In the Dark Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE - LIE, LIKE BREATHING

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  PART TWO - STICK MEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  PART THREE - WOLVES AND LEOPARDS

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  PART FOUR - LIGHTS OUT

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  Acknowledgements

  Also by this author

  SLEEPYHEAD

  SCAREDY CAT

  LAZYBONES

  THE BURNING GIRL

  LIFELESS

  BURIED

  DEATH MESSAGE

  You can visit the author’s website at:

  www.markbillingham.com

  In the Dark

  MARK BILLINGHAM

  McArthur & Company

  www.mcarthur-co.com

  First published in Canada in 2008 by

  McArthur & Company

  322 King Street West, Suite 402

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5V 1J2

  www.mcarthur-co.com

  Copyright © 2008 Mark Billingham Ltd.

  Lyrics from 'Wolves and Shepherds' used with kind permission from

  Basement Music Ltd and Ashanti Music

  All rights reserved.

  The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the expressed written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Billingham, Mark

  In the dark / Mark Billingham.

  ISBN 978-1-55278-783-0

  I. Title.

  PR6102.I44I5 2009 --- 823'.92 --- C2009-903234-1

  eISBN 978-1-55278-939-1

  Cover design by Duncan Spilling

  eBook development by Wild Element www.wildelement.ca

  For Katie and Jack

  2 AUGUST

  It’s a dry night, but the road is still greasy from the shower a few hours before; slick as it’s sucked under the headlights, and there’s not too much traffic rattling across the cracks in a main drag that’s probably the worst maintained in the city.

  It’s morning, of course, strictly speaking; the early hours. But to those few souls on their way home, or struggling out to work in the dark, or already about business of one sort or another, it feels very much like night; the middle of the bastard.

  The dead of it.

  It’s a warm night too, and muggy. The second of what’s shaping up to be a pretty decent August. But that’s not why the passenger in the blue Cavalier is leaning his head towards the open window and sweating like a pig.

  ‘Like a kiddie-fiddler on a bouncy castle,’ the driver says. ‘Fuckin’ look at you, man.’

  ‘There no air-con on this thing?’

  ‘Nobody else sweating that much.’

  The three men in the back are laughing, shoulders pressed together. Staring out between the front seats at the traffic coming towards the car. When they light cigarettes, the driver holds out a hand, demanding one. It’s lit for him, and passed forward.

  The driver takes a deep drag, then peers at the cigarette. ‘Why you smoking this rubbish, man?’

  ‘Friend got a few cases, man. Owed me.’

  ‘So why not pass a couple my way?’

  ‘I was thinking, you smoke that strong shit. Marlboro, whatever.’

  ‘Yeah. You was thinking.’ He yanks at the wheel, taking the car fast around a bin-bag that has blown into the middle of the road. ‘Look at this shit up here, man. These people living like pigs or something.’

  The shuttered-up shops and restaurants slide past the passenger window, Turkish places, or Greek. Asian grocers’, clubs, a one-room minicab office with a yellow light. The shutters and security doors are all tagged: letters swooping against the metal; red, white and black; indecipherable.

  The territories, marked.

  ‘We got no beats?’ One of the men in the back starts slapping out a rhythm on the back of the head-rest.

  ‘No point, man.’ The driver leans down, waves a hand dismissively towards the audio controls on the dashboard. ‘Pussy-arsed system on this thing.’

  ‘What about the radio?’

  The driver sucks his teeth; something small dropped into hot fat. ‘Just men talking foolishness this time of the night,’ he says. ‘Chill-out shit and golden oldies.’ He reaches across and lays a hand on the back of the passenger’s neck. ‘’Sides, we need to let this boy concentrate, you get me?’

  From the back: ‘He needs to concentrate on not pissing in his panties. He’s shook, you ask me. Shook, big time.’

  ‘Se-rious . . .’

  The passenger says nothing, just turns and looks. Letting the three behind him know they’ll have time to talk later, when the thing’s done. He shifts back around and faces front, feeling the weight on the seat between his legs, and the stickiness that pastes his shirt to the small of his back.

  The driver pushes up tight behind a night bus, then pulls hard to the right. Singing something to himself as he takes the Cavalier past, and across the lights as amber turns to red.

  She’d turned onto the A10 at Stamford Hill, leaving the bigger houses behind, the off-street Volvos and the tidy front gardens, and pointed the BMW south.

  She takes it nice and easy through Stoke Newington; knows there are cameras ready to flash anyone stupid enough to jump a light. Watches her speed. The roads aren’t busy, but there’s always a job-pissed traffic copper waiting to spoil some poor sod’s night.

  Last thing she needs.

  A few minutes later she’s drifting down into Hackney. Place might not look quite as bad at night, but she knows better. Mind you, at least those slimy buggers at the local estate agent’s had to work to earn their commission.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s very much an up-and-coming area. Gets a bad press for sure, but you’ve got to look behind all that. There’s a real sense of community here; and, of course, all these misconceptions do mean that house prices are very competitive . . .’

  I mean, however the hell you pronounce it, De Beauvoir Town sounds nice, doesn’t it? Just talk about Hackney Downs and Regent’s Canal and don’t worry about little things like knife crime, life expectancy, stuff like that. There’s even the odd grassy square, for heaven’s sake, and one or two nice Victorian terraces.

  ‘Stick a few of them, what d’you call it, leylandii at the back end of the garden, you won’t even be able to see the estate!’

  Poor bastards might as well have targets painted on their front doors.

  She’s across the Ball’s Pond Road without needing to slow down; Kingsland to one side of her, Dalston spreading like a stain to the eas
t.

  Not long now.

  Her hands are sticky, so she puts an arm out of the window, splays her fingers and lets the night air move through them. She thinks she can feel rain in the air, just a drop or two. She leaves her arm where it is.

  The Beemer sounds good - just a low hum, and a whisper under the wheels; and the leather of the passenger seat feels smooth and clean under her hand when she reaches over. She’s always loved this car; felt comfortable from the moment she first swung her legs inside. Some people were like that with houses. Whatever the sales pitch, sometimes it just came down to that vibe or whatever when you walked inside. Same with the car; it felt like hers.

  She sees the Cavalier coming towards her as she’s slowing for lights. It’s going a lot faster than she is and pulls up hard, edging across the white lines at the junction.

  It has no headlights on.

  She feels for the stalk behind the steering wheel and flicks it twice; flashes the BMW’s top-of-the-range xenon headlamps at the Cavalier. Better than the landing lights on a 747, she remembers the salesman saying. They talked even more crap than estate agents.

  The driver of the Cavalier makes no acknowledgement; just stares back.

  Then switches on his lights.

  She urges the BMW across the junction and away. The first drops of rain are spotting the screen. She checks her rear-view mirror and sees the Cavalier throw a fast U-turn a hundred yards behind; hears a horn blare as it cuts across oncoming traffic, pulling in front of a black cab and moving fast up the bus lane towards her.

  Feels something jump in her guts.

  ‘Why that one?’ the man in the passenger seat asks.

  The driver shifts the Cavalier hard up into fifth gear and shrugs. ‘Why not?’

  The three in the back seat are leaning further forward now, buzzing with it, but their voices are matter-of-fact. ‘Fool selected her-self.’

  ‘You interfere with people, you asking for it, proper.’

  ‘She was just trying to help.’

  ‘The way we do it,’ the driver says.

  The passenger seat is feeling hot beneath him as he turns away, like it’s all OK with him. Like his breathing is easy enough and his bladder doesn’t feel like it’s fit to explode.

  Fucking stupid cow. Why can’t she mind her own business?

  They pull out of the bus lane and swing around a motorbike. The rider turns to look as they pass, a black helmet and visor. The man in the passenger seat glances back, but can’t hold the look. Drags his eyes back to the road ahead.

  The car ahead.

  ‘Don’t lose her.’ Urgent, from the back seat.

  Then his friend: ‘Yeah, you need to floor this piece of shit, man.’

  The driver flicks his eyes to the rear-view. ‘You two boying me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You fucking boying me or what?’

  Hands are raised. ‘Pump down, man. Just saying . . .’

  The eyes slide away again, and the foot goes down, and the Cavalier quickly draws to within a few feet of the silver BMW. The driver turns to the man in the passenger seat and grins. Says: ‘You ready?’

  The rain is coming down heavier now.

  His chest thumping faster than the squeaky wipers.

  ‘We doing it,’ the driver says.

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  The Cavalier eases to the left, just inches away now, forcing the BMW across into the bus lane. The three on the back seat hiss and swear and snort.

  ‘Any fucking second, we doing it.’

  In the passenger seat, he nods and his palm tightens, clammy around the handle of the gun against his knee.

  ‘Lift it up, man, lift that thing up high. Show her what you got.’

  Holding his breath, clenching; fighting the urge to piss right there in the car.

  ‘What she gettin’.’

  When he turns he can see that the woman in the BMW is scared enough already. Just a couple of feet away. Eyes all over the place; a twist of panic at the mouth.

  He raises the gun.

  ‘Do it.’

  This was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

  Kissy-kissy noises from the back seat.

  ‘Do it, man.’

  He leans across and fires.

  ‘Again.’

  The Cavalier pulls away at the second shot, and he strains to keep the silver car in sight; leans further out, the rain on his neck, oblivious to the shouting around him and the fat hands slapping his back.

  He watches as the BMW lurches suddenly to the left and smashes up and over the pavement; sees the figures at the bus stop, the bodies flying.

  What he wanted . . .

  A hundred feet from it, more, he can hear the crunch as the bonnet crumples. And something else: a low thump, heavy and wet, and then the scream of metal and dancing glass that fades as they accelerate away.

  THREE WEEKS EARLIER

  PART ONE

  LIE, LIKE BREATHING

  ONE

  Helen Weeks was used to waking up feeling sick, feeling like she’d hardly slept, and feeling like she was on her own, whether Paul was lying beside her or not.

  He was up before her this morning, already in the shower when she walked slowly into the bathroom and leaned down to throw up in the sink. Not that there was much to it. A few spits; brown and bitter strings.

  She rinsed her mouth out, pressed her face against the glass door on her way through to get the breakfast things ready. ‘Nice arse,’ she said.

  Paul smiled and turned his face back to the water.

  When he walked into the living room ten minutes later, Helen was already tucking into her third piece of toast. She’d laid everything out on their small dining-table - the coffee pot, cups, plates and dishes they’d bought from The Pier when they’d first moved in - carried the jam and peanut butter across from the fridge on a tray, but Paul reached straight for the cereal as always.

  It was one of the things she still loved about him: he was a big kid who’d never lost the taste for Coco Pops.

  She watched him pour on the milk, rub at the few drops he spilled with a finger. ‘Let me iron that shirt.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘You didn’t do the sleeves.’ He never did the sleeves.

  ‘No point. I’ll have my jacket on all day.’

  ‘It’ll take me five minutes. It might warm up later on.’

  ‘It’s pissing down out there.’

  They ate in silence for a while. Helen thinking she should maybe go and turn on the small TV in the corner, but guessing that one of them would have something to say eventually. There was music bleeding down from the flat upstairs anyway. A beat and a bassline.

  ‘What have you got on today?’

  Paul shrugged, and swallowed. ‘God knows. Find out when I get in, I suppose. See what the skipper’s got lined up.’

  ‘You finishing six-ish?’

  ‘Come on, you know. If something comes up, it could be any time. I’ll ring you.’

  She nodded, remembering a time when he would have done. ‘What about the weekend?’

  Paul looked across at her, grunted a ‘what?’ or a ‘why?’

  ‘We should try to see a few houses,’ Helen said. ‘I was going to get on the phone today, fix up a couple of appointments.’

  Paul looked pained. ‘I told you, I don’t know what I’m doing yet. What’s coming up.’

  ‘We’ve got six weeks. Maybe six weeks.’

  He shrugged again.

  She hauled herself up, walked across to drop a couple more slices of bread in the toaster. Tulse Hill was OK; better than OK if you wanted to buy a kebab or a second-hand car. Brockwell Park and Lido were a short walk away and there was plenty happening five minutes down the hill in the heart of Brixton. The flat itself was nice enough; secure, a couple of floors up with a lift that worked most of the time. But they couldn’t stay. One and a bit bedrooms - the double and the one you’d fail to swing a kitten in - small kitchen and living room
, small bathroom. It would all start to feel a damn sight smaller in a month and a half, with a pushchair in the hall and a playpen in front of the TV.

  ‘I might go over, see Jenny later.’

  ‘Good.’

  Helen smiled, nodded, but she knew he didn’t think it was good at all. Paul had never really seen eye to eye with her sister. It hadn’t helped that Jenny had known about the baby before he had.

  Had known a few other things, too.

  She carried her toast across to the table. ‘You had a chance to talk to the Federation rep yet?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Jesus, Paul.’

  ‘What?’

  Helen almost dropped her knife, seeing the look on his face.

  The Metropolitan Police gave female officers thirteen weeks after having a baby, but they were rather stingier when it came to paternity leave. Paul had been - was supposed to have been - arguing his case for an extension on the five days’ paid leave he had been allocated.

  ‘You said you would. That you wanted to.’

  He laughed, empty. ‘When did I say that?’

  ‘Please . . .’

  He shook his head, chased cereal around his bowl with the back of the spoon as though there might be some plastic toy he’d missed. ‘He’s got more important things to worry about.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ve got more important things.’

  Paul Hopwood worked as a detective sergeant on a CID team based a few miles north of them in Kennington. An Intelligence Unit. He’d heard every joke that was trotted out whenever that came up in conversation.

  Helen felt herself reddening; wanting to shout but unable to. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  Paul dropped his spoon, shoved the bowl away.

  ‘I just don’t see what could be . . .’ Helen trailed off, seeing that Paul wasn’t listening, or wanted to give that impression. He had picked up the cereal packet and was still studying the back of it intently as she pushed back her chair.