sorry" and "I can't . . ."

He hoisted his backpack higher onto his shoulder and carried on walking, wondering just what it was that the man in the suit couldn't do.

Return a simple greeting? Spare any change? Give a toss . . . ?

He walked up Regent Street, then took a right, cutting through the side streets of Soho toward Tottenham Court Road. A strange yet familiar figure, stepping in unison alongside him, caught his eye. He slowed then stopped, watching the stranger do the same thing.

He took a step forward and stared into the plate gla.s.s at the reflection of the man he'd become in such a short time. His hair seemed to be growing faster than usual, the gray more p.r.o.nounced against the black. The neatish goatee he'd been cultivating had been subsumed under the scrubby growth that sprouted from his cheeks and spilled down his throat. His red nylon backpack, though already stained and grubby, was the only flash of real color to be seen in the picture staring back at him from the shop window. The grease-gray coat and dark jeans were as blank, as anonymous, as the face that floated above them. He leaned toward the gla.s.s and contorted his features; pulling back his lips, raising his eyebrows, puffing out his cheeks. The eyes, though-and it was the man's eyes that told you everything-stayed flat and uninvolved.

A vagrant. With the emphasis on vague . . . He turned from the window to see someone he recognized on the other side of the road. A young man-a boy-arms around his knees, back pressed against a dirty white wall, sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders. He'd spoken to the boy a couple of nights before. Somewhere near the Hippodrome, he thought. Maybe outside one of the big cinemas in Leicester Square. He couldn't be certain. He did remember that the boy had spoken with a thick, northeast accent: Newcastle or Sunderland. Most of what the boy had said was indecipherable, rattled through chattering teeth at machine-gun speed. Head turning this way and that. Fingers grasping at his collar as he gabbled. So completely ripped on Ecstasy that it looked as though he was trying to bite off his own face.

He waited for a taxi to pa.s.s, then stepped into the road. The boy looked up as he approached and drew his knees just a little closer to his chest.

"All right?"

The boy turned his head to the side and gathered the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. The moisture along one side of the bag caught the light, and gray filling spilled from a ragged tear near the zip.

"Don't think there's any rain about . . ."

"Good," the boy said. It was as much a grunt as anything.

"Staying dry, I reckon."

"What are you, a f.u.c.king weatherman?"

He shrugged. "Just saying . . ."

"I've seen you, haven't I?" the boy asked.

"The other night."

"Was you with Spike? Spike and One-Day Caroline, maybe?"

"Yeah, they were around, I think . . ."

"You're new." The boy nodded to himself. He seemed pleased that it was coming back to him. "I remember you were asking some f.u.c.king stupid questions . . ."

"Been knocking about a couple of weeks. Picked a f.u.c.king stupid time, didn't I? You know, with everything that's going on?"

The boy stared at him for a while. He narrowed his eyes, then let his head drop.

He stood where he was, kicking the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other until he was certain that the boy had nothing further to say. He thought about chucking in another crack about the weather, making a joke of it. Instead, he turned back toward the road. "Be lucky," he said. He moved away, his parting words getting nothing in return.

As he walked north it struck him that the encounter with the boy had not been a whole lot friendlier than the one earlier with the man in the green suit who'd been so keen to avoid him. The boy's reaction had been no more than he'd come to expect in the short time he'd spent living as he was now. Why should it have been? A wariness-a suspicion, even-was the natural reaction of most Londoners, whatever their circ.u.mstances. Those who lived and slept on the city's streets were naturally that bit more cautious when it came to strangers. It went without saying that anyone who wasn't abusing or avoiding them was to be viewed with a healthy degree of mistrust until they'd proved themselves. One way or another . . .