In the Dark by Mark Billingham Page A

receiving a matching barometer and wall clock as opposed to a watch or hip flask, it had all gone much as Gary Kelly had predicted. Paul had cheered and heckled as enthusiastically as anyone else. Now, watching the crowd of shiny suits mill around the drab little room, laughing too loudly and drinking their way through the hundred pounds that had been put behind the bar, he knew one thing.
    Pissed as he was, he knew that he wanted more.
    There was no way he was settling for this when his time came. He wanted out well before anybody booked a room above a pub and started the whip-round for some piece of shit from H. Samuel. He wanted to be long gone, and well set up.
    He caught Gary Kelly’s attention across the bar and rolled his eyes. Kelly was a decent copper, but it wasn’t hard to imagine him standing where Bob Barker was, twenty years down the road. Being good at the job was nowhere near enough, not even for the ambitious ones. You needed drive, and you needed bottle, and that bit of you that didn’t really care an awful lot.
    And you needed to lie, like it was breathing.
    Â 
Theo sat in the window of Chicken Cottage on the High Street like he’d been told, a carton of wings in front of him and a paper he hadn’t opened. He looked at his watch. It was past midnight, the time Easy had told him to be ready, and he started to think that it wasn’t happening. That Wave had changed his mind or that some business had come up.
    Maybe it had never been going to happen in the first place.
    Maybe just showing up and being ready to do it was the test and there was no more to it than that. He wondered if Easy and the rest were watching him from somewhere right now, laughing their arses off at him sitting in the window like an idiot. Bricking it.
    He picked up a chicken wing, but it was cold, so he dropped it back into the box. Outside, the umbrellas were starting to come down as the shower eased off. It had been raining on and off most of the evening, but it was still a warm night and he hadn’t brought his jacket, even though Javine had stood in the doorway thrusting it at him.
    She’d given him a look then, standing there, that said, I hope whatever you’re doing is worth it . Or maybe the look had just said, Love you , see you later , and everything else was in his mind.
    He had no idea.
    He felt like his head was all over the place: nodding it in time to the music from the speaker above his head, salsa or some such; rolling it around on his neck, trying to keep calm and think about what the next few hours were going to be like; pressing it against the cool of the window, imagining himself taking out his phone and calling.
    Telling Easy that he was OK where he was. That he’d work harder and longer. That he didn’t need no leg up.
    He opened his eyes when he heard the horn and stared out through the steamed-up window at the headlights. He didn’t recognise the car, and it took him a moment or two before he could see that it was Easy, grinning at him like an idiot from the back seat, with Mikey and SnapZ either side of him. He saw Wave sitting behind the wheel, gently reaching across to pat the empty passenger seat next to him, then saying something to the boys behind.
    Something that made them all laugh.
    Theo nodded and stood up, took a swig from his bottle of water. He grabbed a handful of serviettes on his way out, already starting to sweat.
    Â 
The cold air slapped him as he and Kelly staggered out onto the street. He took a few deep breaths, puffed out his cheeks, blinked slowly.
    â€˜Right,’ Kelly said. ‘We going to find a club or what?’
    Paul squinted at his watch. ‘You kidding?’
    Kelly nodded across the road. Blacked-out windows and a neon sign that barely threw out enough light to illuminate the word: MASSAGE. ‘We could always pop over there. Relax a bit.’
    â€˜I’m ready for bed,’ Paul said.
    They stood in silence for half