Eleven Days (4 page)

The smell was overwhelming. It was like nothing he’d experienced before; not the reek of decomposed corpses in dark basements, nor the salty tang of freshly spilled blood, but something almost physical.

‘Careful,’ Weir warned as they made their way through the front garden. ‘They’ll burn a hole right through your shoe.’ He pointed to the smouldering pieces of wood spitting and hissing on the path, but Carrigan’s eyes were drawn to the sky. ‘What’s with the black snow?’

‘It’s that way because of the fire,’ Weir explained. ‘Soaks up all the ash and dust on its way down.’

‘Nice,’ Carrigan replied, adjusting his safety hat and turning back towards the convent.

The main structure was no longer burning, the firemen retreating their ladders and hoses, the top of the building covered in clouds of billowing steam as water cascaded from the gutters and eaves. The air was filled with bursts of cracking and popping, loud groans and moans coming from the wood as it contracted violently against the cold water, making the house seem as if it were alive and extremely disgruntled.

They could see into the building as if it were a doll’s house in some little girl’s bedroom or one of those models that architects use to pitch new designs. But there was nothing new here, only staircases that led into empty space, door frames gaping like open mouths, windows blown through, the glass twisted and melted and reconfigured into nightmarish shapes.

‘It’s still unstable, so we can’t spend too long.’ Weir was chewing gum, his lips smacking against each other. Snow had collected on his hat and clothes. ‘The fire investigator will go through it tomorrow morning and you should have his report by the afternoon.’ He stopped and turned towards Carrigan. ‘Very unusual for you guys to get here so soon.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Carrigan said, thinking about his encounter with the ACC – he knew that Quinn’s presence meant it would be one of those cases, the kind he dreaded the most.

‘We’re lucky we got here ourselves when we did,’ Weir said, leading him into the reception hall, but Carrigan wasn’t listening. He stopped, turned back and inspected the entrance.

‘What?’

Carrigan pointed to the doorframe. The wood had been badly burned but the slim metal locks were still in place. Carrigan used the sleeve of his jacket to brush away some of the soot. There were four mortise locks spread evenly along the doorframe’s length, three Chubbs, and the housing for two heavy-duty bolts.

‘A lot of locks,’ Weir said, a low whistle escaping his lips.

‘Yes,’ Carrigan replied. ‘Especially for a convent.’

The marshal nodded sombrely and turned back into the reception hall. The outside wall had collapsed and brought down a portion of the roof, exposing a rectangle of sky through which the snow drifted slowly down. A staircase rose steeply to their left. Carrigan followed Weir past the melting bubbling plastic, half burnt umbrellas and empty coat-stands, their metal hooks steaming in the dark.

‘Can you tell if this was arson?’

Weir started to say that he wasn’t an investigator but Carrigan wanted to know his first impressions and told him to continue.

‘I got a good look at the flames before we went in.’ He passed through a small corridor, now exposed to the night. ‘You know about flame and colour spectrums, right?’

Carrigan didn’t but nodded anyway, his throat dry and scratchy from the soot and dust.

‘Basically, we can tell what kind of fire it is from the colour of the flame. Different materials burn with different heat signatures. Blue flames are nearly always an indicator of accelerants, which often means the fire was intentional. I didn’t see any of that here. The fire burned mainly red with some yellow and only sporadic flashes of blue. It looks like no accelerants were used and the seat of fire appears to be singular rather than multiple, which is what we would expect to see in cases of arson. Then again, I’m only guessing. We’ll know much more when the investigator’s done.’

Carrigan stared at the ruined house, trying to visualise what it must have looked like before the fire, how the corridors and rooms connected and what their functions had been. ‘Do you know if the bodies are all grouped together?’

The marshal thought for a moment and nodded. ‘We haven’t been in the basement yet, but the ones we found upstairs were all in the same room.’

Carrigan filed this bit of information away. He knew it could mean any number of things but it would help them reconstruct the series of events which had led to the fire. ‘Where?’

Weir pointed directly above and they climbed the stairs and turned right on the first-floor landing. At the far end was an empty doorframe revealing a room shrouded in smoke and haze. As he entered, Carrigan saw a set of dark smudges aligned across the floor. ‘How many?’

The marshal checked something on one of his instruments then stepped through the doorframe. ‘We haven’t managed to count them yet.’

The smell in this room was different. Still the acrid tang of burnt wood, the acidic reek of melted plastic, but also something else. Carrigan tried breathing through his mouth but then he could taste it and that was worse. It really did smell like barbecue and that was what made it so horrible, this close relation to pleasure, the way the tongue could not distinguish between the two, and he tried not to think about what he was actually breathing in.

‘This room took some of the worst damage,’ Weir said. ‘The fire started in the chapel directly below, so it burned for a long time before we could get to it.’

They both coughed and spluttered and Weir took a small collapsible fan from his belt and set it down. As the smoke dissipated, the dark blotches on the floor began to take shape.

They were evenly spread out in two rows. They looked like small children, the black and brown skin snagged tight against the bones, the arms and legs curled into each other in a foetal boxer’s position. It made them appear as if they’d died fighting, struggling desperately against the confines of their own skins.

Carrigan leaned down next to the nearest body, the small shrivelled form giving off steam as the eyes still bubbled in their sockets. He got up, nauseated and dizzy, and started to count.

They were arranged in an almost geometrical pattern around a humped mass of grey ash situated in the centre of the room. They were all reposing in virtually identical positions. It didn’t seem like any of them had tried to escape – there was none of the scatter pattern you normally saw in a fire, the panic and fear driving the victims to try all available exits and windows – no, this looked like they’d sat and waited for the fire to consume them. Or maybe they hadn’t been able to move, Carrigan thought, and made a note to ask the pathologist about that. He studied the mound of ashes in the centre and saw the silver glint of cutlery, broken china, a scattering of small black stones, the metal edges of chair supports, and knew they’d died where they’d sat, around the dinner table, gathered for their last supper.

He blinked the image away and counted again.

Just as Quinn had said. Ten bodies. The fire had got them all.

A beam cracked above him, showering dust and sparks down on his jacket. He stood up and made his way towards the stained-glass window high on the west wall. There was no way anyone could have reached it, let alone used it to escape.

He walked past Weir without saying a word and stopped and looked down at the remains of the door, using his foot to sift through the debris. Most of the wood was gone, only splinters and slivers remaining, skinny as fingers. He leaned down and picked up a darkened doorknob, still brassy under the layers of soot. He looked at it for a moment then put it down. He used his hand to sift through the rest of the ash and stopped when he felt the cold touch of metal. He reached over and picked up the object and examined it.

‘You still think this was an accident?’ He handed the fireman the dull disfigured lock that had once been part of the door. Weir took it and held it in his hands, turning it over several times as if confused of its function. The cylinder was engaged and the two pieces, lock and housing, were embraced in an unbreakable kiss.

‘The door was locked . . .’ Weir said, and then his radio crackled, making them both jump. The fireman spoke into it in short staccato bursts. He clicked off and looked up at Carrigan, his face puzzled and strange.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not quite sure how to explain it,’ Weir replied. ‘You better come downstairs and have a look.’

The size of the chapel surprised him. The fact of it lurking invisibly in this nondescript house. Smoke obscured the far edges, the nave, altar and rood screen. Firemen were rushing around putting out small blazes erupting in corners and niches. Weir spoke to one of his colleagues, nodding rapidly, then turned towards Carrigan.

‘They heard something moving in there.’ He pointed to a line of confession booths against the far wall, their metal frames hissing sibilantly.

‘They heard something?’

Weir nodded. ‘Yes. A thump.’

Carrigan looked in the direction of the booths. There were three of them, now reduced to skeleton remains of metal and charred timber. He stood and listened but there was only the crackling of the rapidly cooling wood, the hiss and sputter of dead fires. The firemen had stopped what they were doing and were all gathered around him. He took a step forward and carefully opened the door to the first booth. A pocket of trapped smoke burst out, momentarily blinding him. He went over to the second booth and tried the door but it was locked.

‘Anyone got a penknife?’

Weir passed a small folding knife over to him and Carrigan carefully ran it through the gap between door and frame, unlatching the lock. He turned and handed the knife back to Weir. He pulled the handle but the lock snagged and caught and the door jammed. Carrigan was about to give it another yank when something moved inside the confession booth, thudding against the door.

The sudden weight and pressure made Carrigan jump back. They all watched the door of the second confession booth with held breath and unblinking eyes but there was no further sound nor movement. Carrigan took a step forward and gripped the handle so tightly that he could feel his own pulse throbbing through his fingers as he waited for whatever it was behind the door to move again. He could hear Weir talking behind him but not what he said. He could feel the pressing weight against the door and he gently turned the handle and gave it a sharp pull. The jammed lock broke and the door swung open.

It came tumbling out with a breath of charred meat and bitter smoke and landed hot and wet in his arms. The smell instantly filled his mouth and nostrils. He stumbled back but the body clung to him fiercely, the weight not much more than that of a small child’s.

He resisted the urge to rip his hands free and slowly got to his knees and lowered it onto the floor. He got up and quickly wiped his hands on his trousers. He felt like he was going to be sick, his forehead blazing and stomach churning as he forced himself to focus on the twisted remains lying at his feet, a slippery figure curled in on itself like a broken question mark.

He’d missed his morning coffee. As he sipped his glass of water, he looked out at the sea of faces gathered in the main room of the CID building. Flashbulbs popped and stuttered, making him squint and blink, as reporters found their seats for the morning’s press conference.

It was the worst possible way to begin a case. Carrigan had wanted to start the day with an initial briefing to his team but Branch had been waiting for him in the incident room. The press conference had been set up last night on ACC Quinn’s express orders. Quinn now sat to his right on the podium, the Met logo draped behind him, Branch flanking Carrigan’s other side.

Carrigan took another sip of water, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. His head raged with pain, his stomach flip-flopping like a rollercoaster. He hadn’t got drunk for a long time but he’d got drunk last night. In the living room, in his favourite armchair, watching the cars outside his window ignite the darkness. He’d fallen asleep and dreamed of his mother trapped in a burning church, strapped to her bed, slowly disappearing into herself and into time, and woken up dishevelled and dream-haunted and itching to get back to work. Sometimes he thought the job, the obsessiveness it required, the long hours and bad dreams, was a way for him to avoid the complicated process of actually living a life. Other times he knew it was so.

He cleared his throat, stood up, waited for the cameras to find their focal point and began. ‘At around six o’clock last night, a house in St Peter’s Square caught fire. The fire brigade were despatched to the scene and managed to bring the blaze under control before it could spread to any adjacent residences.’ Flashbulbs popped and Carrigan raised his hand to shield his eyes. ‘When the firemen deemed it safe to enter the premises they discovered several bodies. The building housed a convent used by a small group of nuns. We’re appealing to anyone who might have seen anything unusual in the vicinity of 33 St Peter’s Square yesterday evening to contact us.’ Carrigan took his seat as cameras whirred and competed with the bray of questions from the gathered reporters.

‘Is it possible that this was a ritual murder? Black magic?’ a young woman from Sky News asked.

Carrigan tried to find her face among the bobbing heads. ‘We’re not yet certain that this was an intentional fire, so to make such far-flung speculations would be silly.’

The woman frowned and wrote something down in her notebook. Carrigan pointed to a reporter from the
Times
but before the man could get his question out, another voice, painfully familiar, rose from the pack.

‘Is there any truth to the rumour that this was a terrorist act?’

Carrigan scanned the densely packed crowd of reporters till he found Khan. George Khan had been working at the
Standard
for almost as long as Carrigan had been in the Met. Everyone in the department knew of his reputation for sudden non sequiturs and subtle word traps and they’d all learned to avoid him if they could.

‘You know as well as I do, George . . .’ Carrigan glared at the overweight reporter, his suit crumpled and stained, a bottle of Lucozade in his hand and an unlit cigarette jumping between his fingers, ‘that rumours such as that have no place in our investigation.’ Carrigan suspected that Khan had in all likelihood made up the ‘rumour’ himself just to get a quote. ‘There is absolutely no evidence of anything that could be construed as a terrorist act. This wasn’t a bomb, this was a plain ordinary fire that went out of control. We will, of course, be consulting with the fire investigation team as to how it started but that’s all to come. As of now we are treating the fire as suspicious but no more, and I certainly won’t comment on what are mere rumours.’

He sat down and immediately felt the ACC’s hand on his arm. He turned to see Quinn looking even more ghostly than he had the previous night. The man obviously hadn’t got any sleep. ‘Good work,’ he said quietly into Carrigan’s ear. ‘These things are never easy, son, you’ve done a good job.’

He was on his way out when he heard Quinn call his name. The cameras and journalists had departed leaving them alone in the cavernous hall. ‘I want you to do this clean and fast, understand?’ Quinn said. ‘It’s probably nothing more than some crazy firebug, so you know what to do.’

Carrigan nodded. He could see why Quinn had got a reputation as the most feared man in the Met – behind his polite facade there was a steely authority which made it clear he wouldn’t stand for any mistakes or lame excuses.

‘The timing’s particularly bad here,’ Quinn continued. ‘The public have a lot more sympathy towards nuns during the festive period. The press have nothing else on their plates. It’s imperative we wrap this up before Christmas.’

‘Sir?’ Carrigan said, knowing this would be his one and only chance. ‘I’d rather you gave this to another DI. I’m in the middle of something else at the moment.’

Quinn coolly appraised him. ‘DSI Branch didn’t mention anything.’

No, of course not, Carrigan thought. ‘A sixteen-year-old boy went missing three days ago.’

‘Young boys go missing all the time, you know that as well as anyone.’

‘This is different, sir,’ Carrigan continued. ‘I believe this is linked to several other disappearances over the past few years. I know this is the work of one man and I don’t think we have much time if we want to find the boy alive.’

Quinn nodded quietly and sank his hands deeply into the pockets of his uniform jacket. ‘You’re in charge of the investigation into this fire. Did I not make myself clear?’ His eyes were cold and pale as a winter sky. ‘It’s time to think about your future, Carrigan. Promotion to DCI. Handle this case right and I’ll put a word in. This other thing, you can pass off to someone else. I want you fully focused on the fire and nothing else. The press will have their eye on you, Carrigan, remember that.’