Birdman

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 under 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—

* * *

The momentum slid him onwards into the ditch, hands out, the fence rushing towards him. He dug his heels in and his fingers found the smooth wire between the barbs — he stopped inches shy, heart hammering. Instantly he caught his balance and whipped around, panting, ready to fight,

But two yards away, Bliss had not been lucky.

His weight had been taken by the fence; he swayed gently, feet flat on the floor, knees slightly bent, puppet arms lifted. The barbs had stitched into his skin, to his hair, deep under tender ligaments. He made no noise, only blinked once or twice — his expression quiet, intense.

Slowly Caffery lowered his hands. 'Bliss?'

No answer.

Jesus, now what?

A tentative step closer.

'Bliss?'

Why isn't he struggling?

Malcolm Bliss's face was patient, serene — only his jaw worked, subtly — as if he was concentrating — working hard on keeping perfectly still. With a shiver of recognition, Caffery understood.

Movement means pain for him. He's trapped.

He let out his breath.

Here it was — trapped and delivered to him. His quarry made flesh. Birdman.

Trembling, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and leaned in — careful not to relax, not to put too much faith in this unexpected switch of luck. Bliss — rigid in his wire bridle — stared docilely ahead as Caffery inspected him, swiftly, precisely, running his eyes across the lattice of barbs, tracking what hurt, why it hurt and what lever it afforded him. He charted countless minor wounds, small but insistent, before he found it — the fulcrum — a single barb, burrowed deep into Bliss's neck. No blood yet, but the pink flesh that rose around it pulsed gently. The carotid artery — ready to be tapped and drained.

'There,' he whispered into Bliss's face, resting his fingers on the wire. 'There's the key.'

He drew the wire gently downwards — testing where the pain began. Bliss breathed in through his nose, tolerating this childish gesture — closing his eyes patiently, as if this was not pain to be endured but merely a humiliation doled out by an infantile bully. Caffery released the pressure briefly, and twisted the wire in the opposite direction.

'It's the coward's way, Mr Caffery,' Bliss said suddenly, his voice gummy and tight. 'The coward's way.'

Caffery pushed his face closer. 'Have you done it? Is it true? Have you killed them?'

'Yes.' Bliss closed his eyes. 'And fucked them too. Don't forget that.'

Caffery stared at him — his fingers frozen on the wire. Over the treetops the helicopter banked suddenly, away from the bungalow, heading for the road. The clatter grew louder — shaking the ground and springing raindrops from the trees, but Caffery remained rigid, registering nothing above his own anger, staring into Bliss's face, feeling through the opportunity, so swollen and alive with it that his eyes began to water.

And then, abruptly, it was over. Gone.

He breathed out, wiped the sweat from his face and shook his head, heart heavy. He murmured something under his breath, released the wire and without another look at Bliss, climbed slowly back up the ditch.