Birdman

Jack — she thought of him last night: in the hallway, and afterwards, in her bed when he'd hit his stride — the things he'd done to her. She sleepily reached out of the sheet, searching for his erection. When she realized he had trousers on and was buttoning his shirt she opened her eyes. 'Are you going?'

'I've got to.'

'What's the matter?'

'Joni didn't come home. D'you know where she got to?'

'Not home?' She rolled onto her side, rubbing her eyes. 'Oh, I don't know — she does that sometimes.'

He brushed her fringe from her forehead and kissed her cheek. Her hair smelled of baby shampoo. 'Rebecca, let me ask you something about her — it's important.'

'Mmm?'

'I am right Joni's got implants?'

Catching the note in his voice she looked up. 'Yes. So?'

'This.' He held the photograph out. 'When was it taken?'

'That's, I don't know, three years old, why—'

'And the implants?'

'God.' Rebecca blinked at the photo. 'I'm not sure, just after I met her, so maybe five years—'

'OK — listen.' He stood, ran a hand across the shirt. Trying to smooth out yesterday's creases. 'I need the painting. The one on the easel.'

'Why?'

'I'll bring it back.'

'Take it. I'm sick of the bloody sight of it.' She rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows, looking at him with serious eyes. 'Jack, you're not thinking…?'

'No, I—' He paused. 'Rebecca, don't look at me like that.' He pulled on his tie, ran fingers over it, flattening it against his chest. 'There's nothing to worry about.' He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her warm head. 'Honestly. Just get Joni to give me a call when she comes in. And you — you be careful, OK? I mean that. If you have to go out call me first. Let me know what you're up to.'

* * *

Afterwards Rebecca sat at the kitchen table, sleepily curling her hair around her fingers, staring at Jack's discarded roll-ups in the ashtray, waiting for a stained two-cup espresso maker to boil. The rain rolled in greasy trails down the window. Her throat was sore and tight.

It wouldn't be the first time she hasn't come home. Nothing unusual, absolutely nothing unusual. She just got a bit out of control after I left the pub and wound up at Adrenaline Village or some scuzzy peyote hideout in Camden — or she slept it off at someone's place and she'll be back, tail between her legs—

Then why's Jack so interested all of a sudden?

'Jesus.' She stood up, angry at her tinkering imagination, and went into the studio — casting around for something to level her mind. In the street outside vividly coloured umbrellas jostled along: pink, violet and yellow. Tropical-sized raindrops bounced off the roof. She pinned new paper to the drawing board and paused.

He took her picture — he thinks she's in trouble…

Rebecca put down the drawing pins and, leaving the paper dangling from the board, went to the phone in the hall.

* * *

Bliss stood in the bedroom doorway looking at Joni, her head lolling on one side, the pale mucus-coloured implants leaving bloody stains on her ribcage. She had been unconscious as he sewed her up and he'd left the implants on her belly for her to look at when she woke. He had slept in another room, determined to wait for the birthday. But Mrs Frobisher had woken him early, even before the building work, clunk clunk clunking around upstairs like an old wooden doll.

She made him nervous — always complaining, always ferreting around and sniffing at him. The birthday party would be a safer, more comfortable event at the bungalow, but he couldn't risk the car journey. Not with Joni bloodied and volatile as she was. He took the phone off the hook and started to blow up the balloons.

* * *

Caffery's knife-edge sense of urgency was back — Amedure noticed it when she met him in reception and took the folded cigarette paper from his hands.

'Are you all right?'

'I'm fine.'

'What's this you're giving me? You need to fill out a submission sheet.'

'Can you match it to the hair from the last PM?'

'Probably. But a submission sheet, please, and this needs to be logged back at Shrivemoor.'

'I'm on my way now. How long will this take you?'

'Half a day. Less if you're nice to me.'

'Any news on the cement? The trade examination?'

'Ah.' She smiled. 'I know someone who hasn't checked in with his team this morning. The CCRL've got the results — they phoned them all over to Marilyn Kryotos—' But he was gone — hurrying down the steps and pulling car keys from his pocket. 'I'll fill the HOLab in for you, then,' Dr Amedure murmured to herself, and went back to the lift.

* * *

It was still early, but Betty was already at the Dog and Bell. In the background the Alsatian was barking.

'She went with him from the hospital. You know the one that's always dreaming after her. Him that sits in the salon bar and drinks halves.'

'Malcolm, you mean?'

'That's the one.'

Thank God.

'He spent all of forty quid in here yesterday lunch. Bought her God knows how many bottles of Blue Nun and after that she was on the Scotch. By three o'clock I don't think she knew her own name. Why does she do it to herself, Pinky? A lovely girl like that? It doesn't make sense.'

You see — Rebecca told herself as she put the phone down — you bloody paranoiac — it's just Joni being Joni.

Upstairs she found, amongst the tissues and marijuana seeds tangled in Joni's duvet, the black and silver Kookaï organizer — pages battered and scribbled on, love hearts and smiley faces drawn in ice-cream colours. Joni indexed her friends by their first names. Under M, next to Malcolm's name, she had scribbled one of her little sugar-pink faces. Yawning — a string of black 'Z's stretching out of its mouth.

Bliss's phone was engaged. Jack, too, was talking — the answerphone picked up. Rebecca silently replaced the receiver and sat in the studio, staring at Malcolm's address and phone number, telling herself it could wait, telling herself to leave it, reasoning herself along a tired old circuit, until she couldn't sit still any longer.

She jumped up and went into her bedroom. 'Yup,' she murmured, pulling on shorts, a T-shirt, brown dock shoes. 'That's you all right. Never leave things alone, can you?'

* * *

In the Jaguar, Caffery had punched out Shrivemoor's number on the Nokia and was listening to the ringing tone. He sat at traffic lights, behind a windscreen misted with rain, the phone pressed to his ears, looking absently at the painting next to him on the passenger seat.

In the background stood Joni, up on the stage, hands raised, head bent slightly down, behind her the stage curtains and pub windows, the Young's brewery crest bevelled in the glass. And in the middle foreground, lips slightly parted, head turned in profile to the viewer, a face that made Caffery's blood tingle.

He picked up the paper and tilted it to the window. The face — those bad teeth, curiously spaced, like a child between its milk and adult sets — it was all as familiar as his own hands.

I know you, I know you. I know the voice that comes out of your mouth, I've spoken to you, shaken your hand—

'Hello? Incident room.'

He dropped the painting and sat up. 'Yeah, Marilyn, hi, Marilyn.'

'Jack — my God, Maddox's having an eppy about you. You missed the morning meeting, you big prick.'

'I know, I know. Apologize for me. And, Marilyn? Did I get a call from the US this morning?'

'I'm your fairy godmother, Jack, don't forget that — I've been working on it while you were still in dreamland.'

'And?'