Eleven Days (20 page)

‘Let go of me!’ She struggled and writhed and twisted but the tall man’s grip didn’t falter. ‘I’m police.’

The two men both laughed, a thick guttural sound that echoed through the alley. A million horror-film deaths flashed through her brain and it was too late to wish she’d never seen all those movies as her vision filled with chainsaws and blood, the sharp glitter of knives and fragile delicacy of human skin.

Eagle-neck leaned in until his nose was almost touching hers, and inhaled deeply as if drinking the air. Geneva tried to scream but he placed his oily palm across her lips and she could suddenly taste his cigarette and smell his breath, garlic and beer, the rough feel of his skin against her own. He held her mouth and moved her head from side to side as if assessing a dog’s pedigree.

Gently, he inserted three fingers into her mouth, pushing past her teeth and gums. His fingers probed and stroked the inside of her cheeks, his thumb holding down her tongue so forcefully that she could feel his pulse beating in her mouth. She flinched at the sharp rub of his stubble as he pressed his face against hers and then she saw him reach down and unzip his fly.

She could hear buses hissing to a stop down the high street, only a hundred yards away, TVs blaring game shows from the flats above her, raised voices shouting into mobile phones, and then all she heard was a faint trickling on the pavement and suddenly her right leg was warm and wet.

She opened her eyes and looked down to see the short man directing a long stream of piss at her legs. It smelled rank and sour. It seemed to go on forever. She closed her eyes but she could still feel the hot gush of his urine and hear it splashing against the pavement under her.

When he was finished, he shook off the last few drops and zipped himself back up. He let out a long sigh of relief then took a step closer, his face less than an inch from hers. ‘There are no second chances.’

She spat in his face, and was glad to see the shock and fury in his eyes. He grabbed her hair and used it to pull her head down, twisting the strands until she thought she was going to pass out. He punched her once in the stomach. The other man let go of her arms and she fell heavily to the floor, her eyes fluttering and fading from focus as her face hit the cold pavement.

The relentless muffled drumming of the shower echoed through the walls of the flat. Carrigan stared out the window at the falling snow and tried to ignore the sound. He made himself instant coffee in the kitchen, rooting through the unfamiliar cupboards and products of another person’s life, made her tea, turned on the heating and kept his mouth shut.

He’d found her in the alley, crouched into a ball, shaking and holding tightly onto the phone she’d called him from. She couldn’t meet his eyes as her voice trembled, stumbled and stuttered, telling him what had happened, the men in the alley, the fight with Oliver, and he’d said it was okay, putting a finger to her lips, lifting her off the wet floor and placing her into the back seat of his car.

She’d been in the shower for nearly an hour. She’d had several successive showers. Every so often he could hear the wet scamper of her feet and cessation of noise, only to be replaced by the swirling rush of water rolling down the drain as she brushed her teeth over and over again.

It had seemed rude to leave. It had seemed wrong. And so he’d sat and watched the snow swirl and spin, and made hot drinks, trying to swallow the red hot spike burning through his chest – the fact they would do something like this to one of his officers. The fact they would do this to Geneva.

She came out towel-wrapped and skin-wrinkled and looked at him and looked at the flat and went back into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. There were copies of the convent investigation file spread across her coffee table, scribbled notes, typed reports, photos from the morgue. She wasn’t supposed to have made copies or brought them home with her but Carrigan understood.

‘Thank you.’

Her voice startled him, the way it didn’t sound like her at all. She was wearing a red robe and her hair was loose and smeared wet across her face. ‘We should call this in . . . if you’re ready,’ he said and it was too late for him to take it back as he saw a sharp flicker ignite the corners of her eyes.

‘I can’t do that.’

He didn’t want to push her. He knew these moments were not like other moments, but he also knew that if she were to change her mind and report it later, vital forensic evidence would be lost. ‘No one will think any different of you.’

The look she gave him made the words die in his throat, useless and empty.

‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ She went over to the fridge, her wet feet slapping against the floor, and took out a litre of duty-free tequila that looked like bottled starlight. She picked up two mugs and poured herself a large measure and swiped it back, her eyes turning fuzzy for a brief moment.

‘Everyone will be super nice to me, which is fucking terrible, but worse, behind my back, when I’m not there, in the canteen or the pub, they’ll be talking about the incident – you know that as well as I do. They’ll start with how awful it is, then they’ll get to speculating what
really
happened, what those brutes did to me, and then they’ll have had a few drinks and start wondering was there something I could have done to help myself, because no one, least of all cops, wants to admit that there are some situations where there’s nothing you can do.’ She refilled the mug and took three quick sips. ‘And don’t forget I’m a woman. They’ll use that as their excuse. This is what happens when we put women on the front line and all that crap. I’m not going to report it and I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ She slumped down on the sofa beside him and passed him the other mug. ‘I want to drink away the fucking memory of tonight, all of it, the taste of his fingers, Oliver – I want to forget it happened – for a few hours, at least. If you want to join me that would be nice.’

They drank the alcohol neat and fast. It burned and flamed as it rolled down their throats. ‘Can we talk about it, at least? Just you and me?’

She refilled the mugs. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Did you recognise them?’

Geneva turned towards Carrigan and nodded. She lifted the mug to her lips but her hand trembled and most of it spilled down the front of her robe and she didn’t seem to notice. ‘The one with the eagle tattoo . . . he was the one who did . . .’ She looked down at her legs. ‘Who did this. The other man I didn’t recognise.’

‘Shit.’ Carrigan slammed down the drink, coughing and shaking and gripping the edge of the sofa. ‘What did they say to you?’

Geneva tucked her feet underneath a small tartan blanket as if she could make herself disappear within its folds. ‘There are no second chances.’

‘It must mean we’re getting close,’ Carrigan said, looking down at the floor.

‘You’re still hanging on to the theory this is over the nuns’ involvement in cleaning up the neighbourhood?’

He looked at her sharply, then muted his eyes. ‘We know Viktor works for Duka, an Albanian crime boss who runs drugs in our area. The nuns were mobilising the community against drug dealers and petty crime. Viktor and Eagle-neck attacked me in the ruins. Eagle-neck just assaulted you. I think that speaks for itself.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘I know you disagree and that’s fine. It’s always dangerous to stick to only one avenue of investigation. That’s how mistakes get made. But we also need to judge the evidence accordingly. Viktor has to be our main priority and, through him, Duka. We have to get him before something like this happens again.’ He saw her body shake at the mention of what had occurred earlier. ‘Twenty years I’ve been doing this and this is the first time something like this has happened.’

She looked at him as she poured another drink. ‘You say that like there’s a code? A line even criminals shouldn’t cross?’

‘I used to think there was.’

She raised an eyebrow at that, and said, ‘You think things are getting worse?’

Carrigan nodded.

‘Every generation thinks that.’

He took the bottle from her clenched fingers and held it between his hands. ‘Maybe every generation’s right and it’s getting steadily worse all the time.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ she said, intrigued and a little unsettled by the resignation in his voice.

‘We have these great new technological advances – DNA, CCTV, all the rest – but none of it stops the crime. It’s only good to us afterwards. Sometimes I think all we are is janitors, clearing up the mess after everyone else has gone home. At least the nuns were doing something.’

She leaned across the sofa and reached for an ashtray. ‘God, you approve, don’t you?’ she said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

‘The neighbourhood improved after they began their community work. Residents became more involved. Property prices went up and street crimes were down fifty per cent until the nuns decided to stop it all a year ago. They were putting into practice what they believed in. In their minds, they weren’t breaking any laws. The laws they subscribe to, ultimately, are God’s laws, not man’s.’

‘But that’s exactly the justification everyone uses – vigilantes, illegal downloaders, terrorists . . . you name it.’

Carrigan nodded in agreement. ‘We have to face up to the fact people don’t trust our laws any more. There’s a growing discontent, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed? A disillusion with the prevailing structures of law and government the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Look at how many empty shops there are on every high street, construction projects left unfinished, people sleeping in doorways and bus stops. Look at people’s faces and you see a stunned desperation there – it all happened so quickly, money fell and no one understands quite how or why it did, only that their lives had been staked and lost over a financial roulette wheel.’

‘I don’t know if you’re being extremely cynical or extremely prescient.’

Carrigan shrugged and Geneva watched him as he worried the dulled ring on his left hand, seemingly unaware of what he was doing, turning it between his fingers as if it were a rosary. ‘How come you still wear it?’ she said before she could think twice about it.

‘Never had a reason to take it off.’ He glanced down at the small gold band and twirled it twice more to ease the pressure.

‘You loved her a lot,’ Geneva said, and it wasn’t a question.

‘Far more than I thought I did . . .’

‘What happened?’ she asked, then quickly brought her hand up to her mouth. ‘I can’t believe I just said that. I’m so sorry. I must be a lot drunker than I realise.’

‘Don’t be.’ Carrigan knocked back the remainder of his tequila, his eyes burning fierce and bright. ‘Louise made a decision. That was all there was to it,’ he said, thinking of the days following her death, the way the flat seemed both larger and smaller, expanding and contracting with the hot burning shock of his loss. ‘She’d planned it carefully. I only found out later when I talked to her doctor. A couple of months previously she’d been to see him about an ache she kept having. He sent her for tests. The tests returned and he sat her down and talked to her and gave her two years as his best prognosis. She went home and thought about it for a month and made her decision. She wanted to spare me the agony of watching her slowly wither and die.

‘I had no idea. The last year had been such a good one, and then I came back from a conference and she was gone, instantly and for ever. She’d made sure to tie up all the loose ends and make it as easy for me to deal with her affairs as possible, and then she took a handful of pills and died.’

Geneva looked at Carrigan and didn’t say anything for a long while. ‘You found her?’

‘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.