Birdman

22

Sharon Dawn McCabe was less than ten inches away, on her back, her eyes open. A blood-tinted froth foamed out of the nose and mouth and trickled in mucousy tracks down her chin and neck.

'Oh — my — God,' Harteveld whispered in awe. 'Oh, sweet Jesus Christ, what the fuck have you done to yourself?' He shoved a hand under the sheets and felt for a pulse.

The clock on the bed table said 4.46 a.m.

Heart thumping, he hurried into the bathroom and filled the sink with cold water. He plunged his face in until the water lapped around his neck.

He counted to twenty.

Restraint, the long pull of desire, days becoming weeks becoming years, and now, after it all, this, this tripwire of fate lying still and white in his bed. Exactly what he had been wanting all these years, the one thing he couldn't get from the girls, no matter what he paid.

He straightened, gasping, dripping.

His face blinked out at him from the mirror. Haggard in the oblique light, his thirty-seven years showed; as if he had been sucked at from the inside, juiced dry by the strain. He pinched his cheeks hard, hoping pain would bring him clarity. But all he got back was the dull, familiar tug in his belly.

'Help me, help me, please.'

His voice was shallow, little more than a whisper. Nothing was going to help him. He knew that. He dried his face and went back into the bedroom.

The room was heaped with pre-dawn purples. She lay staring blankly at the ceiling, her mouth open, the sheets demurely pulled up to her collarbone as if she had wanted to die neatly. Shakily Harteveld crossed the room and opened the window. The night air was cold and sweet, stained with snow. The cedar of Lebanon brittle against the star-freckled sky.

If you wanted to, if you really wanted to — she couldn't tell you to stop. No-one would know. No-one has to know—

Trembling, he crossed to the bed and slowly unpeeled the sheet, stripping it from her torso, bunching it at her feet. Her arms were splayed wide; he rearranged them, resting them neatly beside her hips, her still-pink palms curling inwards. The snail's trail of mucus on her chin winked in the dull light. Oedema. From the lungs. He brought a damp towel from the bathroom and gently wiped the mess. Then he cleaned between her legs where her bowels had opened, changed the soiled sheets. Rigor hadn't started and she was easy to move, a calm mound of pliable white circles in the cyan light, round breasts, round stomach, thick, lapped knees, long oval thighs: all lines sliding gently to meet at the dark bruise of the pubis.

The inside of the right arm was traced with scabs. She'd probably taken some of the good-quality heroin that he supplied his guests, he told himself. She must have been used to Gorbals street scag, her body couldn't tolerate the pure stuff he served. Toppled by purity. Harteveld wasn't blind to the irony.

He squatted level with the small white feet. The skin, folded over the tendons of the instep, looked like salted fish. Her sightless eyes gleamed in the purple light. Carefully he ran fingers up over the ankles, the stubble of shaved hair abrading his fingertips, the coolness of the skin making his heart quicken. She was soft. Soft and cool. And still.

The house was quiet and dark as he unclenched his fists and unfolded himself onto the bed.

Afterwards he was so filled with self-disgust that he drank a bottle of pastis straight. He vomited most of it back up, and was furious to find himself still alive in the morning. And the grey, used corpse at his side.

He locked the big oak door at the bottom of the stairs and went back to bed, lying there all day next to her, his hands rigid at his sides, staring out of the window at the spire of the neighbouring church, as it absorbed the colour of the winter air: from cold, bone-grey, warming up through coral, to blue and white, then dipping back into grey again. The cleaner arrived, knocked on the oak door. When he didn't answer she gave up and before long the sounds of the day started as usual: the hoover moved up and down the corridor, ice dripped from the cedar, glasses clinked as they were packed into their rightful places.

Harteveld continued staring at the church.

He was strangely calm. The bridge was crossed, a deep lever had been nudged and would never be returned. He knew that his world was folding in on itself.

He rolled over and gently stroked the rigid nipples.

When the cleaner came back later that week Harteveld met her at the front door with a white vellum envelope containing £250 and a note dismissing her. He was resigned to it — he knew exactly what was going to happen in the coming weeks. He couldn't afford witnesses.

The mechanics of death were simple for someone with his training; he slipped easily into killing. Over the next six months others came. One every five weeks or so. Harteveld believed he was dying, being consumed from the inside out. The only time he could forget was for the hours he spent with the women.

By late May, there were five bodies, his responsibility each one.

Peace Nbidi Jackson, 20 years old and the second lovely daughter of Clover Jackson, had appeared at the house on the Thursday night, just as the detective chief superintendent in Eltham was issuing a statement to the press — so that when the doorbell had rung Harteveld still knew nothing of the police's discovery, those five grim worm-casts uncovered on a wasteland in east Greenwich.

He placed his glass on the mantelpiece, lightly touched Lucilla's varnished face and went to the door.

'You came. How nice.'

She stood on his threshold, bare arms glazed copper in the twilight. He stared at her for a long time, knowing he would be the last person in the world to see this girl alive.

'Can I come in or what?'

'Yes, yes, of course. I'm sorry.' He stood back and let the girl wander in, eyes wide at the cathedral-like spaces of the house. If she noticed the smell he was worried about, it didn't seem to bother her. 'Go through, I'll get you a drink.' He followed her into the living room, switched the lights on and opened the drinks cabinet. 'Would you like something from here? Or wine?'

Peace sat straight and neat against the Braquenie silk cushions. 'Have you got Baileys?'

'Yes. Of course.' Harteveld reached into the depths of the cabinet. He should have guessed. The girls always wanted something sweet. He poured the Baileys into a heavy crystal tumbler. 'I suppose you've got a name.' He held the tumbler up to the light in his long fingers. 'Haven't you?'

'Peace.'

'That's nice.' He didn't smile.

Peace looked at him sideways. 'Why'm I supposed not to say nothing about this?'

Harteveld placed the glass of Baileys on the table, and returned to the cabinet to pour himself a pastis. 'Peace, I am in the fortunate position of caring less about money than about discretion. Here.' He opened the calfskin wallet and pulled out ten £20 notes, creasing and folding them expertly, a little effeminate flick of the fingers as he held them out to her. 'I'll keep my end of the bargain. And believe me, I'll know if you haven't kept yours.'

Peace looked around, at the grand piano, the portrait of Lucilla and Henrick over the fireplace, the crystal decanters, and seemed satisfied. She picked up the Baileys and leaned back against the cushion. 'I didn't tell anyone.'

'Good. Now…' He sat on the arm of the sofa. 'If you look on that end table, you'll see a little ivory box. Can you see it?'

On the Chinese lacquered table lay an exquisite Ju wood and ivory box. Peace leaned over and inspected it. 'Yeah.'

'Open it.'

She lifted the lid. A silver coke spoon lay in a bed of white powder.

'It's the best. The purest. Or maybe—' He sipped his drink. 'Maybe you'd prefer some heroin.'

'Heroin?'

'Yes.'

She looked up and flashed a white smile. 'If it's good, of course I would.'

'The best, the best.' Harteveld stood, his shirt a dull radium glow reflected in the darkened window. He held out his hand. 'Come with me, then. We'll go and find it.'

Peace wanted to know what lay beyond the oak door. 'Smells bad,' she said. 'Don't you ever clean up in here?'

'Don't worry about that.' Harteveld steered her away from the door, down the main hallway.

'What's in there, then? Is that the rest of the house?'

'I'll take you in there later,' he promised, pressing her shoulder. 'Nothing to worry about now.'

In the kitchen he quickly heated some smack in an eggcup-sized pan. Peace smiled as she watched the bubbles rise, the sides of the pan remaining clear silver.

'Good gear,' she said.

'Pure. I'll shoot it for you. I can do it painlessly.'

'Yeah?'

'I was a doctor.'

'But not in my arm, OK? My mum checks my arms.'

'OK.'

He sat her on a stool and tied a tea towel just under the bulge in her calf, and, when the vein showed blue, trapped between the soft coffee skin and the white of her ankle bone, he popped the skin and the vein lining with the needle and squeezed the syringe contents out.

'Ow,' she yelped lightly, grinning, clasping her hands over her ankle. 'Ow. You butcher.' She smiled as the rush took her and dropped her into the red-leather booth. 'You're not a doctor, you're a butcher,' she mumbled, smiling distantly. Her head lolled; the black window reflected her saucer eyes. 'Oh God — 's good though, 's good—'

Harteveld took his pastis and stood by the fridge watching her. He thought of what he could do with her that night, what she could do for him, and a deep, hard strength filled his abdomen. She could help him to forget in a way even heroin couldn't. A precious, sweet amnesiac, this girl.

'If you want an even better rush I've got another way.' He sipped his drink. 'Want it?'

'Yeah, want it.' She laughed lazily, and swung herself out of the booth, hanging her head. 'First I'm gonna puke like, if that's cool.'

'There's the sink.'

'Ta.' She smiled as she pushed her hair from her eyes and vomited over the pile of dishes and glasses. 'Euch.' She smiled up at him and wiped her wet nose. 'Euch. I hate that. Don't you?'

'You want the quick rush?'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' She turned on the tap. Her head was wobbling very gently. 'Wan' it, wan' it, I want it.' She started to laugh at her own sing-song voice. 'Peace wants it, give it to Peace.'

As he filled a second syringe, she slumped in the booth again and dropped her head back, staring at the ceiling, her foot jerking. 'Give it to Peace.' She bounced her shoulders, opened her mouth, jerked on the seat, dancing on the spot to an internal tune, dropping her hands heavily on the bench, and laughing herself weak as if there had never in the world been anything quite this funny.

Harteveld watched as he worked. Even in his panicky excitement he was cold-minded enough to stop and see this moment for what it was. The last minutes of her life, the breath of death-enhanced life: she had looked this beautiful — crumpled in his kitchen, singing softly to herself — only once before, at her birth. This moment, lit by the soft kitchen lamp, was her essence caught in amber.

'Lift your hair up, Peace.' He had to bite hard on the words to stop his voice from trembling. 'Lift it up and let me get round the back here. You won't feel anything.'

She obeyed, glazed eyes swivelling to the window to watch her reflection. 'Wha' is it?'

'It's H. Just a little. But take it like this and the rush is like nothing you ever felt before.'

'Sweee-eeet,' she purred and curled her neck down.

A drop of sweat fell from Harteveld's cold face onto the leather seat, but he didn't tremble. Once, only once, it had gone wrong. The girl hadn't wanted it and he'd had to tie her, gag her with a bath towel and bind her hands and feet with two of his shirts. She had struggled like an animal, but she was very small and Harteveld had been able to get her onto the floor — ignoring her hot urine squirting on his calves — and push the needle through the cervical bones…

In the booth Peace's bowels opened, and her head jerked once. It was the only movement.

Harteveld sank back against the wall and started to shake.

That had been two nights ago. Now he was sitting here in the dark with Peace wrapped in clingfilm on his floor. She had been with him long enough now. It was time for him to do what he had to do; say goodbye to her, do the necessary.

He found the keys to the Cobra and opened the orangery door.