Firewatching

by Russ Thomas

  Elliot barks out a laugh, but the noise dies away again quickly, perhaps embarrassed to be there. “I said, theoretically.”

  Doggett rolls his eyes. “When you’ve finished theorizing, do you think you might be able to give us something a little more accurate?”

  “The rule of three,” Tyler says. Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food.

  “Very good, Sergeant—in this case the problem for our friend here would have been water. But if we take into account the fact he’d be panicking, expending energy trying to get out, he’d be losing fluids faster than average. Then there’s the trauma to the head, blood loss.” He pauses and sucks air between his teeth like a dodgy mechanic. “I doubt he’d have lasted longer than a couple of days. Maybe less.”

  Long enough, though. How long before a man would attempt to burrow his way out through a cinder-block wall using nothing but his fingernails?

  Elliot coughs and hacks up some phlegm. Doggett catches his eye, and the man swallows it again. He goes on. “My guess is he was badly injured. Probably concussed. With a bit of luck the poor sod didn’t even know what was happening to him.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it. “Poor old Gerry, eh? Who’d have thought it?”

  “All right, Doc, go do your stuff. I’ll catch up with you later.” Doggett is already turning away. He shouts over his shoulder, “Tyler,” as though calling a dog to heel.

  They leave the SOCOs to their work and head back toward the cellar steps. “Right,” Doggett says, planting his hands on his hips. “Murder equals Murder Room. Last time I checked, you sit on the other side of the wall.”

  Presumably that’s supposed to be a dig but he lets it go. He has his own rule: the first one you get free. “It’s an interesting case,” he says. “A cold case. I’m good at cold cases, DI Doggett. I can’t see why you’d turn down anyone’s help at this stage.”

  Doggett grunts. “Depends who’s offering the help. All right, we’ll see what the DCI has to say, eh?” He starts back up the stairs.

  Tyler takes a last look round the cellar. Something Doggett said about the builders when they came in raises a question in the back of his mind.

  “Tyler!”

  He turns and makes his way back up the cellar steps.

  Outside, the sun sears Tyler’s eyes and burns away the damp from his skin.

  Doggett leads him across the driveway, slowing as they pass the young officer who let Tyler through. “Constable Rabbani,” he calls.

  “Sir.”

  “I thought I said no one in without checking with me first?”

  Rabbani glances at each of them in turn before lowering her head. “Yes, sir.”

  “It wasn’t her fault. I pulled rank.”

  “The only rank she needs to worry about is mine.” He turns back to Rabbani. “About you wanting to stay on and work this case . . .”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have a guess what the answer is.” Doggett moves on without waiting for a response, leaving Rabbani staring at them, unable to hide her scorn.

  Tyler shrugs at her and hurries after Doggett. “Don’t take it out on her.”

  Doggett snorts. “Life’s a lady dog! She’ll learn.” He opens the door to the mobile incident room and holds out his hand. “Right, ladies first.”

  That’s number two. He gets that one free as well, but the tally’s building.

  * * *

  —

  Amina Rabbani watches the two men disappear into the incident room.

  Bastard. But she can’t decide which of them she means.

  The truth is she’s more annoyed with herself than either one of them. She’s blown it. She’s been ready to take her sergeant’s exam for months now, but she keeps putting it off because it’s easier to move at this level. She doesn’t want to risk getting stuck in uniform until she retires.

  She’s spent over a year trying to get into CID. But she doesn’t know the right people in the right places. She’s spent a year collaring people in corridors, trying to make her face fit, even though her face doesn’t fit and never will. Months listening to her parents going on about when she’s going to get a proper job, something that pays a bit more, maybe something in the medical profession, like Ghulam. Months that she could have been using the extra money from promotion to save for her own place. All this so she can join some white boys’ club that doesn’t want her anyway.

  And when she finally makes it, what does she go and do? She fucks it all up on day one.

  Mina sighs. Maybe Danny is right. He keeps telling her, so maybe it’s time she listened. “What do you wanna join CID for anyway? It’s hard work. And it’s not like you get paid no more.” But that’s Danny all over. There’s just no answer to that.

  She can’t help how she feels, though. She feels—no, she knows—that plodding the beat for thirty years isn’t for her. And he should, too; they’ve talked about it often enough. In the past he’s suggested Response. Or the dog handlers. He’d got fixed on anti-terror for a while. She could go far in the terrorism squad with her background. “They’re always looking for Muslims, aren’t they? Positive discrimination and all that.”

  Fuck off, Danny!

  She wants to be a detective. She’s only ever wanted to be a detective. If she can’t . . . well then, she might just as well pack it all in and go and work for the dog handlers.

  This case fell in her lap like a gift. She remembers what it was like six years ago when Cartwright first disappeared, the media circus surrounding it. It was watching news reports about this and cases like it that made her want to join the force in the first place. And this is the sort of case that makes your name known where it matters. The minute she saw the poor sod buried behind the wall, she knew this was her chance. They stood there in silence, staring down into the rubble, her and Danny. “You know who that is, don’t you?” He whispered it, but the sound echoed off the dank walls, returning to them like the muttering of the dead. She didn’t answer but she knew, all right. This case was gonna be massive, and all she had to do was impress the right person.

  So much for that.

  She looks across to the gate where Danny’s still guarding the perimeter. He gives her a weak smile. She wonders if he’s as tired as she is, if his feet ache as much as hers do. He certainly looks a state. Like he might start chundering again at any moment. When they came up out of the house it was all she could do to drag him to the bushes before he chucked all over the crime scene.

  And while Danny emptied his stomach, she’d gone through her SADCHALETS. Survey the scene. Assess the situation. Disseminate details to Control. All straightforward enough. Casualties. Just the one. Hazards—pretty much the whole house; she was glad she wasn’t the one having to sift through the place. Access and Location. Getting some of the equipment the SOCOs would need down into the cellar might be a bit tricky. She made a note of it. Emergency services. Well, it was a bit late for them. Type of incident. Murder. Obvs. Though, strictly speaking, that wasn’t her call to make. Finally, Safety. Of all staff at the scene. She’d looked down at Danny heaving his guts into the bushes and tried not to laugh.

  She was the one who made sure the builders were cleared away from the scene, and she was the one who made them promise not to talk to the press. And, when they broke that promise, she was the one who single-handedly drove off the first journos who turned up. Well, all right, not single-handedly, but it was her idea to send Danny on patrol to make sure no one tried to sneak in the back way.

  She used the time while they waited for backup to make meticulous notes in her logbook, and by the time DCI Jordan got there she was able to hand everything over in a professional manner. She’d been sure the DCI was impressed with her. She even managed to corner Doggett when he arrived and, although he was his usual misogynistic, racist, shitbag self, she was pretty sure he was impressed with
her, too. At that moment she’d known, like you did sometimes, that this was it. This was her chance. This was her way in.

  And then the bastard Adam Tyler shows up.

  Why her? What the fuck has she ever done to him? She never joins in when the others slag him off back at the station. In fact, if anything she’s always felt a bit sorry for him, the way they take the piss out of him because he’s gay and because he’s good. Too good, from what she’s heard. He shows them up, and doesn’t give a shit about doing it. They call him Homo-cop: part faggot, part machine.

  But maybe they’re right, not about the gay stuff but about the other. Maybe he is a coldhearted bastard. Never mind the fact he looks like a prettier Jake Gyllenhaal, even with that scar on his face. All the girls fancy him even though they can’t have him. To think, she’s even defended him in the past! Only to take abuse from the lads because they thought she fancied him as well. Well, maybe she did fancy him a little bit, but that’s not the point. The point is she won’t be fucking defending him ever again, that’s for sure. Bollocks to him!

  She sees him standing by the window inside the incident room and makes a promise to herself. No matter how fit he is, if he’s screwed this up for her and she ends up having to work with the fucking dog handlers, she’ll find a way to pay the bastard back. If it takes the next thirty years, she’ll find a way.

  * * *

  —

  During the course of one sleepless night, Lily grows more and more certain her hiding place in the drawer of the bureau is dangerously exposed and obvious. What if Edna should suddenly need a stamp and, noticing some crease or turned corner in the lining paper, should decide to investigate further? Never mind that Edna hasn’t betrayed the slightest inclination to correspond with anyone for a good twenty-five years or more, what if today is the day that changes?

  “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers!” says her mother’s voice from somewhere.

  No, the bureau will not do.

  But after their morning routine, during which time Lily must focus wholly on aiding Edna in washing and dressing, she helps Edna negotiate the steep staircase and gets her settled in the back room. Only then does it occur to her she has no way to get into the bureau without Edna asking her what she’s about.

  Added to this, Lily is certain another letter will arrive at any moment. She uses the excuse of making lunch to stay in the kitchen and watch for the post. But then that leaves Edna alone with the bureau. She can’t take the risk of leaving her for too long, so she bobs back in frequently to check on her. Only, as soon as she leaves the kitchen she becomes certain she can hear the clang of the letter box and immediately begins to imagine another of those crisp white envelopes lying obscenely on the doormat, waiting to be discovered.

  In this way she spends much of the morning diving back and forth between the back room and the kitchen, one eye on the letter box, one on her hiding place. In the end she comes up with the idea of polishing the door brass, enabling her to hover in the doorway between the two rooms. Her nerves by this time are quite shot.

  The one consolation is that all of this seems lost on Edna. Though Lily remembers that seldom is anything lost on Edna. Sure enough, it isn’t long before she makes a comment about the smell of Brasso and how Lily is in danger of rubbing the damned thing away entirely if she carries on much longer.

  Thankfully, that takes them to lunchtime, and it is after lunch when Edna gives Lily the opportunity she needs.

  “It’s too hot for indoors. We should go into the garden, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes!” Lily cries, and Edna looks at her sharply. “I mean, if you want to, yes, that sounds lovely.”

  Between them they manage to manhandle the sun lounger out onto the patio. It’s a double-seated swing with a canopy, which has faded in the past four decades from chartreuse to a dusty olive. It’s Edna’s favorite spot, and once Lily has her settled and gently swinging she uses the excuse of a cup of tea to dive back into the house and finally retrieve the letter.

  She opens the drawer and there it is. The relief that washes over her is so intense that for a moment she forgets what it represents. But only for a moment. Then she panics again and wants nothing more than to shove the terrible thing back into the dark of the drawer. She can’t, though, not without ending up back where she began. But what to do with it? Every place she can think of seems so inadequate. If the bureau drawer—a place Edna hasn’t been for years—isn’t secure enough, where else is? Time is ticking on and she hasn’t even put the kettle on the hob yet. She quickly folds the envelope in half and shoves it into the pocket of her slacks. Then she makes the tea, one eye still firmly fixed on the letter box.

  * * *

  —

  DCI Jordan is seated behind a desk talking into her mobile while simultaneously issuing silent instructions to the rest of the room. She looks tired and ill, but then she always does. Her uniform is creased and her hair has been hurriedly pulled into a ponytail, leaving odd strands of gray waving out from her head like panicked drowning victims. She pauses as whoever is on the other end of the phone takes over the conversation, and sips black coffee from a polystyrene cup. Around her the SOCOs and technicians buzz like drones round the queen.

  It’s not unusual to see Jordan at a crime scene; she’s known for her hands-on approach to command, sitting in on interviews, occasionally visiting suspects in their cells. She’s the sort of detective chief inspector the ranks consider a pain in the bloody arse.

  But Tyler has his own theory: she regrets taking the promotion. Her office is a constant reminder of her own entrapment, a self-inflicted ball and chain. She’ll do anything, even take paperwork to the public library, to avoid shutting herself away in a room she considers her own eight-foot-square, plushly carpeted cell. It occurs to him she probably had to fight for this case herself. Something this high-profile, the chances are good that Superintendent Stevens is already breathing down her neck. That’s probably him on the other end of the phone.

  If she’s surprised to see Tyler with Doggett, she shows no sign of it. She notes his presence and then looks down at a report on her desk. “Yes, sir,” she says into the mobile. She clicks her fingers three times in quick succession to attract the attention of a young constable hovering nearby and throws a manila folder at her. The constable fumbles the catch but saves the contents before they reach the floor. “I agree, sir. One hundred per cen—” The last word is cut off as the superintendent again takes control of the conversation. She takes another gulp of coffee, her face betraying nothing of how she feels. “Yes, sir. I’ll certainly—” She stops abruptly and presses the call-cancel button, showing none of the frustration she must be feeling at being cut off in mid-sentence.

  “Is it him?” she asks without looking up, still tapping away at the screen of her smartphone.

  Doggett says, “Seems likely.”

  Jordan slips her phone into her jacket pocket, picks up the cup of coffee, and stands. She passes the cup to Tyler to hold as she rummages in her pockets for something and says, “DS Tyler, with me.”

  He follows her out of the cabin, and together they walk behind the mobile incident room, out of sight of any cameras trained on them from the gate. She pulls out a silver cigarette case, flips open the lid, and extracts a smoke. She offers him the case just as she always does, and he declines, just as he always does.

  “What do you know about Gerald Cartwright?” she asks, flipping open a metallic lighter that matches the case.

  “Same as everyone.”

  She lights the cigarette and takes a long drag, closing her eyes as though savoring the smoke that fills her lungs. She leaves the cigarette clamped between her lips and breathes out around it. She takes the coffee cup back from him. “Humor me.”

  He considers for a moment. “Big shot in the nineties, financial whiz kid with his fingers in lots of pies. D
isappeared six years ago, prompting some rumors about his possible involvement in organized crime. It was a bit of a scandal.”

  She barks out a sharp laugh as she exhales, blowing smoke into his face. “As always, Adam, magnificently understated.” She takes another fortifying drag. “Cartwright was into everything, and I mean everything. Banking was only his bread and butter. He liked to diversify. Property, transport, the stock market. He owned and operated a chain of restaurants, a local brewery, two golf courses, a stud farm, and a newspaper. When he disappeared he’d just begun negotiating to buy a Premier League football team.”

  “Yes,” he says, “it might have helped them stay up.”

  Jordan glances at him as though he’s missed the point. “He was also extremely charming. He went to Eton but was as happy talking to the office cleaner as to the prime minister. He counted a host of the rich and famous among his closest friends, including at least one peer of the realm. He knew everyone, and everyone certainly wanted to know him. I met him myself a couple of times.” She pauses and takes the cigarette from her mouth. “Whether or not this body turns out to be Cartwright’s, this case is going to receive an unprecedented amount of attention.” She takes one last deep puff on the cigarette and then, despite the fact it’s only half finished, throws the butt on the ground. She pushes down on it with a scuffed shoe, and he watches the brilliant orange spark flare and fade away.

  “Ma’am, with respect, it’s not standard practice to allow the original investigating officer to pick up where he left off six years after the case was shelved. Jim Doggett had his chance. This is a cold case review now and as such falls under my remit. I only want to help—”

  “No, you don’t,” she says, cutting him off. “You want to solve the case before breakfast and rub everyone else’s nose in how clever you are.”

  He opens his mouth but can’t think of a response to that.

  “You overcompensate, Adam. You always have. Always so much to prove. Well, contrary to popular opinion, I do have other officers, several of them fairly competent.”