Chapters (73)
- Rabbit Hole
- Also by Mark Billingham
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Preface
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- 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
- PART TWO
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- PART THREE
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Back Cover
On what Perera took away from our little natter.
On badness and blood.
On forgetting . . .
It’s Malaika doing the half-hourly checks on this corridor tonight and, when she knocks on the door which I’ve taken to locking all the time, I don’t want to unlock it. I just stand close to it and tell her that everything’s fine.
‘Come on, Alice, you know the rules. I have to see.’
I open the door a few inches, muster a smile then close it again.
I think I doze off for a while eventually, it’s hard to be certain. Asleep or not, it’s the usual gory fun-fest, and however much later it is when Clare knocks, I refuse to answer. I just lie here and listen to her knocking until she finally gives up, her mouth close to my door whispering about how she thought we were friends.
It will kill you, you know that, right?
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SIX
I’m like a child that’s overtired. I’m fractious and weepy and it’s hard to think very straight. Even though I’m physically wiped out and it felt like the walk to the MDR was going to kill me, my brain is still firing off signals so fast that by the time my body chooses to act on one, the instructions have changed. I’m not . . . in sync with myself. It’s like I keep deciding to go on a journey, but as soon as I’ve taken the first few steps, thick fog comes in from nowhere and I get lost straight away.
Does that make any sense? Probably not.
I’m starting to lose track of the days. Easy to do in here at the best of times. It must be Friday because of what I’m doing this morning, so . . . five days since Debbie was killed?
Marcus and Bakshi are both watching me while Marcus makes the pointless introductions then launches into the usual blah-blah-blah about meds and statuses and care plans.
I straighten out my legs and immediately pull them back again.
I fold my arms, then put my hands behind my head, then slide them beneath my thighs.
I hunch my shoulders. I relax them again. Hunch and relax . . .
When Marcus has finished, I can see they’re all still looking at me, so I try to concentrate and tell him that I prefer these slightly more intimate Friday-morning get-togethers. It’s just Marcus, Bakshi and George today. No trainee-this or Junior-that.
‘Every bed on the ward is occupied,’ Marcus says. ‘And sadly, we are still a nurse down.’
‘Nurse down . . . nurse down!’ I say it without thinking, like an emergency alert. A tasteless joke. The same way I said officer down a year and a half before, in that flat in Mile End, when I was trying to key the radio with those stupid slippery gloves.
‘Are you all right, Alice?’ Bakshi asks.