The Intrusions

by Stav Sherez

  Geneva turned the corner and almost collided with two young men in the act of exchanging money. They drew apart, took one look at her and hurried off down the street. It was only after taking a few more steps that she saw they’d dropped something.

  A bulging plastic baggie lay on the pavement. The contents were an intense green. She stared at it for a long moment, surprised by the memories it kindled. Geneva checked both ways down the street then, without knowing exactly why, picked up the baggie and placed it in her inside pocket. A couple of stray dogs watched her, their eyes listless and broken. She continued past a couple of boarded-up phone shops and a Persian grocer and took a left into the alley nestled behind the club.

  It hit her the moment she walked in. Ever since the events of last Christmas she’d avoided confined spaces. Alleyways, especially. Her wrists started to itch and her breath caught, the rain warm and sticky on her skin.

  It was the perfect place for an abduction. The alley was narrow and neglected, barely wide enough for a car to pass through. It was bordered on three sides by the windowless backs of buildings. Mounds of uncollected rubbish, collapsed cardboard boxes and empty wine bottles littered the ground. A staircase spiralled up from the subterranean bar. Geneva scanned the space above but there were no CCTV cameras. She’d expected that, but a small part of her had hoped there’d be footage to either disprove or verify Madison’s story.

  The rain stopped and everything glistened and sparkled in the spray of light from her phone torch. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find – maybe only the gut feeling that something had happened here – but it was just an ordinary alley, rank and dark.

  She walked down one side, taking her time, splashing light over the cobbled ground. Mountain ranges of cigarette butts formed a halo around the bar’s staircase. She saw the roach ends of several joints, grease-mottled fast food containers and scattered shards of broken glass. She caught a slight movement out the corner of her eye and swivelled her torch towards it.

  A grey cat was lying on its side. It seemed to be moving but, of course, it couldn’t be. Its entire belly had been torn open. The cat’s skin sagged against its skeleton and Geneva saw that most of its insides had been scooped out. Ants and small beetles scuttled about in the remains. A faint rustling from behind made her turn, her legs tensed against the ground. She scanned the other side of the alley – the boxes, crates, dumpster and bin bags – but saw nothing. She turned back and let all other thoughts fall away, trying to picture the scene.

  She saw two girls drinking in their local on a Friday night. They’re having fun, relieved the long week is finally over. The perp watches them, perhaps has been watching them for a while. Madison and Anna stand by the bar, making them easy prey. Much simpler to put something in their drinks as you’re ordering your own than to do it at a table where the drinks are directly in their sight-line. The perp would then wait until he saw Anna drink from the spiked glass. Geneva forced her eyes shut, took deep breaths. She saw him leave, get his van, parked nearby, and reverse it halfway down the mouth of the alley, effectively sealing it off. It would have been so easy once the drugs kicked in and the girls were disoriented; yet the same incongruity Carrigan had picked up on struck her – why had the perp drugged both girls but only taken Anna?

  Fifty yards away people were drinking and having fun. Fifty yards away people were eating, sleeping, living. Geneva ignored the noise and crossed the alley. Her torch snagged on something. A quick fierce glint. She stopped, donned a pair of plastic gloves and studied the object. It looked like a small glass vial, the kind hospitals use. Geneva pulled an evidence bag from her pocket and carefully picked up the vial and placed it inside. She heard a muted thump coming from her left and nearly dropped the bag. She scanned the other side of the alley, the dumpster and pyramid of empty crates, and had almost convinced herself she’d imagined it when she heard it again. It was louder this time and it was definitely coming from inside the dumpster.

  She wanted to run, to flee this skanky alley – but what if it was Anna in there? Geneva gripped the torch tightly in her fist and approached the dumpster. Could the entire van routine have been a ruse? Did the perp rape Anna then throw her in the trash?

  The dumpster was made of heavy black plastic and was exactly the same height as Geneva. She swapped the phone to her left hand and used her right to lift the cover.

  ‘Anna?’

  The smell made Geneva’s eyes water and she held her breath as she swept the torch over bin bags, used nappies and old newspapers. She clenched her teeth and gripped the edge of the dumpster with her fingers, leaning in, perched on tiptoes, trying to see deeper inside. The move knocked her a little too far forward. She struggled to regain her balance. The phone slipped from her hands.

  It landed on top of one of the black bags. Geneva cursed as she hoisted herself up and balanced her stomach on the edge of the dumpster, letting the momentum of her body swing her down. She stretched out her arm and reached for the phone. Her fingers brushed it, almost lost it, then found it again and finally got a grip. Plastic rustled and shifted. The bags began to move. Geneva heard a low moan as a hand shot out from between the bin bags and grabbed her wrist. She saw broken fingernails and skin crusted with dirt and she threw herself back, kicking her legs against the side of the dumpster, her sleeve tearing in one long silent rip as she fell back, only just managing to regain her balance.

  She looked to her left, saw the mouth of the alley, the street outside, and resisted the urge to run. She was turning back towards the dumpster when the lid opened.

  She screamed when she saw him.

  The man inside the dumpster screamed.

  He was completely bald apart from three long white hairs which sprouted from his scalp. His face was matted with dirt and filth. He stared at Geneva, his eyes wide and terrified and then he vaulted over the top of the dumpster with an agility he didn’t look capable of. He landed in the alley and ran past her and out into the main street.

  6

  Carrigan slammed the steering wheel until the pain in his palms drove out the pain in his head. He pushed the accelerator until the city was a flashing streak of colour in his peripheral vision. His temples throbbed and his eyes ached. He was on the way to a crime scene and going in with a head full of problems would only guarantee he’d miss something. He wrapped his fingers tight around the steering wheel, hoping it was an OD or suicide, something he could pass off, yet, at the same time, feeling that guilty rush of pleasure he could only admit to in his most private moments.

  The city was still asleep. Everything that was going to happen hadn’t happened yet and you could almost pretend it wouldn’t, that this one day could be rescued from the chaos but, of course, no day was exempt from the world. An ambulance and several patrol cars, their lights mutely flashing, directed him to the house. He saw bodies moving in the strobed dark, uniforms and techs, a sense of hurry and purpose in their silhouettes telling him this was going to be more than just another OD.

  They were on Kingsleigh Avenue, a street parallel to Queensway, populated with tall Georgian townhouses, white and solid in the drizzling rain. Carrigan got out of the car and stretched the morning out of his bones, his knees popping loudly. The building looked like something a child had put together then got bored with and abandoned. The rain and wind had done the rest. The facade was veiled by scaffolding but most of the mesh had been torn away and white fingers of sheeting snapped in the wind. It had become a distressingly familiar sight. Empty houses, boarded-up shops, abandoned construction sites. The crisis had hit like an unexpected wave and left these wrecked reminders in its wake like the ribcages of old ships swirling on the ocean floor.

  Two uniforms were standing either side of the front door. They were talking to each other, leaning in, a conversation hushed and intense. They stopped when they saw Carrigan approaching.

  ‘Either of you been inside?’ Carrigan asked, the rain coming down hard and heavy and almost obscuring them from each
other.

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Good. We don’t want any more bodies in there than we absolutely need.’ He stopped, seeing the uniforms smirking. ‘What’s so bloody funny?’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ the taller one said.

  Carrigan caught something in his tone. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ the constable replied, still laughing as Carrigan entered the building.

  He knew something was wrong the moment he stepped inside. No house, abandoned or not, should smell like this. He trudged his way past drifts of pizza menus, minicab cards and lost dog flyers. The builders had been halfway through stripping the property when they’d abandoned the job. Walls lay partly demolished, covered in plaster dust and brick powder. The smell of excrement was hot and sharp. Flies buzzed and dive-bombed his head. Carrigan could barely see through the gloom and had to put one foot carefully in front of the other, using his hands to steady himself against the walls and ignoring the sticky residue on everything he touched.

  It was lying in the dark, twenty feet ahead. There was no mistaking it for anything but what it was. A human being reduced to inanimate flesh. He couldn’t believe they’d left it unattended.

  The body was sprawled out horizontally across the corridor. Carrigan cautiously took a step forward, crouched down and pulled out his torch. The light revealed a jacket stitched together from yellowed newspapers and grocery cartons. Carrigan leaned in closer and aimed the torch at the corpse’s face. Its eyes suddenly blinked open and Carrigan jumped back. A huge snore came from the tramp’s mouth. Carrigan glanced towards the room on his right. The mounded humps of more passed-out drunks were curled up on the floor, sleeping off the wine-soaked night. He’d heard rumours that these abandoned properties had become a magnet for the homeless in recent years. The shelters were always full or too expensive and the streets had become a dangerous place. He knew it would make their job that much harder as he turned back into the hallway and found his way to the rear of the house.

  He saw the room from halfway down the corridor. The door was open and faint light spilled out. As he got closer he noticed the dark splashes on the wall. A flicker of movement caught in his peripheral vision as a shadow flitted across the doorway, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

  Carrigan called out but there was no reply. He took a few steps forward and had just reached the door when the figure stepped out.

  Karlson jumped when he saw Carrigan, quickly regaining his composure with a shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Carrigan kept his voice steady despite the rumble in his chest.

  Karlson scanned the corridor, his eyes vacant and skittish. ‘Sorry, shit . . . I was totally . . . fuck . . .’ He pointed back into the room, the top joints of his fingers still blackened from the frostbite he’d got climbing in the Karakoram last month. ‘You mind if I skip this one?’

  Carrigan tried to hide his surprise. ‘Just make sure Scene of Crime knows who’s been in so far – and, Karlson?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You didn’t talk to Quinn.’ Carrigan had scanned the names on the deposition inside the blue file and had been surprised to see Karlson’s absent.

  ‘Of course not.’ Karlson’s easy smile briefly flickered back. ‘But don’t think it was on your account. I know a cop when I see it, and you, you’re just very good at pretending to pass for one.’

  It never failed to surprise Carrigan how the people who knew you least could often see you more clearly than your closest friends. ‘So, why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because you did the right thing for the investigation and that’s more important than bullshit politics or stupid regulations.’

  Karlson walked away and Carrigan stepped into the room. The space flickered to life under his torch. Dogs howled in the distant darkness. Wild whispers of wind and rain came in through a large hole in the outside wall. Half a bookcase was still standing, all the books gone. An old sofa with no stuffing or cushions, more an X-ray of a sofa than the actual thing, was pushed up against the wall. Junk and debris were strewn across the floor, plastic bags and fast food cartons, broken bottles, cigarette ends, and the remains of several small fires.

  But Carrigan wasn’t looking at any of that.

  He was looking at the woman laid out on the floor in front of him.

  The smell flooded his nostrils and he swallowed it back down before it could overwhelm him. There was so much blood. Blood on the bricks, blood on the sofa, blood on the floor, blood across the ceiling – but barely a drop on her.

  She was lying on the floor in the shape of a star, her arms and legs at forty-five degree angles from her body. Her eyes were closed and, midway down her neck, Carrigan could see the tiny red wound through which her life had leaked out.

  7

  For now, there was only him and the room. Her and him and the blood that covered every available surface as if she’d been hiding a hurricane inside her. Constables were rousing the drunks from their dreams in other parts of the house, strings of foul curses and morning splutters echoing through the corridors. Carrigan shut it out and tried to see the scene as if it were a room without a dead person inside it. To imagine what histories and small painful consolations had occurred within these walls.

  The night-dwellers had stripped almost everything that could be sold or burnt. The scenario would be similar to one repeated across the country these past few years. A job had been lost and a family stopped paying the mortgage. They’d fled with their most valuable possessions, leaving everything else behind in a house they could no longer afford. The house had turned into a museum of their lives, depicting a time when everything still made sense and goals were achievable and all that mattered was your wife’s smile when she woke you up in the musky morning.

  The bank had repossessed the house and sold it, contents included, at auction. The property developer hired a construction company to convert the house into flats. The developer or the construction company went bust. They’d gambled on a boom that would last for ever, a rocket that would never come down. They’d forgotten about gravity and how irresistible its pull is to men. The building lay abandoned but cities abhorred a vacuum. The rough sleepers, junkies and God-touched found these refuges and took shelter in them. The family’s possessions had been turned into utilities by the waves of people drifting through – books were worth more for the heat of their fuel than for their ideas. A chair was an hour’s warmth, a painting, ten minutes.

  Carrigan took out his phone and snapped photos. The SOCOs would thoroughly document the scene with stills and film but he liked to have a set from his own frame of reference. It would help him reconstruct the room in his head later and play out all its different and terrible scenarios.

  He avoided her. He could not look at her yet. There was something awful about her positioning, the arms and legs akimbo, her dress neatly laid out. She seemed so vulnerable and exposed, though, of course, she was beyond all worries of that kind now.

  Carrigan stepped carefully, avoiding the blood, making sure he didn’t disturb anything, though he knew it was futile and that even the breath passing from his lips would rearrange the room in subtle, molecular ways. The SOCOs would be furious but he needed to see the scene like this, before it became contaminated by presence, as if some trace of the killer might yet linger here.

  He crossed to the far end of the room and began searching, his torch dancing across layers of congealed junk in precise, measured sweeps. One corner had been used as a toilet and was spotted with crescents of desiccated faeces. What looked like more excrement was smeared on the walls, randomly, or in indecipherable patterns, pasted over rudimentary graffiti. Plastic bags had fused into cardboard boxes creating sedimentary layers of refuse. Cobwebs bridged high corners and low walls, intricate labyrinths spun out of hunger and need. Cockroaches scuttled through the compacted muck
, their shells brown and shiny as miniature violins.

  The blood on the floor was smudged in furious brushstrokes of scarlet and black but it was the wall that drew Carrigan. The swerve and smear of blood, archipelagos of drip and spatter. An inexplicable gap. He scrutinised it. He snapped more photos. He looked at the photos then looked at the wall but he could not work it out.

  He finally approached the body and tried to understand what it was about her he found so unsettling. Karlson had sensed it too. They’d both seen enough bodies in far worse condition than this for it to be mere shock. The scene by the wall was messy and brutal but here, only a few feet away, everything was carefully laid out – her arms and legs were splayed at equal angles, the dress she was wearing had been freed of any snags or crumplings that must have occurred when he moved her but more than all this, Carrigan thought, it was her eyes, closed as if she were gently sleeping, that gave the scene an eerie and disconcerting serenity.

  The techs were dressed in white boiler suits and shook their heads when they saw him inside the room. The Scene of Crime officer swore and cursed but Carrigan could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. Carrigan told them to send over their blood spatter expert then left them to it. He called Berman and asked him to set up an incident room then updated Branch on what they’d found. He went out for coffee, the sudden sunshine startling, and came back to find the room transformed.