Free Bloodline by Mark Billingham

right.’
    â€˜He was really sweet.’
    On the television, Harris was begging Burton to shoot him before he was hacked to death by the enemy, but the shouting and gunfire were little more than background noise.
    â€˜Why did you tell him you were pregnant?’ Thorne asked. ‘I thought we’d agreed to keep it a secret.’
    Louise stared into her glass. ‘I knew he’d be chuffed.’
    â€˜We decided we wouldn’t, though, just in case this happened.’
    â€˜Right, well, it has happened, OK? So arguing about whether I should or shouldn’t have told anyone is a bit pointless now, don’t you think?’ She shuffled along the sofa, a foot or so away from him, and lowered her voice. ‘Christ, it’s not like Phil’s going to run around announcing it.’
    There were a few grains of rice and some crumbs on the carpet. Thorne inched away in the other direction and started picking them up, collecting them in his palm.
    â€˜I honestly wouldn’t have minded if you ’d told anyone,’ Louise said.
    â€˜I did think about it.’
    â€˜Who would you have told?’
    Thorne smiled. ‘Probably Phil.’
    They moved back to each other and Thorne asked if she’d mind if he turned off the TV and put a CD on. Normally she might have rolled her eyes and insisted that it was one of hers, or repeated a joke she’d heard from Holland or Hendricks about Thorne’s dubious taste in music. Tonight she was happy enough to nod and stretch out. Thorne put on a Gram Parsons anthology and returned to the sofa, lifted up Louise’s legs and slid in underneath. They listened to ‘Hearts on Fire’ and ‘Brass Buttons’, poured out what was left of the wine.
    â€˜So, what did Phil say?’
    â€˜Stuff you’d expect, really,’ Louise said. ‘How there’s usually a good reason for these things and how the body knows what it’s doing. Knows when there’s something wrong.’ She took a healthy slurp of wine and was struggling suddenly to keep a straight face.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜He said it might well have been because the baby was going to look like you.’ She was laughing now. ‘That a miscarriage was the preferred option.’
    â€˜Cheeky bastard.’
    â€˜He made me laugh,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘I needed that.’
    She began to drift off soon after that and Thorne was not too far behind. He was sound asleep before ten-thirty, with Gram and Emmylou singing ‘Brand New Heartache’, the clink of cutlery from the kitchen as Elvis licked the plates clean, and Louise’s feet in his lap.
    Â 
    Â 
    The band playing at the Rocket earlier that evening had been fantastic, easily as good as any of the so-called indie bands Alex had heard in the charts recently. They had something to say, and decent songs, and there was a bit more about them than the right kind of skinny jeans and nice arses. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the guitarist was a dead ringer for the lead singer from Razorlight . . .
    She loved the heat and the noise; how it felt being in a crowd. She’d been soaked in sweat each time she’d gone outside for a cigarette, and shivering by the time she’d finished it. Afterwards, when the band had packed up, they’d set up some decks and the dance music had started. Some of her friends had stayed on, and were still there as far as she knew, but she’d been about ready to head home by then.
    What was it Greg had said about caning it?
    She pushed open the door to the flat and listened for voices.
    Alex had seen her brother earlier in the bar, but only for a few minutes. Long enough for him to tell her he’d rather die than watch a band called The Bastard Thieves, and for her to clock the figure with whom he was exchanging the lingering, lustful stares. There’d been no sign of him once the gig had finished, but she wasn’t