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
Yeah, I could see that the bloke was wired, you learn to recognise it, so straight away Johnno and I exchanged a look. We good with this? I seem to remember that I rolled my eyes or raised my eyebrows or something and he knew what that meant. Just a doper or a crackhead who probably won’t be able to string a sentence together anyway, so let’s get this over with and head to that greasy spoon a few doors up for an early lunch.
I’ve already said I had a feeling we had nothing to worry about and that everything was going to be fine, but if I’m honest it wasn’t quite that. It was more like I didn’t have a feeling that it wasn’t.
I should have had and I didn’t.
I asked the bloke, nice and polite, if he’d mind me taking a quick look around, while Johnno sat down with him on the settee to ask a few questions about his absent flatmate. The bloke – stick-thin, a bit weaselly, par for the course – said he didn’t have a problem with that, but we’d need to get a shift on because he had to go and meet somebody.
Johnno and I looked at each other again. A dealer, most likely.
I went into the bedroom of the man we were actually looking for and started poking around. I put on some nitrile gloves and opened drawers and looked in the wardrobe and under the bed. Standard stuff, but you never know what you might stumble across, so I was cautious, like I always was.
I could hear Johnno in the front room.
Do you know where your flatmate is now? Do you know when he’ll be back? Have you any idea where he was four nights ago . . . ?
It didn’t sound hugely productive.
As soon as I’d lifted the mattress I could see the DVDs gaffer-taped to the bed frame, and I was just reaching in to take one out when I heard the bloke shout. I can’t remember what he said, and thinking about it, it was probably just a noise. Hoarse and high-pitched, like he was in pain.
When I came back in, I could see the pair of them struggling on the settee, and when Johnno turned his head and shouted at me to call for back-up as I was on my way across to help him, that’s when the bloke threw the punch.
What I thought was a punch.
It wasn’t until the bloke staggered to his feet and dropped the Stanley knife that I saw what had happened.
The blood on the blade.
The blood that was starting to pulse between Johnno’s fingers and splash on the carpet.
That pattern – those hideous blue-green swirls – is still there sometimes when I close my eyes.