Birdman

48

The house-to-house was being organized at Shrivemoor; the incident room smelled of coffee, freshly laundered shirts and aftershave. Kryotos and Essex were with Maddox in the SIO's room when Jack arrived — hair wet, his suit crumpled. Ignoring their faces, he pulled an A to Z from his desk, opened the Lewisham page. The answer was with him, shoulder to shoulder — as close as his own pulse. He only needed to point the light in the right direction—

Quickly he scribbled down five names. Every street within a hundred-yard radius from the Brazil Street builder's site. 'Marilyn,' he said, rising from the chair and holding the paper up. 'Run these through HOLMES and give me the hits—'

He stopped.

The St Dunstan's fax still lay on the desk from last night, the top page crumpled over. The 'B's:

Bastin, Beale, Bennet, Berghassian, Bingham, Bliss, Bowman, Boyle.

'Jack?'

But Jack's face had changed. His eyes were locked on the address under Malcolm Bliss's name.

34A Brazil Street.

The face in the painting — the bad teeth. Bliss complaining about the building work when they'd first met in St Dunstan's. Jesus — Jesus.

'Jack. You with us?'

He looked up. Maddox, Essex and Kryotos were staring at him.

'Are you with us?'

'Yes, I…'

'I was just saying you can head up the house-to-house today.' Maddox crossed his arms. 'Cobble together a questionnaire with Marilyn.'

'No.' Jack ripped the top page off and shoved it into his pocket. 'I need one of the team.'

Maddox sighed. 'Go on, then. Take who you want.' He jerked his chin at Essex. 'Him, I suppose.'

Bliss wrenched her towards the hatch, across the draining board, her hip bone slamming against the sink. A teapot clattered to the floor, sprayed cold tea on her legs.

'WHAT THE—?'

'Shut up,' he hissed. 'Shut up and don't shout.'

'MALCOLM!'

His warm hands clamped around her arm.

'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?'

'I said shut up.'

And then the tape — the packing tape, the fucking packing tape that I opened for him — winding around her wrist. She flung her weight against the sink, rammed her other arm through the small hatch. Fumbled for his hands. Found them. Clawed. Hit. But he didn't flinch.

He's strong. The little bastard, strong — you'd never know it to look. He's trapping you—

Now his pink eyes close to hers, hands fumbling to press a length of tape over her mouth. No! She whipped her head away, but the tape got a precarious hold and suddenly Bliss was disappearing — off down the corridor.

Jesus. She twisted the hand violently. The tape contracted and dug deeper into her wrist. What the fuck is he doing?

A door slammed. The flat became silent.

Rebecca lay across the sink, breathing hard through her nose, slapped into hyper-consciousness. She swiped away the tape on her mouth. Balled it and flung it in the sink. He'd taped her hand to — she reached through the hatch and felt with her free hand — a pipe: her fingers were curled and taped closed around a water pipe. She hiked a knee up on the sink, hoisting her body onto the draining board. Dishes clattered into the sink. The aluminium bent, boomed back into shape as she moved on her knees towards the hatch.

'JONI!' She yelled it down the hallway. 'JONI!'

Silence.

'JONI!'

Silence.

Rebecca dropped her head, panting.

Right, come on, calm down and get this straight. What the fuck is he playing at, the little prick? What the fuck does he think he's doing?

The thought came clean and cold. Drove her breath away.

Oh my God, no—

She froze — kneeling there on the draining board in her wet clothes, her eyes wide, knees bleeding, not breathing for long seconds, only her pulse thudding.

Don't be ridiculous, Becky — not him, not him, surely not.

And why not him? Joni's not even here. He lied. Lied to get you into his flat.

But Malcolm?

Why not Malcolm?

And then came the adrenaline, white-hot, pumping along her system, jump-starting her again. She hauled in a breath. Twisted her hand frantically, tearing at the tape. Ready to pull her own arm off rather than be trapped here.

You big tough streetwise girl — you FUCKING IDIOT — you walked straight into this.

'Keep quiet.' It was a whisper, in her ear. 'Keep your fucking mouth shut or I'll use this.'

DI Basset was sitting behind his desk, his feet stretched out, the chair tipped back a little, his hands lightly clasped over his stomach. He'd been here over an hour, gazing out of the window at people shopping on Royal Hill, reaming out dirt from his nails with a paper clip. He was thinking about Susan Lister and her husband. The DCS had given him a lecture that morning about liaising more closely with AMIP.

On his desk the phone rang.

'DI Basset, CID.'

'Please. Please do something, Officer. I'm at the end of my tether with this. There's been screaming and yelling now. I'm not imagining it.'

Basset let his chair drop. 'Hello? Who is this?'

'Violet, Violet Frobisher.'

Rebecca whipped round. Panting, eyes wild, teeth bared.

He stood a discreet foot away — just out of reach — his finger up to his swollen lips. He opened his cardigan and, averting his eyes as if what he was showing her was so indelicate he couldn't bring himself to look, pointed downwards to his groin. Reluctantly she dropped her eyes. And there, tucked in the waistband of his slacks, resting like a papoose against his hairless stomach, a dark-blue cordless power saw.

He stroked it tenderly, sighing as if it was part of his own flesh.

'I remember your clitoris, Pinky. I've seen your little pink clit.'

'Keep away from me.' She shrank back. The tap dug into her spine, water dripped down her back.

'If you're good, and keep quiet, later on I'll lick your clitoris for you.' Through gaps between the pegged teeth his wet bulbous tongue was visible. Like a tomcat tasting the air, scenting a female. He held his hand up, stretched taut, the palm to his mouth, stretched his tongue out until the roots showed and licked his palm, from the base of his wrist to the bottom of his fingers. 'Mmmmm. Little pinky clitoris. Would you like that?' He smiled, savouring the words. 'Pinky clitoris. Lovely little pinky clitoris—'

'Fuck you.' She wrenched her hand desperately. 'Fuck you.'

'No!' Bliss slammed his hands on the draining board. 'Fuck you! Bitch!' He grabbed the saw from his waistband and squeezed it at her face. 'Fucking bitch!'

She recoiled, twisting frantically. The tape on her hand stretched and frayed. Then suddenly she was free. The momentum sent her tumbling off the sink, Bliss shadowing her. She hadn't even caught her balance when the heavy battery handle of the saw came down hard on the back of her neck.

Caffery slowed the Jaguar to a crawl. They crept along Brazil Street.

10, 12, 14.

Past the gates to the schoolhouse. The rain had eased and the JCB was moving now, up and down the tracks.

28, 30, 32, 34.

34.

It had been double-glazed and pebble-dashed; greying lace curtains hung in the top windows. There was no front lawn, the driveway had been extended and an ugly carport tacked onto the side. Empty.

'I know him,' Essex said as Caffery let the car roll past. A bottle-green Rover was parked in the driveway, half hidden by the low brick wall, and a tall, greying man in a dark suit stepped out, looked into the carport and straightened his tie. Caffery pulled the Jaguar into the kerb.

'That's DI Basset. Greenwich CID. Come on.'

They hurried back down the street, pulling on their jackets, stopping in the next door's driveway, out of view of the lower windows. Basset had his hands in his pockets and was looking in the window of the ground-floor flat. When he noticed Essex gesticulating from the neighbour's front garden he looked puzzled. Then alarmed.

He hurried over to them. 'Jesus H. Christ,' he hissed. 'I'm not treading on anyone's toes here, am I? I should have checked with you, but it was starting to look as if you weren't going to get to her, and she was driving me nuts over the phone—'

'Slow down,' Caffery whispered, plucking his sleeve and drawing him further behind the fence. 'Now what're you saying?'

'It's Frobisher, the one I told you about.'

Caffery and Essex exchanged a look. 'The one you told us about?'

'Yeah, you know, the one with the neighbour.'

'I've lost the plot here,' Essex whispered.

'I called you. Remember? Left a message with a DI, said you ought to check it out? I didn't hear so I just assumed—' He shifted uncomfortably, looking from Caffery to Essex, and back again. 'Rule number one, eh? Never assume. I take it you know nothing about Mrs Frobisher and her neighbour? The smells? The leaking freezer?' He stood on tiptoe and shot a look over the fence. 'Dead birds in the dustbins and now someone screaming in the flat?'

Caffery closed his eyes and put his hand to his head. 'We've got a suspect in Thirty-four A. That's this house.'

'Frobisher is Thirty-four B. His upstairs neighbour.'

'And you told our DI — when?'

'About a week back. About the time the press were breaking the Harteveld story.'

'Fuck.' Caffery looked at Essex, who was staring at his shoes.

'Diamond,' he said.

'The same,' Caffery sighed. 'OK.' He straightened up. 'What have we got? Have you spoken to anyone in there?'

'No-one in.'

'You've been in?'

'No, Mrs Frobisher called about twenty minutes ago, knickers in a twist, said she'd heard screaming. Poor old cow's frightened out of her wits. Didn't want to bother us again because she thought—'

'She thought we were dealing with it?'

'Yes.' Basset looked embarrassed. 'Shit, y'know the CS's going to love this.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Can't be helped. Can't be helped.' A noise from the house. Basset leaned around the dividing fence and beckoned them to follow. The front door had opened and Mrs Frobisher stood on the doorstep wearing a blue quilted housecoat and men's carpet slippers. A tortoiseshell cat weaved around her ankles.

'Mrs Frobisher.' Basset approached, his hand outstretched. 'Nice to see you.' For a moment she only blinked at his hand, then placed hers in it, looking over his shoulder at Caffery and Essex. 'I'm sorry, meet my colleagues. DI Caffery and DS Essex.'

She nodded at the two solemn-faced men. 'I was making some tea.'

'Lovely,' Essex said stepping inside.

The flat was clean but cluttered, magazines piled in corners, a faint smell of food underlying the scent of pine air freshener. The men sat in an annexe to the kitchen, on threadbare armchairs, looking at Mrs Frobisher's rambling collection of ornaments: stuffed toys, a selection of service station mugs, photos of Gregory Peck clipped from magazines and mounted in faux silver frames.

In her kitchen Mrs Frobisher talked to herself as she matched Blue Geranium cups with striped saucers. She found a crocheted pink tea cosy and opened a packet of custard creams.

'It was yesterday afternoon, about fourish because I'd been watching Judge Judy and had just made a cup of tea.' She put the tray down. The cat was under the table, its paws placed neatly side by side, eyes closed complacently. 'I called Tippy and she was just having a saucer of milk, and then I heard a commotion. He was outside, with a young lady.'

'What did she look like, the young lady?'

'They all look the same to me. Blonde. Skirt up to here. Very tiddly, stumbling around in the front. She had a turn on the driveway and he had to carry her inside. Well, I didn't hear hide nor hair of her after that. Didn't think no more of it. Not until this morning then all of a sudden I heard—' The tea cup she was holding trembled slightly. 'I heard her screaming. Curdle your blood, a sound like that.'

'Do you have a key to downstairs?'

'Oh no. He doesn't rent from me. But—'

'Yes?'

'I noticed he left a window open, he was in that much of a hurry to get out.'

'Any idea where he's gone?'

'He's got another place, I know that. Somewhere in the country, I believe. Maybe he's gone there. He took the car.' She looked at DI Basset. 'You said to look at the name of his car.'

'And did you?'

She nodded. 'A Peugeot. I should have known, my daughter-in-law drives one.'

Essex got in through the casement window while Caffery waited outside, in the carport, thinking how sheltered this was, how easy it would be to back a car up to the doorway, open the boot and—

'Jack.' Essex opened the door. His face was white. 'It's him. We've found him.'