Birdman

39

The next morning Harteveld's body was hauled from the river at Wapping and taken to Greenwich for an autopsy. At the same time his solicitors, Schloss-Lawson & Walker, came back to AMIP with their client's property portfolio. Maddox and Caffery took one look and saw immediately what they wanted.

'A warrant for Halesowen Road, then?'

Maddox nodded. 'And when's the Jackson autopsy?'

'This afternoon — after Harteveld's.'

'OK — you attend Jackson's. We'll give Logan Halesowen — get someone from the crime unit to go with him, Quinn if she's free.'

When Caffery arrived at the Devonshire Street morgue Peace had already come out of X-ray and the external examination was complete — she had been photographed, taped for hair and fibres, and given anal, oral, vaginal swabs. One of the morticians handed Caffery a mask and oil of camphor.

'Your mobile,' she murmured, 'if it's not already—'

'Of course. Of course.' He switched off his phone, took a place on the loading bay ramp, leaned against the railings and looked down into the dissecting room.

'Good afternoon, Mr Caffery.' Krishnamurthi, in his green wipe-clean apron, didn't look up. He was making the coronal mastoid incision — slicing over Peace's head from ear to ear. 'I see you've drawn the short straw.'

'That's right.'

'I am told that the Mr Harteveld I encountered on my table this morning is the very self-same Mr Harteveld responsible for keeping me in work these last few weeks.' He gripped Peace's scalp between thumb and forefinger and slowly peeled it down, drawing away her face, exposing the blood-clotted cranium. 'Am I right?'

'You are. Have we got a time of death on Jackson?'

'I'm not an entomologist — but you're welcome to look.' He gestured to a row of stoppered phials on the side bench. 'I think you'll find your usual suspects — Diptera and calliphoridae, first or second instar, on the mouth, the nose, the vagina; and then on the wounds, flesh flies still larval. There's a PMI chart in the scrub room if you're really interested.'

'No, it's OK. It sounds just like the others?'

'That's right, Mr Caffery. Identical to the others.'

Less than half a mile away, Susan Lister woke. A bird was singing and a warm light played across the network of veins in her eyelids. Canned laughter from a TV somewhere. She thought she was in bed at home until she smelled urine, and realized the insides of her thighs were wet. Then she remembered.

A drill howling at her temple — a drill or was it an electric saw?

She opened her eyes and tried to sit up — for a moment jolting around uselessly on the floor, banging her head. Something had her restrained. She subsided and lay still, her heart thudding.

Don't draw attention, Susan. Wait a moment. First think through it.

She licked her sore lips and looked around herself. Assessing.

She was lying on cord carpet in a room lit by a fluorescent strip. About a yard away, under a brown velour sofa, she could see curls of hair and chocolate wrappers. A fine grey dust covered everything — now she could feel it gritty in her mouth, in her eyelashes. He'd arranged her on her side, her hands and feet trussed up behind her, laced together beneath her buttocks by something stout — it felt like nylon rope. But worse, much worse — her heart sank because this detail told her more than she wanted to know about this assault — she was naked.

He was going to rape her.

Jesus! She took a deep breath and tried not to cry out. Come on, Susan, she urged herself, keep calm — think sensibly; Harteveld is dead. This is a rape and you've always said you could live through rape if you had to — you've read about it — you'll survive if you don't fight, comply with everything he tells you and make mental notes of everything you see and hear. Vigorous notes. Everything. OK? Now… ready?

She took four deep breaths and twisted her eyes upwards.

The room was high-ceilinged. Artexed. There were two doors into the room. Panelled doors. Coving on three sides — it must be a conversion — a boarded-up fireplace was flanked in each alcove by wood-effect shelving units displaying hard-spined books, something technical. The distant laughter came from an episode of Bewitched playing quietly on a small TV: that might mean cable, which would limit the number of streets she could be in. Her confidence rose momentarily. But then she saw what was pinned to the walls and a small cry escaped her.

Photographs, torn from pornographic magazines; acts she could never have constructed, even in her darkest imagination. One showed a child being sodomized.

She started to shake.

Susan! Susan. NO — don't panic. Panic and you could die. Remove yourself. Be impartial — an observer. BE AN OBSERVER.

But her confident survivor's mind was weakening — by twisting her head up and back she could see, scattered on the floor about two feet away, seven or eight books. Some were open, some closed, their titles embossed in dull gold.

Appleton and Lange's — she narrowed her eyes — Appleton and Lange's Review for the Surgical Technology Examination. Next to that The Atlas of Craniofacial Plastic Surgery; Surgical Palliation of Unresectable Carcinoma; Stereostatic Core Breast Biopsy.

Fear put down new long roots in her chest.

She dropped her head and started to sob.

Krishnamurthi was three quarters of the way through the PM. He carefully ladled fluids from Peace's body cavity into a measuring jug perched on a dissecting table over her legs.

'Right, team.' He straightened up and looked round the room. 'What say we give Virchow a whirl today — just to keep our hands in. Pick-ups, Paula.' The mortician placed forceps on his palm. He carefully lifted the soaking little form out of Jackson's body cavity and dropped it onto the scales. Paula chalked up the weight on the board. No-one appeared surprised by the bird. Harteveld's case was notorious — they all knew what to expect.

'Good. Now…' Krishnamurthi peered into the chest cavity. 'Yes, extensive avulsion under the breast plate just as we saw with the others — someone look up the Read code for avulsion, for heaven's sake — keep the researchers from snapping at my heels—'

'Avulsion,' Jack asked from the ramp. 'What's avulsion?'

'Tissue ripped from the bone, or from its natural connective tissue.' Krishnamurthi pushed his face shield up and looked at him. 'And, Mr Caffery—'

'Yes?'

'Your SA, Jane Amedure, tells me this victim was recovered at a different site from the others.'

'That's right.'

'And was never taken to the wasteland?'

'No — surveillance has been sitting on it for the last two weeks. Why?'

'There's cement dust in the decedent's hair — on her face, just like the others. I think with the others we assumed it had come from the wasteland.'

Caffery frowned. 'OK.' He pressed his fingers lightly to his temples.

The flat in Halesowen Road.

He looked up. 'The CSC's got another residence to search this afternoon — I'll tell her to look out for it.'

Dear God, what are they going to find there?

Susan heard him come into the room and immediately quietened. She lay quite still. Preparing. She heard him cross to the opposite side of the room and tap, tap, tap on the wall. Agitated.

Reason with him. You can talk your way out of this. Talk — make him think of you as an individual. He wants to objectify you. Don't let him.

Slowly, every muscle on alert, ready to start talking, ready to fight for her life, she dared to lift her eyes.

He wasn't even looking at her.

He stood about three feet away, side on. He wore bird-egg blue hospital scrubs and a surgical mask and his hair was hidden in a checked cap, the type worn in operating theatres. At his feet was a red plastic toolbox. He was short, chubby, but he was agile, she knew, from the way he'd almost vaulted over the car seats last night. And he was strong. He was stronger than she would have believed.

He was staring intently at a photograph of a woman's face, tapping it with his finger. She had the small, smooth face of a doll. White-blond hair. Over made-up. Blue eyeshadow and plum-shined lips. He pressed his hands on the photo, covering her features, his two big thumbs neatly over the mouth as if he'd like to get them past her teeth, her tongue, her tonsils.

Then suddenly he turned. 'Well?'

Susan flinched. He'd known she was watching. Without even looking at her he could tell she was watching.

'Well?' He stepped towards her. Above the mask his eyes were round, restless.

'My name's Susan.' She spoke quickly, not a stammer. Don't show you're scared. 'My father is a magistrate. He's very powerful.'

'A magistrate!' The voice was light, amused. 'Is that meant to worry me?'

'No — I — oh God, what do you want from me?'

'What do you think? What do you think I want?'

Pray that he only rapes you, Susan, pray it won't be more.

'Please don't hurt me.' She curled up, sobbing, trying in vain to fold her tethered arms around her breasts, like a trussed, delimbed turkey. 'Please don't.'

'Isn't it uncomfortable with paps that big?' Damp hands reached over and gripped her breasts, trying to contain the struggling. 'How do you sit at a table with those in front of you? Don't they get in the way?'

Susan recoiled. She had felt the touch reach down into her stomach. Her groin. A betrayal. 'Please no, please—'

He stood and a gobbet of granular brown phlegm landed inches from her face. 'You know what I have to do. Don't you?'

She shook her head, tears falling into her hair.

'Answer me.'

'Don't hurt me—'

'I SAID YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO, DON'T YOU, WITH YOUR BIG FUCKING TITS!' He kicked her in the side and suddenly his voice became calm. 'And shut up that crying. You'll upset Mrs Frobisher.'

Susan gasped and rolled onto her front, still sobbing. He straddled her, her shoulders gripped tightly between his fat knees and yanked her head back by the hair. 'Now look.'

He leaned over and opened the toolbox.

She could see Wilkinson's scissors, tweezers, a tapering sable-tipped brush, curved palettes of iridescent make-up, turquoise, peach, fuchsia, red.

'This one, I think.' The click of metal, the snap of latex gloves being pulled on, something being removed from the toolbox — my God, what's that? A scalpel? He reached down and held her right breast. 'Now.' A drop of sweat fell from his forehead into her hair. 'Are we ready?'

At 3 p.m. DS Logan and DS Fiona Quinn arrived at the small flat on the Lewisham-Greenwich border. Accompanied by a uniformed officer they approached with serious expressions and warrant cards at the ready. They didn't expect an answer. Quinn spoke into her Sony Professional:

'It is three-fourteen p.m., seven Halesowen Road, note for the search register that the flat is unoccupied, no-one here to allow us entry, no neighbours, so under the Premises Code—' She held the pause button down and stepped back to allow the officer to step forward. 'We are using force to enter in pursuance of a section eight search warrant H/00— Bugger. Hold it.' In her pocket her mobile was ringing. She switched off the Professional, dug inside her overalls for the phone. It was Caffery — asking her to landline him. She did, from a phone box.

'How does it look?'

'If you'd let me get in I could tell you.'

'Look out for cement dust — maybe an outbuilding — a garage. That's where he's kept the bodies.'

'Will do. Now can I get on with it?'

'Of course, of course. I'm sorry.'