Birdman

49

Inside the flat the rooms were dark, the curtains drawn tight, the air sour. They had borrowed plastic freezer bags from Mrs Frobisher to wear over their shoes and each step peeled flakes of dried matter from the sticky carpets.

'Look at this.' Essex stood in the doorway of the main bedroom. 'Can you believe it?' Across every inch of the walls photographs had been pasted: Polaroids, snapshots, some torn from magazines. Many were of Joni, but others were taken from Dutch or German porn magazines: showing a child sucking an engorged penis, a woman straddling an Alsatian and in a blurred still, from what looked to Caffery like a snuff movie, an Asian teenage boy strained on a bed, arms and feet tied apart, blood on his thighs.

From a fitted melamine wardrobe came the faint flutter of wings. Essex opened it and the two men stared speechless at the cage. A solitary zebra finch on its perch, feathers wet and clumped. It crouched there blinking silently at them. On the floor, amongst the grit, huddled four corpses, interleaved with maggots.

They moved through the rooms. Essex took a look inside the living room at what was taped to the walls and turned back to Jack — his face white.

'Sick,' he murmured. 'This man is sick.'

Polaroids of the victims in death.

Craw, Wilcox, Hatch, Spacek, Jackson. Raped, mutilated. One showed Shellene Craw wedged in a standing position, like a shop-window mannequin, between the television set and the wall, her eyes open, arms sticking out stiffly.

'The wig,' Caffery whispered, nodding at the Polaroid.

Essex came and stood behind him, giving a whistle through his teeth. 'You were right, Jack. You were spot on right.'

On the far wall they came face to face with a Polaroid of Susan Lister, naked and blood-streaked, bound and gagged, her eyes blackened and swollen.

'Oh, for fuck's sake.'

Blurred arcs across the photograph, across her face. A white shape in the bottom corner. Caffery understood. Bliss had photographed himself ejaculating over Susan Lister's broken face.

In the kitchen they found fresh blood on the draining board. Smashed plates on the floor. They inspected the freezer, the array of surgical tools in one of the drawers. In the second bedroom Caffery put his hand on Essex's arm. 'Look.'

Above the bed a fine spray of blood fanned across the wall like an ornamental headboard. The sheets were bloodstained, and in the centre of the mattress a yellowing towel curled around two jellied shapes. 'What are they?' Essex approached, cautious. 'They're like—'

'I know what they are.' Caffery stood and looked at the two implants, the little plug on the underside of one congealed with drying blood and fat. 'Joni. He cut them out of her.'

The world was dry by the time the blue Peugeot reached Wildacre Cottage. The bungalow lay at the end of an easement which bisected a field of corn, long and mellow and flat, like a blonde girl's wet hair. It was secluded — there was no danger of being observed as he dragged the women, pillowcases over their heads, into the dark bungalow and propped them up in the hallway, against the frosted glass panel at the side of the door.

When the Clitoris had started screaming Bliss's nerves got the better of him. He knew he had to risk the journey. Loading them had been relatively easy — one in the well beneath the back seat and the other into the boot. Covered with anoraks and an old sleeping bag. Though he was agitated, glancing up the street, expecting the police any minute — in practice, on this watery midweek lunchtime, there had been few people interested in stopping to watch an unremarkable-looking man load his car.

The shelter of the carport had helped. That and the fact that both women had been beaten into unconsciousness with the battery end of the power saw.

He went back to the car and took four Sainsbury's carrier bags from the boot, carrying them into the house, the screen door clattering behind him. He muttered to the two women as he unpacked the bags, filled bowls with M&Ms and wine gums, hung paper-chains in the windows and blew up pastel-coloured balloons. Telling them this was his birthday, explaining to them his plans for the day. Neither one could hear him but he mumbled on anyway, scratching at his face.

When Essex came out of the flat the rain had stopped. He went into the garden where the cranes of the building site were outlined against the clearing sky and found Jack standing in the middle of the lawn staring at something in the long grass.

'Jack?'

He didn't respond.

'Jack? What's up?'

Caffery looked round, his eyes blank. Silently he gestured to what lay on the ground.

'What is it?' Essex approached. At Jack's feet, in the wet grass, a bicycle. Painted white and grey. On its side as if it had been thrown there. 'A bicycle?'

'Rebecca's,' Caffery said quietly. 'It's Rebecca's.'

He called her flat on the way back to the car. The answerphone picked up. He left a message and called Shrivemoor.

Marilyn answered. 'Jack, good. I've just had Amedure on. That hair — it's a match. She wants you to—'

'Marilyn, listen to me. Tell Steve we're onto something — I need the TSG with us. And a forensic search — Quinn, Logan. We're in Brazil Street, PL.'

'OK, OK — hang on.' He heard her murmuring to someone. Then Maddox on the line.

'Jack? Where are you?'

'Lewisham. Brazil Street.'

'What number Brazil Street?'

'Thirty-four A.'

Maddox was silent for a moment. In the back ground someone was shouting excitedly. Maddox cleared his throat. 'Jack, we've got a hit on that address. We've seen it before. Harteveld's phone bill. He dialled someone at Thirty-four A Brazil Street twice the morning after Craw went missing and twice the week he topped himself. Logan and Betts are on their way over now.'

'It's him, Steve—'

'What've you got?'

'Photos, surgical gear, scalpels. The name is Malcolm Bliss. He's running scared. A blue Peugeot. He's got someone with him.'

'Oh God.' Maddox sounded weary.

'I think he's heading out to the country somewhere. I'll have an address in about ten. I want Territorial Support with us.'

'OK — Marilyn'll get onto CCIR — so a briefing at Greenwich in — what, thirty minutes?'

'Make it twenty.'