Birdman

by Mo Hayder

  It was Essex who noticed sunlight glinting on a car windscreen beyond them.

  ‘What the—?’

  The team Sierra pulled in neatly ahead of the Jaguar. Diamond got out, unsnapping his jacket and pulling cigarettes from his pocket.

  ‘Hey.’ Maddox opened the door. ‘What’re you doing here? I told you to stay at HQ.’

  ‘Am I in the way?’

  Caffery jumped out of the car and slammed his hand on the Sierra’s bonnet. ‘He asked you a question. He asked you what the fuck you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Jack Caffery.’ Diamond ran his hand down his tie and shook the creases out of his shirt as he came round the car, smiling broadly in the patchy sunlight. ‘You’re—what? Stressed? Something personal in this for you?’

  ‘More than a week ago RG phoned in a tip on Bliss, and you, Detective Inspector Mel Diamond, you dumped it—’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Diamond interrupted. ‘I think you’re letting your imagination run a bit wild, don’t you?’

  ‘Not my imagination. Fact. Now take the team car up to the top of this road and park it side on.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Stop any traffic.’

  ‘Hang on, hang on—’

  ‘You’ll stand down when I come and get you.’

  ‘Hang on a second here, I’m not a fucking uniform, you know. And you’re not my superior, you nasty little prick.’ He looked at Maddox. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to do something?’

  ‘You heard him.’ Maddox pulled on his jacket and turned away. ‘Take the car and get out of my sight.’

  The Air Support Unit arrived in their black and yellow twin-engined B0105 helicopter, circled the bungalow, flattening the grass, bringing the hot smell of aviation fuel. When it reached the furthest point on its rotation, DI Diamond, standing at the head of the lane under an old oak, could hear the hum of insects again, the crack of the Sierra’s engine cooling. He was feeling in his pocket for a cigarette when something caught his eye.

  A small man in a stained vest and trousers, a dirty carrier bag dangling from his wrist, had appeared on the lane as if by magic.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ He fidgeted his hands in his pockets and smiled quickly, showing small, orange-smeared teeth.

  ‘’ternoon.’

  ‘There’s quite a police presence, I see. Anything we should be worried about?’

  Diamond shrugged. ‘No. No.’ He turned to light the cigarette. Straightened and blew the smoke out in a fast thin stream. ‘Won’t take long.’ He picked a piece of tobacco from his lips and, when he saw the little man was still staring at him, said: ‘If you’d like to move along now, sir. Back up to the main road. There’s a perimeter team from here down to the estuary so keep to this side as you go.’

  Bliss pottered away, scratching his forehead and muttering to himself. He rounded the bend in the lane and mounted the grass-covered bank, lifting his feet clear of the mud and nettles. Perspiration, more a product of anger than exertion, collected in the crevices of his body.

  When the phone—he’d forgotten it even existed—began to ring in the hallway, he knew instantly that the bitch wasn’t lying. He did what he had to do to her quickly and neatly. The phone stopped but he continued: dressing and quietly leaving the bungalow before the police arrived. His ears were ringing, his head ached, but he pressed on through the dripping forest, getting himself as far away from the bungalow as he could before he found a damp, grass-covered fosse to crouch in. The rain had stopped and the salt in the air stung his nostrils. He lay on the ground and listened to the police assemble themselves.

  Now, only a hundred yards from the Sierra, he hesitated, looked at the sky and sniffed. Up here on the bank, behind the row of tough little hawthorn bushes, he saw he was quite hidden from the lane. It was a simple matter of continuing and taking a bus from the main road. But he knew it was over for him—with Joni’s death something had spilled over inside. If he was finished then what he wanted was to leave his bloody print on this planet. He wanted to engage.

  He thought of the silent creation in flesh that he’d left in the bungalow. He closed his eyes and smiled. Yes. That was a good start.

  Humming distractedly and scratching at his neck, he turned and headed back up the road, until he saw the roof of the grey Sierra to his left. The sun was out, but a few spots of rain fell as he drew level with the car. He slowed, pausing behind a tall, ivy-hung oak. Something of interest had occurred to him. Thoughtfully he chewed his lip, reaching inside the carrier bag to rub the saw blade with the tips of two stubby pink fingers. Below him, from next to the Sierra, rose a thin line of cigarette smoke.

  In his black sweater and Kevlar vest, Sergeant O’Shea of the Territorial Support Group, the TSG, was as out of place as a jungle predator in this pretty country lane. His team stood, grim-faced, pelvises forward, arms crossed, hands pressed into armpits, watching him pace amongst them.

  ‘Local uniform have done a drive by, and as of thirteen hundred hours there’s been a blue Peugeot in the driveway; we’ve been trying to establish contact for ten minutes but no-one’s answering that phone, so our mental health consultant agrees: didn’t want it to come to this, but we’re looking at a tactical end. We don’t know what weapon the target’s in possession of; no firearms intelligence—more likely to be blades of some sort, so be aware: necks, hands. Vulnerable. Keep those visors down and stick to the arrest protocol for separating target from weapon. Entry team, I think, looking at it, a staggered MO.’

  Caffery stood a few feet up the lane, smoking, peering through the hedgerow down at the bungalow. No cars passed, only the helicopter clattered overhead. From time to time he was sure he could hear the telephone ringing.

  ‘Look, Jack.’ Essex pointed into the distance. Black clouds crowded at the estuary mouth, as if trying to block the entrance. ‘Talk about bleeding prophetic.’

  ‘He’s had time to do it, Paul. She might already be …’

  Essex looked at Caffery’s face and bit his lip. ‘Yes. You need to be prepared.’

  ‘Usual radio routine.’ O’Shea flexed tattooed hands. ‘Perimeter team keep those check-in calls coming. If it goes belly up, and you’re compromised, you know the radio drill.’

  Diamond had watched the small man for a while, until he had disappeared down the lane. Then he yawned and scratched his nose, finished his cigarette and dropped it on the tarmac. It had started to rain. He felt in his pocket for the Sierra keys; no point in getting soaked out here, leave that to the heroes. His hand was on the car door when Bliss, sweating now, dropped like wet ivy from the high bank onto his shoulders.

  ‘Hello,’ he whispered.

  Diamond dropped the keys and shot back against the Sierra, gibbering, eyes wide with pain: Bliss had a neat hard hold on his genitals. He hop-skipped along beside him, yellow eyes inches from Diamond’s face. ‘Slowly, slowly, you’ll hurt yourself.’

  ‘I’m police. Police.’ He grappled with Bliss’s hand, trying to free himself, but the saw whirred to life and made one serene pass across his knuckles, not deep, but enough to tap the wellspring of blood. Diamond screamed, snapping his arms away. ‘Don’t cut me, don’t cut me. I’m police.’

  ‘Do you promise to keep your hands still? Keep them over your head.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Panting, he raised his arms against the tree. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say it. Say I promise.’

  ‘Jesus. Yes—I promise.’

  ‘Cross your heart hope to die.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to—to—’ Diamond started to shake. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  ‘Shut up.’ Bliss blinked furiously. ‘Just shut up.’ Spittle formed on the edges of his mouth. He couldn’t wipe it away, one hand was tight around the saw’s handpiece and one was holding the soft, gristly flesh of the DI’s balls and cock. Their eyes were level and Bliss could smell cold terror on the man’s breath.

  ‘Look.’ Diamond was shivering. ‘I’m a nobo
dy in this. It’s not me who brought them down here. They won’t even let me near the house. That’s why I’ve been left up here.’

  ‘Who makes the decisions?’

  ‘Decisions?’ Diamond licked his lips. ‘Decisions? That’ll be our—our—’

  ‘Yes?’

  Diamond hesitated, a flicker of realization in his eyes. He calmed perceptibly. ‘That’ll be our DI. Caffery. Jack Caffery.’

  ‘Him?’ Bliss said, revealing his stained teeth. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s at the bottom of the hill. Shall I show you?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Will you let me go?’

  ‘We’ll see. Now give me your radio.’

  The rain picked up tempo. It ran down the back of Caffery’s collar, soaking into his shoes. The inky clouds had moved across the estuary and seemed to be stacking above the house. The windows remained dark, unopened.

  ‘Answer the phone, you bastard.’

  He and Essex stood well removed, halfway down the field, radio silent, the squelch down. Caffery had rarely felt this useless. He knew that Rebecca was in the bungalow, and his imagination supplied a list of appalling possibilities. He could just glimpse the TSG entry team, in groups at the end of the easement, pulling on gloves, shouldering the red door spreader.

  Essex turned. DI Diamond stood on the hem of the wood, white and silent, beckoning to him.

  ‘That dickspit. What the hell does he want?’ Quickly and quietly he moved to the edge of the trees. ‘What are you doing down here?’ he hissed.

  ‘This way,’ Diamond whispered and backed into the woods.

  Essex followed. ‘You’re supposed to have stayed on the road.’

  ‘This way.’

  ‘What happened to your hand? You’re bleeding—’

  From where he lay coiled in last year’s leaf compost, Bliss was quick and accurate. In a single movement he had severed Essex’s right Achilles tendon with a soft popping sound.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ He went down like an old tree, too startled to shout, toppling onto his shoulder, his radio spinning away as he grappled in the blood to gather the ends of the split tendon.

  ‘And the other one.’ Bliss, eyes watering with excitement, pounced on him, the saw whirring. But Essex was faster than he looked. Grunting, he flipped himself onto his back, pulling his arm behind him in a hard, precise arc, slamming down onto Bliss’s spine.

  Bliss dropped the saw and rolled over with a tired ‘Oof,’ shocked and winded, into the wet leaves.

  ‘YOU PIECE OF SHIT, BLISS!’ Essex screamed, continuing the roll, pinning Bliss under his bulk. ‘YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!’

  Grunting loudly he manoeuvred himself until he lay, panting like a beached fish, across Bliss’s back. His radio was gone, and he knew the damage done. He knew that his foot was dangling, the muscles, the vessels, all open to the air. His only weapon was his weight, enough to keep Bliss down until someone came.

  ‘Diamond,’ he yelled. ‘Use my radio, Diamond. All units.’

  But Diamond was shuddering—holding up his hand. ‘Bastard cut me,’ he muttered. ‘Could’ve gone straight through an artery—’

  ‘DIAMOND!’

  ‘She’s dead anyway.’ Bliss spat into the leaf mulch. ‘They both are, the bitches.’

  Essex caught Bliss’s shirt above the shoulder blades.

  ‘What did you say, you piece of shit?’ But Bliss’s face was calm, beatifically serene and silent. Essex rammed his elbow into the pulp of his back. ‘Did you kill them?’ He slammed his elbow down again, ignoring the soft grating of the ligaments in his foot. Bliss didn’t flinch. ‘What’ve you done, you dickwipe? Have you killed them?’

  ‘Essex?’ Caffery knew something was wrong the moment he turned round and saw only empty woods where Diamond had been. He took a few paces to the edge of the trees, his radio at the ready. He paused.

  From deep in the wood came a soft, almost inaudible cry. Inhuman. And—intermittently—a brief, unsettling mechanical buzz.

  ‘Essex?’ Nothing. ‘Paul? You all right?’

  Silence.

  This is all wrong, Jack. All wrong.

  Slowly, radio at his lips, he stepped forward. The buzzing dipped and hushed. Fear sucked at his belly.

  ‘Bravo six-o-two to all units.’

  He rounded a group of silver birches and stopped.

  Diamond leaned against a fallen trunk clutching one arm against his chest, staring at Essex, who lay ten yards into the forest, face frozen and bluish, pinning Bliss to the ground. Bliss had one arm curled behind his back. His lids strained back showing the pink corners of his eyes. Inches away in the leaves the electric saw rotated laboriously, like a tired dog chasing its tail.

  ‘Jesus—Paul.’

  Essex looked up. ‘He says he’s killed them, Jack.’

  ‘OK—hold him.’ Carefully he started towards them, his hand out. ‘Keep it calm—hold him—’

  But Diamond’s arm shot out, gripping his elbow. ‘I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t. Look.’ He held his hand out. ‘See the blood—see the colour?’ His pale mouth quivered. ‘It’s too red. He’s gone in too deep.’

  ‘Diamond.’ Caffery rounded on him.

  Without thinking about it or even breaking step he fractured Diamond’s cosmetic little nose in two places. ‘I warned you.’

  Diamond went down screaming, hands clamped over his face. ‘What the fuck did you do that for? What the fuck?‘ and twenty yards away Bliss saw his opportunity.

  He pulled the electric saw towards him, and with a slippery, soft-limbed flick gently brought Essex’s right arm down onto it, opening the tender wrist. Blood bloomed, broke and fountained, Essex’s mouth opened in a roar.

  Caffery jumped forward—‘PAUL!’—but Bliss was quick.

  Blinking, concentrating on his intricate operation, he rolled through the screams and bright spray and nestled up to Essex’s other hand, neatly drawing the saw across the vulnerable network of blood vessels and tissue. Before Jack could cover the ground, Bliss was up, cannon-balling away, painted with Essex’s arterial blood. He teetered, slithering in the wet leaves, scrabbled to turn, got his balance and headed back out of the woods, his short arms pumping.

  ‘Paul?’ Jack flung himself against Essex, his face hard up against his cold cheek. ‘Did he get both arms?’

  Essex nodded, his eyes screwed up against the pain. Ribbons of bright blood jetted across his shirt front.

  ‘Diamond! Move it.’ Jack leaped up, grabbed Diamond by the back of his jacket and dragged him over to Essex. ‘MOVE IT! Give me your hands—’

  ‘Let fucking go—’

  ‘Give me your hands. Put them here.’ He peeled Diamond’s fingers from his bloody nose and fastened them across the big brachial arteries in Essex’s armpits. ‘Press. Press harder.’ He ripped off his jacket and tie, unhooked his radio and tossed it at Diamond’s feet. ‘Get some compression on those arteries, then radio for help.’

  Diamond rolled bloodshot eyes to him. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Hear me—’ He stood, gripped Diamond’s ear and lifted his head. ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘OK, OK. Let go of me.’

  ‘Do it.’ Jack thrust him away and took off after Bliss.

  He was about a hundred yards away—where the trees began to smudge into one—a pink and white human flutter hurrying through the rain. He was moving fast. But Caffery was lighter. Stronger and faster. He sprinted through the undergrowth, alone with the sound of his breathing and the dripping of rain in the branches overhead.

  He didn’t shout. Too much energy. Mud and leaves fountained behind him and he closed fast. Soon he could hear Bliss’s breath, see the small arms pumping.

  Shit. He could see the black tarmac of the small coast road flashing through the trees. That’s a public road—has it been cordoned? Where’s local uniform? The TSG? The hedgerows should be crawling with perimeter back-up.

  Up ahead Bliss ducked suddenly unde
r a low branch, shot through the dripping foliage and scrambled into a ditch. He slithered down the bank and was still accelerating when he hit the barbed-wire fence at the bottom.

  Essex lay on his side, his face in the leaves, mouth slack-open. He knew he didn’t have much consciousness left. Even his bones were cold.

  Strange, strange to be so cold in June—

  He dropped his eyes to where his hands lay—in front of him, limp on the ground as if they belonged to someone else. Diamond worked at them, making compression pads from the ripped jacket, covering the mess Bliss had made, stopping from time to time to raise bloodied fingers and gingerly touch his own mashed nose. A few feet beyond him Caffery’s radio lay on its back in the mud. Maddox’s voice, distant and metallic, calling to his DI:

  ‘Bravo six-o-two, this is Bravo six-o-one receiving.’

  Overhead the helicopter hovered above the house. The TSG would be going in. Too late, Essex thought. The girls were already dead. Nothing more to be done for them. And Jack was with Bliss. Somewhere in the woods—without a radio.

  ‘Diamond—’ The effort was enormous. It set his head thudding. ‘Diamond—the radio—’

  Diamond didn’t respond.

  ‘Diamond!’

  ‘What?’ He looked up. Angry. ‘I’m not fucking deaf, you know.’

  ‘The radio—’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He fastened the ends of the cloth around Essex’s wrists. ‘I’m doing my fucking best.’ He rolled away, grimacing, one hand covering his face, dragged the radio through the leaves and hit the orange override button—throwing a ten-second emergency burst, interrupting every channel.

  ‘Bravo six-o-three to all units. Urgent assistance—repeat urgent assistance—’

  Essex, exhausted, dropped his head. A shivering ache crept along his limbs. His vision—his view of the trees, the sky, the fallen branches, of Diamond speaking fast and furious into the radio—bulged, became distorted—as if the air itself was swelling, billowing out towards him. The daylight too, he realized dimly, was changing: growing greener and colder by stages.

  Your heart’s weakening, Paul, he thought distantly. You old slob, that’ll teach you. Your sodding heart’s giving up—