by Stav Sherez
Jennings tried to read the posted directions through the dense hatchwork of squiggles and illegible scrawls. ‘Flat 134,’ he pointed uncertainly to the far corner of the quadrangle, one floor up. Geneva was surprised by how nervous he seemed, almost disappearing inside his terrible suit. Field work was not his strong point and she’d often wondered how he could bear it, stuck in an office and never directly in contact with the world he was investigating. For her, the field had always been the one place where she could totally lose herself, where the spinning noise of days quietened to one whisper and anything could happen.
‘We should have just got the uniforms to pick him up,’ Jennings complained as they crossed the courtyard and ducked under the overhanging walkways.
‘It’s better this way,’ Geneva said, remembering how Carrigan had taught her that one of the most invaluable sources of evidence at their disposal was a subject’s flat, what they chose to show of themselves to the world. ‘At least that’s what the boss says.’
Jennings sniffed and coughed and stopped. ‘Funny you should say that, I was going to ask you about him.’ His smile was lopsided and shaded as he said this. ‘You have any idea what’s up with Carrigan recently?’
‘What do you mean?’ Geneva turned to look at Jennings and he quickly looked away.
‘He seems wound up very tight . . . I mean, more than usual.’ A small nervous laugh escaped his mouth. ‘Karlson said he gets like this every Christmas, said it was because . . .’
Geneva shot Jennings a cold hard stare. ‘I’d focus on what we’re here to do if I were you and worry a little less about other people.’ She saw his face drop and felt bad for snapping at him. She knew it wasn’t Jennings she was mad at, and wasn’t there also a little truth to what he was saying? There was something different about Carrigan recently, a slight but unmistakable tension that was always present, as if his skin had shrunk in the wash. But it was his life and he would tell her if he chose to. You couldn’t force confidences. She knew that only too well, thinking back to Oliver’s relentless probing of her every thought and fleeting whim, his need to know everything erasing the walls of privacy she’d spent so long erecting around herself.
They walked silently under the parapets, the net-curtained windows on either side twitching and shifting as if disturbed by their very passing, and came to a sudden stop a few feet from the stairwell.
A group of kids stood in a circle, huddled around the stairs. Loud music, seemingly consisting only of bass thumps and ground tremors, emanated from a chunky boom box perched on the second step. The kids ranged in age between twelve and fifteen, were mixed in race and gender, and glared at them with a uniform hostility as they approached. There was no fear in their eyes, just a simmering discontent. They were passing around a reefer and the smell was rich and pungent in Geneva’s nostrils, a smell that reminded her of her mother more than anything else.
She saw one of the kids, the leader presumably, corn-rowed hair and track lines, turning up the volume until she could feel her organs begin to vibrate. She stood and eyeballed him until finally the corn-row kid broke her stare and spat on the floor an inch away from her shoe. She turned, seeing Jennings totally pale, eyes like rabbits, and pushed her way past the kids and up the stairs.
Geneva knocked on the door to Alan Hubbard’s flat and waited. She could hear the music from the boom box downstairs, the screams of neighbouring TV sets competing in the gauzy air, words and accusations bouncing across the concrete parapets and drowning flat in the snow.
She knocked again, this time harder, looking at Jennings, wondering if he’d fucked up, got the wrong address, when she heard the sound of breaking glass coming from within. She immediately had her baton out and ready. She knocked again, stopping when she heard footsteps, each one getting a little louder, approaching the door. ‘He might have a broken bottle in his hand so be careful,’ she warned Jennings as they took positions on either side of the door. She heard the sound of unlatching locks and ratcheting tumblers and tensed herself.
Alan Hubbard was not holding a broken bottle or a knife or anything else. He looked as if he didn’t have the strength to hold a packet of cigarettes. It took a moment for his eyes to focus and for him to look up but, when he saw Geneva’s outstretched hand brandishing her warrant card, he reacted with the alacrity of a hyena, instantly dropping his shoulders, his whole body turning in on itself as his eyes scoured the ground.
‘Mr Hubbard?’
The man in front of them let out a deep sigh. ‘I know why you’re here,’ he said. ‘I know why you’ve come.’
Geneva thought she was going to gag the moment she entered the flat. She’d smelled enough bodies, blood and rot, but this smell was something else. It was almost tangible, the air thick and hot in the cramped one-bedroom flat. Onions, sour milk, old laundry and bad breath mixed with a sickly sweet dash of booze. She concentrated on breathing through her mouth as they followed Hubbard through a small hallway and into an equally small living room. The floor was covered in yellow lino which had peeled and cracked at several points revealing the rough wooden underlay. Empty bottles of booze lay scattered across the flat and a bin had overflowed, rubbish spilling out of its top like cascading lava. Airbrushed paintings of horses dotted the walls – horses nuzzling each other in lush green meadows, cantering across a prairie, in close-up, flared nostrils and gentle eyes staring sadly into the smudged horizon. A TV was on, broadcasting shaky hand-held images of civil war, dust and explosions and running journalists. Piles of old newspapers lay stacked around the room in various stages of decomposition. There was a shelf filled with forty or fifty half-empty pill bottles, and several umbrellas, the skin torn and frayed, silver fingers bent and poking through. Framed portraits of the queen were hanging on three of the walls as if she were a dictator or a saint.
Hubbard sank into a grey armchair and reached for a grimy bottle of Scotch that lay by his feet. Geneva could see the greasy ghost-mark of his lips on the neck of the bottle, overlapped and smudged like a set of fingerprints. He took a long pull then put it back down and sat mutely staring at his hands. She’d initially thought he was an old man but he wasn’t even middle-aged, his youth lost behind a patchy ginger beard, sunken cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. He wore a grey T-shirt with sweat stains under the arms and smears of crusted food across the belly and a pair of ill-fitting jeans, bagged in a tight concertina around his waist.
‘It’s all my fault,’ Hubbard said, finally looking up at her. ‘All my fault, all my fault, all my fault . . .’ he repeated, banging his fists against his thighs in time with the words.
Geneva told him to stand up. She took a step back as he did so, the stench of unwashed clothes and night sweats making her feel dizzy, and it was then that Hubbard lunged forward and grabbed her arm, moving much faster than she’d thought possible.
His fingers felt cold and wet against her skin. His face was a few inches away from hers and she could see his missing teeth and black gums as he spoke.
‘You have to believe me.’ His grip kept getting tighter with each word and then, before she realised what he was doing, he leaned in closer, his body pressing hard against hers, and whispered in her ear.
Jennings had stepped forward, baton out, but Geneva nodded him away, gently put one hand on Hubbard’s wrist, looked him in the eyes and pulled her other hand free. She brushed her sleeve and turned to see Jennings pale and bug-eyed, looking as awkward holding the truncheon as a dog playing the trumpet. She shrugged a silent message at him and turned back to the caretaker.
‘Could you please repeat what you just told me, Mr Hubbard?’
Hubbard looked at Jennings, then at Geneva, his eyes pale and runny, his voice a thin, scratchy wheeze. ‘I did it,’ he said, putting his arms out, palms up. ‘I killed them. I killed them all.’
10
The coffee was strong and made him feel human again. He slowly savoured it, watching the snow spiralling outside the cafe’s windows as light jazz played over th
e house stereo. He thought it might be Wes Montgomery but it had been so long since he’d listened to music that he wasn’t sure. He often came here when he felt the need to escape the clang and clamour of the station. The cafe had comfortable sofas, halfway decent espresso and staff who never cleared his cup before he was finished. There was half an hour to go until his appointment with the pathologist and he needed the food and drink to fortify himself for what would be waiting down in the morgue; the sickly smells combining with the pathologist’s scratchy smoker’s whisper, the cloying scent of her hairspray and constant barrage of jokes at his expense.
He took another sip and stared up at the queue. Today, the cafe was crowded with Christmas shoppers taking a break from the relentless burden of choices on the high street. Everyone seemed faintly aglow with seasonal expectation. Strangers began conversations about the snow while waiting for their drinks. But no one spoke to him. They could see the dark shadows flickering behind his eyes and sense that he was immersed in his own separate world and that it was a world of which they wanted no part.
He finished his sandwich and tried calling Geneva but there was no reply. He’d detailed her with finding the caretaker’s whereabouts and wanted to know if she’d got anywhere. He took out his policy book and started to jot down the things he’d just learned at the scene – the scattered rosary beads, the scratches on the confession-booth door, the way the pricket stand had been moved. He didn’t like what they were finding out at all. The faint hope that it had been an accident was being chipped away with each new piece of information.
None of it made sense no matter how hard he stared at it. He flipped the notebook shut and checked his watch. Fifteen minutes to kill. He thought of Karen then, the nurse he’d met only yesterday, and how her expression seemed to reflect his own wheeling doubts and dreams. The way her smile ignited her eyes, her two front teeth emerging behind rosy lips – how it made her look sad and serious at the same time.
He took out his phone and stared at it, wondering if it was too soon to call – he’d never been very good at these things. He looked up at the whirling sky outside, the buses going by, their windows fogged and streaked, the cars sporting strange toupees of snow on their roofs, then turned back and pulled the card out of his wallet. He dialled the number before he could change his mind.
She answered on the second ring.
‘Hello?’
He almost snapped the phone shut, the blood beating in his veins, but there was something calming about her voice, the swirl of her accent more pronounced than when he’d spoken to her the day before.
‘This is Jack Carrigan,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘My mother, Margaret Ca—’
‘Hi Jack,’ Karen interrupted, her voice soft and sultry as it crackled through his earpiece.
‘I was just wondering if there were any new developments?’
‘I’m glad you called,’ the nurse replied. ‘She’s much better, the hip seems to be settling and we’ve sedated her for the pain.’ There was a pause and he thought he could hear faint moaning on the other end of the line. ‘I was going to ask . . .’ the nurse continued, ‘maybe if you were coming in to see her . . . we could have a drink or something?’
He looked down at the remains of his coffee and thought about the case; the long, relentless hours ahead. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘this week’s going to be tough.’
‘I understand,’ she replied, her voice subdued and hard to read.
Carrigan watched the falling snow outside, the crush and bustle of shoppers and neon stutter of Christmas lights arched across the high street like the gateway to some imperial corridor. He was about to ask her if they could rearrange but, by then, she’d already hung up the phone.
*
He stood outside the pathologist’s office and wiped down his jacket and boots. The snow was falling pure and white but it turned to slush almost instantly on the grey pavements of Bayswater.
He waited in the reception area for the pathologist to come and get him. He found that, despite himself, he was looking forward to the old woman’s abrasive manner and dry humour.
‘Mr Carrigan?’
Jack looked up and saw a burly, barrel-shaped man approaching him. The man was shaking his head and muttering to himself. He had long salt-and-pepper hair, uncombed and wild, and a bushy black beard.
‘It’s Detective Inspector,’ Carrigan replied as he stood up. ‘I have an appointment with the pathologist.’
‘I’m Milan,’ the man said, not offering his hand nor any shred of comfort in his voice, which was strangely accented, a dry obduracy to it as if each word were something to be wrestled then spat out.
‘And Bentley? Where is she?’
But Milan had already turned his back and was striding down a long narrow corridor towards the doors which led to the morgue. Carrigan had little choice but to follow him. He descended the stairs and blinked to adjust his eyes. The brightness of the basement always assailed him, the stuttering lights and reflective marble floors proving a potent combination. He put on a pair of blue plastic bootees, studying Milan, who was impatiently tapping his foot while humming something low and dolorous under his breath. Despite his initial impression, Carrigan realised that under the faded Deep Purple T-shirt and long hair, Milan was in his late forties, his skin cragged and wrinkled like the flesh of a walnut, his eyes sunk deep into folded pockets of skin as if they’d already seen too much of the world and didn’t want to see any more.
‘Is the pathologist coming?’ Carrigan was starting to feel a prickle of annoyance. He didn’t want to be wasting time if the old woman wasn’t here. There were too many things to do, too many leads to chase up, and he recognised that peculiar mix of adrenalin and despair that often greeted him at the beginning of a major case.
Milan shrugged and used a scrunchy to tie his hair back into a ponytail, the T-shirt riding high above his gut. ‘Dr Bentley’s not here.’
‘I can see that. Where is she?’
‘She’s dead.’
Carrigan stopped in his tracks, unsure if he’d somehow misheard the man through his mangled accent. ‘Dead?’
‘Yes, dead. You know . . . like all these people here.’ Milan swept his arm across the room, the sheet-covered mounds on the metal tables eerie and still.
Carrigan took a moment to digest this information. When was the last time he’d spoken to her – a week ago? A month? He remembered her Thatcher hairdo and the constant stink of smoke on her breath but not her first name. ‘The cigarettes?’
‘No, no,’ Milan replied. ‘She walked into a bus last week. Double-decker. Squashed flat, no chance.’
‘Jesus,’ Carrigan exhaled. ‘Who’s in charge, then?’
‘What, you haven’t worked that out? Some detective you are.’ Milan turned and headed towards the centre of the room. He wrote something down on a clipboard ‘So, what do you want?’
Carrigan stared at the floor, trying to make sense of it. ‘I came to get an initial report on the bodies recovered from the convent.’
Milan sighed and scratched his belly. ‘I told your boss this would take at least a week – you think I’m some kind of magician?’ He pointed to the metal gurneys surrounding them. Normally the pathologists worked on two or three bodies at a time but, as Carrigan surveyed the room, he could see gurneys pressed tight against each other wherever he looked, the whole room covered in a sea of shrouded bodies. Dull metal scales hung from various points along the ceiling. Each held a mass of red or grey matter, kidneys and livers and hearts waiting to be bagged and weighed.
‘I was just hoping to get your initial impressions.’
‘Initial impressions?’ Milan repeated. ‘My initial impression is that you’re nuts.’
Carrigan didn’t know what to say, so unexpected was the man’s response and so different from what he was used to with the old woman. ‘Please?’
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ Milan finally allowed. ‘I look at them, I see some things, yes, but remember th
is is only, what you call it? Initial impression? Might be all wrong. You then come back and say Milan fucked the case, gave us wrong results, am I right?’ Milan clicked his teeth and shook his head. He walked up to the nearest gurney and unceremoniously yanked the sheet as if he were a tired maid at the end of her shift. Carrigan took a step back. The smell was so strong and rich, so familiar.
‘Smell like barbecue, right?’ Milan smiled and Jack could tell he was enjoying this. ‘Like barbecue I used to do with my father back in the old country – but that shouldn’t surprise you, Detective Inspector, what are we? Just meat on the bone, no different from a leg of pork or rack of ribs, right?’
Carrigan tried to tune out the pathologist’s words as he stared down at the shrivelled and blackened remains of corpse one. The eleven bodies had all been tagged numerically, starting at the head of the table and progressing clockwise. Corpse eleven was the one they’d found downstairs‚ cowering in the confession booth. Carrigan hated the anonymity of it, this last reduction into a single cipher, and knew that finding their identities so that they could be properly buried would be his first priority.
Milan crossed to another gurney and stripped the sheet. He did this until all the bodies were uncovered, small black lumps, more like children than adults. Medical assistants walked past, bagging samples and clearing the mess. Milan berated and shouted at them at every opportunity. They seemed shell-shocked by the new order in the morgue.
‘This,’ Milan pointed to corpse one. ‘You should not think they curled up like this to protect themselves. This is fire, this is what happens, the muscles lose liquid and contract, the body ends up looking like it struggled and fought, but this all happens after they die, you understand?’
