Lazybones by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online

half a dozen similar pictures,” Thorne said. “They were sent with the most recent letters. They start to get more revealing the closer the letters get to his release date.”
    Lenahan nodded. “Increasing the excitement…”
    â€œBy the time he got out, he must have been gagging for it,” Holland said.
    She picked up the photograph again in her left hand and reached for the letter with her right. She brandishedthem both. “Your killer is sensitive to the way this kind of woman might think, and to what will best stimulate the man she’s writing to.”
    Thorne said nothing. He was thinking that she sounded bizarrely impressed.
    â€œSensitive, like a gay man maybe,” Holland said.
    Thorne shrugged noncommittally. They were back to that. He had to agree it was possible, but he was growing irritated at the way the investigation was fixing on what they presumed the killer’s sexuality to be. Yes, the violent sodomizing of the victim was clearly significant. The rapist had been raped and Thorne was sure that this would prove to be crucial in finding out why he’d been murdered. Thorne was less sure that who the killer chose to sleep with was as important.
    Holland slid forward in his chair, looked at Tracy Lenahan. “This is an angle we obviously have to consider—that Remfry was killed by someone he’d known in prison. Someone with whom he’d possibly had a non-consensual sexual relationship…”
    Lenahan looked back at him, waiting for the question, not appearing terribly keen to do Holland any favors.
    â€œIs that possible, do you think? Could Remfry have sexually assaulted another prisoner? Could he have been sexually assaulted himself?”
    The deputy governor leaned back, something dark passing momentarily across her face. It vanished as she clasped her hands together and shook her head. Thorne thought that the laugh she produced sounded a little forced.
    â€œI think you’ve been watching too many films set in American prisons, Detective Constable. There’re some very nasty pieces of work in here, don’t get me wrong, but very few of them are called Bubba, and if you’re looking for bitches or puppies, you should look in a dogs’ home. Prisoners form relationships, of course theydo, but as far as I know, nobody’s going to get gangbanged if they drop the soap in the shower.”
    Thorne couldn’t help but smile. Holland smiled, too, but Thorne could see the skin tighten around his mouth and the reddening just above his collar. “As far as you know?” Holland said. “Meaning that it’s possible.”
    â€œThe week before last, in the kitchens, a prisoner had his ear cut off with the lid from a tin of peaches. That was an argument over a game of table tennis, I think.” She smiled, sexy and very cold. “Anything’s possible.”
    Thorne stood and walked away from Lenahan’s desk toward the door. “Let’s presume that the man we’re looking for is not an ex-con. The obvious question is how he got the information. How did he find Remfry? How could he find out where a convicted rapist was serving his sentence and when he was going to get released, in enough time to set all this up?”
    Lenahan swiveled in her chair to face the computer screen on the corner of her desk. She hit a button on the keyboard. “He would have had to have got it from a database somewhere.” She continued typing, watching the screen. “This is a LIDS computer. Local Inmate Data System, which has everything on the prisoners in here. I can send stuff down the wire to other prisons if I need to, but I wouldn’t have thought this would be enough…”
    Thorne looked at the nearer of the two landscapes. The dark, thick swirls of the paint on the canvas. He thought it might be somewhere in the Lake District. “What about national records?”
    â€œIIS. The Inmate