Also by Gillian Slovo
Fiction An Honourable Man Black Orchids Ice Road Red Dust The Betrayal Close Call Catnap Façade Ties of Blood Death Comes Staccato Death by Analysis Morbid Symptoms
Non-fiction The General (with Ahmed Errichadi) Every Secret Thing
Plays The Riots Guantanamo – Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (with Victoria Brittain)
TEN DAYS
Gillian Slovo
Published in Great Britain in 2016 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2016 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Gillian Slovo, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78211 638 7
Export ISBN 978 1 78211 639 4
eISBN 978 1 78211 792 6
Typeset in Palatino by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
To Robyn, for her calm persistence, courage under fire, and fierce plotting brain.
Contents
Abbreviations and Police Terms
Thursday
4 a.m.
The beating of a helicopter swooping low over the Lovelace estate must have been what first shook Cathy from sleep, but what had brought her to consciousness was the much softer click of a door. She stretched an arm out and across the bed. The sheet was warm and she could still feel the imprint of Banji’s body on it, but he had gone.
She’d fetch him back, she decided, pulling on her dressing gown and making her way down the corridor to the front door. By the time she reached it, he had already crossed the landing and was nearly at the walkway.
‘Banji.’
He stopped and turned.
A tall man, toned by the gym, there was something about the way he stood there under the dark rotating blades of the helicopter that made her doubt that it was him. But as the helicopter flew away he seemed to return to the skin of the man she knew. He yawned and smiled, and said, ‘It’s early.’ And yawned again. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘I will if you will.’
He shook his head. ‘Better not.’ He was speaking so softly she could barely make out what he was saying. ‘I’ve got a lot on.’
‘Lyndall was expecting to see you at breakfast. She’ll be disappointed.’ Even in the dim light she could see how his expression softened at the mention of her daughter. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come back to bed.’
‘Nah.’ He gestured with his arm – half a wave and half a waving of her off. ‘You’re all right. I’ll catch her later.’ A decisive turn and he strode off down the walkway.
Biting back her disappointment, she crossed the landing and went to stand at the edge of the balcony so she could see over the low wall. From there she followed his progress for as long as she could. Which wasn’t long: he was moving at such a pace his brown skin had soon faded into the night.
It was hot there but so much hotter inside; she stayed where she was, looking out on the concrete and steel of the Lovelace buildings and the web of walkways that connected them.
The estate was the last stand of a twentieth-century modernist dream which years of neglect had turned into a dangerous nightmare of piss-stained crevices. It was scheduled for demolition and boards were beginning to take the place of windows and front doors, while neighbourliness was being replaced by long farewells or midnight flits.
She looked out at the separate blocks, each on different levels, which were joined by the spiralling walkways stretching to left and right. Usually so noisy, the estate was now subdued. With every door closed and every window dark, she might almost be able to hear the Lovelace residents breathing in their sleep.
As she stood there, a neon bulb winked out on the walkway opposite. Another that the council would not bother replacing; darkness was heralding the end of the Lovelace. Sighing, she went back inside.
She was halfway to bed when she heard a footfall. Cheered by the prospect of Banji’s return, she hurried into the lounge, dodging the clutter of furniture (two comfy sofas and too many over-cushioned old chairs that she was always promising Lyndall she would prune), to reach the flat line-up of steel windows that faced out onto the estate. She was just in time to catch sight of a shadow flitting by.
Too slight a figure to be Banji. Must be Jayden, who lived with his mother at the other end of the landing. On his way, she guessed, to help out in the market.
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL FOR INQUIRY USE ONLY
Submission to the internal inquiry of the Metropolitan Police into Operation Bedrock
Submission 987/S/1–15: photographic evidence produced by Air Support Unit
