by Stav Sherez
Carrigan stared at the men. Was there something in their gathered shape, standing side by side, that reminded him of the two men in the car outside his flat last night? Or was he suddenly noticing African faces the way he had on coming back twenty years ago? ‘A couple of days should wrap it up,’ he replied through gritted teeth.
‘Good. Good. We know how expert the British police is in these matters,’ the bureaucrat in charge said, shaking Carrigan’s hand, his grip firm and unyielding. ‘So, Inspector, I’m sure you have your suspects and your theories?’
‘We have several,’ Carrigan replied. ‘But it looks like a sex killing, someone who knew her or was at least familiar with her.’
The bureaucrat nodded slowly as if processing this information. ‘Then why, Inspector, if that is indeed so, are you looking into ancient history?’
Carrigan shot Branch a look. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
The Ugandan shook his head. ‘We know that your partner, the female detective . . .’
‘DS Miller,’ Branch filled in immediately.
‘Yes, Miller,’ the Ugandan said, still gripping Jack’s hand tightly. ‘We know that’s she’s looking into things no one wants to look into. Things that have nothing to do with this case.’
‘Ancient history,’ Carrigan said, the Ugandan missing the sarcasm in his tone.
‘That is so,’ the man replied, ‘and no one is interested in history. I know you will find out who did this to one of our citizens and I thank you.’ His hand finally unclenched from Carrigan’s, Jack having to rub the feeling back into his flesh. ‘These monsters who take a woman and do to her what they please, there is only one punishment for them.’
Carrigan marched out of the office not looking back and he was almost out of the station when his phone rang. He checked the display but it was only telling him he had two messages. He pressed a button and Ben’s voice, thin and strained, crackled through his headset. ‘I need to see you. Penny’s gone, Jack. Someone took her from football practice at school.’
He never got round to listening to the second message.
Carrigan drove through the darkening city oblivious to the swirling world around him, the sound of Ben’s voice ringing in his head. He tried not to think about it, there was nothing he could do until he got there, and he ran through the last hour again, still unsure of its implications. The Ugandans had known a lot about the investigation. He remembered the phone call to the embassy, the junior diplomat who’d been about to tell him something then stopped. What had he seen?
He crossed the Great West Road and watched with envy the cars streaming through the twilight like illuminated candy. The spiralling lights announced themselves before he’d turned the corner and instantly something in his blood perked and simmered. Every time he heard a siren he wondered what new evil had occurred; they were never neutral lights flashing mysteriously in the night – always blood, bodies and broken lives. But he wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him as he turned into Ben’s street and saw the parked cars, lights flashing, the SOCO van, the sense of hurried concentration on the uniformed men’s faces.
He flashed his warrant card and rushed past them. Ben’s door was swinging open, the stained-glass panel with its retinue of gold bedecked angels dazzling in the late sinking sun. He found Ben talking to a Chiswick CID inspector in the main room, his tone flat and unruffled, his eyes quickly acknowledging Jack.
‘Thanks for arriving so quickly.’ They came together in a semi-hug, Carrigan smelling the whisky on Ben’s breath and below that a sour tang of sweat. He looked to his right and saw Ursula holding Penny in her arms, the little girl crying and shaking as a Family Liaison Officer tried calming mother and daughter down.
‘When did she come back?’
‘Someone dropped her off at the end of the street a few minutes ago,’ Ben replied, his hands still shaking, his eyes continually looking in Penny’s direction as if to assure himself she was still there.
‘Is she all right?’
Ben stared across the room at his daughter. ‘I think so. I’m not sure. I don’t know, Jack, Jesus look at her.’
The girl was crying, shielding herself from the group of policemen gathered around her. A sergeant was trying to ask her some questions. Ben grabbed Jack’s arm. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’
Ben led him into the study, the smell of cigars and whisky heavy and dolorous. They sat down and Jack poured them both drinks. ‘Did she see who took her?’
Ben stared out the window. ‘No, not really. He picked her up from the school, said we’d sent him, somehow convinced the coach.’ Ben looked down at his hands and shook his head. ‘She got into the car with him, Jesus Christ!’
Jack passed him the drink, watched as Ben downed it in one. ‘He just drove her around for a few hours then dropped her off. She said . . . she said he was African. What did he want from her, Jack? What the fuck did he do to my daughter?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jack admitted. ‘I don’t understand it myself. I’m sure the inspector downstairs will find out.’ He could see that Ben was barely hearing him, his eyes bright with fear and worry. ‘You didn’t by any chance get a look at the material I gave you, Grace Okello’s thesis?’
Ben nodded slowly, his feet tapping the floor, the adrenaline rush of a near miss coursing through his veins. ‘I saw the YouTube clip. Jesus. The things they did to her.’ He looked up from his glass, sympathy draining the years from his face. ‘This is your life, isn’t it? Murder, distraught parents who think they’re never going to see their kids again. I never really thought about it before, the shit you have to go through every day.’
Jack sat back down and cradled his glass. ‘Was there anything in the thesis? Anything that might have got her killed?’
Ben slid forward on the chair, propping his thin elbows on the table. ‘This Okello woman was looking into things that no one wants exhumed, not the government and not the bad guys. But, to go back to your question, I don’t think it’s very likely. The thesis hadn’t yet been published, most of it’s in the form of notes, there’s no accountable chain of evidence for her conclusions. You really think that someone killed her because of it?’
Carrigan stared into his best friend’s eyes knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘I think the Ugandan embassy may be involved in some way. I keep thinking we’re getting closer and then I realise we’re only seeing a small fraction of the whole,’ he continued, not sure how to break the news. ‘And whenever I get a sense that I’m being followed during a case, I get hinky, I start wondering about things . . .’
‘Someone’s following you?’ He heard the concern in Ben’s voice that the missing years hadn’t managed to revoke, remembered their shared oaths of loyalty to each other, David’s smile when they all agreed never to forget those days.
He told him about the envelope in his flat, the pictures of him and Ben, the pictures of the girls. He watched Ben’s eyes hood and turn dark as he assimilated the information. He watched Ben slowly pour himself a large measure of whisky.
‘Photos of my girls?’ Ben said, trying to stop his bottom lip from twitching.
Carrigan nodded, knowing he could never understand the fear and panic of a parent, that he’d always be the one giving the news rather than receiving it. ‘I think he’s been following me since the first morning,’ he added, looking down at the floor. ‘He saw me come here the night I gave you the thesis. He took the photos then.’
Something in Ben’s expression changed as if a switch had been flicked. ‘Are you saying you led this man here?’ His voice had taken on an inflexible authority that Jack had previously only heard him use on hapless students. ‘Fuck, is this the man who took Penny? Is this what you’re talking about?’
Carrigan thought of Cecilia and Gabriel, Geneva alone out on the streets. ‘Maybe,’ he admitted.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ Ben suddenly exploded, fear blushing his face a deep scarlet. ‘You put my family in danger?�
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Carrigan saw the whole scenario click itself into place in Ben’s head, the sudden thickening of life into something more than missed engagements and petty arguments. Ben reached across the table and gripped Jack’s wrist. His face was white, the muscles jumping below the skin. ‘What the fuck does this man want with my family?’
Carrigan shrugged and Ben tightened his grip. ‘Jack, fucking tell me.’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t, Ben,’ he answered, seeing his friend’s face drain and collapse. It was easy to forget the everyday fear that cops had to become inured to. Easy to forget not everyone lived their lives like that. ‘It could be he’s trying to scare me off the case.’
He watched Ben’s face fall. Full marks for putting the victim at ease, Carrigan sourly thought. ‘You keep the shotgun here or at your parents’ house in Dorset?’
Ben’s eyes widened then squinted down to two small blue stones. ‘Here,’ he said, so quietly that Carrigan almost missed it.
‘As a policeman they’d sack me for telling you this, but as a friend . . . I’d advise you to keep it handy until all this is over.’
Ben hung his head, clenched his fists and ground his feet into the floor. ‘This is because you gave me the fucking dead girl’s thesis? That’s what this is all about?’ He got up without waiting for an answer, strode over to his desk and started throwing papers and pamphlets onto the floor until he found what he was looking for. He walked back over to Jack and threw the copy of Grace’s thesis into his lap. ‘Fucking keep it,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t get me involved again.’
Carrigan walked along the river for half an hour, not noticing the people strolling past, the sunset, or the boats slowly moving up the silty water. He got to the bridge where his childhood friend had leapt from, his body lost in the current, and went into a newsagent where he bought ten Camels and a lighter. He stood by the river and smoked his first cigarette in a year, coughing and choking on the acrid smoke, and then he flung the rest of the pack into the grey water. He watched as it was pulled and pushed by the current. When his phone beeped he felt an unexpected rush of excitement, hoping it was Geneva, but it was only a reminder that he still had one unchecked message.
‘I need to see you.’
He recognised Cecilia’s voice immediately, except that the panic and fear had drowned out everything but the words themselves. ‘I didn’t tell you everything when you interviewed me. I’m so sorry.’
19
The storms came more often now. Raging, bruised thunderheads approaching from east of the city and breaking upon its streets as people scuttled home on the Tube or flagged down a bus, its windows steamed with condensation and finger-smear.
Carrigan stood under a low bridge of the Regent’s Park Canal, suspended ten feet below the city streets, trying to get out of the worst of the rain. He felt like a bit-part character in a bad late-night film, the one who always gets killed a third of the way through. Joggers ran past him, their faces staring into the distance, oblivious of all around them, their sneakered feet beating out a rhythm on the concrete embankment. The pleasure boats and guided taxis were mostly gone for the day, the residents of the numerous houseboats all battened down and behind closed shades. Ducks sailed by, gleaming like wooden toys; leaves twisted and fluttered and gathered at his feet.
Some days the Regent’s Park Canal could look like Amsterdam. Some days Venice, if you squinted hard enough. But today it looked like something from another century, a world of coal-laden tugboats slowly inching their way up the water, bedraggled mules pulling them along; a ghost of London past shimmering out of the drizzle and then just as quickly dissolving. Carrigan thought of the lost and hidden rivers of the capital, the Effra Brook, the Fleet, the Tyburn, the Neckinger, and the Walbrook, this other city humming beneath his feet; stand still long enough and you could hear it through the soles of your shoes.
He watched the rain sluice across the grey-green canal water and checked his watch for the third time in ten minutes. She was almost an hour late.
He started at every noise, every crackle of foliage or hum of rail. The scream of macaws and other exotic birds from the nearby zoo made him feel uneasy with unbidden memories. He was checking his watch again when he saw a figure approach from the other end of the tunnel.
She stopped halfway, a dark shrouded thing suspended in the middle distance. He stood still, didn’t make any sudden moves. He watched her head turn one way then another as if she’d heard some unexpected noise behind her. She looked back one last time, then continued walking.
They stood there for a moment, under the dark shadow of the railway bridge, both unsure what to do as a lone canal boat glided silently across the water. Cecilia ducked behind a stanchion as it went past.
‘I’m glad you called me,’ Carrigan said.
Cecilia looked like a bad photocopy of the girl they’d interviewed only a few days ago, the spark and flare drained out of her. She glanced to either side of him, then down at the floor. ‘He’s been following me all this time. I had to leave the flat, stay over at a friend’s after I saw . . . I saw the video.’ Her eyes darted like trapped things, her voice trembling in the cold air. Carrigan stepped closer and gently took her by the arm. ‘It’s okay now, I’m here.’
She nodded and for a moment Carrigan saw something else beneath the granite grimace and hunted eyes, a young girl who’d found herself locked in the attitude and bearing of a person she never thought she’d be.
‘What happened, Cecilia?’
She was staring up at the cross-hatched girder-work on the underside of the bridge as if the metal and brass were a language only she could decipher. A train rumbled overhead, causing her to flinch. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe this was a bad idea. If he sees me. If he followed me . . .’
‘Who? Gabriel? Gabriel Otto?’
Something crossed Cecilia’s face and then it was gone like sunlight hitting water. She managed a small dry chuckle. ‘Gabriel’s an idiot.’
‘He struck me as somewhat more than that when we interviewed him.’
Cecilia looked momentarily confused. ‘You arrested Gabriel for . . . ?’ She couldn’t say it, didn’t want the words to come out of her mouth and seal this thing in truth.
‘We’re looking into it.’ A noise in the bushes caused them both to turn, fall into silence, but it was nothing, just squirrels or the wind upsetting the litter. ‘Why did you laugh when I mentioned Gabriel?’
Cecilia stared at the bushes. ‘Gabriel’s a fool. Just a spoiled kid playing grown-up games. He’s not capable of such a thing.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘People who spend all their time talking about violence and struggle are normally the last to take up arms.’
He wasn’t sure how good a defence that would be in court but something about it rang true.
‘Grace never took him seriously.’
‘And that didn’t upset him?’
For the first time, Cecilia laughed unguardedly. It sounded like another girl, one who was carefree and content, whose life had never hiccuped, never grown thick with death. ‘Gabriel just goes on to the next one. He doesn’t care.’
Carrigan flashed back to the pale-skinned woman wrapped up in Gabriel’s sheets, the dead-eyed look on the young man’s face. ‘Grace told Gabriel she was seeing a source; he said she seemed very excited about it.’
‘Shit. Shit.’ It was the first time he’d heard her swear. ‘I told her not to meet him,’ she finally said, ‘I knew he was wrong from the minute I laid eyes on him.’
Carrigan took a deep breath to steady himself. The canal water tilted and the screaming of jungle birds carried like the cries of abandoned infants. ‘Who are you talking about, Cecilia?’
She looked across the water. ‘I saw him outside my flat after you two had left that day. Just standing there, staring at me.’
Carrigan clutched her arm, felt the blood and tension simmering inside. ‘Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?’ He t
ried to smooth the frustration out of his voice but he could tell from the girl’s face that it wasn’t working.
‘I was scared,’ she replied. ‘I thought if I didn’t speak of him he wouldn’t come back. I’d just heard about Grace, I was so confused that day.’
‘But it was because of him you missed your meeting with Professor Cummings and haven’t gone back to SOAS?’
Cecilia nodded.
‘How did Grace meet this man?’
‘As I told you before, Grace had become obsessed by her work, spending day and night in the library reading every book there was on East African history and politics, but what she really wanted was first-hand accounts. She used Gabriel to make contact with several émigrés. But she didn’t find anyone who knew what she needed or who was willing to talk. She started posting messages asking for information on this Ugandan chat forum we use to catch up with what’s going on back home.’
Carrigan could feel the creeping cold against his skin, the biting canal wind whipping through the trees, the sense of time speeding up like on a fairground ride. ‘What kind of messages?’
‘She wanted to get in touch with ex-child soldiers from Ngomo’s army.’
He breathed deep, stared at the water. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. ‘Did anyone get back to her?’
‘She had a lot of replies but mainly she deleted them, saying it was the wrong part of the country, or the wrong years, but there was one reply a few weeks ago that got her excited. I remember because we were both sitting in the library when she received it. She turned to me and said‚ This one’s dates match. She kept rereading the email, saying how she’d finally made a breakthrough. I tried to warn her, tell her that she didn’t know who had sent this, what their reasons were, but she just called me paranoid. She wrote back and said she was very interested in meeting him. I told her I’d accompany her but she didn’t want me to. We had our first real argument over that. She said this was a very sensitive thing, that if I turned up it might spook her one and only chance at finding out the truth. At least I persuaded her to make the first meeting at the university cafeteria.’
