Eleven Days

by Stav Sherez

  ‘Their hands?’ a petite female constable asked. She didn’t look old enough to get served in a bar.

  Carrigan nodded. ‘Look for anyone with soot or dust on their hands, but what I really want you to do is smell them.’

  ‘Smell them?’ This time it was all three uniforms who stared up at Carrigan as if a madman had taken over the case.

  ‘Yes. The crowd are too far away to pick up the smell. Here . . .’ He raised his arm and pulled on his sleeve. The cloth released its vapour and he watched with satisfaction as the uniforms wrinkled their noses. ‘That’s what you smell like if you’ve got too close to the fire. But, more importantly, look out for anyone who stinks of petrol.’ He watched as the young female constable took notes. ‘Do you have a video camera in the patrol car?’ he asked her.

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Good. Go get it. I want you to circle the crowd and film them. Do it several times so you get everyone.’

  ‘Film them?’ She stopped writing and looked up from her notebook.

  ‘People who start fires like to watch them burn,’ he replied, remembering a course he’d attended on this very thing, several years back. ‘They love to see their handiwork, it’s what gets them off. Chances are whoever set the fire is standing in the crowd right now, watching it.’

  ‘How do we know it’s not accidental?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t, but if it’s not then this is our only chance at this.’

  The sound of crashing drums and squealing guitars burst through the night. Carrigan and Geneva looked up and saw a group of people standing on a balcony diagonally across from the burning house. They were passing around a bottle of champagne, smoking cigars and watching the fire with rapt expressions. ‘Christ,’ Carrigan muttered. ‘Someone tell these jokers this isn’t some bloody Christmas party.’

  The uniforms nodded and avoided Carrigan’s eyes. They chatted among themselves for a moment then spread out to tackle the crowd.

  ‘You okay?’

  He hadn’t even realised she was still standing beside him. ‘I can imagine better ways to spend my day off. Do you have any idea why Branch called us in?’

  But Geneva wasn’t paying attention. He saw her look past him, squint, then frown.

  ‘You can ask him yourself,’ she said, pointing over to the perimeter and then quickly turning back. ‘Oh my God, I hope that’s not who I think it is with him.’

  Carrigan brushed some of the dust off his jacket. It had mixed with the melting snow and now lay like an oil slick across his clothes and face. He straightened up as Branch approached but it was the other man he was watching.

  ‘Assistant Chief Constable Quinn,’ he said neutrally, as the pencil-thin figure next to Branch stepped forward. ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’

  Quinn came to a stop a foot away from Carrigan. He was a tall bony man, all angles and points, always neat and fastidious, with a whispery moustache perched on his upper lip, making him look more like a mournful pre-war bank clerk than the third most important man in the Met. ‘And why is that?’ Quinn’s dry enunciation filled the air around them, crisp and hard as a whipcrack. ‘Do you all imagine that I do nothing but sit behind a desk?’

  Carrigan had never been able to read the man and couldn’t tell if this was his attempt at humour or a rebuke. ‘I just meant this is a fire, accidental for all we know. Why bring my team into this?’

  Quinn sucked the insides of his cheeks, his eyes probing Carrigan’s as if searching for some obscure meaning behind the words. ‘I happen to live on this street,’ he said, pointing behind him. ‘I heard the fire engines, looked out and saw where it was. I called DSI Branch immediately.’

  Carrigan was certain he’d missed something. He glanced over at the burning house then back at Quinn. ‘Where what was?’

  ‘The fire, young man, the fire,’ Quinn replied tersely. ‘Now, DI Carrigan, let’s stop wasting time. What do we know?’

  ‘Not much as of yet,’ Carrigan admitted. ‘Still too dangerous to go in, but one of the firemen reported seeing bodies.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Quinn said, cupping his forehead.

  ‘What?’ Carrigan saw the ACC’s face sag and blanch, saw Branch shaking his head. ‘What is that house?’

  ‘It’s a convent.’ Quinn looked up and Carrigan noticed the rings circling his eyes, the drawn and puckered skin, late nights, smoke and booze, a lifetime of bodies and blood.

  ‘A what?’ He wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  ‘Nuns, DI Carrigan, nuns lived there.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ the ACC said. ‘I want you on this, Carrigan. I asked Branch specifically. The work you did last year, that dreadful child soldier thing, earned us some good points with the public. I want you in charge.’

  ‘Sir, I think we should wait and see what the fire investigator finds . . . it’s just as likely this was an accident.’

  Quinn seemed to be weighing this up. ‘Just as likely, yes, you could say that. But how would we look if this turned out to be intentional and we were caught behind the curve on it?’ He pointed to the two white vans. ‘The press are already here, Carrigan. The press are already asking questions.’

  Carrigan nodded, noting that Branch hadn’t said a word during the entire conversation. ‘Do you know how many nuns lived there?’

  Quinn turned to Branch and smiled for the first time, his lips sticking defiantly together. ‘See, Jason, that’s why I want him on board, already asking the right questions.’ Branch’s eyes turned small and fierce as Quinn addressed Carrigan. ‘Ten, Detective Inspector, ten nuns lived there. My wife occasionally helped them. She’s very upset, as you can imagine.’ Quinn’s eyes suddenly narrowed. He looked up as a blast of reggae made its way from the balcony across the road. ‘What in God’s name are those people doing?’

  ‘Someone’s on their way over.’

  Quinn nodded curtly, conferred with Branch, then brushed some of the black snow off his suit and disappeared back into the smoky night.

  ‘Not my decision.’ Branch was sweating heavily, his face blotchy and crimson.

  ‘Didn’t think it was,’ Carrigan said.

  *

  Carrigan watched the fire being extinguished. An hour passed and then the fire marshal approached him.

  ‘You ready?’ he said.

  Carrigan nodded and followed Weir past the cameramen setting up their tripods, the reporters practising their lines, the sound of triggered car alarms and distant guitars wailing.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Carrigan asked as they went through the gate.

  The marshal looked up at the blackened shell of the house and shook his head. ‘Bad,’ he said. ‘Really bad.’

  4

  The smell was overwhelming. It was like nothing he’d experienced before; not the reek of decomposed corpses in dark basements, nor the salty tang of freshly spilled blood, but something almost physical.

  ‘Careful,’ Weir warned as they made their way through the front garden. ‘They’ll burn a hole right through your shoe.’ He pointed to the smouldering pieces of wood spitting and hissing on the path, but Carrigan’s eyes were drawn to the sky. ‘What’s with the black snow?’

  ‘It’s that way because of the fire,’ Weir explained. ‘Soaks up all the ash and dust on its way down.’

  ‘Nice,’ Carrigan replied, adjusting his safety hat and turning back towards the convent.

  The main structure was no longer burning, the firemen retreating their ladders and hoses, the top of the building covered in clouds of billowing steam as water cascaded from the gutters and eaves. The air was filled with bursts of cracking and popping, loud groans and moans coming from the wood as it contracted violently against the cold water, making the house seem as if it were alive and extremely disgruntled.

  They could see into the building as if it were a doll’s house in some little girl’s bedroom or one of those models that architects use to pitch new designs. But there was nothing new here, only stai
rcases that led into empty space, door frames gaping like open mouths, windows blown through, the glass twisted and melted and reconfigured into nightmarish shapes.

  ‘It’s still unstable, so we can’t spend too long.’ Weir was chewing gum, his lips smacking against each other. Snow had collected on his hat and clothes. ‘The fire investigator will go through it tomorrow morning and you should have his report by the afternoon.’ He stopped and turned towards Carrigan. ‘Very unusual for you guys to get here so soon.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Carrigan said, thinking about his encounter with the ACC – he knew that Quinn’s presence meant it would be one of those cases, the kind he dreaded the most.

  ‘We’re lucky we got here ourselves when we did,’ Weir said, leading him into the reception hall, but Carrigan wasn’t listening. He stopped, turned back and inspected the entrance.

  ‘What?’

  Carrigan pointed to the doorframe. The wood had been badly burned but the slim metal locks were still in place. Carrigan used the sleeve of his jacket to brush away some of the soot. There were four mortise locks spread evenly along the doorframe’s length, three Chubbs, and the housing for two heavy-duty bolts.

  ‘A lot of locks,’ Weir said, a low whistle escaping his lips.

  ‘Yes,’ Carrigan replied. ‘Especially for a convent.’

  The marshal nodded sombrely and turned back into the reception hall. The outside wall had collapsed and brought down a portion of the roof, exposing a rectangle of sky through which the snow drifted slowly down. A staircase rose steeply to their left. Carrigan followed Weir past the melting bubbling plastic, half burnt umbrellas and empty coat-stands, their metal hooks steaming in the dark.

  ‘Can you tell if this was arson?’

  Weir started to say that he wasn’t an investigator but Carrigan wanted to know his first impressions and told him to continue.

  ‘I got a good look at the flames before we went in.’ He passed through a small corridor, now exposed to the night. ‘You know about flame and colour spectrums, right?’

  Carrigan didn’t but nodded anyway, his throat dry and scratchy from the soot and dust.

  ‘Basically, we can tell what kind of fire it is from the colour of the flame. Different materials burn with different heat signatures. Blue flames are nearly always an indicator of accelerants, which often means the fire was intentional. I didn’t see any of that here. The fire burned mainly red with some yellow and only sporadic flashes of blue. It looks like no accelerants were used and the seat of fire appears to be singular rather than multiple, which is what we would expect to see in cases of arson. Then again, I’m only guessing. We’ll know much more when the investigator’s done.’

  Carrigan stared at the ruined house, trying to visualise what it must have looked like before the fire, how the corridors and rooms connected and what their functions had been. ‘Do you know if the bodies are all grouped together?’

  The marshal thought for a moment and nodded. ‘We haven’t been in the basement yet, but the ones we found upstairs were all in the same room.’

  Carrigan filed this bit of information away. He knew it could mean any number of things but it would help them reconstruct the series of events which had led to the fire. ‘Where?’

  Weir pointed directly above and they climbed the stairs and turned right on the first-floor landing. At the far end was an empty doorframe revealing a room shrouded in smoke and haze. As he entered, Carrigan saw a set of dark smudges aligned across the floor. ‘How many?’

  The marshal checked something on one of his instruments then stepped through the doorframe. ‘We haven’t managed to count them yet.’

  The smell in this room was different. Still the acrid tang of burnt wood, the acidic reek of melted plastic, but also something else. Carrigan tried breathing through his mouth but then he could taste it and that was worse. It really did smell like barbecue and that was what made it so horrible, this close relation to pleasure, the way the tongue could not distinguish between the two, and he tried not to think about what he was actually breathing in.

  ‘This room took some of the worst damage,’ Weir said. ‘The fire started in the chapel directly below, so it burned for a long time before we could get to it.’

  They both coughed and spluttered and Weir took a small collapsible fan from his belt and set it down. As the smoke dissipated, the dark blotches on the floor began to take shape.

  They were evenly spread out in two rows. They looked like small children, the black and brown skin snagged tight against the bones, the arms and legs curled into each other in a foetal boxer’s position. It made them appear as if they’d died fighting, struggling desperately against the confines of their own skins.

  Carrigan leaned down next to the nearest body, the small shrivelled form giving off steam as the eyes still bubbled in their sockets. He got up, nauseated and dizzy, and started to count.

  They were arranged in an almost geometrical pattern around a humped mass of grey ash situated in the centre of the room. They were all reposing in virtually identical positions. It didn’t seem like any of them had tried to escape – there was none of the scatter pattern you normally saw in a fire, the panic and fear driving the victims to try all available exits and windows – no, this looked like they’d sat and waited for the fire to consume them. Or maybe they hadn’t been able to move, Carrigan thought, and made a note to ask the pathologist about that. He studied the mound of ashes in the centre and saw the silver glint of cutlery, broken china, a scattering of small black stones, the metal edges of chair supports, and knew they’d died where they’d sat, around the dinner table, gathered for their last supper.

  He blinked the image away and counted again.

  Just as Quinn had said. Ten bodies. The fire had got them all.

  A beam cracked above him, showering dust and sparks down on his jacket. He stood up and made his way towards the stained-glass window high on the west wall. There was no way anyone could have reached it, let alone used it to escape.

  He walked past Weir without saying a word and stopped and looked down at the remains of the door, using his foot to sift through the debris. Most of the wood was gone, only splinters and slivers remaining, skinny as fingers. He leaned down and picked up a darkened doorknob, still brassy under the layers of soot. He looked at it for a moment then put it down. He used his hand to sift through the rest of the ash and stopped when he felt the cold touch of metal. He reached over and picked up the object and examined it.

  ‘You still think this was an accident?’ He handed the fireman the dull disfigured lock that had once been part of the door. Weir took it and held it in his hands, turning it over several times as if confused of its function. The cylinder was engaged and the two pieces, lock and housing, were embraced in an unbreakable kiss.

  ‘The door was locked . . .’ Weir said, and then his radio crackled, making them both jump. The fireman spoke into it in short staccato bursts. He clicked off and looked up at Carrigan, his face puzzled and strange.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure how to explain it,’ Weir replied. ‘You better come downstairs and have a look.’

  The size of the chapel surprised him. The fact of it lurking invisibly in this nondescript house. Smoke obscured the far edges, the nave, altar and rood screen. Firemen were rushing around putting out small blazes erupting in corners and niches. Weir spoke to one of his colleagues, nodding rapidly, then turned towards Carrigan.

  ‘They heard something moving in there.’ He pointed to a line of confession booths against the far wall, their metal frames hissing sibilantly.

  ‘They heard something?’

  Weir nodded. ‘Yes. A thump.’

  Carrigan looked in the direction of the booths. There were three of them, now reduced to skeleton remains of metal and charred timber. He stood and listened but there was only the crackling of the rapidly cooling wood, the hiss and sputter of dead fires. The firemen had stopped what they were doing and w
ere all gathered around him. He took a step forward and carefully opened the door to the first booth. A pocket of trapped smoke burst out, momentarily blinding him. He went over to the second booth and tried the door but it was locked.

  ‘Anyone got a penknife?’

  Weir passed a small folding knife over to him and Carrigan carefully ran it through the gap between door and frame, unlatching the lock. He turned and handed the knife back to Weir. He pulled the handle but the lock snagged and caught and the door jammed. Carrigan was about to give it another yank when something moved inside the confession booth, thudding against the door.

  The sudden weight and pressure made Carrigan jump back. They all watched the door of the second confession booth with held breath and unblinking eyes but there was no further sound nor movement. Carrigan took a step forward and gripped the handle so tightly that he could feel his own pulse throbbing through his fingers as he waited for whatever it was behind the door to move again. He could hear Weir talking behind him but not what he said. He could feel the pressing weight against the door and he gently turned the handle and gave it a sharp pull. The jammed lock broke and the door swung open.

  It came tumbling out with a breath of charred meat and bitter smoke and landed hot and wet in his arms. The smell instantly filled his mouth and nostrils. He stumbled back but the body clung to him fiercely, the weight not much more than that of a small child’s.

  He resisted the urge to rip his hands free and slowly got to his knees and lowered it onto the floor. He got up and quickly wiped his hands on his trousers. He felt like he was going to be sick, his forehead blazing and stomach churning as he forced himself to focus on the twisted remains lying at his feet, a slippery figure curled in on itself like a broken question mark.