Birdman

18

At 10.30 p.m., when Caffery left Shrivemoor, the night was still warm. He left the radio off and drove in silence, promising himself a bath and a healthy shot of malt whisky when he got home. Under the moment-to-moment preoccupations — his tiredness, traffic lights, the too-bright headlights on the South Circular — he was aware of a new inhabitant in his thoughts, like a scrawled image at the bottom of a shifting lake, the beginnings of a picture, a real picture, of Birdman.

A necrophile. How could they have missed it?

He turned left at Honor Oak, right across Peckham Rye, the ghostly white dabs of gravestones in Nunhead cemetery floated beyond the trees. The bloody arc of Birdman's career fleshed itself out in his head. A man — tall? short? — squatting like an incubus, a carrion crow, eyes running with excitement, moving his hands over a corpse. The dead and the undead. An unholy alliance.

And the backbeat of unanswered questions continued: a live bird sewn inside a body cavity, long after death. Why? And why can't you forget that image? The strange, ordered cuts to the scalps — except Kayleigh, his subconscious prompted. Why not Kayleigh? And how did Birdman keep his victims still for the injection? This problem breathed its own peculiar brand of unease. It whispered mind control; worse, it whispered a toxin that modern forensics couldn't identify.

He parked the car under his neighbour's flaking plane tree, and wearily climbed out, his head thudding. All he wanted now was quiet. He slung his jacket over his shoulder. A Glenmorangie and a bath.

But something unnaturally pale waited for him in the shadows on the doorstep.

He stopped, hand on the gate, as his eyes adjusted to the night. When he realized what was gleaming gently in the half-light he knew it was Penderecki's work.

Two dolls, naked, the colour of lifeless babies, plastic limbs linked, face to genitals, face to genitals. Splayed out on the step in front of them a note on a pink Ladbroke's chit:

ringing me is like ringing you're neck

Caffery unbuttoned his shirt cuff, pulled it down over his hand and carefully turned the bundle. A girl's doll, blond nylon hair, lolled outwards, blank eyes turned upward, arms held up and out as if ready to catch a beach ball. Barbie or Sindy. Smooth nippleless breasts, finger's-width waist and, scribbled obscenely on the slope of plastic between its legs, overlarge as if infected, a raw red-ink vulva.

Very Penderecki.

He prodded the other doll and rolled it onto its back. Action Man, or GI Joe, the same blind stare and scratched-in genitalia, the same rigid beseeching hands. HASBRO was stamped in the small of the back.

And this Caffery recognized. This had once been Ewan's toy.

He clearly remembered the mystery of its disappearance. One sunny afternoon in the early Seventies. Before lunch it had been lying face down in the grass in the back garden, pinned by the lead weight of miniature grenades and water canteens. After lunch it was gone. Spirited away. 'Well now, Ewan,' their mother, as mystified as they were, giving the sky a suspicious look, 'maybe it was stolen by a crow.' The next day she bought the all-new Action Man from Woolworth's in Lewisham. 'Look at his hands, Ewan. They can grip. Isn't that better?'

This was not new from Penderecki, this subtle torture. Caffery gathered the dolls up, found his keys and wearily pressed inside his front door.

The kitchen light was on and he could see a pile of his shirts freshly folded on the ironing board.

Veronica.

In his tiredness he hadn't noticed her car outside.

Be good to her, Jack. She's ill. Don't forget, be good.

In the kitchen he threw his jacket on the chair, took a roll of cling film and carefully wrapped the dolls individually, ready to be filed away in Ewan's room. The Le Creuset was on the hob and from the living room Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' came twining around the good cooking smells of ginger and coriander. From the shelf he took a glass and the Glenmorangie and poured himself a large shot. His body ached with fatigue. He wanted silence, his whisky, a bath and then bed. Nothing more. He certainly didn't want Veronica.

'Jack?'

'Yeah, hi,' he called dully into the hall.

'I let myself in. I hope you don't mind.'

Well, Veronica, if I do mind what good will it do me?

'Come up.'

In Ewan's room. Why did she always gravitate to that room? Taking the dolls and the whisky he slowly climbed the stairs.

She was sitting in the middle of the floor, wearing a carefully tailored navy skirt suit with white starched cuffs secured by gold pins. She had kicked her shoes off so he could see the pale moons of her toenails through the flesh-coloured tights. Scattered around her were the contents of all his Penderecki files.

'Veronica?'

'What?'

'What are you doing?'

'I'm tidying up your files. I thought people might want to look round the house at the party so I'm tidying your files for you.'

'Well, don't.' He put down the whisky and the wrapped dolls on the desk and started to pick things up. 'Just don't.'

Veronica stared at him. 'I was only trying to help—'

'I asked you not to come in here.' He turned. 'I'll say it again: don't come in here. And don't go into the files.'

Her forehead furrowed, her mouth pushed out a fraction. 'I'm sorry. Here, let me put them back—'

'No.' He brushed her away. 'Just — leave — them!'

Veronica flinched and he stopped. You're shouting, Jack. Don't shout at her.

'Look.' He took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry — I'm really — Veronica—'

Too late. Her face was already undoing itself, the forehead twisting, the mouth moving from side to side. She stood up and tears sprang to her eyes.

'Oh, Jesus.' He closed his eyes and forced himself to lean into her, to run his hands across her shaking shoulders. 'Veronica, I'm sorry, I'm sorry — it's been a bad day.'

'It's the cancer, isn't it? You want to leave me because of the cancer.'

'Of course I don't want to leave you. I'm not going anywhere.' He pulled her against him and rested his chin on top of her head. 'Look, I've been stockpiling my shifts. If you want I can take time out — come to chemo with you.'

'You've taken the time off?' She stopped sniffling and looked up at him.

'I want to be with you.'

'Really?'

'Yes, really. Now come on, sit down.' He pressed his hand on her shoulders and together they sat on the floor, backs against the wall. 'I don't want to hear any more of this, OK?' He twisted his fingers around hers. 'I am not afraid of the Hodgkin's.'

'I'm sorry, Jack.' She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. 'I'm sorry this has happened to me. I wish I could change it, I really do.'

'It's not your fault.' He buried his head in her hair. 'Now, don't forget—' He cleared his throat. 'Don't forget we're in this together.'

'I won't.'

They sat in silence, watching the mushroom-brown moths softly bounce out of the dark night against the window. He held her hand up to his mouth, kissed it lightly and turned it over to look at the palm.

'You all right?'

'Yes,' she murmured.

He kissed her hair and looked at her hand, half smiling. 'How come you didn't have the dye test this time?'

'Mmm?'

'The one you told me about. The one you had last time.'

'I did,' she said dreamily.

He held her hand close to his face. The skin was pale, faintly spotted, like a fish. But there was no tracery of lines, no subcutaneous network sunk deep in the cool flesh. 'I thought you could see the dye afterwards.'

'Not really. It fades pretty quickly.' She pushed her hair behind her ears and looked at him. Semicircles of mascara underlined her eyes. 'Jack?'

'Mmmmm?'

'Maybe I should go on my own. I'd like to show Dr Cavendish I don't need my hand held.'

'You sure?'

'Yes, really.'

'OK. OK.' He drew the hem of her skirt lightly down her thigh and studied the curved surface of her knee. He had never seen Veronica cry before. Strangely it made him horny. 'Are you allowed a drink, then?' He drifted his hand down onto her inner thigh. 'There's some Gordons in the fridge if you fancy it.'