56 Days

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  The man who’s about to interview her must be Kenneth Balfe senior. Not a teenager at the time of the murder, but a grown man. An adult whose teenage son was friends with the brother of one of the killers.

  Which makes him, she thinks, far more likely to remember things from back then. Including peripheral figures. Like the other family members, for instance.

  Her, possibly.

  She can’t chance meeting him. She has to get out of here.

  Ciara grabs her bag and starts to walk away, just as she becomes aware of the glass doors to the office swinging open behind her. She holds her breath, thinking it’s the blond woman coming to collect her, waiting for the call of her name.

  But it doesn’t come.

  She can’t risk waiting for the elevator, so she starts hurrying down the stairs instead. Blood rushes in her ears. She winces at the conspicuous clacking of her heels on the marble. She reaches the first landing and turns to start down the next flight—

  And that’s when she sees him.

  Standing at the top of the stairs. Looking at his phone in his hand. Tall. About her age. Neither muscular nor soft, but solid. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair, thick and messy, but in a way that suggests it was carefully teased to look so.

  Oliver St Ledger.

  It’s him.

  It’s him it’s him it’s him it’s him it’s him.

  She knows this for sure, even if, at the same time, she can’t quite believe it.

  Out of sight, she hears the double doors to the office swing open again and a female voice say, “Ciara—? Oh,” and then, after a pause, “Oliver, did you happen to see a woman here when you came out? Brown hair, black suit?”

  Oliver’s head begins to rise, his gaze lifting from his phone.

  Ciara hurtles herself forward, nearly missing the first step, awkwardly regaining her balance and then dashing out of sight, heels clacking loudly, all the way down the stairs.

  22 Days Ago

  Oliver awakes on the couch, immediately feeling the pinched pain of a tight muscle in his neck. His tongue feels thick and bristly, his insides gnawing and empty. A cluster of dented, empty beer cans sit on the coffee table. The light in the room suggests it’s early morning.

  Then he hears the sound that woke him up: his phone, ringing.

  He thinks Ciara and whips about, desperately looking for it, chasing the sound before it stops, knocking cushions and—

  Sending the phone flying onto the floor.

  He just wants to hear her voice, he thinks. It doesn’t even matter to him what she’s saying with it.

  But it’s Ken B that’s calling him.

  “Kenneth,” he says, his voice thick with sleep.

  “So you are alive, then. This is my third time trying you.”

  Oliver pulls the phone from his ear to check the screen; it’s crowded with missed-call notifications and unread texts.

  “Are you all right?” Kenneth asks.

  “Yeah, I ah . . . I think I just overdid it last night.”

  “At home alone?”

  “One too many beers,” Oliver says. “Should’ve quit while I was ahead. That’s all.”

  Silence.

  Then Kenneth asks, “You holding up okay over there?”

  Oliver forces himself to smile, so the other man will hear it in his voice. “Yes. Fine. Thanks.”

  “Did you see the email we sent around yesterday? It looks like this lockdown thing is going to be extended for another three weeks, and I’m hearing it could go on all summer. We’ve got projects teetering on the brink left and right. There’s even a rumor Google are going to pull out of the Sorting Office, the new build down by the docks, and if they do, that could trigger a mass exodus. We’re all right for now, in the short term, but just to plug a few holes in the immediate future, we’re offering everyone two weeks unpaid leave, if they want it—”

  “I’ll take it,” Oliver says. He can’t possibly focus on work right now, and he’s in no fit state to do it.

  “You sure?” Kenneth asks. “I said unpaid. You heard that bit, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. When does it start?”

  Kenneth laughs. “All right, Mr. Eager Beaver. Monday is a Bank Holiday so how about we say Tuesday?”

  “Great.”

  “Just do me a favor and email Louise, will you? Keep her in the loop.”

  “I will.”

  One less problem to deal with.

  “And let me know if you need anything. I know you’re on your own over—”

  “It’s fine,” Oliver says again. And then, in case he sounds ungrateful for Kenneth’s concern, he adds a, “Thanks.”

  “Look after yourself, Ollie.”

  Ollie.

  Oliver just about manages to hang up the phone before something in his chest breaks apart.

  The only people who ever call him that are the ones who’ve known him since then, since before.

  These days, that’s just Kenneth and Rich.

  It used to be comforting. It used to make him feel safe, that people could know the whole truth of who he is and still want him in their lives, still love him, still like him. But now it just makes him feel trapped, a man forever imprisoned by the actions of his own self as a child.

  Things he did without thinking, in the moment.

  Things he’s been wishing every single second since he could take back.

  Oliver lets the phone drop onto the floor, curls up on the couch, and starts to cry.

  His body racks with sobs; he loses track for how long. He cries until he feels empty, until a pain in his chest begs him to stop.

  Until it gets dark outside.

  Today

  There’s a tiny, shed-sized coffee shop in the little park opposite the Crossings. As per restrictions, it’s only offering takeout service from a little open hatch at the side, but Lee flashes her ID to gain access to the interior and thus, their cupboard-sized customer toilet. When the young barista hands over the key, Lee finds she can pinpoint the exact moment he smells the death on her: his smile falters, is replaced by a flash of confusion, and then is followed swiftly by a wrinkling of the nose and the clamping shut of the mouth.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Lee tells him, smiling sweetly.

  In the bathroom, she pulls the toilet lid down and unloads her wares. After her walk-through of the scene, she went scrounging for donations. She’s managed to rustle up a clean Garda-issue T-shirt—size 3XL, but she’d rather wear that as a muumuu than keep her own shirt on. She swaps them over now, typing a knot in the hem of the T-shirt and then stuffing the knot inside her trousers because detective inspectors shouldn’t really be seen dressing like teenage girls wearing their boyfriend’s clothes. She’s swiped a thick elastic band from the Tech Bureau van; she uses it now to gather her hair into a knot on top of her head, off her face and out of reach of her nostrils. Finally, to what will be her saving grace: a care-pack that Garda O’Herlihy produced from the glove compartment of her patrol car.

  It’s a little ziplock bag, the size they give you at the airport, containing a travel-sized shampoo, shower gel, and women’s spray-deodorant; a mini toothpaste and toothbrush; two sanitary pads; a pocket-sized pack of antibacterial wipes; and a bar of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. Garda O’Herlihy explained that she makes these up herself, that she always keeps a few in the car, especially when she’s on nights, because that’s when you tend to meet the most vulnerable.

  Today, it just so happens to be saving the arse of a detective inspector who smells like she’s been slow-dancing with a rotting corpse.

  Lee makes a mental note to buy O’Herlihy a pint.

  And/or donate a gift card.

  She brushes her teeth—it can’t hurt—and sprays the deodorant everywhere, including over her hair. She squirts half the bottle of show
er gel into a cupped hand, adds water to make a foam and then slathers it all over her face, neck, and forearms. She regrets putting on the T-shirt, which now has a dark rim of damp around the collar—she should’ve done this bit first, really. She dries herself with fistfuls of toilet paper that quickly clump and stick, and eats half the chocolate because she hasn’t eaten yet today.

  When she’s done, the little mirror above the sink informs Lee that she looks absolutely terrible, but at least she doesn’t smell anymore.

  Well, no, actually, she smells of many things—Fresh Cotton, Eucalyptus Revive, Zesty Blast—but at least none of them are advanced decomposition.

  She stuffs her shirt in the trash can by the toilet, goes to leave, then feels bad and goes back to tie a knot in the top of the liner so the shirt doesn’t stink up the bathroom.

  She tries not to think about how bad things might have been if she hadn’t been in full protective gear in there. Tom said he didn’t smell anything off her when they climbed out of their suits, but she wouldn’t trust that man’s nose. Whatever’s up there has probably been long cauterized.

  When she hands the key back to the barista, she studiously ignores the way his eyes widen as he takes in the state of her. She buys two cappuccinos to take back with her across the street, out of guilt more than anything.

  Karl is waiting for her by the car, holding a laptop that he lifts when he sees her approach. She thinks for a second it might belong to Laura Mannix, and is about to congratulate him on working wonders in apartment fourteen while she was in apartment one, but when she reaches him he says, “CCTV is in.” And then, “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “I think it started twenty years ago when I thought, You know what? I think I’ll apply for the Guards.” Lee holds up the coffees. “You ready for another round?”

  “What I really want is some food.”

  “I’ve half a bar of chocolate in my pocket.”

  “Since when? Because if it’s been on a tour of the crime scene, nah, you’re grand.”

  “Any luck with herself upstairs?”

  “None at all,” Karl says. “She clammed up after you left. Refused to say any more. But I did Google Lois Lane. Former host of Crimecall, my arse.”

  “So you’ve had a productive half-hour, is what you’re telling me?”

  “How was the scene?”

  “Worse than before. But get this: Tom Searson thinks the guy might have drowned.”

  “Drowned? I thought you said he was on the floor of the shower?”

  “He is. Tom thinks the shower was on and a couple of inches of water collected in the depression around the drain. Guy’s unconscious but breathing, facedown, and he inhales enough of it to drown.”

  “Jesus,” Karl says. “What a way to go.”

  “And there’s more: someone turned off the water. It could’ve been him, but it might not have been. But here’s the real kicker: the entire apartment has been wiped clean.”

  “Shit. Do you think that could’ve been . . . ?”

  “I think,” Lee says, “let’s watch that CCTV.”

  They settle into the car in the same positions as earlier: doors open, Karl in the passenger seat and Lee behind the wheel, coffee cups resting on the dash.

  Karl balances the laptop on his knees, opens the lid, and powers it up. “Mr. Instasham said the icon should be right here on the desktop . . .” He tracks a forefinger across the pad.

  “Mr. who?”

  “And you’re giving me shit because I didn’t get Lois Lane? The guy from the property management company. Crap Instagram Account Man. So, how are we doing this?”

  “The quickest way possible. What have we got?”

  “Ah . . . Nine different feeds, it looks like.”

  “I think the lobby is our best bet,” Lee says. “Let’s start there and work our way backward from this morning.”

  “I’ve got facing out and facing in.”

  “In, please.”

  “That’s what she s—”

  “Don’t you even dare.”

  After a few clicks and taps, Karl angles the laptop so they can both watch together.

  A high-resolution color video is now playing at high speed and full screen. It’s the feed from the camera in the lobby that’s positioned over the front doors, showing the doors leading out to the courtyard and the letterboxes.

  They sip their coffee and watch residents coming and going, the progress of the sunshine on the floor—as well as the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen—tracking the days as the video plays.

  It’s a slow process and the coffees are gone before they see anything of interest, from five days before.

  “There,” Lee says, pointing. “Play that forward at normal speed.”

  They watch as a familiar figure enters the frame.

  “Well, well, well,” Karl says. “What have we here?”

  It’s Laura Mannix, standing in the lobby of the Crossings, looking out through the main doors.

  She does this for a while, as if waiting for someone who never comes. Then she turns around and, very quickly, slips something into the letterbox for apartment one.

  When she moves out of shot, it’s to go back toward the elevators and so, presumably, back upstairs.

  “There’s our envelope,” Lee says. “What time was that?”

  “Ah . . . Five fifteen, ish. On Monday last. She didn’t do a very good job of hiding her face from the CCTV, did she? She stood in front of the camera to make sure we saw it.”

  Lee shrugs. “Maybe she didn’t know it was there.”

  “There’s a big camera on the ceiling.”

  “There’s a standard fish-eye lens on the ceiling,” Lee corrects, “in the corner, and so what? People don’t really think of CCTV in places like this, lobbies and lifts. And if you’re not doing anything wrong, you wouldn’t be thinking about it at all, would you?” She nods at the laptop. “Play on.”

  Karl taps a key.

  “Remember,” he says, “we’ve only forty-eight more hours to go.”

  But they only have to speed through another five of them before they see Laura Mannix again: coming out of the corridor from the direction of apartment one and, moments later, going down it.

  “Well, well—” Karl starts.

  “Once was enough. Pause there and let’s watch it at normal speed.”

  When they watch the events in chronological order, Laura Mannix goes down the corridor toward apartment one and doesn’t return for nearly fifteen minutes. She doesn’t appear to be holding anything, but she has a little clutch bag on a chain slung diagonally across her chest, as if she’s on her way somewhere.

  Like before, when she moves out of shot, it’s not to go out of the front doors or head into the courtyard, but to move back toward the lift that will take her upstairs to her side of the building.

  “So that’s what,” Lee asks, “Monday morning? Ten or so?”

  “Nine fifty-two, to be exact. When she returns to the lobby. Our friend was definitely dead by then, right?”

  “Is there another angle? Where we can see the door for number one?”

  Karl presses a few keys and traces a forefinger across the trackpad.

  “Here we go. Fire exit at the end of the hall.”

  The camera this time is positioned in the corner of the ceiling above the fire exit that leads outside, and only a few feet from apartment one. The door itself is hidden from view below the camera’s line of sight, but anyone coming or going from the apartment would be clearly visible.

  “Shame about the seven days,” Lee says. “When we’ve such a good shot of it.”

  “There she is.”

  They both watch as Laura Mannix goes to the door of apartment one, hesitates for a moment or two and then slips inside.

  “
That lying little bitch,” Karl says.

  Lee sighs heavily. She’s starting to feel the strain of the day—and this case—even if she’s only a few hours into each of them.

  “She didn’t kill him, though,” she says. “He was already dead by then.”

  “How do you know this wasn’t her second visit? Don’t serial killers always go back to the scene of crime?”

  “How many serial killer cases have you worked, Karly? They must have been on my days off.”

  “Zero-point-zero-zero,” he says, tapping his temple, “because they never get to the serial bit with me.”

  Lee snorts.

  “I don’t think Laura Mannix is a serial killer,” she says then. “And did you see how she just pushed open the door? Like I said, unless she took something . . . we don’t even have her on burglary. I doubt that’s enough time for her to wipe down surfaces, either—and she’s nothing with her that could do that. And if she did that on a previous visit, why go back and risk leaving some trace now?”

  “And why put the envelope in the letterbox if she’s just seen his dead body in there?”

  Lee turns to Karl, eyebrows raised. “Yes,” she says. “Excellent question, Karl.”

  “I’m choosing to ignore your tone of surprise.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “Well,” he says, “she told us that what’s inside is a love letter about how she’s not going to do anything bad, she won’t name him, yada, yada, yada—but what if she had left previous letters that weren’t so nice? He doesn’t respond, she goes to check the apartment, she finds him dead, she’s like, Uh-oh, I’ve fucked up here, so she writes a nice letter she knows he’ll never get, but that we’ll find, and we’ll rule her out then as being a source of any angst in his life because, hey, her message to him was so nice.”

  When he finishes, he turns up his palms with a flourish.

  “Proud of yourself, Karl?”

  “Indeed I am,” he says. “Very.”

  “You know, I think you could be right.”

  They watch the remainder of the CCTV, but find nothing else of interest. Aside from Laura Mannix, no one seemed to enter or leave apartment one at any time throughout the previous seven days.