Erika looked down at the can of Dandelion and Burdock. It was a fizzy drink unlike any other. It had been Mark who had introduced her to it, when she first moved to the UK, along with fish and chips. She stared at the can. Four years on from his death, everything still seemed to lead back to him. Another memory came back to her from that fateful day, of Mark lying beside her, bleeding out from his gunshot wound. Erika closed her eyes. They’d never caught who pulled the trigger. It wasn’t just Mark who’d died that day. Five of her colleagues were killed in total. Her team. She put her hand up to her neck and felt the scar where she’d been shot. Lenka’s question came back to her.
Are you happy?
Erika looked down at the delicious fried fish and chips, and thought of the crumbling house that was hers. She felt content. Maybe she could put happiness on the back-burner for the time being and settle for just being content.
It was just after eight thirty when Erika left the chip shop and came back out onto the pavement. The fog was now freezing, covering the surface of the tarmac in a dusting of white. On her way back to the house, still new to the area, she took a wrong turn, and found herself in a narrow road of terraced houses where a couple of streetlights were out. As she walked down, she saw how smart the houses looked, and stared ruefully at their sand-blasted brickwork and double-glazed sash windows.
Halfway down the road, there was a gap in the row of houses, and a modern concrete block of flats sat back from the road with a small neatly kept garden out front. The lights in all the windows were dark, but as she passed, a light flicked on in the ground floor window. A loud, blood-curdling scream made Erika stop in her tracks.
2
The scream came from the behind the left-hand window of the ground floor flat. It seemed to echo in Erika’s ears, and then it came again, longer, making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Erika hurried down the short path to the main entrance, which was a double-height glass door looking into a dingy hallway with a parquet floor. She tried the door handle. It was locked, and she could see a small red light glowing next to a card key entry pad. Erika ran back down the path and onto the grass on the left-hand side of the building. She reached up and knocked on the glass. There was now a sobbing coming from inside.
‘Hello?’ shouted Erika. ‘I’m a police officer!’
She rummaged around in her pocket and found her warrant card, just as the curtain parted and a small woman with black hair cut into a short bob and a severe fringe appeared in the gap. Erika couldn’t see inside the room. She held up her ID against the glass. The woman looked to be in severe shock. Her face was deathly white. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster with the Met police. Do you need help?’ The woman swayed a little and nodded. ‘Can you let me in through the front door?’ She seemed to be working on a delay. She hesitated and then nodded again, vanishing back behind the curtain. Erika walked back to the main entrance. The lights came on, and Erika watched as the woman, who looked to be in her late forties, emerged from a door to the left, and moved unsteadily towards the glass. She was wearing a baggy pair of denim dungarees with a wine-coloured fleece jacket over the top. On her feet were a pair of green Crocs, and she had on pink fluffy socks. She was hyperventilating, her white face was clammy with sweat, and it took her a moment to find the button to unlock the door. There was a beep and a click and Erika pulled the door open.
‘Is there someone else inside the flat?’ asked Erika. The woman nodded. ‘Are they armed? Do they have a weapon?’
‘No. It’s my sister. She’s dead,’ said the woman. ‘Oh my god… She’s dead! It’s… There’s… Everywhere!’
Erika looked around the hallway. There were three doors in the corridor, and a lift and stairs at the end. The woman had come through the first door on the left.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Tess. Tess Clarke.’
‘Are you hurt, Tess?’
There was another pause as she looked down at herself. Erika noticed that the fleece she wore was grubby, and there were a couple of cigarette burns on one of the sleeves. Tess shook her head.
‘Okay. Good. Now, Tess. What’s your sister’s name?’
Tess was staring straight ahead. She was shaking, her teeth were chattering and her eyes were dilated wide like two large pools of black ink. Erika wondered if her dilating eyes indicated drug use, but it was also a symptom of severe shock. She looked around and saw that the entrance area had a rather sickly-looking yucca plant in the corner by the glass doors, and next to it was a tan leather sofa. She took Tess by the hand and led her to it. ‘Here. Sit down. Now, what’s your sister’s name?’