The Birdwatcher (4 page)

‘You’re a bird spotter?’

‘Birder, really. Not a bird spotter.’

Cupidi made a face. ‘There’s a difference?’

South shook his head. ‘It’s not important.’

‘Is that rare? Eighteen hundred quid for binoculars?’

‘Not so much these days, I suppose. But it was obvious that before he came here he hadn’t done much birding. Some people come here like that. You spend your working life dreaming of it but you’ve never actually had any time to do it.’

The police tape slapped in a gust of wind. ‘Did he mention anything that was worrying him at all?’

South shook his head. ‘More I think of it,’ he said, ‘more I realise I didn’t know much about him. I mean practically nothing, really. He had been a teacher. He had a sister. That’s it. I mean, we saw each other pretty much every day. I like to go out before dusk. It’s a good time. This time of year it’s right after my shift. I’d taken to calling on him maybe three or four days a week and we’d head out together. But we never talked much, unless it was about birds.’

‘Birds?’

‘Strange as it may seem.’

‘Sarge,’ called the Scene of Crime man standing at the bin. ‘Take a look.’ Cupidi walked towards him, South following. The man in the white protective suit held open a blue-and-white shopping bag for Cupidi to peer inside. ‘Bandages?’ she said.

‘’Bout twenty packets, I reckon. All unopened.’ The man delved inside the bag and pulled out one of the small boxes: ‘
Absorbent for lightly weeping or bleeding wounds
,’ he read.

‘Did your friend have any condition that required him to have dressings?’ asked Cupidi.

‘No. Not that I know of,’ said South.

‘Poor bugger inside could have used a few of them, I reckon.’ The man held one of the boxes between blue-gloved finger and thumb. ‘Think the killer brought them with him?’

South peered into the bag. ‘Is there a receipt?’

‘That would be kind of weird, wouldn’t it?’ said the forensics man, rummaging inside the bag. ‘Bringing your own bandages to a murder? No. No receipt.’

DS Cupidi’s phone started ringing. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, and swung the handbag round to start digging in it. She found it before it rang off. ‘I can’t talk now. I’m on duty,’ she said. Then, ‘Oh.’

South saw her eyes widen.

‘What did she do? . . . Are you sure? . . . I see. Only, it’s not exactly very convenient right now.’

She walked away, lowering her voice, so as not to be heard.

South closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he had seen his friend. He had been running after a shift; he liked to do at least a couple of miles most evenings. The light had already been going. He tried to picture Bob waving at him, to remember exactly what he had looked like that last time.

‘What on earth are you doing, Billy?’

When he opened his eyes, Sergeant Ferguson was standing there by the chip van, in his big peaky hat and uniform.

‘I was just on my way home.’

‘Were y’now?’ Ferguson smiled. ‘Come on then, lad. I been out all over looking for you.’

Ferguson laid his hand on Billy’s shoulder to steer him towards their house up at the top of the cul-de-sac. The sergeant was a thin man whose uniform always looked too big, but he wasn’t the worst of them.

Why did his mum always dress like a teenager? It was embarrassing. She was in the hallway on the phone. ‘Thank God. He’s here now.’ She put down the handset. ‘Billy, where the hell you been? I was sick with worry. Tea was ages ago.’

‘Miss McCorquadale wanted to talk to me,’ he said.

His mother scowled. ‘Oh yes. And what did she want?’

‘She said she was praying for me. She told me I could talk to her any time.’

‘Sanctimonious busybody’ said Billy’s mother. ‘Tell her to mind her own beeswax.’ Behind her, peering from the living-room door, stood the RUC inspector who had called on them twice before: a big, veiny-faced man who smelt of beer.

Billy’s mum enfolded her son in a hug, even though the coppers were there to see it. He felt the push of her breasts against his face. ‘Get off,’ said Billy, wriggling.

‘Hello, Billy,’ said the Inspector, attempting a crook-tooth smile as Billy struggled free, pushing past him into the living room. His mother followed them. The small room looked especially bare since they had taken up the carpet.

They had had to, on account of the blood. Dad’s favourite chair was gone too.

The Inspector was holding a pencil in one hand and a blue notebook in the other. ‘As you were saying, Mrs Mac,’ he said, all familiar and friendly.

‘I wasn’t aware I was saying anything at all,’ she said.

‘I was asking for a list of your husband’s associates.’

‘Write down what you like,’ Billy’s mother said. ‘But you know I am not saying anything.’

‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re not. But you have to understand, after an incident, all sorts of rumours go flying around. And at times like these, rumours have deadly consequences. The sooner we find out who did this . . .’

‘I have a child,’ she said. ‘It’s just me and him now. You know I can’t say a single word.’

‘No,’ said the Inspector mournfully.

‘My husband was always a stupid idiot,’ said Billy’s mother. ‘Getting involved in all that. And now look what’s happened.’

The Inspector looked shocked. Sergeant Ferguson was more used to it.

She was not even dressed in black, like you’re supposed to. They had some of the other mums round here the other day, whispering and tutting, though they do that anyway. She still dressed in skirts and platform boots, which Billy thought was embarrassing enough at the best of times. Today she was wearing that yellow sweater that showed her bra straps, God’s sake.

Ferguson put his hat down on a chair and said, ‘While you’re talking to the Inspector, why don’t I have a wee chat with Billy upstairs?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said his mother.

‘You know me, Mary. We’re good pals. Trust me,’ said Ferguson.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Billy, glad to be away from his mother and the Inspector. Fergie was OK.

‘Lead the way, Billy,’ said Ferguson.

‘Don’t say nothing, you hear? Nothing.’

‘Do you have any more tea?’ said the Inspector hurriedly. ‘It’s a great cup you make.’

THREE

‘What’s wrong?’ said Cupidi, marching towards him on the shingle.

The world was suddenly bright as he opened his eyes again. A low sun had broken through the grey. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You look crap. Was it dizziness?’

‘No. I’ll be fine. I was just thinking. It’s just been a shock.’

‘Sure? We’d better make a move on then. Get in,’ said Cupidi.

From where he was standing he couldn’t see the sea over the bank of shingle, but the sunlight bouncing off the water seemed to light everything around him. His familiar world looked strange, almost unnatural.

‘Where are we going?’ said South, opening the door and sitting back down on the pile of biscuit wrappers and empty cigarette packets.

She started the engine and set off back down the track, away from Bob Rayner’s house. ‘Team briefing back at the station. Eleven o’clock.’

South checked his watch. It was still only a quarter past ten in the morning. ‘It won’t take us that long.’

‘Yes. Well. First we have to drop by my daughter’s school. Just five minutes. I can’t bloody believe it. On her second day.’

‘You have to pick her up?’

A police car was coming the other way on the single track road, lights flashing. ‘Shit,’ said Cupidi, pulling over and winding down the window.

DI McAdam was driving; the Chief Inspector was with him. McAdam smiled. ‘Everything under control on site, Alexandra?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘Just heading back to print out a few things for the meeting.’

‘Very good,’ he said. He looked past Cupidi. ‘Sorry to hear about your friend, Bill. Terrible shock.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well. See you two back at the station, then,’ the inspector said.

The roads were less crowded now. Cupidi drove fast. ‘That was the school office on the phone. She’s being sent home,’ she said. After a mile she added, ‘Keep this to yourself, will you?’

First day of a major case as well, thought South. Taking time off for family business.

‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘Give me a bit of slack. Single mother. New job.’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘What’s the harm? I’ll be five minutes, absolute max.’

Without asking him, she was involving him in misconduct. A few years ago nobody would have thought anything of it. These days, though, it didn’t take anything to get yourself pulled up by Professional Standards, and before you knew it, no final salary pension and a future working in private security if you were lucky. ‘Isn’t there anyone else who can look after her?’

She took her eyes off the road for a brief second and looked at him, then back to the road. ‘No. There isn’t, actually,’ she said.

They were flying along the A259 now, a long, straight causeway built through the marshland. After a couple of minutes she said, ‘I requested the transfer from London because she’s fifteen and I’m not sure South London was exactly the best place for her, know what I mean? This job came up, but she doesn’t know anyone round here and right now she hates me for taking her away from her pals. So maybe I feel guilty.’

South should have been angry with her. ‘You shouldn’t. My mother did the same for me. Took me away from trouble.’

‘Did she? And did you forgive her?’

South didn’t answer. They drove in silence through the flat land, until the houses of the town started to appear around them again.

Cupidi returned from the school office with a girl walking behind her, backpack over one shoulder. The teenager was thin and dressed in a stiff new red school jumper, uniform skirt rolled up at the waist to shorten it, and her bleached hair showed a dark centre parting.

He could hear them talking through the open car window. ‘And?’ Cupidi was saying.

‘It actually wasn’t my fault, as a matter of fact.’

Alex Cupidi said, ‘On your second day.’

‘They’re evil. They were having a go at me ’cause of the way I look and the way I talk.’

‘Oh, Zoë.’

‘They are a bunch of inbreds.’

‘And you told them that?’

South pretended not to be listening; he picked at a fingernail.

‘It was them that hit me and I was only joking. I wasn’t being serious. I was just trying to have a laugh.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said her mother. ‘You’ve got to try, Zoë. You’ve got to make an effort.’

‘I was making an effort, actually. The whole cacking thing is an effort.’

‘Please, Zoë.’ At the crime scene she had seemed efficient, in charge, asking questions in a voice that demanded answers. Here with her daughter she seemed less in control. Her daughter’s pale-skinned youth made her look older, somehow.

‘Why have I got to make an effort?’ the girl was saying. ‘I didn’t want to come to this dump in the first place. It’s not my fault we’re here.’

Cupidi’s hair blew into her eyes. She brushed it out and asked, ‘What happened to the other girls who were fighting with you?’

‘I hate them. I hate all of them. I’m never going back.’

‘Did you hit them?’

‘Not really. I defended myself a bit, that’s all. Same as anyone’d have done.’

‘Why didn’t you just walk away?’

The girl said quietly, ‘You don’t understand anything at all, Mum.’

Outside a gust of wind buffeted the car. Winter would be here soon.

DS Cupidi was digging in her huge shoulder bag to pull out a door key. ‘You’ll have to spend the afternoon at home then. Make yourself some lunch.’

‘Aren’t you going to give me a lift?’

‘I can’t. Not now. This is a police car. I’m not allowed. And I’m working.’

‘You gave me a lift this morning.’