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

Having asked me to step away, Malaika was already doing her best, but for once her soft words of reassurance seemed only to be making it worse. I could see the genuine fear on her face, then the relief as Debbie came steaming in to take over.

‘What’s the matter, Shaun?’ Debbie stood there, the spittle flying on to her face and neck as he asked and asked, screeched and pleaded. She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said, finally. ‘Yes, I think you are. In fact I very much doubt you’ll make it to bedtime.’

Shaun stopped immediately, froze as though he’d been slapped.

Then he dropped to the floor like he’d taken a bullet to the back of the head and began to convulse, thrashing and squealing as Malaika pressed her alarm and Marcus and George rushed in to clear the room.

EIGHTEEN

EIGHTEEN

This Is What I Believed.

Part Two . . . and I’m not going to waste my time or yours, so I can tell you straight off that it began with the lights at the end of the garden. Dim lights I could see pulsing through the trees from my bedroom window. I’d spotted them a few times when I was living with Sophie and she said it was just passing cars or lamps in the houses opposite us. She laughed and said maybe I should think about how much money I was putting in Billy’s pocket every week but I wasn’t convinced. I could sense it was something more than that, something bigger. I heard music, too, but not anything I could ever place; never a song I recognised or an instrument I could really identify. Just a funny kind of music I hadn’t heard before.

I knew I was meant to hear it.

It felt like someone was watching me.

At Andy’s place it got worse very quickly, late at night usually, and he said much the same thing as Sophie had said. So, in the end, I stopped telling him and he probably thought I’d forgotten all about it, besides which everything got sort of taken over by the cutting for a while.

I’d come across it on the job a time or two before. Young girls, usually, with scars on their arms and legs like rungs on a ladder and because I didn’t know any better then, I’d always asked myself why.

Stupid fucking question.