Free Death Message by Mark Billingham

us,' he said. 'Reckon a bit of healthy competition might do us a favour.'
    Thorne and Holland walked out together and were passing Andy Stone's desk as the DC came off the phone and collared them. 'Bin-bag can't see us this morning.'
    'You'll need to talk English,' Thorne said.
    'Martin Cowans.' Stone held up a printout, with a number of arrests detailed beneath a fetchingly menacing photograph. 'Black Dogs' top dog, but he prefers to be known as "Bin-bag", for some reason. You told me to call and let him know we wanted a word.'
    'So what's keeping Bin-bag so busy this morning?' Holland asked.
    'A mate of his has died unexpectedly, so he said. He's got stuff to arrange.'
    Thorne looked at Stone.
    'Tucker getting the big biker funeral, is he?' Holland asked. 'Coffin on the back of a Harley. Motorhead as he slides through the curtains...'
    'That's the thing,' Stone said. 'I thought he was talking about Tucker as well... but he wasn't. Some other mate of his died last night in hospital. He says he needs to get over there apparently, sort-'
    'Call him back,' Thorne said, already turning. 'Find out which hospital he's on about and get a crime scene unit over there on the hurry-up.' He carried on barking instructions as he marched out: 'Call Phil Hendricks and get him down there. Make sure the hospital know we're coming, then tell Cowans to stay exactly where he is. After we've paid our respects to his friend, we can all get together for a chat...'
    Putting things together as he went, Thorne fought the urge to run all the way back to Brigstocke's office.
    A death in hospital, a certain kind of death, would not have shown up on the daily bulletin. This time, the man responsible had not waited to let him know what he'd done.
    Thorne opened the door and marched straight over to Brigstocke's desk. He jabbed at the screen of his phone, traced a finger down the mysterious line on the photograph.
    'It's the tube from a hospital drip.'
     
    The majority of heroin coming into the UK was still controlled by the Turkish mafia based in and around the Green Lanes area, but for the previous few years their position had been challenged by Asian gangs, many of which operated from the heart of the Sikh community in Southall. If, as Bannard had suggested, the Black Dogs were expanding into heroin smuggling, it put their leader's decision to live just off Southall Broadway somewhere between provocative and plain idiotic.
    Martin Cowans clearly saw things rather differently. 'I'll live where the fuck I like,' he said. The way Cowans' lips twisted as he spoke told Thorne all he needed to know about the man's racial politics.
    It was hardly a revelation.
    Nor was the fact that Cowans extended his precious freedom of choice to those he welcomed into his home, and that no police were on his guest-list. The Black Dogs' president had agreed to meet instead at the club's HQ in Rayner's Lane, a few miles north of where he lived. The 'clubhouse' consisted of two ordinary end-of-terrace houses in a quiet side street, which looked as though they had been knocked through into one without the benefit of professional building advice. One half of the ground floor was crowded with mattresses and motorcycle parts. The other housed a tiny kitchen, living room and a purpose-built bar area complete with pool table, dartboard and beer pumps connected to metal barrels.
    'Nice,' Thorne had said, as he and Holland had been given the tour.
    Unusually furnished as its interior was, the outside of the building gave less away, if you didn't count the bikes lined up in what was left of the front garden. There were enough clues, though: the reinforced steel doors; the blacked-out windows; the security cameras mounted high on the pebble-dash at front and side.
    'What do your neighbours make of this place?' Holland asked.
    Cowans flicked ash on to a scarred grey carpet. 'Ask any of them. They'll tell you we're no trouble.'
    'I bet they will,' Thorne said.
    They were gathered in the