Birdman

6

AMIP relies heavily on the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, the cross-checking database known by its acronym: HOLMES. The pivot in any team is the HOLMES 'receiver' — the officer who collates, extracts and interprets the data. At Shrivemoor that person was Marilyn Kryotos.

Caffery had liked Marilyn instantly: plump and languorous, she drifted through the day, talking in her low, quirky voice about her kids, their pets, their illnesses, their small triumphs and their knee scrapes. The universal mother, Kryotos seemed to deal with a murder in the same resigned way she'd deal with a dirty nappy: as if it were a faintly unpleasant, but correctable, fact of life. It pleased him that her first choice of companion in the team was Paul Essex: as if their friendship endorsed Caffery's own judgement of the pair.

Jack encountered Marilyn that evening when he returned to Shrivemoor with his notes. She was carrying action dockets from the SIO's room to the incident room and he knew immediately something had her ruffled.

'Marilyn.' He leaned towards her. 'What's up? The kids?'

'No,' she hissed. 'It's bloody F team. They're moving in and driving me loony toons. They want this, they don't want that. The latest is that they want a separate bloody office, like they're better than us or something.' She pushed dark hair out of her eyes. 'The CS's got a hair up his bum about this case and he's making us suffer for it. I mean look, will you, Jack, just look at this place, it's not big enough for one investigation team, let alone us and them.'

Caffery saw what she meant — taking his notes into the indexers he had to push past unfamiliar faces in the incident room. The F team officers all wore crisp shirts and ties, many of them with fresh-from-the-cellophane creases. That pride in their clothing would wear thin after a week of fifteen-hour shifts, he knew.

''Scuse me, mate.' Someone caught his arm. A sharp-faced man, shorter than Caffery, tanned, with pale blue eyes and a slim little unbroken nose. His yellow hair was slicked into a gleaming shield curved over his head. He wore a crisp, bottle-green suit, and was carrying two more in a dry cleaner's bag over his shoulder. 'You got somewhere I can hang these?'

Caffery found Maddox in the SIO's office, signing overtime forms. He threw the car keys on the desk.

'The Dog and Bell.'

'I'm sorry?'

'The Dog and Bell. It's a pub in east Greenwich.'

Maddox leaned back in his chair and looked at him carefully. 'Well?' He opened his hands. 'What are you thinking?'

'A Q and A. I'd want to look at any regulars with medical connections.'

'That'll get the press hopping. They won't stick to the moratorium if we open our mouths in public. I'll run it by the CS, but no.' He shook his head slowly. 'I think he'll say no. Not yet. You must've got other leads?'

'Names. A possible ID on victim three.'

'OK, so get Marilyn to divvy those up. What's the most promising one?'

'Joni Marsh. Working the Dog and Bell the day Craw disappeared.'

'Right, you take that tomorrow. But take someone else with you, for God's sake. You know how these women can be.' A knock on the door and Maddox sighed. 'Yeah? What?'

'Mel Diamond. DI Diamond, sir.'

'Come in, Mr Diamond. Come in.'

The yellow-haired officer came in, shucking his suit sleeves down so they covered his cuffs. 'Evening, sir.' He ignored Caffery and extended his tanned hand to Maddox, briefly flashing a micro-thin wristwatch. 'You won't know me, but I know you. From the Met boat club. Sir.'

Maddox paused a moment, his small face unresponsive.

'Chipstead,' Diamond prompted.

'Good Lord.' Maddox came out from behind the desk and shook his hand. 'Of course, of course. I know the face. So' — he leaned against the desk and folded his arms, looking Diamond up and down — 'so you're the lucky DI who's joining us. Welcome to Shrivemoor.'

'Thank you, sir.' His voice was fractionally too loud for the small office, as if he was used to being listened to. 'All the way from tranquil Eltham.'

'We'll be putting you straight in: you and your men on the knock tomorrow. Do a three-mile diameter. That OK with you?'

'It'll have to be OK, won't it? The governor wants us on routines, back-up to the real team.'

Maddox paused. 'Yes, there's not much,' he said carefully. 'Not much we can do about it, Mr Diamond. I'm sure you're aware of that.'

'Well, of course,' he said. 'Of course I'm aware. And I have absolutely no problem with it. No problem at all. If it's OK by the governor, it's OK by me — that doesn't need saying.' He nodded. Then, as if to draw a line under the issue, he smiled, waved a hand in the direction of the photos on the walls, and said, 'Nice boat. She yours?'

'Yes.' Maddox was hesitant.

'She's a Valiant.'

'Yes she is, indeed she is.'

'Good boats, Valiants. Some find them a bit tubby, but I like them. Marvellous cruisers too.'

'Yes, well.' Maddox was warming now. 'Hate to say it but the Americans usually come up trumps with cruisers. Mammoth indulgence, of course.'

'A cutter won the Met's Frostbite run this year.' Diamond's tongue moved inside his mouth. 'It wasn't by any chance…?'

'Yes.' Maddox nodded modestly. 'Yes, indeed.'

Standing against the wall, his arms folded tightly, Caffery was surprised to find himself irritated by this exchange. As if the benefit of Maddox's support and affability was his exclusive right, not something to be switched on a whim to another DI. Irrational though it was — he's not your father, Jack, you don't have any rights to him — he was angered to see Maddox this vulnerable to flattery, and when DI Diamond grinned, delighted — 'Good God, good God. Just wait till I tell my mates who I'm working with' — Caffery turned away and quietly left the room.