Free Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham

wrong. There's no real violence, but he's angry.'
    'If he's in such a hurry to get rid of them, what's the washing al about?'
    'I don't know. It's... medical.'
    'The fucker probably scrubs up.' Keable snorted. Thorne stared over his head. 'Oh, come on, Tom. Listen, isn't this what we want? Ifhe's getting impatient or whatever, he's far more likely to screw up somewhere and give us what we need to get him.'
    'Or just start kil ing faster. It's been twenty-two days since Alison Wil etts was attacked. Susan Carlish was six weeks before that...'
    Keable stroked the top of his head. 'I know, Tom.' It was a declaration of efficiency, a statement of competence, but Thorne saw something else: a quiet instruction to calm down. A warning. So often he glimpsed the same thing concealed behind a gentle enquiry or a concerned stare. He'd see it most, of course, when there was a suspect. Any suspect. It scalded him, but he understood. The Calvert case was part of a shared history. Folklore almost, like Sutcliffe. A guilt they al inherited at some level or other. But he'd been part of it and they hadn't. He'd been.., in amongst it.
    Keable turned and marched away towards the lift. A car would be waiting to take him across town for the
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    meeting. He pressed the button to go down and turned back to Thorne. 'Let me know as soon as Hendricks gets in touch.'
    Thorne watched Keable get into the lift and each shrugged their way through the fifteen seconds of dead time waiting for the doors to close. Keable would tel the chief superintendent that while they were obviously waiting on the results of al the tests, there was the distinct possibility of a breakthrough. Somebody must have seen the kil er taking the girl. This was definitely the break in the case that they needed.
    Thorne wondered if they would bother broaching the subject that had hung in the air since the note was discovered on his car. It might have been saying 'come and get me', and dumping Helen Doyle's body so clumsily may wel have been a taunt, but one thing was obvious: the kil er was no longer bothering to disguise what he was doing because he knew they were on to him. If knowing the police had put it together was making him careless, then Thorne was happy that he knew. What real y bothered him was how.
    Why can't they fucking wel fix this? They can stick a human ear on a mouse and clone a fucking sheep. They clone sheep, for Christ's sake, which is the most pointless thing ever since how the bloody hel are you supposed to tel when every sheep looks like every other sodding sheep and there's NOTHING
    REALLY WRONG WITH ME!
    Nothing real y.., wrong.
    A stroke. It sounds so soothing, so gentle. Idon'tfeel like I've been stroked by anything. I feel like I've been hit with a jackhammer. My nan had a stroke, but she could talk afterwards. �
    Her voice was slurred and the drugs made her go a bit funny. Up to then she'd just wittered on about.., you know, old people's stuff. She never went as far as tel ing complete strangers how old she was at bus stops, but you know the sort of thing. The drugs they put her on turned her into a geriatric performance poet. She'd lie there ranting about how motorbikes were driving through the ward at night and how the nurses al wanted to have sex with her. Honestly, it was hysterical- she was eightysix! But at least she could make herself understood. This man gave me a stroke. Anne told me what he did. Twisted some artery and gave me a stroke. Why can't they just untwist it, then? There must be specialists or something. Fm lying here screaming and shouting, and the nurses wander past and coo at me like I'm taking a lazy afternoon nap in the sun. They must have finished al the tests by now. They must know that Fm stil in here, stil talking to myself, ranting and raving. It's doing my head in! See? I've stil got a sense of humour, for fuck's sake.
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    I was right about Anne and the copper. Thorne. I've met women like