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

The clearer everything becomes in my mind, the worse I feel every day about what happened to Debbie and guiltier about the things I believed she’d done. Not just Kevin’s murder, but the whole . . . sexual abuse thing. I did believe it, for a while at any rate, but now it seems obvious that it was all about convincing myself (and Banksy) that I was after the right suspect. Maybe I just resented Debbie being a bit . . . offhand when she examined me that first day. Or it could just be that I got what actually went on mixed up with what Lucy told me had happened to her.

To be fair, I was mixing a lot of things up back then.

I say best guess, by the way, because Malaika still hasn’t come clean about a great deal. I only know this because the detective told me a couple of weeks ago, but he didn’t tell me too much I hadn’t already worked out. The truth is, I put most of it together myself.

I can still do that.

So, here’s the thing. You have to walk through two doors to get into that toilet. Two doors. There’s a pointless little space when you step through the first door before you open another to go into the actual toilet, and those few seconds between the first and second door opening were crucial.

Malaika had stabbed Debbie to death only moments before I went in, and when she heard that outer door opening, it gave her just enough time to duck into one of the cubicles. That’s where she was all the time I was on my hands and knees doing CPR and it wasn’t until I ran out screaming that she was able to step out of the cubicle and start playing the hero herself. Remember how confused I was about whether it was Marcus or Malaika who’d come in to help first? Well, she’d been in there all the time, and the fact that she’d been covered in blood afterwards, same as me and Marcus, wasn’t suspicious because she’d been pumping the dead woman’s chest like we had.

Christ, talk about thinking on your feet.

As to whether Debbie’s murder was premeditated, they won’t really know unless Malaika tells them. When the detective came round, which was nice of him, I was able to help a bit with that, because I remembered Lauren complaining that someone had been going through her room and that was three or four days before Debbie had been killed. The detective told me that was very helpful information, which definitely put a spring in my step. Lauren freely admitted that it was her knife and told the police that before it was stolen it had been hidden in the webbing under her mattress. Just like those DVDs, that day Johnno had been killed. Weird, eh?