Birdman

5

By 10 a.m. the National Identification Bureau had another match on the prints. Victim number two was one Michelle Wilcox, a prostitute from Deptford. Her files were transferred from Bermondsey to Shrivemoor that morning as Caffery and Essex drove through the Rotherhithe tunnel to interview Shellene Craw's boyfriend. It was a fresh, sparkling day. Even the East End rushing past the car seemed alive, the poor, grimy London trees vivid with leaves.

'This Harrison character.' Paul Essex looked out across the oaks on Stepney Green past a row of blond-bricked Georgian houses — freshly painted, the pride of their bond-salesmen owners — to Harrison's red-brick Victorian tenement, blackened by years of pollution, forgotten by the march of gentrification. 'I know you don't think he's our offender.'

Caffery stopped the car and pulled on the handbrake. 'Of course not.'

'So what do you think?'

'Dunno.' He wound up the window, got out of the car and was about to close the door when he hesitated and put his head back inside. 'Our offender's got a car, that's certain.'

'He's got a car. Is that it?' Essex heaved himself out of the Jaguar and slammed his door. 'Haven't you got a better theory than ''He's got a car''?'

'No.' He span the car keys on his fingers and pocketed them. 'Not yet.'

In Harrison's building the lift was broken, so they climbed the four flights of stairs, Caffery stopping once in a while to let Essex catch up.

Maddox had explained Paul Essex to Caffery early on. 'Every team's got to have a joker. In B team we've got Essex. Likes geeing the lads up — swears he gets home at night and slips into a baby doll to do the hoovering. It's bullshit, of course — go along with it, but still take him seriously. Truth is he's solid, the cornerstone…'

And slowly Caffery was starting to believe in the innate goodness of this drayhorse of a man. He took his cues from the way women treated Essex: like a wounded old bear — they flirted and teased him, sat on his lap and lightly slapped him for his jokes. But maybe they secretly understood that he operated from an emotional base-line deeper than their capabilities; at the age of thirty-seven DS Essex still lived alone. This awareness brought Caffery moments of guilt for the ease and lightness of his life compared to Essex's. Even now the physical inequalities proved themselves: Caffery reached Harrison's cool, ready, Essex dragged himself the last few steps to stand panting at the top, sweating and red-faced, pulling on his shirt collar and tugging at his trousers where they stuck to his legs. He took several minutes to recover.

'Ready?'

'Yup,' he nodded, wiping his forehead. 'Go on.'

Jack knocked on Harrison's door.

'What?' The voice from inside the flat was sleepy.

Caffery bent down to the letterbox. 'Mr Harrison? Barry Harrison?'

'Who wants to know?'

'Detective Inspector Caffery.' He shot a look at Essex. They could smell marijuana. 'We'd like a few words.'

A hiss, and the sound of a body rolling out of bed. Then a tap running — a toilet flushed and the door opened, the safety chain neatly bisecting a face — bulbous blue eyes and a patchy beard.

'Mr Harrison?' He flashed his card.

'What's up?'

'Can DS Essex and I come in?'

'If you tell me why, yeah.' He was thin and freckled, naked from the waist up.

'We'd like to talk to you about Shellene Craw.'

'She's not here, mate. Hasn't been for days.' He started to shut the door but Caffery leaned his shoulder into it.

'I want to talk about her, not to her.'

Harrison eyed Caffery and then Essex as if deciding who'd come out best in a scrap. 'Look, she and me, we're finished. If she's in trouble, I'm sorry, but we weren't married or nothing, see, so I ain't responsible for her.'

'We won't keep you, sir.'

'You don't give up, do you?'

'No, sir.'

'Oh for fuck's sake.' The door closed and they heard the safety lock being unhooked. 'Let's get it over with, then. Come on, come on.'

Harrison's living room was small and grubby, opening on one side to a balcony and on the other to a kitchen dotted with pallid spider plants, KFC boxes. The floor was scattered with cigarette papers and tobacco.

Caffery sat, uninvited, on a blue PVC chair near the window and folded his arms.

'When did you last see Shellene, Mr Harrison?'

'Dunno. Coupla weeks.'

'Any more specific?'

'What's she got into now?'

'A couple of weeks, is that a week or a month?'

'Can't remember.' Harrison pulled on a T-shirt and took a cigarette pack from his jeans. He stuck a Silk Cut between clenched teeth and retrieved a disposable lighter from the floor. 'It was after my birthday.'

'Which is?'

'May tenth.'

'She was living here, wasn't she?'

'You're fucking good, you are.'

'What happened?'

'I dunno, do I? She did a runner. Went out one night and never come back.' He tensed his hand and smacked its heel across the other palm, letting it shoot away towards the window. 'But that was Shellene for you. Left half her crap in the bedroom.'

'Have you still got it?'

'No, I was, you know, so pissed off I chucked it — her stripping stuff and that.'

'She was a stripper?'

'On her good days. But with Shellene it's always borderline hooking. Catch her fucking Arabs in Portland Place, did you?'

'Did you report her missing?'

Harrison clicked his tongue sarcastically. 'Missing? Missing what? A conscience?'

'She left her stuff here, didn't you wonder?'

'Why would I? When she moved in here it was with just her make-up, ghetto blaster, a few syringes, y'know, the usual.'

'Did you wonder if something had gone wrong?'

'No.' He shook his head. 'No. We were near our end anyway. It weren't no big surprise to me when she never come back that night…' His voice trailed off. He looked from Essex to Caffery and back again. 'Hey,' he said, suddenly nervous. 'What're you getting at here?' When neither replied something dawned in Harrison's eyes. He hurriedly lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. 'I'm not going to want to hear this, am I? Come on. You better say it quick. What is she? Dead or something?'

'Yes.'

'Yes, what?'

'Dead.'

'God.' The blood drained from his face. He dropped onto the sofa. 'I should have guessed. I should've guessed the moment I saw you. A fucking overdose.'

'Probably not an overdose. Probably looking at an unlawful killing.'

Harrison stared at Caffery without blinking. Then, as if he could protect himself from the words, his hands went up to his ears. Pale pink needle tracks were visible on the white forearms.

'Jesus,' he forced out. 'Jesus, I can't—' He sucked hard on the Silk Cut, his eyes watering. 'Wait there,' he said suddenly, leapt up and disappeared into the corridor.

Caffery and Essex looked at each other for a moment. They could hear him shuffling round in the bedroom, drawers being opened. Essex spoke first.

'Didn't know. Did he?'

'No.'

They were silent for a moment. Someone below had woken and was firing up the stereo. Trance, the sort of thing Caffery had heard a thousand times interviewing around clubs when he was in CID. He shifted in his seat. 'What the hell's he doing in there?'

'I don't know…' Essex trailed off. 'Jesus, you don't think—'

'Shit.' Caffery jumped up and in the hallway slammed the flat of his hand against the bedroom door. 'Don't fucking shoot up on me, Barry,' he shouted. 'Can you hear me? Don't fucking do it. I'll have you for it.'

The door opened and Harrison's face appeared, immobile. 'You can't do me for jellies. They're prescription. Before the ban.' Holding the inside of his left elbow he pushed past them into the living room. Caffery followed, swearing softly.

'We need to speak to you. We can't do it if you're ripped to the tits.'

'I'm more use to you on it than off. I'll be clearer.'

'Clearer,' Essex muttered and shook his head.

Harrison dropped himself onto the sofa and pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around his calves in a strangely girl-like way. 'Spent most of my time with Shellene stoned.' He tilted his head back. For a moment Caffery thought he was going to cry. Instead he tightened his mouth and said, 'OK. Tell me. Where was she?'

'South-east.'

'Greenwich?'

Caffery looked up. 'Yeah. How d'you know?'

Harrison dropped his arms and shook his head. 'She was always hanging around there. Most of her work was down there. And when? When did it happen?'

'We found her yesterday morning.'

'Yeah but, you know—' He coughed. 'When did she—'

'About the time you last saw her.'

'Shit.' Harrison sighed. He lit another cigarette and pulled on it, dropping his head back, exhaling smoke towards the ceiling. 'Go on then, let's get it over with. What d'you want to know?'

Caffery sat on the sofa arm and fished his notepad out of his jacket. 'This is a statement, all right, so tell me now if you're too off your face to do it.' When Harrison didn't reply, Caffery nodded. 'OK, I'm taking that as a go-ahead. DS Essex here is our family liaison officer, he'll be the one you contact whenever you deal with us. He's going to stay with you after I've gone, go through the statement with you, ask you to help us contact Shellene's family. We want details till they're coming out of our ears: what she was wearing, what make-up she used, what underwear she had on, did she prefer EastEnders or the Street.' He stopped. 'And I suppose it's a waste of time him getting you in to see a CDT counsellor? Stop you turning your veins into pebbles?'

Harrison put his hand to his head. 'Jesus.'

'Thought so.' He sighed. 'Now, do you know where Shellene was going that night?'

'One of her pubs. She had a gig.'

'Name?'

'Dunno. Ask her agent.'

'Who is?'

'Who is Little Darlings.'

'Little Darlings?'

'Not well named, trust me on that. It's Earl's Court way.'

'OK. And any other names? Anyone she hung out with?'

'Yeah.' Harrison stuck the Silk Cut between his teeth. 'There was Julie Darling, agent.' He counted the names off on his fingers. 'And the girls — Pussy, funny how there's always a Pussy, isn't it? And Pinky and Tracy or Lacey or some shite, Petra and Betty and that—' He slammed his hands down on his knees, suddenly angry. 'That makes six, and that is the sum total of what I knew about Shellene's life, and you tell me that you're surprised I never reported her missing, like I knew or something, you bunch of fucking wankers—'

'OK, OK. Take it easy.'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' He was exasperated. 'I'm taking it easy. Fucking easy.' He turned and stared out of the window. No-one spoke for a moment. Harrison gazed out at the roofs of the Mile End Road, the greenish domes of Spiegelhalter's emporium high in the blue. A pigeon landed on the balcony and Harrison shucked his shoulders, sighed and turned to Caffery.

'OK.'

'What?'

'You better tell me now.'

'Tell you what?'

'You know. Did the cunt rape her?'

The sun had put Caffery into a better mood by the time he got to Mackelson Mews, Earl's Court. He found the agency easily: LITTLE DARLINGS on the door in peeling gold stick-on letters.

Julie Darling was a small woman in her mid-forties, shiny dyed-black hair cut in a neat page, her nose improbably tiny on the taut face. She was dressed in a strawberry-pink velour jogging suit and matching high-heeled mule slippers and she held her head up and back as if balancing an invisible glass as she led Caffery through the cork-tiled hallway. A white Persian cat, disturbed by Jack's presence, scampered ahead of them into an open doorway. Caffery heard a man's voice speaking to it in the depth of the room.

'My husband,' Julie said expressionlessly. 'I got him in Japan twenty years ago.' She closed the door. Caffery had a brief glimpse of a huge man in a vest, seated on the edge of a bed, scratching his stomach with the lugubriousness of a walrus. The room was lit dimly by the sun coming through a crack in the curtains. 'American air force,' she whispered, as if that explained why he wouldn't be joining them.

Caffery followed her into the office: a low-ceilinged room, brilliant sunlight coming through two small leaded windows. A bee buzzed in the window boxes, and beyond them a red E-type basked in the sun. Somewhere in the mews someone was practising arpeggios on a piano.

'Well.' Julie sat at her desk, crossed her legs and regarded him thoughtfully. 'Caffery. Now there's a name. Are you Irish?'

He smiled. 'Probably, generations back. County Tyrone via Liverpool.'

'Dark hair, dark blue eyes. Typical Irish. My mother always warned me off the Irish boys. ''If they're not stupid they're dangerous, Julie.'''

'I hope you listened, Miss, uh, Darling.'

'It's my real name.'

'Yes.' He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at the low ceiling. It was covered in glossy publicity photographs, countless faces staring down at him. 'I'd like to hear what you can tell me about—' He stopped.

Under a smiling blond face the name was printed. Shellene Craw.

So that's what you looked like.

'Shellene Craw was on your books?'

'Ah, so it's Shellene you want. This is no big surprise, Detective Inspector. She owes me two months' commission. Two hundred quid. And now she brings you to my door, asking about what? Drugs, I suppose?'

'I don't think you'll be getting your money.' He sat down and placed his hands on the desk. 'She's dead.'

Julie didn't miss a beat. 'I could have told you that was coming — she was an overdose waiting to happen. The clients complained. Said she had needle marks on the inside of her thighs. Put the punters off. Ho hum, two hundred quid. I'm going to guess she didn't leave it to me in her will.'

'When did you last hear from her?'

'Week before last. Then she didn't turn up to a gig last Wednesday, didn't call.' She paused, lightly drumming her nails on the desk. 'I lost that venue right off.'

'Where?'

'Nag's Head. Archway.'

'And what was the last place she did turn up?'

'Um…' Julie leaned forward in her seat and, licking a finger, flicked through a large loose-leaf file. He could see a seam of grey hair along her parting, the scalp very pink underneath. 'There.' She tapped a page. 'She must've turned up to the Dog and Bell because I didn't hear from them. That was a lunchtime gig, last Monday.'

'The Dog and Bell?'

'Trafalgar Road. That's in—'

'Yes, I know.' Caffery's skin tingled minutely. 'It's east Greenwich.' The aggregate yard was less than a mile away. He started a new page on his notebook. 'Did Shellene work on her own that day?'

'No.' She tilted her head and looked at him carefully. 'Are you going to tell me? Was it an overdose?'

'There was another girl on the show?'

Julie looked at him for a moment, her mouth twitching slightly. 'Pussy Willow. She only does Greenwich shows.'

'Has she got a real name?'

'We all have real names, Mr Caffery. It's only the very saddest of punters that believe our mummies and daddies really call us Frooty Tootie or Beverly Hills. Joni Marsh. She's been with me years.'

'Have you got her address?'

'She won't like it if I give it out. Specially to the pi—' Julie stopped herself and smiled slowly. 'Specially to a detective.'

'She won't know.'

She gave him a narrow look and scribbled an address down on the back of a business card. 'She shares with Pinky. Used to be on my books too. Becky, she's called, now that she's stopped.'

'Thank you.' He took the card. The air force husband was coughing up phlegm in the bedroom.

'Do you have a girl on your books called Lacey?'

'Nope.'

'Betty?'

Julie shook her head.

'And does the name…' He looked at his notes. 'The name Tracy ring a bell?'

'No.'

'Petra?'

'Petra? Yes.'

Caffery looked up. 'Yes?'

'Yes, I — Petra. Funny little thing.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Little?'

'Small, I mean.' She gave him a dirty look. 'We're not child pornographers, Mr Caffery. I mean one of the strippers. She pulled a fast one on me too, and me thinking I was a good judge of character.'

'She disappeared?'

'Off the face of the planet. I wrote to her hostel. Never got a reply, of course.' She shrugged. 'She didn't owe much so I let it drift. You put these things down to experience, don't you?'

'When was this?'

'Christmas. No, early February, because we'd just come back from Majorca.'

'Drugs?'

'Her? No. Wouldn't touch them. The others, yes. But not Petra.'

'When you say she was small—'

'Tiny bones. Like a little bird. And skinny with it.'

He shifted uncomfortably in the narrow chair. 'Do you remember the last gig she did?'

Julie gave him a long thoughtful look, then slowly, woodenly, turned to the book. 'Here.' She ran her finger across the page. 'January twenty-fifth. The King's Head. Wembley.'

'Did she ever do the Dog and Bell?'

'All the time. Her hostel was in Elephant and Castle. Joni knows her.' She licked her finger and flicked the page over. 'Odd,' she said faintly. 'She did the Dog and Bell the day before the King's Head. The day before she disappeared.'

'OK. I need her address.'

'Look.' Julie sat back and placed her hands on the desk. 'Tell me now what's going on.'

'And a photo of Petra.'

'I said, what's going on?'

He nodded at the ceiling. 'And that one of Shellene.'

She sniffed loudly and retrieved a file from under the desk. She flipped through it, pulling out two head-and-shoulders of Shellene and one badly lit full-length colour shot of a brunette in a fishnet leotard and held the photos out to Caffery without looking at him.

Petra wasn't pretty. She had very small features, dark eyes and the determined triangular chin of a street urchin. The only make-up she wore was a dark pencil outline on her mouth. Caffery held the picture so it caught the sunlight and looked at it for a long time.

'What is it?'

He looked up. 'Did she dye her hair?'

'They all do.'

'It looks—'

'Purple. Yeah, awful, isn't it? I told her not to.'

He dropped the picture into his Samsonite, thinking of the childlike corpse lying in the Greenwich morgue; the only one who had resisted death, the only one who had been restrained. He closed the briefcase, embarrassed by a sudden rush of feeling for a poor anorexic, bound, gagged and fighting for her life.

'Thank you for your help, Mrs Darling.'

'Are you going to tell me what Petra's got to do with Shellene?'

'We don't know yet.'

Julie said suddenly, 'She's dead too, isn't she? Little Petra.'

The two of them regarded each other across the table for a long time. Caffery cleared his throat and stood.

'Mrs Darling, please don't speak about this to anyone. It's very early days of the investigation. We appreciate your help.' He held his hand out, but she declined it.

'Will you tell me more when you can?' She looked very pale under her blue-black bob. 'I'd like to hear what happened to poor little Petra.'

'As soon as we know ourselves,' Caffery said. 'As soon as we know.'