Birdman

16

Nine p.m. and in Shrivemoor Street the lights came on, yellow sodium streaked the hot night. The building was silent, dark save for a single strip of fluorescent light peeping through the blinds of a first-floor room where Caffery and Essex, ties off, collars loosened, sat facing each other over an indexer's desk, working their way through a four-pack of Speckled Hen real ale and a family drum of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

On his return to the incident room that afternoon Caffery had chosen not to tell Maddox of his progress. When the fax arrived at 4 p.m., just as DI Diamond was leaving to get a warrant for Gemini's red GTI, Jack had beckoned Essex into the SIO's room.

'Got plans tonight?' He showed him the long roll of paper. 'It puts me a jump ahead, but it's just the beginning.'

Now the fax was unfurled over the desk, drooping over the edge and settling in ripples on the floor.

'One hundred and sixty-eight women,' Essex said, mouth full of chicken. 'Take away from three hundred and twenty makes, um—'

'One hundred and fifty-two.'

'Thank you.' He scribbled the numbers at the bottom of the list leaving silvery grease spots with his fingers. 'Eliminate anyone over, say, fifty?'

'Which won't be many.'

'At a guess, what, twenty more? And we're left with one hundred and—'

'Thirty-two.' Caffery pulled a beer tab. 'Run it through HOLMES and if nothing comes up we interview. We can't do a thing over the weekend, but starting on Monday, average interview twenty minutes, we could probably knock out fifty a day between the two of us and be narrowing it down by the Wednesday — that keeps us inside our timetable. Just.'

'Piece of piss,' Essex said, picking up his beer.

'You lie.' Caffery raised his drink. 'And for that I will be eternally grateful.'

They touched cans and drank. 'Funny.' Essex wiped his mouth and leaned back in his seat. 'Funny how you can't see it.'

'See what?'

'Maddox's confidence in you.'

'Confidence?' He shook his head, smiling at the irony. 'This is confidence? He's given me four days.'

'That's four days more than he's given any other DI. The man's a play-by-the-book merchant, Jack. A plodder. And you…' Across the room the MSS printer sprang to life. 'Well, look at it through his eyes.' Essex stood, wandered over to the printer and lifted the perspex cover. 'Scared as he is that you'll capsize the case, he's giving you rein. Think about it.' He peered inside as the print head ping-ponged across the paper. 'Ah, from our specialist adviser at Lambeth.'

'The lab?' Caffery was pleased to change the subject.

'Yup.' Essex smiled. 'It's Jane Amedure. Jane Amedure — the little Bootle genius. She showed me the ropes when I did exhibits on Operation Ambleside.'

'Ambleside?'

'Last year.' Essex didn't look up. 'Algerian did his old lady and left her in a freezer in a council flat Old Kent Road way. Six months before they found her.' He took a swig of beer. 'The power had been off for three.'

'Unshockable. aren't you?'

'Yup. Then there was our chum Colin Ireland. Killed his victim's cat and put its mouth around the victim's—'

'Yes. I heard. Thank you.' Caffery was suddenly tired. He rubbed his eyes. 'Go on then, what's she giving us?'

'Um.' Essex skimmed through the report. 'Let's see: toxicology and histology, hair analysis. OK, here goes: toxicology… now our unidentified victim, the one that died first, well, she was a user: there was benzoylecgonine and diamorphine in deep tissues.'

'Benzoylecgonine and diamorphine — that means coke and heroin?'

'Ten out of ten. On Shellene Craw, well, we didn't really need confirmation, but the SA's giving us it anyway: positive for smack, crack, Es, the works. And Wilcox's confirmed also smack. Hatch, as we thought, positive, and, surprise surprise' — he looked up — 'a negative on Spacek. Not even crack. Clean.'

'Cause of death?'

'Uh, yes.' He scanned the report and gave a low whistle. 'Krishnamurthi, the man's an Einstein! Balls on accurate.' He looked at Caffery, excited. 'Heroin. Injected straight into the brain stem. Everything would've shut down instantly, heart, lungs, the lot. They wouldn't have known a thing.'

'See?' Jack said. 'Do you see what I'm getting at?'

'Yeah — the hospital thing.'

'The brain stem, for Christ's sake. Can you see some low-end dealer knowing where to find a brain stem? I mean, Jesus—'

'You're preaching to the converted,' Essex murmured, reading the report. 'You know that.' He held up the paper. 'You'll like this too, Jack. Birdman — can I call him that?'

'If you keep it in this room.'

'Birdman's a clean freak. That or he knows enough about forensics to get rid of his evidence.' He carried the report to the desk, folding it carefully along the perforated page dividers. 'Looks like they did have consensual sex, but Birdman uses a condom and Amedure says he makes the girl wash afterwards. That or he washes them post-mortem. They've all got traces of soap in the vagina. Look, each sample's got the same concentration sodium stearate to fat. Manufacturer: good old Wright's Coal Tar.'

'So if he's so careful how do you explain the semen on the abdomen?'

'He spills a little when he takes the condom off?' Essex shrugged. 'Or he withdraws, takes the condom off and finishes wanking — sorry, let's be technical, masturbating — on her stomach. Gets her to clean herself, or he cleans it off himself later, after he's done her. But' — he held up his hand — 'he's not quite as careful as he thinks, because he leaves a trace.' He finished his beer and crumpled the can. 'Now then — here's haematology, mass spectrometer analysis of the dust-bin liner, hairs. There wasn't a follicle on that black hair so no DNA, but it is head hair, it is Afro-Caribbean. And, hey, check this out.' He looked up. 'The target wears a wig.'

'A wig?'

'Yeah, look — the blond hairs Krishnamurthi took from the victims?'

'Yes?'

'Amedure says ''The hairs were dyed, of Asian origin, none of them had roots and both ends were bluntly cut. Not ripped, or torn. I'd expect to see this in hairs taken from a wig.'''

'They were long hairs,' Caffery said. 'A woman's wig.'

Essex raised his eyebrows. 'Michael Caine.'

'What?'

'Dressed to Kill. You never seen that?'

'Paul—' Caffery sighed.

'OK, OK.' He held up his hand. 'I keep forgetting: I'm the comedian in this partnership and you're the humourless git.'

'And proud of it.'

'Yeah, and sad.' He went back to the report, chewing his thumbnail. 'And friendless, don't forget that.' He paused. 'Uh, look, the precipitin test.'

'Precipitin test? That's to, what? Check for human blood?'

'Yup. Distinguish it from animal.'

'We're talking about the birds?'

'We are.' Essex scanned the sheet, his mouth working noiselessly. 'It says that tissue in the birds' air sacs was human.'

'What?' Caffery looked up.

'That's what I said. Human.'

'You know what that means?'

'No.'

'Well, how do you think it got into the lungs?'

'They breathed it in?'

'Yes. Meaning—'

'Meaning… oh—' Essex suddenly understood. 'Shit, yes.' He sat down on Kryotos's desk, his levity gone. 'You mean the birds were still alive? They died in there?'

Caffery nodded. 'Surprised?'

'Well, kind of. Yeah.'

They were silent for a moment, pondering this. The air in the room had shifted subtly, as if the temperature had dropped a degree or two. Caffery stood up, finished his beer, and pointed to the report. 'Go on. Go on.'

'Yeah, right.' Essex cleared his throat, picked up the report. 'OK. What d'you want?'

'How does he sedate them?'

'Uh—' He ran his fingers down the paper. 'Haematology says uh — oh—'

'What?'

'Says he didn't.'

'What?'

'He didn't sedate them.'

'Impossible.'

'That's what it says here. Nothing except for… except for alcohol, some cocaine but not enough to do any damage, no phenols, no benzos, no barbs except Wilcox and young Kayleigh. Um…' His eyes raced over the page. 'Nothing. Except for maybe our anonymous lady number one who is chock-full of scag. But heroin's always awkward; everyone's tolerance is different.'

'He must have used something.'

'No, Jack. He didn't. Bits and pieces of junk in all of them, but nothing that would have done the trick.'

'You sure?'

'Sure I'm sure. Jane Amedure says so. Must be true.'

Caffery was exasperated. 'So how did he keep them still enough to stick a sodding great needle in their necks?'

'They're not magicians, you know,' Essex said solemnly, looking up from the report. 'These guys who spirit our loved ones away from under our noses, they're not especially clever. Most cases I look back on and realize how very unclever they were.'

'Unclever?' Caffery echoed, absently looking at his black thumbnail. He wondered how unclever Birdman was. How unclever Penderecki was. How unclever you had to be.

'Accidentally lucky,' Essex said.

'No. Birdman's not lucky. He knows.' He stood and wandered over to the photos. 'Doesn't he?' He appealed to the dead women staring blankly from the walls. 'Well? How did he do it?'

'Jack,' Essex said from behind. 'Look at this.'

The women stared back at Caffery: Petra, thin arms, sparkling smile and leotard; poor, dull Michelle Wilcox clutching her wild-haired daughter—

'Jack.'

Big, toothy Shellene. Kayleigh in the pink party dress, holding up a glass to the camera. 'What if it's my baby in there, my baby, my little, little girl? What if it's her?'

'How's he doing it?'

'Jack!'

'What?' He turned. 'What is it?'

'Entomology.' Essex was shaking his head. 'I know why it looks like he's not raping them. Disgusting bastard.'

'Why?'

'You know what we've got on our hands, Jack?'

'No, what've we got on our hands?'

'We've got a necrophiliac. A full-blown necrophiliac.' He tapped the report and held it out to Caffery. 'It's all there. In black and white.'