by Stav Sherez
Carrigan nodded.
‘And what does any of that have to do with drugs?’
‘The nuns were active in anti-drug initiatives,’ Carrigan explained. ‘They had quite a presence in the neighbourhood. They shooed off some dealers from an alley at the back of the convent. There’s also reports of them picketing dealers’ houses, approaching incoming customers with leaflets on rehab centres and the curative powers of God.’
Byrd listened intently, his eyes unblinking. He took in Carrigan’s words without expression, then had another sip of beer followed by the second shot. Carrigan opened his briefcase and pulled out a file. From inside, he took out a photo of the man with the scarred mouth that Berman had printed off from the CCTV footage. Byrd looked at the photo and his eyes narrowed. He didn’t say anything.
‘This man visited the convent at least three times before the fire. He was standing outside watching the convent burn down that night. He also assaulted me in the ruins the next day.’
He saw the merest flicker of interest in Byrd’s eyes but the sergeant managed to snuff it out almost immediately. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘CCTV camera outside the school next door to the convent. Who is he?’
Byrd stared into his glass in silent deliberation. ‘We know him only as Viktor. He’s a lieutenant for one of the top Albanian bosses, Agon Duka.’
‘Duka?’ Carrigan repeated, his teeth buzzing.
‘Runs one of the larger Albanian gangs. Viktor’s his right-hand man. If he’s involved then it’s something that’s important to Duka.’
‘Albanians?’ Carrigan said. ‘You mean the Albanian mob?’
Byrd nodded, got up and walked over to the bar, ordering another round of drinks. His legs wobbled slightly as he came back across the room. He sat down, took a sip of beer and swiped back a shot. His eyes glassed over and for a brief moment all the lines and long hard years were temporarily erased.
‘What the hell are the Albanians doing here? I didn’t even know they were active in London.’
‘War,’ Byrd replied, a grim smile on his face, and when he saw Carrigan’s confused expression, he said, ‘Do you believe in the law of unintended consequences?’
Carrigan looked at his drink but he didn’t need to think about it. ‘We can never know the outcome of any given action.’
‘Good. Too many people think they can see the future and no one can. Bill Clinton passed sanctions on Serbia during the Bosnian war. The traditional route for heroin smuggling into Europe had always been from Turkey via Belgrade. The war closed that route. Albanian gangs suddenly found themselves literally in the right place at the right time. They could guarantee safe transit through the war zone. They made a lot of money but, more importantly, they made a lot of connections. When the conflict was over they entered the EU as asylum seekers and put together the infrastructure we see today. Initially, it was heroin they were involved in, but they were also behind the Securitas heist in 2006, several other armed robberies and a million petty thieveries.’
Carrigan could only shake his head. Even twenty years as a policeman hadn’t exposed him to the full horror running through London’s veins. It was like the fabled onion. Peel off one layer and there was always something worse underneath. He looked at the old men leaning against the bar and wondered whether they realised what brave new times they’d survived into – or maybe that was exactly why they were here, folded into barstools and inner darkness, enacting a slow stunned withdrawal from the world.
‘Impressive,’ he admitted. ‘How did they manage that? The Russian and Chechen gangs are no pushover.’
‘Violence,’ Byrd answered flatly. ‘It’s always going to be the primary currency in these cultures and the Albanians have plenty to spare. Remember, we’re talking about men who come from the bloodstorms of ethnic war, from mountain villages where grudge feuds have been playing out for centuries – a lot of them are ex-Sigurimi, the Albanian Communist secret police – our home-grown gangs were no match for them and neither, as it turned out, were the Russians.’ Byrd stared at his empty glass. ‘You’re lucky, Carrigan. With murders you either solve them or you don’t. In this job you have to spend a year, maybe more, watching these scumbags enjoying their earnings, parading it in front of you, and most times when you’ve finally nabbed them and it goes to court, the witnesses recant or disappear, and they’re back out on the streets the same fucking day,’
Carrigan took a deep breath and sipped his coffee. ‘You ever think about transferring?’
Byrd smiled but there was nothing remotely mirthful in his expression. He pulled a wallet out of his pocket and flipped it open to reveal two faded photos. One was of a normal suburban house, the other of a young woman holding a little boy.
‘That was my house,’ Byrd said. ‘That was my wife. She took all my money and the house. That’s my son. I haven’t spoken to him in over four years – I wouldn’t even recognise him if he walked past me on the street.’ He flipped the wallet shut and put it back in his jacket. ‘They remind me what I’ve already given up for this job. If I back out now, this would have been all for nothing,’ he said, and it was obvious that he carried his bitterness like an enormous weight, that he’d been both shrivelled and honed by it and that it was the only thing still keeping him going.
Carrigan drained his drink. The taste in his mouth was rank and metallic. ‘This man, Duka, what can you tell me about him?’
‘Duka runs most of the heavy drugs – coke, heroin, crack – through west London,’ Byrd replied. ‘The majority of the organised dealing in W2 has his involvement somewhere down the line. He keeps himself and his top people away from most of the dirty work, of course.’
‘What about the area surrounding the convent? Anything there?’
‘There’s four houses in the postcode you mentioned we’re keeping an eye on. Duka owns them but they’re not rented and he doesn’t live there. We think he uses them as stash-houses. The primary shipment gets cut and bagged there, then the mid-level dealers come and pick up their supplies. But Duka’s smart. We think he’s revolving the four houses randomly. Makes it almost impossible to get enough intel for a warrant.’
Carrigan wondered if any of the houses the nuns had picketed belonged to Duka. ‘Where are they, these four houses?’
‘One’s on Gloucester Terrace, one on Prince’s Square, one on Queensborough Terrace and one on Hatherley Crescent.’
‘If a group of nuns hassled his dealers and pestered customers, how would Duka react? Would he go as far as burning down the convent?’
‘He wouldn’t think twice about it,’ Byrd replied. ‘But for something like that? I don’t know. He’d just move his dealers to the next road along. He’s not stupid, wouldn’t be where he is if he were. The nuns would have had to piss him off a little more than that before he took such a step.’
Carrigan thought about this. ‘Where did he come from? I’ve not heard his name come up before.’
‘That’s because he’s extremely good at what he does.’ Byrd ran long skinny fingers through his greasy hair and drained his beer. ‘Duka was an elite member of a paramilitary group during the Kosovo conflict. He came here after the fighting was over and brought along a handful of his loyal troops. He made deals where he could and got rid of the competition where he couldn’t.’
‘Sounds to me like your average dirtbag dealer,’ Carrigan said, the pages in his notebook filling up fast, his handwriting deteriorating as he tried to catch up with the flow of names and facts pouring from Byrd’s lips.
Byrd’s sudden laugh surprised him at the same time as making him feel distinctly uneasy.
‘Oh, he’s a lot more than that.’ Byrd stared morosely at his empty glass. ‘Let me give you just one example. There’s a story we heard from one of our informants. Duka had a younger brother, a bit slow by all accounts, and he used to take care of him, you know, like Hitler was good to his dogs and all that.
‘Anyway, one day, Duka finds out that hi
s bitter rival, the head of a neighbouring gang, has made plans to kidnap the brother and use him as a bargaining tool. Duka invites his rival to dinner so they can talk it over. The rival is intrigued, thinks he sees a chink of weakness in Duka’s armour, so he accepts the offer. They drink good wine inside Duka’s house and eat the most delicious stew the rival’s ever tasted. They talk of the weather and the fields and the old men who never came back from the war. Finally, Duka leans over the table and gets to the point of the meeting. “You were looking for my brother, I hear?” The rival stares into Duka’s eyes but he doesn’t deny it. “Well,” Duka says, taking the lid off the pot from which they’ve been eating, “I sincerely hope he was to your liking.”’ Byrd leaned back and unleashed a blustery bellowing laugh and Carrigan briefly wondered if he’d once been an eager young policeman, assured in his mission, because all he saw now was a broken figure, plagued by failure and doubt, by the things he’d seen and the things he’d done, but most of all plagued by the darkness residing within human hearts.
‘Where can I find Duka?’
Byrd shot his hand across the table and grabbed Carrigan’s wrist. Despite the alcohol, his eyes were clear and focused as he spoke. ‘Keep away from him, Carrigan. You don’t want to get involved. He’s something new. Something we haven’t seen before. For some people cruelty and revenge are arts, to be practised and endlessly improved upon. There are no rules here. He’ll come straight for you.’
‘That’s exactly what I intend.’
Byrd smiled. ‘And none of what I’ve just told you puts you off?’
Carrigan extricated his arm from Byrd’s grip. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It just makes me more certain that I need to speak to him. He sounds like exactly the kind of person who would have no qualms about killing ten nuns.’
Byrd’s jaw tightened. ‘The last thing you want is to be on Duka’s radar, believe me. You’ve got to think about that and you need to run anything through me first before you authorise any actions, understand? We’re in the middle of several long-range operations and I don’t want you or your team stumbling into something you have no clue about.’
Carrigan got up from the table. ‘How about you tell me what your operations are and then there’ll be no chance of that happening?’
Byrd smiled but it was one of the most malevolent things Carrigan had ever seen. ‘Can’t do that and you know it. We need to protect our assets. Just make sure you check with us first. Wouldn’t want you wading into deep water without knowing. You’ll drown.’
As Carrigan stepped back out into the spray of wind and snow, the world seemed dimmer and darker and more hopeless than before. He stood and thought about Byrd’s final remark, unsure whether it was meant as a friendly warning or a threat.
25
Sometimes you get lucky in the strangest of places, Geneva thought, as she scanned through the attachment Westminster Parking had sent her. She printed it out, laid the page across her table and went down the columns just to make sure. Earlier, she’d sent out a request to Westminster and to Kensington and Chelsea Parking for any tickets issued to the black SUV in the last couple of months. She’d thought it was a long shot, something that only had to be done because it had to be done, and was surprised when she got the results.
The fake number-plate belonging to the black SUV had picked up four parking tickets in the last eight weeks. Each had been settled promptly, within seven days. One of the tickets was given on Queensway, outside a Chinese restaurant that Carrigan had once taken her to. The other three tickets were all issued on the same street, a small cul-de-sac off Westbourne Grove called Hatherley Crescent. Her skin began to itch as she magnified the tickets on her screen and tried to untangle the spidery handwriting.
She looked across the incident room. DC Singh was on the phone, Berman and Jennings leaning intently over a computer screen. She looked at the parking tickets again. She didn’t really trust it, this hunch of hers, it wasn’t even that, just something which needed to be checked and crossed off the list, and she felt uneasy about taking anyone else away from their tasks on what would probably be a huge waste of time. Besides, she was only going to look at a section of road, nothing more.
*
She thought about calling her mum as she walked down Bishop’s Bridge Road in the swirling snow and wind. She wanted to talk to her about what was going on in her life, Oliver, the job, but all she ever got was disapproval and distance.
She lit a cigarette instead. She hadn’t seen her mother for a while, several weeks. She kept telling herself it was the demands of the job, the long hours and crashing come-downs, but she knew it wasn’t really that. It was her mother’s new boyfriend, Greg, a lecturer in politics at the LSE who nursed a pathological hatred for the police and goaded her at every opportunity, turning every meal into a minefield. It was the distance that had gradually grown between them since she’d joined the police force, her mother never quite forgiving her, but what Katrina didn’t understand was that Geneva loved the puzzle of her days, sifting through the lies people told to others and those they told to themselves. There was an intoxication in the mystery of other people’s lives and it was hard to think of another career, another life.
She dropped the cigarette in the snow and watched it disappear down a hole of its own making. She ignored the bag-laden tourists and grinning revellers surrounding her and turned into Hatherley Crescent.
It was a short, narrow cul-de-sac, with terraced Edwardian houses on one side and a 1930s mansion block on the other. The street was dark and cold and gloomy, the buildings forming a narrow canyon.
She checked her notebook, shielding the pages from the snow. All three parking tickets had been given outside numbers 46–50 Hatherley Crescent. Geneva slowly made her way up the street until she was looking across at the space where the tickets were issued. It was a resident’s parking bay and, of course, if you had a fake number-plate you couldn’t have a resident’s permit, hence the tickets. Whatever business the driver of the SUV was on, it was obviously worth the £80 fine each time.
She looked across the street at the doors of the two houses directly behind the parking bay, wondering which one the man with the scar had been visiting – perhaps neither; maybe this was just where he’d found an empty space to park as he’d gone to pick up a takeaway from one of the many restaurants on Westbourne Grove. She shook the thought free and began crossing the road. She’d set her phone to silent and the sudden vibration against her skin made her jump. She stopped and pulled it out and read the message. She read it twice, frantically wiping snow off the display, then read it once more. She realised she was clutching the phone so tightly it was beginning to hurt. The message was from Lee. She read it again, bringing the screen closer to her face. You’re right, we need to stop doing this. I’m sorry too. Her hands shook. Her stomach flipped. The words didn’t make sense and then they did. She read the message again. It said the same thing. She put the phone back in her pocket and crossed the street.
Both houses were similarly weathered and in need of repair, both chipped and cracked and neglected, but the house on the left had three shiny new security cameras pointing at its front door.
She took careful steps through the deep drifts of snow. The door was painted brown and the paint had faded and flaked but the locks were sturdy and recent. There was only one buzzer – unlike most of the other buildings in the street, this one hadn’t been cut up and converted into flats. The stone lion at the head of the stairs was missing half its face, but the burglar alarm and security system were new and high-end.
She rang the doorbell, first hesitatingly, then pushing down the square grey button with increasing force. Her hands were suddenly too hot, as if she were wearing gloves. She heard the cameras whir and saw them zooming in on her as she waited. A door slammed somewhere inside and she placed one hand on her belt.
She could hear approaching footsteps. They seemed to take forever. She heard someone cough on the other side of the door, a long sus
tained hack and spit. The sound of the locks being disengaged was sharp and dry in the chill air.
The man was dressed in a black suit as if he’d just come back from a funeral. He smiled when he saw her, his eyes roving up and down and across her body, his teeth capped silver and gleaming in the snowglare.
She hadn’t really thought what to say, was going to pretend that a nuisance call had come in concerning the flat, but the man’s stare undid her and she stood frozen.
‘Would you like to come in?’ the man said, his accent cracked and heavily vowelled.
She hadn’t expected this and was so surprised she didn’t know what to say.
‘Please come in,’ the man said, extending his arm, the knuckles covered in spidery black hair. ‘I make you some coffee, or tea if you prefer.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ she replied. ‘I must have got the wrong house.’
The man took a step forward, the smile creasing his face. ‘No, I think you came to exactly the right place,’ he said. ‘Please,’ he beckoned her inside with his arm, ‘I would like to get to know you. Please come in.’
She took a step back, her foot sliding on the icy slick stone. ‘No, thanks.’
The man continued smiling, but there was something else in his eyes now as he took a step forward. ‘You sure? I think you would have a nice time if you came in with me . . . I think I could make you very happy.’
Geneva felt her entire body crawl. She shook her head, turned around and walked down the stairs, forcing herself not to break into a run, not to let the panic seep through her skin as the man’s eyes tracked her all the way down the street.
26
‘Emily Maxted,’ Carrigan said, pinning the blown-up mugshot photo to the whiteboard behind him. ‘We’ve managed to identify the eleventh victim but let’s not pat ourselves on the back just yet – this only raises a whole new set of questions. What was she doing there? We know she wasn’t a nun and she didn’t have any official connection to the convent, yet the caretaker told us he’d seen her frequently and referred to her as the “new girl”.’
