Rabbit Hole

A Novel of Suspense

Mark Billingham

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780802159908
• eBook ISBN: 9780802158710
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

A gripping standalone thriller from the "first-rate British crime writer" and internationally bestselling author of the Tom Thorne novels ( The Washington Post).
 
Alice Armitage is a police officer. Or she was.
 
Or perhaps she just imagines she was.
 
Whatever the truth is, following a debilitating bout of PTSD, self-medication with drink and drugs, and a psychotic breakdown, Alice is now a long-term patient in an acute psychiatric ward.
 
When one of her fellow patients is murdered, Alice becomes convinced that she has identified the killer and that she can catch them. Ignored by the police, she begins her own investigation. But when her prime suspect becomes the second victim, Alice's life begins to unravel still further as she realizes that she cannot trust anyone, least of all herself.
 
Praise for Mark Billingham and the Tom Thorne novels
 
"Morse, Rebus, and now Thorne. The next superstar detective is already with us?don't miss him." —Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series
 
"Billingham is a world-class writer and Tom Thorne is a wonderful creation. Rush to read these books." —Karin Slaughter, international bestselling author
 
"With each of his books, Mark Billingham gets better and better. These are stories and characters you don't want to leave." —Michael Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch series
 
"Mark Billingham has brought a rare and welcome blend of humanity, dimension, and excitement to the genre." —George Pelecanos, writer and producer of The Wire
 
"Tom Thorne is one of the most credible and engaging heroes in contemporary crime fiction." —Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus novels and The Travelling Companion

PART ONE

SUDDEN OR SUSPICIOUS

ONE

In the interests of getting the key information across as efficiently as possible, as well as jazzing the story up a tad, I’ve decided to pretend this is a job interview. I think I can still remember what one of those is like. So, imagine that I’m dressed up to the nines, selling myself to you in pursuit of some once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity, and not just mooching about in a nuthouse, wearing tracksuit bottoms and slippers, like some saddo. Right, nuthouse. Probably not the most politically correct terminology, I accept that, even though it’s what the people in here call it.

So . . .

Acute. Psychiatric. Ward.

That better? Can we crack on? Last thing I want to do is offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities.

My name is Alice Frances Armitage. Al, sometimes. I am thirty-one years old. Average height, average weight – though I’m a bit skinnier than usual right this minute – average . . . everything. I’m a dirty-blonde, curly-haired northerner – Huddersfield, if you’re interested – something of a gobshite if my mother is to be believed, and up until several months ago I was a detective constable in north London with one of the Metropolitan Police’s homicide units.

To all intents and purposes, I still am.

By which I mean it’s something of a moot point.

By which I mean it’s . . . complicated.

The Met were very understanding about the PTSD. I mean, they have to be, considering it’s more or less an occupational hazard, but they were a little less sympathetic once the drink and drugs kicked in, despite the fact that they only kicked in at all because of the aforementioned trauma. See how tricky this is? The so-called ‘psychosis’ is a little harder to pin down in terms of the chronology. It’s all a bit . . . chicken and egg. No, I’m not daft enough to think the wine and the weed did a lot to help matters, but I’m positive that most of the strange stuff in my head was/is trauma-related and it’s far too easy to put what happened down to external and self-inflicted influences.

In a nutshell, you can’t blame it all on Merlot and skunk.

Very easy for the Met though, obviously, because that was when the sympathy and understanding went out of the window and a period of paid compassionate leave became something very different. I’m fighting it, of course, and my Federation rep thinks I’ve got an excellent chance of re­instatement once I’m out of here. Not to mention a strong case for unfair dismissal and a claim for loss of earnings that he’s bang up for chasing.

So, let The Thing and the rest of them take the piss all they like. I might not have my warrant card to hand at the moment, but, as far as I’m concerned, I am still a police officer.

I think I’ll knock the job-interview angle on the head now. I can’t really be bothered keeping it up, besides which I’m not sure the drink and drugs stuff would be going down too well in an interview anyway and the work experience does come to something of an abrupt halt.

So, Miss Armitage, what happened in January? You don’t appear to have worked at all after that . . .

Yeah, there are some things I would definitely be leaving out, like the whole assault thing, and, to be fair, Detained under Sections 2 and 3 of the Mental Health Act, 1983 doesn’t tend to look awfully good on a CV.

Actually, limited job opportunities aside, there’s all sorts of stuff that gets a bit more complicated once you’ve been sectioned, certainly after a ‘three’. Everything changes, basically. You can choose not to tell people and I mean most peo...

Table of contents

• Rabbit Hole
• Also by Mark Billingham
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Preface
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• PART THREE
• EPILOGUE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Back Cover