A Dark Redemption (24 page)

He came in soaked as a dog, his hair matted and wild, shirt stuck to his skin, his jacket droopy and waterlogged. She smelled the coffee before she saw him. Turned and there he was, wet with hooded eyes, two small cups of espresso in his hands.

Geneva looked up from the table where she’d been separating and arranging the letters. ‘Managed to hold your lunch down this time?’

Carrigan smiled and put the coffee down next to her, unwrapped a massive Florentine encrusted with pistachios and broke it in half. ‘Get your blood sugar up,’ he said, passing it to her.

She took it, bit in and let the wonderful taste submerge her senses as Carrigan told her what the pathologist had found. The biscuit suddenly tasted flat in her mouth, bitter and dull. ‘It’s as if he had it planned all along,’ she said, using a napkin to wipe the crumbs and coffee stains off her lips.

But Carrigan didn’t answer – he was looking down at the table, the neat row of letters flattened and laid out side by side, the same handwriting, cursive and stylish, adorning each envelope. ‘The SOCOs find anything?’

She finished the Florentine and rubbed her hands on her jeans. ‘Only Ngomo’s fingerprints. Everything else was too smudged.’

He took one of the letters and held it up. The paper smelled of chemicals and dripped a white powder like dandruff. He sniffed the envelope, luxuriating in the sharp odour of the fingerprint reagent, wondering how long the SOCOs had spent with these letters, white hooded figures in a silent room poring over yellowing vellum with their powders and brushes as if divining some ancient mystery; modern-day alchemists transmuting invisibility into identification. ‘You’ve read them?’

Geneva nodded. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t sure how long you’d take.’

‘Glad you did, save us some time.’ He took a last sip of his espresso and binned the cup. ‘So, anything we can use?’

Geneva looked down at the letters spread in front of her. ‘You want the long or short version?’

‘How about medium?’ Carrigan smiled.

‘I’ve put them in chronological order. The first one’s from eighteen months ago and the most recent from two weeks back.’

The envelopes were almost identical: white, rimmed with a border of blue flowers, their stamps peeling from repeated handling. The paper inside was thick and watermarked but otherwise showed no peculiarities. It had been folded and refolded so many times that creases ran like scars through each third of the letter.

‘The earliest one sounds like it’s the first time she’s written to him since Ngomo left her and her mother seven years ago.’ Her voice had thickened from the coffee and Carrigan sat back in the chair, listening as Geneva recounted Grace’s attempts to reconnect with a father who she’d thought was lost to her.

‘In the first letter, Grace tells Ngomo that she’s studying in London. She talks about how she spent her teenage years trying to understand who he was. The father she remembered or this man whose name people only ever mentioned in whispers. It feels quite cold and formal, as if she’s writing to an old teacher or something.’

Geneva put the letter carefully back in its envelope and Carrigan finished writing his notes. The sound of the pipes mumbling in the walls, the hiss and steam of the motorway outside, their own breathing in the small room. The silence filled with images of Grace lying on her death bed, the bite marks, the hair matted with blood, the last words of the video, Grace’s final words –
Help me, Daddy. Please help me –
now exploding like a depth charge in their heads.

Geneva picked up the next three letters. ‘She writes a lot about being in London.’ She looked up at Carrigan and began reading:
‘
There is a coldness to this city that is like death. I feel it in the huddle of crowds on the Underground, in the faces of the people serving in shops, in this dark block of flats that feels like a thousand coffins buried in the earth. I do not think I will ever grow to like it here. They tell me‚ how can you say this when your country is full of poverty and violence and chaos‚ but I do not see anything to replace it here but brightly-lit shops full of things I would never need. Where is the colour and light of Uganda? The long nights of autumn?

‘
I am practising getting my accent right. Our vowels and consonants are like the land we lived on; harsh and staccato, full of sudden stops and empty spaces. When I open my mouth I can see their eyes shade, the whole history of Africa coming back to them in the lilt of a sentence, something they would rather forget. So now I am learning to speak like someone who belongs here and I have noticed how it changes the very things I say, not just the way I say them. Maybe this is what happens to all immigrants – what they love to call assimilation – but I feel as if I am stranded at some point I will never be again, my past and homeland only a memory to me now and this country still so distant.

‘
But I am becoming too broody, that’s what this weather does to you, you sit inside all the time and stare at the world from your window as if it were something other from you, and you will always be the figure behind glass trying but never fully understanding the events that take
place without. I think windows are what separates them from us. I think when they invented windows they began to shut out the world, to enclose themselves, and that is how these Europeans lost track of the world and became only interested in themselves. I blame the window! Okay, Daddy, I’m rambling now and I really began this letter to say something else but somehow I kept pushing it back.
’

Geneva stopped, took a sip of her coffee. ‘She wants to meet him, settle the past. The fourth letter, dated just after Christmas, talks about their first meeting. She remarks on how good he looks. A lunch they enjoyed in town.’ Geneva paused, dying for a cigarette. ‘From her account, the first meeting was tense but by the next letter she talks about Ngomo’s interest in her thesis, her unexpected delight that he supports what she’s doing. This is where it gets interesting.’ She slid one of the letters towards Carrigan. ‘We thought it was Gabriel who got Grace involved in the AAC but it was the other way round.’

‘Grace set up the AAC?’ He fingered the letter, wondering how many times Ngomo had read it, all those nights alone in that house, the train thundering past every few minutes like a hard jolt of memory.

‘She and Ngomo talk a lot about direct action, setting up a group that would address the problems in Uganda. She tells Ngomo about Gabriel and how he would be the perfect frontman for this group. Ngomo agrees and promises he’ll send money for the cause. Something happens here, just after the Christmas break.’ Geneva picked up another envelope. ‘In those first letters Grace is very cool and withdrawn, but after they’ve met a few times she accepts Ngomo’s justifications wholeheartedly, no longer questioning him – listen to this:

‘
You told me that I was doing a good thing, not just for our country but for you too, and then when I looked surprised you told me how much the past weighs on you, how the stories of who you are have become the truth. I know you did bad things, you told me yourself some of these.
But that is who you are. This I accept. And that is who we are too. Ugandans. We have to live in a world that is so different from the one of my fellow students that they cannot understand it as we cannot understand the lives of ants. Our country has been ripped apart from every side and I believe you when you said joining Kony was the only way to protect your family and your people.

‘She goes from questioning his actions to being an apologist for them.’ Geneva explained. ‘There’s one letter where she talks almost exclusively about the aid workers’ murder:

‘
I thank you for your honesty. That means more to me than the deeds you have done. I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with the death of the aid workers in your camp and that you can prove this. I look forward very much to our next meeting and the documents you promised to hand over. I think you thought at first that this project of mine will separate us forever but, Father, it has only brought us closer together here in this grey city and I will always be your daughter, the past cannot change that—
’

The door to the incident room crashed open, ripping them both away from the spell of Grace’s words, the sound of massed footsteps and heavy breathing suddenly filling the small dark room.

Branch was holding the door open for the two Ugandan diplomats who’d been in his office a couple of days ago. The older diplomat caught Carrigan’s eye and smiled.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ Carrigan bolted up from the chair.

Branch raised his hand as if to shoo a pesky child. Carrigan saw the calluses and bruises on his skin, the florid complexion of his face, the way Branch’s eyes couldn’t meet his. ‘This is Mr Ondutu and Mr Akimbi from the Ugandan embassy.’ Branch looked down at the table where the letters lay spread out. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ he said, his voice stumbling.

‘Sorry for what?’

Branch shrugged. ‘They have permission to take all material found in the house in Willesden Green.’

‘What?’ Carrigan exploded. ‘This is bullshit.’ He placed his body between the table and the men. ‘This is our case and important evidence in a murder. No fucking way are you going to confiscate it.’

Branch put his hand softly on Carrigan’s shoulder. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Jack; this is higher than me. I’m afraid you’ll have to hand over those letters.’

Carrigan knocked Branch’s hand off. The super was sweating heavily though the room was cold.

‘Please take your hands off those,’ the older Ugandan commanded Geneva, who was busily trying to fold and sequester the letters. ‘They are no longer your property.’ He made a move past Branch but Carrigan stopped him, laying an arm across the man’s chest.

‘These are the property of the Met and they’re staying that way.’ He could feel the man’s muscles jumping under his touch, the cold steely eyes regarding him.

They stood there like that for several seconds, the electricity in the room jumping from face to face as each decided what they were prepared to do and what they weren’t. Carrigan glanced down at Geneva, saw her shake her head, then looked back up as the other Ugandan flanked him and reached across the table. He knew there was no way he could keep them both away with force just as he knew that he would try as hard as he could to do exactly that.

He never got the chance. The stand-off continued, Branch trying to explain to Carrigan the seriousness of the situation, chain of command, protocol. Carrigan turned abruptly and grabbed the letters off the desk, held them tightly in his fist, waiting for what was to come next.

But it wasn’t a fist or rush or scrum for the letters but a man in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit who walked into the room as if he’d been waiting in the wings, watching this play out, finally aware that he had to intercede like a referee in a boxing match gone too far.

‘I think it would be better for all of us if you handed over those letters.’ The man’s accent was sharp, his eyes cold and blue.

‘This is John Marqueson,’ Branch explained, trying to defuse the situation. ‘He’s come from the Foreign Office. I’m afraid he has all the paperwork, Carrigan. There’s no choice.’

Carrigan stared at Marqueson. The man looked calm and collected, as if he were reading the Sunday paper on a park bench somewhere. ‘I’m sorry, Detective, but this case is about a lot more than a dead student.’ Marqueson checked his nails, smiled without revealing any teeth. ‘Of course, that’s not something you would have knowledge about, so please, take my word, we don’t want this to turn into something else.’ He watched Carrigan. ‘I’m sure that once the embassy have satisfied themselves, you will get all the material back.’

Carrigan looked towards Branch but the super was looking away. Geneva sat quietly in her chair. The letters fluttered in his hand. He could smell the rancid breath of the Ugandan in front of him, see Marqueson’s gold cufflinks flashing in the fluorescent light.

‘Fuck it.’ Carrigan unclenched his fist and let the papers fall to the floor. ‘Take them,’ he snarled. ‘Keep protecting Ngomo.’ Carrigan kicked the letters across the floor. He could see Branch reddening like a man about to burst. ‘What the fuck did Ngomo give you for your loyalty?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ Marqueson replied.

‘Of course not.’ Carrigan picked up his jacket and tucked it under his arm as one of the Ugandans bent down and started collecting the letters, the other taking the pile of photographs. Carrigan eye-fucked Marqueson, shook his head and walked out of the incident room. Geneva got up and was about to follow him.

‘Miller!’

She stopped, swivelled round to see Branch facing her.

‘My office. Now!’

Branch barely glanced at his secretary as he threw open the door and slumped down in his chair. Geneva sat down and watched him randomly flick through a pile of boxing magazines, his face tight and his eyes so small they were almost invisible, just pouches of baggy skin humped and swollen as if he’d been punched.

‘What just happened?’ She tried to keep her voice steady.

Branch put down his magazines and cleared his throat. ‘Believe me,’ he replied wearily, ‘there was nothing I could do.’

‘That was our case. Those letters could have led us to Bayanga.’ She kept her hands at her side, the itch growing steadily worse with each passing second.

Branch nodded. ‘I’m sure someone of your competence would have made copies.’

Geneva looked down at her feet, annoyed that Branch had read her so easily. ‘That’s not the point.’

‘Who do you think I am?’ Branch raised his hands in protestation. ‘I sit in this office with my secretary outside, I shout at you and Carrigan, I decide which cases we’re going to prioritise,’ he carefully took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with a paper napkin, ‘but that’s it. I’m not the fucking chief constable, I take my orders just like you do.’ He put his glasses back on and his face softened. ‘You think I’m happy that someone else is interfering in our case? Some foreign government who should have no jurisdiction here? It makes me fucking mad but there’s nothing I can do, not when the Foreign Office calls and makes it clear I have very little choice in the matter.’ Branch hung his head and she could see the spreading whiteness of his bald patch, his fingers constantly worrying the few strands of hair left. ‘It stinks, I know, but you better get used to this kind of bullshit if you’re going to stay in the job, if you want to spend your career doing more than knocking on doors.’ He reached for a cigar lying dormant in the ashtray, rolled it between his fingers. ‘Anyway, that’s not why you’re here, is it?’ He looked at her sharply but Geneva was still staring down at the floor. ‘You said you wanted to see me about something important?’

She’d been tearing herself up over it these last few hours. Running the facts and protocols through her head, each time coming up short. What would her mother think of this act of betrayal, what would happen when Carrigan found out? She’d known since the moment he told her the story of his African ordeal, known but kept making excuses for him, reasons why he’d kept it from her – but she no longer felt she had a choice. She had to inform the commanding officer of Carrigan’s possible conflict of interest, the history that turned his face into a mask every time Africa was mentioned. It had been the worst few hours of her professional life but in the end the case was more important than sparing Carrigan’s feelings or betraying his trust.

‘I don’t know how to put this . . .’ she began, but her voice faltered and cracked as Branch scrutinised her, a look of amusement lodged on his face.

When she was finished there was an unexpected sense of relief as if a weight had been lifted, the words buzzing in her head these last few hours like maddened bees. She sat back in the chair and watched as Branch stared darkly down at the table, his hands cradling his head as if it were suddenly too heavy for his neck to support.

‘We know all about Carrigan.’ He put the cigar down and, using his nail, carved a sliver of ash off the tip.

She thought she’d heard him wrong, her brain somehow making faulty connections. ‘You already knew?’

Branch’s laughter caught her off guard. ‘You really thought we wouldn’t know about something like this?’

‘You knew?’ she repeated, all other words stripped from her.

Branch nodded. ‘We’ve known for years. Christ, Miller, don’t you think I wish I could use this to crucify Carrigan, get him off the case?’

She wondered if this conversation would get back to Carrigan, had no doubt that Branch would use it one day as he saw fit.

‘Concentrate on the investigation, Miller. Tell me what we have.’

She cleared her head, rubbed the itchy patch on her wrist. ‘We believe that Gabriel Otto may have been the last person to see Ngomo alive – we’re out there looking for him.’

‘This is the same Gabriel you released two days ago?’ Branch replied.

She nodded. ‘Neither Carrigan nor myself believe that Gabriel killed Grace or Ngomo.’

Branch looked up at the wall, the blood-spattered faces gleaming behind glass. ‘But if you’d kept him in custody you’d know for sure? No – don’t answer that. So now you have to find him again, wasting valuable time and resources. What about Bayanga?’

‘We got a positive ID on him from a neighbour of Ngomo’s. The old woman was weeding her front garden and saw Bayanga ring Ngomo’s doorbell. Bayanga said something and Ngomo let him in. The neighbour’s evidence ties in with the time of death Myra Bentley gave us. I think we can say pretty certainly that Bayanga killed both General Ngomo and Grace Okello.’

Branch sighed heavily, shook his head. ‘But you have no actual evidence, and you’re no nearer finding him, I assume?’

Geneva shrugged. She flashed back to the sight of the Ugandans leaving the incident room with Ngomo’s belongings. Was it possible that Bayanga was proving so hard to find because someone was hiding him?

Branch snorted. ‘As far as I can see it’s been over a week and Carrigan’s got nowhere on this case.’

‘That’s not true,’ Geneva retorted, surprised to find herself defending Carrigan the way she’d always defended one parent to the other following the divorce. ‘We have a name and a photo of our main suspect and we have fingerprints from both the Grace scene and Ngomo’s flat that will tie him unequivocally to the murders when we find him.’

‘And another dead body – you forgot to mention that.’ Branch coughed into his hand. ‘You have four more days to bring this case to a close, it’s out of my hands after that.’

She felt the air leave her lungs, her skin itching madly. ‘What do you mean?’

Branch looked down at his desk, picked up a file, put it down, picked up another. ‘Marqueson, the man from the Foreign Office – he’s going to be taking over the investigation then.’

The words struck her like pellets of hail. ‘It’s our case, how can they justify taking it over?’ She snapped her head up, met Branch’s eyes. ‘Have you asked yourself who they’re trying to protect?’

Branch slammed his fist down on the table. ‘Enough, Miller. I don’t want to hear this kind of shit. I’m disappointed in you. This isn’t some big conspiracy, this is a cluster-fuck pure and simple, a mess that the government have decided to clean up. Nothing I can do about it.’

‘That’s not fair, sir.’

Branch stood up, his stomach popping and rolling within the constraints of his shirt. ‘Fair? What the fuck’s fair? You think anything in this world is fair? Jesus, I didn’t think you were such an idealist. This is the way it is.’

‘How long have you known that the Ugandan embassy have an interest in the case?’

Branch’s face reddened, the veins pulsing at the surface as his eyes narrowed. ‘You should be careful with your accusations, Miller. Do you know that I can probably kiss my career fucking goodbye because I spent all morning arguing your case to that Marqueson prick? No you didn’t, did you? Smarmy fucker wanted to take the investigation over immediately. I had to fucking plead and beg and get nasty with him so you and Carrigan could have a few more days.’

She avoided his eyes, cursing herself for letting emotion take over like that. It was just what the men above her wanted to hear, what they expected from a woman, ‘I’m sorr—’

‘I don’t want your fucking thank yous or contrition, just get me Bayanga or Gabriel or anyone we can arrest by Monday so that I don’t look like a fucking fool, so they don’t send me to Whitby or Lancaster or some other shithole for the rest of my career.’