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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

I think I’m stronger than Andy is anyway and I was certainly feeling stronger than normal right then. The whole fight or flight thing, I suppose, and I was determined to do both. It was easy enough to push him away, and when he tried to take the knives off me again – pretty bloody carefully, mind you – I just reached for the half-empty wine bottle on the worktop because he hadn’t left me a lot of choice.

I wasn’t trying to hurt him.

But if I’d needed to, I wouldn’t have thought twice.

There was a lot of red wine everywhere and a fair deal of blood, but I couldn’t really think about it too much because obviously I had to search the rest of the house to try and find more weapons. I’d wrapped the knives in a tea towel so I could carry them, but while I was still rooting through the toolbox, Andy had managed to crawl back into the lounge, pick up his phone and ring for an ambulance. The ambulance came with a police car in tow, and after Andy had told the police that he didn’t want to press charges – I should be grateful to him for that much, I suppose – we both got taken to the hospital.

One of the nurses in A&E recognised us.

Made some joke about a loyalty card.

So anyway, while Andy was being X-rayed and stitched up, I was in another room being assessed by a couple of psychiatrists and junior something-or-others from the mental health team. I wasn’t remotely taken in by them, of course, because I’d learned to recognise people who were part of the plot to kill me. I told them that all that business with the knives was just because I hadn’t slept for two days, but of course they didn’t listen, because they didn’t want to. They just looked shifty and refused to answer my questions about the organisation I knew damn well they were involved with, but either way, several tedious hours later – with my dad on the phone crying (again) as next of kin – forms were being filled in, calls were being made, and several hours after that, I was in the back of another ambulance and I was on my way.

Here.

Home Fleet home.

As I’ve tried to explain, a few things may have got jumbled up, the odd detail or whatever, but no names have been changed to protect those who may or may not have been innocent. That’s a fair account of how it all went down, and even if I can’t always remember exactly what happened and when, I will never forget the way I was feeling at the time.

This is what I believed.

Believed. Past tense.

For the most part.

NINETEEN

NINETEEN