Birdman

35

The doors to the orangery stood open. Caffery taped the warrant and schedules to a window pane and stood back to allow DS Quinn and DC Logan, like a brace of thoughtful ghosts in their white Tyvek suits, to enter. Essex and he remained outside, shuffling through the gravel, examining a soggy pile of cigarette ends in the bed of moon daisies.

On this — a day belonging not to early summer but to later in the season, where autumn begins — the wind was bright, the sun fluttered strobe-like in the overgrown trees, Japanese maples, a towering gingko, filling the garden with sparkling green and yellow light. Similar to the September day that Ewan had wandered off down the humming rail tracks. Bones on an anonymous bench in the forensic science lab. Pig's bones. Penderecki still stirring the pot.

'Sir?'

DS Quinn was standing at the head of the black-and-white tiled hallway, gloved hand resting on a heavy oak door.

'Locked,' she said when he approached. 'Can't find the keys anywhere.'

'Well? What do you think?'

'I can't say I'm looking forward to it.' She put her head back and sniffed the air. 'I mean, can you—?'

'Yes.' Caffery nodded. 'Yes. I could smell it from the garden.'

Essex found a chisel in the garage and, after Quinn had dusted a small downstairs window for prints, he carefully prised away the moulding, letting the pane swing out on its sash. The smell released made them all take an involuntary step backwards.

Quinn quickly pulled a face mask out of her grab bag and smiled. 'You stay here and put baggies over your shoes.'

She and Logan took it slowly, stopping on the ledge to shine a torch up the curtains and below the window. 'Strong smell in here, Jack,' Logan confirmed.

'You don't say.'

'Give me some of those stepping plates out of my grab bag.' Caffery passed them a stack of yellow lightweight plastic blocks and Quinn and Logan disappeared behind the curtains, leaving Essex and Caffery with nothing better to do than pull bags over their shoes and stand there in the shade of the cedar of Lebanon, whistling to themselves and jangling change in their pockets.

'So,' Essex said after a long silence. 'What do you think the smell is?'

Caffery was surprised to notice a faint sheen on his face. Essex was nervous. In spite of his bravado, he was actually afraid of what they might find inside.

'What do you think it is?'

'Birds?'

'Maybe.'

'Peace Nbidi Jackson?'

'I hope so.'

'God.' Essex loosened his collar and rubbed his face. 'You're a better man than I am, Jack. I mean that.'

Quinn reappeared at the window. A light had been switched on in the room behind her.

'Well?'

'Well what?'

Caffery sighed. 'Where's the smell coming from?'

'Oh, that. There's some food left lying around. But—' She looked over her shoulder.

'But?'

'But mostly it's coming from the bathroom on the second floor. Put your hands in your pockets and I'll show you.'

They moved carefully through the ground floor, Quinn allowing them glimpses into rooms, but not entry. 'Not for now. I want the camera crew to go through here first.' She had switched on all the lights and taped off a path on the floor in fluorescent tape. They looked into the first room. Harteveld's Bang & Olufsen sound system sat in one corner, an empty bottle of pastis and two milk-crusted glasses on top of the amplifier. The floors were deep in newspapers and fast-food boxes, chairs upended, a table covered in clothing. In a small utility room at the front of the house they disturbed a swarm of flies, which rose to reveal piles of dirty plates, topped by two chicken carcasses. Everywhere the curtains were closed.

'OK, upstairs now.' Quinn led them up the staircase. In the corridor Logan was waiting outside the bathroom, his expression neutral.

'This is where the smell is coming from.' Quinn smiled at them. 'You can see why.'

Logan opened the door.

'Shit,' Essex said simply.

The bathroom was small and high-ceilinged, a brightly striped blind pulled tight across a large, oblong window. Across the marble-topped vanity unit someone had abandoned empty toothpaste tubes, yards of grey dental floss, used razors, two or three condom packets, a grimy bar of soap. All were covered in dust.

'That's the problem.' Logan pointed to the toilet. 'That's the smell.'

The seat was up. In the porcelain bowl swam a mess of faeces and toilet paper. At some point the toilet had flooded onto the floor and the stew of excreta and tissue had washed up against the tiled walls, the edge of the bath, the shower stall. Later the water had evaporated, leaving a stinking black sediment, pocked with pink tissue.

'No Peace?' Essex asked.

'No human remains. A few pubic hairs, that's all. And we'll take samples of that.' He indicated the brown swamp in the toilet bowl. 'We've found some fingerprints too.' He lowered the toilet seat to show where he had dusted it, and pointed out two thumbprints on the rear. He lifted the seat and showed four inverted fingerprints, small, like a woman's, on the underside. 'Look at how they're spaced. What do you suppose she was doing?'

Caffery held his own hands in the same formation. 'Holding the seat? To vomit. Heroin maybe.'

'I wouldn't need heroin to puke at this mess.'

'Before it was blocked. One assumes.'

'What's blocking it?' Caffery peered tentatively into the bowl.

'OK.' Quinn pulled up the mask and rolled the cuffs of her latex gloves up to seal her white paper suit. 'Let's have a look.' She crouched on the floor and thrust her hand deep into the U-bend. Like a vet feeling for a breach birth, Caffery thought. Logan unravelled a plastic sheet onto the floor as Quinn's arm disappeared. 'Yup, there's something here all right.' Essex paled and rolled eyes at Caffery as Quinn squinted, laying her face against the rim to get a better grip. 'Here we go.'

The accumulated mess of hairs, condoms, toilet paper and faeces was dumped, dripping and stinking, on a plastic sheet in the centre of the bathroom floor. Essex covered his mouth and took a step back, shaking his head, his Adam's apple dancing in his throat. Quinn sniffed and straightened up, poking at the mess with a finger. 'These—' She pulled out two tangled objects and dropped them into the bag Logan held open for her. 'These're the problem.'

'A skirt. A pair of tights.' Caffery was disappointed.

'They'll have to be dried out at the lab.'

'It's still just clothing.'

'Not what you were expecting?'

'Not really. No.'

Essex, hand still over his mouth, watched Logan tag and label the bag. 'Know something?' he said later, patting him on the back. 'You've got a gift for this exhibits thing. Tell you what, if I get exhibits officer next case I'll trade you.'