Birdman

29

The police surgeon's room at Greenwich police station had no windows. The only decorations were a yellowing heroin poster and a laminated copy of a detainee's right to legal advice. Scattered on a low formica table, leaflets that no-one would ever read: HIV — Are you at risk? Crack/Cocaine — a legal guide and Victim Support Group — Help for the victims of crime.

'Roll your sleeve up.' The forensic medical examiner, scrubbed skin, clean white hands swaddled in latex gloves, tore open a sample kit: syringe, kidney bowl, vials, labels, swabs. Gemini fixed his eyes on a single loose thread on the third buttonhole down on the white coat. Things, he had to admit, had gone bad.

When DI Diamond put his nose through the letter-box two days ago and said, 'You know why we're interested, don't you?' Gemini hadn't seen the news. He was impressed enough by the police activity to guess that the girls were dead, and that the gear he'd off-loaded for Dog was responsible. But by the time DI Diamond came knocking on his door a second time things were worse, Gemini had read the papers and knew the truth. He knew that this wasn't a drugs thing. Knew that he'd got a little too close to the wrong people. And now he was scared enough to start praying.

But they didn't want to arrest him, DI Diamond reassured him, no obligations, just a few questions, just to eliminate him, and had he ever heard of civic duty? And so he'd pulled on his YSL sweatshirt and gone, cool as ice.

Style it out, style it out.

In the station everyone seemed relaxed. They'd given him coffee, cigarettes, promised he'd be reunited with the GTI soon. Someone showed him the four photos again and, although now he was terrified, he shrugged.

'No. Ain't never seen them.'

And they'd smiled 'OK' and asked if he felt like giving a sample.

'Just a formality to eliminate you, Mr Henry, then you're free to go.'

Head hair, pulled from the root with tweezers. Pubic hair (same routine). Urine: the doctor stood next to him in the toilet watching his pee splashing into a white plastic cup. And then, in the corridor coming back from the toilet, Diamond's hand placed lightly on his arm, sour breath on his face, the pallid eyes twitching as if he couldn't contain his excitement.

'Don't get comfortable, you fucking little phoney.' A whisper so the doctor couldn't hear. 'We all know you're lying.'

'Roll your sleeve up, please.'

'Wha'?' Gemini looked up.

'Your sleeve.' The doctor snapped open a blood-pressure cuff, cracked it like a whip and leaned over to fasten it round Gemini's bicep.

'Wha' you want now?'

'Don't worry.' The doctor flicked a vein in the bend of his arm, drew an antiseptic wipe over the skin and the cannula went in. Gemini flinched.

'Rahtid, man. How that gonna prove I did them girls? Eh?'

The surgeon looked at him steadily. 'You can refuse but technically the law allows for refusal to supply an intimate sample to be regarded as affirmative evidence.'

'Wha'?'

'And if you don't let me take this blood we can compel you to give a saliva swab, consent or no consent.' He slowly drew back the plunger and the vacutainer started to fill. 'Hold still, please, Mr Henry.'

But Gemini snapped his arm away.

'No, man. You tell me wha' you got on me and how my pee in a cup goin' to prove I done dem t'ings you's is chattin' I done.'

The FME eyed the needle dangling from the vein. 'You've consented, and you'd make life a lot easier if you'd keep still.'

'Well, hear me now.' He slammed his hands on the desk, the inside of his elbow popping forward. The FME backed his chair up a fraction. The needle wobbled but remained visibly folded inside the big medial basilic vein. 'I unconsent. I done tell the man already, you know, I tell him I don't know them ladies. I ain't done not'ing!'

The FME pressed his lips together.

'Very well, Mr Henry.' Eyes on the needle, he rose and left the room, to reappear in seconds accompanied by DI Diamond who stood in the open doorway smiling expansively.

'Mr Henry!'

'You.' Gemini sucked his teeth in disgust. 'Why you go running at the mouth and come tell me I is lying to you?'

'You are lying to us. Those girls were in your car. There's forensic evidence.'

'Ssssssttt! Suck your mother.'

Diamond's eyes narrowed a fraction. He turned to a PC in the corridor. 'Get the custody officer.'

'Last time I seen that girl she was fine and well, man. You want look at one of dem fat punters in dem fancy house, in Croom's Hill. Now get this t'ing outta my arm.'

Mel Diamond folded his arms. 'Jerry Henry—'

'I ain't done not'ing—'

'Jerry Henry — I am arresting you on reasonable suspicion of the rape and murder of Shellene Craw of Stepney Green, London on the night of May the nineteenth—'

'I ain't done rape no girl.'

'You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. And under section 54e I'll ask you now to remove your clothing.' He looked at the doctor who had retreated behind the desk. 'Get one of those Andy Pandy things for him to wear.'

'I ain't done no rape! Nor murder no girl either!' The needle broke from his skin, ripping an arch of blood from the vein as it cartwheeled to the floor. Diamond skipped neatly back into the corridor away from the blood. Two PCs appeared behind him.

'Does he want cuffing, sir?'

'Watch the blood. He's a smack-head.'

'Is right, I'm a smack-head nigger an' I feel feh give you all dem AIDS.' Gemini shoved his arm in their direction, baring his teeth. 'Pigs!' Behind the desk the FME calmly ripped open a box of latex gloves. Gemini rounded on him. 'Wha' you doing?'

The doctor didn't blink. 'Protecting my colleagues, Mr Henry.' He tossed gloves to Diamond and the two PCs.

'You want vex me or wha'?' Gemini curled his lips and closed on him, his arm raised, blood sliding to the floor. 'You want dem AIDS, is it?'

'Calm down.'

'Yup.' Diamond, more confident now, pulled gloves on. 'I think he wants cuffing.'

'I ain't done nothing!' He snapped round to face him. 'I gave them some crack is all! I ain't done no murder!'

'OK, son.' The older PC expertly moved Gemini's hand behind his back and snapped the cuffs tight. 'Let's get it over with.'

'I AIN'T NO KILLER! I AIN'T NO RAASCLAAT KILLER!' He coiled up and spat at Diamond, his feet dancing crazily, his head snapping backwards. 'YOU WANT FIND A MURDERER YOU FIND THEIR PUNTER IN CROOM'S HILL!'

Diamond sighed and held up his hand. 'You have the right to legal advice, we'll contact the duty solicitor if you choose, if you waive your right I want to know why. For the purposes of the code of detention the rest breaks will be measured from now and not from the time you walked in. Now will somebody get the fucking custody officer in here.'

A bent old Jamaican appeared with a mop and bucket to clean Gemini's blood from the medical room floor. Superintendent Maddox arrived from Shrivemoor with a bundle of dockets and a headache to find the custody room in chaos.

'You did what?'

'He was getting violent.'

'Well now, I see we are nostril deep in the shi-it.' Maddox put a cool hand to his head. From the holding cell he could hear Gemini's wails of protest. 'Twenty-four hours puts us ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Tell you what, Diamond, you can be the bright spark who interrupts the JP's breakfast for an extension.'

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.