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

I’m not going to lie, it was a bit scary . . . out of my comfort zone and everything. I’d always worked as part of a team and within that I’d always been partnered up, which was how I liked it. The banter and the piss-takes to kill those endless hours in the car together. Someone always there to celebrate with you when things were going well or help you drown your sorrows at the end of a bad day.

Someone to watch your back as well, let’s not forget that.

Even if it didn’t work out particularly well for my partner.

Well, if the only way I could get a result on this case was to do it on my own then that was how it would have to be. I’d managed pretty well so far. I wasn’t just going to work it, though, I was going to crack it . . . I mean I’d cracked it already, because my crackpot theory wasn’t just a theory, but I was going to make damn sure the guilty party got what was coming to her.

I’d do it for Kevin and I’d do it for Johnno.

I’d do it to show Seddon and all those officially involved that they’d been wrong to ignore me and stupid to refuse my help.

I’d do it so all those jumped-up arseholes with pips on their shoulders who decided I should be ‘medically retired’ would see that I was a copper to my toenails.

I’d do it because it was the right thing to do.

I’d do it for the buzz and the rush of the blood pumping and because for the first time in forever it made me feel like a person again.

I’d do it because so many people had told me not to.

I’d do it because it would be a big fat fuck you to everyone who’d conspired to put me in here. To that crackhead with a Stanley knife in his pocket and the pair of Job-pissed pricks who decided I wasn’t fit to testify and those doctors who didn’t listen when I told them I’d only freaked out because I’d been awake for forty-eight hours. To Andy . . . for sure, and to Sophie and to Mum and Dad and the rest of them. To good Catholic Debbie, obviously, who hadn’t got a clue that I’d worked it all out or that I was coming for her and who’d live to regret the day they’d found me a bed on her ward.

I’d do it because I loved it.