Tonight he had locked the door and was in the 'public zone': the area he could afford to show outsiders, comprising the hallway, the kitchen, the cloakroom, the small study and the living room, where he stood now, by the fireplace in front of the portrait of his parents.
He'd spent the afternoon cleaning — making it safe for tonight, hooking a hose to the sink in the main kitchen and sluicing disinfectant through the waste disposal. The smell, though, had defeated him. It was coming from — but at that point he had hesitated, his hand on the old door. For a long time he stared at the marquetry panels; the bamboo and spindly bridges supporting parasolled geishas. No. He turned away. Nothing he could do about the mess in there.
Now he swallowed two buprenorphine, washing them down with pastis and water. Then he opened a lapis lazuli snuff box, and with the long, sharpened nail of his little finger, scooped a pile of cocaine into his left nostril. He rubbed the residue on his gum, and closed his eyes for a moment.
If she didn't come soon he believed he would explode.
He bit his lip and stared up at the portrait of his parents: Lucilla and Henrick.
No, he realized, no, he wouldn't explode. What he would do was to haul himself up onto the mantelpiece, wait until he was sure he had his balance, then carefully lean forward and very precisely, with a minimum of fuss, bite Lucilla's face out of the canvas.
14
'The Killing Fields'.
The words jumped out at Caffery from billboards outside newsagents as he drove to St Dunstan's. Last night the news had been confirmed through the bureau, and now the press were crawling over Greenwich, clogging the streets, harassing the residents, setting up camp outside North's aggregate yard. The Sun's headline was 'Millennium Terror' with colour shots of Shellene, Petra, Wilcox and Kayleigh above a black and white shot of the aggregate yard. The Mirror had a single photo of Kayleigh: she wore a cherry-pink satin off-the-shoulder dress and was holding a drink up to the camera. There were the predictable comparisons with the Wests, photos of number 25 Cromwell Street — 'How could it happen again?' asked the Sun. The Mirror dubbed the killer, predictably, 'The Millennium Ripper'. Caffery had bet Essex that, of all the sobriquets, this would be the favourite.
The rest of AMIP were liaising with Intelligence at Dulwich — putting a spotlight on Gemini — running checks to see if he was already 'flagged', wanted by another Met unit. So Caffery, conscious that the stopwatch was running now, drove to St Dunstan's hospital alone. He parked at the foot of Maze Hill where the lime trees and red walls of Greenwich Park ended.
They're as tight as arseholes, these personnel people, Jack. No magistrate in the country is going to grant a warrant to open up the personnel files of an entire hospital because a wet-behind-the-ears DI has a 'feeling'.
More than a feeling now, more than just a sense — now he believed that the man he wanted knew this building. Whatever shape the road took he was certain that it would end here. He stood for a moment, outside the hospital, imagining he saw something off centre about the grey buildings, the Portakabins in the brilliant yellow sunshine. The sky over the incinerator chimney was the same saturated, surreal blue as Joni's eyeshadow, flattening perspective into Mondrian blocks. But then he realized he was resketching the sky, the world, to suit his picture of this place, and that the lines of the buildings were straight, the windows unremarkable. He straightened his tie and pushed through the plastic fire doors, glad to rest his eyes.
Inside the hospital was shabby; the corridors were hot with the steam from unseen kitchens and sterilizing units, a faulty fluorescent strip flickered. He was alone — his only company footsteps echoing briefly from beyond a bend in the passage — and a starling, flapping amongst the pipes in the ceiling. It dropped a tin-white pellet inches from Caffery's feet as he pushed open the door marked PERSONNEL.
Take it slow. Take it too fast and they'll see you're desperate.
The office was large, divided by portable screens, the only sound the halting tap… tap… tap tap tap… tap of a keyboard.
Caffery peered around a screen. A small, round-backed clerk with a receding hairline, wearing a greying nylon shirt. Tapping at a keyboard.
Not promising.
Caffery cleared his throat.
The clerk looked up. 'Morning, sir. For the committee, is it?'
'No — not for the committee, Mr… uh.' He checked the nameplate on the desk. 'Mr Bliss. Detective Inspector Caffery. The head personnel officer, is he…?'
'She.' He half stood. 'She's sitting on the committee. They won't be out till eleven.' He held his hand out to Caffery who shook it. 'Maybe I can help, Inspector… sorry.'
'Caffery.'
'Inspector Caffery.'
'I'd like access to your personnel files.'
'Oh.' The clerk sat back and peered myopically up at him. 'If I said no would you get a search warrant?'
'That's right.' He wiped his hand discreetly on his trousers. Like the hospital itself the clerk's hand was damp. 'That's right, a search warrant.'
'And then you'd get all the information you'd need anyway?'
'That's correct.'
'Can I be rude enough to see your badge?'
'Of course.'
Caffery stood in front of his desk, hands in his pockets, watching the clerk fastidiously jotting down the details from his warrant card.
'Thank you, Detective Inspector Caffery.' He placed the warrant card on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward. 'I'll OK it with my boss when she comes back from her meeting, but who do you want to know about? Anyone special?'
'No-one special. Doctors, morticians, nurses. Anyone with theatre experience.'
'Mmmm.' The clerk scratched his pink ear. 'What did you want? Home addresses?'
'Age, home address, contact numbers.'
'It's going to take some time. Can I fax it to you? I think our fax machine is still working.'
Caffery scribbled a number on the back of his card. He had, by fluke, hit this at the right angle.
'And is there a staff room? Somewhere quiet I could do interviews when I've sifted?'
'Mmm. Let's see — Wendy, one of our officers, is covering in the library. Maybe she'd open the back reference room for you. Let's go and have a look.' He came out from behind the desk, pausing to lock the office as they left. 'I hope you parked somewhere sensible. It's a funny old area.'
'Up the hill, next to the park.'
'You have to fight for a place these days — what with all the committee members and their big cars and their parking permits. I haven't got a choice, I'm not leaving the car at home, too much building work — just trust some workman to accidentally chuck a spanner through the windscreen — so I come in and battle it out with the bigwigs. They're here all this week, you know, can't get away from them—' He stopped. 'Here we are. The library.' He opened the door. 'Wendy?'
They were looking at a small panelled entrance hall. Behind a sliding pane of glass a woman in a pearl-grey cardigan and batwing glasses looked up from her Reader's Digest. When she saw Caffery she blushed and shovelled the balled tissue she was clutching into her sleeve. 'Hello.'