Read Online Buried-6 by Mark Billingham - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Billingham
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Suspense fiction, Mystery Fiction, Police, Hard-Boiled, Police Procedural, Kidnapping, Police - England - London, Thorne; Tom (Fictitious character)
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the dream began to dissolve. Feeling the water sizzle against his skin as he shaved, and the cereal turning to charcoal in his mouth.
He’d put Phil Hendricks into a minicab late the previous night. As always, the sofa-bed had been on offer, but Hendricks had wanted to get home. The big talk about cruising for someone to take his boyfriend’s place had not lasted long. The beer had washed away the pretence of acceptance, and by the end of a long evening he was tearful again, and desperate to return to the flat in case Brendan had decided to come back.
In his kitchen, Thorne ate toast and marmalade standing up, listening to Greater London Radio and waiting for the early morning dose of painkil ers to kick in.
It was five weeks until the first anniversary of his father’s death.
Outside, it had started to rain gently, and on GLR the host was trying to get a word in as some woman ranted about the disgusting state of the capital’s rail network.
He decided that he would cal his Auntie Eileen – his father’s younger sister – and Victor, the old man’s best friend. Maybe they could al get together on the day. Have a drink or something.
His was not, had never been, a close family, and it was al so terribly British, this cleaving together after a loss. Yet, while he saw it for the gesture that in many ways it was, he stil craved it; he needed the chance to measure his grief against that of others. He wanted to be with people who could talk to him without feeling like they were walking on eggshel s.
On the radio, a man was saying that the previous cal er had been rude and overbearing, but that she’d been right about how crap the railways were.
Thorne wondered how the Mul ens were doing. To lose someone but not know for sure if they were real y gone was arguably the worst kind of loss, and they certainly seemed to be cleaving together. It was odd, he thought, that a word could have such opposite definitions: to cling together, and to split violently apart.
He was scooping food into a bowl for Elvis when the phone rang, and though the codeine hadn’t quite taken effect, Porter’s cal was enough to make him forget the pain pulsing down his leg and into his foot.
They could now be certain that Luke Mul en had been kidnapped. Whoever was holding him had final y decided to get in touch.
At Central 3000, chairs had been hastily put out and a screen set up in a corner beneath the red flag. Officers from other departments cut their conversation, stood stil or just worked in silence, as the team from the Kidnap Unit gathered round and watched the video that had come through the Mul ens’ front door first thing that morning.
When it had finished, Porter rewound the tape without a word and they watched it through again.
‘Obviously the original’s gone to the FSS,’ she said when they’d finished. ‘They’l fast-track it, along with the envelope it came in.’
The Forensic Science Service handled enquiries from al forty-three police forces in England and Wales, testing firearms and fibres, running toxicology screens, minutely analysing blood, drug or tissue samples. Their labs in Victoria would normal y take a week or more to turn round comprehensive fingerprint or DNA results. A fast-track request could reduce that time significantly: with luck, they would hear back within a day, on the prints at least.
‘Not that I can see us getting a great deal,’ Porter said. She gestured towards the screen. The image was frozen at the point where, seen from behind with his face hidden from view, a man carrying a bag in one hand and a syringe in the other is moving purposeful y towards Luke Mul en. ‘It looks very much like they know what they’re doing.’
‘What do we think’s in the syringe?’ Hol and asked.
A DS in front of him – a tal Scotsman with a mul et – turned around. ‘Rohypnol maybe, or diazepam. Any benzodiazepine, real y.’
‘How’s he get hold of that kind of stuff?’
‘With a computer
He’d put Phil Hendricks into a minicab late the previous night. As always, the sofa-bed had been on offer, but Hendricks had wanted to get home. The big talk about cruising for someone to take his boyfriend’s place had not lasted long. The beer had washed away the pretence of acceptance, and by the end of a long evening he was tearful again, and desperate to return to the flat in case Brendan had decided to come back.
In his kitchen, Thorne ate toast and marmalade standing up, listening to Greater London Radio and waiting for the early morning dose of painkil ers to kick in.
It was five weeks until the first anniversary of his father’s death.
Outside, it had started to rain gently, and on GLR the host was trying to get a word in as some woman ranted about the disgusting state of the capital’s rail network.
He decided that he would cal his Auntie Eileen – his father’s younger sister – and Victor, the old man’s best friend. Maybe they could al get together on the day. Have a drink or something.
His was not, had never been, a close family, and it was al so terribly British, this cleaving together after a loss. Yet, while he saw it for the gesture that in many ways it was, he stil craved it; he needed the chance to measure his grief against that of others. He wanted to be with people who could talk to him without feeling like they were walking on eggshel s.
On the radio, a man was saying that the previous cal er had been rude and overbearing, but that she’d been right about how crap the railways were.
Thorne wondered how the Mul ens were doing. To lose someone but not know for sure if they were real y gone was arguably the worst kind of loss, and they certainly seemed to be cleaving together. It was odd, he thought, that a word could have such opposite definitions: to cling together, and to split violently apart.
He was scooping food into a bowl for Elvis when the phone rang, and though the codeine hadn’t quite taken effect, Porter’s cal was enough to make him forget the pain pulsing down his leg and into his foot.
They could now be certain that Luke Mul en had been kidnapped. Whoever was holding him had final y decided to get in touch.
At Central 3000, chairs had been hastily put out and a screen set up in a corner beneath the red flag. Officers from other departments cut their conversation, stood stil or just worked in silence, as the team from the Kidnap Unit gathered round and watched the video that had come through the Mul ens’ front door first thing that morning.
When it had finished, Porter rewound the tape without a word and they watched it through again.
‘Obviously the original’s gone to the FSS,’ she said when they’d finished. ‘They’l fast-track it, along with the envelope it came in.’
The Forensic Science Service handled enquiries from al forty-three police forces in England and Wales, testing firearms and fibres, running toxicology screens, minutely analysing blood, drug or tissue samples. Their labs in Victoria would normal y take a week or more to turn round comprehensive fingerprint or DNA results. A fast-track request could reduce that time significantly: with luck, they would hear back within a day, on the prints at least.
‘Not that I can see us getting a great deal,’ Porter said. She gestured towards the screen. The image was frozen at the point where, seen from behind with his face hidden from view, a man carrying a bag in one hand and a syringe in the other is moving purposeful y towards Luke Mul en. ‘It looks very much like they know what they’re doing.’
‘What do we think’s in the syringe?’ Hol and asked.
A DS in front of him – a tal Scotsman with a mul et – turned around. ‘Rohypnol maybe, or diazepam. Any benzodiazepine, real y.’
‘How’s he get hold of that kind of stuff?’
‘With a computer
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