Birdman

'No?'

'No. But there has been something invasive here. You see, Superintendent Maddox, the brain stem is a very delicate structure. You would only have to get a needle in the medulla oblongata, wiggle it about and every physiological function would crash to a halt — just as we're seeing with these subjects.'

'Instant death.'

'Exactly. Now, I'm not seeing the extensive damage you'd expect with that, but it doesn't mean something wasn't injected in there. It wouldn't have mattered what — even water could do it. Subject's heart and lungs would have simply stopped. Instantly.'

'And you say that except for number three none of them struggled?'

'That's what I said.'

'Then how?' Caffery rubbed his temples lightly. 'How did he keep them still?'

'My guess is once you get stomach, blood and deep tissue analysis back from toxicology you'll find something had them tranquillized.' He cocked his head. 'One would have to assume they were semiconscious when that needle went in.'

'Right.' Caffery folded his arms and tilted back on his heels. 'Lambeth needs to test for alcohol, Rohypnol, barbs, mazis. And those—' He nodded to a victim's forehead. About a centimetre below the hairline he could make out a horizontal line of faint ochre marks. 'Those things on her head.'

'Yes, odd, aren't they?'

'They all have them?'

'All except number four. They extend all the way around the head. Almost a perfect circle. And they've a very distinctive pattern: a few dots, then a slash.'

Caffery bent a little closer. Dot dot dash. Someone's joke? 'How were they made?'

'No idea — I'll work on it.'

'How about this suture material?'

'Yes.' Krishnamurthi was silent for a moment. 'It's professional.'

Caffery straightened up. Maddox was looking at him with clear grey eyes over his mask. Caffery raised his eyebrows. 'Now isn't that interesting?'

'I didn't say the technique was professional, gentlemen.' Krishnamurthi peeled off his gloves, tipped them into a yellow biohazard bin and crossed to a sink. 'Just the material. It's silk. But the incision didn't extend to the xiphoid process. Pretty crude. The beta breast incision, that's the classic surgery technique taught in med school.' He picked up the yellow bar of reen soap and lathered his arms. 'He's taken the fat from almost the right place, and the incision is very clean, done with a scalpel. But the stitching — not professional. Not professional at all.'

'But if I guessed our offender had a grasp of the rudiments, you'd say—?'

'I'd say you had a point. A good point. He was able to find the brain stem, which is remarkable.' He rinsed his hands and pulled off the visor. 'Well. Do you want to see what he did before he sewed them back up?'

'Yes.'

'This way.'

Drying his hands, he led them into an anteroom where the small mortician was chewing gum and cleaning the intestines at a porcelain scrub sink: holding them under a tap and rinsing the contents into a bowl. He carefully inspected the inner and outer linings, checking for corrosion. When he saw Krishnamurthi he laid the intestines to one side and rinsed his hands.

'Show them what we found inside the chest cavities, Martin.'

'Sure.'

He tucked the gum in his cheek and picked up a large stainless steel bowl covered with a square of brown paper. He removed the paper and held the bowl out.

Maddox bent in and jerked his head back as if he'd been slapped. 'Jesus.' He turned away, pulling a clean, monogrammed handkerchief from his suit pocket.

'Show me?'

'Sure.' The assistant held the bowl out and Caffery gingerly peered over the edge.

In the stinking stew at the bottom of the blood-spattered bowl, five tiny dead shapes huddled together as if trying to keep warm. He looked up at the mortician. 'Are they what I think they are?'

The mortician nodded. 'Oh yes. They're what they appear to be.'

4

Caffery got to bed at 4 a.m. Next to him Veronica slept solid and unruffled, snoring delicately. If her throat was up it meant swollen glands. Swollen glands meant the resurfacing of the Hodgkin's, the return of the deadly lymphoma.

Timing, Veronica, perfect timing; almost as if you knew.

At 4.30 he finally fell into a shallow, fitful sleep, only to come awake again at 5.30.

He lay staring at the ceiling thinking about the five corpses in Devonshire Drive.

Something in their injuries was significant to the killer: the marks on the heads — Something he had made them wear? Bondage paraphernalia? — were absent only on victim four. None of the victims had been raped, there were no signs of forced penetration — anal, oral or vaginal — and yet using an Omniprint blue light Krishnamurthi had pointed out traces of semen on the abdomens. Combined with the mutilation to the breasts of three of the women, and the lack of clothing, Caffery knew they were looking for the force's nightmare, a sexual serial killer, someone already too ill to stop. And what lodged hardest in his head, refusing to leave, were the five bloodied shapes in the bottom of a stainless steel bowl. Whichever way he turned those followed him.

When he knew he wasn't going to sleep again, he showered, dressed and without waking Veronica drove through early-morning London to B team's HQ.

B team, sometimes called Shrivemoor after the street they were based in, shared a functional red-brick building with Four Area's Territorial Support Group. The exterior was anonymous, but the traffic fatalities statistics displayed in an unlit box outside had given the public the impression that this was a functioning police station. Eventually a sign had appeared outside the garage entrance warning people not to walk in here with their everyday problems. Go to a normal police station, there's one just down the road, it said.

By the time Caffery arrived the sun had climbed over the terraced Thirties houses, schoolchildren were being ushered into Volvos. He parked the Jaguar — something else Veronica wanted him to trade for a newer, shinier version.

'You could sell that and get something really nice.'

'I don't want something really nice. I want the car I've got.'

'Then at least let me clean it.'

He swiped his entrance card and climbed the stairs, past the TSG's fifteen armoured Ford Sherpas parked in their own spilled oil. In AMIP's rooms the fluorescent lights were on — four database indexers, all women, all civilians, sat at their desks, tapping away.

He found Maddox in the office, fresh from breakfast with the chief superintendent. Over Earl Grey and bran muffins at Chislehurst golf club, the DCS had set out a game plan.

'He's slapped a moratorium on the press.' Maddox seemed weary; Jack could see he hadn't slept. 'Any female officers or civilians who find the case distressing can apply for transfer, and—' He straightened a pencil so that it lined up exactly with the other objects on his desk. His lips were colourless. 'And he's giving us reinforcements — the whole of F team bumped over here from Eltham.'

'Two teams on a case?'

'Yup. The governor's worried about this one. Really worried. Doesn't like Krishnamurthi's diminishing time periods. And—'

'Yes?'

Maddox sighed. 'The hair Krishnamurthi pulled off that girl? The black hair.'

'He found blond hairs too. With toms trace evidence is misleading.'

'Right, Jack, right. But the CS's got Stephen Lawrence fever — all he can see are human rights groups in the shadows, razor blades in his mail.' Someone knocked and Maddox reached for the door with a grim look on his face. 'He distinctly does not want our target to be black.'