Birdman

38

Malpens Street, just a hundred yards from Lola Velinor's front garden, is quiet and tree-lined. The haughty Edwardian houses sit back from the road hidden beyond opulent gardens crammed with lime trees, jasmine, hibiscus.

Shortly before 9 p.m. that night, in a basement kitchen, the window open to let a breath of honeysuckle into the room, Susan Lister was preparing a red-wine marinade for the evening meal. She'd been jogging, her usual route, along Trafalgar Road, up past St Dunstan's, over the park, and was still dressed in grey jogging pants, a black and white Nike sweatshirt over a sports bra; her blond hair, slightly damp, was up in a ponytail. She wouldn't have time to take her bath before she collected Michael from the station. He was working late, taking the 8.55 from London Bridge. On the scrubbed pine table behind her the portable TV was switched to BBC 1 for the headlines.

She pinched the end of a clove of garlic and peeled away the loose skin. Behind her a strike of the clock and the first headline. 'Another body found in southeast London. Scotland Yard have not ruled out a link to the Harteveld killings.'

Susan quickly put down the garlic clove, turned up the volume and rested against the counter with her glass of wine. 'As more details emerge MPs call for a swift evaluation of the PRCU's proposed Serious Crime Research Project.' The Home Secretary stood on the green outside the Houses of Parliament, the breeze lifting strands of thin hair off his head. He confirmed his sympathy for the relatives of the victims, and trotted out the drop in crime figures this year. Then the Commissioner, spruce at a press conference table, told the cameras that Greenwich CID and AMIP were perfectly competent, thank you very much, and no, they weren't ready to confirm or deny that this was a Harteveld victim.

Susan sipped her wine thoughtfully. Harteveld had lived only half a mile away; God, she'd discovered that the distinctive green car she'd got used to seeing parked outside St Dunstan's on her morning runs had belonged to him. And now — this. Another body.

The scene cut to show a London street, instantly recognizable as Royal Hill, three grey-suited officers arriving carrying a yellow crate. Then a helicopter shot, a fleeting glimpse of the roofs of Malpens Street, and then a cut-back to ghostly figures in white suits meandering among police tape.

'This brings the unofficial death toll to six, only four of whom have been identified. Tonight Chief Superintendent Days of the south-east London Area Major Incident Pool refused to confirm they were investigating a link to Toby Harteveld.'

In her kitchen Susan, suddenly seized by an irrational fear, reached over and closed the window. A body in Royal Hill. How close had she come? Subdued, she finished chopping the garlic, uncomfortably conscious of her reflection slipping silently across the ghostly honeysuckle in the window. Chinese Five Spice, a dash of soy, and drop the pork in. Quickly she rinsed her hands and took the car keys from the top of the fridge. Michael would be waiting.

Outside it was warm and soft, the evening filled with jasmine from the flowering bush in the neighbour's garden. She paused for a moment. It was all over. Harteveld was dead, lying in a morgue somewhere, and she could give up this buzzing anxiety. The road looked as it usually did at night, insects swarming under the yellow streetlights, the palms in the neighbour's garden lending the air a swampy scent, as if you should expect the sound of cicadas. There was nothing unusual. A car she didn't recognize, something French, a Peugeot maybe, empty.

Maybe tonight she'd suggest to Michael that they fitted an alarm system on the house. With him working these late nights she'd feel safer. Or a dog. She walked the few yards to her Fiesta. That was an idea. A dog.

Inside the car was still hot from a day in the sun and filled with a sharp smell. Her husband had a habit of leaving his used cricket kit in the boot for days on end. 'I'll kill you, Michael,' she murmured, fumbling with the keys. She'd make him take the kit out and wash it before he went to bed tonight, remind him that they both had jobs and that he had to pull his weight around the house.

She chewed the inside of her mouth and fastened her seatbelt. A dog was a good idea. A boxer, or a Dobermann. Something big. Something muscular. She could take it jogging with her too, maybe that would make the truck drivers on Trafalgar Road think twice before they yelled at her on the street. By the light from the street lamp she found the ignition key, started the engine and checked the mirror. On the back seat a man sat up and smiled at her.