BooksBarbecue
Back Rabbit Hole
Chapters (73)
  1. Rabbit Hole
  2. Also by Mark Billingham
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Preface
  8. PART ONE
  9. ONE
  10. TWO
  11. THREE
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. SEVEN
  16. EIGHT
  17. NINE
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. THIRTY-TWO
  41. THIRTY-THREE
  42. PART TWO
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. FIFTY
  60. FIFTY-ONE
  61. FIFTY-TWO
  62. FIFTY-THREE
  63. FIFTY-FOUR
  64. FIFTY-FIVE
  65. FIFTY-SIX
  66. FIFTY-SEVEN
  67. FIFTY-EIGHT
  68. PART THREE
  69. FIFTY-NINE
  70. SIXTY
  71. EPILOGUE
  72. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  73. Back Cover

‘Imagine who with no clothes on?’

‘Debbie. She’s the one who’s organising it.’

It didn’t take me long. ‘OK, sounds like a plan,’ I said.

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SIX

The occupational therapy room had been put back to the way it normally was. The way it had been before Kevin’s memorial, I mean. The orange curtains open, a scattering of tables and chairs, the locked materials cupboard at the end of the room.

There were maybe six of us in there.

Me and Lucy sitting together. Ilias, Bob and I think Graham . . . or it might have been Donna. Doesn’t matter.

I sat and watched as Debbie opened the cupboard then cheerfully distributed paper and felt-tip pens along with boxes of crayons for the less ambitious and some large pads and watercolours for those who wanted to try something a bit more advanced. She said we could paint or draw anything we wanted to, but lifted one of the ferns on to a table in the centre of the room in case anyone fancied a bash at a still life. One time someone had suggested we should have a life model, but even though Ilias had immediately volunteered the suggestion was quickly given the thumbs-down by the staff. The following week, Ilias had waited until none of the nurses was looking and whipped all his clothes off, which, trust me, is something I cannot ever un-see.

All that hair.

Lucy says that sometimes she still wakes up screaming, though to be fair she does that a lot anyway.

‘We’ve got a couple of hours,’ Debbie said. ‘So there’s no need to rush anything. Let’s see what we can come up with.’ She took a pad and a few pens for herself and went to sit at a table on her own.

Back when there was still some money so they could do things properly, we used to get up to all sorts in OT sessions. We had a few afternoons messing about with an ancient Wii which was a right laugh. Tennis and Mario Kart and stuff. We did drama a couple of times, which I quite enjoyed, but it always ended up a bit lively because Bob tried to turn everything into a sex scene. One week the woman who used to run things even got a friend of hers to bring a potter’s wheel in. Again, that didn’t go well. Graham immediately used his clay to disable the nearest camera while most of the other blokes just made cocks (their own, all predictably huge), and when the therapist suggested they might want to go in a different direction everyone just started chucking stuff about. I was finding bits of dried clay in all my cracks and creases for days afterwards and there are still a few blobs of it stuck to the ceiling.

Paper and pens was fine for today, though.