by Stav Sherez
He reached out and shook her hand, feeling the warm blanketing of her palm against his cold flesh. ‘Jack Carrigan.’
*
The phone in his pocket kept buzzing but he didn’t want to look at it, let alone answer it. The walls were peppered with signs telling visitors to turn off their mobiles and he cursed himself for not having done so when he got here. His mother had been transferred from the nursing home to the hospital in the early hours of the morning and he felt lost and confused in these blank tunnelled spaces. He walked past rooms screened off where he heard relatives talking, arguing, sobbing behind blue curtains. Orderlies brushed past him pushing shrunken figures drowning in their wheelchairs. Wall-mounted TVs scrolled silent scenes of dusty revolution, earthquake and endless war. He looked in vain for the exit but the colour-coded signs only pointed towards the gloom of radiology units, oncology departments and the recurrent miscarriage clinic. All he wanted to do was get out of there and sink several espressos somewhere dark and empty where his thoughts wouldn’t be crowded by the noise of other people’s lives. He turned into another corridor identical to the one he’d just left. A wave of dizziness overtook him and he had to stop and steady himself against the wall. He took several deep breaths. The smell of fresh raisin cake filled his nostrils and he looked around, unsettled, but he could not see its source.
And then he remembered. An autumn day, the sun arcing through the windows of the house, splashing the kitchen with golden spray, each dust mote suddenly visible. His mother standing beside him, putting the last touches on his school uniform, and the smell of raisin bread as it cooked in the oven. The way you could almost taste certain smells, and the rough warm feel of her fingers as she pushed a stray lick of hair from his forehead. And, God, how she’d laughed, one of the only times he ever remembered her laughing, as he sank to his knees and knelt in front of the oven as if before some strange altar, his eyes glued to the miracles occurring within.
He tried to shut down the flashing rush of images, to focus on the next few moments, the next few hours, the slow sipped coffee the minute he got out of there, the double bill at his local cinema tonight, but it was no use.
He started back down the winding corridor, wondering if he would ever find his way out, when he turned a corner and saw the main exit, a group of people lined up in front of the admissions desk, doctors, nurses and the harried relatives of patients, and then he glanced to the front of the queue and saw Geneva arguing with the duty nurse, earplugs dangling from her neck and a can of Coke in her hand.
‘I tried calling you. Several times.’ She stepped away from the desk and he saw something in her expression and knew this wasn’t going to be good.
‘My day off,’ he replied, annoyed but, he had to admit, also a little intrigued by what would bring her here. He was about to ask when he felt someone’s hand alighting on the back of his jacket and his name being called. He turned round to see Karen detaching herself from a group of nurses clustered around the drinks machine.
They looked at each other mutely, a couple of feet apart, and Carrigan thought it felt like holding your breath.
‘Lucky I caught you,’ Karen said, breaking the silence, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a small white business card. ‘I forgot to give you this.’ She looked at it once then handed it to him. ‘She’ll probably be here a couple of weeks. If there’s anything you want to discuss, just give me a call.’
He took the card and, without reading it, put it in his pocket. ‘Thank you.’
She placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. It gets better, you just have to—’
‘I hate to interrupt.’ Geneva stepped into the space between Carrigan and the nurse. She stared at Karen, her eyes flat and cold. ‘But we really have to go.’
‘Of course you do,’ Karen replied softly, her shoulders dropping as she turned and melted back into the swirling crowd of giddy nurses.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Carrigan snapped the seatbelt into its holder, catching the skin between thumb and forefinger, and cursed under his breath.
‘Something’s come up,’ Geneva replied as she swung the car out of the parking space, through the main gate and back into the rush and glare of the city.
He nodded impatiently and stared up at the bleached sky, realising that while he’d been inside the hospital it had started to snow. Small white clumps fell lazily, spinning and dancing against the streetlights as the radio crackled news about a shooting in Peckham, a multiple vehicle collision on the M4, a rape in Richmond. ‘How the hell did you know where to find me?’
‘You told me.’ Geneva almost hit a cyclist, swore and turned up the radio. ‘Don’t you remember?’
He couldn’t but he nodded anyway, not wanting an argument, noticing how she’d closed herself down as soon as they’d entered the car. ‘When did the snow start?’
‘About an hour ago.’ She took the Westway and they glided above the city, shrugging off the pink and brown houses, the dark wet streets and streaked parade of blurry lights. The sky turned steely and white as the snow bounced and starred on the windshield. ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Geneva asked, her eyes squinted on the road ahead. ‘She seemed very pretty . . .’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Were you visiting someone you know?’
‘What the hell does it matter? Why am I even here?’ He leaned forward and felt the seatbelt bite into his shoulder as Geneva pumped the brakes and swerved behind a lorry.
‘Don’t shout at me. Please. I’m trying to drive. This wasn’t my decision.’
He took a deep breath, looked down, saw the coffee she’d bought for him going cold in the drinks holder. ‘Sorry . . . Christ . . . it’s been a long day.’
‘It’s going to get longer, I’m afraid,’ she said, and this time he thought he could detect a note of sympathy in her tone. She reached for her lighter, the car starting to swerve across lanes. He took the cigarette from her mouth and lit it, the sudden taste unleashing a deluge of memories, then passed it back to her.
‘Branch came to see me.’ She took several quick drags, screwed up her face and threw the rest out the window. ‘Wasn’t happy.’
‘What’s so damn important he has to ruin my day off?’
She looked at him for the first time since they’d got into the car, her lips pressed tightly together. ‘I don’t know. He just told me to get you. He gave me an address, said there’s been a fire.’
‘A fire?’ Carrigan shook his head, wondering if this was another of the super’s increasingly irritating attempts at winding him up. Branch had never liked him and, after the events of last autumn, he no longer even bothered to hide it, sending Carrigan on wild-goose chases and waste-of-time inquiries whenever he could get away with it. ‘Jesus, why us? We’re not the bloody fire service.’
Geneva stared at the road ahead and said nothing; a year now they’d been working together and she was just learning to read his moods, knowing that when he got like this it was better to keep quiet and let him burn himself out. Being partners on the job was a lot like marriage in that respect, she thought, and then wished she hadn’t, as the memory of Oliver, her ex-husband, came rising up out of the dark.
They descended from the flyover and splashed back into the city and suddenly it was all around them – the shuffle and hum of people, eleven days before Christmas, trying to get their shopping done, chatting and smoking outside pubs, kissing goodbye on street corners and staring up in wonder at the ghostly discs of falling snow.
But inside the car there was only silence. Carrigan closed his eyes, a headache beginning to spread across his skull, and took three deep breaths, his nostrils suddenly puckering. His eyes snapped open. He sniffed the air and checked the back seat.
‘I hope that’s not your cigarette.’
He’d meant it as a joke but somehow it hadn’t come out like that at all. Geneva didn’t answer but she rolled up her window and he knew that she’d smelled it too.
They turned off Queensway and into a narrow residential street, parked cars and spindly trees bordering them on both sides. The smell was stronger now, more acrid, and the day had begun to darken rapidly as if a curtain had been pulled across the sky.
Geneva stopped the car and they both sat there in silence. Through the murk of twisting smoke and smeary haze, they could see a sky lit up in orange and red streaks.
Carrigan stared up, entranced, everything else forgotten for the moment, and it took him a few seconds to realise that something was wrong.
He blinked but it didn’t change a thing. He opened the car door and looked up at the sky unable to believe his own eyes.
Black snow was falling on the streets of Bayswater.
2
A thick column of smoke rose above the tall houses of St Peter’s Square. The far end of the street was blocked by two fire engines, a police patrol vehicle and a gathering crowd.
‘It’s like bloody Bonfire Night,’ Carrigan grumbled as Geneva parked the car on a double yellow line outside the Greek Orthodox cathedral. The black snow was coming down heavy and thick and it was getting hard to see, the lights of the fire engines and patrol vehicles streaked and smeared against the dizzy profusion of snow.
Carrigan was unprepared for the sheer noise of the fire, the crackle and roar filling his ears as they made their way down into the square, past the fire service barricades and the silent trellised homes whose residents were crowded on narrow balconies, their heads craned towards the raging spectacle, eyes wide in mute astonishment.
Carrigan searched for the uniforms but there were so many people, all moving fast, that it was hard to get a sense of the scene. Fire engines edged towards the burning building, their ladders projecting into the night, hoses unfurling, the firemen wiping sweat from their brows and conferring among themselves. A small group of onlookers had managed to get past the initial cordon and were staring up, hypnotised, while others held phones above their heads as if in supplication, pushing one another aside for the best view. And yet, above all this, there was a sense of quiet celebration, of expectancy, perhaps the hope for a sprinkle of seasonal magic to light up everyday life.
‘Christ, it’s a fucking circus,’ Carrigan said, approaching the fire command unit. Geneva tugged his sleeve and pointed out three uniforms, standing and watching the blaze, as transfixed as the public. From somewhere, maybe the next road along, they heard the ghostly voices of carol singers getting louder and then diminishing as the wind changed direction.
‘Who’s in charge here?’
The uniforms turned to see Carrigan standing behind them. They quickly adjusted their postures and looked at the floor. ‘Forget it,’ Carrigan said. ‘We need to set up a perimeter, did no one think of that?’
The three looked at each other as if they’d been caught smoking by a teacher.
Carrigan ordered them to start clearing the area of onlookers and residents. He stared up at the large detached house, now totally engulfed in flames, yellow and red and blue, silently praying that the occupants had been shopping when the fire broke out. If the house had been empty it would mean he could hand the case over to another team. ‘Happy Christmas!’ he told the constables, and headed towards the main fire truck.
He talked to the driver then stood and waited for the fire marshal to emerge from the burning building. They were at the narrow end of one of the elegant garden squares that Notting Hill and Bayswater were so famous for. The houses were tall and white; imposing and austere as Roman temples with their profusion of fluted columns and ornate pedestals. The burning building was two from the end. It was covered in a shawl of flame, the wind whipping it into scattering phantoms and flickering patterns. Black smoke poured into the sky. Residents from the adjacent premises were leaving in a panic, families with bulging backpacks and bewildered looks on their faces, their evening meal suddenly turned into life and death.
Carrigan saw the firemen spraying water from thick grey hoses which kept kicking and bucking in their hands. The snow kept coming down. The crime scene was being destroyed as he watched and there was nothing he could do about it.
He finally saw the fire marshal emerge from the black smoke, covered in soot and dust, his eyes tearing from the fumes, his body crumpling with each sustained burst of coughing.
Carrigan flashed his warrant card and the marshal stopped, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face, leaving it streaked like a soldier on night patrol. Behind them, Geneva was helping the uniforms set up a perimeter, the crime-scene tape screeching and mewling like a hungry infant as it was stretched across the road. Carrigan turned to the marshal. ‘Any idea what we’re looking at?’
‘One hell of an insurance claim,’ the man replied, and when Carrigan gave him a dark look, he laughed. ‘Just kidding.’ His name-tag said Weir above the left pocket and he was short and squat. ‘It looks like the fire’s been going for at least an hour. We’ll be lucky if we can save anything.’
Carrigan wrinkled his nostrils at the smell, an acidic reek of burning plastic and wood that settled at the back of his throat. ‘Is it safe to go inside?’
Weir shook his head. ‘Too dangerous, these houses, too much wood, everything’s collapsing.’ On cue, a tremendous crack split the air and a burning beam sheared off from the front of the house and landed in the garden, exploding in a shower of sparks. Carrigan felt flashes of heat and light behind him and turned to see a news van parking alongside, two cameramen already out and snapping photos. ‘Christ!’
The fire marshal grimaced. ‘Made their day, this has.’
Carrigan liked the man’s understated cynicism and was glad he was in charge. He was about to ask him something else when a muffled cry turned them both in the direction of the burning house.
Initially, Carrigan could see only smoke and fire, and then he made out the faint outline of a couple of bodies emerging from the darkness. At first, he thought these were survivors but then, as the smoke cleared, he recognised their yellow helmets and dark dusty jackets.
He followed Weir across the street. They reached the edge of the garden and the heat was terrible, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The firemen emerging from the smoke were carrying something and, as he got closer, he could see that it was one of their own, blackened by soot and convulsing as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. The marshal immediately called the paramedics stationed nearby. Carrigan could tell that the injured man was on the verge of slipping away, his face red and blotchy, the skin already pulsating, his eyes rolling white into their sockets.
Weir spoke to the fallen man, held his hand and squeezed it gently, then stood up. ‘Jesus . . .’ he said, wiping his brow. ‘He’s been in the house. He’s been upstairs. You better listen to him.’
Carrigan knelt down, feeling the sweat and heat engulf him, and he could only just make out the man’s voice above the roar of the flames.
‘What? What did you say?’
The injured fireman tried to repeat what he’d said but he broke into a fit of coughing, vomiting a thin yellow stream of bile onto the pavement beneath him. ‘There’s . . .’ his voice wheezed and stuttered and broke, ‘upstairs . . . body . . . bod . . .’
Carrigan leaned closer until he could smell the man’s burned flesh, dark and funky and familiar in his nostrils. ‘There’s a body up there?’
The fireman shook his head and even that small movement seemed to cause him incalculable pain, his eyes turning small and pale. ‘Mm . . . mm . . . more than one.’
‘How many?’
The fireman started convulsing again, his teeth cracking loudly against one another.
‘All over the place . . .’ he coughed and spluttered and retched. ‘Everywhere . . . there’s fucking bodies everywhere.’
3
Ambulance sirens now added to the general noise and chaos. The fire continued burning, the wood cracking and breaking, the sizzle and hiss of water hitting flame filling the night like the beating wings of a thou
sand butterflies.
‘I need to get inside,’ Carrigan said, sweat dripping into his eyes.
The fire marshal was signalling his men, pointing out areas of the blaze they weren’t covering. He was talking on the radio, his voice low and deep as he recounted the situation, his eyes fixed on his fallen colleague being stretchered into a waiting ambulance. He put down the handset, took off his gloves and pulled a packet of chewing gum from his pocket. ‘Want one?’
Carrigan shook his head. ‘When can we go in?’ He was impatient now, wanting to see what was waiting for them in there, what they would have to deal with over the coming days.
‘Not for a couple of hours at least,’ Weir replied. ‘Not unless you want to end up like him.’ Carrigan followed his eyes towards the stretchered figure, groaning and gasping in pain as they raised him onto the ambulance bed.
‘I need to get in there,’ he repeated. ‘I need to see what we’re dealing with.’
Weir nodded. ‘We don’t get this under control in the next hour, all you’ll be dealing with is ashes and dust.’
Carrigan found Geneva helping the uniforms extend the cordon. The public were swaying and cramming against the blue-and-white crime-scene tape, their mobile cameras held aloft, shopping bags discarded for the moment as they posed in front of the burning building. He pointed to a small cleared space and led her away from the noise and press of the crowd. He kept having to wipe sweat from his face and he was tired and hungry and pissed off he’d missed his movie. Geneva called for more back-up as Carrigan rounded up the uniforms.
‘Stop looking at the fire,’ he told the young constables, ‘and start looking at the people looking at the fire.’
They stared at him, confused and disoriented. ‘Start asking questions. Some of these gawpers might have seen someone running away from the scene, they might have been here when this started. They won’t be here long. Once the fire’s out, the entertainment’s over, and they’ll go back to their homes and we’ll never know what they saw.’ He stopped to wipe away more sweat popping on his forehead. ‘Look for the usual, anyone who suddenly decides it’s a good time to leave when you approach, anyone staring too hard . . . and pay close attention to people’s hands when you’re interviewing them.’
