12
She was about to call it a night. She’d written up her notes from the interview and was looking forward to the prospect of a slow strong drink, the lights down low and the curtains pulled tight against the day. But something kept nagging at her. She read through the interview summary again and it didn’t take her long to work out what it was.
She managed to grab a sandwich at the canteen but she ate it too fast as she made her way through the tightly packed crowds of Queensway. Her jacket wasn’t warm enough and the snow was working its way under her collar, causing wet trickles to run down the back of her neck. But she didn’t care, didn’t care at all. She tilted her head and let the snow fall on her face, enjoying the icy slapping sting of it. She’d always loved the blank mystery of snow, from that first remembered Easter in the Baltic to the crisp white fields of wintertime Colorado where she and Oliver had spent their Christmas holidays. The thought of her ex-husband came up like the bile in her stomach. She’d finally opened the letters, listened to the answering-machine messages with their threats, insinuations and promises of lengthy litigation, and knew she would have to meet him face to face so that she could end this part of her life once and for all. She couldn’t bear the thought of it but she needed the money he owed her, was sick of borrowing from her mother at the end of each month. She wished she could take Carrigan with her, there was something about him, a sense of comfort and protection, but she quickly dismissed the idea, embarrassed for even having thought it.
She turned into St Peter’s Square, the scent of scorched wood still suspended in the air as if trapped by the snow. The scene was as she remembered and yet it was also different. The eager jostling crowds of the first night had thinned so that now only a few stray shoppers stumbled on this ruined skeleton of a house, staring up for a few moments, then turning back toward the chaos and noise of the high street. The blue crime-scene tape had been moved and it now covered a much smaller area, as if the crime itself was receding from memory.
Geneva thought about what Hubbard had said about his flowerbeds and the girl with the pink hair, wondering if she was another of the nuns’ projects, their ‘lost sheep’, as Holden had called them. She pulled out the map Hubbard had drawn for her during the interview, shielding it from the falling snow. She tried to imagine the house before the fire, the front garden all neat and tidy, the light leaking from arched windows and falling softly on the grained floor as the nuns sat and knelt and meditated on fate and suffering.
But she didn’t stand there long. She checked Hubbard’s sketch again and walked past the house. The firemen had got there in time to save the buildings next door. She could see blurry lights behind pulled curtains and the flickerdance of shadows moving within. There were two houses to the left of the convent and then the square ended. She checked the map and turned down the narrow side street.
A high brick fence enclosed the terrace and ran the length of the back gardens. She followed it until the wall curved back round into a small alley. The snow was as smooth as a well-made bed and her footsteps were the first to mark its surface as she cautiously entered. The alley was about fifteen feet wide with tall wooden fences on either side and was lit only by the weak spilled light from the surrounding residences. Geneva walked slowly, her feet unsteady in the deep snow. She could see the roofs of the houses above the fence-line and made her way towards the convent.
She stared up at the ruined structure as it glowed darkly against the sky, then she looked down. The snow next to the fence was unbroken. No one had been here today. She pulled out the map Hubbard had made and tried to work out where the flowerbeds were.
The fence was about twenty feet long and eight feet high. The top of the fence was crowned in snow and she was unable to see if there were any scratches, tears or other evidence that it had been climbed. Small bushes and scraggly weeds covered the ground directly in front of it, rising several feet above the snowline.
She gently kicked away the loose powder with her boots. She looked up as a light went on in one of the neighbouring houses then blinked off. She knelt down and carefully scooped away the remaining snow with her hands until she’d revealed the rough asphalt. A muffled sound made her turn round, almost losing her balance, but when she looked behind her the alley was empty. She took a deep breath and brushed some more of the snow away from the bottom of the fence. She aimed her torch into the newly cleared space and noticed something shining on the ground.
By the base of the bush there was a collection of random litter – crushed cigarette butts, chocolate wrappers, dead leaves and several small squares of silver foil. Each one had dark burn marks spreading from its centre like crushed spiders. Geneva took out an evidence bag and was reaching down when she heard the sound again. She spun round and aimed the torch in the direction of the noise. She swept it up and down the alley but there was nothing. She waited a few seconds, listening to the roaring of the blood in her ears, and then she heard it again, a soft mewling cry floating on the wind.
‘Police! Show yourself!’ she shouted, her palms sweating despite the cold. There was no reply nor repeat of the sound. She was about to turn back when she saw it coming towards her.
The cat stopped and arched its back and hissed at her. Its eyes were black as night‚ lost in ruffles of white fur, and its mouth was stretched so wide it looked as if it had been torn apart. It stood there and hissed again and curled its right claw. A nervous burst of laughter shot through Geneva.
‘Get out of here, cat!’ she said, feeling embarrassed and more than a little relieved.
She turned round, bagged the silver foil, then took a few steps back and studied the fence.
It was made up of several sections nailed together. One of the sections, directly in front of where she’d found the foil, had come loose. She leaned forward and ran her hand into the gap. The wood gave about an inch and she heard a faint scraping and scratching coming from below. She used her fingers to follow the crack as it disappeared behind the bushes and held her breath as she felt the sudden change in texture from the rough splintered feel of the wood to something smooth and man-made. She dropped her torch, cursed and picked it up again, then crouched down and pushed the shrubs aside.
The fence was broken all the way to the bottom and the lower half of the crack was held in place by four thick strips of grey gaffer tape. She stared at it for a long moment and then she understood.
Someone had removed the section of fence then taped it back together so that it could be opened and closed at will. Someone had turned the broken fence into a door.
*
DC Singh found her standing outside the front of the convent. ‘I think we may have something,’ Singh said, out of breath and a little ruffled.
‘Thought you were off today?’
Singh frowned. ‘Branch came in earlier, told us all leave was suspended until this thing is solved.’
‘Shit,’ Geneva said.
‘I guess Christmas just got cancelled,’ the young DC dourly replied as she pulled out a clipboard and rifled through the pages. ‘Haven’t broken the news to Steve yet, he’s going to blow his top.’
Geneva shrugged the kind of shrug women give each other to signify the vagaries of men. She looked across at the blackened silhouette of the convent, one wall still standing, the others in various states of collapse, and she was reminded of those paintings of ruined abbeys straddling impossible mountain peaks, the sense of longing and mystery in things no longer there. ‘Anything on the door-to-doors?’
‘Pretty much the usual crap.’ Singh explained that the uniforms had spent the day going up and down the street, interviewing the residents, hoping someone had seen something the night of the fire. ‘One woman, an old lady two houses across, said she saw a priest leaving the premises at about five, gave us a description,’ Singh said, wrapping her jacket tightly around her as the wind came careening down from the park, icy and sharp, so cold it made their eyes water. ‘We also talked to some of the other people who called it in. They were about to have a dinner party and the husband had gone outside to smoke his pipe. This was around six forty-five by his estimate. He said at first he didn’t see anything unusual and then a few minutes later he noticed white smoke coming from the building but didn’t think much of it. He was just putting out his pipe when the first flames became visible. He reckons that a pipe takes him fifteen minutes to smoke so we now have seven p.m. as an approximate time for the fire.’
‘For the flames,’ Geneva corrected, then immediately regretted it when she saw the constable’s eyes drop to the ground and realised that Singh had been hoping to impress her. ‘Good work,’ she added, but she could tell it was too late. ‘You mentioned there was something else?’
Singh nodded, hugging herself against the wind and snow. ‘One of the uniforms talked to a teacher at the primary school a couple of doors down from the convent. Apparently, she said she had something to report, but that she was busy and he should come back in an hour.’
Geneva shook her head and looked down at her soaked shoes. ‘And he just left her there, right?’
Singh shrugged her shoulders.
‘For God’s sake, they’re worse than useless, these new recruits.’
Like the convent, the school was housed in what had once been a residential building and the only thing to announce this change was a small brass plaque fixed to the gate proclaiming it one of the first Montessori schools in London.
It took three rings before the door was answered. The woman on the other side looked put out and piqued, as if Geneva and Singh were the fifth set of salesmen calling that day. ‘Yes?’ she said, her accent totally at odds with her looks.
Geneva showed the woman her warrant card. ‘You told one of the constables you had some information?’
The woman nodded and introduced herself as Gabby. She had long blonde hair tied back in a messy ponytail and chapped fingers.
Gabby studied the warrant card carefully then grudgingly opened the door a further few inches. ‘Look, I’m really busy. Couldn’t you wait until I’ve finished?’
Geneva walked past her into the hallway. Bright paintings, crude diagrams, strange versions of Disney characters and third-world leaders lined the walls on either side. ‘We won’t take up much of your time.’
‘I’ve got to go through this again? Christ, I didn’t even see anything important . . . I wish I hadn’t told the officer now.’ The woman stood there a moment as if she couldn’t quite believe Geneva’s impertinence. ‘You mind if we do it in there? I still have a lot of work to do.’
The front room had been converted into a small classroom. Twelve wooden desks were aligned in precise rows, the chairs all neatly tucked beneath them. A blackboard was mounted on one wall, posters, revolutionary slogans and more of the children’s artwork surrounding it. A large photo stretched the length of the room and depicted two hands, one black and one white, shaking.
‘You told one of the officers you saw something?’ Geneva watched as the woman cleared her desk in staggers and clumps and could tell she was one of those people, more and more of them lately, who distrusted the police instinctively, as a badge of fashionable protest and self-gratifying resistance, seeing them only as jackbooted avatars of a new world order.
‘
May
have seen something,’ Gabby replied as if correcting a student for her errant grammar.
‘Listen, we’re conducting a murder inquiry so you need to tell us anything you
may
have seen.’
‘Murder?’ Gabby raised a hand to her mouth. ‘You mean it wasn’t an accident . . . oh God.’ She looked down at the table then back at the two detectives. ‘No one will know I gave you this information, right? I won’t have to testify?’
Geneva thought she’d probably watched too many American cop shows but assured her there would be no need to testify and that this was purely for background information. Gabby stared across the classroom at a Mugabe poster splashed in red and green on the far wall. ‘Because the people I saw . . .’ she said, pointing to the front window. ‘Look – three gates down? That’s the entrance to the convent. When I’m here teaching the girls I can see who’s coming and going.’
Geneva sidled up next to Gabby. From where she was standing, in front of the whiteboard, you could see the entire class but you could also see the large louvre window and everything that occurred within its frame.
‘I only noticed them because they double-parked,’ Gabby continued. ‘We’ve spent years fighting the council to put up signs about it. It’s a narrow road and a double-parked car is a death-trap when you have so many kids running around.’
‘Noticed what?’ Geneva was becoming increasingly frustrated by the teacher’s digressive burble.
‘It was only a couple of times, no, three I think, but it was the same two men each time. As I said, if they hadn’t double-parked I wouldn’t have noticed. It’s just they weren’t the kind of men you expect to see in a place like that.’
Suddenly Geneva’s attention was entirely focused on the teacher. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know . . . there’s . . . there’s a certain type.’
‘And what type is that?’
‘Black suits,’ Gabby replied. ‘Serious-looking people. One had this grotesque scar running down the side of his mouth. They didn’t look like nice men.’
Geneva thought about what the teacher was saying and what she wasn’t saying. ‘And you saw two of these “types” visiting the convent more than once?’
‘Yes, three times over the last month. Each time double-parking and just leaving the car there, blocking the whole street.’
‘Did you notice how long they stayed?’
Gabby took a moment to think about this. ‘Never more than ten minutes, a little less actually. I could see them better when they were walking out, when I knew they couldn’t see me. They climbed into one of those black BMW monstrosities with tinted windows.’
‘An SUV?’