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

Like I said, I’m not much of an artist, but I reckon I’d managed to get what I was going for. A single bed with guess who lying on it. There was no face, obviously, just the pillow where the face should have been, although I don’t think I’d been able to make it look that much like a pillow, so it was more sort of a blurry rectangle. I was pleased with the collection of little bottles, though. Dozens of them scattered about under the bed, with a few of them lying on their side. Best of all was the figure on one side of the picture, shadowy, kind of, like someone was creeping out of the room, with a few tiny dots of red and yellow and blue and green, right at the edge. The flash of a rainbow-coloured lanyard.

I stood and watched Debbie looking at my picture.

I wanted to get that read.

‘That’s fucking excellent,’ she said, pointing. ‘Honestly. The way you’ve done the shadow and everything. You going to keep it?’

I shook my head.

‘You could put it up in your room if you want.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She looked at me. ‘You all right, Alice?’

‘I saw you at Kevin’s memorial.’ I waited, just a beat or two. ‘You looked upset.’

‘Because I was,’ she said. ‘I still am.’

‘I saw you . . .’ I crossed myself, though after the up and down part I wasn’t sure which shoulder you were supposed to touch first.

She nodded and smiled. ‘Glasgow Catholic girl,’ she said. ‘Not a very good one, mind.’

‘Confessing your sins and all that?’

‘Not for a very long time.’

I gathered all the pictures together in front of her and straightened them. I made sure mine was on the top.

I said, ‘Maybe you should think about starting again.’

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-SEVEN

Wednesday lunchtime, more than twenty-four hours after phoning the incident room and I was climbing the walls – staring at them, bouncing off them – because I was still waiting for Detective Cuntstable Seddon to call me back. Actually I’d just about given up waiting, because by then it was blindingly obvious he wasn’t going to. I’d half expected to be ignored anyway and you didn’t need to be a genius to work out why that might have been.

Who called? That mad woman who’s in there, the one who got thrown off the Job? Yeah, well, I think I’ve got better things to do than waste my time listening to her crackpot theories . . .

I was damn sure Steve had no end of better things to do. Like having a wank or refilling his stapler or sticking needles in his eyes.

Part of me had always suspected I’d end up working this case on my own.