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Back Rabbit Hole Save as PDF
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 people behind those masks were looking straight at me, not remotely concerned that I saw them for what they were. Enjoying it, like: This is a warning you can do nothing about.

I was not going to be a pushover, though. I was not going to let myself become anyone’s victim, because that was not what I’d been trained to do.

But . . . you have to know your enemy, right?

I suppose I should say that this is when things got . . . cranked up a bit.

One day I just got out of bed and had a smoke and realised that there had to be people in my life who were part of this. It became blindingly obvious and I felt very stupid that I hadn’t worked it out before. How could these people who wanted to hurt me do it without recruiting those I was close to?

The ones who always looked so worried and told me to cut down on this and stop smoking that and, you know, maybe I should think about upping my meds.

Them.

I’d been such an idiot.

A few people laughed when I finally confronted them, which only made me angry and confirmed my suspicions. Sophie looked really sad, but I knew that was simply because I’d rumbled her. Because I’d seen through all of them. My mum just refused to engage however much I told her that I knew who she really was, and I remember the sound of my dad crying down the phone when I asked him how he could betray his child and how it had felt to sell his soul.

I was on it. I was one step ahead of the game.

I can still remember the look on Andy’s face, the night it all kicked off. He was just sitting there watching football when I walked in and told him that we had to leave. He wasn’t in a great mood anyway because Arsenal were a goal down, but he paused the TV and followed me into the kitchen, stood staring at me like an idiot as I gathered up all the knives.

Asked me what I was doing.

Told me to put the knives back and calm down.

‘They’re coming,’ I told him. Why didn’t he look bothered? Why was he still standing there? ‘They’re coming to kill us right now and we have to get out.’

It only got physical when he tried to take the knives off me and the next thing we were scrabbling about on the kitchen floor with him talking about the police and me shouting that he was being stupid because we needed to protect ourselves.

I was trying to protect him, which was exceedingly fucking noble of me because I knew that he was involved in it, too.