After the Fire (Maeve Kerrigan) Read online

  ‘Hey! Up here! Bit of help, please?’

  It took two or three goes to get him to look up, probably because builders were more accustomed to shouting at women than to having women shout at them. He tilted his hard hat back and stared.

  ‘I’ve got stuck in flat 103. The door won’t open. Can you get someone to let me out?’

  Vacant staring. He couldn’t hear me, or he didn’t speak English, or he didn’t care.

  I tried again, and this time I added, ‘I’m a police officer.’

  Maybe that was what made him put the plank down and walk away, and maybe it wasn’t. Minutes passed, slowly. I paced up and down, slithering a little where the floor was uneven. The cold in the flat was starting to get to me, making me shudder. That and the fear, but I wasn’t admitting that to myself. More time passed and I scolded myself for assuming the builder had disappeared because he was coming to help me. Possibly he’d gone home.

  A noise in the corridor made me whirl around, my heart thudding again. Safety or danger. Rescue or attack. I took up a position a long way back from the door, holding my radio and my torch.

  ‘Hello? Miss?’

  ‘In here,’ I called, not getting any closer to the door. ‘Can you help me?’

  Something scraped on the outside of the door and there was a clatter, followed by a thud. The door burst open and the builder half-fell into the room. He was young, fair, and extremely surprised to find me standing in the burned-out flat.

  ‘Are you okay?’ His accent was strong, but I didn’t know where he was from: a couple of years ago Poland would have been a safe bet but he could have been from pretty much anywhere in Eastern Europe.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I held up my warrant card. ‘I’m investigating the fire here.’

  ‘Okay.’ He shrugged, obviously puzzled. ‘Well, now you can go. Door is open.’

  ‘Thanks. Thank you for helping me.’

  ‘Okay.’ A faint smile, but a wary one.

  I walked out past him, into the hallway, but then paused. ‘The door … Did you see what was keeping it from opening?’

  ‘Stopped.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone put wood under.’ He pronounced it ‘voad’ and it took me a second to work out he was indicating the spar of burned wood that lay on the floor in the hallway.

  ‘This, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Is under. Like this.’ He showed me, pulling the door closed and shoving the wood underneath so it was jammed in place. ‘No one can open with wood like this.’

  I felt unease prickle over my skin. ‘So it was deliberate. Someone locked me in.’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Damn it,’ I whispered. ‘Okay. Thank you again.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said again, with a more confident smile. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I will.’ I picked my way down the hall, into the stairwell, feeling anything but safe. Who had trapped me? Someone who wanted to tell me I was neither safe nor welcome on the Maudling Estate. Claudine Cole’s bodyguard? Someone else? Not my tormentors from before: they would have come into the flat and shut the door and taken their time with me.

  And I hadn’t seen them once since I’d been investigating the fire. I needed to forget about them. They had almost certainly forgotten all about me.

  I went down the stairs so fast I felt dizzy, counting off the floors one by one. Every sound that echoed through the building made me jump. I edged open the door to the hallway on the ground floor before I pushed it all the way back, in case someone was waiting there. I looked through the glass panel in the door that led to the car park too, peering out. There was my car, not far away.

  Get in, drive off.

  Think about who needs to know about this later.

  I shoved open the door and ducked under the police tape again, striding towards my car with the key already in my hand. I checked my surroundings as I went, hoping that it looked casual. I was trying to spot any movement in the car park, anyone lurking in the shadows, but I didn’t want them to know I was looking. That I was running scared was not what I wanted to convey to anyone watching. A police car went past on the main road, the siren wailing, blue lights flashing, and I felt encouraged. Help wasn’t all that far away, if I needed it.

  I was so busy looking around me that I got all the way over to the car before I noticed there was anything wrong with it. I stopped dead a couple of feet away from the driver’s door. Suddenly I didn’t care if anyone was watching me. I was too busy staring at the frosted glass that edged the gap where the window had been, and the shower of glass fragments that covered the driver’s seat. In the light of my torch, the glass in the window frame glinted ice white. In the driver’s seat, the glass wasn’t white any more. It was coated in a glutinous dark red substance that shone dully. I could smell it, too.

  Not paint.

  Not ink.

  Blood.

  Blood that was soaking into the upholstery, dripping off the steering wheel, splattered on the windscreen.

  And in the middle of the entire mess, thrown contemptuously once it was of no further use, was my Asp. Whoever had done this had used my own weapon to break the window.

  I took out my phone and I called Derwent, listening to the purr of the ring tone, dreading the voicemail message. Nothing was ever as beautiful as the sound of his voice when he picked up.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Josh?’ I was shaking, I found, and I could hear it in my voice. Maybe Derwent could too, because it only took that one word for him to stop sounding bored.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My car. Someone’s vandalised it. At the estate.’

  The shrug was practically visible. ‘Is that all?’

  I closed my eyes for a second. ‘No. No, it isn’t.’

  ‘What else?’

  I told him, limping through the story: the flat, the door, the builder, the wood, the glass, the blood.

  My Asp.

  The blood.

  My fear.

  The blood.

  The words tumbled out of me, faster and faster, and I knew I was just reacting to the shock of it all, to the fear, to the fact that I felt I was falling apart and I couldn’t quite hold myself together.

  ‘Okay,’ Derwent said when he could get a word in. ‘That’s enough. I’ve got the picture. Where are you now?’

  ‘Standing beside the car.’

  ‘Stay where you are, then. I’ll come.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You should be all right there. I won’t be long, and you’re in a safe place.’

  I hung up without saying what I was thinking, and it was what I was meant to think, which made it all the more upsetting that I couldn’t stop myself from repeating it, over and over again.

  There’s no such thing as a safe place any more.

  Chapter 21

  DERWENT CAME, BECAUSE he’d said he would, and he didn’t come alone. I was expecting Kev Cox to be with him because the car needed the attention of a scene-of-crime officer and Kev was the best there was, so Kev’s van was a welcome sight. I wasn’t expecting to see the car behind Derwent’s, or Una Burt getting out of it. The wind flattened her hair against her head and she looked tired as she came towards me.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded.

  She looked at the car and frowned, and I couldn’t tell if it was because she was angry with me, or someone else, or just concentrating. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  This time, I wasn’t quite as hysterical while I explained where I’d been and what I’d done. Derwent came and stood beside Burt, the two of them hemming me in, probably without meaning to. Kev was already working on the car behind me.

  ‘Why did you go into Murchison House?’ Burt asked.

  ‘To have another look at flat 103.’ I remembered the phone, the message I’d left for Kev. It felt like hours ago.

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yo
u didn’t hear anything suspicious.’

  ‘Lots of noises but I thought it was the builders.’

  Derwent bent down and peered through the shattered window. ‘How did you lose your Asp?’

  ‘I have no idea. But when I was interviewing Claudine Cole I had a bit of trouble with a man who was in her flat. He jostled me.’

  ‘And took it?’ Derwent wheeled around. ‘Which flat is Claudine Cole’s?’

  ‘Stop,’ I said, slightly desperately. ‘I don’t think he did. I’ve been trying to remember and I think it was there when I was running down the stairs afterwards. But I’d undone the Velcro strap on it and I don’t remember doing it back up again. So it would have been possible for it to fall out of my belt. It probably happened when I was on the eighth floor.’

  ‘Basic error,’ Derwent growled.

  ‘It shouldn’t have mattered.’ I was shivering. ‘Anyway, that wasn’t the point of what just happened here. That was just an added extra.’

  ‘What was the point?’ Una Burt looked at me. ‘In your view.’

  ‘Making us feel we’re not welcome here.’ It wasn’t what I believed but it sounded right and it surprised no one.

  ‘We should talk to this man who hassled you. What was his name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Burt’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘I was more concerned with speaking to Mrs Cole and her friends about Geoff Armstrong. Priorities,’ I added, knowing it was one of DCI Burt’s favourite words. I caught a gleam of amusement in Derwent’s eyes and wanted for one brief, awful moment, to laugh. ‘Anyway, I don’t have any reason to suspect him and I’d rather we didn’t speak to him until we have some evidence against him. He’s not the type to admit to a crime just because you ask him about it, and I don’t want Mrs Cole to start refusing to cooperate with us over Armstrong.’

  Burt looked interested. ‘Did you get anywhere?’

  It was like clambering back on to solid ground to talk about something that was nothing to do with me. ‘They said he’d never been to a meeting here but when I mentioned he might be paying someone for sex one of them got very shifty and quiet. And the others definitely knew more than they were letting on. Not Mrs Cole – I think she’s completely wrapped up in the campaign and grieving for Levon.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Talk to the neighbourhoods officers and see if they are aware of any prostitutes answering to the description Mrs Hearn gave us. We’ll find her.’

  Burt nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s get this scene tidied up. We’ll need to get hold of the CCTV from the car park.’

  Kev surfaced from behind the car. ‘I’ve got a flat-bed coming for this.’

  ‘Is it worth it?’ I asked, slightly faintly. ‘It’s just some vandalism.’

  ‘I think it is.’ Burt walked off towards Murchison House and I knew she would be retracing my steps, checking it out for herself, seeing what I had seen. Meticulous. Painstaking. Controlled. Everything that Derwent wasn’t, and yet they were both good police officers.

  Even so, once she was out of earshot I turned to Derwent. ‘Why did you bring her along?’

  ‘She saw me leaving the office. I had to tell her where I was going.’

  ‘I still don’t see why she needed to be here. Did she think you were lying?’

  He didn’t laugh. ‘She was worried.’

  ‘Oh. Were you?’

  ‘About you? Not even a little bit.’ But he put his arm around my shoulders and held on for a second, solid and reassuring. ‘Don’t try to downplay this, Kerrigan. You must have been scared out of your mind.’

  ‘I wasn’t pleased,’ I said levelly. ‘But at least it’s not my own car.’

  ‘Who gives a shit about the car? I’m worried about you.’

  ‘There’s no need.’ I stepped away from him, probably because I wanted more than anything to lean against him.

  ‘You told Burt it was vandalism. What do you really think?’

  ‘I think I know who did it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Swain.’ His name almost choked me. ‘He’s targeted my car before. He knows I’m working this crime. He was watching me. This is a message.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. That’s why it’s worth investigating it properly. I want to know where the blood came from for starters.’

  I shuddered. I’d kept my back to the car ever since the others had arrived. I didn’t want to look at it any more. It had been violated, and even though it was a work car rather than my personal vehicle, I felt as if I’d been harmed too.

  ‘Come on,’ Derwent said. ‘Before Burt comes back. We have somewhere else to be.’

  I blinked at him, my mind blank. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Our destination was a house in a narrow street near Elephant and Castle, away from the traffic that thundered around its huge roundabout at all hours of the day and night. Derwent checked the time, which was getting close to two in the afternoon. ‘He might not be up yet.’

  ‘Who?’

  Instead of answering, Derwent thumped on the door with all the authority of a police officer who isn’t going to be ignored.

  ‘There’s a bell,’ I pointed out.

  ‘It’s not working.’

  There was an incoherent yell from inside the house, which I took to mean that someone was coming to the door.

  ‘You’ve been here before,’ I said.

  ‘I have.’

  And that was all I was getting, I could tell. I stared at the side of Derwent’s face, which conveyed only that he was sublimely unmoved by me glaring at him. Behind the door there was a noise I couldn’t interpret followed by an enormous thud that made the door vibrate in its frame. There was a clatter and the door opened to reveal a young man – a boy? – half-dressed in unbuttoned jeans and a t-shirt he’d obviously dragged on to answer the door. He yawned, squinting at us.

  ‘Oh. What do you want?’ He sounded neither surprised nor particularly outraged to have had to get out of bed for us.

  ‘A chat.’ Derwent headed in and went up the stairs as if he knew where he was going. I looked at the boy who bowed and gestured at the stairs.

  ‘After you.’

  I looked around as I went up, seeing evidence of a fairly typical multi-occupancy student house – empty wine bottles and beer cans in the sitting room, clothes drying on radiators, a bathroom at the turn of the stairs that I fervently hoped I would never have a reason to use. But it was a big house, the fittings expensive under the surface layer of dirt and untidiness, and it would have cost an arm and a leg to rent. I scented privilege along with the previous night’s curry and felt almost as uneasy as I’d felt on the Maudling Estate. I didn’t belong here either.

  Derwent was in the front bedroom when I got to the top of the stairs on the first floor. It was a large room but it felt cluttered because it was full of computers and wires and external disk drives and things I didn’t even begin to recognise. That was about as much as I could see in the dim light that filtered through the curtains. Derwent edged around the bed and pulled one curtain back. The weak winter sun poured in and a cloud of dust motes filled the air like smoke.

  ‘That’s a bit extreme, man,’ the boy protested. He leaned against the door frame, yawning again.

  ‘When was the last time you saw daylight?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘Yesterday? Wait, what day is it today?’ He had a husky, hurried voice with the casual dropped consonants of the public schoolboy who’s learned to tone down their accent. He was all sleepy eyes and tousled hair and if I’d been nineteen or twenty I would probably have been yearning for him to notice I existed. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Two fifteen.’

  He groaned. ‘I need coffee. Do you want some?’

  ‘Not if you’re making it.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, slightly more polite than Derwent.

  ‘Wait a sec, then.’ He wandered ou
t and I leaned back to watch him slide down the banisters and jump off at the bottom, which explained the shattering thump that had preceded him opening the door.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘A useful resource.’ Derwent leaned against the wall. ‘Have a seat.’

  I looked around and saw a chair buried under a heap of dirty clothes. ‘Do you know what? I think I’ll stand.’

  ‘Wise.’ Derwent shook his head, disapproving. ‘Students. How can they stand the squalor?’

  ‘They have better things to do than housework.’

  ‘Like you, you mean. Your place will be like this in a couple of months’ time.’

  I peered into a mug that was sitting, forgotten, on a bookcase and saw grey fur blooming in the bottom. ‘I’m not that bad.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  A series of thuds announced the return of the boy, who was taking the stairs three steps at a time while carrying a mug of black coffee.

  ‘Better?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘I will be.’ He sat down in the chair at the desk and spun round, running his fingers through his chaotic hair. ‘Sorry. I’ve only had about five hours sleep.’

  Derwent raised his eyebrows. ‘Partying?’

  ‘Working.’ He smiled. ‘I forget what time it is when I get into it.’

  ‘Charlie, this is my colleague Maeve.’ To me, Derwent said, ‘Charlie Brooke. My go-to guy for all things involving technology.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Charlie jumped up and held out a hand for me to shake, confirming my instinct that he had been brought up to be polite.

  I smiled at him, then looked to Derwent again. ‘So … why are we here?’

  ‘To talk about Chris Swain.’

  Charlie was lolling in his chair but now he sat up straight. ‘Oh. Oh. This is her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Derwent said. ‘Maeve Kerrigan.’

  ‘Oh.’ He drew the word out. ‘I didn’t know. I should have recognised you. Sorry, I’m not awake yet.’

  ‘Why would you recognise me?’ I was suspicious.

  ‘Um – I have seen photographs of you before.’ He was blushing.