Birdman

8

It was the sort of overhead sun that induced headaches and shrank shadows to dense borders around objects. Caffery kept the windows open as they drove, but Essex complained so much about the heat, made such a show of running his fingers under his collar and billowing out his shirt front, that Caffery gave in; when they parked they both locked their jackets in the boot of the Jaguar and walked down Greenwich South Street rolling up shirtsleeves.

Number eight turned out to be two floors of a Georgian house above a junk shop.

'Harrison remembered what Craw was wearing,' Essex said as they ducked inside the small doorway on the left. 'Clear plastic sandals with pink glitter in the heels, black tights, a miniskirt and he thinks a T-shirt.' He leaned on the intercom. 'Sounds my sort of woman.'

'How're her parents taking it?'

'Like they don't give a shit. They're not coming down to London, can't find the train fare. ''She were a right little prossie, Sergeant, if that's any help,'' is Mum's idea of helping the police.'

The metallic intercom box suddenly crackled to life, making them both jump. 'Who is it?'

Caffery took his sunglasses off and leaned in to the intercom. 'Detective Inspector Jack Caffery. Looking for Joni Marsh.'

A few moments later the door opened and a slim, chestnut-haired girl looked out at them. In her late twenties, he guessed, but the long hair, the sensible flat leather shoes on tanned feet and a short, sky-blue corduroy pinafore dress lent her a college-girl freshness.

He held up his warrant card. 'Joni?'

'No.' Paintbrushes stuck out of the two pinafore pockets, making her look as if she'd been interrupted in art class. An art class at an expensive girl's school. 'Joni's upstairs. Can I help?'

'You are?'

She gave a slight smile and extended her hand. 'Becky. Rebecca, I mean. Joni and I share.'

Caffery shook her hand. 'Can we come in?'

'I, that is, we—' She looked embarrassed. 'Well — no. Not really. I'm sorry.'

'We want to ask some questions, about someone Miss Marsh knows.'

Rebecca pushed her fringe away from her green eyes and stared past them into the street as if she expected they'd come with snipers trained on the doorway. 'It's a bit — it's a bit awkward.' She had a very soft voice, educated, listenable, a voice that could stop other conversations with a whisper. 'Can't we speak out here?'

'We're not interested in the blow,' Caffery said.

'What?'

'I can smell it.'

'Oh.' She looked at her feet, embarrassed.

'We're not after that. You have my word.'

'Um.' She tucked her bottom lip under very white teeth. 'OK, OK.' She turned. 'You'd better come in.'

They followed her into the cool depths of the house, past a mountain bike propped up against the banisters, Essex glazed over by the swinging hair and long tanned legs on the stairs in front of him.

Inside the flat she led them through a small hallway — in a bedroom to the right Jack glimpsed a discarded pair of cotton knickers in a pool of sunlight before Rebecca pulled the door closed and showed them into a large room.

'My studio,' she said.

Light streamed through two sash windows, casting twin white rectangles on the bare floorboards. The walls were hung with five oversized watercolours in brilliant, splashy pigments. In the centre of the room a girl wearing a lime-green halterneck and black bell-bottoms was hurriedly spraying puffs of Impulse into the air, wafting it around, her bracelets jingling. When she heard them she dropped the deodorant, grabbed a small clingfilm packet from the table and turned to them, hands behind her back like a guilty child. Her hair was dyed Viking blond, her face like a painted china doll, comically wide blue eyes, a button nose. Caffery could see she was stoned.

'Joni?' He flipped open his warrant card. 'Joni Marsh?'

'Um — yeah.' She peered at the card. 'Who're you, then?'

'Police.'

Her eyes widened. 'Police? Becky, what the f—'

'It's OK. They're not interested in the gear.'

'Yeah?' She was dubious, twitchy, moving from foot to foot.

'Yeah,' Caffery said.

Joni pushed hair behind her ears and inspected him — weak blue eyes flittering suspiciously, her mouth closed — taking in the shirtsleeves, the dark uncombed hair, the hard stomach. Suddenly she giggled loudly. 'No, hang on.' She put a hand to her mouth. 'Rilly the Bill? You sure?'

'Tell you what, Joni.' Caffery put his warrant card in his shirt pocket. 'Do you want to get rid of that stuff? So we can move on?'

She blinked uncomprehendingly at him, at Rebecca and back to Caffery. Her make-up reminded him of the autopsy photographs, bright sea-colour eye shadow and lips painted in a high Cupid's bow. 'You sure you're the Bill?'

'Joni?' he repeated. 'The blow. Do you want to go and dump it somewhere?'

'Joni.' Rebecca took her arm. 'Come here.' She led her into the kitchen and the two men heard Rebecca talking in a low patient voice. Through the door crack Caffery could see a large oak table, Matisse prints on the walls and a chest freezer in an alcove. Presently he heard Joni's footsteps on the stairs, a door slamming, her feet clattering back down and then the two women talking in the kitchen — giggling and clunking around in the fridge.

Caffery put his hands in his pockets and wandered around the room, looking at the sketches dotted on trestle tables. Many were smudged charcoal nudes, an arm decipherable here, a tossed head there. One — a large watercolour — showed a woman three-quarters to the artist, rolling a stocking down her calf.

'Hey.' Essex was looking at a half-finished painting propped on a wooden easel. 'Jack. Check this out.'

A woman stood in front of a tasselled burgundy curtain, her arms raised with studied insouciance. The watchers — her audience of three men — had been sketched over the background wash in broad, flat sweeps of charcoal.

'Thought you'd find that,' Joni murmured from the doorway. 'It's me.'

The men turned.

'She's a stripper, you know.' Rebecca stood beside her holding an ice bucket filled with beers.

'We know,' Essex said.

'Yeah.' Joni pushed one hip out, hands in pockets. 'Thought you might.'

Rebecca came to stand behind them at the easel.

'Did you do this here?' Caffery asked. 'In the studio?'

'No, no. I started it in the pub. I was just doing some finishing touches.'

'You do a lot of work with the girls? You know a lot of them?'

'They're not monsters, you know.' She smiled at him with her head on one side, as if he made her want to laugh. 'I did it myself for a while. It put me through art school. Goldsmiths'.'

'Maybe we should… uh.' He looked around the room. 'Look, why don't we all sit down. Have a talk.'

'Ah.' Rebecca put the ice bucket down and wiped her hands. The bucket had left a little darkened patch on the corduroy dress. 'Now that sounds sinister.'

'De-eeep,' Joni agreed.

'Maybe it is. Maybe it is.'

'Well, if it's going to be heavy,' Rebecca announced, pulling beers from the bucket, 'I, for one, need a drink.' She held a bottle out to Essex. 'Can I tempt you and then sell the story to the newspapers?'

Essex didn't hesitate. 'Yeah, ta.'

She handed one to Caffery — who accepted it without a word — crossed to the window and sat on the sill, her bare knees raised, her own bottle clutched against her narrow ankles. Essex stood near the kitchen doorway, shifting from foot to foot, fiddling with the beer cap and stealing looks at Joni's breasts.

'Right.' Jack cleared his throat. He stood in the centre of the room. 'Business.'

He told them quickly, presenting the facts in neat, unadorned packages: the five women lying in a morgue only streets away, the connection with the pub. When he'd finished Joni shook her head in disbelief. She wasn't smirking now. The fun was over.

'Oh man. This is bad.'

Rebecca sat motionless, staring up at him with dismay in her clear, feline eyes.

'Do you need some time?'

'No, no.' She curled up tighter, hugging herself, her arms shaking, her knees drawn up to her chin. 'No, go on.'

Caffery and Essex waited patiently for the two women to work through their shock. They spoke for almost an hour, at first in disbelief — 'Tell me again — Shellene, Michelle and Petra?' — then later constructively, turning the dry facts over in their own hands, becoming sleuths. The Dog and Bell emerged quickly as a touchstone for the local drugs and prostitution community. Anything, it seemed, that was going to happen in east Greenwich was likely to have a connection with the beat-up little pub on Trafalgar Road. It had been there that Rebecca and Joni had met Petra Spacek, Shellene Craw and Michelle Wilcox. They also believed they knew victim four.

'Very bleached, white-blond hair, yeah?' Joni held up a chunk of her own hair. She was sober now, clear-headed. 'Like mine. And a Bugs Bunny tattoo, here?'

'That's right.'

'That's Kayleigh.'

'Kayleigh?'

'Yeah, Kayleigh Hatch. She's a, you know—' She mimed an injection to the inner elbow. 'A serious user.'

'Address?'

'Dunno. She lives with her mum, I think. West London.'

Caffery noted the name. He was seated now, against the wall, on a small wooden bench near the easel. When Rebecca had brought more beers from the kitchen she had pulled a chair up and sat less than two feet away from him — bent forward, her slim arms folded loosely on her knees. Innocent: but Jack found her closeness unnerving.

He looked across at Joni.

'Something else.'

'Yeah?'

'You worked with Shellene Craw last week.'

'Uh huh. I did.'

'Think back — did she leave with anyone on that day? Did anyone come to collect her?'

'Uh—' Joni licked her lips and stared at her tangerine-painted toenails peeping out from her cork-heeled sandals.

'Hello?'

'Yes, I'm thinking.' She looked up. 'Becks?'

Rebecca shrugged but he caught the ghost of the look Joni had given her. It was gone in a second, like a burst soap bubble, leaving him to wonder if he'd imagined it.

'No,' Rebecca said. 'She didn't leave with anyone.'

'You were there?'

'I was painting.' She indicated the sketches on the trestle table.

'OK. I want—'

He stopped. Off guard for a moment, he had noticed how goosebumps had raised on Rebecca's legs. This sudden, close, microscopic sense of her skin put him off track and she caught the change. She dropped her eyes to where he was looking, understood, and raised her eyes to his.

'Yes?' she said slowly. 'What else do you want from us? What else can we do?'

Caffery straightened his tie — she's a witness, for Christ's sake.

'I need someone to identify Petra Spacek.'

'I can't do it,' Joni said simply. 'I'd puke.'

'Rebecca?' His will stretched out to her. 'Will you do it?'

After a moment she closed her mouth and nodded silently.

'Thank you.' He swallowed the remainder of his beer. 'And you're absolutely certain you didn't see Shellene Craw leave the pub with anyone?'

'No. We'd tell you if we had.'

They walked back to the car. Essex looked drained.

'You OK?'

'Yes,' he croaked, clutching his chest and grinning. 'I'll get over it. I'll get over it. Do you think they're gay?'

'You'd love that, wouldn't you?'

'No seriously, do you reckon?'

'They had separate bedrooms.' He looked at Essex's face and wanted to laugh. 'They weren't real, you know.'

Essex stopped with his hand on the car door. 'What'you talking about?'

'Joni. Silicone. They weren't real.'

Essex put his elbows on the car roof and stared at him. 'And what makes you such an expert?'

He smiled. 'Experience? Three decades of changing shapes in Men Only? I can just tell. Can't you?'

'No.' Essex was open-mouthed. 'No. Since you ask. No, I couldn't tell.' He climbed huffily into the car and put his seatbelt on. They'd driven a short way when he turned to Caffery again. 'You sure?'

'Sure I'm sure.'

Essex sighed wearily and looked out of the window. 'What is the world coming to?'

It was still light when Caffery got home, and he found Veronica on a recliner on the patio, sullen and silent, watching the shadows lengthen in the garden. She wore an apricot mohair cardigan draped around her shoulders and there was a half-empty bottle of Muscadet next to the recliner.

'Evening,' he said lightly. He wanted to ask her what she was doing in his house again, but the stiff angle of her head warned him she'd like to draw him into an argument. He passed and went to the end of the garden, linking his hands into the wire fence, facing away from her.

From across the railway cutting a thin plume of smoke rose into the pink sky. Caffery pressed his face against the wire. Penderecki.

Sometimes, in the evenings, Caffery would watch Penderecki in his garden, moving around, smoking and absently scratching between his buttocks like an old gorilla preparing for sleep. The garden was little more than a patch of grey earth between the house and the railway cutting, scattered with old engines, a fridge and a rusting axle from a trailer. The land on that side of the cutting had once been a brick field and gardeners in the row of Fifties houses still turned up half London Stocks on their hoes.

Hard soil to dig. Caffery didn't think Ewan was buried there.

Penderecki, his back to Caffery, wore his customary nicotine-brown vest. One hand rested on a rake — next to him the battered incinerator coughed smoke into the air. Seventeen years ago Penderecki had discovered Caffery's habit of collecting things, going through his rubbish, taking everything that might provide clues about Ewan. And this had become ritual: burning his household refuse, and, to ensure that Caffery knew about it, doing it in plain view, in the back garden.

As Caffery watched, Penderecki cleared his throat, hawked out phlegm onto the earth and became perfectly still, one hand on the incinerator lid, responding with his acute sensitivity to Jack's presence. The knowing pose, the womanly hips, the grey hair slicked down over a bright pink scalp; Caffery felt the stirrings of ancient anger unravelling from him, as if Penderecki could reel it in across the hundred yards of evening air which separated them.

Penderecki turned slowly to face him and smiled.

Blood rushed to Caffery's face. He pushed himself away from the fence, angry at being caught, and strode back down the garden.

From the patio Veronica regarded him steadily.

'What?' He stopped. 'What are you staring at?'

In reply she breathed out loudly through her nose and half closed her eyes.

'What? What is it?'

She sighed heavily.

Caffery opened his hands. 'What?'

And then he remembered. The tests.

'Jesus.' He shook his head, deflated. 'I'm sorry. You've heard?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

'Oh, I'm afraid it's back. The Hodgkin's is back.' The eyes narrowed, her face twisted, but no tears came.

Caffery stood quite still, staring at her. This was it, then.

'Dr Cavendish called. The fact is I have to start the chemo again.' She tightened the cardigan around her shoulders. 'But, look, we're not going to make a fuss about it. OK?'

Caffery dropped his head and stared blindly at the concrete. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be sorry.' She reached over and patted him on the hand. 'It's not your fault.'

'We'll cancel the party,' he said.

'No! No, I won't have anyone feeling sorry for me. We're not cancelling the party.'