Eleven Days

by Stav Sherez

  ‘I found her,’ he replied and his eyes ached with the memory of that day, the strange smell in the kitchen, the sound of blackbirds shrieking, a certain foreboding on opening the door. ‘It doesn’t get worse than that,’ he said and looked up and let out a dry choked laugh. ‘At least I hope to Christ it doesn’t.’ She passed him the bottle and he took a sip and looked into her eyes and knew now was the time to broach the subject. ‘Since we’re getting personal and confessional and all that crap, I’d really like to know what’s going on with you at the moment, Geneva . . . and I’m not talking about what happened tonight.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, her body turning into shadow and angle. ‘Nothing in particular.’

  The droop of her eyes and curve of lip told him this was somewhere she didn’t want to go. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. Your life is your life. Absolutely. But I know there’s something bothering you. Something serious. I’d like to think that in the last year we’ve developed some trust, maybe enough to be able to share these things.’

  It took her a long time to answer and when she did she said, ‘Are you asking as my boss or as a friend?’

  ‘Whichever you prefer.’

  ‘I think, tonight, a friend is what I need,’ she replied, and told him about Oliver, the whole sad story, the solicitor’s letters piling up on her table and darkly whispered threats against her mother.

  ‘Bastard,’ Carrigan said. ‘You want me to talk to him?’

  ‘Thanks,’ she replied, hiding her surprise and shaking her head. ‘I appreciate the offer, but this is something I need to do for myself.’

  ‘Have you thought about hiring your own lawyer?’

  Geneva laughed coldly. ‘That’s exactly what he wants me to do. He’s a lawyer. He can keep this going for as long as he wants and there’s no way I can afford that. He knows he’ll win either way. He wouldn’t have proposed it otherwise.’

  She got up and weaved unsteadily as she made her way to the kitchen, coming back with two large glasses of water. ‘I know it’s asking a lot . . . but if you could stay? I just . . . I just don’t want to be alone tonight.’

  Carrigan took the glass and nodded. ‘The sofa looks comfy enough.’

  Her smile unfroze and he saw relief tear through her face.

  ‘Besides, I’m going to stay up for a bit . . . I don’t get much sleep these days.’

  She thanked him again and said goodnight and disappeared down the small dark corridor and the room felt colder and smaller without her.

  After a while, he got up and moved the armchair so it faced the window. He stared up at the shadowed landscape and there was no light nor sign of human habitation as far as the eye could see, only a sky berserk with snow and behind him, somewhere, a woman sleeping in a bed, the light in the corridor the only illumination in all that rolling darkness of night.

  31

  Carrigan was waiting for his morning coffee to dispense when he felt a shadow fall over him. He looked up to see Karlson leaning up against the wall, smiling contentedly to himself.

  ‘Yes?’ He had no time for this, not now. He could feel the rush of facts swirling inside his head, the leads multiplying and diverging, the need for more coffee, more time, the nagging awful sense that he was missing something.

  ‘I was wondering where DS Miller was?’ Karlson said in that fake-nonchalant way you ask a question you already know the answer to.

  ‘She’s taken the morning off,’ Carrigan replied, hoping his voice didn’t betray him.

  Karlson made a show of looking behind him, a quick glance back, then said, ‘I didn’t want to bring this up in front of everyone else but I thought I ought to talk to you before I go any further with it.’

  Carrigan snatched the drink from the dispenser, his fingers burning on the plastic cup, and tried to decipher Karlson’s tone. He took a cautious sip and grimaced at the muddy taste of powdered coffee. ‘I wish you’d just say what you mean, John. I’ve got no fucking time for playing games today.’

  Karlson stepped closer and all Carrigan could smell was his aftershave, spicy and pungent, like walking into the front of a department store. ‘I’m not playing games, believe me. I was just extending the courtesy of telling you before taking this higher.’

  Carrigan crushed the cup in his hand and flung it into the bin. ‘Taking what higher? What the fuck are you talking about?’

  Karlson’s voice dropped conspiratorially, ‘I saw DS Miller yesterday . . . and she didn’t seem right.’

  For a brief moment, Carrigan wondered how Karlson had found out, then realised the sergeant meant something entirely different.

  ‘I’d keep my eye on her if I were you,’ Karlson continued, scratching his cheek and flashing his gums. ‘Wouldn’t want the brass to find out one of your detectives arrived at work drunk. Guess that’s why she had to take the morning off.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ Carrigan felt his fingers clenching, a bright sharp twitch blossoming in his left shoulder.

  ‘The other day she came back from lunch reeking of booze. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed her recent mood swings? If you don’t report it, then I will, which means I’ll also have to report you for not reporting it once I’d informed you of the situation.’

  Carrigan was about to say something, then realised there was nothing he could say. Karlson had him – either he passed on this info about Geneva to the super and betrayed her trust, or he’d be up in front of Branch himself. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, turned towards Karlson and slammed him against the coffee machine.

  He saw the raw shock in Karlson’s eyes. ‘You have no idea what she’s been through.’ He realised almost immediately it had been the wrong thing to say by the subtle shift in the sergeant’s expression.

  ‘You seem very eager to defend her,’ Karlson replied, recovering his grin.

  ‘She’s part of the team. I’d do the same for any of you.’

  ‘You sure it’s just that? That it’s not personal? After all, you’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday and look as if you haven’t slept. If I were a detective I’d surmise you spent the night at her place.’

  Carrigan pushed Karlson hard against the drinks machine. Images of Geneva flashed before his eyes – Geneva curled up on the wet pavement, the phone she’d called him from still clutched in both hands, the stumble in her words as she told him what had happened. He blinked and he was back in the room, his hands locked around Karlson’s neck, fingers pressing deep. ‘You ever do something like that again and you’re finished,’ he said, but he was out of breath, and the words came out faint and false.

  ‘You’re fucking finished if you’re covering up for her.’

  Carrigan’s fist crashed into Karlson’s jaw at the same moment that the door to the refreshment room was flung open.

  ‘What in fuck’s name is going on here?’

  Carrigan turned and saw Branch standing in the doorframe, his mouth hanging half open, his eyes blazing behind smudged glasses.

  ‘Nothing,’ Carrigan said, moving a step back, trying to force the adrenalin down, his eyes never leaving Karlson’s.

  ‘Nothing?’ Branch repeated. He shook his head as he entered the room. ‘What do you have to say about this, DS Karlson?’

  Karlson rubbed his jaw, his eyes lingering for a long moment on Carrigan, then turning to Branch. ‘It’s nothing, sir, just a few flared tempers . . .’

  ‘Jesus Christ – now you’re both lying to me.’ Branch shook his head in dismay and disgust. ‘Carrigan – my office now, and you, Sergeant, go and clean yourself up for God’s sake, you look like some yobbo on the wrong end of a Friday night.’

  Branch didn’t say anything as Carrigan followed him through the winding corridor and into his office. The super sat down, unclipped his phone and began texting furiously. The buzzer on his table lit up. He looked at Carrigan. ‘Just make yourself presentable, Quinn’s due any moment.’

  Carrigan ran his fingers through his hair and adju
sted his shirt and tie, all the time watching Branch texting on two phones at once. The door opened and ACC Quinn came in, dressed in a gravestone-grey pinstripe, snowflakes melting on his shoulders and eyebrows.

  ‘Carrigan,’ he said, as Branch got up and gave the ACC his seat. ‘Good of you to come in. I know this investigation is keeping you busy so I won’t delay you long.’ He cleared the front of the desk, pushing papers and phones aside, and laid his arms across it. ‘So, where are we on this? Please tell me you’re about to wrap it up. The press are becoming intolerable, and I’m getting calls from the Home Office every morning.’

  Carrigan took a deep breath, still rattled and adrenalin-jumpy from the fight. Quinn was staring expectantly at him. Even at the start, Carrigan had known the case would come down to such moments but it didn’t make it any easier now. ‘We’re following some promising leads but it’s a lot more complex than we first thought.’

  Quinn wrinkled his brow. ‘What’s so complicated? Someone set the fire and you need to catch that person.’

  Carrigan sighed inwardly; it was always like this with the brass, as if they’d forgotten everything they’d learned on the street or had it surgically removed on promotion. ‘We have no forensic evidence of any use, the fire made sure of that, so the only way we’re going to catch who did this is by knowing why they did it – the motive will lead us to the suspect,’ he said, noticing his voice turning defensive, hating it but unable to control it.

  Quinn sniffed and tapped one finger three times on the surface of the table. ‘Okay, Carrigan, explain it to me. Pretend I’m some idiot who can barely string a sentence together and tell me what we have.’

  ‘We’re trying to work out why Emily Maxted, the eleventh victim, was at the convent that particular night, and what her connection to the nuns is. We’re interviewing her ex-boyfriend later today and he may shed some light on this.’ He saw Quinn wrinkle his brow and continued. ‘The more we look into the convent’s affairs the more anomalies we find, and the diocese is being less than helpful with our inquiries.’ Carrigan stopped and waited a beat, knowing his timing had to be just right. ‘We’re trying to figure out if the nuns’ political activities in South America in the early 1970s have anything to do with the fire. They were also involved in neighbourhood clean-up schemes that may have pissed off a local dealer, Agon Duka,’ Carrigan said, noticing how each new piece of information produced a different physical reaction in Quinn, his jaw tightening, eyelids fluttering, lips twitching and pursing. ‘They were also embroiled in a dispute with the diocese; the entire convent was on the verge of being excommunicated, and we’re looking into that too.’

  ‘Enough!’ Quinn slammed his palm down on the table, a hard resounding crack that made Branch jump almost an inch off his chair. ‘I wish I could just press a button and go back in time and not have heard any of that. But we can’t do that, can we? And you, Carrigan, can’t go around flinging about wild rumours and innuendoes hoping something will stick. These nuns have suffered enough and now you want to besmirch their reputation and drag it through the dirt?’

  Carrigan kept his mouth shut, having expected this and counted on it.

  ‘And now I’m getting calls from the diocese’s press secretary saying you treated him like a suspect and that two of your men gained unauthorised entry into the archives.’

  ‘Women,’ Carrigan said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They were women, not men.’

  Quinn’s eyes turned narrow and dark. ‘You’re walking a very high wire here, Carrigan. I would advise you not to look down.’ Quinn paused, his hands entrenched in his jacket pockets. ‘Desist on the nuns, understand me? No more digging up the past, that’s not going to lead you to the arsonist. You mentioned the nuns pissing off a drug dealer – what’s your feeling about that?’

  Carrigan leaned forward, knowing the time had come, trying to keep his face blank and neutral, trying not to think about what the men had done to Geneva last night. ‘Very much in the picture, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’d like to shift the investigation’s focus to Duka. We’ve had certain developments over the last couple of days that point strongly in his direction.’

  ‘So why aren’t you focusing your energies on Duka rather than digging up dirt on the nuns?’

  Carrigan shrugged. ‘We’re not equipped to deal with that. I need a clear remit and no interference from the drug squad or Organised Crime. I need more overtime allocations, surveillance vehicles, an armed response team at the ready, and more uniforms. I also need my warrants to be fast-tracked so the trail doesn’t go cold. These people are highly sophisticated and electronically aware – we need to move fast on any info we get.’

  Quinn scratched his cheek, and looked at Branch, then back to Carrigan. ‘And if you had all this, you’d be prioritising Duka and not the nuns?’

  ‘Yes, sir. With these added resources I can pile some pressure on him and his business.’

  Quinn put his hands together, closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Okay, Carrigan. Send my secretary a list of what you need and I’ll make sure you get it. And for God’s sake, do something about that hideous black eye – it’s very unbecoming in a policeman.’ Quinn gave a curt nod, stood up, brushed the creases from his suit and left the office.

  ‘Why do I get the feeling you just let him play into your hand?’ Branch was staring at Carrigan, his expression somewhat unreadable, maybe even a little amused.

  ‘I have no idea why you’d think that, sir.’

  32

  ‘Can you please stop asking if I’m okay?’ She turned back just in time to see the oncoming bus hurtling towards them. With a quick flick of her wrist she pulled the car out of danger at the last possible moment. Carrigan gripped the edges of his seat and felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of his neck.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And stop saying you’re sorry.’

  It had been like this since morning. A cold hard wall had formed around her, layers of silence. She seemed veiled in shock as if she were watching him and the road ahead at one remove. He was going to tell her about his altercation with Karlson, but decided against it. Perhaps it was better she didn’t know yet. There were still a few cards he had left to play and maybe the issue could be resolved before she found out. He sat back and kept his mouth shut and watched the silent ballet of last-minute shoppers through his window, trussed-up bodies trudging wearily through the clumpy streets, the snow turned from wonder to nuisance almost overnight.

  ‘DC Singh looked through Emily’s Facebook site,’ Geneva said as they stopped at a red light.

  Carrigan nodded, happy to change the subject and happy that someone else was doing this, knowing how lost he was in the electronic mesh and sprawl of lives on the Internet. ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Not for almost two years. Before that, apparently, she was quite active, used her site to organise protest marches and online petitions against this or that corporation, and then it all stops dead.’

  ‘Just like the nuns’ charity work?’

  ‘Yes, but the timing doesn’t match. The nuns stopped their outreach work a year ago. Emily went off the net about twenty months ago. Singh said Emily wasn’t following any religious organisations and when she cross-checked her friends list with the convent’s there wasn’t any overlap.’

  ‘It’s a connection even if we don’t yet understand it.’ Carrigan looked at Geneva, noticing how crumpled she appeared, a tightening of her muscles and a persistent tic below her right eye, the small betrayals of her body. ‘We need to find out what happened to Emily in the last year – we need to know what steps she took that brought her into collision with the nuns but, having said that, I think we need to be very careful with Emily. She was involved with the nuns, possibly stayed at the convent and was there that night, but I’m not so sure her presence has anything to do with the fire.’

  ‘A few days ago you were sure Emily was the key.’

  ‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve change
d my mind. The facts have changed. We still need to find out more about Emily. I’m not quite ready to drop her yet. We’ll talk to her ex-boyfriend, see what he has to say, but we need to be careful we don’t let a good story get in the way of evidence.’

  Geneva found a parking space outside Geoff Shorter’s office. After what Donna Maxted had told him, Carrigan had been surprised that Shorter had no criminal record but even more so by the fact that he now owned his own business.

  The offices of Green Solutions were situated above an exclusive children’s clothes store on Kensington High Street – Carrigan glanced in the window and saw a toddler’s gingham dress that cost more than his entire wardrobe put together. He stood in the swirling snow and watched the blanketed streets as Geneva smoked a hurried cigarette. Despite her reservations, he felt a quickening as he walked up to the front door. He looked at Geneva climbing the stairs behind him and wondered what was going through her head.

  The woman who opened the door had clearly been expecting someone else and she didn’t bother to hide her disappointment at the sight of them. She looked liked she’d only left school yesterday, all zits, puppy fat and a blank bored expression. She wore a dark black blouse and black miniskirt, her hair cut short and severe, and she smelled of hairspray and the chewing gum she was pounding between her teeth.

  ‘Geoff’s busy in a meeting.’ She tapped something on her iPhone with a long false nail. ‘Maybe you should come back after Christmas.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ Carrigan said, walking straight past her, up the stairs and through the lobby into Shorter’s office.

  Geoff Shorter had his legs up on the desk and was watching a cricket match taking place in some hot dusty city half a world away. His eyes shot up when they entered, lingering a second longer on Geneva, then went back to the game. Carrigan heard the announcer’s flat voice running off statistics, batting tallies and legendary stands from times long gone. He saw a jug of Pimm’s on the desk, three thumbed and ragged copies of Wisden, various papers and scrawled notes, a disarranged set of playing cards and a laptop.