Birdman

53

Rebecca was treated at Lewisham General. Caffery had refused to let her go to St Dunstan's. There were CT scans, angiographies, blood transfusions. Ninety-four hours elapsed before the ITU consultants could be sure she would live. As soon as he got the news Jack made the decision he had been pondering. He played God and jury, weighed judgement in a personal court, and chose, quite calmly, not to confess to Bliss's killing.

For four days he had been considering his options: disciplinary proceedings, hearings, internal inquiries. A criminal conduct dismissal and an independent trial. He tested these against letting it rest, letting the world go on believing that Bliss had died in the accident — before he could be reached.

Now he told himself that this self-preserving choice could, paradoxically, give him a new weapon. He had killed and not confessed — he was now the predator who knew his quarry. He could stand upright and invisible in the killer's own amphitheatre. The decision made, he surprised himself by adapting quickly — by the time Bliss's inquest rolled around Caffery was effortless in his lies, nailing the coroner's gaze down as he delivered his neat string of untruths.

Odd how calm you are. Is that all there is to it? Is it really this simple to lie and be believed?

But, seamless as he imagined the change, Rebecca wasn't deceived. She saw immediately that he was carrying something new — she had touched his face on her first day of consciousness and said simply, 'What?'

He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it. 'When you're well,' he murmured. 'As soon as you're well, I promise.'

But it was slow; there had been three more blood transfusions before she was out of danger and ten days later she remained too weak to accompany him to the funeral. So he drove alone out to the small Suffolk church and sat parcelled into a cold pew next to Marilyn Kryotos, uncomfortable in his hired suit.

Two pews ahead, Essex's mother sat dry-eyed, too bewildered to cry, pinpoint butterfly bows shivering in the netting of her hat. Caffery had found himself embarrassed to see Essex's features so carefully distributed between her and her husband, as if it was a vulgarity for them to show themselves amongst the arum lilies in the nave. He wondered if he would recognize his own face meted out between his parents if he ever saw them again. He wondered what sort of hat his mother might wear to a funeral, and the realization that he had no idea, no sense, made goosebumps rise on his arms.

The canticles began. Kryotos inched forward on her pew next to him, resting her elbows on the prayer-book ledge. She dropped her head.

'Mummy?' Jenna, in a small black velvet dress, black tights and patent button-over shoes, slipped off the pew and clung to Kryotos's leg, staring worriedly up under her hair. 'Mummy?'

On Kryotos's right Dean sat quietly, pulling at the collar of his first adult shirt. He was embarrassed. None of them could pretend not to notice the tears darkening the tapestry hassock at Kryotos's feet.

Caffery remembered that feeling: like Dean, staring at his mother's tears falling from under the curtain of hair, feeling her shiver as she prayed, prayed for God to find Ewan.

'It's a crap excuse for not living your life.'

The words came with such clarity that he touched his forehead, holding his hand against his face, concerned that others might see his expression.

'You're supposed to have let it go by now — moved on.'

Wasn't this, he thought, what they'd all been saying in their own ways, the women, the girlfriends, over the years? Maybe they had been justified in their fury, maybe they knew better than he did about what to hold on to, what to allow to drift away. Here he was: thirty-four years old. Thirty-four and he still didn't know how to play the game, the big, important game. As if he hadn't fully inhabited his life but had sat looking the opposite way, watching and planning, trying to make amends, trying to trap the past, while his life played itself out over his shoulder. He could let it go on, continue to scratch at it — rise to Penderecki's bait, allow him to reinvent ways to keep the torment fresh — and trek on, alone and childless in this life. Or—

Or he could choose to drop the battle.

As the minister started the commendation — hushed, gently dipping — Caffery leaned forward very suddenly. Kryotos wiped her nose and looked up.

'What?' she whispered, putting her hand on his arm. 'What is it?'

He was staring into mid-air as if a ghost had risen from the transept up into the fan vaulting.

'Jack?'

After several seconds his face cleared. He sat back in the pew and looked at her.

'Marilyn,' he whispered.

'What?' He smelled so clean. She waited while they stirred; all those little life facts that he made her regret. 'What is it?'

'Nothing.' He smiled. 'Something crazy.'

After the wake he drove back to London — fast through the flat, sunny Suffolk fields. By the time he got home the day had slipped across to early evening: above the little terraced house the sky was streaked orange.

Jack hadn't been in Ewan's room for more than two weeks — now he went there without hesitation, throwing all the empty files into a binliner, tying it up, carrying it into the street and dumping it in the wheelie bin. He wiped his hands, went back into the house, removed his jacket, found a claw hammer in the cupboard under the stairs and unlocked the back door.

The garden had found its rhythm now July was near. Roused by the summer sunshine, it was blown full with life — brilliant acrylic-coloured flowers dotted the beds and the Rosa mundi, planted by his mother and now in its thirtieth year, stood quietly next to the fence, its sugar-pink medieval blooms unfolded like babies' hands. Jack ducked under the willow, went straight to the old beech and dropped the hammer in the grass at his feet.

Do it. DO IT. If you think about it now you'll waver.

He rolled up his sleeves, took a deep breath and gripped the lowest plank — levering it up against the trunk. It was weak and rotten. It almost leapt away from the tree — shooting a cloud of lichen onto his shirtfront.

No hesitating.

He carried the wood a few yards along the fence and hoisted it over, letting it drop into the deep undergrowth. He wiped his forehead, returned to the beech and started on the next plank.

The hammer lay unused in the grass and the shadows lengthened. Before long his palms were raw, sweat-streaked, his shirt was covered in moss and a solitary plank dangled from the tree's flank. As he closed his hands on it, taking a step back and bracing himself, something made him pause. A new and uneven element had attached itself to his horizon, changing the evening in the space of a breath.

He released the plank and looked up.

Drawn out of his house by some stale instinct, some old awareness — as if he could smell the change in Jack's intent — Penderecki had appeared in the garden across the cutting. He stood at the fence, in his braces and stained aertex vest, chewing and scratching the back of his head, his jewel-bright eyes blinking and watching.

Jack took a deep breath and straightened. Ordinarily he would have walked away, or, worse, been drawn in. But now he stood straight and cool — meeting Penderecki's eyes square-on. In control.

No trains passed. No sounds. Reflected in the windows of the terraced houses, bright evening clouds floated above the trees. A seagull, blown off course from the Thames, circled overhead eyeing the two men. And then Ivan Penderecki's eyes flickered.

It was little more than a shadow but Jack saw it.

It meant the scales had tipped.

He smiled. Smiled slowly, his heart rising. He took a step back and in a single move wrenched the plank up from its moorings. He carried it to the fence, paused long enough to make sure Penderecki was still watching and flung it ten feet or more into the undergrowth. Along the 'death trail'. The last place he'd seen Ewan.

The plank landed, bounced twice, momentarily visible above the grass heads and cowslips, executed one more cartwheel and came to rest, out of view beneath the green. He wiped his hands and looked up.

Good.

Penderecki's expression had changed.

He hesitated for a moment, tapping his fingers on the fence, lizard eyes lowered, flickering uncomfortably from side to side. Then quite suddenly he hiked up his braces, spat into the cutting, wiped his mouth and, without looking up, pushed himself away from the fence. He turned — his back rigid now, arms stiff at his sides — and walked with scientific precision straight back to the house. Closed the door neatly behind him.

Across the cutting, Jack — dressed in the second mourning suit of his life, sweat darkening the shirt — knew it was over. He dropped his head and stood against the fence, hands linked in the wire, his heart slowing while the evening gathered around him.

Suddenly a commuter train roared by, dotted with city workers late from the office. He looked up, astonished. As if the train was the last thing he had expected to see on a railway line. He stretched forward and watched the train's yellow rump dwindle in the distance. When it had disappeared under the Brockley bridge he continued to watch the little shimmer of movement for a long time, until he didn't know if he was looking at sky or evening heat or a trick of the light.

He went back into the house, changed out of the suit, showered and drove to Lewisham Hospital.