Birdman

  The doctor leaned out of the medical room and waved a sheaf of forms at Maddox. ‘FSS ones. Who wants them?’

  ‘Yeah yeah, I’ll get our exhibits officer down.’

  ‘The samples’ve been divvied. When the brief gets here they’re ready.’

  ‘Let our DI here give them a lucky kiss before they go. They’re all he’s got.’

  DI Diamond sighed at that, and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

  Six miles across town in the Shrivemoor incident room Caffery took advantage of the nearly deserted offices, cupping his hands around a cigarette to light it.

  ‘Tut tut.’ Kryotos looked up from her terminal.

  ‘Believe me, I need it.’

  ‘I believe you.’ She took a sip from a Dr Pepper can, leaned back in the chair and folded her arms. ‘Well? What’s your latest theory?’

  ‘Something crazy.’

  ‘Crazy?’

  ‘Yes.’ He put his glasses on and stood behind her, looking over her shoulder at the VDU screen, at HOLMES flexing its mighty brain. ‘I think I’ve met him. I think he’s already in here somewhere. Can you just—’ He gestured at the nominals and actions columns crawling up the screen like green fireflies. ‘Just let it go on scrolling.’

  ‘Sure.’ They watched in silence as the names slipped past, their digital pulse replaying the last few days of the investigation: names that had come out of interviews, faceless people who had never been traced, false leads, blind alleys, pubs in Archway, red sports cars, Lacey, North, Julie Darling, Thomas Cook, Wendy—

  ‘Stop!’

  Kryotos dropped her finger onto the keyboard with a slight intake of breath. ‘What? What can you see?’

  ‘Here.’ Caffery leaned in and tapped the screen. ‘What’s this next to Cook’s name? This figure two here?’

  ‘Just means he’s come up twice on the database.’

  ‘And this entry?’

  ‘That’s out of your St Dunstan’s interviews.’

  ‘So why’s he come up again?’

  ‘Because—’ She scrolled through the names, tongue between her teeth. ‘There.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘See. He came up this morning. That letter T?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Means he left a telephone message. As it happens he left it with me; see my nominal there? Number twenty-two?’

  ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘He said he’d checked and he was home both of the nights you were asking about.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The supposed girlfriend. I’m bothered by that.’ Jack tapped his teeth with his black thumbnail. ‘He said he was colour blind. Said he had no-one to help him choose clothes.’

  ‘Ergo no girlfriend?’

  ‘Strange, eh?’ Caffery stubbed out the cigarette, lifted one of the blinds a fraction and peered out. The day was bright, hot. ‘Yes. I think I’ll go and see him.’

  ‘Better make it quick; he’s leaving for Thailand tomorrow.’

  Caffery dropped the blind. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope. Says he’s got a taste for Golden Triangle mountain air.’

  ‘I’ll bet he has.’ He retrieved his jacket and car keys from the SIO’s room and was almost out of the offices when Kryotos called after him.

  ‘Jack!’ She was tipped back in the chair, the phone receiver held to her chest. ‘It’s Paul. You’d better divert to Greenwich. Someone’s waiting to speak to you. He says you’ll know who it is—says she’s, and I quote, babe-a-licious.’

  ‘Oh Jesus.’ He pulled on his jacket. ‘Rebecca.’

  ‘He says the locals are dragging their tongues on the ground and it’s making her jumpy.’

  ‘OK. I’m on my way.’ He fished in his pocket for his keys. ‘While I’m gone get on to Cook, will you? Don’t rattle him, but find out where he’ll be today.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘And I’ll see you tonight.’

  ‘Are you sure about the kids?’

  ‘Course I’m sure. I’m looking forward to it.’ He blew her a kiss and closed the door, leaving Kryotos to wonder why it mattered to her—married with children as she was—that Caffery was interested in someone called Rebecca.

  ... 30

  Maddox was on the steps of Greenwich police station when Caffery arrived. He was standing in the sunlight, eating a samosa from a greasy bag and staring vacantly at students drinking bottled beer outside the Funnel and Firkin. The pronged worry lines between his eyebrows were deeper today. When Caffery asked he frowned, jerked his head towards the station and said:

  ‘Just the little shit-for-brains in there. He arrested Gemini. Never even consulted me. That’s all.’

  You surprised, Steve? Are you honestly surprised?

  ‘I suppose the party’s off, then.’

  ‘Oh Jesus.’ Maddox pressed his forehead. ‘No.’ He shook his head, dropped his hand, exasperated. ‘Fuck it. There’s no overtime left in the pot anyway. No—we’ll put Diamond at the incident room, let him make amends. Betts can kick off the interview with someone and I’ll look in on them later.’

  ‘You only have to say the word, Steve—I’ll drop it. I’m only doing it for—’

  ‘I know. We’re all only doing it for them. That’s the point. This is the governor’s latest initiative: happy home lives makes happy cops. No wife-beaters, no alcoholics, no suicides.’

  ‘Very Nineties.’ Jack opened the door. ‘Eight o’clock, then?’

  Maddox finished the samosa, rolled up the bag and shot it into a council bin at the foot of the steps. ‘Eight o’clock it is.’

  Caffery avoided the custody room. Instead he went up to the second floor, to the cluster of rooms reserved at this, and every other Met police station, for AMIPs exclusive use. Inside Rebecca was sitting alone, staring out of the window, twirling one elegant foot in a distracted gesture of impatience, sucking the Mexican silver pendant on the chain around her neck. She wore olive-green slacks and a pale poplin shirt. When she saw Caffery she dropped the pendant and smiled tightly. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s nice to see you.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He paused. ‘You’re upset?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He sat down opposite her and thoughtfully steepled his fingers. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Am I hassling you? I don’t want to appear hassley, but I was deadly serious. I think he’s important.’

  ‘Ah. You’ve got me there. I’m lost.’

  ‘I told your answer service.’

  ‘My answer service?’ Caffery tilted his head back. ‘And this was—?’

  ‘Yesterday evening.’

  ‘On my mobile?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Veronica. Caffery shook his head. ‘Rebecca, I didn’t get the message. I’m sorry.’

  At that her eyes softened. ‘I don’t mean to push, but I’ve been awake all night. It’s what you said about it being someone very organized, someone they might trust. Someone they might trust to—’ She shuddered and he could see goose bumps on her wrists. ‘Someone they might trust to inject them with something.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you that. I hope you—’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone.’ She leaned forward and her long clean hair swung across her shoulders. ‘Last year Joni took me to a party. The host made no secret of the fact that he had heroin in the place and would inject it for anyone who wanted it. He’d been a doctor and he knew how to do it without hurting, exactly how much to give, that sort of stuff.’ She leaned back. ‘There was no shortage of takers.’

  ‘He was a doctor?’

  ‘Had been, or had trained to be, years ago. Now he’s something high powered in a pharmaceutical company and I think he’s something to do with St Dunstan’s.’ She lifted her fringe from her forehead to cool herself. ‘A lot of the girls in the area used to end up at his place. All the freebies they wanted, the best, set out in little bowls. Usually at the end of the night he’d turn punter if any of the girls wanted to do a trick. A good one too. It’s been going on fo
r years.’

  ‘It hasn’t come up in interviews.’

  ‘He’s very secretive; if you want to get invited back you don’t gab. He’s well off, intelligent, sort of good-looking in a weird way. Oh and he’s got a Patrick Heron to die for.’ She shook her head in mild disbelief. ‘Just up there on the wall, and all these hookers standing around next to it snorting coke, giggling—none of them knowing what the hell they were looking at.’ She paused for a moment, looking at her hands. When she looked up her face had changed. ‘He went for me that night. It was no big deal. He thought I was a hooker, asked me to stay, I said no and—well, we scrapped. Nothing dramatic. I scratched him pretty badly across his neck.’

  ‘He stopped?’

  ‘Eventually. But if you asked me is he capable of cruelty, rape, maybe murder …’

  ‘You’d say?’

  ‘I don’t know why, but—I’d say yes. Absolutely yes. There’s something desperate about him.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  Rebecca swivelled around on the chair and nodded out of the window. ‘Over on the heath. One of those big houses off the Croom’s Hill side.’

  ... 31

  ‘Another plate gone.’ Veronica closed the kitchen door on the voices of the guests and shovelled the broken pieces into the pedal bin. ‘I’m thinking of hiding Mum’s glasses before one of those goes too.’

  Caffery pulled the cork on a bottle of Sancerre, sniffed it and turned the cork over in his hands to check it hadn’t crumbled. He had retreated here for a moment of peace, and wasn’t surprised when Veronica chose the same moment to come into the kitchen. She pulled a Tupperware container from the fridge, and when she saw he wasn’t going to answer her, slammed the door loudly. ‘You know who’s funny?’

  ‘No. Who?’

  ‘I’m not being rude, Jack, but Marilyn. What a cow. I was having a really nice conversation with her husband, he’s really lovely, and then for no reason at all she comes up and starts being really snotty, really iffy with me.’

  Jack didn’t answer. He knew exactly where Veronica was heading with this. She’d been in full-on martyr mode all night—gallantly traipsing through the house, carrying plates brimming with crostini, grilled peppers and tapenade, a sad, brave smile on her face. But what she really wanted was some attention, wanted a splash of trouble to make the evening complete.

  ‘You’re not listening to me, are you?’ She began spooning out hummus, tapping the spoon loudly on the edge of the bowl. ‘I thought at least we were still friends, but now it seems we can’t even have a conversation.’

  ‘I’m not rising to this, Veronica.’ He threw the cork into the bin and retrieved a bottle of Medoc from the cupboard. He had no more energy for her tonight. The party itself was a sacrifice—his time precious. Maddox couldn’t know that here was one relationship which was beyond the good intentions of the DCS. ‘I won’t fight with you, so don’t bother.’

  ‘God.’ She shook her head resignedly. ‘You’re so screwed up, Jack. You are so screwed up. I think you should see someone about it, I really do.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Of course I’m not. Honestly, what a thing to say!’ She slammed the bowl down onto a tray and suddenly her face was calm, as if absolutely nothing had happened. ‘Now then.’ She picked up a tea towel. ‘How are we doing with the Piper Heidsieck? Did you take those bottles out of the freezer, they’ll explode if you leave them in a second too long.’ Casually she leaned over to the window, lifted the curtains on one finger, looking out as if searching for something beyond her reflection and tutted. ‘Those kids.’ She let the curtain fall. ‘It’s too late for children to be up. They’ll come to no good out there, mark my words.’

  The night was warm and the French windows were open but perhaps the guests, like the storm flies gathering above the halogen lights on the patio, sensed the weight of rain in the sky: only the children were using the garden. The adults stood inside, grouped in polite little clumps, balancing plates and glasses, occasionally looking up to check their reflections in the windows. No-one breathed a word about the case, even when the children were out of earshot, as if a mere whisper might bring poison through the doors. Caffery, Sancerre in one hand, Medoc in the other, orbited the room filling glasses, stopping to allow Kryotos to feed him a triangle of nan bread.

  ‘Jack—’ She checked quickly over her shoulder and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Jack, your chum Cook? Is he still in the frame? It’s just you didn’t come back to me and—’

  ‘Oh shit.’ He tried to wipe his mouth on the back of his hand without spilling the wine. ‘Shit, I’m sorry, Marilyn, I’m sorry—I got started on something else. I completely forgot.’

  ‘He’s booked on an Air India flight out of Heathrow at fourteen-hundred hours tomorrow. I could get on to India Delta division for you.’

  ‘No. Let him go. He was just, I dunno, me clutching at straws I s’pose.’

  She put her plate down and held her glass out for a refill. ‘OK, but if you change your mind—’

  She broke off. Her small daughter, Jenna, had hurtled into the room from the garden, and crunched herself up against her mother’s legs, squealing and shaking her head. ‘Mummy! Mummy!’

  ‘What is it?’ Marilyn bent down. ‘Tell Mummy.’

  ‘Summonindagardin.’

  ‘Someone what?’

  ‘Monsty.’

  ‘Jenna.’ Kryotos took her daughter’s tiny, balled-up hand and shook it lightly. ‘Speak properly, please.’

  ‘Monsty in in—’ She stopped for a breath, staring back over her shoulder into the garden. ‘In the garden.’

  Kryotos looked up at the others and rolled her eyes. ‘Wouldn’t you know it, we’re just getting comfortable and now there’s only a monster in the garden.’

  ”S true, Mum.’ Dean, Jenna’s older brother, appeared in the French windows, his face as white as the moon. ‘We heard it.’

  Kryotos coloured. ‘Dean, now don’t mess around. I’ve warned you.’

  ‘Honest.’

  ‘Dean!’ She held a finger up. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘Tell you what, Jenna sweetheart.’ Maddox rolled up his sleeves with the soft gravitas of someone who remembered vividly being the father of small children. ‘How about me and my policemen go outside and arrest the monster? You’ll have to tell us exactly what sort of monster it is, of course. So we know how to handcuff him.’

  ‘Don’t know what sort it is,’ Dean said solemnly. ‘We didn’t see it, we heard it. Walking about in the leaves.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’ Essex heaved himself out of his chair. ‘It’s probably just one of them invisible compost-heap monsters.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dean agreed seriously.

  ‘We deal with stacks of them every day in the police. Even your old mum could take one of those out with her hands tied behind her back.’

  ‘NOOOOOO!’ Jenna wailed, gripping her mother’s skirt, small feet tattooing on the floor. ‘Mummeeee stay!!’

  Kryotos stroked Jenna’s head. ‘Mummy’ll stay. Look. The police are going to make sure monsty’s gone.’

  ‘MONSTER BUSTERS!’ Essex sprang from the patio, dropped onto the lawn in a warrior crouch, hands tensed like blades, eyes narrowed, a thin keening coming from the back of his throat. ‘Mon-STAR meet Suzi Wong, flower of the Orient and great Doshu of the Way of the Lotus, mistress of the secret dislocation technique kan’ – punch – ‘set‘—punch—‘su‘—punch—‘waza!’

  On the patio a ghost of a smile flickered over Dean’s face.

  ‘I stroke without conscience. Ki-ai!’

  Caffery, grateful for the distraction, put the bottles down on the windowsill and wandered into the centre of the garden as Essex corkscrewed his arms at the shrubs, throwing Kali-esque shadows on the lawn. Maddox followed, making a great show of beating the shrubs, checking under a clutch of Russell lupins, carefully brushing aside the weeping willow. ‘Nope. No-one here!’ he called. ‘No mon
sters here.’

  ‘No-one there!’ Caffery relayed back to Jenna who risked peeling her tear-stained face away from Kryotos to plug her knuckles in her mouth and stare tentatively out into the garden.

  Essex executed a few step-punches, surprisingly agile for his size. ‘Suzie Wong say LUN FOR YOUR RIFE, MONSTER.’

  Jenna smiled shyly around her finger and dropped her forehead back against Kryotos, not fear this time but little girl coyness, the smile twitching the edges of her cheeks. ‘Suzie’s a girl’s name,’ she snuffled. ‘Not a boy’s. He’s silly.’

  ‘Isn’t he,’ Marilyn agreed.

  ‘Munen mushin! Ki-ai, ki-ai!’

  ‘Yeah, Ki-ai ki-ai,’ Caffery echoed patiently, and climbed the steps back into the house smiling up at the faces grouped in the lit window. ‘Don’t you feel so much safer knowing we have men like Essex to protect society?’

  Kryotos see-sawed her head to get a view of the garden. ‘Now how on earth has the old sod done that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  Caffery turned. The garden had fallen silent.

  She giggled nervously. ‘Must’ve been eaten.’

  ‘Mmm. There’ll be a terrible mess.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jack.’ Maddox came to stand next to him, flushed and grinning, holding out his glass for a refill. ‘I think even a monster would pass on Essex.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Caffery sighed. ‘I’ll clear up what’s left in the morning.’

  ‘Nah, you don’t want to do that.’ Maddox shook his head. ‘Leave it. Raw pig is good for the roses.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Kryotos said.

  They all stared into the silent garden, hearing only the soft hiss of the weeping willow in the pre-storm breeze. Essex, indeed, seemed to have vanished into thin air. Caffery scanned the dark corners, trying to see the trick, straining to see how he had hidden himself so quickly.

  ‘Where is he?’