Free In the Dark by Mark Billingham Page B

flutter in her guts to settle, fighting the urge to let go and crumble. Tears came far too easily of late, had become her default setting, and she was sick of it.
    When she went back into the kitchen her dad gave her the frozen muffins in a plastic bag, and she said she hoped that the woman across the road knew what a bloody good thing she was on to. He blushed, but looked pleased all the same.
    â€˜I’m not sure she’s that interested, tell you the truth.’
    â€˜Course she is,’ Helen said. ‘Or she wouldn’t let you park in her slot.’
    â€˜I suppose not.’
    â€˜I’m telling you.’ She sat and stirred her tea, and watched him. Thinking about what she’d said, and loving him just a little bit more because he didn’t get her stupid joke.
    Â 
Snooker wasn’t Easy’s game any more than golf was. He thought pool was OK, though, simpler and faster, and he played a few frames with SnapZ and Mikey at the end of the hall, killing time while he waited for Wave to finish his business.
    Mikey and SnapZ were the two Easy hung with most after Theo, but he didn’t think either of them was likely to win Mastermind . SnapZ was into his music, fancied himself as some sort of drummer. He was always slapping out beats on tabletops, wired-up and yapping when, to Easy’s mind, he ought to be keeping quiet.
    â€˜How can I concentrate on my shot, man?’ Easy stood up from the table and spread his arms. ‘You always twitching and clicking your fucking fingers like a mental case.’
    SnapZ sniffed and stepped back, jammed his thumbs into the pockets of low-slung Levi’s.
    Mikey laughed, said ‘mental case’ and laughed again, his voice high with a slight lisp. He was the tallest of them, and most of the time his height disguised the weight he was carrying, but in the hot weather even a baggy T-shirt couldn’t hide what Easy described as a ‘pretty fair set of titties’. Easy and SnapZ liked to sneak up on him and cop a handful, and though Mikey was usually laughing as he lashed out, Easy didn’t think he found it that funny.
    Easy bent down to take his shot, missed a long pot and said, ‘You put me off.’
    Mikey and SnapZ both laughed.
    The Cue Up snooker club sat between a travel agent’s and a plumber’s merchants on the main road behind Lewisham bus station. Twenty-four full-sized tables on the first floor, with a small lounge area on the second alongside offices and storerooms. There was a bar at one end near the stairs, dividing half a dozen pool tables from a selection of fruit machines and video shoot-’em-ups. Food and drink were theoretically available, though service was erratic and rarely came with a smile.
    The place could get busy in the evenings, but was quiet enough on a Wednesday lunchtime. Lights were on above four of the tables. Aside from those few playing snooker or pool, there were only the cleaner, the hatchet-faced woman behind the bar, and the old man who hung around all day poncing cigarettes and eating toast with brown sauce, pumping whatever money he’d saved on food into the fruit machines.
    Easy lost a tenner to SnapZ when he fouled the black, but won it back off Mikey, who played every shot way too hard, as if the silly fucker was breaking. All the time, moving around the table, Easy kept one eye on the stairs, looking to see if Wave was coming down.
    He was halfway through a frame with SnapZ when he heard Wave’s voice, low and fast-talking, like a ragga bass-line. He handed his cue to Mikey and told him to finish the game.
    Wave appeared at the bottom of the stairs, talking to a white man in a tasty grey suit. He nodded when the man leaned in close to whisper something, shook his hand before the man jogged away down the stairs towards the exit. From a triangle or two above, Easy thought, watching the man go. Maybe higher. It was like he’d told Theo that time: plenty of the